#wanted to test the limits of this style. try and see if i could find a way to paint that suited me. idk

[letmesleepy]

Woah dude! You dead or something?

[azeterna]

tutorial: making slider-compatible earrings

this uses quite a new feature, the BlendID vertex colour layer, and as far as i know there's no complete tutorial or explanation of how it works out there, so this could probably still be improved. i still use old Blender, but feel free to translate this to other versions.

in simple terms it's a new vertex colour layer that gives each vertex of the head a unique colour, and you can use it on your CC mesh to attach it to a specific head vertex. for small detailed meshes like earrings it does this better than uv_1, which makes them go spiky.

to start, the earrings should be placed on the s4s rig's ear, even though it's way smaller than the smallest preset in-game. if you have several piercings close together, separate them (P) into different meshes because it makes transferring the colours so much easier.

there are some limits to this, each CC vertex can only be attached to one head vertex, so you can't do chains or anything that would need you to blend between two verts. the industrial does work because it's just two clusters of verts with nothing in the middle, and for this tutorial i'll treat it as two separate earrings. finally, don't expect it to perfectly preserve the placement - evenly spaced piercings will end up uneven, and on extreme occult ear presets the earrings will probably still come away from the ear.

selecting the source polys

check that the head mesh (head for mframe, head_2 for fframe) has a BlendID vertex colour layer. if it doesn't, re-export the CC from S4S or import it into a freshly exported blend file.

enable editing the head.

for each piercing, select a poly that contains the vertex you want to attach it to. for me it works best using the outside of the ear. it takes a lot of trial and error to find the best one, so don't expect it to be perfect first time. (you need to do this for both ears, you can't just mirror the mesh after you're done because the colours are different)

duplicate (Shift+D, Esc) and separate (P) the polys into a new mesh.

switch to editing the new separated mesh.

move the source vertex for each earring as close to the middle of it as possible. the whole of each earring should be closer to that vertex than any other, this is why we separated the ones that were close together at the beginning.

move the other vertices well out of the way.

transferring data from the head

if your CC mesh doesn't have a uv_1 map and a BlendID layer, create them and name them.

transfer the BlendID layer from the separated head polys to the CC mesh. use Nearest Corner Of Nearest Face, not Nearest Face Interpolated like you normally would for uv_1 maps.

do the same for the uv_1 map. (this might not be necessary, but it won't hurt.)

in edit mode, select and assign the whole mesh to the head group and delete any other groups. (side note: if you do this for face piercings you'll still need to transfer weights from the face as normal. i'd transfer them from the separated head polys using nearest vertex, so each piercing has uniform weights. you might need to do separate versions for both frames too.)

in vertex paint mode and wireframe view, check that each earring has a uniform red colour. in classic EA style some of them are impossible to tell apart, so use the colour picker (S) to check.

switch to the Col layer and paint the whole mesh (Shift+K) with #007F00.

bet you wish this was over

if you separated the CC into multiple meshes, do the whole thing again on the other mesh.

select all your CC meshes on object mode and join them together again (Ctrl+J).

hide the polys you separated from the head.

the mesh should be ready to import into S4S now! sometimes in my testing it was being weird though, and i had to import it several times or delete the BlendID layer then undo and reimport it. i'll try to update the tutorial if i figure out why.

trying it in game, you can see which parts still need tweaking, the higher stud is especially bad because it isn't that close to any of the head vertices. you can either try a different source vertex for them, or try moving them around. if you're designing an earring set from scratch, it might be easier to choose placements that are close to a vertex on the ears.

[berylcups]

I feel bad because this is my 3rd ask in less than 24 hrs, lmao 😭 anyway... I think u said you had pt.3 brainrot rn? Me too lmaoo, could you do hcs of the crusaders with an s/o who's standing kinda works like Wanda's powers from Marvel? I think that would be dope asf, tyty!!! 🩵

Hey sorry for the long wait! I assumed you meant Wanda from the MCU cannon so that’s what I based readers power off of since her powers are kinda vagueish. (Telekinesis and mind control) I hope this is what you have had in mind-if not please forgive me 😭😭😭 (it’s been forever since I watched a marvel movie…I think Black Panther was the last one? Damn that’s a long time ago!)

SDC X Reader who has powers like Wanda

CW: poopoo mention? Idk nothing really! But be forewarned- I love toilet humor and so does Araki it seems lmao

Notes: I based this off of the MCU Wanda and her powers. I did some research just to make xtra sure since my Marvel knowledge is a lil rusty! But I hope everyone enjoys!

Joseph

“Next you’ll say—I’m going to take control of your body gramps! …wait hold on a minute.”

He’s amused by your abilities! He wants to see you take control of poor bystanders or his grandson and make them do harmless embarrassing things. Silly things like doing a stupid dance, picking their nose, farting loudly in public, just really crude juvenile behavior. You think with him being the oldest he would act the most mature!

Jotaro

“…Stay out of my head bitch/bastard.” He grumbled.

He acts all cool and collected, unaffected by the power of your stand. But internally he’s sweating buckets. The ability to mind control and move objects is a very valuable ability. He’s happy you’re an ally and not one of Dios minions…but if you are, he’s willing to take you on! But he’s going to have to think hard on how to find and exploit your weaknesses!

He really wants to see you in action. Taking control of Steely Dan would have taken a lot of stress out of the whole lovers debacle.

Kakyoin

He thinks your abilities are cool! He’s actually really excited but is too shy to show it. He likes how you can control minds, Hierophant green can control bodies like puppets too. 🙂 it makes him feel good to have something in common with someone.

He does wonder if you can use your telekinesis to play video games or if it takes more concentration to do so… it seems like a good experiment to test out for him! (And me too… I wanna play my switch without having to worry about joycon drift 🥲)

Avdol

Magical! He’s intrigued! He would love to test your limits and help you hone your skills.

He wonders how strong of will you can take control of and how much weight you can carry with your telekinesis.

“My will is strong and my mind is clear. Just try and take control of me!”

Polnareff

“Mind control and telekinesis?! Niiiice. There’s so many things I need you to do!”

He respects your powers and he means well but… he really wants to see you use your powers for shits and giggles.

He wants to see you manipulate objects in front of nonstand users and take control of others minds to make it seem like they are being haunted.

“Tell the madame she’s forever doomed if she doesn’t date the beautiful man with the perfectly styled hair!”

…Don’t do it. He needs to earn love the RIGHT way 😅

Iggy

“Im just a dog. What are you expecting from me???”

*farts*

If you use telekinesis to pick him up he’s gonna PANIC 😱 here we come—Flying Dog!!!

Please fly him above Polnareff so he can fulfill his dream of shitting on his head like a bird. And so he can get revenge on all the other birds that shit on him by shitting back.

He will be your best friend ever after that. No joke. You got yourself a new dog.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

If you had to pinpoint the main issue of MLB, the root of all evil if you may (aside from Astruc), what would it be?

If we're going super high level, it would be narrative consistency (I believe this is a synonym for "narrative coherence" or, at least, I've always used them pretty interchangeably and googling one finds you stuff on the other). I wanted to get an official definition of this term and wikipedia gave me this from a larger article on the theory of narrative paradigm:

Narrative coherence is the degree to which a story makes sense. Coherent stories are internally consistent, with sufficient detail, strong characters, and free of significant surprises. The ability to assess coherence is learned and improves with experience. Individuals assess a story's adherence by comparing it with similar stories. The ultimate test of narrative sense is whether the characters act reliably. If figures show continuity throughout their thoughts, motives, and actions, acceptance increases. However, characters behaving uncharacteristically destroy acceptance.

I also found a pretty good overview of the topic on the blog of a random editor. You can follow that link to read the whole thing, but I wanted to highlight this section on characters as I thought it was particularly relevant to the stuff I talk about on this blog:

Your characters will have their own personalities and behaviours that the reader will become familiar with as the story develops, so if you deviate from these patterns, the reader will notice. That’s why it’s important to maintain character consistency – that they would act in a way that is right and in keeping with their personality, rather than making them act out of character to make elements of the story fit.

As you can hopefully see from the above sources, the stuff I've talk about on here, and just generally thinking about the show, most of the issues with Miraculous have to do with the show being narratively incoherent. Characters do whatever the writers want them to do. Plot lines get dropped and picked back up then dropped (Lila) with no rhyme or reason. Big, meaningful setups lead to nothing (Gabriel learning all the temp heroes identities). Twists come out of nowhere (Kagami being a senti). They all indicate that something is majorly wrong here.

