#time to think ahead

[bisexualbaker]

So. Matt Mullenweg's sabbatical is over in May. I don't know if the current disaster will be the thing that finally makes Tumblr too hostile to its own userbase for the majority of us to stick around, but I also think it wouldn't hurt to take the time remaining until he officially comes back to plan as if it is.

The next two months would be a pretty good time to get your blogs in order. Make and download backups, save whatever posts you don't want to live without, and otherwise prepare for the worst. Start looking at Tumblr alternatives, if you think you want to stick around in fandom; make accounts if you feel up to it, but even poking around just to see what other sites are like can be helpful in deciding where you might want to go if shit does hit the fan.

I don't know what the future holds for Tumblr. Maybe something meaningful will change, and any preparations we make will be redundant. Either way, I feel like it's pretty reasonable to think that we've got at least until May to take care of what we think needs taking care of, and if it turns out we didn't need to prepare, all we'll have lost is time.

I'd rather lose a little time than all of the good memories I've made here, you know?

[lackadaisycal-art]

I'm getting so sick of major female characters in historical media being incredibly feisty, outspoken and public defenders of women's rights with little to no realistic repercussions. Yes it feels like pandering, yes it's unrealistic and takes me out of the story, yes the dialogue almost always rings false - but beyond all that I think it does such a disservice to the women who lived during those periods. I'm not embarrassed of the women in history who didn't use every chance they had to Stick It To The Man. I'm not ashamed of women who were resigned to or enjoyed their lot in life. They weren't letting the side down by not having and representing modern gender ideals. It says a lot about how you view average ordinary women if the idea of one of your main characters behaving like one makes them seem lame and uninteresting to you.

[bedazzled-applesauce]

say it with me again for the people in the back:

IF GIVEN A NORMAL CHILDHOOD

DEAN 👏 WINCHESTER 👏 WOULD 👏 NOT 👏 BE 👏 A 👏 JOCK 👏

THAT BOY HATES EXERCISE AND HEALTHY EATING

AND HAS CANONICALLY READ HARRY POTTER AND LORD OF THE RINGS

IF GIVEN THE CHOICE, THAT BOY IS N O T SIGNING UP FOR ANY SPORTS TEAMS

[1alchemistart]

dont got much to offer for The Holiday but have these sillies!

happy valentines day :D

[alien-slushie]

DPxDC Prompt/Idea

The death of his parents brought in a lot of hidden information to young Timothy Drake. For example, Janet and Jack weren't the only family Tim had. Turns out, Janet Drake had two older sisters, whom she had estranged herself from a long time ago, meaning Tim had two blood aunts, an uncle, and two adult aged older cousins. The discovery of his other family was both joyful, and worrying, making his future uncertain until the social workers could work something out.

After court appearances and jurisdiction issues, Tim was finally plopped in the lap of the relitive that was deemed "most suitable", whatever that meant; his older cousin Danny.

From what Tim had overheard *cough*snooped out*cough, his Aunt Alicia lived in the middle of nowhere without much electricity or even internet, and while she would have taken him in, the social workers worried the drastic, and sudden change in environment, on top of his grief, would make everything even harder on him, especially since Alicia lived hours away from any therapists, which was a requirement due to the situation. His Aunt Maddie and her husband Jack were immediately denied, given the state of their home and the 'open lab' concept they had going on down stairs, not to mention the fact that their own kids had seemingky cut contact as soon as they turned 18. The next person they looked into was his cousin Jazz, Maddie's oldest child, but while she looked like the best fit on paper, given her job as a therapist and psychoanalysis gave her the means and emotional capabilities to raise a child, but Jazz's job wasn't stationary, she helped a lot with the FBI, and more specifically, the rehabilitation of Villains and Rogues, meaning she traveled a lot and tended to have a target on her back due to her Job, it just wasn't safe or consistent enough for rearing a child. That left Danny, Jazz's younger brother. At just 25 years old Danny was a freelance engineer, and consultant that worked according to his own hours, not only did having the ability to chose his own work schedule make it easier for him to spend time with Tim, but the fact that Danny could work anywhere meant that Tim didn't have to leave Gotham, as Danny was willing to move to Gotham so Tim didn't have to change schools, or leave his home.

So here Tim was, in Drake Mansion, sitting across from a cousin he had never meant before, his new guardian, trying to wrap his head around the entire situation as best he could.

