#[ NPC: BA ]

[nuesora]

Sydney's library rescue but it's Blue Archive AU

Kinda just wanna draw Syd holding gun

[denis-local]

"I can be ur bread angle... or debil!"

[ultimategenshintournament]

Ultimate NPC Tournament: Round 1A

No propaganda submitted

[cave-monkey]

I'm watching Monkey King 2009, and I know a bit of what happens to Six Ears later so I can't help but look at things through that lens, specifically the ways the FFM troop are a hot mess in a way that's actually kind of interesting and addressed in the show (to the extent a kid's show generally touches on those things). Like! The fact it's only the second episode and the troop is now two-for-two throwing Six Ears to the wolves at the first available opportunity! I decided to look back on what happened the last time they did this and go ahead and outline the thoughts I was having on it because, apparently(!), this was not a one-off! And I was not overreacting!

The very first fight scene in the series in Episode 1. Analysis, go!

Specifically, the part where a child is the one facing down the leader of the enemy warband, a combatant who already mowed through the advances of two experienced, trained adults with minimal effort, and the show...actually kind of goes a semi-realistic route with it?

Six Ears starts off strong and confident. He's basically an adult, his king put him up to this, of course he can handle it! He won't let him down!

And he does a pretty good job! It's very kid's show fun and punchy.

But then the Demon King of Havoc - an adult, a trained fighter, a blooded fighter - starts buckling down. And Six Ears slips up. And then he keeps slipping up.

It's not fun anymore. Six Ears is in way over his head and he knows it. So you get this (honestly kind of heartstring-tugging) shot of him glancing away while the Demon King approaches to look for his mentor and idol for help or guidance or something. He's a kid, he's scared now, and he wants his grandfather.

...and finds him asleep.

Now in most media I'd expect this to either be the mentor-figure feigning indifference or carelessness to encourage their pupil to handle the problem themselves (and implying in the process that they never doubted their pupil's ability to handle it - that they were never in actual danger), or this would just be building tension before the seemingly-oblivious mentor-figure suddenly intervenes at the critical moment.

But, of course, Six Ears isn't the actual protagonist, and that's not what happens. Six Ears looks to his king for help, finds none, and that's it. The Demon King of Havoc goes in for the kill and all Six Ears can do is run.

And he does, and he runs and runs and runs, farther and farther from his troop and anyone who can help because apparently no one was paying attention to the kid who was taking on the leader of the entire opposing force by himself, and he barely stays ahead of the sword, the trees the Demon King sends crashing down on him, and he's blatantly not able to do anything more than survive moment to moment.

And then he can't run anymore.

And the Old Monkey King doesn't show up. We find out he was never going to show up.

We get a shot of the Old Monkey King slowly waking up way back in the camp well after this scene, in response to Stone Monkey's hatching. (He also stands bolt right up, which is probably meant to be in shock at the giant stone rocketing into the sky wreathed in universe energy but I also like to think might also have been a "Where the FUCK is my KID" just so I can imagine someone was concerned about Six Ears during all this.)

Like, I cannot emphasize enough, Six Ears would be dead if Stone Monkey hadn't been hatching at this exact moment. An energy burst from the hatching blinds the Demon King long enough for Six Ears to bolt and start the chase again. That's what saves him. And then again when Six Ears manages to get the egg between him and a blow from the Demon King's sword.

Considering how eager the generals are to throw Six Ears to Stone Monkey when they're still convinced he's a legitimate danger in literally just the next episode, presumably just days after all this went down, and I...sort of think they were fully aware Six Ears was likely going to die to the Demon King. While I hesitate to say they didn't care at all, they showed in Episode 2 pretty clearly that they definitely cared way less about a child of their troop's likely death than they did about saving their own skins. Not enough to back him up, not enough to go after him when he's forced to flee, not enough to take on the fight in his place.

Which is tremendously messed up all on it's own, but it gets worse because these generals are all for treating him like a young kid when it's convenient for them. They see him as a child! But they're just as quick to throw him under the bus of adulthood as soon as that's convenient for them. Whatever requires the least effort from them, that's what they want him to be.

