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such-a-downer · 1 year ago

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I'm in denial right now. Milktea is gone, barely 2 months old. She was still well yesterday.

She wouldn't have to die if she and the other pups weren't born to begin with.

I don't know where i went wrong because i did what i can to take care of the puppies. I don't know if it's my shortcomings or because of the stress of rainy season.

I can't help but blame myself and i hate my sister for practically dumping this responsibility that i never wanted.

I can't keep things to myself anymore so I'll let it out here.

Let's trace back to september or october of 2022.

My sister told us that her boyfriend was planning to give her a male puppy (as monthsary gift iirc). We strongly opposed against it because of a number of reasons. First of all, we already have 2 female dogs and taking care of them is already tough as it is. Second, everybody is busy. She's already busy with her work from home setup, me and our younger brothers still have school, and mom also have on-site work. So basically, no one's free to tend to it. Third, i repeatedly told her that our dogs are not yet spayed. Of course i want to have them spayed but i still didn't have money and there are still things to consider before doing that (transportation, separating them while healing, followups). I guess I'm the number one who's against the puppy. And the final and MOST IMPORTANT reason why we are against the puppy is because my sister doesn't have the TIME AND PATIENCE to take care of it. She's too much of a baby sissy to do menial things and loudly complains with the smallest mishaps.

But my sister being selfishly stubborn, still accepted the said puppy and named him Andrei. Ever since then, everything became dreadful. I had a hard time trying to feed the dogs even with other's help. The two female dogs, Amber and Sophie behaved differently around Andrei. Amber befriended Andrei but Sophie was kinda off with him. Things didn't go well, Amber and Sophie fought several times. And the worse thing is, Andrei kept on climbing over the wire fence to go scavenging. As more time passed, his behavior didn't improve at all. December came, he bit me twice, one on each hand when i picked him up from scavenging and when i gave him a bath.

Like I already mentioned, my sister doesn't have time and patience for puppy rearing. Yea, she would baby carry and babby talk to Andrei from time to time. She bought dog food, cage and chain (because Andrei might get ran over by vehicle if he kept on jumping over the fence). I'd give her that. BUT THAT'S NOT ENOUGH. Instead of actively feeding and bathing Andrei, she spent her free time playing mobile games. Despite having a fight with her over the matter, I still took care of Andrei.

2023 finally came and a few more months passed, Andrei was suddenly taken back by the boyfriend because his relative needed a dog to guard their store. It was unexpected but i felt temporary relief. Not long after, I found out that Sophie and Amber were pregnant. And just this July, they both gave birth on consecutive days.

They both have 5 puppies. Unfortunately, one of Sophie's puppies died. It was hard to accept because i think it's partly my fault. Because when Sophie's water broke, i left her in the cage for her to be alone so she won't be stressed by my presence. The cage was lined with cardboard bits so she wouldn't be uncomfortable. I let dinner pass before i checked again on her. The dead pup was covered with a smaller piece of cardboard but the rest are safe. We buried the pup. The cage is located in my grandma's ragged house because that was the only isolated place available and it's dark there. As for Amber, she gave birth the next day. She was in poor shape and her pups are smaller. I felt so sorry that my dogs had to go through all that.

July was a bad timing. It's already rainy season and our place is prone to flood. Me and the others quickly did some rearrangements because we had to keep both dogs and their puppies separated and prevent them from fighting. It rained and it flooded. Amber and her pups are transferred to our living area and Sophie and her pups were kept in the cage and situated in the kitchen. Tending to the dogs and their pups quickly took a toil on me. Of course the others helped me too. But the stress was eating me.

And because there's still flood, doing chores became even more stressful and took me longer doing them. I'm sacrificing so much of my time and energy on taking care of the puppies. Instead of being able to focus on thesis and having time for other things like cleaning and hobbies, i kept on compromising my sleep schedule. I ended having a breakdown because I'm trying so hard to squeeze in the additional responsibility on my plate.

Two of Amber's puppies were already given away. Next, one of Sophie's. Six puppies left. Sophie and Amber then have less restrictions and the remaining puppies were transferred to the cage which was placed on top of the wooden chair-platform. The puppies are situated just outside grandma's house (still under the roof). I placed covers on top and by the sides of the cage to keep them dry and warm.

Just recently, the weather was bad and the rain was on and off for a week and the flood came back again. The situation headed for the worst as we're running out of food and only managed to feed all dogs just once a day. Supposedly, two more dogs were to be given away but the shitty weather caused class suspensions so my mom couldn't hand them over to the ones who wanted to adopt them.

A few days ago, my sleep cycle started to become a total mess. I would sleep late, suddenly wake after a few hours, then I'd fiddle with my phone till i get sleepy, and finally wake between 8 and 10 am. Today i got out of bed late again. I was pretty sure that i still heard Milktea barking so i let the puppies be. There's still flood so i admit that i was too lazy to check on them right away. After lunch, i started preparing their food. Preparing puppy food was rather tedious because i have to mash the food well and had to add hot water to keep it warm. I fed Amber and Sophie first before i headed to the puppies.

Then that's when i saw Milktea just lying there behind other puppies, her back was on me and she was on the back side of cage. I took her right away and panicked. I showed her to mom and i attempted to resuscitate her despite already feeling her coldness. I was trying to convince myself that she might still be saved.

I just hate it. Why did she die so suddenly? My main suspicion is that she might have been bullied by the larger puppies. Her fangs were somewhat protruding when i found her.

We buried her right away. It was suffocating for me because i can't baby talk her anymore.

"Milktea! You're so small, you're so tiny."

I can't say those words anymore because she's suddenly gone.

She was the smallest of all the puppies and she fit right in my palms.

And my sister know nothing of my anxiety and hurt. She probably doesn't give a damn at all because she's too busy with her own problems. I just really hate her right now. I never wanted any of this.

I hate my sister for other reasons too but she should at least take care of herself once she starts her new job.

#personal #very personal #something I've been keeping for a long time

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bedlamgames · 2 years ago

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Q&A #116

Today we have a pally possibly being too convincing, scaling standards of ambiguous gender, and a decidedly thorny question I’m honnestly amazed it took this long to ask about. Well publically anyway as I’d already had one person suggesting it privately as an option, and needing to calm the nerves of one rather worried artist who wondered where I stood on the issue.

[ Anonymous asked : ] had the Severina unique recruitable slaver (Rynhart) " [see] the error of their ways and accompanied the paladin to redeem themselves through a new life of righteousness and devotion.", which seems like it shouldnt be possible?

- - Heh, will have to come up with some alternate text removal for someone like Rynhart that even such a persuasive paladin couldn’t manage to turn their head.

[ Anonymous asked : ] It seems like Aurviel Nightkiss no longer has the unique aspect: Flesh Art, and only has the enchanted item Despoiler's Reward. Is this intentional?

- - I think she always had a enchanted item instead of an aspect if I remember right? I checked back to 0.90 and she’s unchanged from what she is now.

[ Anonymous asked : ] I'm not sure if this is a bug or if the requirements for getting her have changed, but I can't seem to get the unique slave, Johanna from the Centre of Attention quest anymore. Male PC in the first slot with Corruption, Alrissa with Corruption in the second, and a generic slaver in the third slot has worked in the past, but now, even on a critical success, I just get a generic slave.

- - You only get her on the first attempt. Otherwise you’ll get the generic version.

[ cappyanon asked: ] So, there are two things that slightly puzzle me with character creation that bug me a little, so this is more of an ambiguous "bug report" than necessarily a question meant for this feature, but here it goes; Is there any chance you can go back through the male portraits characters and re-look at how the feminine and exceptional femininity traits work/are distributed? I feel like there's a lot of portraits where I should *really* be able to play as feminine, Goblin Trade Prince, the new Draenai portrait I forget the name of, that looks reminiscent of an Asian realdoll, and I think a taggerfolk portrait iirc. Hope you have good luck with your ongoing medical problems with your eyes, and can make a full recovery.

- - Happy to sort that for next update, and if you want the option for more of those borderline characters I didn’t think needed to start with (Fem) as standard but could have it in Full Custom let me know and I’ll make it available for them too. Thanks for the well wishes on the eye health. Still not quite back to 100% alas.

[ From the Patreon : ] Have you given any thought to using that AI Art system to gen art for your game?

- - Now that's a topic to put it lightly. Yes I've certainly considered it. Very tempting and that's quite the understatement. Especially to remove a bunch of the placeholder work like many of the portraits which could take a long, long time and expense to update them all. For now I'm going to rely on using commmissioned artists only as I think it's the right thing to do.

[ From the Patreon : ] Out of interest, is there an exceptional result for the ensnared rose quest to recover the package?

- - Best result on that one is getting the Cathayan bandit leader if you're taking slaves or getting extra gold if not

[ From the Patreon : ] there should probably be better feedback/mechanics when trying to get slavers to do stuff. When you try to intimidate someone and fail, for instance, it says the leader "wouldn't stand a chance in a fight," even if the leader is stronger, taller, aggressive, has magic, etc., especially since what it really means is "try again another day and you might get a different result." In general it's too hard to talk slavers into doing things.

- - There is an option to turn on more information in regard to the various rolls and modifiers.

And now a whole bunch of random lore questions

[ From the Discord : ] do Lamia/Lizardfolk/Gorgons consider Draki to be some kind cousin race? not so much like related cousin, but more like if they see one in a fight, they're quicker to side with them sort of thing

- - no, they don't smell at all right, and it puts them on edge. Draki may get entirely the wrong impression as the lamia keeps licking their lips and thinking they're horny for them

[ From the Discord : ] Is there a faction/race that is Far Ahead in Science/Culture/Magic/Faith? (Me note: Think 4x/Civ style win conditions)

- - High Elfs are winning a faith/culture strat for sure in how much they've managed to grab onto positions of power in the church of the dawning light

[ From the Discord : ] what type of job/classification would each race take too ordinarily? Veil are scholars, or record keepers, but what about the rest

- - Drider seamstress obvs. Troll bartenders or bouncers. Even wenches sometimes. They like taverns.

[ From the Discord : ] Are there any minor faiths we have yet to see?

- - I did have a dropped faith back when I was more using existing art and wanted to do something with those demon hunter/that draenei thing style tatts. Ideas from that are now going to be eventually, maybe used for that circlyte cult I talked about in new races.

I've also been toying with doing something with the Hashut/Mordor vibe seeing as the zharr I did something entirely different with. That'd probably be an add on to a new race

[ From the Discord : ] do get sunny beaches north of the kreen desert right?

- - Closest sunny beaches is there's some north of quellini which is on that patch of land just across the sea. There's probably also some both north and south of the sands east of the mountains.

[ From the Discord : ] You know those maps of the us with the most searched sex term? for each state If that was a thing in NH, what would the top search term of each area be?

- - City of Aversol: Probably Convent/Corruption or both at once

Ever Forest: The urge to make a world wide web joke is so very high. Probaby High Elves due to them being tantalizingly close but also far too protected

Great Plains: Nobles getting degraded

Dreadsea Coast: Given all the brothels and vast variety already available, likely something overly romantic and with a plot to really get invested in, also they'd probably be the ones making it for the other regions, and there's likely some porn shows with an audience to be found

Deep Mountains: They like to get out into the fresh air and touch grass too much to bother with porn

[ From the Discord : ] Are there beauty pageants in the city?

- - Beauty Pageants are certainly a thing, not just for ladies either, and yes that sounds like a great unexplored avenue for assignment fodder

[ From the Discord : ] are there any widely played boardgames in the world of NH?

- - Definitely yes on the board games, though they haven't caught on as much due to the expense of acquiring one, as card games of which there's a dizzying numbers of.

So you'll only likely find them in the possession of the richer types as a status symbol.

[ From the Discord : ] What's the discovery that hits the sweet spot between "utterly baffling to those that found it" but would be completely mundane to like, us? like gym equipment or something

- - explosives that actually do something cause a certain amount of awe, they are incredibly hard to transport without losing potency, and so only the really well funded mining guilds can afford to make use of them. It's so rare and so unlike what can be accomplished that some nobles will pay to come along and watch the devestation

[ From the Discord : ] hmm, which race, not counting the fel, would you say is publicly viewed as the most "dangerous" correctly or not

- - witches, absolutely witches

there's posters in most town saying if you see a black pointy hat to report the sightings to your friendly town guard

other than that depends who you ask, you could probably get someone to say pretty much any race deoending on their experiences

also lago'mae but that's mainly as either they won't have heard of them or they just wonder what the one they might have seen was up too

demi-angels too I guess, though they're more 'in danger'

only exceptions seen as 'mostly harmless' are probably the hakh

[ From the Discord : ] Speaking of Oozes, how "in control" of their bodies are they? Like could a sufficiently determined Ooze go full Mystique and mimic anything she sees - aside from, like, still being see-through

- - reasonably so but they do have a preffered form they need to revert to where their body is at ease

anything they do that's not that requires a certain strain, it might be minimal but eventually it adds up like holding a book out in front of you

but yes there's like the equivalent of ooze body builders who can perfectly mimic someone's body and facial features for a time, though y'know still being green and translucent

[ From the Discord : ] how long can Lamia get?