I am not involved in the production of this show, so I cannot tell you where all of these issues come from. It may be that the writing staff doesn't know what they're doing or it could be that unknown forces like marketing are driving the writers to do things that they'd rather not or it could be a mix of the two. For example, I'm pretty sure the magical charms we get in season four were only added to sell stuff like this and this, which is why I try to approach this show without pointing fingers at anyone too specific unless there's some hard evidence to back up what I'm saying. All I know is that this show has a massive writing problem and I'll end with a little advice on how I avoid this issue. It may or may not work for you. It all depends on your writing style.

When you sit down to write a story, it's very normal to not have a clear path for how to get from story point A to story point B. You don't need to find that path before you start writing. You just need to keep in mind that B is your goal and start figuring out how to logically get there.

I often describe this process as taking a journey with a known destination, but no planned route. However, just like with a road trip, the further you go, the more limited your options become because of the choices you made. If you skipped stopping at an interesting city or landmark, you can't change that fact and we're not turning the car around just so you can get a picture next to the big ball of string. You had your chance and you missed it. Accept that and move on.

Similarly, as you write your story, you have to own the choices you've already made on your journey. If you choose to let a character in on a massive secret (Alya learning Ladybug's identity), then you have to fully own how that choice would impact all elements of the story (Alya's opinion of Lila) not just the short sighted elements you wanted it to impact (note how Lila's not a thing in season four? Almost like they didn't plan out how to handle her and Alya at the same time?) Own the route you committed to and find a way to tell the next part of the story in a way that feels like it's on the same route and you'll be fine.

Does that mean occasionally having to give up on cool ideas that you really liked? Yep, but that's the nature of story telling. It's part of the reason why people are told to "kill their darlings." That's just a thing you have to learn to do if you want to be a good writer.

[lazodiac]

It's time again to look at Thunder Junction's cards and try and divine where each and every one of these bad boys are from.

Also just a note in case people are curious; since Tumblr has a 30 image limit per post, I'll be doing all of The Big Score at the end, after all the colours and stuff. It's my prerogative and I'll do as I please. If you missed the first part, you can find it here! So without further ado, it is time for...

BLUE

While I don't think EVERY mount is from Thunder Junction Proper... newts ARE a creature that shows up in the west. I was initially thinking this could be for Eldraine, especially given it belongs to an archmage, but... ultimately, I think this is a native to the plane.

Another native, and dare I say this is a CHARISMATIC crab. I love the crystals on its back! I also love the blue cacti nearby it? Those are real by the way!

There aren't many turtle-men in Magic. Three, in fact, before this one; the Lagoon Sage, a Quandrix student, and a Kappa from Kamigawa. The Kappa has a VERY distinct look, the Quandrix is a sea turtle, and the Lagoon Sage is a snapper just like the Thunder-Thief over here... and I'm gonna make a called shot and say this is from Bloomburrow as a result!

Homarid are a Dominaria specialty, so this racist bastard is absolutely from there.

Djinn of this type are only found on Tarkir, so this one is easy. He's taken a break from his dragon-infested plane to relax under a waterfall martial artist style, and that's just kinda fun.

This is a tricky one, since the ability is pretty plane agnostic, and the design doesn't evoke much in it... but her collar DOES have the typical three-fang Dimir tell, and it'd fit both colour and what she's doing, so lets go with Ravnica.

Sadly a cursory Wiki glance tells me only that this guy is from America.

... okay okay, taking this seriously; the wings and the scroll and the steps, the name, all the flavour suggests this is from Amonkhet for me. It could be from elsewhere, but this feels the most "correct" for lack of a better term. I wish cards like this would get flavor text reprints down the line though...

These are some home-grown ghosts, and we know from various other stories (Gideon, Elspeth, etc) that when you die you go to the afterlife of the plane you're on... so these are some newly "born" natives.

These unfortunate individuals are from the dead plane of Oregon.

... what? I already used that joke? Okay fine. There really isn't any actual signifiers here, and the only humanoid in the art is too indistinct to tell. Given the content of the card is trying and failing to ford one of Thunder Junction's mighty rivers, I'm calling this card "native to the plane" for lack of anything else appropriate.

Oh hey it's everyone's favorite running gag from Ravnica. Fblthp is an easy one, so instead of elaborating more on our mono-eyed friend instead I'll bring up a question I want any of you reading this to answer.

Didn't they say during the initial preview teasers that there was an important plot event happening in the background of this card? That never bore fruit and I can't remember the exact preview stream I heard it, but I swear I did. I want someone to confirm this for me. I'm abusing my power.

Regrettably, the flavor text makes this spell be sourced from Oko's Home Plane. I do love this weird tumbleweed creature though!

God I hate Oko he's such a scum bag (derogatory).

A personal favorite character of mine, Geralf is an Innistradi born and raised, here to investigate the Thunder of the plane- as well as test how mana bonds work for planebound folk now that they have access to planar travel. Good luck, sir.

An obvious native of the plane. I quite like the flavor of this card as well by the way, it's just a clever way to incorporate the geysers you would occasionally see in the old west.

Another Thunder Junction native! It's wild how many of these there actually are, but wild animals do make up a bulk of cards in Magic so it's not THAT unreasonable.

Fun lore tidbit; allegedly the Thunder only started after the Omenpaths opened up. No one has lived here before that so no one can confirm that is true, and this flavor text suggests otherwise.

One of the only cards showcasing the least important members of Oko's gang of ruffians! Kaervek and Satoru busting out of jail thanks to the help of Annie Flash. The framing of the card makes it feel more like Kaervek's doing the real world (valid, Satoru is a loser this entire story) so I'm gonna call it for Zhalfir here- and yes even though technically everyone from Zhalfir is from Dominaria, it's a plane all its own now. I make the rules here!

The Fomorian made star-key to open up their vault on Thunder Junction, I feel like it is safe to say this was made here. It's got little arcs of Thunder and even looks like a deputy star, so it fits the vibe.

Fun fact; being a six pointed star, plus the fact that in the story they mentioned the sixth slot started glowing purple, I briefly had the idea that they might be implying the Fomorian's know of Purple magic and we'll get it in the big Space set we're getting down the line. Then I remembered Cosmium is purple and a major energy source for the Fomorion people, so nevermind.

I can't confidently say this is from Bloomburrow, given we don't know how big the people of that plane can get- so far they've maxed out at Badger and Fox- but I really don't know where this guy could be from otherwise! Maybe Ravnica? So lets call this Bloomburrow until corrected otherwise.

Incidentally this is one of my favorite pieces of art in the set. Love this fucking guy.

Beyond all the art signifiers, I believe it was straight up said on twitter this is a Therosian Sphinx, so she's from Theros. Good for her. Why is she wearing spurs...?

I'm fairly confident this is meant to depict Stella Lee, and she's from the Atiin people, so that's where this is from! Rundo meanwhile sounds like a Ravnica, but that's just some trivia.

This one I'm not fully sure on. The little bird like flecks of white in his magic, the watery energy... I feel like I've seen it somewhere before, but I can't quite place it. The red and blue suggests Izzet but then he's a Slickshot, the red-blue faction on Thunder Junction. I'm gonna go with my gut and say Ravnica, though.

Shit like this is why I wish we'd gotten a planeswalker guide...

Blue, so far, has some of the most easy and obvious ones to place, and for this I'm thankfully. This guy is a Stitcher, so he's from Innistrad. Easy as.

She's got some of the Sterling Company aesthetic going on, but I'm a stickler for stupid jokes so I'm gonna say she's from Zendikar. The armor could evoke Sea Gate, and they've always been good with ropes so why NOT translate that to combat?

Like with the earlier ghosts, dead-then-revived means you're native to Thunder Junction... but also this guy is clearly an Obscura from New Capenna, using some of his old magic, so I'mma call it for the big city here.

Oko's big bad gang preparing for the heist of the life-time. Since it's Oko's big idea it's from Oko's stupid plan.

The sort of misty blasts of fire and ice we're seeing here is aesthetically similar to the "gunfire" magic of New Capenna. I love this guy by the way.

Hey wait a second Ashiok can't do stuff like this. They can only read nightmares, not minds!

YEah for those of you who don't know, the Ashiok in this set is actually Jace in disguise! So this is from home-grown celtic Vryn mind-shredding. Our hero(?) ladies and gentlehommes.

An actual Sterling Company goon, though at least this one has a funny joke to his card. I still really like the work they did in making sure every weapon used in the set has the needed arcing loop for Thunder to channel through it.

Oh right the reason why we're here. I'm gonna say New Capenna again, because there's basically no defining traits here. Also god I just realized he's missing the front brim of his hat and it looks terrible. Graywater pay your men properly they can't even afford complete hats!

