#the color...the bg...the editing were so good!!!

[butlers-guards]

Thinking how CN server's characters teaser and it was very well made

I wanted to learn how to edit like that too...

[elisedonut]

Not me using anime face claims because I'm lazy and didn't feel like editing irl images because editing with real people is so much more annoying to me

Lavender FC: Kiryu Tsukasa(im@s) Percy FC: Keito Hasumi(Enstars)

Full Collection

At nearly 14k words I have completed Microfic May 2024!

While completely ignoring the whole microfic part um- anyway~

I had a lot of fun doing this challenge and feel like I've improved a lot because of it! even though it's a bit hard to tell since the order the fics went up and the order they were written in is pretty mixed up.

Thank you very much to the hosts of the challenge!! @microficmay I know its the last year you're hosting this so I'm happy i got the chance to participate!

Individual Links and Fic Summaries and Such Below The Cut!

Also keep an eye out for the five marked with a "🪻" Because that means I consider them my favorites c:

🍎 Day 1: Create

Characters/Ship: Molly Weasley & Percy Weasley

WC: 312

Summary:

Percy accidentally staying up far too late to make a shirt for his teddy bear Tallyton.

🍐 Day 2: Warmth

Characters/Ship: Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood (Perciver)

WC: 290

Summary:

Percy brings Oliver home with him and Oliver is confused that something that was always there is suddenly not.

🍎 Day 3: Horizon 

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown

WC: 97

Summary:

Lavender is dying and she knows it.

🪻Day 4: Decision - Wand for a Kiss?🪻

Characters/Ship: Stan Shunpike/Percy Weasley (Stercy)

WC: 820

Summary:

Percy was going to miss his soulmate when he had to go back to Hogwarts. So, he chose to stay home while his family went to Egypt. To be able to spend time with him.

🍐 Day 5: Dreams & Reality - Once you decipher it, what will you see?

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown/Luna Lovegood

WC: 240 

Summary:

A few weeks before you find your soulmate they'll start haunting your dreams.

🍐 Day 6: Flare

Characters/Ship: Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley

WC: 71

Summary:

Bill is distracted.

🍎 Day 7: Innocuous - Are you sure he would like that?

Characters/Ship: Fleur Delacour & Molly Weasley

WC: 248

Summary:

Fleur and Molly are present shopping for Percy.

🍎 Day 8: Will - I'll bid my farewell to you without saying a word

Characters/Ship: Percy Weasley

WC: 538

Summary:

Percy had only a single hour to change things, to bring Fred back to his family. Another Percy decides to do something to get Fred back for his family at his own detriment fic.

🍎 Day 9: Agony

Characters/Ship: Colin Creevey & Dennis Creevey

WC: 122

Summary:

Dennis will return to Hogwarts even if he has to grit his teeth to do it.

🍐Day 10: Rise & Fall

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown/Fleur Delacour (fleurvender)

WC: 206

Summary:

Fleur can feel herself being pulled towards her.

🍎 Day 11: Curse

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown

WC: 298

Summary:

'Her scars don't define her.' Is what they keep telling her but it's difficult to believe it.

🪻Day 12: Vivid - Our path, dyed in blue.🪻

Characters/Ship: Dennis Creevey/Percy Weasley (Denperce)

WC: 736

Summary:

Until you first kiss your soulmate you will only see colour in the places that they have been, on things that they've touched. Dennis only sees colour for the first time when he enters Diagon Alley.

🍎 Day 13: Talisman - Talismans & Rabbits

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown

WC: 499

Summary:

Lavender needs to find the right item to use for a new assignment.

🍎 Day 14: Humility

Characters/Ship: Percy Weasley

WC: 74

Summary:

Percy thinking about something Penny said once.

🍎 Day 15: Nothing & Everything - Spacing Out

Characters/Ship: Dennis Creevey

WC: 216

Summary:

Sometimes it's easier to just feel nothing.

🍐 Day 16: Squabble - None of Their Concern

Characters/Ship: Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley (Bleur)

WC: 249

Summary:

Bill and Fleur like inviting others into their bed, some of the Weasleys find that weird.

🍐 Day 17: Worthy - To Be Good Enough

Characters/Ship: Marcus Flint/Percy Weasley (Flintley)

WC: 484

Summary:

Marcus is a fuck up but he's working on it.

🍐 Day 18: Healing - Pamper Me

Characters/Ship: Dennis Creevey/Percy Weasley

WC: 715

Summary:

Dennis wants to be pampered more. Percy wants to finish his work.

🍐 Day 19: Impatience - Listen To Me

Characters/Ship: Marcus Flint/Percy Weasley (Flintley)

WC: 901

Summary:

Tutoring Flint was typically an easy affair. When he's more interested in the clock and window then the words coming out of Percy's mouth though, not so much.

🪻Day 20: Push & Pull - Together with the waves, could we become happy?🪻

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown/Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley (Lavebleur)

WC: 632

Summary:

Lavender feels like she barely even knows herself anymore. Acting out in ways that seem to make sense in the moment but feel so cruel later. Luckily, she has someone around who understands what she's going through.

🍎 Day 21: Idle - Everything Changes

Characters/Ship: Percy Weasley

WC: 157

Summary:

Percy never liked moving.

🍐 Day 22: Precious - Every time we talk, "I like you" just loops in my mind

Characters/Ship: Lavender Brown/Parvati Patil (Pavender)

WC: 268

Summary:

Lavender loves days when the dorm is empty of everyone but the two of them.

🪻Day 23: Mistake - Gossip Club🪻

Characters/Ship: Angelina Johnson/George Weasley

WC: 970

Summary:

A normal night in the Weasley-Johnson household. Gossip and cooking just go so well together.

🍐 Day 24: Elation - Doomed From The Start

Characters/Ship: Colin Creevey/Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood

WC: 737

Summary:

Magic will always want you to meet your soulmate and sometimes to achieve that, rules that are known to be true have to be bent a bit. Oliver and Percy handle finding their third differently to say the least. The right answer isn't always so clear cut though.

🍎 Day 25: Day & Night - No Way of Defying The Waves of Time

Characters/Ship: Percy Weasley

WC: 522

Summary:

Percy got a great deal on this house, now if only it wasn't haunted.