- - not that big, hmm say can bring themself up taller than an ogre, and with a tail length at least as long again as that

though most aren't that long

[ From the Discord : ] Do the various beastie races integrate their traits into beauty standards? Shiny scales are attractive on lamia, neko appreciate a fluffy tail, horned ones like big horns, etc.

- - lamia aren't too bothered about scales as long as they're not too uncared for, mermaids though absolutely are, and yes horned ones very much believe the bigger, the more curly the horns the better

[ From the Discord : ] Assuming an average member of the race, which race is the least bothered about being enslaved?

- - probably neko? They're used to people thinking they can take advantage of them

and will often play along if it sounds fun

though full on enslavement is going to get even the most ditzy neko thinking they deserve more respect than that

[ From the Discord : ] Which races tend to be the most solitary, and due to preference instead of rarity and all that?

- - driders are the obvious one, as they tend to either be a loner doing their own thing, or a single mother raising a couple of driderlings at most

not counting leviathan though

they love it there and so have congregated far more than is usual for them

[ From the Discord : ] I'm sure you answered this way back, but if Aversol is like NH Vegas, what are the other 2 main cities like

- - hmm I wouldn't see Aversol is Vegas, I'd say if you can think of a city with a bit of a chip on their shoulder (naming no names as I'm sure you can think of your own national examples) due to not being the biggest, not being the wealthiest, and certainly not the best located but think they're better than they're given credit

Quinelles is Aversol with it's act more together, it's actually on the coast, it's got much cleaner streets, and everything is just that bit more glam and shiny. Though it's also got more of a troubled recent history within living memory as it has been sacked, and there have been incidents locally that have scared the locals so they tend to be a bit less relaxed

Leviathan is weird, people don't tend to stay long, as you either jive with living on an unimaginably big sea monster corpse or you don't

[ From the Discord : ] Is the local l-ball team the most victorious though? That's everything. that. counts.

- - ooh tricky let's say the division is curently close between a team from the drow city under the deep mountains, and one owned by a dwarf also from the deep mountains and so there's a lot of interest and rivalry

though that's just the local league and neither are expeted to do much against the teams from further north

[ From the Discord : ] Is are there kaiju equivalents in NH? like is there a Gidorah/Godzilla adjacent mythos?

- - there's evidence of them but the biggest creature people have actually seen are the bigs and mermen

[ From the Discord : ] seeing as how Lago'Mae's are the most recently found race, are there as of yet undiscovered races? (don't have to name names)

- - there are races that people don't know about usually like gorgons, but even in those cases there's going to be plenty who do based on location like in the frost wastes everyone knows about them

looking at my races to do list, scorps would be one of those people know all about them in the sands, but outside of it people would be rather scared by the concept actually existing

spotted newps would be another where those living on the edges like wastelanders know they're a thing, but outside it'd rare to have heard of them

[ From the Discord : ] What's the setting's Florida equivalent I.E. has a lot of bizarre stories come out of it

- - you know what? Totally this region where the game is set, the deep mountains is totally blamed for being a weirdness magnet

that's one of the reasons Aversol people have a complex, and will say things like '"we're not that got close to those mountains, really"

and get pouty when relatives refuse to visit

[ From the Discord : ] Everyone seems to be more or less ok with the status quo, is there any race that is actively trying to rock the boat?

- - probably lago'mae actually as they have a genuine agenda which is why they've made themself known for the first time in the last couple of decades

they're unsure of what they need to do, or to who, but they have something to do and they do not care whose toes they need to step on to do it, tail either if toes do not apply

[ From the Discord : ] Does the mermaid update come with a Suspiciously Large Crab (Bea) trait

- - ...why must you create more work for me, okay it does now :D

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colorpuffball · 1 year ago

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:000 ask game thank you for the tag Alby ( ´ ‿｀♡) Speaking of tag though I’ve realized I don’t know that many ikevamp folks T_T so uhhmmm tap tap to you @nad-zeta

Anywhos here I go, spoilers ahead

This was not the first one I played, that goes to Midnight Cinderella (rest in peace). I can’t really remember my first impression since I downloaded it the moment it was released which was, holy cow, 4 years ago.

My favorite character was Leo out of the original three, close second was Napoleon for his audacity to die. Out of all of them I honestly have no fav, their appeal comes from their whole group dynamic.

I picked Napoleon first because in every game I go by order, left to right, top to bottom. Yes, Leo was part of the first three available lol

I have yet to read the new 3 (Vlad, Faust, Charles). Out of the three I’m most curious about Faust and Charles.

Saint-Germain was more infuriating than I thought, next question.

I used to dislike Theo. The punch-ableness of the guy made me want to bite him through the screen, but he grew on me a bit. Still prefer his brother though (^_^;)

It would’ve been the very first story event which was Dancing with Danger (thank you Otome Obsessed) if you ask me what the plot was I wont be able to answer T_T

N to the O. I have never spent any money on any Cybird game. I have tried the free diamond offers but none of them worked for me ╮(╯∀╰)╭

My favorite will always be Lumiere <3 For the doll itself I’m a sucker for earrings

Unfortunately not, I have yet to stumble upon any irl and shipping costs online make me want to weep

Yes :’ ) but who hasn’t really

Oh dear I don’t play the gachas much. Luckiest would probably be getting the promoted 5 star while using a free pull (can’t remember which card rip) and unluckiest is me using 30 tokens and failing to get anyone I wanted huhu

I am still not done with Sebastian’s route :’ ) Not his fault though, I really have been neglecting my otome games lately. Quickest was Vincent iirc since I rushed through when he was newly released to get the special prize.

Not anymore, no :’ )

Hm I don’t think Ikevamp has made me cry. The moments that made me the saddest might be the bad endings in the event where mc was the vampire instead, and Vincent’s happenings. The little side comments that the mc makes usually makes me laugh

Leo and Comte make me want to bash their heads together (affectionately) which puts them miles above Vlad.

From the ones I have, my favorite CG is Leo when they fell off the boat. As for cards I love the series with the boys and their pets.

No one comes to mind. It feels a bit weird even imagining how they would anime-fy other historical figures.

Right now it’s ‘Isn’t Bunta so Soothing?” which is Dazai, “Another Happy Birthday” which is Leo, and “Calm Down, King!” which is Theo.

My favorite thing about Cybird is how every suitor must have a pet. For this roster I totally love them all equally (Lumiere my beloved baby)

Hoo boy final thoughts. I haven’t touched the game in so long (༎ຶ￢༎ຶ) tbh I feel like I’ve lost the spark when it comes to the romance aspect but them interacting with each other and being stupid will always be fun to explore.

𝟒 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐈𝐤𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐦𝐩 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐠 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞!

Ikevamp EN launched on the 1st of July 2019 - maybe you were there since day one, or maybe you've only started playing recently: here's a little game to celebrate! You simply answer the questions and (optionally) tag the people whose answers you'd love to see next! Happy 4th anniversary to all ikevamp players! 🎉🎉🎉

*~if you feel like sharing, you can find the days in the mansion counter in your profile in the game and add it to your questions ~* Also, while reading other people's answers, mind that there might be spoilers!

What was your first impression of the game? Is this the first Cybird game you've ever played?

Who was the character you liked most in the beginning, and is he still your fave?

How you picked your first route, and whose route was it? Was your favorite suitor available when you first started playing?

An unavailable route you're looking forward to:

A character you thought would be different than how he is:

Is there a suitor who you used to dislike, but eventually changed your opinion about?

Do you remember your first story event?

Have you ever spent money on the game? Have you tried the free diamonds offers?

Do you have a favorite avatar item? Is it a plushie or maybe a unique hairstyle?

Have you ever bought merch of your favorite ikevamp character?

Have you ever mistakingly spent your stamina not in the story event?

What's the luckiest you've ever been when it comes to the gacha? What about your most unlucky memory?

The slowliest you've ever completed a route vs the quickest:

Do you use your 5 free chapter tickets daily?

A moment in a route that made you cry and a moment in a route that made you laugh:

Who is your favorite pureblood vampire?

Do you have a favorite CG? What about a favorite card?

Any famous historical figures you wished were in ikevamp?

What card is currently on your home screen in the game?

What do you think about the suitors' pets? Which one is your favorite?

Have fun answering! 💕

#Boop boop to you Alby ^-^#Thank you again for the tag #I think this is my first tag game hoohoo #tag game #Ikevamp 4th anniversary #Anyone can reblog n answer cause I only tagged one person GBVDVXBXSGTV

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ffc1cb · 2 years ago

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hello! I love your art and im wondering what app you use and what pens do you use on that app? :dD

hi! first of all, thank you :) i'm glad you enjoy my art. sorry it took me so long to answer, but here it is, as detailed as i could make it

what program:

i've been using autodesk sketchbook (for drawing) & paint tool sai 2 (for filters, cropping, etc) for several years. i'm very very fond of sketchbook and i believe it to be the best entry program for beginners (and especially people who are moving from traditional to digital art, since the majority of the brushes available for AS are imitations of traditional tools. it even has a library of copic colors!) due to its simple and intuitive interface. this is both its biggest advantage and flaw: while the brush catalog is quite big and you can play with the settings a lot, there aren't that many features you can use as opposed to something like clip studio paint or even sai; it’s a very bare bones type of art program.

some things i personally find irritating (but have learned to work around) are the lack of image flipping function (instead i have to mirror the entire layer or canvas, which becomes troublesome on canvases with a lot of layers (although i assume it’s mostly due to my laptop being pretty old)), inability to have multiple canvases open at once, lack of clipping mask, somewhat clunky process of creating custom shaped brushes (nigh impossible to make an unbreaking string of a shape, e.g embroidery or lingerie), lack of water fringe function, clunky text & color adjustment editors, etc etc.

if you’ve previously used a more complex art program you might find sketchbook lacking in a lot of ways, but personally after years of usage i can safely say that it’s my favorite program i’ve ever worked with. i really love the overall simplicity of the interface (i’ve tried to switch to csp several times throughout the years but ended up being overwhelmed by the number of features), and i’m a big fan of AS’s selection tool. if you’ve never heard of sketchbook before, i urge you to give it a try! they provide a helpful manual on their site.

now, AS used to be free for all platforms (both pc and mobile), but iirc a couple years ago the program changed owners and the new company decided to remake the pc version as “autodesk pro” & charge $20 for it (although mobile is still free). which is fine i suppose since i hear that it’s being updated again (previous owners made it free in the first place because they essentially abandoned its development & stopped releasing updates). but i’m also a huge fan of piracy so here’s a .zip file of the version i downloaded when it was still available (it might be outdated, but at least its free! and if you decide that you like the program, you can always one-time-purchise it later from their official website). the archive contains the setup.exe as well as a folder containing all of the brushes i use in my art process (i’ll talk about them further below). if you ever find the link not working anymore feel free to send an ask or message me for a new one.

what brushes:

here are all of the brushes i use as seen on my toolbar. the majority of them are brushes that i made myself, which is why a lot of them have weird names; the ones that have numbers in the title are just me writing down previous value settings (usually for roundness, rotation & edge) so that i dont forget them after i inevitably tweak the settings again. don’t pay them much attention.

left column is basically decorative brushes. here they are from top to bottom:

right column is brushes that i actually draw with:

i specified what each one is used for just so you get the basic idea but in reality i pretty much use them interchangeably for literally anything i feel like at the time. i also tweak the settings a lot so the overall look fluctates pretty often.

the folder in the zip file i provided has the .skbrushes (sketchbook’s custom brush format) file for the entire set. here is a guide on how to upload custom brushes.

i think that’s all! if you have any more questions, feel free to ask. i promise i will reply faster this time, lol

#salt talks

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secondwhisper · 2 years ago

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So the recent strange-aeons video made me nostalgic. And while Songify was iirc post-2010 (therefore too recent for straenge's video series), I was still trying to dig up a particular video of theirs that's lived in my brain for ages now. It's the songified Rainbow Sponge Lady. Sometimes my brain will, out of nowhere, play the line "I squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze a virgin. AUGH." I know that a rewatch wouldn't live up to my memories, but I still had to try, right?

...the video does not exist

I have found two pieces of evidence that it did once exist, but that's barely anything for a classic Songify.

ID: two screenshots. First, a Facebook post by "Full Frontal MMA," dated 1 July 2015. The post includes a link to a YouTube video entitled "I Love To Wiggle - Sponge Lady Songified!" and subtitled "The Rainbow Sponge lady sings a song about wiggles! A song called I L..." The subtitle cuts off, and the preview image is greyed out, indicating that the video is unplayable. Second, a tumblr post by "side-of-fries," dated 25 Dec 2013. The post reads in all caps "They songified the rainbow sponge lady; my life is complete." The post includes an embedded YouTube video, which has no preview image, instead stating "Video unavailable: This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated." End ID.

