#tumblr is not gonna like the pixel count

[pigeonstab]

Roots

And the assorted song

[gigifujijifu]

Anyone else remember the little 88x31 buttons from older internet days? I've been remembering them a lot lately.

I make ffxiv ones in msp when I'm in queue or my bf is flying me around between quests.

[kbs-and-fds]

Yo, Welcome to my photography blog!

This is a photography project with a focus on older digital cameras sold before the mid 2000s. I've been working with these sorts of cameras since 2022, which grew from my interest in retro computers that I have had since 2020 or so. Here, I'll introduce you to my cameras, my computer rig, and try to convince you that this is a cool hobby.

General Q & A:

Whats in the name? - Kb refers to Kilobyte, all of the photos I take with these cameras only take up a little over 100 Kilobytes of digital storage per photo. FD refers to the physical media the photos are stored in, currently one camera uses floppy disks (FD), the other two use compact flash (CF) and smart media (SM) cards. unfortunately, their shortened forms do not rhyme and so they do not matter.

What can I expect from this blog? - amateur photography using old cameras, I guess. I'll say some nonsense below each photo but you're free to ignore it. I don't plan on reblogging anything here, so don't expect that. I am the star of this blog. me me me. I tend towards finding weird buildings/architecture, "liminal spaces", sunsets, and generally trying to see how well I can make a photo look like a blender render in a Kane pixels video. don't expect any consistency, though. the medium will remain the same but the vibes will absolutely fluctuate with my mood. I'll try and tag things correctly if it's off putting.

Are you a cool person? - I tend to be! I don't want this place to be alienating for anybody but assholes who don't deserve to see the stuff I do. being a tumblr blog, I follow a lot of the standard stuff. jerks are not welcome and I'm not gonna give you the pleasure of an argument if you do turn your head round these parts.

who are you? - trans pan girl. takes pictures. listens to Femtanyl. much unlike Peter Parker.

My Cameras

Mavica FD-7

released in 1997, this was the second of Sony's "Digital Mavica" line of cameras. it records photos of around 50Kbs in size to a standard 3 1/2" floppy disk. it has some standard features like a manual focus wheel, 10x optical zoom, and exposure control. I haven't found a strict source but I believe this camera is less than one megapixel. I actually have a few different Mavica cameras (a fd-71/75/83/85/87 and a cd-1000) but they aren't different from the fd-7 enough to justify being used often. I'll make note on individual posts if I use 'em at all.

Kodak DC220

released in 1999, with a quality of exactly one megapixel the DC 220 is a weird little thing. it has custom software, connects to a computer via com ports with a transfer speed of ~11,000 bit/s. (roughly 30-60 seconds per photo in my experience) you can add custom text to your photos in the cameras built in software, and attach custom audio to each photo. it is a pain in the butt to get working, but it's quirks make it worth the frustration.

Olympus E-10

made in 2000 with a quality of a whopping four megapixels, the Olympus E-10 is the newest addition to my collection, and possibly the nicest camera I'll ever own. it's a fixed lens DSLR camera capable of 4x zoom, you can easily adjust the aperture and exposure on the fly, it's photos tend to be a whole 100kb in size (1/10th of a megabyte!) and to be entirely honest I have no idea how to use it. but I will eventually!

My Computer

I try to use all era-appropriate tech to transfer photos and do any edits, this is the computer I do all that processing on! its a Dell Optiplex gx1- the daddy of pretty much any computer used in public schools (Chromebooks don't count) It's got a Pentium 3 CPU clocking at 500MHz, 512mb ram, running windows ME. it has all the original Kodak DC220 software installed, and I can't really access the Kodak's photos any other way. I've also got a few other weird bits attached to it -an HP sketch pro cad tablet and an external data cartridge SCSI device. both work, but I don't really bother to use them, they just look neat.

that's about it. have a good one! thanks for reading this all, if you did.

[randomalistic]

Anyways here’s a rambling infodump thing about all the similarities between Spamton and Turbo and then some. (you should bully me for this)

My fixation on both of them… they feed into eachother.

3 foot tall FREAK !!!!!

THE INSANE SMILER…

Glitchy and pixelated

Full of envy, pent up hatred, DESPERATELY CRAVES REVENGE.

Kinda ugly </3

Or at least. Unconventional!

Used to drive a car when he was popular

I know there’s a difference between being a car spokesman and being a racer but it’s close enough <3 Spamton would not know how to drive a cungadero they just told him to pose in there and smile. Ok Headcanon OVER !!!!

Had it all in the 80s/90s before losing the spotlight

Turbo did his bullshit in 1987 (actual road blasters release year) and Spamton did his bullshit in 1997

Only really known as an unspeakable rumor and lives in infamy

It’s more like everyone “moved on” from Spamton and forgot about him (or at least tried to forget about him…) where with Turbo what he did was so bad that he’s only known for that ONE thing

Goes in hiding for decades

Spamton has his alleyway dumpster, and maybe other areas of cyber city with low traffic. Turbo’s hiding was implied to have been in the depths of game central station until Sugar Rush was plugged in. (Which I think was asked about in an AMA) Both are like. ~30 YEARS of hiding 💀

Would go any length for the same attention again

The interesting thing about this is Turbo DOES win. He does get that attention back by disguising as King Candy and being able to race again, and he keeps it for however long Sugar Rush was around for before the events of the movie. Spamton never gets it back…

But at least Spamton doesn’t get INCINERATED so I’d say he’s better off, even if the best outcome is him becoming an item

Dependent on some kid for his plan to work

Although Spamton’s relationship with Kris (dependent on them helping him) is pretty different than King Candy’s relationship with Vanellope (dependent on her not interfering) I still think it’s funny that they both have beef with children

Later attempted murder of said kid

Quality villains out here not even hesitating to kill kids to get what they want !!!

Imitated/fabricated identity

Spamton imitates Swatch, Turbo fabricates (?) King Candy

Stupid catchphrase

NOW’S YOUR CHANCE TO BE [TurboTastic!]

BOSS BATTLE FORM IS FUCKKKKED

They essentially have the same monologue of “THANKS TO YOU I'M MORE POWERFUL THAN EVER!! But it's not enough... so I'm going to kill you anyways"

I think King Candybug’s Face resembles SNEO in a weird way. Mostly just the big eyes and weird nose and THE SMILERRRRR. They have very similar vibes! I will stop myself now!

