#you can find the link to that one in my introductory post!

[dogearedheart]

I need to read your fanfics

ngl me too, anon! I wish I'd be able to finish them 😪

[sweetlysimss]

► NOT SO BERRY x BERRY PASTEL RAINBOWCY - AN UPDATED VERSION

as some of you might know, I've written updated versions of the not so berry challenge and the berry pastel rainbowcy before. however, I keep wanting to switch between the two challenges or abandoning my one save for the other. so, on a random Monday evening I figured, why not combine the two for the ultimate updated challenge experience? my lovely fellow simmers over at @berrygameplay convinced me to write stuff down and... the NSB x BPR updated rules was born!

credit goes to @lilsimsie and @alwaysimming for the original nsb rules and @berrysweetboutique for the original berry pastel rainbowcy rules!

►WHAT ABOUT THE RULES

as with my two other updated challenges, i've written the rules in a google doc (that you cannot edit! stop asking for permission to edit the file!). if you want to save the rules for yourself, go to file > create a copy and you're able to save the rules wherever you want and edit them. this will not change the original document.

there are disclaimers, a list of packs you need for this challenge (most packs are optional) and an index to move through generations quickly. each gen has their own introductory story (you don't have to adhere to these stories!), required traits - aspirations - careers, the generational rule (bpr), reward traits to buy, and the list of objectives catered to that generation. feel free to edit these objectives to your hearts desire! this challenge is supposed to be fun :)

► NSBxBPR

if you want to play this challenge, please tag your posts with #nsbxbpr so I can follow and share them!

so. let's get to it:

► SEND ME TO THE RULES

For easy access and to show an example of the rules, here are the first generation’s rules all written out. If you want to look at the other generations, click on the “send me to the rules” link!

generation one: white

coming from a long line of privileged sims, you’re ready to break away from your family and pursue your own dreams. you’ve only really felt close to your grandparent and never told anyone you were the sole heir to their old, rundown farmhouse. starting off with nothing, you pick up the hobby you were never allowed to put into practice: painting. you find it difficult to let other sims in and may come across as rude sometimes. you just need that one special sim to make you feel like it’s all worth it. slowly but surely, your own family starts to grow, but not without its ups and downs…

traits: creative, mean, [open slot]

aspiration: painter extraordinaire OR chief of mischief

career: none (sell paintings, produce, and harvestables)

spouses career: [open slot]

rules

GENERATIONAL RULE: paint a portrait of your heir REWARD TRAITS TO BUY: mentor, speed reader, super green thumb

move into a lot with the ‘simple living’ lot challenge (size is up to you)

max painting skill

max gardening skill

max mischief skill

max logic skill

have multiple different love interests, but do not settle before having a child

date with a purple, pink, AND/OR red sim

have only 1 child with purple, pink, or red sim and 1 alien child

become enemies with the spouse you decide not to go long-term with

optional: make at least 2 enemies

marry a purple, pink OR red sim

sell at least 5 masterpieces

have at least 2 different animals on your farm

choose from the following: horse, goat, lamb, cow, llama, bunny, chicken, cat, dog, rodent

if you choose a horse, max the horse skills: temperament, jumping, agility, endurance

become good friends with all of your children and animals

adult or elder: max the knitting and/or cross-stitch skill

adult or elder: become good friends with at least 1 grandchild

[still-a-morosexual-help]

okay so lately I have seen a lot of people claim they hate mammon bc he steals from mc, and like there's nothing wrong with disliking a character lol but I don't recall mammon ever stealing from mc?? like the only thing I can think of is that one time in season 1 I think where he was going through their stuff and said he was looking for something to sell (I think?? it's been a while) and beel straight up calling him a liar lmao l'm just wondered if I missed something? or if this is just newer players who maybe misunderstood that one scene? and I figured if anyone would know it would be you lmao

I got so fucking pissed about this (not at you anon <3) cos this is the third time I got an ask like this, that I scrolled all the way down my 'Obey Me Mammon' tag to June/July 2020 and then slowly scrolled my way up pulling all the receipts I could.....I saw this immediately after you sent it and I just finished now...... turns out it takes 5 straight hours to go through my Mammon tag😶

I have answered this exact same ask twice before and I can only assume it's new people? Like honestly you can't play the game for a long time and still think this (they prove this false within the game in LESSON FOUR)

Not only does Mammon NOT steal from MC, he also:

a.) Gets legitimate/legal jobs whenever he wants to buy MC something (which is pretty frequently)

b.) Shares the money with them when he comes into a large sum of money

But anyway here are the links to the posts talking about all this:

(everything is directly taken from canon or based off canon)

A.) No he doesn't steal from MC

• Full Summary of the Lesson 4 locked chapter where he goes through MC's stuff and a compare and contrast of what we know about Mammon from future lessons, events, devilgrams

• First post talking about this, goes more into detail about him not stealing from them

• Second shorter post about how he doesn't steal from them

• They're literally Partners in Crime

• He straight up refuses the Midas touch (multiple times I believe) after realising it means he won't be able to touch MC anymore

• HEADCANON that maybe he steals/borrows their clothes, with their knowledge, to wear

• In the small introductory manga page they say the thing he likes as much as money is MC

• In S3 he admits to loving MC more than he loves money

B.) He goes out of his way to get MC Presents (which we works actual jobs to earn money for)

• Mammon at the Office Devilgram, where he gets an actual office job so he can buy MC a watch he saw them looking at

• In the Movie Date Devilgram he rents out an entire theatre for the two of them because it was the anniversary of the day they first met

• In the You Always Ride Shotgun Devilgram he rents out a pool for the two of them

• He's always giving MC presents

• Usually he buys matching things for them

• He buys them shoes in their favourite colour

• Mammon's love language

• He wants to share his winnings from a lottery with MC

• He finds a secret second map in the pirate au event and tells only MC so they can share the treasure

C.) It's not just MC, he puts the others before Money too

• In the Presents From Mammon Devilgram he buys presents for everyone

• In The Guardian Demon Devilgram he saves a 9yr old orphaned homeless human girl from a mugger, fosters her and plans to pay for all her needs until she's an adult/can provide for herself - which is why he's always in debt to the three witches who look after her for him, there's also extortion going on from them towards him

• He'd rather lose the entire fortune he won than make Luke upset

• List of times he's put others before money

• He straight up tells Luke he doesn't mind missing out on a reward as long as it means Luke is alright

• Socks for Beel

• He gets a stone for his birthday which can give him whatever he wishes for, he wishes for fortune to come to whoever has the stone and then gives the stone to a student who tried to hurt him

D.) How Mammon works as a character

• Solmare makes you form certain expectations about him and then starts breaking them within the next few lessons and it's amazing to witness

• Friendship, Actions & Reality Vs Calling MC 'Servant'

• Mammon, MC and their Friendship

• Mammon being smart and why he comes off as an idiot

• His thoughts about himself vs MC

• He's actively changing and growing as a character and he knows it

• How Mammon actually views himself

• Why there's a difference in his level of affection in public vs privately

• Jerk with a heart of gold trope but better

• Mammon and how much he cares about consent

• How outsiders see Mammon vs how people from the city see Mammon vs how his close friends and family see him

• Chasing some creep away from MC

• How his relationship with MC changes and grows throughout the season

E.) Other reasons to love him

• Examples of how much he loves MC

• How supportive he & MC are of each other

• Some of his funniest moments

• He's objectively terrifying

• Mammon being a good brother

• He's extremely ride or die for MC

• He waits for MC when they've got to stay late at RAD for other work

• Despite being an ancient being all his best memories consist of the time he's spent with MC

• He created a whole line of toys based around missing MC

• Everything he says about loving MC in his 2022 birthday event

• List of things he's good at

• The amount he loves MC

And this is just a few of my posts about mammon, his character and what there's to love about him

And look it's MORE than okay for people to dislike a character but at least dislike them for something that actually happened?

[chocolatepot]

Twitter is rapidly sinking as people are only allowed to look at it for about ten minutes a day, so I thought I would put together a post explaining the best way to get started on Mastodon! It can be an intimidating prospect as it's not as immediately user-friendly as Twitter or other corporate social media sites.

Selecting a server

The main difference between Mastodon and Twitter is that you don't just "sign up for Mastodon". Mastodon is effectively made up of hundreds of small sites (called "instances") that are all interconnected ("federated") and use the same interface. The instance you choose has only a minor effect on your experience. The main one to be aware of is that if an instance is known to be poorly moderated and have users who cause a lot of trouble, other instances may unlink from it ("defederate") and make it more difficult for people on it to interact with you. This is rare. The very big, unthemed instances like mastodon.social are more likely to have this problem than any fannish one, in my experience. (You can also make a personal choice to block an entire instance if you have an issue with it.)

The other effect is that each instance has its own universal feed of all users on it.