One Facebook link from 2015, and one Tumblr embed from 2013, neither of which work anymore. I can't find reuploads on YouTube or Vimeo. Songifies like the one of the eHarmony cat lady have reuploads everywhere. The Rainbow Sponge Songify doesn't seem to be Waybacked and it isn't listed in any Internet Archive "classic YouTube videos" uploads (though I haven't watched archived video compilations without listed contents - it may live in one of them). I can't even find any other posts where people mention the video's existence.

Does anyone have other tips for finding this video again? Anyone have it downloaded onto an old laptop, re-uploaded unlisted to their YouTube, anything? I know it existed, but it seems to have just ... evaporated into the void of the internet.

#classic youtube #lost media #internet history #songify #old memes #my own post wow #ID is in body text not alt text bc 1) thats easier on mobile and 2) ik some ppl who dont use screenreaders still need image text described #there are other remixes of rainbow sponge lady on YouTube but none that I've found is the songify I remember.#it sounded just like every other songify and the only other line i recall is ''i love to wiggle. wiggle.'' which doesnt help me find it lol

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fandom-hoarder · 4 years ago

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listen I have so many questions about Stanford Sam, like this kid who was raised in the wild, barely aware of acceptable social conduct arrives with his 2 ectoplasm stained t-shirts at his dorm and like ????? is he very aware of it at first? or does he think he's hiding it well? and like moving in with Jessica?????? he doesn't know how to water plants and that you have to pay electricity bills ??? Like obviously he's not stupid, we know that!! But there are certain things about ordinary everyday life that are just impossible to pick up when you're raised like that. And this is just surface-level stuff, like I feel overwhelmed just thinking about how many tiny things I do in a day, just normal life stuff that I've always done, that Sam would be like ???? so weirded out by, or maybe creepily fascinated ??? Would he try and copy everyone around him maybe??? and then all the odd things that he'd probably do !!! like just basic marine survival nonsense he's dad probably taught him applied in mundane life situations that would make him stand out and he wouldn't even notice !!! And he thinks he's doing fine, people seem to accept him, but then suddenly someone mentions like... TRL or something and he's like ??? and then Dean picks him up and it all falls to pieces, because it's so EASY and ingrained and he doesn't have to pretend and it puts it into perspective how not okay he was doing at Stanford even when it felt like he was ?? god I'm just rambling, like I barely even have headcanons, I'm just so overwhelmed by all the possibilities of how this would play out !!!!

Holy crap, first I wanna apologize if this has been sitting here awhile. The Ask notification location in settings instead of notifications on the app is so weird and I get them so rarely I don’t think to check. (and the website shows that I have 4 but this one is the only one it’ll show? How does tumblr work? Oh yeah, it doesn’t lol.)

Anyway, I have so many thoughts on this! But they’re not necessarily cohesive?! Like first we all know Sam is super smart. He’s curious. He’s inquisitive. But he’s also sheltered in weird ways. There are things he’s known about the world that most people would never know about, let alone kids his age at any given time; yet the existence of those things--and the understanding that therefore potentially anything could be real--also lends itself to keeping him childlike--he had an “imaginary friend” at age nine and believed in the Easter bunny through age eleven, which is much later than the average probably???

By middle school, he definitely would’ve been feeling the strains of his otherness around his classmates, even if they weren’t constantly moving around, but of course the nomadic lifestyle just makes it even harder.

I think Sam is a very observant person, though. He figured out something was up with their dad and The Truth at age 8! So people watching is Sam’s saving grace for getting along in the mundane world. He definitely learns to mask his otherness by mimicking mundane people.

And I get sidetracked here because then I start thinking about exactly how their childhood went. We know John used Pastor Jim and Bobby as childcare/parenting support to some degree. I don’t think we really know anything about Caleb, maybe I’m forgetting something, but my headcanon is that Caleb functioned as a “fun younger uncle” type to Sam and Dean: cool, responsible in a pinch, but mostly not given childcare responsibilities because of his wilding tendencies. (they learn swears accidentally from Bobby and John, but Caleb TEACHES them.) Sam and Dean didn’t even know about Missouri until s1, so she’s off the caretaker list. They had that babysitter they met up with in uhh... Swap Meat! But largely we assume that Dean had a lot of the caretaking responsibilities; maybe with temporary babysitters in other places the same as Swap Meat.

And lbh you just can’t expect well-rounded, informed child-rearing from a kid only four years older. There’s a reason I associate a lot of weechester flashbacks with Sammy watching TV like in Something Wicked, because literally little siblings are A LOT and sometimes you just want them to sit still and quiet and leave you alone for a bit omg.(wait, give me a minute, I’m imagining little 6 year old Dean on the phone with Bobby because John ran out for food supplies and isn’t back yet and Sammy is still asleep but Dean’s creeped out in the longterm room they’re staying in because he KNOWS about the supernatural already. but then bobby gets on John’s case about it--and instead of never leaving Dean alone with baby Sam again, Dean learns from John’s belt not to call anyone when he’s left alone unless it’s an ACTUAL EMERGENCY. Or maybe, because marine, John doesn’t use his belt; maybe he uses PT instead and every time Dean thinks about calling Bobby for that reason again, his abs ache from the memory of punishment situps, or his arms get suddenly shaky thinking about doing pushups til he just couldn’t anymore.)

I haven’t read all of John’s Journal, and I know it’s not actually canon, but IIRC the bits that I’ve read from the wiki show John and the boys staying with a family friend in Lawrence for a few weeks, MAYBE a few months before John visits Missouri and everything STARTS. I think if he hadn’t picked up and left with them then, the family friends would’ve been contacting CPS because they’re starting to think John’s grief is making him unhinged. (I really want to read the journal tbh--there are bits I’ve seen that make me fantasize even more about boyking!sam storylines... but I’m getting even more off track.)

So we’ve got this weird/interesting dichotomy of kids that are groomed with these hyperspecialiizations, too weird to really fit in with other kids but sheltered from the actual hunter life also--like the fact that there ARE other hunters, like as a THING, not just their dad’s rando friends that, as kids, they may just assume know about the supernatural because their dad told them! (jfc they’re SO PRIMED to be each other’s entire world omg I’m gonna die)

So like, by being quiet and observant (an imaginative kid, by nature and by nurture as John starts to take Dean out more and leave Sam alone with his own thoughts), Sam would pick up a lot of things. But they’re never anywhere long enough for him to fully grasp everything and he would definitely suffer a bit from the Dunning-Kruger effect--not having enough knowledge about a thing, but having just enough that you don’t realize you don’t.

Let’s say Sam observes and picks up some things about normal residential life by being around a few mundane babysitters. The nature of John’s “work” would mean that, even if they were in a more in-home-daycare-like situation, they’d be likely to be the “after hours” kinds of kids that are still there when everyone else is picked up and the babysitter would normally be doing their normal life stuff: changing clothes, cleaning up from the daycare kids, making dinner, etc (sam and dean would definitely help, either out of kindness or duty or because it’s agreed that if they help out John will get a discount on their care costs--don’t mind me, just projecting my childhood onto the winchesters hahh. I’m NOT going to go off on a tangent about Dean already having so much experience caring for babies cuz of Sam. He definitely doesn’t have all the under-4s following him around begging for attention while he burps one of the three babies their babysitter cares for after a bottle. it DEFINITELY didn’t make Sam (age 4, 5, 6 maybe) jealous enough to repress the memory so that over a decade later he would claim that Dean doesn’t even LIKE kids.)

Uhh... what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Sam. Observing normal life. Anyway so maybe after things settle for the day, sometimes a babysitter will sit at the dining table with the weekly bills and their checkbook and do the bills. And Sam kind of loves things like this: it feels like something important; it feels like playing school before he was old enough to go (quick aside here: John totally enrolled Sam in school early, both because that’s the only way his age works with canon timeline and because it would make life easier if Sam was in school just like Dean--more cost-and-time efficient.) And maybe Sam goes and sits at the table and just. Watches.

And then he asks questions. When he’s curious, he doesn’t keep his questions to himself as a child (unless the subject is expressly forbidden: see Dean’s reaction when Sam brings up Mary). But his age would inevitably limit the scope and understanding of those questions. Adults are generally disinclined to fully explain the adult world to children, especially when it comes to finances, and in the 80s and early 90s?? With most of the adults of that time that I knew, those kinds of questions were considered rude and nosey. He might understand that adults have to pay bills; he may even understand something about utilities; but he wouldn’t necessarily understand all the requirements and frequency.

Though their nomadic lifestyle wasn’t stable by any “normal” definition, one thing to be said about mostly living out of motels is that your power is never cut off, or your water, or your heat. There’s always television, usually with cable. And the only form of payment you see going on is dad handing over cash or plastic at the front desk--one and done. My headcanon usually disallows the idea that they would’ve squatted in empty houses when Sam and Dean were kids (John makes plenty of bad decisions but I just don’t see him staying in a place without power or water with CHILDREN. Teenagers? SURE.) They would learn how to clean house and make proper beds even when it wasn’t always necessary with housekeeping available--both because of John’s military parenting style and because John would be most likely to opt out of daily housekeeping to lower the risk of having people ask questions.

So yeah, there are so many little intricacies of the mundane world that Sam wouldn’t be conditioned to even think about. Even the realization that he doesn’t know enough about regular life, as he grows up and longs more and more for that very thing because he’s never had more than a glimpse of it, wouldn’t necessarily be enough.

Would his natural curiosity lead him to ask those questions? He can’t ask John because he already asked Dean and got a dismissive answer because ‘what does any of that matter, Sam? we’ll never have to worry about that shit.’ and if Dean seems borderline offended by the sheer audacity of the questions in the first place, he knows John will be worse.

In the 90s, life skills were still kind of a thing in most U.S. schools. But in a really inconsistent way. Sometimes it was in health class curriculum; sometimes your math class would actually do a short focus on balancing a checkbook and banking if there was a chapter, but a lot of times those parts get skipped. You never use the whole textbook. Sometimes life skills was only in Home Ec, but H.E. was completely elective in my area when I was in middle school (the same exact years Sam would’ve been in middle school) and I’m assuming the same for most of the U.S. Sam may have taken it, or he may have taken something else instead (wood shop or computer class were the alternatives in my area). Maybe the nature of school hopping meant that he HAD to enroll in Home Ec, because resources for the other electives were finite, but somehow always managed to miss the bills and budgeting portion. Maybe he couldn’t even take Home Ec due to class size or resources and they just put him in a study hall for that period. (Maybe they put him in the computer class, where he mostly does book work until he gets a turn on the PC he has to share with his classmate.)

As an observant person, Sam totally would’ve known about TRL, I think. There’s no way at least one group of kids in the halls or lunchroom wasn’t talking about it every day in high school, especially with the advent of Britney Spears and Eminem and Jesse freakin Camp. Maybe he goes to someone’s house to try to hang out or to study and they turn it on and Sam watches raptly because it’s such a strange phenomenon and he hardly ever gets to hear new music, much less watch the videos. But he can’t actually get into it because the fangirls are annoying and his analytical mind won’t let him suspend his disbelief about how the voting works. (Maybe he tries giving it another shot in their motel room sometimes, but Dean vetoes that bubblegum pop shit IMMEDIATELY--no Sam, look, that shit isn’t REAL music; most of them don’t even play instruments. And it’s really not fair because Dean TOTALLY watched MTV’s The Grind in the early 90s for his fix of suggestively gyrating bodies before he figured out how to access porn without getting caught.)

Sam and Dean actually make a LOT of pop culture references, which always fascinates me. I imagine they did a lot of TV watching and VCR/movie renting in the times they weren’t working on a case with/for their dad (projecting again; my dad’s house was a very boring place on his weekends). The nature of Dean’s idolization of John and disinclination to let Sam have his own separate likes means they have a mix of age-appropriate pop culture knowledge and a lot of Boomer-era TV and movie knowledge--Dean more than Sam, maybe when it comes to things like cowboy movies and TV lol.

Anyway, as the realization that he doesn’t really know how anything works crept in, maybe Sam would try to lowkey create situations where he could ask his friends/his friends’ parents those normal life kind of questions. But maybe after his first few tries, he’s become so uncomfortably aware of how weird he is to even need to ask that he stops asking. Maybe he starts to tap into his specialized skills and starts snooping/creeping around their houses to try to glean knowledge. Maybe he scours the library for books on ‘what you need to know for life’--I have the urge now to do a google search on actual titles of books on this subject that may have existed at the time, but I’ve already spent a lot of time on this without going into research spirals. lol Maybe he can’t find exactly the things that are pertinent--still doesn’t fully realize that, though--and in the meantime his cache of esoteric knowledge continues to build.

