#probably hard to implement

[idekwtf-is-happening]

literally the only think Wattpad has on Ao3 is commenting on specific text

[blacktabbygames]

Will there be any dlcs for scarlet hollow?

I don't think we'll be doing any story DLCs for our games — at least not in the paid sense. I feel like if you buy a narrative game, you should get its full story as part of your purchase. On the FREELC route, I don't think we'll go in that direction post-release with Scarlet Hollow? I know that's what we initially said about Slay the Princess, but Scarlet Hollow is a much heavier game in terms of the long-running consequences of decisions, so it's a lot harder to go in and add new choice.

It still took a lot of effort to write the Pristine Cut, and those branches only needed to remain thematically relevant — we didn't have to worry about how they impacted the way Stella thinks about you 3 episodes later.

[sysig]

Moving out of concept art and into what’s Actually Done! Showcased here are a couple expressions for both pets so far with their dialogue balloons - mostly pulled from NPC references, but I did get a screenshot of my pet in-game using it in reply, not just in Kinzchat! So cute <3

They’re both introducing themselves here with the names I’ve given them, but I really wanted the process to be as Webkinz-like as possible, with a few extras :)

Which started with being able to pick pet pronouns! Thinking about it now, Webkinz doesn’t ask for player pronouns, does it? :0 But I wanted that to be an option too! It was...something of a process to go from one set of adjustable pronouns to three, especially as I haven’t played with any Ghosts that give you the option to assign both the character(s)’ and player’s pronouns! I had to give it a fair bit of thought of what to check against and how to not have them interfere with or overwrite each other (which did happen early on lol), but I got it! Only took a couple hours of frustrated-sleepily hammering away haha

These screenshots were taken pretty much back-to-back - the only thing changed here is what shell is being used, and shell-checking has come in soooo clutch here ahh, thank goodness ♥ Many and big thank-yous again to @cherryistired​​ for helping me troubleshoot menu shell-switching! Exactly what I needed, am very grateful :D

My original concept sketch of this process was perhaps a little overconfident in what I could accomplish for my first time playing in code lol; I have seen custom pronoun-setting though! And I think I probably could do that, but multiple pronouns... Again, I think I could, but... The name of the game was limiting my scope (lol) to see how many Different things I could implement in short order, so I’ll gladly take my three sets of pronouns and pet names vs. player name and go haha

It’s also a bit funny to look back on this little Diamond - I really haven’t drawn her much! Kind of loosely following Webkinz’ style, her face looks especially silly I think haha

I’ve also got my main menu balloon looking rather fabulous imo ✨ Technically there’s two - More and Back - and most of the features are Very Much in the Coming Soon To A Ghost Near You phase lol, but they’re all {bracketed} up to be filled in as I get their assets made :D There’s still a few placeholder pieces here and there - especially since I haven’t gotten to inter-Ghost communication just yet. Everything in its own time!

I ended up having a lot-a lot of fun with naming and renaming, I went a little silly with Just How Many reactions the pets could have to their names haha

They’ll refuse to be named after any of the Hosts directly, and they’ll give you a side-eye if the name is Close To but not Quite a match haha

The mischievous expression has gotten an awful lot of use already! Although I’ll probably change the “Nu-uh!” expression to something else once I have an alternative that fits better - I need that gradient-to-mad expression set so bad!

And although they won’t accept NPC names, you can name yourself after a Host, and they’ll react! :D There really is so much flexibility for Easter Eggs like this ahh, it’s fun!

All told, I ended up playing the most in Bootend, Menu, Nameteach (hgh), and String, although I’m realizing now that maybe a lot of the stuff I put in String belongs in Word...? It’s all been OnFunctions anyhow, and it’s organized in a way that makes sense to me but is perhaps not as intended lol - nothing says I can’t go back in and move some stuff around, as long as it continues to function properly haha. I’ve kept my error log neat and tidy!! As many times as I’ve broken something, I’ve fixed it thereafter! :D It’s a very satisfying process ♪

[waywardsalt]

anyways. my very first attempt at malenia

[lord-squiggletits]

The hard thing about writing therapy sessions into fics is that like. The story is predicated on drama, and even in therapy characters are still people that may or may not be able to communicate, and then there's the fact that even when you're successful in therapy you still have to deal with relationships and life outside of that where your coping is actually put to the test

Like it's weird because "characters dialoguing in therapy speak" is a current day hated trope, but in this case the characters going to therapy (sometimes even with each other) is LITERALLY part of the plot. But then you don't want the therapy to just instantly solve every interpersonal conflict so the characters still need to beef over something. Which, fine, lots of people go to therapy and don't cooperate during the session, are unwilling to apply the advice IRL, other things happen due to the flawed nature of existence, etc.