🍎 Day 26: Vex - Who Do You Think You Are?

Characters/Ship: Fred Weasley & George Weasley, Remus Lupin/Percy Weasley

WC: 804

Summary:

Fred and George never thought of themselves as protective but learning that your brother's soulmate doesn't seem to want him would make anyone a little angry.

🍎 Day 27: Dandy - He's Not Blind

Characters/Ship: Roger Davies & Percy Weasley

WC: 355

Summary:

Roger is more observant than people give him credit for.

🍐 Day 28: Fetching - Masked Savior

Characters/Ship: Roger Davies/Percy Weasley

WC: 1,103

Summary:

Percy has to agree to social events to keep his family off his back, but he accidentally bites off a bit more than he can chew.

🪻Day 29: Thrall - Touching Those Petals And Asking For Their Name🪻

Characters/Ship: Sirius Black/Percy Weasley (percius)

WC: 599

Summary:

Sirius hates being at Grimmauld Place. Drowning himself in alcohol and avoiding thinking about it too much by roaming around the house.

🍎 Day 30: First & Last - That Time Dudley Almost Let his Daughter Fly Away.

Characters/Ship: Dudley Dursley & Daisy Dursley

WC: 588

Summary:

Daisy Dursley has had bouts of accidental magic in the past, but flying? Floating? He really thinks she's going to be the death of him one of these days.

🍐 Day 31: Fulfilment - Promise

Characters/Ship: Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley (Bleur)

WC: 110

Summary:

Bill is thinking too much again.

[paeinovis]

I think I'm going to switch back to a pixel for my next phone fjndjd

Like there are (very very very) few things I prefer on iOS but for writing stuff, I use my pixel 3a 99% more often. Androids are generally just a lot more customizable anyway

[pigeonstab]

@unknownsodabrand Well Lucky you, I also love the artistic process and I keep all my sketches!! (seriously this is the most self indulgent question I could ever answer, thank you sm I'm gonna ramble a while sorry)

First I was only planning on doing the one Geno Illustration, I mostly wanted to experiment with the long 1000x2000 format bc I thought It could make for an appealing composition and it ended up being pretty challenging to get right.

So. I started with some rough planning of where I wanted everything:

Since this was gonna be a full Illustration I planned the colors earlier than I usually would (I have a love/hate relationship with coloring):

Didn't really like how it came out the first time so I just put a color mask over it, I wanted something a little warmer+brighter cause the flowers looked kinda green to me (Geno's was the one that gave me the most trouble and I liked it the least at first, by the time I finished It was my favourite XD)

Then I decided to make the three parts:

again used the same planning, rough sketch then color.

Then onto actually starting the Illustrations. I worked on these one by one but I'll show the process for all three by the steps rather than saying the same thing thrice.

as much as I wanted to keep the best for last I couldn't help myself and did the characters first.

Lineart:

(Error was supposed to be holding a golden flower so I made his hand's lineart and color layers it's own folder so I wuldn't mess it up trying to draw the flower. I looked a bit stupid so I scrapped the idea)

Flat color:

(I think I did Error's coloring after his background?)

In terms of backgrounds:

for Sans I started with the grid pattern, so I used a ruler tool and went in with color directly (the gradients are changes I did at the very end but I'm not editting out) Then I added the columns and the flowers were a last minute addition because the piece just felt a bit... naked. (also! I say columnS cause I planned on putting two, couldn't make it work the angle and space so I scrapped the bottom one)

The light is a yellowish white with gaussian blur of orange, it's an 'add' layer? ("ajouter(éclat)" because my app is in french) It's about 50% opacity.

I also shaded Sans at the same time as this with a multiply layer with a dark and light color (reddish brown and like light yellow) I'm not showing it bc I do have a 30 image limit I think

Then for Error's background it's just a case of making the lineart for the hammock, haing a layer underneath for the color, a white bg with blue gradient and the strings

For geno I have underneath the black to grey of the save screen, then I have the moss and the flowers

(The flowers were very fun to make I think I only copy pasted one?)

The lighting is a multiply layer over the whole image made the exact same way as Sans' coloring, I thought it was maybe a bit too dark so I dupplicated geno's lineart and colors folder to overlay over the lighting so he would pop more (seeing this now I think either would have been good. The first one might be better actually)

and that's it I think! If you read all of this, well first of all thank you but don't you have anything better to do?

also revised Geno's sketch once but it didn't fit in any where:

Error with my attemps of making the flowers work

[insidethemachine]

Samatoki Aohitsugi - Hypnosis Microphone 碧棺 左馬刻 - ヒプノシスマイク

Heyo, how’s it going~? 

Here it is the baddie of Samatoki xd I dont like him very much (why he has to be so mean to Ichiro sometimes ;-;) but I love how he raps, grows over all the lore and protects Nemu uwu also he turned quite the fine man in 3D lol

Talking about the sims, I had quite the travel with the shirt and boots in... in blender xD I know I said i wouldnt touch the damn program (I am a Maya fanboy (?)) but this shirt was the only one that checked all the boxes, just that it had a pocket and the pocket was a different UV island obviously so I had to re uv a little xd I tried adding more buttons but it didnt go well lol I suppose it is bcs i have to paint weight or add the buttons to the rig but i dont know shit about rigging lol The boots was just scaling them up a little cause they were clipping badly with all jeans I tried unu didnt want the jeans to go over bcs... thats not how Sama wears his boots xd does he have tats? I dont know, but I didnt add any either lol

also see this beautiful eyesss @pralinesims you diy eyes are so GOD uwuwu

cc list uwu:

Skin: https://mousysims.tumblr.com/post/627162293823848448/face-only-skinblend-masculine-feminine-all by @mousysims

Eyes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/di-eye-diy-eye-34678649 by @pralinesims Eyelashes: http://kijiko-catfood.com/3d-lashes-uncurled-eyelashes-edition/ http://kijiko-catfood.com/eyebrow-ver2/ by @kijiko-sims