It took me a bit to realize what was happening in this card. The lady in the back is only choosing the final Spree option here, swapping around the Outcaster and the Hellspur's clothing. Rude!

Clothing swap spells seems like a funny prank to pull at magical college, so Arcavios is where this is going.

I think in cases where I just cannot make any reasonable assumptions based on art, I should look at mechanics. Flashback is usually in Innistrad... but this lady's neckline is WAY too exposed for that Even accounting for the new plane... honestly I give up, the only real identifying factor here is her little lockpick device, which... kinda looks Kamigawan? Lets go with that.

The vibe, the way she wears her hat, and the little phone cord(?) on her belt makes me think of New Capenna. Look some of these are really difficult and I gotta go by vibes!

And that's the 30 card limit, give me a half second for part two!

[uroboros-if]

Please please share some coding/designing wisdom. Your game is so damn pretty 😭😭😭 Could you tell us what template you used and how hard it was to make it look like it is today? I imagine so much work must have gone into it

😭😭 I am no expert, but these are just my rationale/methods behind the visual choices I made!

For the template I used—I used Vahnya's Template! However, this post by @/manonamora-if has a whole section for templates that I wish I saw or checked out before making my IF! In another lifetime, I might've just used nyehilism's template to achieve the bottom sidebar instead of torturing myself learning how to do it... ;;

Below, I go into detail the timeline of designing Uroboros, as well as advice through the process I went!

Design Timeline

I started designing the UI late October 2022, and kept fixing, changing, editing it well into February and maybe a little bit of March 2023.

October 2022 - Early iterations of the design. Looked for stock images and began implementing it to add a background to the sidebar and the actual passages. Swatched some color palettes and began implementing them into the IF. Later decided to make the sidebar on the bottom instead of on the side. Also, added a title screen.

November - Testing different backgrounds for the IF's sidebar. Added a textbox to the passages, also worked on the black fade transitions.

December - Finished working on the sidebar background for both light and dark theme, began work on the background of the IF instead.

January 2023 - Finished working on the dark and light theme backgrounds! Started work on drawing the skill icons for light and dark theme, and finished!

February - Changed the title screen to look better on mobile, created a circle logo, added a border to the textbox. Also, made further edits for light theme.

March - Just remade the "Uroboros" logo.

If you're wondering why it took approximately 5 months to get to the final version—don't worry! I wasn't working only on the design for 5 months. My partner helped make the edits for the design, while I worked on coding them in and writing.

I spent a lot of time trying to get a grasp on Javascript, SugarCube, and HTML all throughout this time as well, to know how to fluidly add these things. Meaning, while I was working on these visual elements, I was also figuring out how to do the "looking" mechanic, black and white transitions, figuring out how Tweego worked, radio buttons, and so on.

Do note I've been busy the entire time throughout, so perhaps you can do this much quicker than I can!

The "Secrets"

1. Please—look at IFs you love! What are some visual aspects of other IFs that you love and want to include in your story? I started by analyzing parts of other IFs that I love. I liked Wayfarer's textbox; I liked how the choices looked in When Twilight Strikes. I liked the textboxes in the beginning of Zorlok. Find the things that amaze you about other IFs, and implement it your own way!

This seems like super basic advice—but trust me, once you think, "How can I put this in my game?" you will not only be able to have it, but most likely, you'll also learn a LOT.

While seeing how I could make the radio buttons, for example, I started researching. I googled "How to live change text?" and then I found out about jQuery, how to use the replace macro, etc. etc. JUST from researching how to do exactly one (1) feature.

2. What is missing in other IFs? Think about your own reading experience. I didn't like the clunkiness of some, how the sidebar is on the side when space on a mobile-screen is severely limited length-wise. So, I put the sidebar on the bottom.

I didn't like how other choices look in IFs, so I wanted a way to do mine that's nice and elegant(though it's still a little hard to read, admittedly).

Again, researching how to do the things you want opens many doors for you. I learned how to style <li> and change how bullets look, learned how to style links in Twine in general, etc. etc. again with just this ONE thing I wanted to change/add.

3. Don't do the work all by yourself. I struggled so hard because I hate asking for help. I was happy to Google other people's problems, but I never thought to open up my own thread or ask anybody in the community for help. Please, not only ask, but also—your work doesn't have to be completely original.

Use templates. Look at manon's amazing masterlist of things you can implement. I also have a few macro's that you can use, like multipronouns for MC, that does the work for you, for free.

Rip people's codes—respectfully. I'm not saying from other IFs, but online in other places. If they appear on help forums or are publicly available through places like CodePen, chances are that they're open-source or licensed in such a way that anyone can use it (e.g. MIT license).

Again, here is Manon's masterlist, which includes custom macros you can use in your game (Chapel, HiEv and Cycy are my high recommendations)! Additionally, here's my code for multipronouns here and my code for setting RO genders here.

4. MAKE IT READABLE!! Even if you want your game to look pretty... please, I'm begging you, make it easy to read. This is the most important thing ever.

I have a short attention span, and so does my partner. We reviewed the game to make sure we are NOT compromising the reading experience with our design. As much as we want fantastical backgrounds, we wanted to make sure it was at least not distracting. As much as we want gaudy styles, we want the actual passage to be suited for the long haul.

The most, most important part is to enhance the reading experience--not by adding things on, but by making it simple and intuitive. As someone in the computer science field, the user experience is CRITICAL. Put yourself in their shoes, think about them first and foremost.

Twine is amazingly customizable, and its powers can be wielded for good and evil. Plenty of amazing writers but inexperienced UI designers, especially from CoG, get into Twine. CoG almost completely takes away the design element, so Twine is a whole new ballpark.

Uroboros has a lot of pomp, but the actual textbox is uncharacteristically simple in comparison. The simplicity against an otherwise fantastical, but non-distracting background helps give it elegance. The sidebar, in contrast, is very eye-catching—but, it's also out of view most of the time, and isn't built for long reading.

To add on, make sure it's readable on mobile. I guarantee 80% of your readers are going to be reading your IF on their phone, and probably at 3 AM, so you will want the mobile to look as good as PC, or even better.

Closing Thoughts

Anyway, as basic as this advice is, this is really what guided my entire thought process behind my visual choices! -- Picking and choosing what you like from IFs, figuring out how to do them through research, and making sure your IF is built to be read for a while.

Thanks so much for asking, thinking that I have wisdom to impart!! 😭🫶💕

[green-alien-turdz]

Art tips for beginners? :3

I'm gonna try n be helpful here, but please keep in mind that I've been drawing my whole life, so I can't give you the perspective of someone who is just startin out.

1: Don't give up. Cheesy as fuck, I know. But you are gonna get pissed n fuckin angry when somethin doesn't turn out how you wanted it to. Don't let this discourage you! Use your mistakes and errors to keep on improving. There's no need to tear up drawings or delete anything that you aren't 100% satisfied with because you are growing in your abilities. AND TRUST that it is so rewarding to see your progress over time.

2: Challenge yourself n expect to hate it. Try all sorts of styles (cartoon, realism, or even just photo studies), do few details, do loads of details, do timed drawings, etc. Test the limits of what you can do. Similar to the previous advice, you need to allow yourself to be angry n hate the product that comes from this because you will eventually start finding your own creative style n process.

3: Don't pressure yourself beyond belief. You will not be an 'amazing' or 'visually appealing' artist from the get-go. If you are gettin burned out, allow yourself to take a break from time to time. With this though, once you start gettin more comfortable, even when you're burnt out creatively- I HEAVILY encourage you to keep doing small drawings OR other creative things to keep your mind going.

4: Experiment wit different mediums n shit like that! Explore! There is so many different forms of art to fuckin enjoy. Digital, traditional, watercolour, acrylic, clay, fuckin anything. When you get into non-digital mediums, keep cost in mind, but there are plenty of cheap alternatives that are great when you're startin out (also once you get 'better', you can control these much better, n they don't look like the initial cheap product). I personally use a lot of dollar tree shit n I used to steal from the art class in my school (but that was more out of necessity, if you can avoid it, please do. You can get in HUGE trouble if you're caught). But the main message is to experiment n try new things because there's so many different mediums out there.

5: Take in the world around you. Look at everything n think about how you could portray that in art. Really study the world. The faces people make when they don't think they're makin any, the grime that most people ignore building up on everyday objects, how people's body language says a LOT about how they feel, the way light casts in obscure ways, etc. Instead of just viewing the things around you, really look and take in the experience of bein human. Even impressionistic art holds these intricate details. You just have to be open to the experience.