Virus/malware adiacent

Turbo literally claims he’s a virus by the end of the movie and Spamton is Spamton

Critically Acclaimed Tumblr Man (and hated)

From my RESEARCH. (Aka. Looking up art of him) Apparently a lot of people on tumblr liked Turbo in 2013. And those people have since become spamton people (perhaps ……) I guess that is me now too. Really unfortunate

Lore ties into a real life video game (Petz & Road Blasters)

In the sweepstakes spamton was kinda confirmed to come from a Petz game. I also didn’t know road blasters was Real until I started looking into it . (TurboTime is fake tho) But there’s a very specific similarity for you. Fucked up characters blurring the lines into real life my beloved

Rivalry/broken friendship with Those similar looking fellas (I’m running out of brain power here)

Spamton had the Addisons, which were like his friends? Fellow advertisers. Looked a bit like him, just taller with different colors. Spamton left them after becoming a big shot because he thought he didn’t need them anymore…

Turbo had the “turbo twins” (the 2 other blue racers in his game) idk if that’s their official name cuz they kinda barely exist in canon.. I think it’s popular fanon that Turbo is shorter than both of them, but that’s actually not true. But I’m still gonna count it. Anyways he KILLED them when he got turbotime unplugged. THEYRE DEAD.

Extreme temperature related death (is this a stretch)

Less of a similarity and more of an interesting contrast

Turbo burns to death when he’s INCINERATED in diet cola mountain. I could ramble about this a lot but. That’s for my second account

And Spamton NEO (in snowgrave at least) is FROZEN SOLID by noelle. He shouldn’t have asked for that ice cream man

Anyways I get similar vibes from those guys..

I hope they explode.

Also thinking more about this is making me realize how similar in concept deltarune and Wreck it Ralph are. As in, those apps and computer programs in the computer lab ? Yeah they’re alive and theres a whole ass cyber city and mansion and theres a ton of little guys living in there! (And same goes for the card kingdom in chapter 1)

Like if there was a dark world created in an arcade, it would probably look something like the WIR world. In a way, lightners would be the “players” because everything the game characters (darkners) do is to serve the players. I’m just saying !!!! These pieces of media are both Really Good!!!

[momentsofamberclarity]

don't call me nonnie.

i know that not all proshipping is sexual, but it's still portraying pedophilia/incest positively

the bullet point lists were because i just wanted to separate each sentence into a different point because they were all sort off disconnected

the "they're just pixels" argument doesn't work because every single thing you see on a screen is a bunch of pixels if you zoom in, with that logic every image posted online is "just pixels", including actual csem

Fine, I won't call you that. But riddle me this, anon; why am I showing you more respect than you're showing me? Why have you told me to go fuck myself multiple times in place of having a discussion?

Here's the thing ... the only way you will find csem is if you go looking for it. You are not going to find csem on tumblr because it would break community guidelines. But fictional characters under the age of 18 do not count as csem and numerous child protection services have stated that those are just art.

Likewise, the only way you're gonna find fanfiction of 'kids being raped' as you keep putting it, is if you're trying to be a white knight and seek those writers out purposefully so that you can harass them like you're doing with me. Because most of the proshippers I know tag their stuff so that it can be found by the target audience and blacklisted by the people who don't want to see it.

And here's the thing about proshipping which I think is the biggest hurtle of the anti community. Proship doesn't mean 'I support active sexual predators hurting real living children'. 'Pedophile' as a term is meaningless at this point because everyone on the internet uses it to describe anyone they disagree with. You're better off using predator and paraphile. Predators are the dangerous people who don't give a shit about fiction because they have full-intent to harm others. But the majority of paraphiles? They're no-contact and/or fiction-only on their paraphilias, or they do consenting adult things with their consenting adult partners that are roleplaying with boundaries set in place for a reason.

I've been on the internet since before the term 'proship' even popped up. Back before that we called it Dead Dove, Don't Eat and Don't Like, Don't Look. 'Proship' as a term has the same meaning as those old ones, it's just shorthand. It means 'I support the rights of others to ship whatever they want in their own space regardless of whether or not I like or condone it because I don't know them and it does not involve me'. You don't like the content? You have a block button and you are encouraged to use it to curate your own online experience just like the artists and authors posting that content are.

The fact that you're still here means you're hearing some of what I'm saying and possibly having a hard time coming to terms with it. Believe me, I went through a period of morality crisis between my bpd and ocd telling me that fiction could affect reality and I thought that thinking bad things ( like intrusive thoughts ) made me a Bad Person. But thoughts are just thoughts.

So if you want to come off anon and actually have a conversation with me, I promise I'm not going to name-drop you. The purpose of this blog has only ever been about clearing up misconceptions about proshippers and paraphiles because I used to be uninformed about those topics myself until my partner and another super close friend explained them to me in a way that I could comprehend. And that is that thought crime doesn't exist. And fictional characters don't have autonomy and therefore cannot be abused by your thoughts, your art, your writing, etc.

But if we did away with fictional expression of paraphilias in a healthy artistic manner ( like KOSA is currently trying to do ), the world would be a more dangerous place for potential victims, because paraphiles and predators are always going to exist whether you choose to accept that or not. My own abusers never faced charges, only one of my partners' abusers is rotting in jail, and that is the reality of this fucked up world that we're living in. People with niche fetishes aren't monsters - most are even too embarrassed to talk about them. Active sexual predators online who hop into the DMs of minors to be creeps are a real world problem. And that has nothing to do with the proship community's philosophy of 'ship and let ship'.

[atthebell]

okay i have the big egg pattern + richas big shirt pattern written up im just wondering if i should post the egg pattern on its own and then richas shirt as a follow up. also i'm gonna take a few reference pictures so it's easier to see what's going on but that requires effort AND also formatting crochet patterns on tumblr is like. hell on earth. anyway all this to say if i remember i will try to post the pattern tomorrow i fully typed it all up and counted stitches painstakingly like a lunatic (from now on when i freehand im opening a damn document to write down what the hell im doing). also i just after writing all this remembered i don't have the head pattern written up but honestly that's just a 2x2 pixel recreation so i'll just make that clear. also i have another etsy order to work on

[fluffypichu876]

Mutual, congratulate me - I've finally freakin read that Gaming Ask List you reblogged... uhhhhh... 6th jan. ANYWAY

Gaming ask game!

I'm gonna send a few of these together, feel free to answer as many or as few as you wish to)

3. Favourite childhood game?

7. Most disappointing game you’ve played?

8. The game with the best atmosphere/scenery?

12. Most bizarre game you’ve ever played?

14. Do you watch playthroughs online?

15. Favourite animal in a video game?

21. If you had to play one game for the rest of your life, what would it be?

26. How often do you play online? Co-op?

30. On average, how long does it take you in the character creation screen?

43. Favourite sidekick or companion?

54. A sequel you really want?

62. Would you want to work with video games when you are older?

65. Any favourite screenshots of games?

72. Have any guilty pleasure games?

74. Which game has the best lore?

(links don't work with asks so I'll link the original post the ancient way) tumblr dot com /corvoblinks/136954217573/75-gaming-asks

That's a new record, mutual! xDDDDD Old ask games are still valid in my blog, so thank you for sending one!