Hair: https://www.patreon.com/posts/69024002 by @zaozzaa

Bracelet, piercings, necklace amd boots: https://losts4cc.tumblr.com/post/640675057738317824/s4simomo-anime-cc by Simomo, I did scale up the boots a little xd they erased all their cc and sns (i had their cc from long ago xd), be cautious when downloading not from original source >< (that's why I put full links, is not aesthetic, but at least you can select it and paste it yourself and know before hand where you are going xd, I havent had problems with the sim comm but you never know sadly...) Shirt: https://www.patreon.com/posts/kk-collar-shirts-52975513 by @ooobsooo, retextured by me Jeans: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50105559 by @gorillax3-cc CAS BG: https://vyxated.tumblr.com/post/719719135185092608/cas-replacements-set-02 by @vyxated Reshade: https://fiesemietze.tumblr.com/post/641246832367992832/preface-download-at-the-end-reshade-version by @fiesemietze Poses: https://nell-le.tumblr.com/post/189644526639/male-model-pose-pack-n1-27-male-poses-ingame-and by @nell-le https://katverse.com/2019/10/25/pose-pack-22/ by @katverse https://karzalee.wixsite.com/studiok/post/2018/04/28/skc-male-pose-set-4 by @karzalee https://www.patreon.com/posts/request-sitting-48869510 by @helgatisha this time i downloaded all new brand poses so I know which I used xd

If something is missing, you can found it in my last posts maybe xd. As always, if you want some retexture just pm me uwu

That’s all for today~, next comes fancy corrupt cop Iruma Jyuto uwu I really like him xd last year I made his sim but it turned quite bad hope i can re do it and turns smth good xd good thing that I lost that save so I can start fresh xd just sad cause I liked my old Rio (Rio is one of my favs uwu) unu

little extra, wanted to share my buster bros desktop uwu

they look so cool uwuwu I retouched the image a little cause the lighter in me likes a good bloom in a bright image lol also matched the visualizer to their colors uwu

baii!

[crescencestudio]

Devlog #29 | 03.27.23

Hi everyone!

April is almost here, which terrifies me since the year is going by so fast. Before I get into game updates, I wanted to share a bit of a (somewhat) personal one.

This month, progress on Alaris was overall a bit slow---or at least, slower than usual. I noticed this month I was struggling a lot with working on basically anything, whether it was for school, work, Alaris, or just taking care of myself. And I realized basically a year late that I was feeling extremely burnt out.

For those who have been following Alaris for a long time, you may know that early 2022, I was struggling with a lot of personal circumstances. I had taken a week off back then to "take time for myself," but in actuality, I had continued working on Alaris and other things because sometimes when I have too much time on my hands, it's worse for my mental health. This was a recurring theme for basically all of 2022. Even during the holiday breaks (e.g., summer, November, December, etc.), I continued working on Alaris, partly because I love the project, partly because it helps me cope with irl things.

This past month, I think the break that I've desperately needed since the start of 2022 made itself Very Apparent and made progress slow on my end. I'm very sorry if the update this month is disappointing because of that! I tried to take a break this past week and am feeling a bit better now, so hopefully, things start to get back on track this upcoming month <3 With that, I'll get into actual updates!

Writing

I'm not going to lie to you all; writing was Slow this month LOL. Basically, the entire writing team got taken out by some sickness or another. I would say for 2-3 weeks of the month, there was no progress on editing or writing at all since everyone was sick at the same time <\3 We are starting to pick things back up, but please send your best wishes to the writing team since they were Going Through It this month!! Also, if you got sick this month and got whatever has been going around globally, I hope you are feeling better as well <333

I did update a good amount of the demo script---just rewriting things since my writing style has changed a little. Small things, but hopefully enjoyable changes nonetheless!

Art

As always, we have continued to make progress on BG art. This month, Vui finished the River BG and the Forest BG, both of which appear in Chapter 2 of the demo. We actually only have one more BG to finish, which is the Flower Field, and all the BGs for the demo will be complete (ahh!!!). It's been about 5 (?) months in the making to revamp all the BGs for the demo, but we are finally reaching the finish line, and everything is slowly getting ready for a revamped demo release ^^

preview of the forest BG

I also have a preview of the GUI for you all! There will be some small changes, like colors, before the final version. But a little crumb to feed you all since I didn't make much progress this month

I also mentioned in the last devlog how I might update the personality icons for Alaris, which were completed this month by the same item artist who did the affection point icons!

The overall vision for this was little potions to build on the "magical" setting of Alaris. I think they're much easier to differentiate and so cute <3

My focus was more on demo art assets for this month, so I finished up the individual CGs for each of the LI's introductions.

soft and fluffy updated Etza CG

I also started updating the sprites a bit---mostly small touches so the art looks a bit more cohesive since my style has changed a bit since the demo first came out. Aisa and Kuna'a are receiving outfit changes so that their clothing stands out from Central gang and looks more cohesive with the aesthetic that will be used for Fae.

Additional Notes

Something else I got to work on this month was finally reviewing the demo voiced lines in full. I hope you all are EXCITED to listen to them in the updated demo! A lot of the lines had me giggling (heehee!). I can't wait to see everything together once it's coded into the game ^^

I also opened applications for playtesters. They close at the end of this month, aka in a couple of days. So if you are interested, please don't forget to submit an application! Thank you already to everyone who has submitted something. The response was more than I expected, so as always, I appreciate the support you all provide wah <3

Market Research

Lastly, I actually got to do some "market research" this month (yay!). I finished up Piofiore finally.

the man, the legend: gilbert redford

Touchstarved also came out. I unfortunately haven't been able to play the demo yet since I was traveling when it was released, but I already know I'll love it and I drew Kuras even though I haven't even played the game yet LMAO

gender envy

Anyways, I think that's enough from me, so that is all for this month's update! Stay safe, and see you all next month <3

[rockanroller]

The animation was pretty good, the one thing that bugged me to no end were charlie and vaggies bangs they were really distracting and just off character models but the animators put their all, the camera and editing isn’t good. BG/props/color keys were great but too great like it eat the characters up so much, not even Scott pilgrim or castlevania nocturne had this problem Voice acting was ok. Erika is the best thus far Alastor and nifty are alright, Vaggie Angel and husk were rough, Vaggie just sounds dead, Angel goes from sounding like a nasally teenager to trying to sound like Michael, and Keith doesn’t fit husk. They dropped a new clip of husk and Angel. You can hear Kieth David more and he drops the gruff and sticks with his smooth voice and it doesn’t work with Husk. I know people are tired of hearing this but Keith voice doesn’t fit Husk.