--

When Danny heard from Jazz about their estranged younger cousin, he hadn't thought much on it. He felt bad for the kids situation, and he hoped the kid was actually getting looked after, but never in a million years did he expect to be deemed 'most suitable' to care for the kid. Honestly he's thought Jazz, or Aunt Alicia would be best suited, Jazz had the fancy "feelings degrees", and his Aunt had a peaceful farm, Danny was just a freelance engineer that worked out of his condo most days, while portaling back and fourth to the Ghost Zone to help Clockwork, and other Ghosts with whatever wacky hijinks they needed help with.

Phantom had retired, the Portal in his parents house sealed, and their blueprints tampered with just enough to not be obvious, but still make making another portal to Ghost Zone impossible. Danny had graduated with grades passable enough to get a partial scholarship, and then he left Amity, working labor jobs on the weekends to live and pay the rest of his tuition. Once he graduated, Danny started working with a company, before eventually breaking off to start working for himself.

Once Danny had left Amity, he got his name changed. He didnt hate his parents, but Danny had just started to not care, it was painful to yearn for acknowledging repeatedly, only to be ignored in favor of work, so Danny just stopped trying, changed his name, and simply didn't call or visit his parents. Jazz hadn't totally agree with his actions, she'd kept their parents name, but she didn't visit or talk to them much either, not unless they reached out first, so she didnt have much of a leg to stand on.

Given all that, Danny had been surprised when Tim's social worker reached out to him. At first he figured they wanted a character reference for his sister, but to his shock, they wanted to know if he would take Tim in, saying that he, Danny, seemed the most stable for the child. It was a whirlwind of questions, and background checks, and parenting classes, and court dates, but before long Danny found himself staring down at his little cousin in a too big, too cold, too staged mansion in Gotham New Jersy.

[lazylittledragon]

If Ashe is in Baldur's Skate, does that mean Orin is there too? 👀

in a way

[savanir]

You shouldn't summon a Ghost King

Danny had felt the weird tug to the entirety of himself and instantly knew he was finally actually getting summoned for the first time. 

He'd winced through the whole process, knowing he should have listened to Clockwork and changed the requirements now that he was Ghost King... but even though Clockwork had seemed pretty serious about it, it just... kept slipping Danny's mind.  Listen, it's not that he didn't want to! executive dysfunction is a bitch alright, and it sounded like boring ghost paper work.

And it's been like... months now, maybe even a full year, maybe even longer. People don't really summon the Ghost King apparently, and Danny has been busy! He has school, he's trying really hard to get his grades back up. At some point he just completely forgot about it. 

He's really regretting not taking it as seriously as he probably should have now that he's randomly on top of a skyscraper in some massive city he doesn't recognise. And the city is... for a lack of better words, on fire. 

He can feel the suffering he can hear the screams, there is pain, chaos and fear all around him. Like a physical force pressing down on him.

The sickening part of it all is that he feels stronger than ever like someone injected him with 50 energy drinks directly into his veins but at the same time his stomach is recoiling violently, extreme jitters but not in a good way, absolutely nauseous. 

He's not really listening to whatever is going on directly around him on that roof, that's all far in the distance somehow, maybe he's disociating, maybe something else other ghost thing is going on, but Danny is just floating there in full king regalia. 

All he cares about it is snatching the weird creepy looking grimoire and getting some answers. 

And answers he gets because its very clearly stated in there that the Ghost King (Pariah Dark) wants a tribute to himself. Whomever deigns to summon him must prove willingness to his cause. Aka the whole conquering and genocide and tyranny thing. 

Over five hundred deaths would probably do but over a thousand was preferred, even more was obviously even better. That would show dedication and earn favour and- blah blah blah. 

Danny thinks he's going to throw up. 

It doesn't help that that's when the heroes show up and Danny is very clearly the big bad in this scenario even if it was completely unintentional.

Maybe they'll let him explain? Oh shit, that one looks so upset they're crying- maybe he can just go invisible instead...

This might be the worst night of his life. 

[rookanisstuff]

“It's an old Crow tradition. The exchanging of paired daggers when you are to be joined in marriage.”

Inspired by the magnificent @cosmiccrushes fic Contract Negotiations!

Vivienne and Lucanis’s daggers in all their glory!

Vivienne remains painfully Vint and thus requires snake motifs on everything and of course, opals for the eyes to match THE RING!!!