So he gets to Stanford and he mostly understands how the financing works; enough to get by with enrollment and stuff. He understands that he’ll need to get a job of some sort to make ends meet because he’s there to be normal and normal people don’t pay for everything with scammed credit cards and billiards money; he knows that much. But he doesn’t really know about wages, minimum wage, freaking payroll taxes, etc. (I feel like Dean would’ve had odd jobs as a teen, some legit some under the table, but that the nature of John (and Dean) wanting to keep Sam home and safe would’ve made the subject of Sam working through high school a banned topic. And anyway, much as I’m not a fan of the characterization in Drag Me Away (From You), what Dean said to Sam about the impossibility of getting into college with the way his academic career would look is accurate. So Sam would’ve probably spent most of his free time on academics so he could get the fuck out, rather than trying to get a job.

Maybe having to buy his textbooks would be a surprise? John probably always qualified for Sam and Dean to be on free lunch/free book programs in public school, not to mention the likelihood of the records being at least partially counterfeit. But at the same time, John was probably very hands off with their school enrollment crap once the boys were old enough to handle it themselves, so Sam would at least have an inkling.

Sam would be a weird mix of no-boundaries and too-secretive, and his first attempts at acting normal would be a bit too put-on. He’s got experience acting per 1x16 (oh, maybe he did drama instead of home ec somewhere lol), but acting on stage is so much different to acting in a more personal setting. On stage you have to exaggerate your movements to project all the way to the back. Early-Stanford Sam, I guess, is a bit like Soulless Sam. He knows there’s something off about him compared to the people around him, and he just does his best to pretend he’s the same as them without calling attention to his differences, which ends up coming off robotic. A little Stepford. A little uncanny valley. He learns to bite his tongue every time he’s about to let something normal only to his family roll off it; learns to be even more vague than he used to be, because now he’s around strangers ALL THE TIME.

At some point, Sam has a little-but-big breakdown about a payment he missed or the fact that he had to steal shampoo because he didn’t even have toiletries in his budget and couldn’t even afford a bottle of White Rain or Suave, so since he was stealing anyway he got the special brand he really likes and then feels too awful to even use it and doesn’t wash his hair for a week. Brady takes pity on the cute but hapless puppy-boy who is a physical and academic behemoth but has obviously been living off-grid on some kind of militia commune for the past forever--at first the rumor was that he was Amish on rumspringa but the amount of times Sam has busted out some supremely random survival knowledge in casual conversation changes that rumor quickly--and has no understanding of the world. And by the time he moves off-campus with Jess, Sam has this masking thing down pretty well; he can almost forget he’s not normal sometimes and Jess only knows about his previous helplessness in a cute, anecdotal kind of way.

And then Dean comes and gets him and Sam’s all “you and Dad still doing credit card scams?” and Dean’s like “well hunting doesn’t pay the bills.”

AND SAM’S LIKE, NEITHER DO YOU DEAN! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT BILLS ARE?! BECAUSE I DIDN’T AND IT WOULD’VE BEEN NICE TO KNOW!

#ask #@princessconsuelapark #stanford era #sam winchester #pre-stanford era #sam n dean #john winchester's a+ parenting #long post

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beautifulterriblequeen · 4 years ago

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What if moonshadow elves lost knowledge about themselves?

Hello, hope you have a nice day ! :D

(wait, is it day, for you?) hem! Anyway.

I was analylzing Moonshadow elves again and now I’m asking myself something, wonder what you would think about it:

Remember my “epiphany about the moon arcanum”?, when I said there’s maybe another side of their arcanum Moonshadow elves don’t know about? Something more life-light related:hope.

At first I said “they don’t know about” without really thinking about it. But, what if it’s true? I mean, what if there truly is a part they don’t know about their arcanum, or maybe forgot along the years? What if the war made Moonshadow elves focus so much on death-kill and all they kinda…. lost some of their knowledge about themselves?

(I think I remember one of your old analysis (I think it was you, I can’t find it anymore), where you compared “young ethari” in the endcredits to the actual one. Where we saw him first doing jewelry, full of hope about life, and the actual one who let that aside to focus on the war)

Add to this their community is described as “really close-knit”, which means more or less isolationism and so a stagnant, unable to evolve society. A society where the same rules were applied for centuries and so inevitably lost their deep meaning with time.

I thought it was maybe exaggerated to think this way, but then I remembered the creators said there is 5000years of history in TDP. Even with longer lifespan, there’s no way elves didn’t forget some things with time. (I compare this situation to another one: some discoveries were recently made in egypt, and we learned that a few thousands years ago egyptian themselves re-discovered things they had discovered several centuries prior and forgot)

So I tried to find proof in the show and the novelization, and guess what? We have some! (or, well, it’s more my HC, but as I said, it’ just a theory)

I think this way especially because of Runaan, who was so sure there was “only one way to release”. But then, Zym came and cut Rayla’s ribbon. My personal HC on this is that only the life who was supposed to be avenged can release the assassin from the binding. It would make sense when you know Moonshadow elves “take life but they do not take it lightly”. But even if I’m mistaking, the central fact is that there is more than one way and, clearly, Moonshadow elves don’t know it (if the leader of the assassins doesn’t, then who could?)

What I find interesting here, is that Runaan recites this ritual at the beginning, about how precious life is, like a litany but the way he insists (especially in the novel) about killing Ezran even after he saw the egg, could be the proof it’s just that, a ritual. A ritual whose words lost all their sense, their deep meaning for his people.

Ok, it’s not much, but I think the combination of isolationism, stucking to rules without understanding them deeply and time, is the perfect recipe to lose your way, no?

Oh, and a crazy other point in between these two theories about “hope” and “lost knowledge” woud be: If there is another aspect of the moon, other elves more hope-related (like Ethari or Rayla), why not another form?

Like sunfire elves have heat and light-being mode, Moonshadow elves could have something else too?. It’s probably stupid, I’m only thinking this way because of how Rayla feels while in moonshadow form in the novelization. It’s not that she hates it or something, but it makes her feel dizzy, as if she wasn’t suited for this. And if not, maybe it’s because she’s suited for another form?

(sorry, I hope I’m coherent on this one, I’m a little exhausted and my thoughts are a little messy ^^’)

______________

Okay, @lily-lilou, just let me catch my breath, this whole thing is a ride and I loved it. We definitely vibing here, fam.

whew

Okay, from the top, because I’ve had a lot of these thoughts myself and I’m so stoked to see someone else independently coming up with them!

Yes 100% to Moonshadows losing a part of their own history. (And yeah, I do have a post somewhere on Ethari’s evolution. Probably called it that iirc) If we’re right about Moonshadows having lived in Katolis before the lands were divided, living right near their own Nexus as the Sunfires still do, then when they packed up and left, it’s very possible they literally couldn’t bring everything with them.

I have a quirky little hc that there are still, to this day, Moonshadow villages hiding behind ancient protection spells in Katolis, and that people wander past them every day and have no idea. But it’s one thing not to be able to pack up your actual village. It’s another to leave behind records of your people’s past, their accomplishments and dealings and discoveries.

*eyes Lujanne’s truly massive library, with its huge walls covered in runes and books* This is where the full history of the Moonshadow people probably is kept. And no one has access to it but her.

Those who headed east would only know what they carried with them, and what was handed down orally through the generations. But see, if my headcanon about the Moonshadow assassins being created at that time ends up being true, then that’s probably bad news for history and truth. When you create a whole new class within your culture, you need to bolster it with ideology. You use myth, cultural norms, and current events to make it seem important.

You tell everyone that being an assassin is the most honorable job there is. And then it’s suddenly cool to be an assassin.

If there were no Moonshadow assassins before the humans were booted out west, then everything Runaan says to Rayla, everything he believes, is pretty young compared to his people’s full history, which he may not know, at least in its true and undistorted form. It’s an illusion. Rhetoric. Propaganda meant to hold soft elves who deeply value life to the hardest task they’ll ever undertake: taking that life from another, for a cause they cannot turn away from, a purpose they are culturally indebted to. Because their people, their princess (?), was the one who asked for the humans to be spared, and so every mistake the humans make from that point on is the Moonshadow elves’ duty to handle.

Runaan was wrong about how many ways there are to release. Has Zym truly been the only victim who wasn’t actually dead, in a whole thousand years? Honestly, probably not, knowing how politics works. But see, if you have an elite squad devoted to serving Xadia, and you tell them that their hands will literally fall off and they will die if they don’t do their jobs because there is only one way to release the ribbon they’re honor-bound to wear, they will take their target or die trying. And if you maybe exaggerated reports of the victim’s death for political purposes and actually have them in a dungeon, or they fled to the human lands as a refugee, or any number of other squirrelly options that Moonshadows aren’t naturally inclined to consider, then you can literally get away with murder-by-proxy. Or containment. Or intimidation. Or whatever your purpose is in taking out a human target who may or may not even be guilty of the crime you allege against them. It might not even be Zubeia and Avizandum’s fault. Unless they can detect truth and lies, they can be deceived by someone unscrupulous with an agenda of their own.

Long paragraph long, there are a lot of problems with the existence and practical duties of Moonshadow assassins. They’re kind of like the War Doctor: born form conflict, and thus only able to serve it, instead of peace. Yes, we all want Runaan to get his happy ending, retire, go home to his soft husband. But really, the whole institution of the assassins needs to go. It was born of war, and if Xadia and the human lands make peace, truly, then the assassins should be dissolved. As I said in one of my fics, Moonshadow assassins are Xadia’s dark magic, turning death into power. It’s gotta stop on both sides.

One of my oneshots for January’s Ruthari Week played with the idea of Ethari having a moonform instead of a shadowform, because yes to elves having two kinds of forms in each culture! I would love to see that for all the elves. And if we use Sunfire elves as a kind of roadmap, with “sun” and “fire” being the heat- and light-beings, then maybe the other elves get their two forms from their names as well. Or so my headcanon went for that fic: a moon form to balance the shadow form, where the elf’s body can glow like the full moon. I didn’t really touch on what that form’s ability would be, but I suppose, logically, it would serve as a portable full moon, powering other nearby Moonshadows even when the moon was down, or new, or a small crescent.

Okay, that’s just fun. I like that idea a lot. The only time “just stand there and look pretty” can be used as a battle tactic!

I can see Rayla getting to have the rare Moonshadow power. That would make her a good balance for Callum and his unusual arcanum as a human. Part misfit, part superpower. It would also probably be a power that puts her closer to Ethari’s soft and protective attitude, no matter what the power really is, since the assassins in Moonshadow culture have clearly adopted their natural shadowy form as a mission tactic, attacking specifically on full moon nights. Literally any other kind of power is probably going to be softer, lighter, more lively and bright, in concept if not literally so. Maybe the other power kicks in on new moons? or is available at any time? I really hope we get a second Moonshadow power of some kind. I am down for all the extra worldbuilding!

Thanks once again for your thoughts! *fist bump* Moonshadow elves. You get it.

#asks #tdp speculatoin #tdp headcanons #moonshadow elves #rayla #runaan #callum #submission

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sage-nebula · 4 years ago

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Why did you not want to play the LGPE games? I have no opinion since I don't even know what LGPE is, but my curiosity is piqued

LGPE is the acronym commonly given to the Let’s Go games, Let’s Go: Pikachu and Let’s Go: Eevee. As for why I refused to buy them and don’t want to play them . . . that’s a bit of a story. I will keep this as concise as I can.

So. It all starts with the current head of Game Freak, Masuda Junichi.

Masuda has worked on the Pokémon games since the very beginning. In fact, he was one of the founders of Game Freak. For the first two gens his primary role was composer, but starting with Gen III he began to direct the games as well, and now he’s one of the top directors at Game Freak and responsible for many of the directions the Pokémon games have taken in recent years. And while there have been some good things to come out of the past decade, there have also been things that haven’t been so great (to put it lightly), and most of them have been Masuda’s doing.

For instance, the first big warning signs came with the release of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire in Gen VI. Don’t get me wrong, those were great games. I loved them. However, the Battle Frontier—a feature that premiered in Emerald—wasn’t included, much to the shock, confusion, and consternation of fans. When asked about this, Masuda said that he chose not to include it because kids only really like mobile games nowadays, so he didn’t think they’d have the attention span necessary for something like the Battle Frontier. Now, anyone who knows a child knows that’s absolute nonsense, but Masuda believed it and, as a result, the Battle Frontier was not included in the Gen III remakes.

Now, you could say that was just one bad decision, and I would agree. But Masuda’s bad decisions didn’t stop there. Gen VII as a whole has ended up being my least favorite gen of all the Pokémon games because there is not a single main series game in that gen that I can say I truly enjoy and would ever want to play again. Even Gen IV has HeartGold and SoulSilver, and Gen VI has the aforementioned Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, but Gen VII? Story aside (because I don’t think he actually wrote the story, though I could be wrong on that) the gameplay was atrocious, absolutely catering to Masuda’s beliefs that children don’t want challenges anymore and will give up very easily if presented with one. This is especially noticeable in the remakes, where the Battle Tree—the only challenge in the original Sun and Moon games—was reworked to be far, far easier than it was originally, thus making it boring, too. But as bad as the Alola games were, they were not the worst that Gen VII had to offer.