Vox and Vel were really good. I thought adam was bad (he is he’s really bad) but man Valentino is terrible, he’s not menacing, he’s keeping changing accents and he’s voices cracks so much it’s funny but also sad I can’t take him seriously he’s such a joke. This was the guy everyone was hyping up on the crew and fanart? People were saying the dialogue sheets they got leaked were old, they were not old, some of the stuff that was on that sheet made to the Final Cut except worse somehow.

people were saying sir pent new va was good and I heavily disagree he sounds worse than the pilot VA. I couldn’t stand his voice.

agreed on the animation/bg/props/color remarks. especially how Charlie & Vaggie's bangs were distracting, they really were especially when it seems like it was such a struggle keeping them on-model making it even more distracting. for the voice acting it's really interesting to me seeing so many different takes on the VA's various performances.

i do think having many of the fans so enthralled with the pilot, hearing voices that are different is jarring, especially if they don't feel like they add up to or match the previous voices' performances or tones. replacing the cast was a really iffy decision and many are insistent it never should've happened while others feel there "had" to have been *some* reason for it. and of course replacing pilots casts isn't unheard of--Billy West voiced Zim in the IZ Pilot episode and we all know that changed, and Richard Horvitz knocked it out of the park and made Zim into an extremely memorable character for many.

but i won't deny there are some obvious weaknesses. these are my personal takes on the voice acting, and you may disagree:

-Charlie was fine, in some points very good, fun execution. the only thing i wasn't a fan of was the "voice breaking about to cry bc this story i'm reading is just so sad" moments she had while reading the "creation story" at the beginning of the first episode, made me cringe. and i do agree with others who've said her cussing felt out of place. (some were fine/ok enough, but others weren't) -Vaggie was...weird, it felt like her voice didn't match, but i got used to it. tho i agree with what some have said how her voice was "too" low-emotion to the point it was bland. i felt her saying "fuck" in her "what the *FUCK* was that" at Alastor felt forced--later swears were ok--and her duetted line in Charlie's Happy Day In Hell song sounded so off that it startled me. -Angel Dust was in and out--his first few lines were *very* rough. voice was all over and cracked in a way that wasn't natural or charming, felt more to me of an "I'm trying too hard to do a specific voice" type of crack/strain. tho i think it either smoothed out or i got used to it bc i didn't notice it the rest of ep 1 or all of ep 2. -Alastor was fine to me. many say they prefer Ed's performance but i haven't seen the pilot since it came out so i'd have to rewatch to say for sure if i feel it's any sort of "downgrade". but i *did* notice, twice, there were lines where they just suddenly dropped his radio filter? that was really weird. it felt like it was supposed to be for...idk...emphasis? like "oh he meant that the filter turned off" but it was just jarring. i also know some feel that they toned down the radio filter too far, but i thought it was okay, and as someone who has a hard time hearing words if they aren't crystal clear, i had a much easier time understanding Alastor in these first 2 episodes than i did in the pilot. -Husk didn't jar me, Keith seemed fine, but again having not seen the pilot in years and Husk having less lines (i think?) i can't remember what Husk originally sounded like. but you're probably right about the gruff getting lost in his lines later. overall it kinda sounded like Keith really enjoyed the cussing and i'm kinda solidly divided on if that made it feel more forced or more natural. -Nifty i *think* was good/decent? she had fewer lines and very brief moments so they went by quickly. -Vox was good, no complaints -Vel was also good, no complaints -Val, like you say, was a mess. right from the get-go his accent was all over the place. it was there, then it wasn't, then another accent was, then it wasn't, then finally several lines later he slipped into this deeper "sexy" accent and i finally was like "oh *that's* what accent it's supposed to be"--he literally would flip-flop between "saucy/menacing voice with an accent" to "flat American voice that's literally just some guy" and it was bewildering. -Adam i loved and i personally feel Alex nailed the lines, i think if anyone else did it he would've been insufferable to me--but i can see how some felt Adam came off badly / too strong. he made me laugh, altho i kinda expect as a character he's going to get worse, it was only his initial appearance that amused me and to reiterate from my last post i lowkey suspect it only made me laugh so much bc the episode so far had already worn me down. -Lute i wanna say was fine but i kinda frankly don't remember. -Sir Pentious was fine to me--really silly--but i again am gonna say i barely remember his pilot voice so i can't say if it's a downgrade to me or not. hearing it w/o remembering what Stamper's performance was like had me feeling like it was a good voice, and he had good moments that made me chuckle. -Katie Killjoy i already mentioned in a previous post but i *really* don't know what they were thinking having Brandon not only voice her but not even do anything unique with it? it was jarring and felt super out-of-place to me. i honestly think his execution was pretty mid as well. i think that's everyone? lmk if i forgot any or you wanna know anything else. and ty for giving me your two cents in the ask!

[mareastrorum]

Don't forget all the racism in Warcraft's writing which has actually gotten worse over the years whilst even DnD has gotten better over the years.

I mean, it’s hard for me to say Blizzard’s racist writing got worse when Warcraft Trolls were incredibly transparent stand-ins for African and Central American cultures/races from the beginning. That’s not even getting into goblins as the banking/neutral race before a goblin faction joined the Horde. Honestly, other people have written about racism in the narrative of WoW lore at length, and I wouldn’t be able to do half as good a job since I haven’t played in a while.

A key problem with Blizzard’s writing in WoW is that there is no coherent story. It’s an amalgamation of plots conceived by writers without any accountability, which results in an absurd number of retcons and contradictions. It’s a collaborative story with no central lore document. Nothing is actually set in stone. Sometimes the change is genuinely an improvement over prior lore (shadow priests, old gods, and the Void Lords, as they were elaborated upon in Legion), sometimes it’s painfully anticlimactic and nonsensical (Tyrande fails to kill Sylvanas in the Ardenweald because her powers suddenly cut out), and sometimes it’s obvious a team got written into a corner by a different team and the plot just needs to move on (no negative repercussions for Illidan killing Xe’ra in front of her Army of the Light on their flagship). That means that some quest lines are really well done, others are plagued with racism and bullshit, and every possible mix in between.