[lucabyte]

ghost

[mobius-m-mobius]

plot of the series fr 💖 Lokius Incorrect Quotes [16/∞] (insp)

[blueblurbbaskets]

honestly i think a lot of nuance to Mr. Collin's character is lost in most P&P adaptations when they cast him as a guy multiple decades older than his book age. this man is twenty-five years old and fresh out of seminary. he does things like apologize for fifteen minutes straight and start conversations in socially inappropriate ways he's not a Creepy Older Relative he's the guy who went to college and now thinks he knows shit but also somehow learned almost nothing there and is probably actually a lot more anxious than he lets on. casting him as an older guy gives a vastly different impression of what he's like

[undertalethingems]

Unexpected Guests Chapter Ten, Act Two: Page 20

First / Previous / Next

I sure hope no one's tired of Undyne being awesome. Because well. She is very much not done with being awesome.

Look for the next update on Aug. 29th!

[ducktracy]

there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love

[wistfulwatcher]

[xxplastic-cubexx]

crusty evolution redraw. in theory.

[quicksilversnails]

Took some notes from the Wild Life retrospective episode of the Imp & Skizz podcast featuring Grian because I thought the behind the scenes info was really interesting!

(3:15) The wild cards were all kept totally secret from the players (apart from Grian), with the exception of the superpowers and finale (as they required the players to set keybinds)

(3:45) The players were given files containing the required mods each week, which were named things like "creeper rain" to throw them off

(4:12) Wild cards were a combination of data packs and mods

(4:38) Grian told them not to read the folder name to avoid spoilers (which is kind of impossible), so everyone fully believed there would be creeper rain lol. Grian was saying it in jest but everyone took it seriously and were apologetic about having seen it, to which Grian told them not to worry

(6:58) Grian originally contacted a data pack dev called Brace for help with programming the wild cards. Some, like the shrinking/growing could be achieved with minecraft attributes, but the snails were too janky and unusable. Grian still liked the idea though, so he reached out to mod developers Henkelmax and Breadloaf, who designed the pathfinding/behaviour from scratch

(8:49) They had a debugging mode used to test the pathfinding of the snails, shown in the podcast and in Grian's credits

(10:09) Grian wants most of the credit to go to the development team and artists, as he was mostly in charge of ideas & organization!

(10:39) Grian's only regret with the snails was that they were too fast in session 3, leading to unexpectedly many deaths. They were apparently not so difficult to get away from during testing, but perhaps the testers were more used to them than the players were

(11:44) Grian: "We did develop to the lowest common denominator" ie. prioritizing how players would struggle over how worrying about if players would do too well

(12:56) Oli's voice for the snails was iconic. It cost Impulse a life because he intentionally stayed closer to it to hear the voice lol

(13:42) Danny was in charge of the snail models and animations

(14:11) During testing, the snails just sounded like Oli, which made it feel weird. They pitched up his voice so that it'd be less immediately recognizable

(15:18) The snails' jumping attack was meant to be clearly telegraphed: they would stop, wiggle, make a "ooeee" sound before jumping. Many players had their friendly creatures volume turned very low/off (as cows and other mobs are loud), which made this attack much less obvious for them

(16:57) The growing/shrinking had the least testing done for it, as it was the simplest conceptually and to program. This meant that the falling off of blocks due to the shrinking hitboxes wasn't anticipated

(17:55) Before the 1st session, Grian told them that he didn't think anyone would die to the wild card. Pearl's death made Grian pretty nervous, as he didn't want everyone dying too early in the season

(19:29) 6 lives were given, knowing that many of the death to the wild cards were unexpected/unfair. The intent was for ~3 lives to be allocated for wild cards, and ~3 for PvP.

(21:13) The developers were all fans of the Life Series!

(22:43) The shrinking/growing was intentionally pretty simple to ease players/viewers into the concept and build up toward more dramatic wild cards like the snails

(25:38) In the hunger episode, Grian didn't know which foods would be good

(25:58) Grian thinks that "it's unfair that Grian already knows everything" is valid criticism, but that it's important for him to be involved with the ideas. Having someone else do that is like having someone else record his videos: Life Series is his brainchild

(26:35) Well before the season began, while they were still developing the concept, Grian asked the other players for wild card ideas that would meet a few criteria. All of them ended up being unused for one reason or another. Impulse thinks his ideas were very "inside the box" because he was viewing things through what was possible in vanilla Minecraft. His idea was to have a scavenger hunt where the players would search to find a relic. The first person to find it would get a buff. Skizz's idea was for every player to turn into a random passive mob for every given interval of time. They would have to find every other player of the same mob type as them or else the whole group loses a life.