The sidebar looks almost exactly like Twitter's, except for "local" and "federated". Your home feed is just the people you follow. "Local" is everyone on your instance, and "federated" is everyone on any instance yours is federated with. The local feed is why it's worthwhile to choose an instance that has some sort of theme you're interested in, like fandom, tech, queer issues, history, etc.

The two main fannish instances I'm aware of are fandom.ink and federatedfandom.net. There's also wandering.shop but that seems to be more for writers, in my experience. If you want a different sort of instance, just google "[topic] mastodon instance" and you should find it.

Applying to your instance

Because instances are more tightly moderated than the rest of social media, you can't always immediately get into the one you want. (Though I suspect that many have opened up slightly as Twitter flails.) You may need to submit some kind of application and wait a few days.

If you know someone on the instance you want to join, they may be able to get you an invite code so you can skip the queue. I have unlimited invites for fandom.ink, hit me up if you want to join.

You can also join an instance that's currently taking new accounts and then transfer into the one you want later. For the impatient souls.

Posting

The mechanics of posting are just like Twitter's.

You type in the box, you hit "toot" (I know), and out it goes. You may notice that you get a 500 character limit! This is nice.

If you add an image, make sure to add alt text. Not including alt text may get you flamed or shamed. You can also make a poll, set privacy levels, and add a content/spoiler/trigger warning that will require people to click through to see the text.

Use of hashtags is strongly encouraged on Mastodon. I've seen some talk praising Tumblr's style of having a separate field for tags and suggesting Mastodon add that, but I don't know if it'll happen. But unlike Twitter, there's an earnest culture of incorporating tags into your text (eg "I just bought a new #fountainpen") and following tags to get posts about different topics. This is the main way to find people with similar interests to follow, outside of your local feed.

It's also Mastodon culture to write an introductory post with your interests, including hashtags, so that people can find you.

Something else to be aware of is that you can edit your posts! If anyone has already rt'd ("boosted") them - they will just get a notification of your edit.

You cannot qrt on Mastodon at this time. It's a hotly debated topic. You will have to settle for boosting and then replying, or making your own post with context and linking to the post you want to qrt.

Following other people

If the person you want to follow is on your instance, that's all well and good. Click on their name, go to their profile, click the "follow" button.

If they are not on your instance, you need to make sure that you're accessing them through your instance. Clicking on their name from your federated feed, or if someone has boosted them onto your home feed, will automatically take you to the version of their profile on your instance. Also all well and good.

If you get to their profile from somewhere else, such as a direct link from another social media platform, that's a problem. If you try to follow, their instance will bleat at you that you don't have an account. There are two ways to get around this.

One is to paste their entire username (eg "@chocolatepot@fandom.ink") into the search bar on your instance, from your home feed. The other is to navigate to "http://[your server address]/[their whole username]" in your address bar. Both will take you to the same place.

[meimi-haneoka]

༻✦༺ Welcome! ༻✦༺

Last update Sept. 26th, 2024

Hello and welcome to my main blog, my little home where I share my love for Cardcaptor Sakura and CLAMP works to the world! ✨

I'm Cinzia, she/her, Italian. Aged in a barrel of hyperfixations and daydreams. You might wonder, why this blog url if this is mainly a CCS blog? Well, when I opened this blog more than 10 years ago I was heavily focused on Kaitou Saint Tail, but when I started posting more and more about CCS, at some point I realized it was too late to change url or all the links to the posts I had shared around would become broken.

Regardless! I have closely followed the serialization of Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card ever since it began and my monthly commentary became something more when I realized the official English translation wasn't doing justice (to use an euphemism) to the original Japanese version. My friends and other fans in general were left confused and misguided by the countless translation mistakes (some to the point of changing the plot), so I started pointing them out in my monthly posts.

I also post other kind of stuff, like reports of CLAMP Spaces when they talk about CCS, or long time ago I posted summaries of interviews with the staff of the Clear Card anime. I plan to eventually translate those fully, considering my skills with Japanese language improved since then. But please remember that "English is not my first language" etc etc., so if some sentences sound weird, you already know why. Now that the manga is over, I post with irregular schedule some in-depth analysis and trivia about the story, examining one topic at a time. Despite being a CLAMP fan and loving other stories as well, I chose to focus on and dedicate myself to CCS in particular, due to time and limited mental resources. Thinking about following me? That's great, thank you! ✨ But if there's an idiom I love, it's "good fences make good neighbours", so please make sure to understand what kind of blog you're about to follow. I consider this my fandom home so additionally to those posts I mentioned above, I also unapologetically post about the ships I love. I love to analyze, I like to theorize. I don't disguise, I don't tiptoe.

I am a CCS fan born in SyaoSaku, and reborn with YunaAki, with currently a preference for the latter ones. If you're curious to know what my POV on this pairing is, you can get a very clear idea looking at my #yunaaki and #cosmos & crystals hashtags . If for any reason that's not ok with you, you're absolutely free to unfollow or even block me. In fact, I encourage you to do so. I'm here on this site to enjoy what I like, not to make anyone miserable. Unkind asks will be ignored; attempts to "lecture me" about what is acceptable and what not, what I can like and what not will probably be laughed at (I'm old for this stuff, it doesn't work with me). On the contrary, if you like YunaAki too, you'll be more than welcome here! Send me a message to share our headcanons! ✨

Now that we've cleared that up, here you can find the real reason why I wanted to make this new introductory pinned post: a convenient list with links to all my relevant posts, organized by category! I will update this list as I add new posts, so always check the date at the top for new additions! 👍

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card: commentary + translation differences

(started at chapter 41 because that's when I got access to ENG scans) Collected under the hashtag #translation differences . The first posts might be a bit overzealous, as I was getting the hang of it. TBA: I have a bigger project for this in the works, an easier way to browse through all the relevant translation differences, divided by chapters and volumes, starting by chapter 1 (even marked by severity).

41 || 42 || 43 || 44 || 45 || 46 || 47 || 48 || 49 || 50 || 51 || 52 || 53 || 54 || 55 || 56 || 57 || 58 || 59 || 60 || 61 || 62 || 63 || 64 || 65 || 66 || 67 || 68 || 69 || 70 || 71 || 72 || 73 || 74 || 75 || 76 || 77 || 78 || 79 || 80 || Epilogue || Short stories 01 || 02 || 03 || 04 || 05 ||

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Trivia series

All about Clear Card, from the most mundane trivia to the deepest thematics presented in it. Collected under the hashtag #clear card trivia .

Clear Card Trivia 1 ~ Literary and musical references/mentions in Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

Clear Card Trivia 2 ~ Alice in Clockland and its meaning in Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

Clear Card Trivia 3 ~ Sakura's journey of growth and self-understanding throughout Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

Clear Card Trivia 4 ~ The most ancient Magicians of Europe, the Magic Association and their role in Clear Card

Clear Card Trivia 5 ~ Real life models of buildings featured in Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card 🆕

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Timeline

An easy-to-read timeline of the events and facts depicted in Clear Card, placed correctly in chronological order inside the bigger Cardcaptor Sakura story.

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Timeline

English translations of short stories and Drama CDs

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card BD vol. 8 one shot

Card Captor Sakura Clear Card Arc - Drama CD part 1

Card Captor Sakura Clear Card Arc - Drama CD part 2

Clear Card manga volume 10 Special Edition bonus - Mini Book

Sakura & Syaoran parallels in CCS and TRC

Discontinued, even though I know there are more. Who knows, maybe one day I'll continue it! Collected under the hashtag #syaosaku parallels .

1 ~Hands~ || 2 ~Pinky Promises~ || 3 ~Hugs~ || 4 ~”Tell me”~ || 5 ~Desperate hug~ || 6 ~Scream and shout~

CLAMP Space reports

Reports and in some cases translation of entire chunks of conversation from CLAMP Spaces on Twitter. These are all the bits relative to CCS/Clear Card and there's lots of insights/production process tidbits on Clear Card.

July 30th, 2021 || September 5th, 2021 || March 27th, 2022 || April 4th, 2022 || August 7th, 2022 || October 24th, 2022 || November 8th, 2022 || December 28th, 2022 || January 4th, 2023 || May 5th, 2023 || January 8th, 2024 || April 1st, 2024 ||

Interviews with the Clear Card anime staff and cast

Highlights and recaps of the interviews released during the period of broadcasting of the Clear Card anime. If you want to know what kind of feelings and ideas Clear Card was made with, as well as the origin of the 25th anniversary project (which turned into Clear Card), check these out. I plan to translate these entirely, so this list is only temporary, waiting for the complete interviews.