Oh hoh boy, let's talk video games!

3. Yoshi's Island for the SNES, no doubt! This game might be the first I have ever played! (at least, it's the first game I have played with the most vivid memories) Started it when I was little, picking up a joystick controller to play on the good old ZSNES emulator (that pixelated menu is so nostalgic for me), which my dad set up for me to play.

It was my first contact with a video game and a emulator, and one could say it was all downhill from there xDD

Childhood memories aside, the game itself is pretty good! A very fun platformer with very charming graphics. It's also pretty satisfying to 100%.

8. Ummm, there's some containders for that! As I have said in a post before, Castlevania SOTN has some of my favorite vibes and atmospheres in gaming, and it accomplishes that with a great blend of graphics and sound design.

The first Metal Gear Solid on the PSX also has an amazing atmosphere to it, despite the old-dated low polygon graphics.

Super Castlevania IV on the SNES is of the most atmospheric games on that system, and in true CV fashion, a good part of that is achieved through the soundtrack. The waterfalls and dracula's battle theme are highlights to me:

Dark Souls 1, which I'm currently playing, captures the feel of adventuring into a mysterious, dying world extremely well. The level design is intricate and the areas are interconnected in many ways, each with a unique vibe and story attached. Playing this game blind is highly recommended, as it enhances the experience a lot!

12. I haven't played it, but Top Banana for the Amiga does not look like something that should exist xD It looks cursed, sounds cursed, and it probably plays like a curse too.

As for something that I have played, I gotta say Ecco the Dolphin (and it's sequel). A beloved childhood game of mine, it's strange in a beautiful way, and even as a kid I was mystified by it (I still am).

14. Only snippets and ocasionally a live stream (I don't usually stay for long, though).

15. YOU CAN'T MAKE ME CHOOSE JUST ONE xDDDDD here's a comprehensive list of some of my most memorable favs:

   - Too many Pokemon to count, so here are a few that immediately come to mind: Flygon, Luxray, Reshiram, Elektross, Hydreigon, Skarmory, Breloom.

   - My BOTW horses <333

   - Chocobos

    - The Guardian Ape from Sekiro (awesome boss)

    - D-Dog from MGSV (most precious boi) 21. That's a really hard one xDD Certainly something highly replayable and endlessly fun. Perhaps DMC or Ultrakill?

26. Not very often. I have been engaging with DS1's multiplayer systems, and they're pretty fun!

30. Depends both on the game and my current creativity.

43. My boy D-Dog (mentioned above) is so helpful. So helpful in fact that it makes infiltrating too easy sometimes xD His ability to map out all nearby enemies by their scent makes it super fun to plan strategies ahead, and also you can pet him! :D

54. Sekiro 2 please??? (puppy eyes at Miyazaki)

62. y e s

65. Quite a few! (these are completely out of order, btw)

[gothiccat69]

@bones-and-earth I remade/updated your awesome Animpunk flag (that I use now too! :3) to look less like it was made on a phone but it's still made on a phone lol (I get it)

Higher pixel count and all even lines cuz technology is pretty cool nowadays. Smooth pixels☆ hope it's up to your standards as the coiner, and thank you for making a great flag I can identify with and feel happy having in my roster. :3

Full credits to bones-and-earth on Tumblr

Remaster by gothiccat69 on Tumblr

(Not gonna post anywhere else, just putting it in case someone else tries too)

[orbitsuns]

thank you for tagging me @charmingmushroom !! (ꈍᴗꈍ)ε｀*) i have anxiety surrounding tagging people so i tag anyone who sees this & wants to do this yourself, just say i tagged you!! this one is long so i'm gonna put it under the cut ♡

𝟏. 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡? oOo funny enough this is probably the hardest question for me!! i like all the goofy deaths from all the sims games but fright & satellite from the sims 2 sticks out for me

𝟐. 𝐚𝐥𝐩𝐡𝐚 𝐜𝐜 𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡? maxis mix!! but definitely lean more towards maxis match, there's a nice in between of maxis match & alpha clothes i really like (think rimings & eunosims)

𝟑. 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐬 𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭? this one is a bit hard for me to answer because i'm worried people will take it wrong ˚‧º·(ᵒ﹏ᵒ)‧º·˚ but i do cheat it more often than i don't, especially if i have a sim that i see as thin & only thin & vice versa. i'm a plus sized person that doesn't like their body & live vicariously through my little pixel people pls don't think i hate fat people or something

𝟒. 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬? who doesn't ?? and if you don't, mad respect— i could never

𝟓. 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐝? i'm gonna exclude essential mods from this!! (mccc , ui cheats etc.) probably realistic childbirth !! i also really enjoy basemental drugs & wicked whims (which is funny cos i'm ace)

𝟔. 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧/𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞/𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐨𝐭? so i started with the sims 3 pets for the ps3 so . not sure if that counts or not LMAO but other than that, i believe it was sims 3 island paradise & i got it when it was still relatively new!! orr it was town life stuff also for the sims 3 , this was 10+ years ago, i don't remember ( ๐_๐)

𝟕. 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐞 “𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞” 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐢𝐧𝐠? living, always have always will ≧◡≦

𝟖. 𝐰𝐡𝐨’𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞? i can answer this in different ways, cos if it's based off of looks then it would be pippa who i made recently. if it means like gameplay wise then probably amara kent purely cos she's my bella goth basically LMAO

𝟗. 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐚 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟? yeah!! i kinda wanna remake her but my nose is a nightmare to do in the sims (it looks kinda upturned but it's more straight which is hard to do in the sims..)

𝟏𝟎. 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐦 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟? squeamish , music lover & geek ♡

𝟏𝟏. 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐞𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐫? i really like the newer light brown swatch!! i haven't been able to use it much though</3

𝟏𝟐. 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐞𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐫? i'm gonna be honest— haven't touched an ea hair in like over a year LMAO but the long wavy hair from discover university!!

𝟏𝟑. 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞? infant & young adult!! i really loved the addition of infants :(( especially with growing together, i love them so much!! although they're a NIGHTMARE if you have more than 1..

𝟏𝟒. 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲? i'm in it for gameplay & cas!! i'm not that great at building, wish i was though! but i do like decorating ♡

𝟏𝟓. 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚 𝐜𝐜 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫? kinda..? i can make loading screens , cas backgrounds n such & done a couple personal hair recolours but other than that, no. i would love to eventually learn how to make my own meshes though!!