What I'm trying to say is that at least in stories/worlds with no therapy, ppl being severely malfunctional and getting in deep shit makes sense bc there's no education or support or help for them to make the optimal choices. But in stories with therapy, you want the therapy to be an in-universe part of the world that characters react to as real people react in therapy. But you don't want the therapy to turn into a meta device that you as an author use to magic away a character's emotional/interpersonal problems effortlessly with disregard to how long/difficult therapy is.

I feel like this might be a genre issue, idk? There's just so few stories that involve therapy (many of which are biographical in nature and not fiction/narrative focused), maybe due to how mental health is only a recently destigmatized/educated topic. So this feels like a writing problem exclusive to some sort of contemporary, "just like the real world" genre of writing that I'm unfamiliar with and maybe the answer is just "yeah you have to write it as a fictional story but also like it's real life." Idk.

[void-botanist]

An AOM Hero Forge Post

@theskeletonprior @vacantgodling I'm doing it finally! I haven't stopped making heroforges (it's great to do while I'm in class on Zoom) but here's a collection of my combo poses for AOM. They're a bit challenging to do because I have no control over their lower body pose, so I'm building all of these from preexisting poses and upper body adjustments. Hero Forge is also generally better for vibes than details but I think these turned out pretty well.

Avis & Leon

or: "Captain!" "Yeah, yeah."

Avis & Sorian

Leon & Edith

Sid & Horatio

or: "Have you met my best friend, Brooding JoJo Character?"

Donovan & Sid

or: we don't talk anymore

Emma & Sid

or, as @kk7-rbs put it: yoink (morally questionable)

Donovan & Emma

or: scary wife jumpscare

[minifin64]

WHY DID THEY NOT DO THE THREE POISONS. this splatfest theme is boring :(

[riceballmari]

ever since i saw the "what if machi lived in the tent instead of tohru" fic idea under another what-if fic, i haven't gotten the idea out of my head. i miiiiight write something about it, but idk if i'm cut out for writing long-ass multi-chapter fics, especially ones above 6 chapters.

[jacksintention]

Concerning the conversation about love and hatred, I've compiled a few of the lines I've saved through these last two years that at times make me think of Jack when it comes to this topic

Estas manos, que son tuyas,

pero que al verte quisieran

quebrar las ramas azules

y el murmullo de tus venas.

¡Te quiero! ¡Te quiero! ¡Aparta!

Que si matarte pudiera,

te pondría una mortaja

con los filos de violetas.

¡Ay, qué lamento, qué fuego

me sube por la cabeza!

(...)

¡Ay qué sinrazón! No quiero

contigo cama ni cena,

y no hay minuto del día

que estar contigo no quiera,

porque me arrastras y voy,

y me dices que me vuelva

y te sigo por el aire

como una brizna de hierba.

.

Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.

.

It is sometimes said that the sword wears out the scabbard. That is my history. My passions have made me live, and my passions have killed me.

.

Stronger than lover’s love is lover’s hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.

I adore you, but I hate you too. You’re a prison smothered in flowers. I can’t stand this enchantment anymore, I can’t stand being bewitched like this–when I look at you, my gaze turns to nothing but a mirror of light, I’ll stare at you hypnotized for ages, and when I stop seeing you I’ll feel you, and when I stop feeling you I’ll die.

.

Someone tells me: this kind of love is not viable. But how can you evaluate viability? Why is the viable a Good Thing? Why is it better to last than to burn?

.

Life is a series of obsessions one must do away with. Aren’t love, death, God, or saintliness interchangeable and circumstantial obsessions?

.

she is the only thing of importance, because I have a God-relationship to her.

.

it is not she who binds me, but I who have made use of her to bind myself.