Enter the Let’s Go games.

Let’s Go: Pikachu and Let’s Go: Eevee were the first Pokémon games developed for the Nintendo Switch. They were “remakes” of Yellow (they had enough noticeable changes in the story to not be direct remakes), and if that was the only disappointing thing about them, I probably would have gotten them. After all, I had purchased every single core Pokémon title up until that point, and despite what so many wanted to claim, the Let’s Go titles were core titles. Masuda said it himself when the games were announced. But unfortunately, being yet another set of Kanto remakes was not the worst they had to offer.

You see, the Let’s Go games were made to bring the Pokémon Go gameplay into the core titles. This meant that there would be no battling against wild pokémon to capture them. You would need to shove candies down their throats in order to raise them. EV training was cut out. There was no breeding, so IV breeding was out as well. Only pokémon originally obtainable in the Kanto games would be available, even post-game, something no other game had done before (but which definitely foreshadowed the Dex cuts to come in Gen VIII). To cap it all off, it would be impossible to turn off motion controls and necessary to use them, so people with mobility issues would be unable to play—i.e., Game Freak made the game inaccessible to those with disabilities.

Now, a good chunk of these things made the game extremely unappealing to me already, and in fact have stopped me ever seeking out a used copy. I hate the candy system in Go, I hate having so many features removed, I hate having to rely on RNG to catch pokémon. I mean, there’s always an element of RNG, but you can tilt the RNG in your favor with battling in most of the games, and you can’t do that in Let’s Go. It’s like an entire game’s worth of the Safari Zone (which iirc was also cut in Let’s Go), and I don’t have the time nor the patience for that nonsense. So although the Let’s Go games had some features that appealed to me (following pokémon, riding pokémon), on the whole they were just really unappealing, and that was even before we got into the character changes that were really distasteful to me.

But the thing that I could not let rest and could not forgive—and the thing that caused me to urge everyone to not buy the Let’s Go games, to the point where I lost a friendship because he didn’t like that I criticized them on Facebook so much—was the fact that, on top of saying that the Let’s Go games were to be considered core titles, Masuda said that if they sold well, they would determine the next 20 years of the franchise. What this meant was that, if the Let’s Go games did well, the features implemented in the Let’s Go games—for example, not battling in wild encounters, not having EV training, etc—would be removed in future titles, and instead future games would play like Let’s Go plays. And that’s just something I can’t abide by. If they want to make quirky Kanto remakes like this, fine, but I don’t want brand new games going that route. It’s the exact opposite of what I wanted. So I did the only thing I could: I refused to give my money to Game Freak (which would show them I liked these changes), and urged everyone else to do the same, to buy used if they had to buy at all.

Well . . . pretty much no one listened. As expected, Let’s Go made bank, and I felt that was the end.

I don’t quite feel that way anymore. For the most part, Sword and Shield were unaffected. I’m not sure if this was due to production times not giving Game Freak enough time to implement Let’s Go’s features or not, but nonetheless, Sword and Shield still had wild battles, EV training, IV breeding, etc, so for the most part they were unaffected. There are EXP candies and raids (both similar to Go), but they’re bonuses, not something necessary to raise your pokémon. The only thing that seems consistent with Let’s Go was the Dex Cut (which, funnily enough, was another Masuda decision, casually slipped in by him during the Treehouse demo shortly after everyone was excited about the announcement at E3), but I strongly suspect that’s more to do with Game Freak not having more than a year to develop each game rather than the popularity of Let’s Go.

Regardless, the TL;DR is: I refused to buy Let’s Go (new, at least) because I didn’t want to tell Game Freak that I wanted future games to play like Let’s Go, and I still won’t play it now because so much of it is unappealing to me that, even when I consider getting a used copy, I remember the aspects I don’t like (e.g. no wild battles, no EV training, character and story changes), grimace, and go play something else instead. No hate to anyone who likes them, there are some features in that I think would be fun, but they’re just really not for me.

#pokemon #Anonymous #Sword & Shield also sold exponentially more than LGPE #so that gives me hope for the future of the games too

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clouds-of-wings · 4 years ago

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Drinking spiced cherry wine from the discounter and actually reading the lyrics of Beloved Antichrist for once - Part 2 (Act 1)

Narrator: At this point, Seth is still with his parish and has no idea he’s the Antichrist Seth, speaking for the first time: WOE TO YOU, EARTH AND SEA!

PArish not pErish! Learn English! The mistake comes twice in a row, so I know it’s not just a typo.

“Lift from me infant smiles”, wut? Does that mean that he’s being reborn into maturity? Huh... alright.

Actually if I’m going to comment every time they use an expression that’s like a square peg in a round hole I’ll be typing until 4am, so let’s just say WUT really loudly ONCE and let it cover the whole opera.

I’m gonna stop commenting on the bad English too. I say this with all the affection available to me (like 9 affections) but bad English is a job requirement if you’re gonna write lyrics for Therion. This is how it has always been. If you can reliably create a present tense verb form and remember the s behind the third person singular - don’t apply. And the singers always go along with it. I’ll drink some more wine and say it adds to the charm.

The opera passes the Bechdel test in the second song.

Cmon, “United States of Europe”? Is that the best name you guys could come up with? How bout Eurotopia? Eurotzania? Jesus Christ Superstate? Greater Berlin Area? European Union Rules Oll People Everywhere?

There’s actually a lot going on here story-wise. I wouldn’t have thought it since all the songs kiiinda sound very similar to me. I mean I like the opera very much, musically, but the songs kinda merge into one another. They could have been one 3 hour long song. Land of Canaan has more different styles in it to my ear, and that’s “only” 10 minutes. Actually it has more styles to my eyes. My synaesthesia sees all of BA very similarly. Same colours, same textures, same sense of space. How much so? Enough that I kept abbreviating the name of the opera to “BC” instead of “BA” because the colours of the letters fit better and I didn’t even realize my mistake for a while.

I REALLY have questions about the logistics. In a steampunk post-apocalyptic world they have a continent-wide election..? Just, how long does that take? How do they communicate the results? Did they lay new phone lines? Are the old ones still functional? Do they send letters or send a messenger to inform of the regional results? What are the ballots made of? Did they build new paper processing plants? How did they get mass production back on its feet anyway? Whom did they force into the mines?

More problems that the anime adaptation will sort out, I guess.

Johanna does her duty as big sister in warning Helena not to believe every random man who acts like he’s the second coming of Christ & God’s gift to the world, a touch of realism

Seth needs only the barest of friendly pokes to fall from faith, This is Most Concerning. And understandable if you read the notes to the piece in question, but in the actual text of the opera it isn’t even mentioned before that he can’t hear God anymore. A bit rushed. Maybe they cut out a song? IIRC the original version of the opera was half an hour longer.

Also I love how meta “The Solid Black Beyond” is. “Hey WHY do you worship Jesus, I made you, you’re my son, do what I want you to do instead and, uhhh trust me it will TOTALLY work out fine!” - spoken by Satan, who is voiced by - the composer.

The president of Europe reads a brilliant insightful book and immediately realizes how misguided he has been. Hahaha. Ohh bless your hearts, guys. If only.

Garden of Peace needs to be much MUCH longer. None of the stuff mentioned in the summary actually happens in the text. Helena tells Seth her life story? BITCH WHERE!

It really bothers me that the text - not just here - focuses almost exclusively on the emotional content of the scenes and doesn’t tell us much about the story, which is explained only in the summaries. This might work for an album, but watching an opera like this would be very confusing. If you don’t read along with the notes (which afaik the non-limited edition of the CD release doesn’t even have), you’ll be ??? the whole time. I tried to read the lyrics once on some lyrics site, without these summaries, and they made no sense to me without context. A lot goes on in the story summaries. Very little goes on in what the characters actually say. And with many of these things I can’t think of a nonverbal way to communicate them.

I remember Christofer saying in an interview that he can’t write recitatives. Maybe that’s the problem. It’s like reading a text with many nouns but too few verbs. I don’t know though. I’m not too much of an opera buff. I did try to get into them but I find them boring. The only ones I watched the whole way through were Mefistofele (largely a waste of time but with one VERY good scene), and Orlando, thanks to Marijana Mijanovic playing the main character. It made me question my sexuality when she had murder in her eyes and an axe in her hands, but I do remember the story making sense.

I feel like I need to listen to the entire opera WHILE reading the text WHILE high enough that I can hallucinate the stage production in order to really judge the quality of the writing tbh.

I like the amount of characterization the characters get (mostly in the summaries). Helena has a special star she always sees, that’s sweet. Also foreshadowing. She has always loved the morning star, and then she marries the Antichrist.

Also, do Johanna and Helena symbolize the duality of humankind? QUESTIONS! The Two Daughters of Wisdom.

“Lots of stylish guests are strolling around” 8)

The mortal enemies DANCE AT A PALACE BALL. Oh this is SO anime material!

Okay this one line in “The Palace Ball” pisses me off every time I listen to BA. It’s such a small detail but it irritates me to no end. “May I have the pleasure to offer you a dance.” An Old-fashioned Gentleman(TM) would never say this to an Old-fashioned Lady(TM). It implies that he’s doing her a favour. He should ASK her for a dance, not OFFER her one, because (the polite fiction is that) she’s doing him a favour by accepting. This is just basic etiquette! You penguins!

Narrator: Seth finds himself politely rebuffed by Johanna. Johanna: Your powers ain’t shit, plus you’re evil, now fuck off.

I do want to know Seth’s brilliant philosophy that makes the world a perfect place, but it was definitely smart of the people behind this work not to try to come up with one.

Wow this takes a lot longer than I thought. I have acid reflux from the alcohol, which I’m not used to, and it’s late. I’ll do the rest some other time.

#therion #symphonic metal #opera metal #rock opera #music stuff #beloved antichrist

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aleniksimmer · 5 years ago

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What kinda cc are you planning on making besides ml and lol? More jewelry? Any other supernatural stuff like the sclera? Would you ever make lingerie? Sorry im excited i love your stuff

Thank you! :D

I’m sorry but I have no idea what do you mean with sclera :( I had to take another look at my old CCs but I only made eyes with EA/natural colors..or is it a typo?

About the lingerie, I already made two items time ago (they were three, one with glowing hearts in my n sfw blog, but then tumblr decided to go puritan so it’s not there anymore). They are more alpha than mm, here and here. I thought about making some more in mm style, but I don’t know when and I need to find the right inspiration.

About other CCs, I have 2 or 3 folders with jewelry pictures, but the will to start making them at the moment is low. I’ve spent yesterday and today’s free time making CCs for next week, but realized I can’t make seven CCs in less than two days, so I ended up making a top texture from scratch (available tomorrow), a simple necklace (and with my luck I choose the sim model who has a body preset that distorts it around the sides) made completely from scratch, and I resurrected an old eyeliner that I made last year while I was watching Dragrace, that looks better on female sims than males instead. So I’m covered till Wednesday.

Sorry for the in game pictures and not the previews, but I haven’t made the last two yet.

The more I worked on them (make the mesh, make the texture, hope that GIMP doesn’t crash, test in game, fix, test in game, take the thumbnails, test in game, take the preview picture, hope that the game doesn’t crash, make the preview, upload on TSR with the description, leave the laptop breath, repeat), the more I just wanted to work on Miraculous or play the game.

Sorry, I don’t want to be a crybaby, just a little stressed with family and university too :( the facts are these:

Since I became a Select Artist on TSR the pressure increased a little

to maintain the title you have to publish a CC at least in two/three months iirc, and if I just focus on miraculous and my inspiration for working on it (now that the project is huge) I can easily fall out of this time limit (except for projects that came out of pure inspiration like Waitress Mari, kwami swap, multimouse and viperion, the others took me way longer)

from this November, they decided to give an incentive to SA artists too, based on the number of creations published following their standards, and I would lie if I say I wasn’t glad for this opportunity

so now my situation is

folders upon folders of wips collected since when I started making CCs (items that I abandoned because I didn’t have the knowledge, or lost the inspiration, or simply was too lazy to take previews and publish)

folders of tons of inspiration pictures coming from internet in general, online stores, online games, etc

a couple of sketchbooks with drawings of stuff I want to make, or notes on how I want to make them

a reason to start working seriously on them and make them ready to be uploaded

if you have been following me since last year, you know that 90% of my attention was focused on Miraculous, even if the sets took tons of time, I rarely published any other creation

In the end I just have to find a balance between all of this, but I plan to make from 11 to 20 creations/month (sets included). I would probably start with my old WIPs for the most part and add the new CCs I make on the way.

Sorry for the long answer!