6: Appreciate, but don't compare. I cannot stress dis shit enough, your art is your own, it is no one else's, so there's no need to harp on "oh this person draws x,y,and z better than me" n blah blah blah STOP! Dawg, you are doin your own shit, don't worry about if you're not on the same 'level' as others, or don't have the same 'capabilities' as some mfs. When you see other people's art, appreciate the things that they can do, but appreciate what you can do too! Especially when you're first really gettin your foot in the whole art shit, it is important to not judge your abilities compared to others who may have a lot more experience under their belt. I think it's totally okay to look at art n be like "oh that's super cool, I'd definitely like to improve on things like that", but never use it to put down your own art. This shit is subjective bro, you'll get to where you want to be. It takes a lot of time, it's not linear, but you WILL. It may not be how you expected it to look at first, but that's okay! Give yourself grace. Art is for you, at the end of the day.

You are gonna fight with yourself n the art itself, but that's totally normal! Art is one of the best forms of expression n I really hope the best for you. I know I was vague as shit n this isn't no tutorial on how to draw a realistic portrait or some shit- but that's because there's no right way to do this. Go balls to the walls or just dip your fuckin toes in. Approach it how you want, there's no right or wrong way to do art. I hope that this was somewhat helpful n I wasn't just spewin shit outta my ass n I truly wish you a good art journey

[micalpixel]

May Flowers Game - June 2024 Progress Report

Another month has passed, so here’s another update on my gamedev journey. The goal is to create my first video game using the Godot game engine.

(Prior Updates: May, Initial)

Research

The main goal for June was research. Play other character/exploration-focused games with no farming or combat elements and see what they do to keep things fun. Here’s what I played (or watched others play)

A Short Hike: A game about a penguin climbing a mountain. Finding new people, new areas, and moving/gliding were very enjoyable. The game’s 3D environment with pixelated graphics was also a new experience for me. A very nice cozy game.

Rakuen: I love this game. You play as a kid stuck in a hospital, trying to help other sick patients, while also exploring a fantasy world described in a book. Lots of exploration, puzzles, and focus on characters. Catchy music too. Kind of exactly what I was looking for. I think Undertale fans would enjoy this one.

The Stanley Parable: A choose-your-own-adventure game. No NPCs, just movement and a very entertaining and well-crafted narrator.

Potion Permit: You play as a chemist who just moved into a town, and must make a living brewing potions while getting to know the town, its people, and the wilderness. The first life-sim game I’ve actually beaten. The lack of time limits was greatly appreciated.

Shenmue (Watched not Played): An important piece of gaming history. I watched a playthrough of this one, just so I could see this game at its best, and not miss any important events.

Freddi Fish 2 (Watched not Played): A point-and-click adventure for children??!… What’s this doing here?!?! Well, this one wasn’t on my original list, but I realized the point-and-click game genre had many similarities with the walk/talk/trade-items gameplay I originally envisioned. Plus this one had no game-overs and no frustrating trial-and-error like many do. Studying how a different genre handled that kind of gameplay, while making it very accessible and entertaining, was a good learning experience.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits (WIP): I started this one, more for fun than research, but haven’t finished it yet. Beautiful game. As others have noted, it’s like playing a Pixar movie.

OneShot (Not Started Yet): Ran out of time. 😒 Next month. Really looking forward to this one.

All in all, I took 10 pages of notes. Things I noticed, liked, disliked, wanted to think about.

Prototype

On June 20, I began work on an actual prototype (“Prototype 1”). Code from my earlier Godot projects was collected, combined, and improved. The goal is to implement every important mechanic in the game. Everything the player should be able to DO in the game, the prototype should have at least ONE place where the player can do it. In a very condensed environment that's easy to test. Physics and graphics can be fine-tuned later. This prototype is all about functionality. For example:

Walk in 8 directions.

Talk to an NPC.

Choose an answer when the NPC asks a question which triggers different outcomes.

Walk to the edge of a room and appear in an adjacent room.

And overall, things have gone very well! I have a page-long checklist of everything I want to implement in this prototype, and it’s about half-done. :D

Except menus.

And except puzzles.

Puzzle mechanics aren’t added yet. I realized the mechanics I was planning did not have much synergy and were very simple. I also want to review the notes I took during research and study puzzles in general. So, back to the drawing board, for now. Puzzles are the next major step. And I think I have a pretty good idea how I want to change them.

Audio

I made a text-blip sound effect (hear it in the video above) and a placeholder “song” of 6 notes to use for testing music. Since this game’s art style is based on the Game Boy, I did some research on the Game Boy’s sound capabilities.

It has four “instruments” that can play sounds simultaneously, aka “channels”:

Channel 1 and 2: Pulse Channel. Each can emit a quadrangular wave

Channel 3: “Wave” channel with user-definable waveform

Channel 4: A noise wave (think static)

Channel 3 is the most fascinating imo. You can define your own timbre of the sound to be played. If you ever played a Game Boy game that had a unique-sounding song that, chances are it was a custom waveform via this channel. (Also, if you ever played Mother 3, the movie theater part with the retro-sounding music did in fact use the original Game Boy audio capabilities in the Game Boy Advance, and also includes these sounds.)

There is software that can reproduce the capabilities described above in order to create Game Boy-sounding music on a PC. I’d like to experiment with that in the coming weeks. The Game Boy was capable of some really good music. Limiting my scope to its capabilities for the same of my own sanity, plus the flexibility of that wave channel to create custom sounds, seems like it can produce some really nice results, which is very appealing to me.

Graphics

I made a font! It only includes English letters, for now, but it works! I used it in the “Save Pointy” art earlier this week and the prototype video above, and intend to use it for everything going forward.

Closing

And that’s June! Have a nice July, everyone!

[shytastemakerthing]

Hello! Please forgive me.

If you are still doing matchups, is it alright if I get a romantic Fnaf Security Breach and Poppy Playtime (with Smiling Critters) one? I understand if this is closed and you may ignore this message if so.

My pronouns are she/her, I'm an introvert and if you consider astrology, I am an Aquarius Sun, Cancer Moon and Leo Rising. I am straight and prefer guys but if that doesn't count than you can ignore. I don't really like revealing much about myself so you can say that I'm shy and mysterious. My hobbies include dancing (especially ballet and sometimes kpop). My talent is fitting into kids clothes because of slender my body is. My expression tends to look very distant and sad. I cannot emphasize enough how much I want to look like a Ball Jointed Doll, so I try to get as many sweet lolita dresses as possible. I love tea and coffee, I also like wearing (and buying) anything pink. I don't like heavy or gourmet meals (or food in general). If I were to be an animatronic, I'd be a cat.

If this wasn't enough information, please let me know 😭

Hello! Don't worry, everything is open right now so you are just fine! Thank you so much for your request and I hope you enjoy your match-ups! Now, I haven't done FNAF or Poppy's playtime before so I hope this is good! I rather enjoy both games!

Tw: None

I match you with.........

Sundrop/Moondrop

For starters, they're a package deal. While they are two separate AI sharing the same body, both of them still love you. It's a handful at times, but they certainly ensure that you are well taken care of

Before they became the daycare and Naptime attendants, they were working in the theater, this would mean that that they have access to all sorts of outfits, there is sure to be one in there to your liking!

The fact that you are capable of fitting into child sized clothing is rather astonishing to both of them. Sun will certainly have to keep the kids from pulling out any of their spare clothing to see if you could fit into it after that little bit of information came to light

Both of them have expressed their concerns when it came to your usual expression. While they both know that humans have certain resting expressions, and that it may not be what they are actually feeling, just seeing that your relaxing expression makes you look so sad is a little concerning to them. It takes some getting used to

Moon has asked to dance with you on more than one occasion. Sun gets to see you a lot longer, as he is out more often, and he gets to dance with you and the kids. When they're napping, he wants his turn

He also loves your shy demeanor. Has he poked at you about it? Yes. Will he stop? Well, that depends

Sun finds it adorable, so when he gets those rare moments that you're more out of your shell, he cherishes each and every millisecond of it

They both have access to the internet, they both know of your love for lolita dresses and anything pink.... yes, they have managed to get you things. When asked, they won't answer

Well, you get some cute new outfits for it

Now, I think Moon wouldn't exactly like the coffee drinking. Too much caffeine, it keeps you awake when you should be asleep, so he will try to limit your intake

But both seem rather chill about the tea.... Moon has slipped you a sleepytime tea more than once if he saw you tired but still deciding to work.... don't test just how far he will go

Overall, they both just want the very best for you. Not to mention, they absolutely love how you just treat them like anyone else, like they're actually people. A lot of the time, they are overlooked, either for being animatronic, or because they weren't part of the main cast. SO, every moment they get to share with you, is a moment that they will cherish forever.

I match you with...........