Like, how Sylvanas was handled throughout the Shadowlands expansion is peak WoW writing. Obvious plot armor, flimsy justifications for her choices because half the writers didn’t want her to be a villain, a half-assed cardboard cutout of a redemption arc so they could fridge her for later, and the cheesiest vague dialogue possible so that future retcons wouldn’t feel as disappointing. I was so excited for her to go genocidal in Battle for Azeroth, committing to a truly evil option that the players band together to stop, and then it was followed by that. Because Blizzard decided to walk back the “genocide is bad” message. For reasons.

I haven’t played WoW since the end of Shadowlands, so I can’t speak as to the changes since then. I doubt they’re better. And I want to be clear: I adored Xal’atath. I mained a shadow priest the entire time I played, which was about 8 years total. The lore of my preferred class was all about self-worship and tapping into dark power in one’s own soul until it was retconned into worshiping Eldritch horrors, and I loved both iterations. I had several now-unobtainable PVP titles. I did BGs and Arenas. I did progression raiding. I had max level toons in every class on multiple servers. My main was in the top 10 for achievement points on our server. I had over 400 days played. I was the lore nerd of my raiding guild. I did that silly trivia bot game every time I came across it in the hub city. I collected mounts, pets (before they were even battle pets) , and toys (when they still took up bag space). I spent a lot of time playing WoW and immersing in the experience.

I never played WoW for the story. The writing was always horribly inconsistent. Writers’ racial and class biases always worked their way into random quests, dialogue, and narrative beats. But you know what? I’m a POC, and that’s everywhere. WoW wasn’t unique for that.

WoW has been around for about 20 years at this point, Warcraft for even longer—so now those stances engrained in the lore aren’t as widely accepted anymore. They were always wrong. It’s just that now more people agree that it’s wrong. I’m no longer on the fringes for thinking “man, it would be nice to have a human character with my skin color” or “it would be nice to see elements of my culture shown through something other than a cannibalistic troll empire.”

D&D benefits from the fact that they release new editions, so the lore from prior editions is easier to sweep under the rug. There is no WoW 2. It’s just WoW. If D&D had taken a similar expansion process as WoW instead of editions, they’d be much more comparable. D&D racism isn’t really “better”—I just haven’t spent quite the same number of hours spent learning it to play a game.

[pqrachel]

Art Fight 2024 Final Thoughts

I'm working on probably my last Art Fight attack for the season. If I get an attack during the extension period I'll still try to revenge but if not I want to be done with Art Fight by the end of the month.

Overall I'm currently at 12 attacks given and only 3 defenses received. Which is an 80% attack rate.

EDIT: Since this post I've done another two attacks and gotten 2 more back so my rate is around 75% now, which is awesome. Late attacks weren't something I was expecting but they mean so much to me.

I definitely still had fun despite the attack ratio, lots of great art came out of this month thanks to the event. I'm pretty sure the lower number of attacks received is because I don't have any specific references for any of my characters (only art that I've done of them in other contexts) and the characters that I want attacks for the most (that are at the top of my profile page) aren't the same as the ones others want to draw so they skip my page after looking at my first row. The attacks I did receive were amazing don't get me wrong but they were all from characters on my 3rd row or below so they had to actually go into my characters page and find something, so I know there's a bit of a mismatch there and maybe I could have gotten more attacks if I put my more unique characters up front for more people to see.

And yeah I wanted to compile all my attacks in one place too so here goes.

My favs are probably these 3, the poses were fun and the non-human elements let me leave me comfort zone but like just barely, they're still very much my style.

This year I did a couple sketchy attacks too which was nice. Some started out sketchy but I colored them and did some minor changes after and they still looked good. Definitely gonna start with a sketch and just go from there more often after this Art Fight. I barely did any separate sketch and line layers at all and it was so nice not having to do that step.

And yeah overall I really enjoyed this year's Art Fight. Definitely made me think about my style a bit. Even though I didn't experiment outside of my style too much this year other than trying some animals and a couple unique BGs which I don't usually do, I kind of got into the flow of it and just kept going. I got to a dozen or so attacks done that I'm super happy with overall.

Here's my attack page if you want to check out any of the people who made the characters or anything like that.

[gamebunny-advance]

Doodle Dump (NSR Edition)

Notes + Captions Below

1-2) Primary Trio + Suplex. First sketches to the "White vs. Green" response ask. The other 3 are kinda indifferent to

3) "How does White Smoke?" I've thought about making a comic explaining how/why Desync!White smokes when he's a robot. The short answer is that 1010 actually do have a "lung," but it's function is less as a respiratory system and more of a cooling system.

Captions:

*This is a non-canon depiction of the character

Mayday: Hey professor, if 1010 is a robot? Don't you need to inhale/exhale air to smoke?

DJSS: Well, let me tell you!

4) XIO + Crew doodles. I don't think I've ever drawn XIO's crew in this AU.

5) Kun3h0!AU Doodles. Part of a comic about White asking why their outfits reveal so much skin when they're built for combat. I thought the idea and punchline were funny, but it feels kinda weird to write a an AU!Comic based on my OCs before I've ever done anything with those OCs. XP

Captions:

GAB (NJ): Hah? Are you really asking something that basic?

White: I just figured that if I'm-

6) "Headbands". An idea I had for Kliff to model different types of headbands. Left to right, top to bottom they are: Elastic, Alice, Alice (ribbon style), B-Style.

7) "Keychains". This is actually a VERY old sketch (you can tell 'cus the BG color is kinda off). Anyway, my dream is to have little keychains of these two, but I dunno who would make/want them besides me ;3;. (Maybe a handful of people, but not enough to get them seriously made XP)

8) B2J x Sanrio. Sketches of the next NSR x Sanrio set. Dunno when I'll get around to finishing it.

9-12) "Slutty?" This was the original response to the "Slutty White" ask I got.