𝟏𝟔. 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬/𝐚 𝐬𝐢𝐦 𝐬𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐝? woah i haven't heard of a sim squad before ( ๐_๐) but i def have mutuals i interact with more than others if that counts as a simblr friend LMAO i'm still relatively new to simblr & tumblr in general so there's that!!

𝟏𝟕. 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞? i'm gonna assume this means sims games but my favourite game is omori<33 for sims it changes depending on how you ask.. but at the moment i'm enjoying sims 4 the most but if could like only play 1 and that was it, i'd pick sims 2

𝟏𝟖. 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐡? kinda? one of my sims 3 packs i bought second hand came with a sims 3 mousepad LMAO i do wanna buy cowplant earrings eventually though ( ˆ⌣ ˆԅ) but nothing official

𝟏𝟗. 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐬? nope, but i do wanna make videos & stream when my pc is good enough!!

𝟐𝟎. 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 “𝐬𝐢𝐦 𝐬𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐞” 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠? oOo i've actually never thought about this & i've been playing for over 10 years!! i think my sim style is still pretty much the same maybe with some minor changes. legacy style, exploring skills & careers i haven't done before etc. i think the only thing thats changed is that i do challenges now rather than just coming up with it myself. i'm not including sims 2 into this cos i play it rotationally ♡

𝟐𝟏. 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐝? crispyfroggo , i think my gallery id is different & just straight up doxes me but i'll ignore that ♡ shoutout to my dad for choosing to make my username my full name

𝟐𝟐. 𝐰𝐡𝐨’𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐜 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫? i love. so many. creators. so i'll answer it like this— when i have more money i wanna pledge to rimings, eunosims & daylifesims patreons so ig they'd be my favourites hehe

𝟐𝟑. 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐚 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐫? next month it'll be 6 months!! i feel like it has NOT been that long though

𝟐𝟒. 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬? gshade does all the work for me!! i do use photoshop sometimes, for cas i add super sharpen & i also add things like moodlets, sentiments etc. other than that, gshade does it all

𝟐𝟓. 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧/𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞/𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐫? the easiest to answer for me is the sims 4 with city living!! sims 2 & 3 i have multiple favourites

𝟐𝟔. 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧/𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞/𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭? there isn't anything i personally want anymore, just fixes to older packs!!

[oflowtides]

⸻  JOSIE TOTAH + SHE/HER / have you ever heard of BITE ME by avril lavigne, well, it describes SAREENA TAYLOR to a tee! the twenty two year old, and TWITCH STREAMER was spotted browsing through the stalls at portobello road market last sunday, do you know them? would you say SHE is more unreliable or more OBJECTIVE instead? anyway, they remind me of low-fi music, overly thought out hair and makeup on stream days, dry video game commentary and pixel art, maybe you’ll bump into them soon!

time in notting hill: twenty years

For as long as Sareena could remember, she felt a little different from everyone else.  While some people would chalk it up to the fact that she was adopted from a young age, that was never something that made her feel different from her family.  The world seemed so constantly split into two categories, and the one she was supposed to fit into felt awkward and ill fitting.  She often felt as though she were masquerading in a body that didn’t quite belong to her, but maybe that’s just how everyone felt.

Growing up in the technology boom meant that Sareena was constantly surrounded by tech and the internet her whole life.  It was a very useful tool, guiding her through art tutorials, keeping her grades from tipping too low, providing endless entertainment, but more importantly, helping her navigate her personal and sexual identity.  The internet was Sareena’s sanctuary, spending hours and hours on tumblr, discovering more about herself than school or her family ever could.

Despite all this however, Sareena felt like they could confide in her cousin Xander, who had struggles of his own, but was always very patient and willing to listen, and Sareena would be willing to admit in a heartbeat that Xander was her favorite cousin.

Trying to figure out a job after high school wasn’t easy; she often found that her patience for people who wanted to “call ‘em like I see ‘em” was extremely low, and most places didn’t want to deal with that kind of attitude.  So she resigned herself to find other ways to get money, finally settling on twitch streaming.  She alternated activities; sometimes playing video games and sometimes working on art pieces or projects, but her viewer count continued to rise steadily, so it seemed like the variety was a welcome change in a sea of options that were all very similar.

While Sareena is still very much online, she tried to take breaks and come out into the real world.  She can be a little awkward, or even overbearing, but it’s clear that being raised on the internet makes interacting with other people a little stilted at first before she become comfortable.  A quick wit and a sharp tongue ensures that no matter where she is, she’s gonna make sure everyone around them has a good time.

[dustyskies747]

Just realized I should make a pinned post, first and foremost:

‼️THIS IS AN OC X CANON SAFE PLACE, WE LOVE OUR OCS HOLDING CANON HANDS!!!‼️

Second, I’m uh… not much of a writer 😅 I draw for a reason but I do try! I also will mention I wasn’t taught proper grammar in school so…sorry for lack of grammar and some just subpar writing

hi!! I’m dusty or just Kat :) personal information and fandoms are below!

I’m 23 currently (I’m bad at remembering to update the bio I’m sorry), I’m bi, my pronouns are she/her, I have a physical disability (Spina bifida! Feel free to ask, I’m not shy about it but I only know so much), don’t really know how to use tumblr, a certified Yapper and I’ve been drawing for at least 10 years! I got my start drawing MLP, went through a weird furry transition phase and now I draw humans mostly! This is meant to be for art and the occasional crack theory hours (I always give spoiler warnings though!!)

Top fandoms(these aren’t in any specific order):

Genshin Impact

Honkai Star Rail

Chocobo’s dungeon (a final fantasy spinoff!)

Terraria

Harvest Moon/ Story of Seasons

Stardew Valley

Persona 5

Danganronpa

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Dolls of New Albion/ The New Albion series as a whole

Vocaloid

My hero Academia

Dungeons and Dragons

And more I just can’t think of rn!

I am an avid participant of oc x canon so this is a safe place for it! I’m not gonna be obsessive like “my oc is dating Jing yuan so yours can’t!” First, The man has two hands and second they’re pixels! Who cares! Smooch that general as much as you want!

I promise I don’t bite so if you have any questions please just ask! Questions about ocs, crack theories, spina bifida, my art in general or just a “so hey how do you feel about X/Y” feel free to ask!

[rayne-the-neutrois-nerd]

Also i figured out why tf the mcr posts weren't saving, its bc somehow when editing the pic i also resized it and it was like, a fucking massive pixel count for some reason and tumblr just said "fuck no I'm not gonna load that"

[aptericia]

ok I think I got it.

yes tumblr does reduce the size of large images, but it defines "size" based on pixel count, not file size. So even though that Anthy & Saionji fencing pic is tiny as far as storage goes (since it's uncolored), I drew it on the default screen size, which is apparently too big for tumblr to handle.