Seriously, who the hell is taking care of this kid? Because at this point it sure seems like the Old Monkey King - who is very old and very tired and whose body is blatantly failing him - is stuck not only trying to keep his troop in something vaguely resembling working order and secure them as much as possible for his imminent death no one but him seems concerned with, but is also somehow expected to be the primary (if not sole) caregiver of a young child. Something he can't be. Like, geez, guys. Let the man wither away in peace without piling on him more fraying threads of the things he can't possibly tie up properly before he goes, thanks!

Not to mention how this would blatantly conflict with the Old Monkey King's need to have a successor as soon as possible, since the most eligible adults in his troop are, apparently, all lazy cowards who are entirely unsuitable. He brings it up like two or three times in the first episode alone, so this is clearly something that's stressing him out, and his best option is still a boy. Meaning Old Monkey King is in a position of having to desperately (but trying not to show that he's desperate) push Six Ears to grow up just a little faster because he doesn't know how much longer he has left. There's just not a lot of room for him to just let Six Ears be a kid, in those circumstances. He needs a king. He needs Six Ears to make decisions and lead and take risks, even if the ones he's taking are far beyond the sort of things that should be on a kid's shoulders. He can't be his mentor and his grandfather and his king. No one person can be all three of those. Something is going to give. And so the Old Monkey King makes his mistakes. He piles too much on Six Ears too soon. He expects too much of him too soon. He nearly gets Six Ears killed in the first episode. (He accidentally leaves Six Ears vulnerable in the future to adults who want to use him.)

It's a fascinating little set-up. Obviously not really addressed in the show, since it's for kids and framed from a kid's perspective, which is also sort of genius? I'm thinking of the second episode where the generals are more than willing to dump Six Ears on the sacrificial alter, even physically carrying him out the door, an adult on each arm, like he might wise up and get scared and run (and if he did, like they wouldn't let him), and all Six Ears does is laugh. He's a kid. We've all been kids who think some of the most messed up things are perfectly normal simply because you don't have anything to compare it to. This is just the generals being the generals, obviously. They're so silly :)

But adults were writing this show, and I can't imagine an adult writing this not knowing exactly what they were doing. Especially knowing what happens to Six Ears.

Anyway, long story short: I want to fight the generals with my bare hands. I do not want to fight the Old Monkey King with my bare hands, but I do want to give him a long, disappointed glare over his cups that I feel like he would understand perfectly.

Also, someone needs to wrap Six Ears up in a burrito blanket and stuff him in a pillow fort with Stone Monkey where nothing can hurt them. That would be nice.

[buninabottle]

"Well, well, I see we have new arrivals. Welcome to my humble opera house, travelers from afar." 🦊🌹💋

.

My dearest Vosa, the newest npc to fluster my players~ ✨

[juststayquiete]

She never was religious but kinda liked Padre's God. It was a merciful but cruel creature. She wondered if this God would forgive her sins, would find her deeds as something natural instead of unforgivable. Sometimes, when the nights were especially mute and heavy, she even prayed - not for forgiveness but for helping her find the truth.

***

The windows of the car were slightly opened but the air was so hot that the wind didn’t bring any comfort. She hated the heat, the way her hair was sticking to her sweaty forehead and her shirt was clinging to her spine. She was sitting in the front seat like it was some kind of the privilege but the view was always the same - the endless Wasteland, the constant dust and sand, their family's cars are before and behind them. Babushka refused to turn on the radio in the car and they were riding in complete silence every freaking time. She never knew what to talk about with Babushka - they were together almost all the time, everything that could be discussed was already discussed, and it wasn’t like Babushka cared about her and Ari’s personal lives that much. In the end the road was the personal torture for her - she was sitting, unmoving and unspeaking, while losing her mind out of boredom. She turned around to look at Ari who was peacefully sleeping, lying along all backseats. At least someone was happy in this car.

- Will mom call you tomorrow? - Babushka broke the silence so suddenly she almost flinched.