TBH, I was kinda baffled by the ask when I first got it. Like I originally said in my response, almost every word in it was "wrong," because I don't think that I've ever shown Dsync!White as being particularly promiscuous (nor was he "absent" to his "sons." In no uncertain terms, Dsync!White is Green's abuser which, ya know, requires him to have been very involved in Green's life.)

Like, I know that some people just call characters/people "sluts" as a "joke," because it's a "naughty" word that invokes the idea that the character is sexy and sexual.

But it just rubs me the wrong way for anyone to say that about Dsync!White. I know part of it is that everything I know/think about Dsync!White isn't public, so things like how he is actually sex-repulsed (well, human-repulsed really) are things y'all don't know, but even with just what I've posted about him so far, I still don't get how anyone could take away that he was a slut.

But I figured I was just over thinking it, so I decided to roll with the "joke" at the time, but I'm really not okay with calling him a slut like it's a good thing. Like, I don't mind if people say that about Canonish!White or XIO, because they are openly sexual and are proud of it, but Dsync!White absolutely isn't.

Captions:

White: Slutty?

White: HEY! Just because I'm provacative doesn't make me a slut!

White: For the record, I've never had sex once in my 30 years of service.

Green: Never?

White: Never.

Green: Not once?

White: Not once.

This was supposed to go on a lot longer, but I already decided I didn't want to pick a fight with anon that probably just didn't know any better and turned the first panel into the response I posted.

[yunwooz]

OK THANK U SOMEONE ELSE ALSO DOESNT LIKE ATEEZ TEASER PHOTOS. Like don’t get me wrong the guys themselves are serving, esp love Sans hair. But can we just talk abt the fcking clothing and background colours??? Hongjoongs hair literally melting into the bg?? Le sigh. And how overly photoshopped the pics are😭😭😭😭

oh wait i really do like the concept pics LOL 😭 i really love the clothes and outfits as a whole esp, as far as the background, it sorta looks like they went in after the fact and changed the color of the background and it maybe wasn't that color originally 😭 i don't quite get what you mean about hongjoong's hair, in the og concept pic it stands out quite a bit from the bg imo? the way i personally edited it, it def melts into the bg but that was a personal choice bc i prefer darker tones and deeper contrast TT black red and gold are one of my fav color combinations i really love that, and i do think a grey bg was a smart decision considering the detailing and embellishments on the outfits themselves but the bg itself looks a bit odd to me?? esp in this photo you can really see where they did some weird weird things in editing

like these portions of the background look very heavily edited in a bad way and from what i saw of the other photos it seems that grey grainy looking thing is indeed part of the set and it's a hanging banner but i think overall they should not have included that in the trio pic bc it leads the eye there in a bad way

and personally to me it looks like they overedited seonghwa's face in this photo or maybe its how they did the makeup bc the saturation of his eye makeup is not the same on both sides and the way they styled the mullet looks like they just attached a triangle of hair onto the back of his head rather than something more natural TT

if i were an editor for kq i personally would've done something like this to the pics, but this is also a preferred personal style of editing. i think higher contrast in the background would keep it from looking muddled, and more saturation to the skin and bright reds and golds would keep the photo from looking so greyed out and muddy as well as provide some nice contrast to look at ^^ i always do some sort of noise filter on pics i edit but i think that would look esp good with this concept since it's a royal concept and since it's harkening back to wonderland, even a sepia filter might look nice to mimic the gold tones of wonderland pics! but again that's all just personal opinion and what my eye would have preferred seeing.

[confusedsiewmai]

Thanks for tagging me @solarotters !!!

tag someone you want to know better

favorite color: blue (all shades of them are pretty)

last song: ODDTAXI by スカートとPUNPEE

last movie: Nausicaa... *sighs dreamily* I've rewatched it a ton... It's up there in terms of Ghibli movies

currently watching: nothing right now oof... Just finished one piece live action though!

other stuff i watched this year: Spiderverse, Good Omens, Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, Skip and Loafer, Slam Dunk: The First (not a lot,,,,,,, oof)

shows i dropped this year/didn’t finish: The Vampire Dies in No Time... I tried to watch it cos a bunch of Japanese artists I follow were drawing fanart for it and i got curious but welp

currently reading: Dracula Daily (dk if that counts), all my fucking readings.

currently listening to (sneaky additional question!): nothing right now... I'm pretty drained so I don't have the energy to continue or start a podcast... Currently, if I need bg that isnt music, I listen to SaveData's The Great Ace Attorney playthrough

currently working on: Honours Thesis... (it's a game project whee but also ughh). Also, I'm editing Good Omens to a Cantonese song :D Very excites about that one.

current obsession: GOOD OMENS 100% I rotate aziraphale and crowley in my brain!!

Tagging @dystopian-intellectual-pigeon @yurissweettooth @seeveekat @phoenixwrightismydad @mbpokemonrulez

Only if u want to of course

[sparrowofsong]

GUYS I’VE DISCOVERED MEDIBANG AND I’M SO HAPPY

[cal-kestis]

hi!! i am absolutely obsessed with your mulan edit (and the rest of them like. holy shit they're all fucking incredible. but that one in particular) and i was wondering if you'd mind sharing how you made the fifth gif? if you're not feeling it or don't do that sort of thing, no worries, it's just so unique and i think i can parse it but i really would love to hear about your process! regardless, thank you for sharing it and i hope you have a lovely day/night!

Hi there!! Thank you!!! 🥺 I'm always happy to talk about gif-making! 💙 (I also just made a new tag for tumblr/photoshop help and some of my other mini tutorials)

I used a few techniques in this gif. So, I'll quickly talk about the typography + shapes and multiple blended gifs. But I'll go more in-depth on the delayed fade-in transition since, I think, that's the most unique aspect of this gif (I haven't seen anyone do it before, but I'm sure I didn't break ground here either lol). I didn’t expect to get so detailed but hopefully that’s a good thing. 😅 More under the cut!

If you’re not here for the typography and if you already know how to blend, skip to the end for the delayed fade-in transition effect. But since I’m not sure what you already know (and because I hope this can be helpful for others too), I’ll try to explain in as much detail as I can.

PART 1: TYPOGRAPHY + SHAPES

Here are all the specs for the typography and shapes! 