In contrast, something like this piece:

which is a much bigger file, has smaller pixel dimensions (2048x2048 vs 2048x2732) and does not get resized at all.

This is why I thought tumblr had a pretty high bar for when it will start shrinking images; I never noticed it, even with large pics like Nanami here. But no, it's just because I usually don't work larger than 2048x2048 or so and when I do, they tend to be extremely large files like these:

where I did notice a small amount of pixelation and was not surprised because they are colorful pictures designed for print and are therefore enormous.

hey why is the image quality so bad on that last post? It looks super sharp in my local gallery and everywhere else I’ve shared it… tumblr WHAT are you doing

[gallavichthings]

Artist’s Spotlight: The Unforgiving Minute

Her manips are legendary in this fandom, even though not everyone knows the person behind them, the lovely @theunforgivngminute!

Have you seen this manip? 

Or this one?

So read the interview and get to know more about this (hilarious) artist! 

GT: Where did your username come from?

TUM: My username has pretty much stayed the same since I created my tumblr....and at the time I was reading Kipling and fell in love with the poem IF ("If you can fill the unforgiving minute. With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,. Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it") And I've loved it ever since.

GT: That's lovely. Tell us about your involvement with the show and the fandom. When did you first watch Shameless? What attracted you to Ian and Mickey's relationship?

TUM: I believe I entered the fandom right as season 3 was ending. I didn't know it at the time but I saw a gifset of the 'don't do this' wedding kiss and thought...awww look at these two boys at prom. This is probably a lovely and heartwarming story. Let's find out who Mickey and Ian are. And then they proceeded to destroy me for the next 8 years.I always go back to that original moment when I saw the gifset. Like everyone else has said, you could see the chemistry between Cam and Noel and the rest is history!

GT: Prom, oh my God! I wish! Lovely and heartwarming, oh dear! What a surprise! That remained my favorite kiss until the dock scene happened. They do have remarkable chemistry.

Did you join the fandom right away or did it happen gradually? Do you remember your first impression of it back then?

TUM: Oh no😅 you are gonna make me look through the archives. I would say I dipped my toe into the fandom with mixed success almost right away. I was just learning how to make fanvids at the time and was getting maybe 60 hits a video. (Which was still exciting back then I'm not gonna lie.)Then came the manips, followed by the Nook Series edits. I think it's no coincidence I felt more involved in the fandom after I started doing edits for Fanfics. It was just this wonderful loop of making manips for things that brought me joy, which also brought other people joy. I've never been very vocal in the fandom, but have always found it to be an inviting place that sparked creativity and positivity from day one.

GT: Your Nook Series is just incredible! How did you learn to make manips?

TUM: Why thank you! I have memories of when I was a kid, my Dad would do these 'manips' by cutting out two images and photocopying them together...this makes him sound like a serial killer, but that is the first memory I have of manipulating photos. It ended up being almost like a challenge growing up. Can I make this look real? Can I erase my ex-friend from our graduation trip to Hawaii pixel by pixel using Microsoft Paint? (You can, but it takes a lot of pettiness and spite.) So I was always doing some kind of work with photos, though not always in the most effective ways. Thank god for the discovery of Photoshop!

GT: Not a serial killer! Lol you're too funny. Well, you're really good at it for sure! So much so that I've seen some of your manips being mistaken for actual pictures...

TUM: I can't even begin to count the amount of hours I have spent working on manips at this point. I have planned. I have hunted for the perfect pictures. Spent days getting it right. And without fail the manip I spend an hour on, thrown together for fun, is the one that looks the most legit. Every time!! My most popular manip was done in an hour while watching a documentary to kill time. That's how it goes I guess. So it really is just luck when it comes together. Some manips hold up over time and some....do not. But I always enjoy seeing the progress and the process change over time.

GT: Do you find it funny when people think they're real pictures?

TUM: Oh I love it! I don't think there is any better compliment than to have someone ask 'what episode is this from?' 'How do I not know about this?' Being accused of witchcraft is always a positive in my opinion.

GT: Hahahaha And does it still bother you when you see it reposted somewhere without credit or did you end up getting used to it?

TUM: To be honest it never really bothered me all that much. Seeing my manips on mugs and t-shirts for profit was the only time I ever felt slightly annoyed. For me, it wasn't on the same playing field as a Fic you wrote from scratch or a piece of art you drew by hand. I didn't feel like I had as much 'ownership' of my final products as some other forms of art. If that makes sense? And this fandom was always amazing at getting artist credit and not letting anything slide. That was always lovely to see and very much appreciated.

GT: I'm glad it didn't bother you, because I have to admit it always bothers me lol. And it's very humble of you to say it's not on par, but I know making edits takes time and work too, and it should be appreciated. That's why credit is important, so we can go and thank the artist and appreciate them and their work. But yeah, doing it for profit is another level of wrong.

You don't make many manips for the Gallavich fandom anymore. Was that a conscious choice or do you just not have the time and/or motivation nowadays?

TUM: The simplest explanation is I became a cake decorator that wakes up at 4am. I am a night owl at heart and 90 percent of my work was made between 11pm and 4am. I also, like a lot of other people went through a creative slump after season 5 ended. I remember being half way through a video edit and just trashing it out of frustration after that finale. But mostly I just don't have the time I used to.

GT: A cake decorator! I love that! And I love that what you do for a living is also artistic. Yeah, that ending was just trash. Did you keep on watching after or did you just come back later when Mickey did (like I did)?

TUM: I got through two more episodes and realized all the things that I fell in love with about Shameless (Mickey, Mickey and Ian, the Gallaghers actually being a family unit) were gone. After that jumped on and off the bandwagon whenever Mickey showed up.

GT: Oh, so you watched one more than I did! What's your favorite season?

TUM: Season 4. No question! For the club kiss alone...it has to be my favorite.

GT: Is that your favorite scene of the show?

TUM: It's certainly the one that can still give me butterflies when I see it cross my dashboard. I remember reading a review of the episode back then and they described it as one of the most genuinely romantic moments on Shameless. And I have to agree.

GT: What are some others of your favorite moments?

TUM: Mickey yelling on top of a cop car after beating the shit out of Terry is up there. The entire wedding episode. " Sorry I'm late". Anything that had Mickey, Ian and Cole in the same scene. What I wouldn't give to see the extended cut of the proposal episode.

GT: What did you think of the ending?

TUM: I think as a fandom we had been burned more than once. I think we had two or three moments where we thought 'okay this is the last of ian and mickey' and then 'bam 'bam' oh never mind. So I saw the last two seasons as a bonus, honestly. I never thought we would get a wedding episode or watch them fight over apartments. So I was just along for the ride enjoying every minute of it. They were happy. So I was happy with the ending.