And sorry if some parts might be not that clear, it’s past midnight and I’m heading to bed, but feel free to drop an ask again if you want :)

#AleNikAsk #long post

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hasty-touch · 6 years ago

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Tips for leveling DoH & DoL

I am fondly known by my friends as "that guy who's obsessed with crafting and also Ishgard", so I'm ecstatic about getting to enjoy both those things in Shadowbringers. And I've been hearing a lot of my friends excited about the latter wanting to catch up with the former so they're ready to participate! I love crafting so much I've capped classes on 4 alts... so having leveled multiple times, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts and tips -- not a detailed how-to guide (though maybe I'll try to write one of those someday), but broader opinions about what strategies to take. This is geared more to DoH than DoL (which is more self-explanatory IMO) but I'll include thoughts on DoL too.

I learned how to craft back in the 2.5 era from GameFAQs and from ffxivguild -- though I can't easily recommend the latter anymore because their ads and autoplay videos have gotten really aggressive. If I find a good, current guide I'll add a link here.

Other resources well-loved by me or friends are Crafting as a Service for shopping lists and leveling planning, Ariyala for gearing, FFXIV Teamcraft for their endgame-invaluable simulator, and Garlandtools Bell for unspoiled nodes.

So let's see. What would my general tips be for people who are picking up DoH and DoL now in anticipation of Shadowbringers?

Your leveling options

There are lots of different ways for you to level your DoH and L, so if you hate one there's sure to be another option. Some of them, and my thoughts on the pros and cons of the different methods:

Class Quests. I strongly recommend doing your class quests as you unlock them! They give nice lumps of experience, shards/crystals for DoH, and gear (albeit NQ gear, so inferior to what you could make yourself). You should especially do 60-70, Stormblood era quests as you unlock them, as they give you powerful new traits and abilities. Of course, you have to fill the gaps between class quests with something:

Grinding. Just makin' stuff from your Crafting Log or gathering from your Gathering Log, or hanging out at a level-appropriate fishing hole and fishing. Potentially boring, but can actually add up to nice chunks of EXP, especially under Rested and with the aid of Engineering Manuals/Survival Manuals. (More on them later.)

Leveling DoH through grinding is probably your most expensive option, not only in terms of gil spent on the MB but retainer space used to store those materials.

Synthesize (manually crafting) gives more experience than Quick Synthesis -- if I understand correctly, the more steps you use in a craft the more experience you get, up to a point renofmanyalts says you get more exp the more you fill your Quality bar, which makes a lot more sense!

You can recover some of your gil by selling the items you make, so a little time researching what you can make at your level that sells well may be profitable in several ways.

Leveling DoL through grinding, on the other hand, is potentially a way to make money, if there's a high-demand item in the right level range.

You'll get more experience for HQ items and by maintaining a chain (i.e., not missing an item).

Since you can start and stop grinding whenever you want, you can use it both if you have lots or limited time to play. But I wouldn't recommend it as your primary method!

Grand Company Supply and Provisioning. One item requested each day for each class. You get a very nice chunk of experience, doubled if HQ, with a further bonus to starred items.

I like the GC as a leveling method. They usually take the length of one food buff (<= 30 minutes for all eight DoH classes, plus an additional <= 30 minutes for all three DoL classes), which is a manageable amount of chores per day. You get GC seals, which can be spent on manuals, Cordials, squadron missions, etc., to further help you.

You are limited to one item per class per day, so once you've handed in your day's items, you have to find something else to do. It's great if you play every day, but if you have a lot of playtime on just a few days of the week you may not be able to take the same advantage.

You do have to buy and store the materials, and since the assignment each day is random, it may take up a lot of retainer space.

Levequests/guildleves. While technically limited by your leve allowances (which can be checked at the bottom of your journal), you get 3 allowances every 12 hours and you can store up to 100, and you've gotta really grind leves to spend 100 leve allowances. They give nice chunks of experience, doubled for HQ.

"Levekits" are bundles of items sold by higher-level crafters and fishers which, when handed in to levemetes, get you enough experience to bump you up to the target level (50, 60, etc.) They're an option -- and if you really must be level 70 today, they're your only option -- but I don't really recommend them. If you learn to craft yourself while you level, you'll understand how the abilities work together and won't be overwhelmed by buttons at cap. Even if you intend only to craft at cap using other people's macros, a little bit of knowledge will help you troubleshoot and improve them.

If you take advantage of DoH leves, I would recommend you make the items yourself instead, gaining experience both for the crafting and for the turn-in. You will have to buy/gather the materials, but since you can decide what leves you're going to target in advance and just get materials for those, storage is not as problematic.

MIN and BTN leves send you to a location to gather key items that are handed in at the end of the leve, sometimes with special targets (changing what actions you'd spend your GP on). For the time invested you get more exp than just grinding, but you don't have items to sell at the end of it.

Large-Scale Temple Knight leves (marked with "(L)" in the levequest name) are generally considered not worth your time because they take 10x the allowances and only give 3x the exp.

You can do as many leves as you want per day as long as you have the allowances, so you can take advantage if you've got a lot or a little time.

Beast Tribes. You can get DoH exp from the Ixal (intended for level 1-50) and the Moogles (50-60), and either DoH or DoL from the Namazu (60-70). You're limited by Beast Tribe Daily Quest Allowances (12 per day for any beast tribes of your choice) and the number of quests that tribe offers (Ixal start with Deliverance, which is sort of like a bonus daily GC supply mission + 3 dailies, and progressively more are offered as you level up; Moogles and Namazu normally gives you 3 a day, but you get a bonus 3 on days your Reputation ranks up.) They give nice, moderate lumps of exp.

One of the great advantages of beast tribes is that you are given the materials for the item(s) required by the quest, so you only have to pay for crystals -- and you're often rewarded crystals for completion, making them free aside from teleport and repair costs!

Ranking up unlocks more items at the tribe's vendor. The Ixal have a wonderful selection of lumber, and you can buy the Adept and Trailblazer (level 58) sets from the Moogles with Carved Kupo Nuts, etc.

Unlocking Ixal only requires the level 41 MSQ "In Pursuit of the Past". But you gotta unlock the Moogles and the Namazu not only through MSQ (respectively, level 56 "He Who Would Not Be Denied" and level 66 "In Crimson They Walked") but through sidequest chains. The Moogle unlock chain is long and starts with "A Pebble for Your Thoughts" in Moghome (and then after "Trouble at Zenith" you gotta pick up "Into the Mists" from the Pillars). The Namazu require two short chains from Yanxia, starting with "Courage the Cowardly Lupin" and "Perchance to Hanami".

The Ixal daily "Deliverance" will take items you bought off the MB, but otherwise you must do all beast tribes tasks yourself.

The tasks given to you in the Moogle and Namazu DoH quests are really easy -- as long as you grasp the barest basics of crafting, you can succeed at them (and you can retry as many times as you like, only losing crystals). The Ixal dailies take away your hand slot gear to begin with and slowly add challenge with increasing restrictions such as cross-class ability lockouts. They're not hard, per se, but you have to puzzle over it a bit more than usual.

You can cheat and do Moogle dailies on a higher level class than you hand it in on. You can’t with Namazu -- you have to complete the quest with the same class you picked it up with.

Though quick, they do take a little bit of time, most of which traveling between quest points. Denisot's round today of 3 Moogle dailies took 5 minutes, but if you get one that involves repreated trips it can take longer. Still, they're good if you can play every day even if only briefly.

You might get asked to type "free kupo nuts" in /say.

Collectables (Rowena's House of Splendors). After (IIRC) level 50, after MSQ "The Better Half", you can unlock collectables via the quest "Inscrutable Tastes" in Revenant's Toll. You can then hand in collectables to the House of Splendors (via kiosks at the main cities, Revenant's Toll, Idyllshire, and Rhalgr's Reach) to receive experience and scrips. Like GC supply and provisioning, each day the requested items change. Also like the GC, there's a chance the requested items will have a star next to them, giving bonus scrip and exp. It's always the highest-level turn-in available to you that has a chance of a star.

Collectable crafting works exactly the same as regular crafting. You just toggle on Collector's Glove (an action you can get from your actions window and/or put on your hotbar) and craft as if you were trying for HQ; your HQ chance is converted into collectable rating.

Collectable fishing is AFAIK essentially the same as fishing for HQ. Again, you just toggle on Collector's Glove and try to land a big/HQ fish.

Collectable MIN and BTN, on the other hand, is its whole own little mini-game added on to the normal gathering minigame. You'll want to look up a guide on how to do collectable gathering -- I don't have one handy at the moment. It's not hard, necessarily, but it's a new system to learn!

Rowena's House of Splendors is truly unlimited, and you can hand in as many collectables as you want each day. The experience isn't great, though, even for starred items, so I would recommend against going crazy and doing these all day long. LOVE YOURSELF!

The amounts of scrip rewarded isn't great to begin with, so grinding for rewards will be pretty miserable until you get up into the mid-high 50s. However, if you must have the full Adept's set today, it's an option!

Red Crafters' Scrip (the current common scrip) can be traded for a variety of items, such as manuals, level 60 gear (via Rowena's Token (Blue Crafters' Scrip)), Soul of the Crafter (for changing specializations after your free choice of three from Alderan), IV-V materia, old mats, etc. Red Gatherers' Scrip can also be traded for gear and materia, more valuable old mats (like Pterodactyl), and good fishing bait like Brute Leech and Silkworm.

Collectables are not tradeable, so you must do them yourself. You can't buy the items or get a friend to make them for you.

For DoH, you do have to buy and store the materials, as with Grand Company Supply, unless you exclusively do:

Custom Deliveries. The first client is Zhloe Aliapoh, unlocked at level 60 with quest "Arms Wide Open" in Idyllshire. These tasks take collectables, like Rowena's House of Splendors, but are limited to 6 hand-ins per week per client and 12 hand-ins per week across all clients. If you do them at level cap, you get valuable yellow scrips, but you can also use your allowances for leveling classes below cap.

The materials for DoH Custom Deliveries are sold by vendors in town (Scrap Salvager in Idyllshire, Material Supplier in Rhalgr's Reach, and Blue Merchant in Tamamizu) They're cheap, and you're awarded gil at hand-in, so DoH Custom Deliveries are almost-free-to-profitable to do. DoL, as usual, cost only teleport and repair costs.

The time required is generally very little -- FSH probably takes the longest because of RNG. And you can do them whenever you have time during the week.

If you're using them for leveling, the experience is only modest. But it is a very easy, low-effort way to get red scrips and experience (if you do them below cap) and yellow scrips (if you do them at cap).

AFAIK, Zhloe only requires you unlock Idyllshire level and be 60 in one DoH or DoL class. M'naago requires the MSQ cleared through "Return of the Bull" (SB 4.1). Kurenai requires you to have unlocked M'naago and finished the quest chain that starts with "The Palace of Lost Souls" (including quests not currently marked with a blue unlocky !).

For DoH, like with Moogle dailies, you can craft the collectable item on any class, then change classes before handing it in.

Challenge Log. Don't forget that you get lumps of experience each week for crafting NQ and HQ items, melding materia, gathering NQ and HQ from nodes, and fishing NQ and HQ fish. The quantities are modest, but they're a nice bonus if you choose to level through a method that involves crafting/gathering items yourself (GC Supply/Provisioning, levequests, grinding, etc.)

Overall, my recommendation would be to try a little bit of every leveling method and find out what's enjoyable for you and fits nicely into your budget and schedule. We have a half-year until Shadowbringers, so if you start now you can take a relaxed pace -- no need to rush, grind doing stuff you hate, and burn yourself out.

Engineering and Survival Manuals and similar buffs

There are a variety of buffs that will help you level, giving you more experience per craft or gather. For DoH, you want Engineering Manuals (the yellow ones); for DoL, it's Survival Manuals (the green ones). You can get these from all sorts of sources -- all the ones I remember are:

Rewards from doing your class quests. Another reason to stay on top of em! These Commercial * Manuals give a 150% boost and last 60 minutes or up to 300,000 exp. You can buy more from Rowena's House of Splendors with red scrips.

Bought from your GC quartermaster (Grand Company Seal Exchange). The strongest ones available are Company-Issue * Manual II (+50% for 180 minutes or for 100,000 exp) for sergeants. Company-Issue * Manuals do not stack with Commerical * Manuals.

Free Company actions. "Helping Hand II" and "Earth and Water II" can be bought from the OIC Quartermaster and give 10% more experience to DoH and DoL respectively. The more powerful III versions are charged on an Aetherial Wheel and provide a 20% bonus.

Rewarded from Squadron Priority Missions. You unlock your GC squadron, IIRC, at Second Lieutenant rank, and unlock Priority Missions by completing the level 40 Flagged Mission. The Squadron * Manuals (+20% for 120 minutes, no limit) you can obtain once-a-week from Priority Mission manuals do not stack with Free Company actions.