Interview with CCS Clear Card producer Chiyo Kawazoe in Animage 12/2017

Morio Asaka x Sakura Tange interview in Newtype 05/2018

Highlights of Morio Asaka’s interview in the Starter Book

Interview with Yukana (Meiling’s VA) in Animage 06/2018

Interview with Sakura Tange and Motoko Kumai in Animage 07/2018

Interview with Sho Saito (Nakayoshi editor) and Nozomi Matsuura (CCS copyrights manager) in Animedia 07/2023 (full interview)

Other random stuff collected under hashtags:

My fanarts

My fics for YunaAki (to be moved soon)

Enjoy your stay! ✨

[lemotmo]

You certainly don't have to post this but I thought the answer was actually pretty good advice 😊

Q. Hello, I haven't been around the 911 fandom long but I think I may have gotten my hopes up about Tommy. It's increasingly clear that Oliver and Lou do not get on and I think I listened to wrong blogs and allowed myself to have expectations that don't appear to be likely. You do seem to understand the show pretty well so in your honest opinion do you think Tommy is sticking around?

A. Hello, anon. I wasn't going to answer this because I promised I wasn't going to post this kind of stuff anymore but I felt like you deserved an honest response. No, I don't believe he is sticking around. I do think we can safely assume that Oliver and Lou are not friendly with one another, but that's part of adulthood. We don't always get along with our coworkers. That's not the reason he's not sticking around though. What I would advise you to do is go back and listen to Oliver's interviews from last season. You can also read Lou's interviews that came out immediately following episode 4, those were show sanctioned interviews so the content would have been approved, unlike his cameo content. They all describe the relationship the same way. A temporary, introductory relationship. It was never billed or promoted, by Oliver or the show, as anything else. Oliver's lead is the one everyone should have been following. I know the consensus seems to be that Oliver doesn't interact with or engage in any B/T content because he doesn't like all the nastiness that surrounds everything now, and doesn't ship the relationship himself. While I think those things are true I think another part of it is that Oliver didn't want to give people false hope. He has spoken on this before in relation to Buddie content. He doesn't want to come across as encouraging something he can't promise. And in this case everyone said was temporary. There is no need for him to engage with the ship. I think he saw certain people were becoming attached and he didn't want to encourage them because he knows it's not going to be anything. I don't mean that in any kind of mean way, anon. But the reality is a certain group of shippers got carried away with something completely separate from what Oliver and the show were saying and they allowed that thing to frame their viewpoint of everything else. Pay attention to Oliver, anon. He is the one who will be honest with you. His silence pretty much tells you all you need to know. I'm sure that's not the answer you were hoping for but it's my honest opinion. Take care of yourself. 💗

Thank you Nonny! I will post this, because this post doesn't have anything to do with the fandom itself.

This is a post about the two actors, Tommy as a character and whether or not he'll stick around in season 8. I'm perfectly fine with topics like this.

This also ties in nicely with a post I made earlier today where an anon asked me a question about the BT pairing and whether or not it had a chance to be endgame.

A lot of the points Ali makes here are the same points I made in that post. The only difference is that she does it so much more eloquently.😉 If anyone is interested in that post, you can find it here.

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[skyfree-art]

🎀WiP

Well, let me start my first post on Tumblr like this. It's a piece of fully-fledged artwork that I started in February and only remembered about it now😭 (thanks to my studies and work, of course…).

Also, I don't usually like to post unfinished work, so it will take me a little more time to finish this one.

Soon, I'll make a short introductory post. In my profile description, you can also find a link to my VK account, where I've been blogging and posting artwork since 2019 💫

[twompweek]

Hello all and welcome to the twomp week blog! I don’t think this will end up being a big thing, but with a few other people showing interest in participating it will still hopefully be a bit of fun.

I figured I’d put together this introductory post to explain a few things for those unsure, and later include any links to relevant other posts for ease of finding information. Of course, if there’s anything you find unclear or any follow up questions you might have, feel free to drop an ask or dm this blog.

So let’s get into things!

What is twomp week?

Twomp week is a week long, low pressure event for creatives within the twomp fandom. For each day the event runs there will be a list of prompts to help inspire those participating. Don’t feel like using those prompts? No worries! You can create anything you’d like for this event, regardless of the prompts for the day. And, of course, there is no pressure to post one thing for each day. Create as much or as little as you want! This event is only for a bit of fun so do whatever makes you happy :)

Who is running the event?

Me! Hello, I go by Squid. My mainblog is @thatgirlwithasquid but, while I do not enforce an 18+ following because I frankly don’t care enough to investigate who follows me, I do reblog and very rarely post more explicit content within my other fandoms on there. If you are under 18 or that content will bother you, I’d suggest going on my main blog with caution (though the #twomp tags on my blog should be perfectly minor friendly)

I love twomp but don’t create as much for it as I’d like, so I’m putting together this event both as a way to motivate myself and to share in some fun.

Is twomp week minor-friendly?

Hell yeah! I’m aware that there’s plenty of minors within this fandom so I want this event to be open to you to participate too. That means that I won’t be reblogging any nsfw content to this blog and politely ask that participants respect this and help to create an event that is safe and welcoming to all.

What can I make for the event?

Anything! Art, fanfic, music, edits, animation, gifs, character analysis… Anything that you like doing as a way to participate in this fandom is welcome. This isn’t an event tailored towards writers or artists or anyone else in specific. It’s for everyone.

I also intend for this event to be inclusive for all things twomp related. Want to create for a background character? A rare pair? Argos and Mr Plant? The plants? One specific episode? An OC? The voids themself? Our lord and saviour Argos’ Pet Rock? All perfectly acceptable and encouraged. As long as it’s linked to twomp its perfect for twomp week!

When will twomp week be?

Twomp week will take place on the week beginning with the 5th of August and run for 7 days. Prompts will be released ahead of this on July 15th so that anyone who may need/desire time to prepare their work beforehand has the opportunity to do so.

How can I find out more about the event?

I’ll be updating about the plans for twomp week as I work them out and posting about it on this blog, so following the @twompweek blog is the best way to stay updated as I figure things out. You can also just keep an eye on the #twomp and #the world of mr plant tags for anything I post about it, or the #twomp week tag itself which I will also start using.

You can also send an ask to the event blog or send me a dm here and I’ll do my best to get back to you about whatever you want to know!

How do I take part in twomp week?

There’s no sign up process! This is an open event that anyone can join in, no need to ask or feel worried about just jumping on. When the event rolls around, all you need to do is post your work here on tumblr with the #twomp week tag or @ this blog so that I can find and reblog your creations onto the event blog as well.

It would also be nice if you followed the event blog or the #twomp week tag so that you can enjoy and support other participants and all their hard work, but that’s optional and up to your preference.

[temporalarts]

Hello there, I have noticed you’re a well of knowledge when it comes to iDKHOW lore. I’m struggling to find good sources of information and I’d like to learn everything there is to know; do you know how I can do this? Anything I can read/watch? I did a surface-level lore dive a year or two back but I don’t fully remember everything and I’m seeing some stuff around Tumblr I never knew about. Call me Sally Mae because I intend on uncovering everything I can about this band’s lore ;)

hi there! sorry for the late answer, have had tumblr deleted for a while.

important information about idkhow lore first:

it is NOT required to know anything about the lore of idkhow to listen or enjoy idkhow. idkhow's lore is meant to be additional story to the band and is meant for fans to explore only if they are interested. idkhow's songs/lyrics by themselves do not have story meanings. it is hugely important to recognize that idkhow as music and idkhow as a story are separate entities.

idkhow's lore is a metaphorical story for dallon's experience within the music industry and celebrity la/hollywood culture. everything in the lore is symbolic for something in real life (for example, TELLEXX is a metaphor representation of the music industry). i implore anyone getting into the lore of idkhow to treat the lore with gently and respectfully because of that reason.

idkhow's lore has mostly been uncontinued since 2020/2021 since the release of razzmatazz. SRCHPRTY (main character of the lore) has been an abandoned account since june of 2021. this is for a multitude of reasons, including dallon not wanting to have a story line with each album, lack of label support, and lack of time for the lore. because of this, a lot of information about the lore has been lost to time and is no longer available to the public. gloom division (idkhow's most recent album) does have a lore behind it, but has not had a story run like razzmatazz had yet (it could in the future, but gloom division didn't have the time or budget to at this moment). lots of amazing archivists in the community are trying to preserve the lost content over the years (ill link one available one below), but please keep that in mind while looking into the lore.

you may see mentions of ryan seaman (also referred to as subject B) mentioned in the lore and some resources. ryan seaman was the previous drummer of idkhow and is no longer in or involved with idkhow since september 16th, 2023 (due to various reasons i wont go into here, but if you dont know look up the information to why online). idkhow is now and currently a solo project of dallon weekes, but if you see any reference of idkhow being a duo or see him in resources that is why.

that out of the way, here is all the resources I could come up with!

introductory idkhow lore carrd, made by my good friend @fadeyouout! very good start to everything in the lore!

full timeline of all events from current idkhow lore, made by me!

very good place to start with the lore is the srchprty conspiracy video. introductory video to srchprty's research, basic backstory for srchprty, and the main 3 questions in the story.