GT: I totally get the feeling. I remember when Noel returned for 9.06 and how surprised I was and how happy too, that at least they'd be endgame, even if we didn't get to see them together, then surprise! How do you imagine their future?

TUM: I see them continuing to expand the armed transport business After some years have passed building their own family. And I don't know if it's allowed but I always kind of wanted them to get out of the Southside. Though I imagine Ian might have to put some serious work in to convince Mickey to move to Florida😄

GT: Well, they did get out of the Southside in the end. I think you mean out of Chicago?

TUM: Let's say Illinois and cover all my bases! But yes, out of Chicago!

GT: I can't really see Ian going very far from his family, but I do wish they would. They do deserve a fresh start. 

Tell us a bit about yourself now, please.

TUM: Let's see...how do I make it sound like I leave the house more than once a month? (I gave up. It's impossible) I am a cake decorator with two dogs. A Husky named Knox and a German Shepherd named Ronan. I was gifted power tools last year and my house now looks like a Pinterest nightmare. Just finished building built-in bookshelves because there can never be enough books! I have a completely normal amount of interest in True Crime. Which has resulted in me and my siblings monthly "Murder Night', where we play hunt a killer games. So, your standard dog lady who likes to read, build furniture and occasionally solve murders.

GT: That's all so interesting I'm forced to ask follow up questions.

TUM: Please do.

GT: First of, what are your dogs names, how old are they, and could you please spare some pictures? 

TUM: Ronan is the German Shepherd. He just turned 3. Knox is the Huskey and he is 4. Puppies still really. They are the worst and I LOVE them so much.

GT: Your dogs are so pretty, but yeah, I can imagine they'd be a bit of troublemakers too. Second, what are some of your favorite books?

TUM: My absolute favorite book is the “Poisonwood Bible'' by Barbara Kingsolver. Her writing style in that book is insane. I'm grateful my Dad handed it to me because I would never have picked it up based on the story alone. I read a lot of Nonfiction, so “Van Gogh the life” by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. That man was fascinating. He is my all time favorite unpleasant little man. Anything by Bill Bryson starting with “In a Sunburned Country”.

I think you've helped me discover that I gravitate more towards non-fiction than anything else. How odd.

GT: It makes sense though, seeing how artistic you are, that you'd like the biography of an artist. And I didn't know any of those authors, I'll have to google them! Thanks for the recs.

Third... I'm not sure what to even say about the "Murder Night", tbh, I just wanted to acknowledge it. What, pray tell, are "hunt a killer" games?

TUM: Murder Night...you pay a rediculous amount of money to have a box of 'evidence' shipped to your house and then try to solve the murder in 60 minutes. There is food, alcohol and the threat of us never speaking to each other again by the end of it. I highly recommend it.

GT: Ok, so Murder Night sounds awesome and I totally need to find a group of friends to do that with now!

Who are some of your favorite people in this fandom? Artists, writers, "just" fans, anything goes.

TUM: There is no Nook series without Sexual Harassment in the Workplace by @goodkwuestion​. TIPDIG is one of, if not my favorite fic, in any fandom and still a comfort read for me. There isn't a single thing that I haven't loved from goodkwestion and would read their version of the phone book if it ever came to it. This goes for @gallavichy​ as well, who manages to hook you emotionally by the end of the first chapter one NO MATTER THE STORY. I'm counting down the days between each chapter just like everyone else. And last but not least, @steorie​'s art is some of my first memories when I joined the fandom. I had the artwork of Ian and Mickey in the snow as my wallpaper forever back in the day! There are so many talented people in this fandom and i'm so excited that, even with Shameless over, there is still so much quality material being created all the time.

GT: Those three really are god tier, I agree!

Is there anything you'd like to make for this fandom that you haven't got a chance yet? Or are you truly done for now?

TUM: I made a fanvid a long time back that chronicled their relationship from season 1 to season 5. I always wanted to do an updated version now that Shameless is truly over and I have the entire narrative in my head. But otherwise I'll keep making little things whenever I get the chance or inspiration.

GT: What about for other fandoms?

TUM: It takes quite a bit of doing to get me to start a project for any fandom now. Free time is hard to get these days, but I love creating. And when I do get those small pockets of time I hope to keep making things that make me happy. Even if I don't get to do it as much as I used to.

GT: I'm sure any fandom is lucky to have you. ❤️

Can you explain a bit of your process when making edits? Of any kind. 😊

TUM: My edits for Nook covers are usually always based on a specific scene from the fic. In those instances I go hunting for the right pictures to make that scene come together. I don't think there is a Noel or Cam picture before 2018 that I haven't seen at this point. Then I'll click around in photoshop a bunch until I end up with something I don't hate! Which is a horrible way to explain any process but that's the honest truth.

With video edits it's all about the song. Even now, I'll hear a song in the car that is perfect for them and build a video in my head as I'm driving home. Placing a scene based on a specific beat,lyric or swell in the music. I always wanted there to be a clear narrative for each video. The lyrics and scenes always had to compliment each other. I didn't want the song to just be a song in the background while I threw a bunch of my favorite scenes together. And hopefully that comes across when you watch the later ones.

GT: Hahahaha, click around Photoshop a lot. I know the feeling!

Which of your edits would you say you're the proudest of?

TUM: Well, I can't not mention the Ian & Mickey kiss on the cheek edit that still pops up every now and then. 

It is the most legit looking edit I ever made so I'm still proud of it. While I can only see the editing mistakes when I watch it now, I still have a soft spot for my vid 'What You and I Have'. 

It was my first attempt at a relationship timeline and I was proud that I managed to get anyone to sit through a 7 minute video. There's the 'I'll always catch up to you' Mickey edit which was so simple to make but felt really powerful when it was done. And lastly a lesser known video called Final Hour that I could watch over and over because my ego knows no bounds.

GT: Thank you so much for agreeing to doing this. Leave a message to the fandom now. 😊

TUM: Thank YOU so much for dragging me out of my cave for a little while. I apologize for all the unnecessary commas. (I don't know where they go. I refuse to learn. There is a reason I made edits not fics.) It was so much fun to look back at some of my edits and all the beautiful art and fics this fandom has provided over the years. It's hard to believe it's been almost 8 years since my first edit and I'm grateful for every piece of feedback I received along the way. So I'll just be here in my little cave, looking forward to all wonderful edits and fics this fandom still has to offer. Thanks again!

[blepsweirdfandomthoughts]

So I popped onto the ao3 Tumblr and...censorship? On AO3? I have some thoughts.

I've been reading ao3 for around...4, 5 years at this point.

I've seen fluffy stuff, I've seen smutty stuff, I've seen fluffy smut, I've seen things that is cursed beyond all hell.