- Ah, right, I forgot to tell you, the last time she said she’s leaving somewhere, don’t remember where, for three weeks and she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to call.

Babushka scoffed but didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to - their mother dropped two kids on her own mother and left to live her life without any burdens. So to say, their mother being a cunt was a well-known fact even though Babushka never told it in words. 

She turned around to look at Ari again. The cheek she was laying on was squished in a funny way, her favorite plush bunny was tightly clutched to her chest. 

She blinked and out of nowhere there was blood. It was flowing out of Ari’s throat but the slash wasn’t visible because of the toy’s head. In a moment the pool of blood was so big it started to overflow the seat and spill on the floor. 

She trembled but didn’t startle. Her lungs were squeezed and she couldn’t breath but she didn’t look away. Ari’s slack face was starting to pale, the bunny fell from her limb arms. The wound on the throat showed up - and she remembered that cut as if she inflicted it just yesterday. The skin was opened up, the meat was glistening in the rays of the sun that were coming through the windows, the blood was leaving her body in the pulsating streaks. 

She knew it was a dream and she felt it fading away but she didn’t look away. Her sister never appeared in her dreams as an adult despite being nineteen when she was killed. Nevertheless, she was greedily trying to make the image of Ari’s face stuck on the inside of her eyelids. And then she was violently pulled out in reality.

She couldn’t even cry when she realised she doesn’t remember shit from her dream besides the ocean of blood. 

She couldn’t get rid of the metallic taste in her mouth for hours, the cigs and the liquor being no help at all and only lace bringing her much awaited oblivion. 

[warsinmyhead]

Briggs Tag Dump

[writingforatwistedworld]

Another bread era?

Otome au

I do not take any responsibility for you reading this no matter which age group you are from!

WARNINGS: Yandere themes, obsession, possessiveness, stalking, threats, death, murder

Malleus Draconia/Lilia Vanrouge-“I’m gonna take your bread sir… let me take your bread SIR SIR STOP WALKING AWAY FROM ME SIR!!!??”

Malleus Draconia, the hidden king behind the roses, a legend who even the highest of kings and queens whisper in fear about... is holding back a laugh from watching you

Ok, to be fair, you can only do so much as a ruler of a Kingdom which has been isolated from the others for so long which probably also resulted him in being a bit (or maybe a lot more than a bit) for social interactions

Malleus adores you to a level which is incomprehensible for the ordinary human mind. Heck, most likely for any mind

Yet his most beloved is at the moment pretty much the opposite of him. Most unelegant they screamed at the poor bakers of the Queendom of Roses for their bread

Not like those humans, pardon, NPCs could hear you but it was a rather silly sight to see you sprinting up to the next person like you were possessed and demanding their bread

Could it be that there was a famine that led to you now demanding the food of others? But why especially bread? (I am not joking he is seriously asking himself that)

After sending Lilia out to check, just to be sure, he finally found out that no, you are not on the path of starvation, you are just silly

Might as well enjoy the show then. It's not every day that you see an otherworldly bring controlling a body being this interesting... not like he had seen another bodysnatcher like you before

When he noticed the havoc you caused in your wake he could not hold it back anymore, bursting into laughter he swiped tears of joy from his cheeks

Why this moment was so funny to him was beyond him. Perhaps it was that small memory of another place far in the past, a human from another world, a room filled with all kinds of individuals enjoying their rather mediocre meal together

Perhaps he should humor you

Sending out Lilia yet again (the poor bas-) he ordered that you were brought a basket filled with the finest sentiment of breads

Soft bread, hard bread, bread with seeds, bread with a crunchy crust, bread that tasted spicy and much, much more

When that NPC tried to trade all that bread for a meager price which could barely feed a person for a day the oh-so-lighthearted atmosphere shifted immediately into something that can only be described by “Oh f, he did it”

“Lilia, when was the last time you sharpened your blade?” “Pardon?”

But hey, at e end off the day you had still your bread and everything was great and fine and dandy and yay and oh my god someone just got killed in a PG-13 game what the heck is going on??!