ALL srchrpty diaries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6! watch these chronologically as they build off one another.

if you haven't already, look through srchprty's twitter and instagram accounts. look through tweet replies/instagram comments. srchprty regularly interacted with fans while he was active and a lot of story building with TELLEXX comes from those interactions.

physical copy only extras in razzmatazz, lyrics for indoctrination and tomorrow people. razzmatazz physical versions came with two exclusive spoken word tracks, indoctrination and tomorrow people, both directly from TELLEXX.

TELLEXX documents, found in physical copy only extras in razzmatazz lyric book. includes a internal TELLEXX letter and volunteer subject consent forms.

archive of all of idkhow's instagram posts (2017-2022) made by abstracttheart on twitter. most of idkhow posts on instagram has been deleted over the years, so this is a great resource to see those deleted posts. you can most lore related posts from 2020-2021.

the mysterious world of i dont know how but they found me, dork magazine interview with dallon on the razzmatazz lore and its metaphorical meanings to him. VERY important read in my own opinion!

instagram highlights from idkhowindo: part 1, 2, 2.5, 3. their account has since been abandoned, but the archived stories are from the time of srchprty's activity and has a lot of good information in them.

questions i have answered about some idkhow lore topics in detail: what happened to srchprty, what is TELLEXX, and who is subject a. if you have any questions about the lore that you need answers to feel free to shoot me an ask in my inbox! idkhow lore is my special interest and i love answering any questions new fans have.

idkhow.com from 2020-2022 (recommend scrolling through archives of the website from wayback machine from august 2020-december 2020). the idkhow.com website during razzmatazz lore was ran by srchprty and was being recovered during the razzmatazz lore after a previous shutdown by TELLEXX in 1996.

TELLEXX stress evaluation test: may see this referenced around different lore resources, this is the official website for the test. as well as a article from the coder on how the website works to give results which is a very interesting read.

qwerty translator: TELLEXX/srchprty uses a code called QWERTY code throughout the lore, which is a letter substitution code substituting the alphabet for the QWERTY keyboard (ex: A=Q, B=W, etc). very helpful for decoding those codes!

most "niche" idkhow lore information comes from video/text interviews with dallon from 2020/2021! hard to find every single interview he does talk about the lore, but any dive into interviews from 2020 and you can find moments where he talks about razzmatazz lore. some instagram interviews from 2020 have been archived on idkhows youtube for watch.

indie pop, deep lore, and fan theories: how idkhow give there fans more than just music, tone deaf article on lore

i will update whenever i can with whatever i can find, but that is all the available resources for the lore of idkhow currently. if you (or anyone) have any questions about specific things within the lore, feel free to shoot me a question in my inbox and i will try my best to answer! enjoy!

[autumnslance]

Hi! I’ve been trying to make an introductory post for my WoL, but when I tried doing so freeform it ended up overly long and full of rambling. I’ve searched for templates all over the internet, but the only ones I can find are in the general style of D&D character sheets that include irrelevant information about stats while not properly dedicating space to the actual character traits. I saw the format you used for your OCs, and it seems to be about what I’m looking for. Is there any chance you could provide a blank template along those lines for me and others who might have the same problem?

Funnily, while I keep them all similar, I didn't have a template before now. Also reminds me I need to do some updating and revision on my own OCs, it's been awhile and they can use a refresh for character and plot updates.

I recommend making static pages over posts; easier to track and edit. I am a stickler for organization, so keep my pinned post to the bare basics with links to the profiles and other pages, to keep from stretching the post to a mile long, in part, and to keep the info where it's easily read and relevant. Also because mobile app view won't show one's theme and links, and the pinned post is more likely to be seen and accessible than a sidebar or menu.

I have tutorials on how to set a custom theme (and access full blog features) as well as how to create those static blog pages. Tumblr may have made some updates since, but the gist is the same, and the Help pages have newer details if necessary.

I do urge keeping colors and format simple, accessible, and reader friendly, including screen reader friendly. A row of asterisks or tildes as a separator line are usually individually read out by screen readers, as is the code used to make those fancy hard-to-read gothic letters folks use for "aesthetics." In a lot of my profiles, I split sections with images of the character (which should also use alt text if we're trying to be kind and inclusive, and it's to the point of a profile page anyway).

I think I will put the intro and template here in the post under a cut, and then in a Reply Comment add a link to the Google Doc version, cuz of how Tumblr is about external links. An actual blank copy-pasta is on the GDoc, what's below has some thought processes for each section for guidance.

This a pretty modular template, that can be added to or subtracted from as needed. Move descriptive blocks around as they seem more or less relevant for your OC, substitute things that make sense over things that don’t; this is just a starting point!

I see these as broad strokes; a quick introduction and general overview of your character, meant to give an at-a-glance idea of who they are. It’s handy for other writers and artists, and even oneself for keeping track of some details. I recommend practicing succinct writing here; these blocks should each stay between 100-300 words or thereabouts. Use links to other pages and tags to point toward longer details and stories (and keep them handy for yourself!). It also makes it much easier when you want to revise things when characterization marches forward, or if you want to retcon something entirely.

But these are all just my opinions and ideas on how I approach OC profiles after making them in some form or another for about a quarter century. Make it as long or short as it needs to be, change it up, go nuts, I ain’t your mom, and so on 😉

-

Statistics: The basics; barebones, at-a-glance stat blocks, handy for quick reference. Can be added to or shortened as needed. If a stat starts to word wrap on a standard screen, trim it and move that extra detail to the “Description” paragraph below the list.

Race: (for FF14 fantasy possibilities) Nationality: (or Ethnicity, whatever works. Where are they from, as that helps shape them?) Height: (both feet/inches and centimeters are handy here) Eyes: Build: (I prefer this to weight, as that’s ridiculously variable depending on one’s build, which is more important visually anyway; are they broad, stocky, skinny, muscular, stringy, etc) Hair: (color, type, texture, preferred lengths and styling) Skin: (sometimes I fold scars into here, if there’s nothing too outstanding) Scars: Voice: (how do they sound?) Nameday: Age: (depends on your personal timeline for your OCs, but I recommend an age range over specifics; mid-20s, 25-35, late teens, a little over a century, etc. Less updating and fits with the handwaved time bubble anyway) Disciplines: (what are their main job[s]? The adventuring or professional skills they’ve learned?) Hobbies: Birthplace: Current Home: Occupation: (Their actual day job, different from or part of their disciplines?) Signature Items: (A particular weapon? A piece of jewelry? Always wear a specific coat?)

Description: A very short "immediate impressions" type description; what would someone "on the street" see when meeting/looking at your character on a typical day? Taking some of the info from the stats but then how you want those barebone facts to be seen; is the OC elegant, or rough? Expensive clothes or simple attire? Any particular smells, or sounds? I recommend around 100 words.

Biography: Very brief, general overview of the backstory that led them to the point where they become a story protagonist (adventurer, the WoL, or other roleplay archetype). Don't have to go into great detail, keep it short and simple; it's a blurb that sets up how they got here in broad strokes. I think my longest bio is around 300 words, and it probably shouldn’t go over that here.

To get more details, one can always link to specific stories, or to a tag. I have multiple OCs, so I might make my tags something like "Aeryn Backstory" or "Iyna Lore" or "Punchy History" or some combo thereof (I usually try to keep them consistent though for ease).

Persona: What face do they present to the world? How are they perceived by the public, acquaintances, coworkers, family, actual friends? Some of these answers will be the same, some may change depending on if and how they code switch in various social situations.

From there, what lies underneath the surface? What are some general internal attitudes, traits, feelings?

A hundred words for outward demeanor and another one hundred for innermost self ought to cover the general broad strokes.

Romance: If so inclined, details about the OC's relationship details; sexual and romantic orientations, relationship history, current situations, how they view and approach intimacy (or not!).

Links to relationship tags or stories or art can work well here, too.

Echo: Does the OC have an Echo at all? Is it a "typical" Echo, or do they have some special abilities, some things they're better at than others? How does it affect them, how do they feel about it?

This is another section that may be a free space section to remove or swap to something else relevant to the character.

Hobbies: The stuff outside of work and heroics. Ways they relax, special interests, side jobs, things they enjoy, and so on. This can be an expansion of the listing in the stat block, or you can cut out one or the other to avoid redundancy.

Companions: What’s their chocobo like, or do they have another favored mount? What pet(s) do they have? Are they practically a Disney Princess? Have a familiar? Do they prefer arcane entities? Technological constructs? Or do they eschew companions entirely?

How to find the OC in game: This is where I list things like realm and data center, and addresses for the FC house and personal house or apartment. Not necessary if you don't want folks to go looking.

Links: The links can be scattered through the post in relevant sections, or gathered together here. I tend to put my basic tag for the character, if I have an aesthetic tag for them, their story tags, any links to art references or other miscellaneous items I want easily found for myself and others. I often put this close to the top if a profile is longer and I want those links to be quick referenced.