Do I want to read those dead dove do not eat fics? No. Is the solution then censorship? No.

If I don't want to read a gory/very explicit fic,

1. It is tagged as very gory, explicit, dead dove do not eat, so I skip over it.

2. Just use the tags system on the side to not include any of these fics. It's actually fairly easy to use, once you get over the brief intimidation of all the buttons and search boxes.

Censorship, in some cases, is ok. Bleep out curse words on kids programming. Sure.

But this is a case where censorship goes beyond all the legitimately gory stuff. What do we count as censored material? All the sex? BDSM? Furry? A/B/O? LGBTQ?

Books get banned for the weirdest reasons. 1984 was banned in the US for being communist, while also being banned in the USSR for being too pro American.

And just because a fanfiction has risqué content doesn't automatically mean it's going to be complete crack and shameless smut. Evern if the fics just a giant ball of plotless porn, there are tags for that. I've learned about bdsm, consent, tropes in fiction, and writing itself through ao3 itself better than some books out on the shelves, making ludicrous amounts of money despite them being complete trash. (Lookin at you E.L James)

IF YOU DONT WANT TO READ IT, DONT READ IT.

You're not obligated to read these fics if it makes you uncomfortable. If you want to read it because it makes you happy, go right ahead. If others want to read it because it makes them happy, you have no authority to say that they can't because it makes you uncomfortable.

Furthermore, these fics are a sign of dedication, a labor of love, in a way. Somebody sat down at their computer, laptop, phone, or blackberry, and typed out all of this. FOR FREE. Had it Beta'd perhaps. The amount of time put into these fics is nothing to be scoffed at. To have all this time, these instrumental pieces of humanity, ripped away because one person found it uncomfortable is a bit unfair, isn't it?

Finally remember that fan fiction is FICTION. Pixels on a screen. There are no actors cast. There are no helpless interns abused. The only people abusing themselves are the writers and the betas, screaming as they figure out how to write a sex scene without 3 consecutive uses of the word "member".

The fanfiction community is one where creators and readers come together to gush about the Fandom, characters, and ships they love the most (Still gotta tie it into Sandman somehow bc it's my current fandom- check out Slow Burn by Arahir; fluffiest sh*t I've read in a while.).

Censorship ain't gonna do shit. Prohibition didn't work. Overturning Roe v. Wade won't work (sorry for that political reference, it's a topic I could rant about later). So banning/censoring something so inane like smutty fanfic, is basically like shooting oneself in the foot. We're still going to find a way to write and read it, no matter what the higher ups do. Heck, a site called "collection that belongs to the common public" might pop up with all the smutty fanfics yall want.

Maybe continue working on...porn censorship instead?

So. Yeah.

[thewakingcloak]

Debugblog: Darn Diagonals

I love and hate debugging. It’s frustrating to have a problem and have to work it out before you can continue being creative. On the other hand, it’s a puzzle, and I like puzzles. Working them out feels really good. Like beating that boss.

Anyway I don’t know if this is helpful to y’all, but I decided to write up a blog on my debugging process. (Maybe I’ll do more in the future under the “Debugblog” series??)

So here’s the issue.

In this gif, I’m ONLY pressing one key at a time: left, right, up, or down. But the player is moving at an angle somehow.

The weirdest part: this doesn’t happen all the time, and it only happens in daytime. This is baffling.

So the first step in debugging is we need to replicate the issue. When I initially found this bug, it was only happening on a random screen and just slightly so. I ignored it for a while. When I saw it happen again, I started making mental notes of the conditions in which it occurred.

Eventually I found a place where I could reproduce the issue consistently (in the gif above). This will be invaluable when testing! If the issue is hard to replicate, it’s harder to test and harder to check when it’s working.

The next step is usually the biggest one: finding the cause of the bug. Usually you want to isolate the issue, which you’ll see come up a lot as I move forward...

So anyway, the bug is with movement. I have two “movement” scripts. One that takes into account various environmental variables and modifies velocity--move_actor()--and one that actually moves the object and factors in collision--movement_and_collision().

I figured the first place I should go is my move_actor() script. I want to know if the extra variable in movement is being added to the velocity before movement_and_collision() is called.

One of the most common ways to debug is using a breakpoint. I could use a breakpoint here, but the issue is that this line runs every single frame I’m moving, so that makes movement difficult. Instead, I’m going to use show_debug_message() (I created console_log() as shorthand which also shows time and frame information).

(Full disclosure, I actually was looking at the code in the “else” block first, and the velocity was always being logged as 0,0 lol... because that only runs when the player isn’t moving. It’s okay to make mistakes!)

So I played the game and duplicated the issue. My guess was that there would be an extra y value added here, but lo and behold, there wasn’t. Check out some of the debug output:

[14:51:34.16493] x: -1.20, y: 0

[14:51:34.16511] x: -1.20, y: 0

[14:51:34.16527] x: -1.20, y: 0

[14:51:34.16543] x: -1.20, y: 0

[14:51:34.16560] x: -1.20, y: 0

This is what we’d expect: the player is moving left at 1.2 pixels per frame and y movement is 0. However, I am still seeing extra y movement in game. Unfortunately this means we did not find our issue yet, but it also means we can discount everything in move_actor() and before! Basically this extra movement is almost certainly in movement_and_collision().

Okay, so let’s clean up move_actor() and move into movement_and_collision(). This is an asset I bought from Pixelated Pope, so I won’t show you the whole thing (not that I was showing you all of move_actor() either), but I’ll show you the important stuff. This is near the end:

Yeah, so this never gets hit, lol. Let’s try earlier in the script.

Uhh... sorry this is hard to read (tumblr is not great for posting code). I’m logging lengthdir_x and lengthdir_y in the initial tile_and_place_meeting_3d() check.

Alright, so here are some logs. Yep. Here’s our unwanted diagonal movement.

[15:05:12.10597] x: 1.17, y: -0.24

[15:05:13.10613] x: 1.17, y: -0.24

[15:05:13.10630] x: 1.17, y: -0.24

Okay, so this script actually does have some recursiveness built in (it calls itself under certain conditions). That’ll make debugging this a little bit trickier. Let’s figure out which “recursion” this is being called on. In other words, I want to know if this is happening on the first run of the script every frame, or when the script calls itself. Luckily, this recursion functions via a “count” variable (which stops the script from infinitely calling itself lol). I’ll add that into my console_log().

I forgot to add a space, but that’s okay, we can still read it. it looks like it’s occurring when it calls itself (count is “2”).