DogDay

This will be set pre- hour of joy!

He absolutely loves watching you dance, no matter the style, that music it is, he just loves being able to watch you

Yes, that is his tail wagging

He is a little too big to try and dance with you, poor boy is worried to accidentally hurt you

But perhaps you would let him carry you and he can dance with you in his arms?

He would rather like that

One thing that gets him scratching his head is just how you are able to fit into child sized clothing. He has seen how small some of those can be and the fact you can fit into them? He still wonders how you do it

He loves seeing you dressed up all cute in your lolita dresses and pink outfits. He may not have a way to get you more, but he certainly wished that he did

Maybe he can ask Crafty if she has any ideas if they could make you something somehow? There is bound to be some fabric around here somewhere

He is not someone to try and force you out of your shy shell, he loves you just the way that you are and if you are having any difficulties, he will certainly be there as fast as he can to be able to help you out

At the end of a long day, Dogday wants nothing more than to be able to relax with you. One thing he certainly loves is being able to rest his head in your lap. You could be sipping on your tea and the both of you would be going over everything that happened that day

Overall, Dogday is a caring and loyal partner. He would ensure that you have everything it is that you need, never does he fail to compliment you, especially the dresses you chose for the day, he loves them all. You just make them even more beautiful. Everyday, he is thankful for the chance that he got to meet you, and he loves just how much you have changed his life

Thank you so much for your request!!!

[kit-pix]

I'm going to be asking a lot of artists I follow this question, but how did you develop your style? It SEEMS like most people find their style and stick with it forever, just making improvements and iterations. I tend to work in a lot of different styles because I enjoy doing that, though I know there are things I gravitate towards as well. But I wonder what your journey was and how you got feedback and improved while staying true to what you enjoyed?

Hello! This is such an interesting question!

I feel like I go through style iterations at a rapid pace at the moment because of being at design school, which forces me to have some degree of ~range in style across projects, but from a personal art perspective, I think it's very much a matter of what is around me. I try and surround myself with people/objects/artwork that I love so that I don't run dry on inspiration if I'm looking for it. I only started seriously doing digital art in 2022 so I'm very much a newbie in that sense and haven't fully discovered all the tools that are available which is limiting in some ways!

Ultimately I've developed through focusing on making art of/about/for what I love. Honestly I haven't had a lot of formal feedback outside of illustration for design/school because I'm self taught and haven't really sought it out, but I find it helpful to look back at my past work and identify what I don't like or what I could change to make it better!

I like Austin Kleon's concept of 'stealing like an artist' - if I see a technique I really like that an artist is using, I'll try that particular thing out with my normal style as a test rather than trying to emulate the artist directly (though I think it's okay to do that if you're not posting it publicly to practice things), and I'll either leave it or incorporate it into the larger picture of my ~style.

I also have a collection of (mostly secondhand) art, design and reference books which I can flick through when I need to spark something.

Sorry that this is a crazy long answer but I hope it gives some insight! Feel free to hit me up for a chat if you want me to elaborate on anything! 💖

[animeraider]

Project 2025 will kill you. Yes, you. Sections 11-15 (of 30)

So I've been reading Project 2025 so you don't have to, and I'm going to report on everything I find that is alarming, which is a lot. Part One can be found here. Part Two can be found here.

Section 11 - Department of Education

"Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated."

That's the first sentence in this whole section. I think that pretty much says it all.

All student loans and grants are to be moved to the private sector. Move education for military families to the Defense Department and for Washington D.C. to Congress. I imagine that also applies to protectorates like Guam and Puerto Rico but the document actually doesn't say.

Put all education funding under State Control. You should really ask a child living in Florida how that's working out. Reject Gender Identity and Racial studies. Eliminate executive orders in education. I remind you that integration was done by executive order.

Transfer all Native American education to the Bureau for Indian Affairs. Transfer all adult education programs to the Department of Labor. Privatize Student Aid.

Move all civil rights enforcement to the Department of Justice. Transfer all civil service employees to other agencies. Eliminate the understanding that Trans people even exist.

Eliminate any privacy regulations used to protect students from any form of abuse. Rescind all regulations in Equity in IDEA.

Eliminate all food programs for students. All of them.

Phase out income-based student loan repayment programs. Rescind all funding for the National Education Association. Consider "Critical Race Theory" to be racism. 

Here's a crazy one that takes paragraphs to unravel: Allow parents of children over the age of 18 to sue to recover any monies spent on their education. Also, allow families to "opt out" of the education system entirely and for those that do give as a tax break the funding that would have been used to educate that child directly to the parents.

Allow states to opt out of any and all federal education programs. Eliminate Parent PLUS loans. 

There is page after page of basically "end anything Obama or Biden did", but eventually it all boils down to that first sentence. Eliminate the Department of Education.

Section 12 - Department of Energy (and related commissions)

You would expect this whole document to be drill baby drill but in fact it starts with the repeal and elimination of the Biden Administration's Infrastructure Act - the single largest jobs creation bill in the last 75 years. That's followed with not only a dependence upon oil and natural gas but a declaration that the U.S. needs to be the best in the world in Science. Great for a country trying to eliminate the Department of Education.

Eliminate the office of Clean Energy, and the office of Grid Deployment. Yep, they don't want the government looking at the power grid. 

Not only increase a reliance ("dominance") in oil and gas but nuclear power as well. 

Lots of paragraphs on focusing on science, which again - see the section on the Department of Education. Lots of contradictions here. Increase the level of private sector disposal of nuclear waste. What could possibly go wrong?

Fund a rebuilding of the country's nuclear arsenal. New warheads and testing. Eliminate Carbon Capture programs and Carbon offsets. Pursue much more coal, including coal waste as fuel. Increase fossil fuels. 

End the government's focus on green energy and renewables. Eliminate efficiency standards for appliances. In fact, they put this paragraph in the document twice on consecutive pages. 

"End Grid planning and focus instead on reliability." I shit you not, that's a whole topic in here. Say goodbye to grid upgrades and hello to more Texas-style outages. They then spend several pages repeating everything I've already told you about. 

Eliminate the Department of Energy's ability to make loans. Eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Looks like that better battery for your Tesla is going to have to wait.

Eliminate the Clean Energy Corps. Privatize the Energy Information Administration. Stop all funding for "climate reparations" - i.e. paying for the damage caused by oil production in underdeveloped nations.

Drill in Alaska (of course). Claim the Arctic Circle for the same purpose. Take an "America First" approach at the Office of Technology. 

Accelerate cleanup of all "Superfund" sites (except for Hanford in Washington State - which is where the U.S. government has stored Plutonium Waste for many years) with a goal of completing all work by 2035. That sounds good on the surface but in most of these sites there is a reason that it needs to go slow: fast work actually makes the contamination WORSE and spreads it further. Eliminate some regulations specific to the Hanford site.

Get all active Nuclear Waste stored at Yucca Mountain already.

As long as we're talking about nuclear stuff again, let's make more nukes. Abandon the Test Ban Treaty. Divest certain programs at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore to refocus on nuclear energy and weaponry. Several pages are spent rehashing the need to get rid of renewables

Refocus transmission of electrical to the state level. I mean, why can't we all be Texas? Eliminate all questions about oil and gas pipelines to only consider the need for the fuels, not environmental or any other concerns. 

Eliminate the guidance of "as low as reasonably possible" for nuclear exposure when considering renewing the licensing for existing nuclear power plants or building new ones. 

Fuck, this was a nightmare to get through. but guess what's next?

Section 13 - Environmental Protection Agency

This whole section was written by Mandy M. Gunasekara, a former Chief of Staff at the EPA under the Trump Administration who in 2023 was kicked off the ballot in Mississippi when she ran for Public Service Commissioner - because she didn't live there.

Let's start that in the mission statement that it blames the lead poisoning crisis in Flint Michigan on The Obama Administration, which is so obviously incorrect that it boggle belief. It also states that every expansion of the EPA since 1972 is unnecessary.

Eliminate the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. Eliminate the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance. Eliminate the Office of Public Engagement and Environmental Education. "Relocate" the Office of Children’s Health Protection and the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization - although the document does say where to relocate these agencies to.

Review the grants program to ensure that taxpayer funds go to organizations focused on tangible environmental improvements free from political affiliation (there are no such groups). 

This document goes on for more than 30 pages and makes the same faulty assumptions and rewrites historical data so often that it should be considered a work of fiction. But the key thing is unchanged: That everything that the EPA has done in terms of rulings and regulations since 1972 should be repealed.

Where I grew up you could see the air in 1972. It was grey. That's what they want to go back to.