OOC: Any particular notes one wants to make about the character from a meta perspective. Can also be combined with the Links.

[incognita-soul]

hey, i saw in your bio that you work on tall ships and i was wondering if u had any advice.

i’ve been on 2 tall ship sailing trips before (+some dinghy sailing) and got my competent crew recently so i’m pretty inexperienced. on those sailing trips i’ve met young adults who were working on the boats as volunteers. i’d like to be able to volunteer on tall ships one day.

do you have any advice for the best way to gain experience and learn stuff? (if possible on a budget). i’m taking a gap year next year and i’d really like to take the chance to go sailing and get better at it. (i’m in the uk if that’s relevant.)

absolutely no pressure to answer and i’m sorry this is so vague and clueless! anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this. your blog is cool :))

Heya! Thank you, and I'd be happy to give you my two cents! All of my boat experience has been in the US so take my advice with a transatlantic grain of salt, but here goes!

Firstly, two trips and some dinghy sailing and a competent crew cert is actually quite a bit in comparison to your average person starting out in the world of boats, so don't worry about feeling too inexperienced! You're already on a good track. I've been working on tall ships in some capacity for over 10 years and I still don't have any specific certifications (I've got a lot of experience and sea time, I just haven't had time to take any of my courses and exams for actual licensing).

Facebook is (unfortunately) still the best place to network, especially for international opportunities. There are a variety of groups that you can join. I'm personally in Schooner Bums, Tall Ship Opportunities, Women Who Sail, Crew Finder, and a few other private groups specific to the organizations I've worked for. A lot of organizations will post to these groups with job opportunities with specific requirements, so it's fairly easy to get the info you need. I'm sure there are a few groups specific to sailing in the UK. In the US, we have Tall Ships America, which is an organization that provides networking, training, and job opportunities for mostly US based sailors and boats. I'm not sure if the UK has an equivalent organization, but I do recommend even though you are UK based you should peruse their website, especially the Billet Bank, which is where job links are posted:

You're in the UK, so there are a shit ton of boats there but as far as I know most of them are museum boats that don't do a lot of sailing. I will say from personal experience that museum boats with a good volunteer maintenance program are great places to start for establishing a strong set of foundational skills (knots, understanding and maintenance of the rig, carpentry, etc.). You might not get much actual sea time with a museum boat, but you will learn the things that will make you a better sailor. I got into tall ships by working as a historical interpreter and then as part of the sailing/maintenance crew here:

https://www.jyfmuseums.org/visit/jamestown-settlement/living-history/ships#ad-image-0

Most tall ship organizations are based around education, both for the public and for the crew, so it's easy to find a boat with some sort of introductory training program relatively near wherever you live. These range from expensive pay-to-play working vacation type experiences, to paying a fee to participate in a structured comprehensive training curriculum after which you can become long-term crew, to volunteering weekends sanding and oiling blocks in exchange for the opportunity to sail.

Since you said you are taking a gap year, my advice is look for a short-term comprehensive live-aboard program that gets your foot in the door for staying on as regular crew, potentially even paid crew. Idk any specific ones in the UK, but here's the one that the last boat I worked on offers as an example of what i mean:

If you've got time before your gap year starts, try to find something local, like volunteering for a mueseum like I mentioned earlier, so that you get used to the vocabulary and foundational knowledge of boats. That way you can really get the most out of a more immersive program later on and you won't feel too much like an oversaturated sponge trying desperately to sop up more information even though your brain is leaking out of your ears.

I'm not sure if you're wanting to do tall ships longer term or just something one-off for the gap year, but if you're in it for the long haul just be prepared that it's a lot of hard work for not much financial return. I don't mean to discourage you, it's just good to know that upfront. On Lady Washington we have a saying that "we work on an 18th century boat for 18th century wages."

Unfortunately the tall ship industry is kind of hard budget wise. Most training programs cost quite a bit of money, most jobs are either volunteer or don't pay very well (industry standard deckhand pay in the US is about $1000/month), and most higher level positions require various levels of certifications (for which course and exam fees can run pretty high). You can do it on a budget, especially since most long term positions are live aboard so you don't have to pay for rent or groceries, but if you want to make a career out or it, it takes a lot of years of working for less money than you're worth before you start earning real money back.

Despite all that, working on tall ships is still an incredible and fulfilling experience that I recommend to anyone with a love of the sea and learning practical skills!

Sorry I couldn't give you more specific information, as I have yet to work on any UK boats. Good luck, and please tell me when you find a program that works for you!

[guusagi]

MCR Fanfic Rec/Review List #2

Welcome in!

I recently created a long mcr fanfic rec/review, that you can find here. This post is a continuation of that! Less introductory yapping in this one, I promise. I read a lot more fics since writing the initial rec/review list, and I just HAD to make another one. Please give all of these a chance! This took longer than I expected oops...

Ships: Frerard & Fun Ghoul/Party Poison, Gerard/Bob Bryar (yep).

AUs: Office Workers, Gardening Services, Ghost/Paranormal, Superheros/Radio Show Host, Murder Mystery, and more!

Without further ado these are my picks!

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The Science of Sleep by chimneythunder

Rating: Teens and Up (there is smut near the end) Pairing: Frerard & Frank/Party Poison Main POV: Frank AU: Modern World/Danger Days Status: Completed with 9 chapters and 93k words Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883120 My Summary: Frank is living a boring office-job life, but one day he starts having reoccuring dreams about a certain apocalyptic California...Little does he know, they aren't really dreams after all! He also meets an artsy guy at a coffee shop that is somehow connected to all of this? Frank dreams start taking over his waking life...what is really going on here?! Personal Thoughts: This fanfic was really fun!! I was surprised with how unique the premise is here. Frank travels to the Danger Days world everytime he falls asleep, and reading about his journey from thinking it's a dream, to figuring out it was reality after all was super entertaining (this isnt a spoiler as a reader you know its real). I also love the portrayal of everyone in this story, especially Ray and Party Poison, they're just so fun and believable! I can't stress enough how original this story is, honestly a super fun take on the usual Danger Days AU! It also has excellent writing and pacing, can't beat that!

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Living for the knife by drunkonyou

Rating: Teens and Up (no smut) Pairing: Ferard Main POV: Frank AU: Superhero Frank x Radio Show Host Gerard Status: Completed, oneshot with 50k words Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41442144 My Summary: Frank is what you would call a superhero, after rescuing Gerard from being mugged by a mysterious man and saving his life, he almost quits being a superhero due to the trauma of that night. Inspired by his rescue, Gerard starts a radio show where he discusses what Frank is up to, and his listeners share their experiences, theories on what his secret identity is and...ultimately lots of false rumors as well. One day, Gerard recieves a weird listener on call who claims to know who this hero really is...and that he wants to come back for more. It looks like Frank is going to have to rescue Gerard once again! Personal Thoughts: This is a shorter fic, however it felt really long in the best way! I was super invested in the plot of the story, and Frank suffers SO much in this one, it's really sad actually. The relationship Gerard and him build is super cute, who doesn't love a classic rescuing scenario?! I don't have tons to say about this, but the atmosphere is super cool and film noir-esque! Radio show host Gerard is an excellent idea all things considered, please give this one a read!

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Shadowplay by findingsaturn

Rating: Explicit (smut near the end) Pairing: Frerard Main POV: Frank AU: Ghost/Witchcraft/Vampires & Murder Mystery Status: Completed with 27 chapters and 147k words Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20872241 My Summary: Frank lives in a small town, where magical occurences such as ghosts, ghouls, witches, vampires and the like are part of the norm. He works as a paranormal investigator alongside Ray. One day on a particularly brutal case, they are tasked to find out what happened. Little did he know, it would be the start of a huge conspiracy and a unique relationship! Personal Thoughts: Wow I can't use fancy enough words to describe how I feel after reading this fic. It's honestly in the top best-written ones that I've had the honor of reading so far. The intrigue and mystery is amazing, Frank's relationship with Gerard is just..so tragic yet beautiful, you really feel for the characters in this story. Everyone went through different tragedies in their lives. And the slowburn uuugh uuuuughh.. please give this one a read! It was also surprisingly scary, the atmosphere was real creepy and some of the later scenes are super TERRIFYING! Otherwise, I loved this one so much I'll read it again someday!

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The Best Part of My Day by pixie_revolver

Rating: Explicit (there is smut in the middle and end.) Pairing: Frerard Main POV: Frank AU: Office Workers! Status: Completed with 14 chapters and 63k words Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45339874 My Summary: Frank works at an office, and one day bumps into a person he had not seen before and spills coffee over himself!.. This person is also the most gorgeous person he had ever seen, and fell in love at first sight! We follow Frank's shenanigans as he tries to learn more about his crush, while also being teased relentlessly by his coworkers. Will he get the courage to learn more about Gerard..? Personal Thoughts: This fic was short but SO fun! I was entertained from chapter 1, it's honestly written in a really comedic way. I was laughing and giggling throughout the entire story. Frank is sooo down bad for Gerard, and Gerard is so oblivious about it! Their relationship blossoms in the most adorable way... I want to re-read this one if I'm ever feeling down. There's also a cute touch at almost every chapter where you see Frank texting various friends who keep teasing him about Gerard, this gives a lot of personality to the story! I usually don’t comment on the smut, but it’s really good not gonna lie. Otherwise it’s a very fluffy fic and one of my faves on this list!