Lilia is someone who takes his duties very seriously

Be it conveying messages to all those that have paid the price of his ruler's benevolence or monitoring the one who connects the one controlling them and this world

At first, Lilia assumed that the one controlling the puppet wearing white and blue would be a cold-hearted tyrant who loved to watch an entire world being nothing more than a game to them

But then...

“SIR GIMME UR BREAAAAAD!” A most frightening battle cry, Lilia nearly fell off from the tree branch he was dangling from when he first heard it

Were you finally setting out to conquer this world? Was it finally time to draw his sword and- uh... huh? *Insert confused expression*

Instead of attacking a defenseless person you sprinted to the next one, repeating the same actions you did just a second ago

The general had expected something of a crueler nature, just how the Gods were at the dawn, not someone jumping up and down whilst demanding bread

But perhaps, this could be used to his benefit?

The next day you found a new NPC. How strange, haven't you walked down this path in the game many times before? His did you miss him?

Interacting with the young man you found out that he was a baker who specialised in bread

How funny! You made a show of wanting bread just yesterday

It was almost like the game was interacting with your real-life self... Nah. Must be your imagination

To your delight, the dialogue seemed to change every single day, ending with the baker telling you stories far too dangerous for a normal person like him to experience

Every following day the interactions with the young man became more and more interesting, and by interesting I mean they went more and more off the grid

Lilia had to tell you more stories from the past he could still remember. This started with him investigating by talking to you but after time, he got attached. What if you were to move on and leave him behind from boredom? After some time his filter started to stop much less from his past than before. Things that he would have sugar-coated before we're now on full display.

Just don't turn your affection to somebody else. You were such a refreshing new sight that he simply had to own your attention

Now now, play nice and do what he says. Otherwise you might find a few NPCs missing

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Re: the previous anon asking about ramshackle, my personal hc is that it used to be the staff's dorm (I could be completely wrong, I haven't read the early books in a while). Then, when Crowley took over from the previous headmaster, he didn't hire any new staff and instead let the non-teaching current staff retire/quit/otherwise leave their positions and then employed ghosts (since they don't really need a place to "live" (ba dum tss)), and left Ramshackle to fall into disrepair. Whether or not these ghosts were the old staff or were just looking for jobs is up in the air (and also opens a whole can of worms about ghost economics, but I'm not willing to get into that here) For some reason he still hires living teachers and Sam, but I'm not sure if we ever get any details on where they live during the school year.

[Referencing this post!]

I went back into the prologue to check! The dialogue seems to suggest that Ramshackle used to house students. The Ramshackle Ghosts mention that people used to live there, then Crowley tells us "the ghosts scared away all the students." (Note that Crowley does not say “the ghosts scared away all the students AND staff.”) Thinking about it, staff lived at Ramshackle, well... it might be a little strange to have students visit them at their living quarters instead of in the classroom or their offices if they need academic assistance. Most likely Ramshackle served a similar function as the other dorms: student housing.

As for where staff stay… There was one line dropped by Crowley in the second Halloween event which implies the (current) staff may live off campus. I talked about it in this post!

We’re not sure exactly how long Crowley has been headmaster for or when Ramshackle exactly fell into ruin 🤔 I wonder if the main story (or extra materials/content) will cover that… We don’t even know if there was even a previous headmaster or if Crowley was just always the headmaster. From how he speaks (ie being salty at the 99 lose streak to RSA and honoring Lilia’s invite to NRC despite being hundreds of years later), it feels like Crowley has been in charge for a long ass time. It could be that he’s honoring his predecessor’s legacy or wishes, but he seems to personally be making the shots or reacting in a way that’s quite emotionally invested for someone who is newly taking up the mantle.

Mmmm, I wonder if it’s really as simple as Crowley letting the current staff go…? I’d imagine most can’t afford to quit their job or retire on the spot (unless he incentivized them to leave with a generous severance package). I do think employing ghosts in the place of living people to do odd jobs may be more cost effective though, seeing as ghosts have far fewer living expenses than the living. (No need for housing, food, most material possessions, etc.). Crowley could thus justify paying them less/j Although… This is also most likely an efficient way for the devs to reuse assets and not have to design unique characters or more mobs to fulfill the roles of odd job NPCs.