Company-Issue/Commercial manuals DO stack with Squadron manuals/FC actions.

The recruit-a-friend reward, Friendship Circlet, can be worn while crafting and gathering for 20% more exp when level 25 or below. Same for the Stormblood preorder(?) reward, Ala Mhigan Earrings, which gives 30% more exp when level 50 or below. Brand-New Ring is wearable only by Disciples of War or Magic, so you can't use that.

While it's not an exp bonus, the crafting facility furnishings (Woodworking Bench, etc.) grant a nice 60 minutes of bonus CP to DoH of level 60 or lower, AND THEY CAN NOW BE PUT INTO STORAGE!!! \o/

And of course, don't forget to eat some sort of food while you're crafting or gathering for the 3% exp bonus.

Which DoH should I level up first?

The correct answer to this question has been, and continues to be, everything at once; omnicrafting is the best way.

In the eras of 2.0 and 3.0, the cross-class abilities you gained from the classes were essential to being able to craft HQ items. Not just at endgame -- having those cross-class abilities while leveling makes your life much, much easier. And because the recipes of each class take components from other classes (e.g., WVR recipes always want a bit of leather and metal), leveling everything up together made you self-sufficient and less vulnerable to wild mark-ups on processed materials at the Market Board. Therefore, I join the majority of crafters in continuing to recommend leveling up all your DoH together.

However...

In 4.0, Stormblood, the designers' vision for DoH changed. From levels 61-70, all classes learn the same abilities, which are stronger (but more expensive) versions of the old cross-class mainstays like Careful Synthesis, Manipulation, and Hasty Touch. Nowadays, if somebody slogged through levels 1-60 on one DoH with no cross-class abilities, they would actually be able to craft at level 70 almost as successfully as an omnicrafter. Since the developers have stated that they're very happy with the crafting system right now, it's reasonable to guess Shadowbringers will be similar.

Additionally, not all cross-class abilities are equally valuable. Whenever a new tier of crafting difficulty is added, the endgame meta shifts slightly, but right now, cross-class abilities like Waste Not and Flawless Synthesis aren't really used.

Therefore, while I do recommend you level up everything together, if you really don't want to, you can get away with abandoning some classes along the way. If Ishgard Reconstruction turns out to be similar to beast tribes, you might get away with having just one capped DoH. On the other hand, the developers have teased exclusive challenges for endgame crafters somehow connected to the Ishgard Reconstruction content, so if you want to be ready for whatever that turns out to be, you should at least get all your cross-class abilities.

My tentative recommendation for DoH leveling priority is something like this:

Get anything to 10 to unlock Quick Synthesis.

Get everything to 15. For example:

WVR 15 (Careful Synthesis)

ALC 15 (Tricks of the Trade)

GSM 15 (Manipulation)

CUL 15 (Hasty Touch)

CRP 15 (Rumination)

ARM (Rapid Synthesis), BSM (Ingenuity), LTW (Waste Not).

CUL 37 (Steady Hand II)

WVR 50 (Careful Synthesis II)

ALC 50 (Comfort Zone)

CRP 50 (Byregot's Blessing)

ARM 50 (Piece by Piece)

CUL 50 (Reclaim)

BSM 50 (Ingenuity II)

GSM 50 (Innovation)

CUL 54 (Muscle Memory)

If you MUST skip one DoH entirely, I'd pick LTW, since the Waste Nots are generally inferior to the Manipulations.

You COULD drop CUL after 54's very useful Muscle Memory. And since CUL doesn't correspond to gear, it doesn't help you repair or meld materia, and other classes generally don't need materials processed by CUL.

Various classes' level 54 Name of [Element] cross-class abilities aren't that useful at present -- they're sometimes used in endgame rotations. GSM's level 54 Maker's Mark is also not currently that useful, though it was OP a couple patches back.

Still -- I think it's safest, and for me less annoying, to level everything together.

Should I craft using macros?

Yes -- I think macros are great for relieving the tedium of the repetitive crafting tasks, which you’ll often have while leveling. (Wish I could tell you where to look for good macros, but as I mentioned, I learned years ago, and I just write my own macros these days!)

However, I think you should spend some time manually crafting as well. It will help you understand when and why you use certain abilities, how not to overcap Durability and CP, why you might or might not take Tricks of the Trade, etc. That skill and knowledge will help you even if you plan to primarily use macros at cap, since it will enable you to tweak those macros to be even better for your stats, teach you when you should cancel a macro and take over, etc. Nevermind that macros are very vulnerable to server congestion and lag...

And once you know how to craft, you will almost always have a higher potential quality manually crafting than using a macro -- your ability to respond to changes in Condition can get you precious more stacks of Inner Quiet or CP for upgrading Touches. I often use macros for putting together components but manually craft the final product to be sure I get the highest possible quality.

Other tips for leveling DoH?

I think you'll find one of the most invaluable resources for leveling baby DoH is access to a house or apartment with a Material Supplier. Your friendly FC (or apartment) Material Supplier will take care of practically all your materials needs through level 20 or more.

There are other useful Materials Suppliers scattered around -- in addition to the those in main cities and each of the guilds, check out the ones in the marketplaces out in residential districts.

I also strongly recommend unlocking every 2.0 A Realm Reborn beast tribe because even at mere Neutral standing the tribe vendors offer materials like Undyed Velveteen and Mythril Ingots that you’ll be using in quantity.

Don’t forget to upgrade your gear as you go, even if you’re just putting on new NQ gear from your class quests. DoL is particularly sensitive to gear -- you can really feel the difference when you upgrade a piece.

And really -- like in all aspects of the game, please be sure to pace yourself and make sure you’re enjoying yourself as you go. We’ve got plenty of time.

If you’ve leveled your DoH and DoL recently, what lessons have you learned you wish you’d had at the beginning? Or if you’re leveling right now, what questions do you have? I’m happy to opine or give basic pointers!

You may find my guide/checklist for DoH and DoL class quest items useful, if you haven’t already seen it. And as I mentioned, I may work on a more detailed, how-to-actually-craft-the-things guide in the future, if there’s interest.

Please, don’t be shy and get in touch! I am so excited to work together to rebuild Ishgard with you!!

#ffxiv #ffxiv crafting #ffxiv gathering #crafting school //

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serenagaywaterford · 6 years ago

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the weirdest/dumbest criticism of serena joy i’ve ever seen:

“ew she likes riesling”

OF ALL THE THINGS!

HOW DARE SHE?!!!

see, when i say female villains (or characters) get an excessively hard time for bullshit reasons whilst male characters (good, bad, or grey) get a pass on basically everything -- THIS IS THE SHIT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

i get serena is a horrible person. she has done downright repulsive, reprehensible, arguably irredeemable shit. she is Not Good. she is possibly Pure Evil*. there are plenty of totally legitimate problems and issues people can take with her. fair play. i’m down with that discourse cos it’s the goddamn truth.

what am i totally not here for is PICKING APART WOMEN for absolutely every single little fucking thing-- WHILE giving bad men a magic wand and ignoring every shitty little thing they ALSO do.

it’s like people are going over serena with a magnifying glass looking for absolutely any dumbass fucking trivial piece of shit thing to bring her down. and you know what, i probably wouldn’t even be sensitive to this if this bullshit nitpicking extended to ANY OTHER CHARACTER. (the only other one i see criticised with nearly the same detail is june. yeah. the fucking female protagonist for all her “bad” decisions and “annoying” and “stupid” behaviour.) do i see this towards nick? hell no. nick does and says a lot of little shitty things too. but hey, at least he doesn’t drink riesling.

now, just about this particular comment.

i have seen it in multiple places. (tumblr, twitter, and i believe reddit iirc. it was almost a year ago i think).

maybe it’s just the same fan on different sites and they really really hate serena and award-winning german wines.

but maybe it’s not. or even if it is, maybe it’s just one example of the insane standard that female characters have to hit, whereas their male counterparts are absolved of their shitty taste in alcoholic drinks lol, amongst everything else.

i haven’t once seen anybody complain that fred drinks his whiskey neat. how evil. doesn’t he know you need a splash of water or ice to open the flavour?? and plus. what kind of whiskey? is it whisky or scotch? like is a 15-yr speyside single malt or some shitty jameson?

like cmon, fred! what kind of villain are you if you aren’t drinking a dalmore 45-yr old highland single malt?! fucking ridiculous!!! what an arrogant asshole!

now, as a side note, fuck you and your wine snobbery. how it relates to serena is bonkers anyway. because a person (you, whoever you are) doesn’t like riesling, apparently serena liking it is evidence that she is an Evil Bitch, Spawn of the Devil............?

???????????????

can i get serious for a second?

i am going to address this on its merits cos, well, i’m pretending this is an actual argument and not just some trivial bullshit to bring a female character down for zero reason.

riesling is a good varietal. if you can’t appreciate it, that’s on you. serena choosing a Riesling over a more pedestrian pinot grigio or sauv blanc is CLASS. it actually shows GOOD taste. and let’s be totally honest: gilead is not importing wines from europe, canada, or australia. so why not grab a wine from abroad when ya can? it’s smart thinking. california produces loads of other wines, but the only good american rieslings come from washington (and finger lakes) and let’s assume that with all the climate change, war, etc, wine in america isn’t the healthiest crop yield anymore.

bitch just wants some good fucking wine ok.

don’t believe me, wine snots?

“It has been said before, but if there is one thing that marks out a wine professional, it is a love of Riesling. While consumers will often declare a preference for a particular grape, very few outside the trade tend to pick Riesling as their favourite variety – and this is something the wine industry has found puzzling for decades.

What is it that the sommelier or wine writer adores that the consumer doesn’t – or has yet to discover? Following our Riesling Masters tasting this year, this grape’s traits could be summed up by a combination of two key aspects: it has both personality and precision.

Riesling, when made well, is instantly identifiable, bursting with aromas of lime zest, white peach, sliced apple, and fresh flowers. It may be pale to look at, but it has an intense and distinct character. And it also has a sharp edge – Riesling cuts, rather than covers the palate. It provides a tangy, taut and recognisable sensation. One wonders whether such features may be alienating consumers? Riesling may simply have too much personality and an overload of cold precision. Perhaps.”

(strangely fitting for serena, no? a little meta, isn’t it? it’s fucking brilliant to choose a riesling for serena, especially when considering her reputation in fandom as well.)

“These great wines may not be cheap, but they are certainly affordable, leading one to safely believe that Riesling offers the most accessible fine white wine experience available today.” [x]

“From its beginnings it seems the wine was the preferred elixir of German nobility, and they transported the wine with them throughout their conquests and business dealings across Europe.”

not all riesling has to be that gross overly sweet dessert-type wine. dry rieslings are fucking great ok.

but enough about that.

when are we gonna start criticizing nick for having his elbows on the table when he’s eating?!!

fred for putting sugar in his tea!?!

commander lawrence for pouring an ale into a brandy snifter? (HOW DARE HE! beer is not armagnac!!!!)

huh?

radio silence???

no? nothing?

interesting.

if you wanna go after serena, fine. do it. she has PLENTY of shit to criticise her for. like, you could write a whole book about how awful she is. but do it for legitimate reasons and also hold the men in the universe to this unbearable standard that female characters are held to. if you wanna go full hog on serena and pick apart every tiny fucking minuscule trivial thing she does, that’s up to you. but make sure you’re doing it for everyone else as well. especially the men who are equally if not MORE evil and complicit than she is.

[*I do not have membership in the “Serena is Pure Evil Incarnate” club, sorry. but I know some people do and whatever. that’s their opinion. we’re not here to argue about that rn]

#THE END #i am in a mood today and i'm sick of this sexist misogynistic bullshit in this fandom #rants and raves #THIS IS PURE FUCKING RANT #i am a little angerball today #long post #(is2g if anybody argues that serena is more evil than fred i am gonna throw you out a window myself)#(if i could lift more than 40lbs lmao)#(i am a smol thing with no upperbody strength lololol)#serena joy waterford #the handmaid's tale #also i am defensive because fuck you if you don't like riesling lmao. i dont' even really like wine much at all #but i like dry rieslings... the best probably. more than pinot gris which used to be my fav #IF i had to drink wine. (which i prefer not to. and i fucking HATE red wine. but i don't go after characters for that...)

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freyayuki · 2 years ago

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Final Fantasy Record Keeper Golden Festival Free Relic Draws

The Golden Festival event campaign just started in the Final Fantasy Record Keeper (FFRK) mobile game.

For 10 days, every time you log on to the game, you get 1 ticket. You can use these tickets to pull on the Golden Festival Relic Draw banner. This draw gives 10 items. You’re guaranteed to get at least one 5-star or higher rarity relic on this pull.

You know, it really sucks that, up to now, these kinds of draws are still only guaranteeing 5-star relics when those have long since been powercrept. They’re all horribly outdated by now that it just feels really bad to get them, especially after spending super hard-to-acquire mythril.