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Tints of Rainbow Hue by turps

Rating: Mature (no smut) Pairings: Part 1 thru 2 is Frikey; Part 3 focuses on Gerard/Bob Main POV: Bob & Various AU: Gardening Services Gang! Status: Completed with 3 parts, total word count 65k. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/3399 My Summary: Ray owns a small gardening business, he travels around with Bob, and decides it's high time to hire someone new. They hire a younger Frank, who's very colorful and full of energy! They decide to work on the miskept and overgrown Way house, where two brothers live. Gerard seems to be ill and doesn't leave the house, while his little brother Mikey provides for both of them. This story follows along the relationships that blossom there! Personal Thoughts: This one is the only fanfic I'd recommend right now that includes Bob Bryar as one of the main characters. He's actually the main POV we usually follow throughout the story, especially in the 2nd fic. The characterization of Gerard's depression was hard to read, in the sense that it felt super real. I personally have not suffered with depression, but this felt more seriously written than most others who write him in that way. THE CUTENESS of Frank and Mikey though?! I read this fic originally cus I love me some Frikey, and Frank's pretty different from his usual punk aesthetic, he's actually quite the opposite! He's like, flowery colorful pastels if anything! It was a super refreshing take on him, though his personality mostly stays the same, he's super earnest and clumsy too. I never read fics with Bob due to obvious reasons, but I was actually cheering on this fictional version of him to allow himself to love Gerard. He's so gentle, yet firm with him, and super kind and it was lovely to read... Anyways before I gush and spoil everything, give this fic a chance!

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Lethal Attraction by desolationglow

Rating: Mature (obviously, there's smut here since Frank's ya know) Pairing: Frerard Main POV: Frank AU: Prostitute Frank x Billionaire Gerard Status: Ongoing with 41 chapters and 130k words Last update: 01/22/24 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40619025 My Summary: Set in the late 90s, Frank gets by living in Los Angeles by means of prostitution. His once best friend Gerard disappears after high school, and still misses him to this day. After a series of brutal murders, people are warned about a serial killer on the loose, and Gerard reappears into Frank's life once more. Gerard is now a successful billionaire, and invites Frank on a journey of revenge against those who wronged them. Yet, their relationship is turbulent to say the least... Personal Thoughts: SO TRIGGER WARNING... this fic includes homophobia on Gerard's part. It's set in the 90s so there's typical bigotry in this one. Also this is the idiots in love trope to an extreme! I still recommend this fic cus the story is super well-written, I couldn't put this one down! Gee's mean in this one, but you can't help but like him as a sort of anti-hero/villain. Frank's the poor dude being dragged around by him... I don't want to spoil cus there's quite a few fun plot twists in this one. Also it has not updated since January of this year, however I bumped into the author randomly on discord! Yep, it was a super funny coincidence. I don't want to say much to respect their privacy, but I will say that they have not abandoned this fic! So I definitely recommend it, please continue supporting them as there will be more eventually!

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If I Could Say the Things I Want to Say to You by I_am_but_a_holyman

Rating: Explicit (some implied smut) Pairing: Frerard Main POV: Frank AU: single Dad Frank and college dropout Gerard / Found Family Status: Completed with 25 chapters and 97k words Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46030816 My Summary: Frank has been a single father for a while now and has been struggling with finding a babysitter for his 10 year old non-binary child. One day, his friend Ray introduces him to Gerard, who babysits his own kids as well... it was definitely love at first sight! For who..? Well you'll find out soon enough! This story navigates the difficulties of being a single dad, as well as being a gender non-conforming child in an unaccepting world. Personal Thoughts: I loved this story so much omg!! Frank's kid is an original character for the story and they did not dissapoint! I loved that Frank is so supportive of his non-binary child, and protects them the best way they can. Gerard's just too cute in this one as well, he's also not completely cis and likes to wear more fem clothes, like the perfect rolemodel for Frank's kiddo! Overall a fluffy story, please give it a try!

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And that about wraps it up!! Thank you so much for reading!! I don't think I will make any more of these, but who knows?!

[megumi-fm]

Hey Meg! I was just catching up on your posts and wow, congrats on publishing the paper! I'm so excited for you and how far you'll go (it's so cool that you're working with alpha fold!!)! 🥳 How did you learn bioinformatics? Are there any resources you'd recommend for a complete beginner? (I'm trying to learn how to do proteomics analyses rn, but I can't seem to find many resources I can easily understand 🙈)

hii!! thank you so much for the wishes! the paper was a part of my final project with my team + guide so it was really a group effort <3 my teammates and I are all first authors, they were just kind enough to put my name first xD and yes! my current alphafold work is a lot of fun ^=^ I'm really enjoying my internship hehe

okay so I learnt bioinformatics as a part of my uni curriculum, and we mainly relied on these two textbooks

Essential Bioinformatics by Jin Xiong

Bioinformatics: Sequence and Genome Analysis

In addition to this, I also recently found this textbook titled Bioinformatics: An Introductory Textbook by Thomas Dandekar, Meik Kunz which focuses both on basic bioinformatics concepts and how to use the available tools. I especially like this book because I found it super easy to understand

EMBL also offers courses! even for synchronous online/in person courses that have ended, they tend to upload course materials. There's one for proteomics analyses as well- I've checked out the mass spectrometry videos under this course and they start with the very basics

In addition to these, here are some playlists on youtube that've helped:

Foundations of Systems and Computational Biology, MIT OpenCourseWare // classroom videos, I'd suggest to check specific videos for a topic of your choice rather than actually going through all of them

Computational Systems Biology, IITM // videos on the basics of systems biology, networks and modelling

Bioinformatics 101 // videos on how to use a lot of tools, however this primarily focuses on gene expression and RNA seq data

lastly, I don't know if this would be particularly helpful given what you're looking for, but this textbook on Computational Genomics with R is a blessing for Omics related Data Analysis. So if you ever need to use R in a biological context, this would be a great place to start

yeah! so these are the majority of the resources that I've used, I hope they help! Just a heads up that the links to the textbooks I mentioned in the beginning are direct download links and won't take you to any website.

If there's anything else I can help with, feel free to reach out ^=^ best of luck!

[zelda-cooper]

My version of Loonatics Unleashed (Part 2)

This is just my interpretation of this universe of "Loonatics Unleashed", don't take it as a summary of the series or as absolute truth to interpret your version. NO! It's just MY view and you have every right to disagree. Furthermore, there will be low-level words (even though I censor some) and there may be sensitive topics for certain people. Besides, this refers to the universe of Loonatics Unleashed, so for those who don't care, you can skip this blog, but for those who are a fan or if this interests you, you can continue reading. Part one of this blog is at the link below if you want to see it.

Part 1

Hi... I'm here again! Yeah, right? I posted that ls Loonatics blog in an unpretentious way, not expecting so many people to see it... And then I come across the post being reblogged and liked by A LOT of people... Ok, I'm exaggerating... But that amount is almost the same one I get in my regular Darkwing Duck posts, which is a surprise... I thought there weren't THAT many people who knew and liked Loonatics. So, right? Part 2 for you just to clear my conscience and talk about some other ideas I had. And it's not the character redesign yet, you'll have to wait for that... -w-

I again want to give credit to @drakepad-luv-2000, she was one of the reasons I'm doing these blogs (I'm sorry I got your pronouns wrong before, seriously-). And if you, a Loonatics fan, want to make a blog with your Headcanons, I just say that you can give credit to both of us. Having said that... Let's go! Again I will divide this post into two topics... The first will be highlighting more things in the story (theme, episode structure, tone of the series, etc.) and the second will be talking more about the characters' changed personalities and powers to adapt to this new version of me. So, we continue...

Story Narrative (Reinvented)

If you saw the post before this one and already know a lot about the change in the backstory before the story and the past of the protagonists, you will understand this topic better. It's much more about what the narrative structure will actually be like... In this case, again it would be divided into seasons, and here... I think I put an average of at least 6 seasons. Then you ask... "6 SEASONS FOR THIS VERSION OF YOU?!?! WHY?!?!"... Because I'm crazy and I like to suffer- I'm joking, but there's a hint of truth... I literally I have so many ideas for this series that there is no way I can only do 3 seasons. It has ideas for villains, for OCs, for the protagonists themselves, even for some secondary characters! So it will have to be 6 seasons AT LEAST (because I'm going to increase the number-). But, well... Having defined how long this series will be... What would be the ideal tone for it? I'm going to talk about the first three seasons, which kind of gives an overview of the rest of the series.