.

The thought that you exist is so divinely blissful in itself that it is ridiculous to talk about the everyday sadness of separation—a week’s, ten days’—what does it matter? Since my whole life belongs to you.

.

What have you done with me? he asks. I have repeated you.

.

But I do feel strange-almost unearthly. I’ll never get used to being alive. It’s a mystery. Always startled to find I’ve survived

Walking home, for a moment / you almost believe you could start again. / And an intense love rushes to your heart, / and hope. It's unendurable, unendurable

.

I clung to him as though only the one who had inflicted the pain could comfort me for suffering it.

I could be free … If I could pluck out the memory of him from my heart as easily as his heart was plucked from the fire, I could be free.

.

I am imprisoned by devotion. I shy away from people. I am alone. I fall into depression.

She was the world That he was losing; and the world he sought Was all a tale for those who had been living, And had not lived. Once even he turned his horse, And would have brought his army back with him To make her free. They should be free together. But the Voice within him said: “You are not free. You have come to the world’s end, and it is best You are not free. Where the Light falls, death falls; And in the darkness comes the Light.

.

I miss you like a knife in my throat.

.

Only love can save me and love has destroyed me.

Should I be grateful or should I curse the fact that despite all misfortune I can still feel love, an unearthly love but still for earthly objects?

.

My songs are filled with poison - Why shouldn’t that be true? My heart bears a nest of serpents And also, darling, you.

.

their love is like hatred

.

She did not yet love him enough to be cruel to him.

.

our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love

.

under the sincere guise of hatred I simply loved […], only in this type of love (repulsion) I loved him with greater strength than had I loved him in the simplest form — attraction.

.

Perhaps he was handsome, perhaps I found him attractive, perhaps he repelled me too.

.

Struck by the abstract nature of absence; yet it’s so painful, lacerating. Which allows me to understand abstraction somewhat better: it is absence and pain, the pain of absence—perhaps therefore love?

.

Eroticism is the brink of the abyss. I’m leaning out over deranged horror (at this point my eyes roll back in my head). The abyss is the foundation of the possible. We’re brought to the edge of the same abyss by uncontrolled laughter or ecstasy. From this comes a “questioning” of everything possible. This is the stage of rupture, of letting go of things, of looking forward to death.

.

Love is madness. Doesn’t everyone agree that you’d do anything, endure anything, to be with the ones you love? So either you’re willing to let them use you with any sort of cruelty, so long as they keep you—which makes you a fool—or you’re willing to commit any cruelty, so long as you get to keep them—which makes you a monster. Either way, it’s madness.

.

This madness is so deep-rooted and so useful that it is impossible to realize what would become of each of us if it were someday to disappear.

.

If I must die of fire, why not let me die of yours: knowing that you are the author of my doom will make it more endurable to me

.

His desire for loyalty was naive, he hadn’t understood that being loyal wasn’t so tidy, being loyal means being disloyal to everything else.

.

I have always loved you / Always dreaded you

You will betray me, as I have betrayed, / And I shall kiss the hand that does me wrong

.

Listen: the way I loved you / was like my palm over a flame.

.

If I have the destruction of something that I once loved to carry with me at all times, isn’t it like I still have a companion?

.

One can fall in love and still hate.

.

and I will kill thee, And love thee after.

.

Yet, other characters, namely Heathcliff, Catherine, and Lockwood, remain more actively at war with love in their adult lives. Some force, as inexorable as the wind sweeping over the moors, seems to have bent their lives into a pattern of frustration that their own struggle for relief only aggravates. Their need for love is expressed, not through loving, but through the anguish of loneliness. Paradoxically, though they do not know it, this loneliness is the one condition necessary for the fulfillment of their most profound fantasy concerning perfect love: a love, that is, perfectly protected against the threat of abandonment that in childhood these sufferers learned that love entails.

.

I feel you there, in every pore. Your silence clamors in my ears. You can nail up your mouth, cut your tongue out — but you can’t prevent your being there. Can you stop your thoughts? I hear them ticking away like a clock, tick-tock, tick-tock, and I’m certain you hear mine.

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask? I do not know, but I feel it happen and it is excruciating.