There is lore which states that ghosts are attracted to areas that are concentrated with magical energy, which may explain why NRC has so many ghosts lurking around. I wonder if Crowley just happened to notice all the ghosts lurking on campus (rather than actively seeking them out) and wanted to give them something fulfilling to do with their time, hence the jobs. (Do ghosts even have a need for employment or money when they don’t really have physical demands??? What would they even buy with their earnings, if they’re being compensated at all?) Some ghosts, like the ones that work in the cafeteria, seem to be brought in from the outside to serve more specific roles (ie as Master Chef/Culinary Crucibles instructors and cafeteria staff). The Ramshackle Ghosts though… I’m not sure about their origins?

So the Ramshackle Ghosts have taken up residence in the dormitory, but we don’t have much in the way of their history. It could be that they were random ghosts that migrated to NRC due to its magical draw?? Other unrelated ghosts seem to have been drawn to Ramshackle in the past (such as Eliza and her ghostly entourage in Ghost Marriage). Some have theorized the Ramshackle Ghosts are dead students, but the closest thing we get to proof of that is a line from book 2. One of the Ramshackle Ghosts says that he was a star magift/spelldrive player when he was alive—but this does not inherently imply he was a student, since the sport is very popular and widely played by mages, student or not.

There’s still so many mysteries wrapped up in Ramshackle… 🔍

[multi-fandom-agereg]

Regressor Gummygoo HCS

🐊 ★ they did Gummygoo dirty in the second episode and now I'm sad:( hopefully me giving him an alternative ending where he's well and happy that'll make me feel better. Also hitting him with the baby stick 🍼

☆ songOTD: Cabinet Man - Lemon Demon

Warning: TADC spoilers for the second episode!!

⏝⏝⏝⏝⏝⏝⏝⏝⏝⏝

★ After finding out about him being an NPC, he was devastated for days. He wouldn't leave his room and would cry himself to exhaustion until he passed out. After a few days of this cycle, Pomni was able to get close to where she can talk to him.

★ After a long chat, Pomni brought up "Age Regression" as a suggestion to help him cope. Unsure at first, he was very awkward about it. It took him weeks before he began to settle in on it. After managing to get comfortable enough with it, he was happy!

★ as an age regressor, he is more comfortable with the girls taking care of him than the guys. He's a huge mama's boy and everyone to him is his mama!

★ mostly Ragatha takes care of him, and he's happy with that. He calls her "mama" and when he first started to regress he wouldn't detach himself from her (he loves her)

★ he is sibbies with Pomni! He also loves having playdates with her sometimes

★ has the habit of nibbling his caretaker's fingers sometimes! But most of the time its an affectionate gesture.

★ regresses very young. He is around being a newborn and Infant regressor (8months-2yo). On rare occasions he will regress older (3-5)

★ hates being yelled at when he's little. He also despises his caretakers being stern with him. It makes him really upset.

★ has a sweet tooth and will eat chocolate until he gets sick (that's why he needs to be monitored with his candy habits)

★ drinks from a bottle and has a pacifier that pomni helped him make

★ speaking of bottles — he loves being bottle fed 🍼

★ a very sweet and gentle little. He is physically affectionate and love showing his caregiver how much he loves her

★ when he misses his bio mama, he still has a habit of hiding away and crying until he falls asleep. Through with Ragatha's help, he feels less alone-- and he has someone to cling to when he's crying

★ he has a rocking horse he loves to sit on when he's little

★ he's verbal, but often just speaks in simple terms. Example— "want bottle.", "mama!", "wah?" "Baa" etc etc. Usually simple terms such as that

★ LOVES being babied. It's his favorite thing to happen to him

★ actively avoids Caine when he's little—

★ loves to babble to Ragatha.

Gummygoo: "baa"

Ragatha: "Oh yeah?"