The pen tool is my best friend for interesting typography. Just click to create a point and continue clicking to connect the dots with straight lines! To create a curve, you just long-press and drag your cursor until you get the curve you want. You can also use this tool to create paths, like wavy lines, and write text on them (I did this in the second gif of the same set).

PART 2: MULTIPLE BLENDED GIFS

There are lots of tutorials about how to blend gifs so I’m mostly just going to talk about the details for my gifs.

For context: I use the Timeline method — so I make my screencaps, load into stack, convert frames into smart object, sharpen, etc. [For any blending beginners: When you use Timeline to blend, it’s important to have the same amount of caps for each scene, otherwise, your gif will create duplicate frames for one scene while the other scene continues to move. This makes the animation look choppy/not smooth.]

Start with your base gifs as sharpened smart objects, then put them all into one canvas. If you don’t have a clear idea for your composition, my advice would be to make sure you have “Delete Cropped Pixels” unchecked when you use the crop tool. This will preserve the cropped out parts of your gif, so you can still use them if you decide to move things around. Do this all with the upper gif layers set to Screen, so you can see how the gifs will intersect and blend. Now, let’s talk about the coloring and blending modes I used.

THE BG: Let’s start with the background gif. I’m going to call it the BG (the one with Mulan grabbing Mushu from the sword and running away). I colored the BG as I normally would on its own. Since this was a rainbow set, I also made the blue pretty saturated. Whenever I blend, I always put all the layers per scene into groups. So I put the adjustment layers and the gif into a grouped folder. Keep this group below everything else and leave the group’s blending mode set to Pass Through.

THE FIREWORKS OVERLAY: This is the wide shot gif at the bottom. I colored this so the lighter portions (the reds and yellows of the explosion) were as vibrant as possible and the darker portion (the sky) was as black as possible. When you set the blending mode to Screen for blending, it’s important to have this contrast to make the blending as seamless as possible. The light portions are most visible when it’s overlaid above the BG. And because I made the sky super black, I didn’t have to erase the edges with a layer mask to blend it into the BG.

THE BW OVERLAY: Next is the black and white overlay gif (the one that fades in but I’ll go over that later). Color this however you like to do black and white coloring. I like gradient maps and levels. But remember, like before, creating contrast is crucial. Set this group to Screen as well and you can always go back to your adjustment layers and tinker with them until you like how the gifs blend! Here’s what it looks like broken down with the frames on their own and then blended on top of each other:

PART 3: DELAYED FADE-IN TRANSITION

So, this idea came about because I didn’t like how all the light areas of the smoke blocked Mulan’s face in the BG as she was running off screen. So, I thought, if the overlay explosion happened later, just as Mulan’s face goes off screen, it wouldn’t overlap! 

Now, before I get into how I did it... remember how I said you need to have the exact same amount of caps per scene when blending, otherwise things get choppy? Well, that all kind of goes out the window here for two reasons:

Problem 1: We’re moving one smart object gif. Once you move a smart object gif layer away from the beginning of the timeline, the frame synchronization can go wonky if you’re not paying attention. 

Problem 2: We’re using Timeline’s fade tool. It’s such a handy tool, but when you convert back to Frame Animation (which you absolutely MUST do if you do the bulk of your work in Timeline), you’ll see it: revenge of the duplicate layers.

I’ll go over how to mitigate these issues as I continue explaining. I’m going to reference the different colored lines and boxes in the screenshot below as we walk through the steps I took.

1. First, I moved my BW Overlay gif so it started a little later than the other gifs. You can see I moved it almost to the halfway point of the BG, where I placed the playhead (the vertical red line).

2. Problem 1 — If you were to export your gif right now and if you were lucky enough to move your gif to the perfect spot on the first try, your gif would look smooth. But if you didn’t move it to the perfect spot, you’d notice some choppy animation. Timeline does a weird thing with frame delays. You see this when you convert back to frames: some frames are at 0.07 sec and others are at 0 sec or something (that’s why we always have to reset the frame delay before exporting). I don’t know how to explain why this happens, I just know it does. But because of this, making gifs start at different points in Timeline creates gaps. The way I fixed this was by zooming in on the Timeline as much as possible. Then I kept clicking the next frame button while moving my BW Overlay over one frame at a time until all the gifs were all moving at the same time and stopped at the same time. It’s really just trial and error, and you keep nudging things til it’s in sync and the animation looks smooth.

3. Now, if I had only done these two steps, my BG and Firework Overlay would have just stopped and you would have seen the BW Overlay blended over nothing. See the vertical pink line? That’s where the gifs all stopped before I did Step 1. They wouldn’t be moving behind my BW Overlay. They wouldn’t even be visible. That’s where the green boxes come in. I labeled those green boxes “Freeze Frames” because they’re the very last frame of each gif, frozen. So, it’s as if the original gifs simply stopped on the last frame for an extended amount of time. You can have your BG continue to loop instead, but to minimize the distraction as my BW Overlay faded in, I decided to make them still frames. (You can make a freeze frame by duplicating your layer, moving the playhead/red line to the last frame of the scene, right-clicking, the layer and selecting “Rasterize Layer.” Move the freeze frame so it’s after your gif.)

4. Problem 2 — The easy part here is adding the Fade transition. The annoying part is the magically appearing duplicate layers. To do this simple Fade transition, just click that square in Timeline with the diagonal split. Then, I dragged the Fade effect (yellow box) over the beginning of my BW Overlay (other yellow box). The Fade effect is indicated by the right-angle triangle. All looks fine and dandy until you finish the rest of your gif, convert back to frames, adjust your frame delay, and see choppiness due to some duplicates. Luckily, the duplicates only pop up where the fade transition is. Again, idk how to explain why this happens, it just does. And to fix it, I simply go to the spot where the fade starts and delete all the duplicate frames until I get to the end of the fade. Once the duplicates are gone, it’s all good and the animation should be a lot smoother!

And ta-da! That’s pretty much how I made this gif:

I’m sorry this was so long a;slkdfjs 😅 Please feel free to ask any specific questions if I made something unclear!! I hope this helps! 