[dandyshucks]

okay last post before i decide on what im going to do for the next couple hours but old lady crafting club is tomorrow and i don't have a crochet project decided on yet still fsdjkl

my options for continuing on WIPs are: dragonscale dice bag, isopod amigurumi, or a little stuffed pokeball

or if i want to start a new project instead of completing a WIP: strawberry hat i'm going to make for a friend, hand warmers/fingerless gloves, polar bear amigurumi, and idk if i have yarn for these (definitely not enough for a the second) but i also would like to make a junebug beetle amigurumi and a hood/scarf/hat combo garment thing

[sparkerinparadise]

ik how ppl feel abt custom cursors (ambivalent last time i checked) but what about like. a glitter trail that follows ur cursor's movement. are those cool as long as the particles don't flash or move too much

[hershelwidget]

dhmis fandom I have an important announcement

I’m so fucking sorry

[wizardcatwhimsy]

tbh if we get a republican president in 2024 i’m heavily considering buying a gun once i move if the trumplestiltskins want me dead that bad they’re gonna have to put in some fuckin effort

[luetta]

idk if people on tumblr know about this but a cybersecurity software called crowdstrike just did what is probably the single biggest fuck up in any sector in the past 10 years. it's monumentally bad. literally the most horror-inducing nightmare scenario for a tech company.

some info, crowdstrike is essentially an antivirus software for enterprises. which means normal laypeople cant really get it, they're for businesses and organisations and important stuff.

so, on a friday evening (it of course wasnt friday everywhere but it was friday evening in oceania which is where it first started causing damage due to europe and na being asleep), crowdstrike pushed out an update to their windows users that caused a bug.

before i get into what the bug is, know that friday evening is the worst possible time to do this because people are going home. the weekend is starting. offices dont have people in them. this is just one of many perfectly placed failures in the rube goldburg machine of crowdstrike. there's a reason friday is called 'dont push to live friday' or more to the point 'dont fuck it up friday'

so, at 3pm at friday, an update comes rolling into crowdstrike users which is automatically implemented. this update immediately causes the computer to blue screen of death. very very bad. but it's not simply a 'you need to restart' crash, because the computer then gets stuck into a boot loop.

this is the worst possible thing because, in a boot loop state, a computer is never really able to get to a point where it can do anything. like download a fix. so there is nothing crowdstrike can do to remedy this death update anymore. it is now left to the end users.

it was pretty quickly identified what the problem was. you had to boot it in safe mode, and a very small file needed to be deleted. or you could just rename crowdstrike to something else so windows never attempts to use it.

it's a fairly easy fix in the grand scheme of things, but the issue is that it is effecting enterprises. which can have a looooot of computers. in many different locations. so an IT person would need to manually fix hundreds of computers, sometimes in whole other cities and perhaps even other countries if theyre big enough.

another fuck up crowdstrike did was they did not stagger the update, so they could catch any mistakes before they wrecked havoc. (and also how how HOW do you not catch this before deploying it. this isn't a code oopsie this is a complete failure of quality ensurance that probably permeates the whole company to not realise their update was an instant kill). they rolled it out to everyone of their clients in the world at the same time.

and this seems pretty hilarious on the surface. i was havin a good chuckle as eftpos went down in the store i was working at, chaos was definitely ensuring lmao. im in aus, and banking was literally down nationwide.

but then you start hearing about the entire country's planes being grounded because the airport's computers are bricked. and hospitals having no computers anymore. emergency call centres crashing. and you realised that, wow. crowdstrike just killed people probably. this is literally the worst thing possible for a company like this to do.

crowdstrike was kinda on the come up too, they were starting to become a big name in the tech world as a new face. but that has definitely vanished now. to fuck up at this many places, is almost extremely impressive. its hard to even think of a comparable fuckup.

a friday evening simultaneous rollout boot loop is a phrase that haunts IT people in their darkest hours. it's the monster that drags people down into the swamp. it's the big bag in the horror movie. it's the end of the road. and for crowdstrike, that reaper of souls just knocked on their doorstep.

[bezogonek]

trying real hard not to be a hater but the new dragon age sucks so fucking bad

[mckinlily]

Plot armor but it’s Bruce Wayne’s wealth.

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

But by GOD is he trying.