Section 14 - Department of Heath and Human Services

This whole section was written by The Heritage Foundation. In the first two sentences it proclaims the COVID-19 Pandemic as over (which it isn't) and that life expectancy has decreased since the end of the Pandemic - which we do not yet know as the timing is too recent for statistical analysis. It's a lie.

No more abortions. Ever.

Prioritize families over everyone else. By the way, that's "traditional" families. Mother, father, children, church.

Remove the ability to declare emergencies and provide guidelines for outbreaks of diseases that contradict the political agenda of the administration. Move the recommendations of the CDC on how to treat anything into a separate political agency.  The entire document assumes that the CDC is faulty and corrupt, and not that the people using the CDC to make policy are. This is also a lie.

Remove Generic drugs from Medicaid. Make Abortion pills a controlled substance, with the ultimate goal of making them illegal at the same degree as Meth and Cocaine.

Eliminate chickenpox, Hepatitis, and MMR vaccines that originate from studies and science from fetal tissue. That's all of them, by the way. Also, eliminate vaccine mandates of any kind - you know, the type that for a while eliminated chicken pox, small pox, the mumps, measles and so on and could have been used to eliminate COVID. I notice that all of these are on the rise in the US. Even motherfucking POLIO is back.

Eliminate all research that uses science from Fetal Tissue. Eliminate all science funding and research that involves the fluidity of human sexuality. There are men and there are women and they are born that way. Period.

Several paragraphs are about "Woke" policies, and they encourage an end to diversity in conferences and studies.

When it gets to the Medicare section there is paragraph after paragraph about the bureaucracy of Medicare and how much time doctors have to spend on paperwork. This is a common fallacy that has been around for decades - yes, there is paperwork and there is a lot of it, but it's still LESS PAPERWORK THAN REQUIRED BY PRIVATE INSURERS. 

The truth is that bureaucratic waste in Medicaid is about 2%, where in the private industry it varies from 5% to 10%.

Eliminate the ability to negotiate drug prices under Medicare. 

As for Medicaid, paragraph after paragraph is dedicated to the elimination of problems that don't actually exist, plus adding work requirements to eligibility and actually taking away from states the ability to make programs flexible - which seems like an oxymoron until you realize that most waivers for various programs under Medicaid are for Democratic Party controlled states that are allowed to use these funds to treat the LGBTAI+ community and allow for abortion access.

Under the Affordable Care Act there is an awful lot of focus on redesigning medical care into a Concierge Medicine approach, which most people would not be able to afford. The document calls this stronger health care (true) and more affordable (patently false). It would also eliminate all of the cost controls in the system. There is no language saying that they want to eliminate the ACA, but they certainly would render it useless.

Prohibit travel for Abortion care.

Defund Planned Parenthood, which as I like to tell people is NOT a chain of abortion clinics but is a chain of Doctor's Offices with an emphasis on women's care. Withdraw Medicaid funds from any state where abortion is legal.

Deny gender affirming care for anyone with Medicaid or Medicare. Again, men and women are the only two genders and they are determined at birth.

Rescind all COVID-19 Mask and Vaccination guidelines, and pay damages to anyone displaced (i.e. fired) for not following those guidelines.

Institute work requirements for all recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Most of the verbiage about the prevention of teenage pregnancies is to deter things that aren't happening. Adoptions should be funneled through religious organizations. Crazily enough, the document in the same paragraph also acknowledges that there are 4 times more children awaiting adoption than people who want them, although I believe the actual ratio is closer to 7 to 1.

Move the office of Refugee Settlement to the Department of Homeland Security. Looking back at that document, there is no indication that DHS actually wants this.

Allows for parents who do not have custody of their children to receive a child-tax credit anyway. It actually specifically calls out that it wants the ability to allow deadbeat dads to take the tax credit.

Encourage bad marriages to stay together as a requirement of government assistance. Allow faith-based organizations who distribute this aid to discriminate as they see fit. Implement a national campaign that is pro-father propaganda. You know, to keep marriages together. Think of the poor men.

Eliminate Head Start.

Criminalized Physician assisted suicide, which is legal in 10 states according to this document. Remove requirements that telemedicine be local to the patient. I should point out that this would eliminate the ability to recommend hospitalizations, as these doctors wouldn't have admitting privileges where the patients actually are.

Allow hospitals, doctors and physicians to not provide abortion related care of any kind because of religious beliefs, even in states where it is legal and protected.

No more funding for condoms. No more funding for "Morning-after" pills (which they call "the week after pills" in this section). Withdraw all support for gender affirming/transitioning guidance. 

Stop teaching the medical procedures used in abortion care. I repeat, hinder the educational skills of every doctor in America.

The entire section on Indian Health Care (and why can't they ever use the phrase "Native Americans"?) is full of lies and I won't dignify them. 

Sunset all HHS regulations, which Trump tried last time around.

More bullshit about violations of human rights that never happened (mostly involving twitter and Facebook). They don't want the department to push back against lies on social media.

More verbiage that the administration needs to be Pro-Life and anti-Trans care. This is like the fifth or sixth time in this document so far, making it one of the longer ones I've gone through. This is followed by a series of paragraphs that are mostly lies about the COVID Pandemic, complaining about things that never happened.

It's full of lies.

Restrict and/or rescind funding to any country that supports abortion care. Prohibit overseas personnel from providing care that is in contradiction with administration policy. That's right, overseas care is now a political decision.

The entire rest of the document - several pages - is about how the only civil rights violation in health care is that providers of care of certain religions are not allowed to discriminate in their health care decisions, and that such discrimination should be allowed.

To summarize: No abortions, no gender affirming care, no contraceptives, stay in abusive marriages, no good health care for poor people, let churches discriminate, and lie every third sentence (or more often).

Section 15 - Department Housing and Urban Development

Woohoo! This section was written by Dr. Ben Carson! This of course means it's the shortest section in the whole damn thing, clocking in at all of 14 pages, 4 of which are footnotes.

Also, unlike previous chapters, the first 4 pages are only about what the department does who what the department posts and responsibilities are, and has no policy directives save for the basic concept that the department needs an overhaul.

Replace all career officers with political appointees. Issue an executive order making the HUD Secretary a member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S, to counter the Chinese threat that they are buying to much real estate in the U.S. Seems highly reminiscent of the same language used against Japan in the 1980's.

Reverse all protections for LGBTQIA+ persons implemented under the Biden Administration. Reverse all property appraisals done under the Biden Administration, because you know they did them all wrong. Eliminate any programs that have any mention of Climate Change. Eliminate the use of special-purpose credit authorities. Eliminate the new Housing Supply Fund.

Non-citizens, even those households who are comprised of both citizens and non-citizens, are to be denied housing assistance. Anyone with mental issues or drug assistance issues need to be treated before considered for housing. 

"Statutorily restricting eligibility for first-time homebuyers." That's the EXACT wording.

Finally, create an office of CFO for the department, who will do most of the work. Not bad for the laziest cabinet secretary in all history.

14 pages, only 6 of which are policy, all of which is designed to not actually do anything.

Next posting will cover the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, Department of Labor, Department of Transportation, and the  Department of Veteran Affairs.

[primewritessmut]

A, H, P (He Speaks Daggers), T

A: Of the fanfic you’ve written, which is your favorite and why?

You may not know this about me but once a fic is completed, it is dead to me. I shove it out of the nest without really caring whether it can fly and literally never think about it again.

But... if I had to pick one... I'd say Songs for the Zombie Apocalypse. It was an experimental fic for me in a lot of ways. I wrote in a genre I'd never written in before. I absolutely refused to let it have a happy ending. I gave myself a word limit. And I think it has the highest ratio of words to my vibe reading typing "PRIME" and "sicko!" in my docs of any other fic I've written (so far). Which is really one of my biggest litmus tests.

H: How would you describe your writing style?

Drawing a summoning circle, placing my laptop inside, and letting the spirit of whatever demon comes to call take over the keyboard.

Maybe that sounds flippant but every time I sit down to write, it's the equivalent of turning the key in an absolute jalopy and praying the engine turns over. Then driving that bitch until it breaks down on the side of the road. I am on a journey. A ride. I'm not really even steering the thing.

Basically, I don't know what it is or how it happens, I'm just along for the ride.

P:  Where did you find the most inspiration for your story He Speaks Daggers?

Not to sound flippant again, but Loki's daggers. More specifically, the long dagger that Kid Loki gives him before he goes to fight Elioth. I just wanted to write a horny, yet soft knife kink that ended up being an exploration of friendship and trust and intimacy.

The subtext of the show, specifically Loki and Mobius's relationship, was a big inspiration, too. Really anytime they're in a room together and you sort of watch them orbit around each other like they have their own personal sun. And all the grounding physical touch. I really, really wanted to see if I could capture that in writing.