[oswlld]

Show Your Coloring Before & After

was tagged by @rose-nebulijia + @laowen ♥ thank u babes

As previously mentioned, all edits are done on mobile apps. Here, I specifically wanted to focus on the raw export onto my computer before sizing/fonts are applied. SW and MARVEL caps typically have screencap galleries in 2160p, while most BL’s I cap myself are required to be 1080p or more. And the most important thing I look for, before editing, is a cap that already shows good lighting and composition. That way, the editing elevates the image.

I won’t go into detail for each edit, but I can touch on my common adjustments and then call out what additional work needed to be achieved for the final edit.

VSCO is my main app for coloring. In addition to having a better quality camera than the built-in one I have, the presets and adjustments achieve better results than other apps I used for IG. I gravitate towards exposure, white balance, vignette, and grain (rip grain 2020-2022, nothing happened but im still bitter its now a subscription feature).

At this point, I am very in tune with what I look for in my edits, so I know how to measure my adjustments and the number range for each (ex: grain ranged between 2.8 to 4.1 depending on the resolution). I now rely on Snapseed for Grain, which is under Grainy Film.

Snapseed is also my go-to app for my most recent editing style — the scratchy or film clip borders (Frames) and then the borders (Expand). If there’s a dusty film look or blurred text, they were overlays (Double Exposure). I’ve also used Perspective, Selective, and Lens Blur in past edits. And of course, text is available here but there’s a limited selection.

When I have made all the necessary adjustments, I specifically save as an Export (not Save or Save a Copy) with the final changes. I find that the Exported images from Snapseed (VSCO too) size down better than the Saved versions.

Size matters, in regards to these edits. Why? I manipulate the size down (commonly from ~1500px+ width to less than 900px), so that the grain is accentuated (and looks sharper). In the end, coloring does skew slightly underneath the grain, which gives off that photograph look moreso than the raw export. Feel free to click on the images to enlarge and see the differences close up. I didn’t mess with the sizing, so it should look slightly different than the post

Additional work for the selected edits are below the cut -

Random BB Screen Cap #12 (Frame 5) - very minimal adjustments, exposure and grain did most of the work

Anakin from Ep VI (Frame 1) - also very minimum, before the additional frame and border; white balance leans heavily on the red side of the spectrum (I think it was above 3.0) before adjusting the saturation down a smidge.

KinnPorsche/War of the Foxes (Frame 4) - I use the B5 preset for all b/w edits in VSCO; image was very mid in coloring, so I used Brush in Snapseed to “burn” the bg

Weeping Angels Set (Frame 12) - very little adjustments needed; white balance leaned more yellow for warmth, in order to work cohesively with the surrounding images; 

BB/Jane Eyre (Frame 2) - again, very little need to be adjusted; the seat lean more pink, but I needed the set to match the purple in Frame 3; white balance leans more blue

The Good Place (Frame 3) - similar to all above statements with adjustments; the additional ’scratches’ come from Unfold, another app I use frequently for this affect and others; I believe this can be found under Journals(?); I export the template and then go back to Snapseed to crop out the excess

BB Top 3 Eps (Frame 2) - Unfold again, but this is under the Paper series; if I want variety in the “folds”, I would flip the image upside down

BB Film Noir #2 (Frame 1) - the only time I used contrast and exposure to its extremes; also heavily relies on using Double Exposure in Snapseed to add in the old film effects and blurred text

Feel free to reach out if you want to know some specifics or if you want to just learn how to apps work. Will also add this to the q&a section.

tagging @mrdumpling @actually-yikes @pranpats @taeminie @loversmore @liyazaki @dingyuxi (no pressure if you’ve already done it or whatnot, i just adore you guys okay)​

[crescencestudio]

Devlog #28 | 02.26.23

Hi everyone! We are already close to March, which is crazy to me. This year is flying by oml. Our little team continues to work hard to bring Alaris to life, so let's see what we've been up to this month!

Writing

I officially, officially finished Fenir's draft this month---plot, personality options, romance choices, and more. And we are sitting at almost 50k words now, bringing us close to where Kayn's route is at! So, I'll be shifting to developmental editing for Fenir's route now. Kayn's route is also getting the last finishing touches before I hand it off for final editing to our line editor.

I have some exciting news now that Kayn's route is just about wrapped up with developmental changes, which I'll be announcing at the beginning of March, so stay tuned!

Now that Kayn and Fenir's routes are in other people's hands, I'm hoping to start Druk's route this upcoming month! I was initially supposed to work on his route after Kayn, but I was having trouble writing it. Since then, I've gotten a good amount of inspiration, so I'm excited to return to his character <3

Art

Vui has continued to build out the beautiful world of Alaris. Here, we have the Cafe BG, which we will see in Free Time, and the Library BG! I continue to be blown away by his ability to create such beautiful pieces, and I can't wait to see everything in-game.

I also recently commissioned a friend for some item art! I initially wasn't going to commission item art for Alaris, but I'm so glad I decided to since the result is infinitely more beautiful than anything I would've come up with <3

The results of this commission are... affection point indicators! For those of you who have played the demo, you may know that there are personality indicators (which I will also probably be updating). I thought it would be nice to also add affection point indicators so it was clear when choices were specifically related to personality or affection points.

Each of the icons contain a flower, which is associated with an LI. I wonder if you all can guess which ones are associated with which LIs, hehe! If you are versed in flower language, you might even get hints into them as characters/their routes uwu

Pictured (from left to right): Primrose, Chinese Milk Vetch, Azalea, Peach Blossom, Petunia, Lily of the Valley

I continue to make progress on the CGs of Alaris. Progress was a bit slow on my end for art this month. I focused more of my time on writing and commissions, to be honest! But as it stands, I have 4/6 of the demo CGs for the individual LIs finished (Etza and Druk await rendering while I wait on the BG). And then 8/9 of Kayn's CGs have been either sketched up, lined/colored, or are completely rendered!

Additional Notes

In other news, aside from development, I launched my Patreon this month as well (yay!!). There is no pressure at all to support, but doing so will give you more in-depth sneak peeks at development, access to early builds of the game (when available), and help raise funds for different aspects of the game, such as voice acting, art commissions, etc.! Thank you to everyone who has already supported the Patreon :')

I think that's enough from me, so that is all for this month's update! Stay safe, and see you all next month <3