[15:13:40.11644] count: 2x: -1.17, y: 0.24

[15:13:40.11661] count: 2x: -1.17, y: 0.24

[15:13:40.11677] count: 2x: -1.17, y: 0.24

I’m actually going to move this outside of the if block and see if it occurs during all calls or just on the second. Here are the logs.

[15:17:38.12612] count: 1, x: -1.20, y: 0

[15:17:38.12612] count: 2, x: -1.17, y: -0.24

[15:17:38.12628] count: 1, x: -1.20, y: 0

[15:17:38.12628] count: 2, x: -1.17, y: 0.24

Okay, we’ve confirmed it’s occurring only when the script calls itself. However, I think this is actually “correct” behavior. The movement_and_collision() script is doing something called “angle sweeps” for its collision checking. If it can’t find an opening (i.e. runs into a wall), it tries again at a slightly different angle. This allows the player to move along diagonal collision walls.

That means the issue seems to actually be in the collision check. It’s finding a collision where there should not be any, meaning the angle sweep gets triggered!

Okay, so the issue seems to be in tile_and_place_meeting_3d. This is my tile_and_place_meeting_3d() script:

There’s a lot of ground to cover, so I’m going to actually break this up so I can figure it out easier. Basically we want to narrow down to exactly where the issue is occurring. Isolating the issue.

The output of this is weird as heck, but yeah, it’s occurring in tile_meeting_precise(). I’m not colliding with any tiles--or shouldn’t be.

[15:36:49.45138] tile: 0, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45139] tile: 1, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45154] tile: 1, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45155] tile: 0, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45155] tile: 1, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45171] tile: 1, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45171] tile: 0, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45172] tile: 1, instance: 0

[15:36:49.45188] tile: 1, instance: 0

Okay, I could debug further, but we know which script the issue is in. I happen to know I’ve made a few recent changes to this script, so first I want to share the magic of version control!

I use git and store my code on a private github repository. This means I can go back and see a history of all changes made to this file.

Okay yeah, so what I’m gonna try first is to just take the old version and put it in  GameMaker and see if that fixes the issue. I do need the changes from the new version, but if I can pinpoint the issue as having been part of this specific change, I can rework it (probably).

You can usually do this via a revert but I was dumb and copy+pasted the old version and deleted the new version. Way jankier, BUT the old version fixed the issue! That means some change I introduced in the new version is causing the issue.

The next step is to redo the new changes one by one until we figure out which one is the culprit.

I recreated all my changes and the issue only occurs when I enable “SD tile collision checking”. How exactly SD collision works isn’t important to this debug process, but it’s essentially the opposite of “HD tile collision checking”, which is for the player so they can slide smoothly along walls. HD tile collision can be smooth because it uses enlarged colliders (the reason for this is a long story).

However, logging shows that the player object never hits SD collision checking. Interesting, right? Why would the player have a collision only when SD collision checking is added but the player never hits it? Well, I think the answer goes back to some of our initial discoveries when replicating the bug: it only happens in the day. Now, nothing changes for the player physics/movement between day and night, but other objects do call this script that are affected by day and night.

I quickly added a log to print out object names to see what other objects use this. It’s easier than doing a search all files for the script name because that could end up with all sorts of results, some of them not directly being called by the objects. [Note: I later found this actually is what is happening; an object is calling this script indirectly via another script] Anyway, here’s the log:

show_debug_message(object_get_name(object_index)); is a super handy way to print out the names of objects calling a script.

The logs showed a handful of items are checking collision: keys, heart containers, teleporters, etc. I want to start with the teleporters, though, since so far those always seem to be present where the weirdness is happening. Just a hunch.

Oh and guess what? Teleporter_obj is calling tlie_meeting_ground() in the daytime only. We know the issue only occurs in daytime. And tile_meeting_ground() seems like it could easily be related to tile_meeting_precise() right?

So the quick and easy check here is to comment out lines 8 and 9. And guess what? No more weird player collision! So now we have the culprit. But we do actually need this code. So... why is this interfering with the player?

First, I confirmed that it was indeed the tile_meeting_ground() script by removing it. Then I put it back and did some more digging. Interestingly, this script never calls tile_and_place_meeting_3d() (remember, that’s the script I modified and is causing the issue). So that’s a bit baffling. This is all it does.

I need to narrow this down more. I started by returning early if the object was a teleporter. I first did this on line 59 before calling tile_get_at_point(), then on line 60, etc.

Eventually I broke out each individual check and tested returning after each one so I could pinpoint which part of this script was causing the issue. Turns out it’s ground_z_get().

ground_z_get() determines... well, where the ground is. And guess what? It does call tile_meeting_precise(). AHA! Another mistake on my part. But we’ve established that’s okay. :)

The ground_z_get() code is not pleasant to post here, so suffice it to say, I changed the part where it calls tile_meeting_precise() to skip when it’s the teleporter calling.

This is definitely the problem.

Now we know where obj_teleporter is calling tile_meeting_precise() and this is starting to make more sense. When I was confused about the tile_meeting_ground() code not being related to the tile_meeting_precise() code, I was wrong, because tile_meeting_ground() indirectly calls it. And we already knew that obj_teleporter called tile_meeting_precise() somehow (otherwise it wouldn’t have shown up in the output log). This is it.

Okay but that’s a patch, not a true fix. I’m going to undo it, roll up my sleeves, and dive back into tile_meeting_precise(), the source of all our woes.

Looking at this script further, I think I may know vaguely what’s going on here. It creates a checker object that matches tile collision. Now, this is a local variable, and when place_meeting() is called, it’s against the instance id, not against all obj_precise_tile_checker. But just for kicks, I’m going to destroy the instance before the script returns to see if this is the issue.

This worked!!!

As to why, I was a bit confused at first. This is all local variables, right? One object calling this script will have local variables that should not ever affect another object calling this script with its own local variables.

But the secret is up here:

A bit of optimization so that we’re not constantly creating a bunch of collision checkers every single frame. What is happening is the first time this script is run (say an SD one), it creates a tile checker and sets the size (later in the script). Then when another object comes in (say the player with HD/smooth checking), it sees that a checker object is already created and does not create an appropriately scaled one.

I’ve got a better idea than using instance_destroy()... I’ll create an SD and an HD tile checker object. That way we can create both and they can exist at the same time without interfering with each other.

Here we’re just creating an HD checker if we wanna use HD collision checking (just the player right now lol) and SD checker if we wanna use SD checking. Boom. I removed the instance_destroy() from this script and here we go...

That fixed it!

And the final step: test everything! Of course you should be testing after each incremental change so you know exactly what fixes or causes the issue (which we did). And I already tested walking. But let’s make sure our teleporters still work. :)

I tested a bunch of ‘em, but here’s everything working as expected!

Yay! 

I hope this was helpful to you!

Peace