T: Any fanfic tropes you can’t stand?

I'm a mood reader in a lot of ways so a trope that I would absolutely click away from today might be the trope I'm scouring the internet for tomorrow. But I'm usually pretty picky about my power dynamics. There are some pairings that I won't read at all (teacher/student) and some that I have to be sold on depending (boss/secretary, certain age gaps). However, like I said in a different ask, I read very weird shit and I'm willing to try almost anything once.

(Seriously. Ask me about the fingerling potato book. Or, you know, don't.)

x

[muldxr]

2022 writing review 🤍

another year has come and gone! i was tagged by @neondiamond @beardyboyzx @wabadabadaba @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed

1. Number of stories posted to AO3: 18

2. Word count posted for the year: ~56k

3. Fandoms I wrote for: One Direction

4. Pairings: Harry/Louis, with a dash of Zayn/Liam in my new fic

5. Story with the most: Kudos: greased lightnin’ [155] Bookmarks: Hill Country [54] Comment threads: Hill Country [17]

the rest is under the cut!

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why): Hill Country was a creative experience from start to end. I mentioned this one a lot this year, but there's nothing major I would change about it. I will always, genuinely, enjoy re-reading it and I thank everyone who gives it a chance

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why): it was a really hard year so i don't want to be negative about any of my works <3 they all have their strengths

8. Share or describe a favorite review you received: I appreciate @lululawrence for kindly reccing dark blue on her June podcast episode here! I was in awe because it is a fic that i didn't think anyone would enjoy - and she COMPARED IT to other iconic crackfics, and it's just a big honor to have this underrated gem on that list.

9. A time when writing was really, really hard: lately my writing motivation has dwindled as the daylight disappeared, and i didn't have a very fun time writing in aug-oct but i'm prepared to do better in 2023

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: does Figs count? i loved the creativity that came with this style of poem and the 'scene' it sets up. i have been testing my limits with writing shorter but more impactful works this year

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing: this is from after hours and i can't resist a scene where all hope is lost

“Harry, please, leave it.”

“I’ve been trying to hold onto something, to find something good out of the bad. Why don’t you?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“You said I’ve been too quiet. You said I wasn’t helping you figure it out, but I was. And I can’t be positive about it like you are, because the answer’s fucking obvious.” He makes a sweeping gesture at himself, an absolutely broken flick of the hand. He doesn’t bother to look at Harry. “It’s my fault.”

Then Harry can’t get a word in while Louis passes him, walking into the house. He doesn’t follow, not right away. Sooner or later he’ll have to go up, work through the stubbornly silent treatment to console Louis, and come up with an easier way to separate their guilt from what they have to do. 

That, and because, when the sound of footsteps returns, Harry realizes he has the keys.  

13. How do you hope to grow next year: 1) I want to continue betaing/cheerleading, so hit me up! 2) I hope i can write another 15k+ fic! that would be great because I enjoy the chance to sit with a plot/cast of characters for longer than a few months

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer, beta, cheerleader, etc): people who tagged me in snippet games!! i don't post those very often because it's hard for me to write more than a few sentences at a time and I have a lot of scattered dialogue and incomplete scenes, but i enjoy interacting with everyone

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:  this is a deep-dish-pizza-loving household, thus after hours gave it the attention it deserves. hill country also held a lot of texan essence~ and i'm glad i poured it in there. I-80 was inspired by a roadtrip. see-see was based on 15+ years of movie-going experiences (if i figure out how, i might write a longform deaf au, emphasis on might). i think that's it? i try to be creative and pull inspiration from things, but if it turns too personal it's difficult to not want it to be 100% perfect

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: not to say this applies to everyone - but I have learned in the last 1.5 years of writing fic, it's important to take things in moderation when planning wips and committing to fests. i learned this the hard way, and it made me reevaluate my connection to writing and taking care of myself

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: it's a slow year! I am working on fics for @harryrarepairfest and @omegaharryfest due in March before I take a personal break. Then two more projects finished by November? I'm also open to writing for other fandoms 🫣

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read. @allwaswell16 @uhoh-but-yeah-alright @onlythebravest @tommokat @beelou @phd-mama @littleroverlouis @starsweredible @thedevilinmybrain and who else wants to share!

[bonesandthebees]

BONES HOW THE FUCK DO YOU WRITE SO FAST. I WAS OFF THE INTERNET FOR LIKE 2 WEEKS AND THERE'S 3 WHOLE NEW CHAPTERS TOTAL WHAT THE FUCK /nsrs

ooh we've reached the twist part of the kimi no na wa plot can't wait to see how tommy's going to react to this /lh

i love all the little mentions of their character quirks like tommy's texting style and wilbur setting self-care reminders for tommy. i love all the differences in how wilbur and tommy talk and carry themselves and how those little things make it so clear whenever they're bodyswapped. i love tommy's narration about him getting attached to wilbur and his family and living a life that wasn't his own. jhgkdf it's all so <3

and glass divine!! bones you've done it again. how do i keep falling in love with all your wilburs, they're all so delightfully complex and very very fucked up /pos

before the escape attempt there's this whole contrast between the pythia's outwardly bitchy attitude and his inner desperation for clara's guidance and also for the deathlings to just do something about him already. which is entirely fair considering he doesn't even know what they want with him or what their limits are. being bitchy is his only way to both oppose them and to test those limits himself.

(i've read enough sbi adoption fics to recognize that just-get-it-over-with-and-hurt-me sentiment. it's typical fanfic wilbur behavior lmao)

also i love how wilbur's immediate concern after the escape attempt was that he's failed clara. as in he thinks clara wanted to him to escape and that he's failed her by not escaping. wilbur your life and your decisions don't belong entirely to clara wilbur please—

oh glass!wilbur. this bad boy can fit so much fucking guilt and frustration in him <3

the newest chapter has so many banger lines too!! 'Waiting for Clara to grant him Her Guidance once more, even though he didn’t deserve it.' 'At the very least, the tears might wash off some of the dirt on him.' 'If I were to refuse Her calling, it’d be as if I was refusing the reason I breathe.'

i just. i. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhfuck

and then there's the final lines of the chapter:

[“Okay,” he murmured, nodding to himself. “I think I get it now.”

The Pythia wasn’t sure why, but he got the strangest feeling Tommy didn’t understand what he meant at all.]

pythia: yeah my sole purpose is to carry out my goddess's will and nothing else

tommy, internally: Now We Don't Have Time To Unpack All Of That

LMAO I'm in a very weird life situation rn but it's giving me a lot of time to write so I'm not that upset about it. hence why you're getting so many chapters from me in such a short span of time.

aw thank you!! yeah strings is very interesting for me to write because I have to come up with creative ways for the two to interact and bond, and also show what characteristics carry over even when they're switched. also this wasn't really explored in the movie, but I always got the sense that taki (the tommy equivalent for those who have never seen it) really bonded with mitsuha (the wilbur equivalent)'s family because of his own distant relationship with his father. I thought that worked really well for tommy and wanted to explore that side of things, which makes for some really bittersweet narration on tommy's end.

i'm so glad you're enjoying glass divine too!! glass!wilbur is SUCH a mess i love him so much. writing complex versions of wilbur is one of my favorite things lol he's such a fun character to play around with

before the escape attempt wilbur was completely at a loss for what to do. he felt like he failed his goddess and wasn't getting any guidance for her, and he was in an extremely stressful situation, so he was lashing out in any way he could to try and find some control of the situation. he has no idea what their plans for him are or where their limits are, so he just has to keep testing them until he hits a wall.

of course his first thoughts after being caught are that he failed clara. she's the only reason he went so far in his escape attempt. if he hadn't had a vision of attacking tommy, he would never have had the nerve to go that far with it.

LMAO thats literally the last lines. tommy is just like "now we can't unpack all of that right now" because that is just a Lot to process.

I'm so glad you're enjoying so far!! love hearing peoples thoughts as always!!

[sugar-phoenix]

Why I'm not scared of AI

So, with the advent of AI, and how people are using AI generated images, drawings, and writing, I've seen a lot of people terrified that they'll lose their jobs. That these robots will perform better than they ever could, that these robots will basically render human creativity useless.

Let me give a little exposition: Even before AI, I was never content with stealing images from the internet for my own uses.

When I became skilled enough, I drew my own profile pictures, my own wallpapers, my backgrounds, my book covers, etc. Only recently, for religious reasons, I stopped drawing humans and animals and therefore I've used images from Pinterest sparingly. It's still never as satisfying. There are ideas within my head that you cannot find anywhere. You may find close to them, but it will never truly be them.