First Season

The first season, as you can imagine, is an introductory season, which introduces the protagonists, supporting characters and initial villains, where it also presents many of the dynamics and shows the main plot of the story. The season that people, most of the time, find the most boring because it's the beginning, but in this case it would be equally important, not only because it's the beginning (obviously), but it defines a lot of the dynamics of both the heroes and villains. I also want to explore a lot of their personalities, so there will be solo episodes for the protagonists (and considering that the seasons have an average of 20 episodes each, it's reasonable), this includes Zadavia, because honestly in the original series she didn't have a personality or defined relationships. It has the classic "villains of the week" episodes, but in this case... I like to ONLY get what was relevant. In other words, villains like those ice Vikings will be discarded because they are not exactly relevant, unlike Mastermind who has a story behind her that is interesting. I'm talking about the FIRST SEASON, because, in addition to helping a lot with the writing, because we'll have about five villains to stay (including Optimatus), it's also possible to add an additional supporting character (some are OCs or reimaginings of characters? Yes, but that's because the series only had Zadavia as a supporting character at the beginning, so... Leave me...). There is the fact that there will also be a villain in the middle who, basically, was from the second season, but I changed it to the first because he is too important to discard for the second... Which is General Deuce, who will be at the Optimatus' side as his right-hand man (he's basically the villain's main "henchman") and you can draw a good parallel with Ace. As you can see, the first season really is an introduction, but I made it more cohesive, less "random" and gave the characters more focus.

Second Season

The second season is where the story really starts to have a clearer narrative line (even with fillers), it's where the narrative starts to take more serious turns and we get more of the characters themselves. Do you have OCs? I think there's a lot here... But there's also a lot of change in terms of characters... Like Melvin The Martian and Rip Runner. These episodes include more of the characters that are inspired by Looney Tunes. Support characters... There's Zadavia, obviously... But there's Tweentums who is basically the prince of a planet there... Here I'll give him a different personality and that includes changing a lot of his relationship with Danger Duck (because honestly I felt really sorry for Duck for taking care of the brat-), and also changes Sylth Vester, which... You can believe it, but this villain here I'm going to give a nice makeover and he's going to be a villain of respect! As for the conclusion of Optimatus... In fact, I'm going to leave a lot of it for the third season, where it will become clearer what could happen at the end of it there. In the second season there will also be a lot of the evolution of the main characters individually, kind of like how they would continue here and so on, where everything will combine in the third season. And speaking of her....

Third Season

The third season is the famous time "When sh1t starts to stink". There won't be any character deaths (or maybe there will be, I don't know...), but this is where a lot of the things that happened in the previous seasons will come to fruition and with force in this third. This is kind of where most of the villains I highlighted will come together and cause chaos... In other words, there will be dynamics between villains, internal intrigues, etc... It's also where a lot of heavy scenes can occur and kind of It's where it separates from what the series was before to now, where the direction becomes more serious. Okay, it was like that before, but now it's more so. And this is where the Loonatics' direction becomes most unpredictable. What do I mean by that? It's a secret, I won't tell you now... But you will understand in the distant future. I'm just saying that some characters will have suffered a little...

So the tone of the seasons kind of escalates... In the next seasons there may be comedy again, but at specific moments that are conducive to that, especially because it can't be 100% serious. But that's kind of the tone of the narrative... Now let's get to what I consider the soul of the story...

Personality and Powers of the Protagonists (Reinvented)

I'm going to speak again in opening order, so... Let's get started...

• Ace Bunny

Okay, I'll admit that Ace is my least favorite... Because his personality in the original series is a bit "empty"... But considering he would have the vibe of a confident but insecure character... I got it from base Sonic's personality and also Leonardo's (from Rise of TMNT). But I think this is the one that, ironically, would be the most underestimated by the villains and basically the civilians he saves... Because he's charismatic, but he doesn't exactly have a certain "hero look". He may be confident, but his experience is zero, just like in combat. As much as he learned to fight, his type of fighting is much more street fighting, he doesn't have a lot of technique, so his arc is kind of knowing how to be a hero (just like most of the team). But there's another issue that anyone who's seen his story already understands between the lines... As for his powers... Honestly, I don't like his laser beam powers so much, because they don't have any parallels with Bugs Bunny... So I changed... His powers NOW are, first, being able to summon any MELAN WEAPON (that is, without firearms) and explosives, and the second is to make long-distance portals (with the condition that he has to KNOW where it is, because otherwise it's the same situation as him ending up going to the wrong place.

• Lexi Bunny

Ok... Honestly... I couldn't change ANYTHING about her personality... Because she's already very good, what I changed most was that her passion would be more for music and her powers... And also that she and Ace are brothers- But, powers! Here I didn't change that much, but her psychic rays were converted a little to Telekinesis, that is, she can levitate herself and objects and people, and the power to manipulate plants will become more evident.

• Danger Duck

This is another one that I didn't exactly change much, but I went deeper into it... Here he is another insecure character who always compares himself with others, but who hides this through arrogance and arrogance. He also has some Tsundere traits, that is... He pretends that he doesn't care or doesn't care about his companions, but deep down he cares about each one of them. And also... He is very VERY careful with children, he opens up more to children (you can already see that the Tweentums relationship and he can change a little-). As for the powers... I keep them the same, the random energy orbs and the teleport really suit him...

• Slam Tasmanian

Slam is another one that I ended up changing A LOT... And here I get a lot of the fans' interpretations, of him being the "big daddy" of the group, in the sense of being the one who protects the team the most and who is there to listen and help everyone. I still maintain the characteristic of him being a glutton, because it really draws a parallel with Taz, but here he has the ability to speak, but he prefers to remain quiet and more to himself. The powers... I changed it a little so as not to be a "copy and paste" of Taz... In this case, the powers are, first, going into bestial mode (something similar to the Hulk, so he only activates this mode when necessary , because he attacks EVERYTHING in front of him), and the second is the same as one of Ben 10's Aliens, which is that the objects he ingests become balls of plasma that he releases at enemies.

• Tech E. Coyote

I will say that I didn't change his personality or powers much... But I added more things... Besides him being autistic, which makes him have a little difficulty communicating or understanding other people's emotions, He also can't stay in public for a long time... In other words, he has a certain degree of social phobia. He can talk to friends and family, but speaking in public is almost IMPOSSIBLE for him... And he ends up having low emotional intelligence (or EQ), which results in him not knowing how to take care of himself very well when he's in trouble. hyperfocus or making some invention. As he had said, his powers remain the same.

• Rev Runner

My beautiful and adorable Roadrunner with ADHD- Okay, seriously... This one I changed some characteristics, but again his personality is more in-depth. Like the fact that, in the beginning, he was a little afraid of both Slam and Tech, because they are both kind of predators... Again the issue of hyperfocus, but in Rev's case, he manages to control himself in a certain way, the which also causes him to take Tech out of the lab several times. He is also more curious and mischievous in this version, especially because he is the youngest on the team, and he is also quite a gamer. His powers remain the same, with the exception of his GPS vision, because he doesn't use it much in the series and because it's very powerful (and you can't work with it that much...).

Conclusion

Well, guys... That's it! Sorry if it was simpler than the previous one... I just didn't have much to say here... But tell me what you think, your opinions, etc... BYEEE!

[decepti-thots]

I'm really interested in your commentary on video game text. Do you have any favorite texts or other sources on the subject? Games as text is a super interesting conversation but I don't know where to start looking for more critical or academic analysis of it

I think A Play of Bodies is a great place to start, and it has the advantage of being a book the author has said people should pirate if they can't afford priced-for-academic-libraries-only prices, so I feel fine linking you to my .pdf.

Rather than a specific book, journal or piece in addition to that one, I think there are two really good places to start looking for info on writing about games that you can use as a jumping off point to find stuff you're interested in:

Game Study Study Buddies is a podcast by two excellent critics which has the specific intention of being a 'book club' where they read an academic text related to games studies, and explicitly set out to break it down for a lay-audience. I love this podcast. It is wonderful as an introductory resource, and a lot of my to-read list re: games and criticism is me cribbing from them. Some specific episodes I can recommend are Hamlet on the Holodeck (a really oldschool foundational text that tried to analyse and predict how computers might change narrative), Game Design as Narrative Architecture (actually about a well known essay which explicitly looked at people arguing about 'narrative' vs 'ludology' as how to analyse games; this was a thing for a few years lmao), but they have episodes examining books on everything from games and imperialism to the connections between theatre and gaming. Cannot recommend enough.