I wish these pulls would guarantee that we’d get at least 1 6-star item. I mean, really, why not? Not all 6-stars are good anyway. There are lots that are also outdated. It’s not even the highest rarity anymore since we’ve got 7-stars now as well.

Man, Final Fantasy Record Keeper (#ad) could really use a lesson or 2 in generosity. Wish it could be more like the Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia (DFFOO) mobile game which gives lots of free multi-draws and pulling resources.

Anyway, another thing to note about this banner is that it includes all the relics that’s currently available in the game so the pool is horribly bloated. In short, you’re more likely to get crap than anything good.

So I did the first free pull and, surprisingly, actually got 2 rainbow orbs and 2 disco orbs. Then Dr. Mog even showed up and turned one of the 6-stars into a 7-star relic. Was so hyped!

Then I got to the draw results screen and was promptly horribly and utterly disappointed. All the stuff I got were new but they were all useless. Yes, even the 7-star relic.

The two 5-stars were Burst Soul Breaks (BSB) but didn’t even bother taking note of who they belonged to. What does it matter anyway? Never gonna use a BSB when there are way better relics out there.

The 6-star was an Arcane Overstrike Soul Break (AOSB) which, IIRC, belongs to Laguna Loire (from Final Fantasy VIII).

AOSBs can only be used once and they cost 3 bars (unless they’ve been honed to the max in which case they’ll only need 2 gauges). These kinds of relics only really deal damage so while they have their uses, Synchro Arcane Soul Breaks (SASB) and Awakened Arcane Soul Breaks (AASB) and True Arcane Soul Breaks (TASB) are still way better.

The 7-star I got was Luneth’s (from Final Fantasy III) Limit Break Overstrike (LBO) or Limit Break Over Flow (LBOF) which is similar to an AOSB except this one makes use of the Limit Break gauge instead of the Soul Break one. Pretty sure I have 0 relics for Luneth, making this LBO even more useless.

Man, I feel cheated somehow. Got so excited when I saw all those orbs and then this happened. How could getting so many gold orbs turn out to be so disappointing? This game really needs better rates. Sigh.

My second free multi-draw gave me a single disco orb - Lann’s (from World of Final Fantasy) Ultra Soul Break (USB). It’s new but meh. This is like my first relic for Lann.

Also, he’s one of the forgotten chars in this game so he hardly has any relics and he’s barely featured in any banner. AFAIK, ever since I started playing Final Fantasy Record Keeper, have yet to see a banner that featured any of his stuff.

My third free pull gave me 1 rainbow orb and 4 disco orbs. Was surprised to see so many after only getting 1/10 from my last draw.

Tried not to get too hyped but couldn’t help it after seeing so many disco orbs. Was really hoping to get something good. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be.

First of all, Dr. Mog didn’t even have the decency to show up so no 7-star relic at all. Then the last disco orb revealed itself and it was quickly followed by the “Soul Break Rank Up!” screen. Got a dupe AASB which went from Rank 1 of 15 to Rank 3 of 15. Argh! So freaking frustrating.

Got to the draw results screen and this entire draw felt like a waste. Other than the dupe AASB, which belonged to Rosa Joanna Farrell (from Final Fantasy IV), all the items I got were new. But that didn’t make them any less useless.

The 5-star was yet another BSB. Got a Glint+ Soul Break for a Final Fantasy Tactics char. IIRC, it’s Orran Durai’s, but since I have 0 relics for him, this is useless.

Already have Lenna Charlotte Tycoon’s (from Final Fantasy V) best relics so this USB of hers is useless. The other 6-star was an Overstrike Soul Break (OSB) for a Final Fantasy XIII char. OSBs are horribly outdated by now so meh. In short, eff this pull.

Argh! My next few free pulls have all been so crappy that I didn’t even bother taking screenshots anymore.

Don’t really want to remember these trashy draw results. They’re really just making me hate this game and its terrible rates. Why can’t FFRK be more generous? Sigh.

Anyway, my latest free pull seemed promising enough which made me rather hopeful that I’d finally get something decent.

Four disco orbs showed up then Dr. Mog appeared and turned one of them into a 7-star item. Was already bracing myself to seeing yet another LBO though.

Sure enough, and much to my complete and utter disappointment, that was exactly what happened.

Got Wedge’s (from Final Fantasy Record Keeper) LBO. It’s new but meh. Don’t even have his Sync or AASB so how can I use him? Man, how could getting a 7-star relic turn out to be so disappointing?

The other 3 items I got were also new but none were all that remarkable or noteworthy.

Two were Ultra Soul Breaks (USB) while 1 was a Glint+ Soul Break (G+). Pretty sure that G+ belongs to Ace from Final Fantasy Type-0 although can’t remember for sure now.

After not bothering to screenshot a few more crappy draws, I got one that seemed promising.

A 7-star showed up (there was a 5-star too but meh. Didn’t even pay attention to who it belonged to) but, once again, ended up being horribly disappointed as this turned into yet another LBO.

This time, I got Snow Villiers’s (from Final Fantasy XIII) LBO, Ice Chain Promise. Have 0 BDL relics for him.

Argh! It feels like all the 7-stars I’m getting always turn into LBOs. It’s so frustrating, especially considering how rare it is to see Dr. Mog show up.

This just highlights how bad this game is. Like, really, would it kill them to give us pulls that guarantee at least 1 6-star relic instead of a useless and outdated 5-star?

It’s not like all the 6-stars are good anyway. There are a lot that are also useless and outdated. Even the 7-stars aren’t all good. LBOs are nice to have but not if that’s the only relic you have for a char.

Got a lot more tickets which should have made me happy but just ended up being pissed with how crappy the draws turned out to be. So didn’t even bother to take note of what I got if they were of no use to me.

One pull did finally give me an Awakening. It belongs to Leon (Leonhart from Final Fantasy II). IIRC, this is my first relic for him, but it’s still nice to have. Maybe someday I can get more relics for him to make him more useful.

Also got a pull that gave me 3 new items. One was only a 5-star Legend Materia Relic for a Final Fantasy IV char so didn’t bother taking note of who it belonged to.

Got a 7-star that turned out to be Hilda’s (from Final Fantasy II) Synchro Arcane Soul Break (SASB), Wild Rose Blossom. Pleased to have finally gotten a Sync from these pulls instead of the usual and useless LBO.

Already have one of Hilda’s Glints and USBs so this is a nice addition to her kit. Too bad I’m missing her Awakening though so she’s unfortunately not gonna be replacing any of my other healers and supports anytime soon.

The 6-star I got was the real prize of this pull. It was one of Fujin’s (from Final Fantasy VIII) Awakened Arcane Soul Breaks (AASB), Ran.

Already have a few of her other relics, including her magical wind Chain Soul Break and her Glint+ that instantly gives her 2 gauges. Her Chain is one of the better ones out there and with her Glint+, I can cast it right at the beginning of battle, if needed.

And that’s why she’s part of my magical wind team even though I’m missing her Sync and Awakenings. Thanks to this pull though, I now have one of her AASBs. Now I have something else for her to do when she doesn’t need to cast her Chain.

Another ticket gave me 2 disco orbs which turned into a dupe of Barret Wallace’s (from Final Fantasy VII) Glint+ Soul Break and my first copy of Alma Beoulve’s (from Final Fantasy Tactics) AASB.

I think this is my first relic for Alma so can’t really use her but it’s still nice to get Awakenings from these pulls. They’re way better than getting USBs or worse, outdated and powercrept 5-star relics.

Another ticket gave me 1/11 but at least it was a new 6-star. Got Jihl Nabaat’s (from Final Fantasy XIII) Awakened Arcane Soul Break (AASB), Sadistic Heart.

This is my first relic for her. It’s for the magical dark element. Glad to have another relic to add to my magical dark team but will definitely need more before I can even think about tackling endgame content with this.

Another ticket gave me 2/11 - Scott’s (from Final Fantasy II) AASB, Kashuan Kingsblade, and an Ultra Soul Break (USB) for a Final Fantasy XIV char.

Both items were new but can’t say I’m all that pleased with either. Scott’s Awakening is for the physical fire element. My physical fire team is already stacked so Scott has no place there, especially since this is my only relic for him.

Another ticket gave me Eiko Carol’s (from Final Fantasy IX) Synchro Arcane Soul Break, Seraphic Rebirth, and a dupe of an Ultra Soul Break for a Final Fantasy III char.

It’s nice to see a 7-star relic and at least I got a Sync this time and not just the usual and useless LBO. Already have some relics for Eiko so this just made her more usable. Gonna need to look more into her and see which team I can add her to.

Conclusion

So what about you? What kind of relics did you get from the Golden Festival Relic Draw banner? Do you think FFRK should have banners that will guarantee that players will get at least 1 6-star or higher rarity relic? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions by leaving a comment below or by reblogging or replying to this post.

Notes:

screenshots are from my Final Fantasy Record Keeper game account

#final fantasy record keeper #featuring pulls for #eiko carol #snow villiers #jihl nabaat #rosa joanna farrell #fujin #from #final fantasy 8 #and more #ffrk #mobile games #games #gacha games #ffrk free draws #ffrk banner pulls #ffrk ticket pulls

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shacklesburst · 5 years ago

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I think if you wanted to make faked video evidence and you had the resources of a nation-state it would still almost always be easier and more effective to do use more traditional means. The thing about something like this is it requires a ton of work from a lot of professionals with skills that nation states rarely employ (lot of very specialized digital artists) and also a lot of very expensive hardware that they'd either have to buy or rent; all of this leaves a much longer trail of hard-to-suppress evidence than traditional filming techniques for lying; I basically think the concerning use cases for technology like this are only really relevant when it’s something someone could produce ex nihilo for like $2k or less worth of cloud computing or sth, and we’re nowhere near that. last time i checked, these things round to “which network was built with knowledge of the model/training set of the other”? Not actually sure how that plays out here and i don’t trust my intuitions bc haha what kind of idiot etc etc part of me wants to believe that the blatant disregard for facts stuff is higher profile and more obvious now that we have really really good telecom tech compared to the past, but that courtrooms / justice outcomes aren’t worse in terms of blatant misjustice than they have been in the past (as parallel to the other availability heuristic “things seem like they’re getting worse but the raw numbers do not back that up” trend we’ve seen in so many other spheres). I tried to check this with research but it’s apparently hard to get good historical statistics about wrongful convictions (read; I couldn’t find what i was looking for after 5 minutes on wikipedia).

shacklesburst:

I might not like it, but I’m mostly with you, especially on the second and third points. As for the first: like with cryptography, I think when classifying technology such as this, we have to base our calculations on the fact that actors with the resources of nation states behind them might do stuff like this. So I don’t think the worry is entirely unfounded even in the near term. (Granted, photo evidence could be retouched like this for like a century now, and we haven’t seen that much use of that other than some well-known examples. Maybe video will provide a more useful battlefield in the mind of those actors? Who can really say.)

Ad 2: Arms race between networks doctoring and networks identifying doctoring!

Ad 3: This is true and a sad state of affairs. As much as I hate the term, “post-factual” has described the tune of the times for a few years pretty well now (or maybe it’s always been like that?). If e.g. politicians can just deny undoctored video evidence right now and nobody bats an eye; all the while people in the (criminal) justice system can have iron-clad alibis and all evidence pointing in their favor, with the prosecution using blatantly obvious fakes and still get convictions, one more easily falsified kind of evidence isn’t gonna tip the scale in any measurable way. This might sound resigned but I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore in fighting this trend.

rubegoldbergsaciddreams:

...the computational power required to do this kind of detailed modeling and simulation, even in a controlled setting, is ludicrously expensive! I would not expect to see this technology used outside of hollywood for decades, we’ve mostly departed from the relevant moore’s law paths iirc Also, like... I’d be very surprised if you couldn’t train an ML network to reliably identify videos created with this technique compared to undoctored footage, and even if i’m super wrong about that...

as far as justice systems / generalized deceiving people for fun and profit goes, the ability to doctor footage or do very misleading editing has been around for decades, and at least in the US jurors overwhelmingly just believe the police when they say things, so it’s hard to see this technology making our criminal justice system worse; if the system wants to screw you over, there are much cheaper methods to do so that empirically work just as well?

smooththegoofyshark:

Oh boy I don't like that implication at all with any justice system!

armedandgayngerous:

The important lesson here is you can't trust video "evidence" anymore.

thehound:

what episode of black mirror is this

No question about it. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t get funding ... :D

part of me wants to believe that the blatant disregard for facts stuff is higher profile and more obvious now that we have really really good telecom tech compared to the past [...]

Whether it’s actually more prevalent or just more easily identifiable, it gnaws at you either way.

I think if you wanted to make faked video evidence and you had the resources of a nation-state it would still almost always be easier and more effective to do use more traditional means.

#politics #eiko <3 #oh wow what happened to this post #it's like super fucked now #this blue hellsite #the best website money can buy #if all you have is like $1.23

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