(29:44) The food qualities were weighted by the rarity of the item, so very common blocks like dirt and cobblestone would never give anything good. The other items were randomly selected

(30:23) Regular blocks/items cannot be made edible normally, so they had to circumvent that and custom code a fix for items not stacking correctly

(32:41) While a lot of players do want to win, the main priority is creating entertainment, which prioritizes playing recklessly

(33:20) The food wild card wasn't included in the finale because it would've felt like "too much". There was a higher risk of technical issues since it changed the data values of items, and Grian didn't want someone's last death to be because they ate their sword. In his mind, it was a good and fun wild card, but didn't need to be repeated in the finale. Impulse points out that they all would have collected more rare items by that point, removing the incentive to search for blocks to eat

(33:46) The wild cards in the finale were nerfed from their original sessions. The shrinking/growing had a smaller height range, the snails moved slower, etc.

(36:21) The personalized snail skins were a late addition by Danny, who made 18 skins very quickly

(36:49) Grian did not anticipate the snails becoming as popular with fans as they were. After the session released, they had the idea to release the snail merchandise, which directly funded the rest of the season

(39:20) Grian spent what "felt like every day" testing with the developers. They'd record the sessions on Tuesdays, meet up with the dev team, talk about what need to be done, testing, bugs, etc, edit and upload on Saturday, and would get a few days grace before starting again

(40:01) After the snail session, Grian was worried that the season would be very short due to all the deaths. They were considering toning down the later wild cards but ultimately didn't change them too much

(40:36) The time wild card was carefully balanced. If it had gone even a little faster, many players likely would have died because they wouldn't have time to react to threats like baby zombies or creepers.

(40:57) While sessions normally run for a variable amount of time, session 4 was hardcoded at 2 hours. Grian ended the session ~10 minutes early, just after they hit max speed, because he felt like things were getting dicey

(42:46) When the wild card first activates, it looks a lot like the server had frozen or crashed. Grian told the players before the session started that it would look like the game was broken, but that it isn't broken. Skizz tabbed out anyway and missed the beginning 😔

(43:30) Having the rain start just as the wild card began was a good visual indicator of time slowing down. This was a suggestion from the dev team (probably Brace)

(44:41) Impulse and Grian "cheesed" the end of the session by going branch mining. Grian wanted players to take advantage of the wild cards (eg. mining quickly, helping to kill someone), and not have them just be an annoyance.

(45:30) Keeping the client and server-side time stay in sync was challenging. The sky's motion was changed to be smoother on client-side. The players were also not as fast as the server (around 2x faster), the server was going faster than that, and the time of day was even faster

(46:56) The sounds were pitched up/down based on the speed to add to the effect

(27:46) In testing, if the players were made 7x faster, it would be basically unplayable, which was why it was capped at 2x speed. This made mobs very dangerous, as they were now faster than players and could catch up to you and kill you easily

(49:01) On several occasions, they had to extend the fuse duration of creepers to make them more fair. In the time session, their speed was only increased by ~10%

(49:39) Usually, Grian was the one to test the wild cards and notice when things like creeper speed would be an issue, since he was the one with experience making videos

(50:50) A challenge with balancing wild cards is accounting for the playstyles of so many players: reckless players like Scar and Skizz, "kind and gentle" players like Bigb who would stay off to the sides, and "the sweat squad" (Scott, Impulse) who play very cautiously

(52:48) Trivia Bot was the only wild card that was not planned in advance. Grian was struggling to come up with a wild card for that episode, and wanted to have a wild card available that could give people lives in case many people died to early wild cards without it feeling cheap.

(53:33) Trivia seemed a little boring on its face, so presentation was essential

(54:34) This one made Grian the most stressed due to all the moving parts involved in making it (coding and pathfinding mostly by Henkelmax, visuals by Hoffen, audio/music, questions)

(55:08) Trivia Bot's design was based on Grumbot and Mettaton from Undertale. Hoffen drew concept art shown in the video

(58:32) They show Trivia Bot's custom animation for becoming a snail and it's really cool

(59:12) The music was the most stressful part of the project. Grian spent 2-3 days looking through Epidemic Sounds for a Trivia Bot theme song and couldn't find anything good. He commissioned Zera @hopepetal for a theme song, which is played in the podcast. However, Grian realized he needed a full audio package, so he commissioned Oli late in development, who created the final soundtrack and many audio variations

(1:01:38) Grian wants to send appreciation for everyone who worked on the project, even if their work ultimately went unused