Critical Distance is a site that is dedicated to curating, promoting, and archiving good games writing, from the amateur blogger to the academic publication and everything in between. They post weekly roundups, monthly round ups, podcast series, compilations looking at writing about specific games... I have been a patron of theirs for many years now basically just because they were so helpful to me when I started getting interested in this stuff, lmao. The only permanent patreon sub I have. If you want to start reading games writing, they have stuff at every level to look for. Their search is a great way to find stuff on specific games, and you can just look through their roundups for interesting things. It's been going long enough that you won't run out any time soon.

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals - Thriller (part 1 of 2)

(The video isn't a two-parter, but this analysis is! You can find part two HERE, but there'll also be a link at the bottom of this post!) VoicePlay's cover of Michael Jackson's Thriller was released to YouTube on the 12th of October, 2024 (and/or on the 11th - you know how it works), and features the one and only J None, back again with the group! Actually, in case you haven't fully realised it yet, of the 4 Halloween videos that VP has done since he stopped being a permanent member, J has returned for 3 out of 4 of them! (The exception being 2022's Hide And Seek/Ding Dong, ft. Lauren Paley). Also, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this might be the first time Voiceplay has covered two songs by the same artist in the same year? The first obviously being The Way You Make Me Feel (which has been submitted for consideration to be maybe nominated for a Grammy in two categories!?!) But anyway, I don't wanna get off-topic, and of course I'm not actually here to talk about the music/vocals/arrangement (I did that in a separate post which you can find HERE); I'm here to talk about everything happening on screen! And boy is there a lot to talk about, such that I very quickly realised I would absolutely have to make two posts in order to mention everything (like what I did for Classical Chaos). So enough of my introductory yapping, Let's Get Into This!

Introductory shot! Actually this was the video thumbnail that Patrons got for early access (though I hit play without even looking at it anyway), so we went in way more blind than the rest of y'all did!

The moon lamp once again making an appearance in the background! Geoff first got it for his Jack's Lament video, and then VoicePlay used it for Classical Chaos earlier this year. Also I wouldn't be surprised if some of those gravestones were reused from Jack's Lament as well tbh. (And trees possibly from Be Prepared and/or Classical Chaos?)

Oh yeah and maybe you might see something on the floor behind Cesar's legs? Don't worry about it, it's probably nothing! 😉 😝

(More below the cut!)

J sings "under the moonlight...", and Cesar turns to look back at the moon! (And Layne turns his head as well)

Also the beam of light coming from the top left area shining down to the centre of the floor reminds me of the similar lighting effect from Song Of Durin ngl (as always, Eli was credited with lighting for this one - shocker to no one, and he always kills it every time!)

Also quick comment on the clothing, I like how they're all wearing black and red, but with each with their own take on it. Layne has red shoes (so does J), Cesar has red plaid pants, and J, Eli, and Geoff all have red shirts (and J has red and black trousers (or whatever they are), and Geoff has ripped jeans with red showing through underneath). And of course it's always nice when Geoff is wearing an actual proper colour other than blue! 😁😝

Not fully a visuals thing but I forgot to put it in my musical thoughts/commentary post - I like how Eli sings "you're paralysed!" and then the background vocals sing "you're para-!" but they din't finish the word, as if they've been stopped, or rather paralysed midway through singing! And this is highlighted in the video by Cesar here, so it is still kinda a visual thing as well!

Hey I think that person figure thing on the ground behind Cesar and Layne has gotten closer! It's still probably nothing though, it's fine /j

Actually nevermind, it's not fine - watch out Layne!!!

On my first watch-through of this video on Patreon, I mostly just watched it start to finish without stopping. The only two times I paused were right at the start to take in the starting shot and kind of "psych myself up" to get through the rest of it (again, not knowing anything about the video), and then I rewound a few seconds and paused to try and get a better look at who this zombie person was. And then I stayed paused for like a hot minute while I absolutely died laughing because omg KATHY!!!!! 😂🤣🤣

*YEET*

(Oh the genuine delights of frame-by-frame scrubbing 😂)

So here's some BTS info for you: Geoff was in charge of the production and direction of this video (and song arrangement) (though Tony also helped out with direction too), and apparently his initial idea was for Zombie!Kathy to "bite" Layne's leg, and then just make a face or something as if he tasted bad, and then crawl away or whatever. It was Kathy who had the idea of what actually happens in the video! Geoff wasn't sure at first, but she told Layne the idea and he loved it, and yeah it was absolutely hilarious - definitely VoicePlay Brand Of Dumb (affectionate).

Also you don't really see anything of the ""body double"" that Layne kicks away, but VoicePlay (Geoff specifically I'm presuming) decided to credit 'her' in the description: "Flying Stunt Zombie - Greta The Gruesome" 😂 (Kathy meanwhile is credited as "Production Manager and Floor Zombie")

And also despite being hardly seen, VoicePlay and crew put effort into making Kathy and the doll "Greta" (bought from a Spirit Halloween store inside the same mall as Pattycake Studios) look like each other! Kathy has since posted a couple pics from the videoshoot with her and "Greta" in full makeup and costuming on her Instagram - Here's a link!

Cesar is Concerned (and/or confused, lol)

And so yeah, Kathy was on the floor at the back right from the start! (Though I didn't notice her there at first till the second time around.) Kinda like Geoff's Monster Mash video in that regard! (someone on the Discord server (I believe it was Huldra?) made a joke about this being the result of Narrator/Scientist!Geoff's creation going horribly wrong, lol)

You doing alright there Layne?

*AAAAAAHHHH...*

*...CHOOOO!*

(Oof, rip Cesar!)

Also kinda neat how the lights change back to red right on Layne's sneeze (momentarily going purple in between as well!)

So not only did Eli maybe get some in his eye, or at least almost do so, but Cesar's wiping his sneezed-on hands on him!

Eli: Cesar dude what the heck? Cesar: Hey don't blame me! Layne was the one that sneezed in the first place!

Not exactly an air guitar, but Geoff does kinda look like he's playing some sort of invisible instrument here and it's low-key intriguing to me

A very quick sideways head/neck jerk from Cesar - the first warning sign that the zombie-ness has spread to him as well!

Yep, now it's Cesar's turn!

Shoutout to Cesar's gold painted nails! Very pretty!

And also shoutout to Layne's acting/movements in this video! In most VoicePlay videos you'll likely notice that he has "self-conducting" movements in a similar way to what Geoff does, and you might even notice similar hand movements across multiple videos. But in this video, from the moment he starts looking a bit more sickly/"zombie-like", his movements change a little as well - looking a bit more jerky and stuff, and he seems to mostly be keeping his hands open and flat like in this picture here - less bending of fingers or any sort of fluid "drumming" motions (maybe meant to represent a bit of growing rigor mortis?)

I only just thought of the rigor mortius idea/"theory" just before, and then we get this ~2 second group shot at the start of the bridge section, and Layne barely moves, despite there still being audible percussion - it definitely seems like a deliberate choice! (He's still beatboxing, or at least lip-syncing to it, but it's rare that he keeps his body so still in a video while he's still doing percussion)

Watch out Eli - I think you're next!

*Pfft* rip he's gone

(Cesar in the BTS video: "Can I go for his head?" Geoff: "If he consents to it")

"Well that's not good"

"They're out to get you..."

Geoff isn't the only person to look directly at the camera/viewer in the video, but the verse he does here definitely feels the most like an actual warning, especially with the way he conveys it on screen here, and I guess it lines up nicely with him doing the monologue later. (Also low-key "close all the windows, lock the doors, unless you're careful he'll get yours" vibes ngl)

(Oh and necklace spotted!)

Also this bit low-key reminds me of the end of VoicePlay's Running Up That Hill video, after Ashley levitates and everyone else is just practically frozen, moving only their eyes (and mouths)

Oh no Geoff watch out!!!

(But also goddamn why does he look so good here? Like even with the hands and everything, almost looks like a freaking painting!)

Honestly I find Geoff's bit here really interesting - he's concerned/worried, but he doesn't actually look massively terrified, and he doesn't look like he's ready to run or fight. Like maybe he's almost already accepted the fact that he's next, and it's just a matter of how and when?

(That'd kinda sorta line up with the This Is Halloween video actually, in that everyone is slowly turning into creepy monsters, and Geoff appears to be the one least resistant to it (yes this video can be connected to a lot of other VoicePlay/Geoff videos, and I love it))

(Oh and I gotta give my love to his grey-white parts of Geoff's hair - truly this man ages like fine wine <3)

Not the hair!!!

And down he goes!

(And literally, he was in fact pulled straight downwards! Bent the legs, and Cesar and Layne helped support his weight so he didn't topple straight down - it was kinda amusing to see it happen in the BTS video ngl)

One last thing I will point out is that the jump across to J following this bit is actually not a cut or some fancy transition edit - Geoff's section to J's section is one continuous shot. But with that being said, this is still where I'm cutting this post off, because it's the halfway point (not counting the credits), and I've hit image limit! (I had to remove two images here to make it work but otherwise I managed!) Go find part 2 HERE!