Enter AI. The magical software that could give you whatever you wanted. At first, with AI art, I did generate some, when it was much early on, before I had learned that it scraped others' arts. It was clunky, and limited, and sure, it was early on, so of course it didn't give me what I wanted.

I tried it again much later. When I had some idea that it scraped other people's arts, I tested the waters. Surely, out of all the art that it scraped, it could make the idea in my head. I never meant to use the image or generator for malicious reasons, I wanted to see if it could truly transcend human art.

The prompt was simple: I wanted it to draw me a drawing of a boy with white hair, blue eyes, and crescent moon marks at the corners of his eyes. Anyone with any skill could draw this.

Nothing. I kept rewording my prompts. It would give me boys, it would give me boys with blue skin, dark hair, light hair, blue eyes, white eyes, but never a crescent moon mark anywhere on their face. It simply had no idea what I meant when I wrote that in my prompt. For all the seemingly high quality art it gave me, the magical anime styles, the digital painted styles, it was even worse than a child. Because I could ask a child to draw me that prompt, and they would try to give me exactly what I wanted. Even if the shapes were wonky, even if the moons were half moons rather than crescent moons, at least the child would know what I wanted, would give me something within their ability that covered all the elements I wanted.

Now, let's switch around to text-based AI. When I first discovered character.ai I thought it was mesmerizing. I was addicted to talking to a fictional character. But soon enough, I found myself choosing the character's answers to my roleplays. I would flip through ten, fifteen answers, and I would always be settling. Never truly happy. The ai was smart, I'll give it that. It would remember things from previous prompts or answers. But it couldn't give me a new piece of writing it hadn't seen before. It couldn't make up a new reaction to what I had given it. Sometimes it surprised me, but it usually gave me regular, repeated, cliché reactions. Like as if I was roleplaying with a fourteen year old who had just started roleplaying, but I'll say it was even worse than that.

After a while, I realized that writing a fanfiction with a self insert would be better and more efficient than playing with character.ai.

Now, what do I mean to say by all this?

Technology is limited by what it knows. Perhaps we think that it isn't, because as humans we take in other people's stuff all the time. We see others' arts, others' writings, and we write/draw stuff based off of those all the time. Sometimes you'll find yourself writing or drawing something someone else has already. We all know this by now: there are no more "original" plots. Everything you write has probably been written already, or very close to it. I'm not sure the same can be said for art but as an artist you would find yourself drawing with a color palette someone else has already used, you'd be drawing creatures with aspects from nature or from someone else's fictional characters.

But the thing is. Out of those things, you can make something new. You can make something unique. I'm writing a story where I twisted Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel together, where Daciana is Rapunzel and the Wolf simultaneously, where Rhydian is the Prince and the Huntsman simultaneously. If I fed AI Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel, and fed it several thousand YA fantasy books, then told it to write me a twist between Rapunzel and Red Riding Hood, I don't think it could give me my plot. I don't care if we wait 50 years, or 100 years. It would give you some cliche, some copy of a YA fantasy book but replace some of the characters with Red Riding Hood or Rapunzel. But you don't get Daciana's wolf-hair shifting magic. You don't get how Rhydian's kingdom has a history with the Wolves that live in the deep forest. Why? If we asked the computer, it would simply say: "I haven't seen that yet. I didn't know you could do that."

It doesn't think outside the box.

That's what makes it different. It can never think outside the box. No matter how lifelike it feels, no matter how you think that the computer is on the verge of becoming human, it's only mimicking what we do. It only works with what it knows, it can't try something new. It can't experiment.

Humans can.

In fact, you need a human to train the machine. You actually need human eyes, human content, to feed into the machine. There is a human driving the machine to give more accurate outputs. Without a human training the machine, it would never be what it is now. The computer needs the human.

And so I think that text-based AI, and image-based AI will only, in the future, do the same work as what we know as "cheap labor." People who don't want to pay, yet sacrifice originality for not paying. Less-than-amateur work. I think that big companies, people who actually want quality work, unique work, work that makes them stand out from the crowd, whether that be an illustration for an advertisement, a logo, a website design, an app design, they'll hire a human being who can think outside the box. This is what a lot of companies want anyway, at least companies who are worth their salt. They want someone who can think, who can make something without being spoon-fed a bunch of information.

Anyone who is afraid of AI art/text, I highly recommend you go ahead and generate something. Just test it. Try getting it to generate something you want to draw. Generate something you want to write. I spent thirty minutes the other day, desperately trying to have it generate a story idea. Try getting AI to generate exactly the image in your mind, exactly the vibe of the story you want. Try that out, see how far that gets you. Know that whenever someone says "I don't need you, I can just use AI instead" that this is what they're getting. They're working with the equivalent of a child who has never been taught to think for themselves, instead only copying and mimicking things they've already seen. Perhaps combining what they've mimicked, but never in creative new ways, only in ways they've been taught to do so. The computer can never transcend what it's been taught. It always works within the rules it's given, even if it gives you something new, like a calculator calculating the output of a new formula you haven't seen before.

New technology has always scared human beings, because you're experimenting with something you don't quite understand the limits of. People buy into technology they don't full understand either. It's times like these where it's imperative to understand the limits of what you're looking at, and imperative to let things settle before making any judgements yet.

I understand that there's been a lot of changes and things are in the air. Artists/writers are getting fired because their companies think AI can do the job better, people are getting their artwork stolen. There's a lot of problems at the moment, but ultimately, I think that AI will never replace true human creativity. And that's something to hold on to in the midst of all this uncertainty.

[arcanescionmoved]

A random drabble at the possibility of a polyship between Caitlyn, Sevika and Vi. Thanks for the inspiration @independentzaun because now I need this ship.

The estate was usually quiet, a couple of peacocks moving around, one with his tail spread out flaunting his beautiful feathers as he casually moved along the grassy landscape. Caitlyn was settled in a fancy Ojai daybed, her side propped up against the light beige pillows and her legs pulled up against her. Her body is dressed in a casual shirt, hanging off of one shoulder of light blue, and a pair of shorts for comfort in the warm weather that afternoon. Her bare feet pressed up against her as she lifted a glass of tea, sipping at the flavor of chai and cinnamon mixed in with some milk as she settled it down on a small table next to the bed. Blue hair lightly danced in the soft breeze, silky silver streaks slipping in front of her face as she pushed it back behind her ear and enjoyed reading the book in her hand.

Manicured fingernails flipped the page, resting her elbow against the top of the daybed headboard, the fresh air made her feel at ease. Cherry blossom trees danced against the small breeze, with brilliant soft pink blossoms blooming on the trees providing a touch of shade and elegance to the garden. A couple of sounds caught her ear though as she glanced up. Around one of the grassy open areas, shaded with a couple of lotus trees stood two bodies. Between the flash of blood-red hair and dark chocolate brown, Caitlyn reached up and pulled off the sunglasses resting against her nose and set them down on the table.

Course the two of them would find a perfect spot to spare, Sevika towering over Vi, and yet Vi had no problem handling her own. To think, a few years ago they had been willing to kill each other and now, they sparred as partners willing to test and push each other's limits; to further define their styles of aggression. Caitlyn still had the book in her hand, but she definitely didn't remember what she last read. Instead, her cerulean eyes keyed in on how their muscles rippled, fist against fist, as their muscles flexed to handle each hit and shift. And to keep Caitlyn's interest and the fact a light red blush fitted over her cheeks, the two had to be topless. Breath, Caitlyn, Breath. Though it was difficult when their bodies glistened with sweat and she was positive they were doing this on purpose.

Quiet steady breaths left Caitlyn's lips, til she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, the spar before her too difficult to look away. She knew she was staring (perhaps that's what the two of them wanted) as her book dropped against the ground with a thud. "Oh," Caitlyn pulled her thoughts were pulled back to reality suddenly as she reached down, treating her book with care as she closed it without marking her page and set it at the side of the bed. The huffing grunts flew on the breeze as Caitlyn redirected her attention to the spar her eyes sliding down from their chest to their abs, seeing the way their cores tightened when they slammed into each other, trying to take the other down. Despite their size differences, they seemed to be equally matched as Caitlyn took a deep breath.

When did they finish sparring, Caitlyn wasn't sure. But when she noticed the two of them walking back in her direction she became hyper-aware of her staring and the blush against her face as she moved her feet over the day bed and reached for a pitcher of water, pouring a couple of glasses.

"Did you two have fun?" She questioned, leaving the glasses for them. Perhaps she should just pour the pitcher of water over herself, she really needed a cold shower now as she could see them both smirking.

They knew what they were doing.