(1:02:58) Skizz was happy to give back however he could by staying on standby in the final episode as a zombie, as the players were able to "reap all the benefits" of the hard work of the development team

(1:05:21) Grian didn't know any of the trivia questions beforehand, which were done by fans of the series. The goal was for ~50% of the questions to be answered correctly, which was approximately met

(1:07:11) Players couldn't get questions about themselves because it would be too easy. This would encourage players to leave their bot, allowing other players to mess with them

(1:07:57) Grian felt a little left out from the discovery element of the wild cards, and decided to mess with Scar by hiding his bot. He wasn't expecting Scar to die from it, and could tell that he was genuinely a little upset by it. Grian felt bad about it, which led to a genuine in-game alliance between them

(1:12:32) Grian was very close to letting Trivia Bot give lives as rewards, but decided it would feel too cheap

(1:14:38) Mob swap was slightly toned down, with more camels and sniffers spawning

(1:15:07) Evokers didn't drop totems anymore. Instead, there was a minuscule chance a warden or wither would spawn, which would drop a totem if killed. Grian was a little disappointed that the warden got cheesed in the end

(1:17:45) Having the mobs start passive and turn hostile was mostly for the presentation, building anticipation, and so players could predict where mobs would spawn and react accordingly, making things feel less unfair

(1:20:32) There was no superpower made for Skizz (or Mumbo presumably)

(1:20:38) The superpowers were another late addition. There was a large design doc where Grian created all the powers, which were handed over to Henkelmax and completed over 4 days

(1:21:42) Grian avoided superpowers involving strength, that could cause someone to die easily. Most of the powers were social or movement-based, which couldn't be used for offence as easily

(1:22:25) Some powers were randomly assigned, others weren't. Impulse's was random. Cleo's, Bigb's, Lizzie's, Grian's were assigned.

(1:24:25) Grian gave himself the mimic because it could easily backfire (like in Grian's fall damage death), and because it would've been confusing for a player who wasn't aware of the other powers. They likely would've spent the episode just figuring out how everything worked and not actually using the power to its best ability

Lots of discussion about the superpowers and how they interacted in the episode itself, go watch if you're interested :)

(1:33:38) Talk on how the series "standard" rules evolved since 3rd Life. There was no keep inventory, and no restrictions on enchanting levels or potions, which created slow or unbalanced fights

(1:36:23) 3rd Life was designed to be an experimental series, which made Grian eager to improve it. For example, some people just weren't dying in 3L, leading to the boogeyman in LL, and so on

(1:37:17) The goal with the seasons isn't to one-up the previous one, but to create a different experience every time, which keeps things engaging for the creators

(1:38:31) At the end of each session, Grian would ask the group if they had fun and how they felt about the wild cards. According the Skizz, the answer was "a resounding yes"

(1:39:08) Grian had moments throughout the season where he personally felt like things didn't go well for him, and was anxious for the rest of the group's episodes. Things worked out while editing the raw footage, though. His issues were never with the wild cards themselves, but his own actions (traps not working, spending too long branch mining), but would always find funny moments in his footage

(1:43:41) Everyone in the Life Series cast genuinely likes and genuinely respects everybody else in the group. This allows them to make the show and get mad at each other, because they know it's all just in-character

(1:44:50) It'd be hard to top Wild Life in spectacle, and Grian doesn't want to start an arms race with himself. The next season could potentially be closer to 3rd Life, but Grian's not sure yet. For Grian, Wild Life was the most enjoyable

(1:45:20) Grian: "As long as people keep enjoying [the Life Series] then I'd love to keep doing it"

(1:49:35) With the finale, Grian knew how the wild cards played out the previous sessions and was able to adjust them

(1:49:56) Grian's goal was to create safe chaos where everyone knew what was happening and wouldn't die to them, which didn't go entirely to plan. The snails were 60% of their original speed and people still died

(1:51:03) Grian made a precise timeline of when each wild card would start/stop, it wasn't randomized.

(1:54:16) All the superpowers were randomized, with Bdubs' power being removed from circulation because it didn't have much use in a finale setting

(1:56:10) It was important for Grian that in the final moments, the wild cards were removed, so there were no interruptions. The timing worked out well because there were a few people left and it ended within ~10 minutes (this implies that the change wasn't based on # of players alive, as people had speculated based on Gem's death)

(1:58:48) The players all randomly switched to zombie skins throughout the session to mess with people on NameMC. Well-played :)