Gummygoo: "ba."

Ragatha: "Oh my!"

[poetryvampire]

If the world was perfect and all my fav npcs could join the party and be romanced into floor I think my dream team would be Rolan, Zevlor, Wyll, Karlach and Astarion.

First of all, all adorable babes. Secondly, 50% tieflings hell yeah ba-by

idk I'm just dying for the character interactions.

●Rolan and Wyll would bond so hard like really confide in each other. They both have had so much hardship and would do anything for their family cry but ooh they'd be so snippy with each other. Just the deadliest snark.

●Zevlor and Astarion would just hate each until like act 3. Especially if Astarion is feeding off Tav, being the leader (or his lover if I'm at the wheel) Zevlor would be deeply productive of them and not happy about it. But slowly his distrust would melt into compassion and he'd care for him just like the rest of the team. Makes sure he's rested and fed and healed properly. Deep down Astarion's very moved by the genuine care.

●Karlach instantly treats Zevlor and Rolan like family, whether they like it or not Rolan👀. As warriors Zevlor and Karlach have great respect for each other, could listen to each other's stories for hours. Karlach teases the hell out of Rolan all the time. Now he's getting the younger sibling treatment rip.

●Holy gods i just need more Astarion and Karlach. Doing anything I need that chaos. And throw Rolan in there with them on a mission and just watch him be on the verge of a heart attack the whole time

●Meanwhile Wyll, Zevlor and Tav have finished their mission and have time to make a nice healthy dinner, even a great wine pairing. So efficient dear God.

● In my mind Zevlor plays guitar or some instrument idk so like consider Wyll starts teaching a dance while Zevlor plays. Hello?? I swoon forever. Also imagine the awkward amazing nightmare of teaching Rolan to dance.

● And wow I love Astarion x Karlach and Astarion x Wyll and Wyll x Karlach. And yall already know my feelings on Rolan and Zevlor so we have either two adorable throuples or a big happy polycule 🥰

Bones for Zevlovers: A Zevlor romance would def include him, sword in hand down on one knee pledging his devotion to you. An oathless paladin no more, he's fighting for you and your future together

Anyways I have such brainrot

[flame2ashes]

A guide to extracting a CC Shepard’s headmorph as a model (for beginners)

Are you a humble CC (Character Creator) Shepard user (like me)? Do you want your Shepard’s head as a 3D model (like me)?

Luckily for all of us, there is a Blender script for that, thanks to mustbetuesday (which I assume is their username; it’s the name of their website anyway). While there is a tutorial on their website on how to use it, it doesn’t go into detail on certain steps of the process (and also it mentions having to manually install UModel and use it to find and export the model, which isn't really necessary these days as Legendary Explorer makes all of that easier).

So here is a different tutorial, written in a way that beginners to ME modding and/or the tools required are able to follow. If you already know how to use these tools, you can pretty much just skim this guide.  The guide mentions both OT and LE, but the files mentioned/used will be from the LE version. Note that for the sake of simplicity, I will only cover extracting the model itself and extracting textures.

(btw this is technically part 1 of an overarching guide on mesh swapping an NPC with your Shepard, but I figured that it would help to have it as a standalone guide in case people are interested in this kind of thing. Feedback is welcome!!)

Disclaimer: this guide only pertains to ME3. The script should also work with ME2 facemorphs and ME2 head models, but I haven’t really tried it yet. Maybe you can let me know how it goes if you try it with ME2 assets :)

What you need:

A PC copy of Mass Effect 3, or Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Blender version 2.8 (You can grab it here)

A PSK import/export script for Blender (I use this one personally for 2.8)

Legendary Explorer (You can grab it here. Alternatively you can download it via ME3Tweaks Mod Manager under the Tools options)

A ME3/LE3 save of the Shepard you’d like

(ME3 saves are located in Documents/BioWare/Mass Effect 3/Save)

(LE3 saves are located in Documents/BioWare/Mass Effect Legendary Edition/Save/ME3)

ME3 Gibbed save editor (You can grab it here. The recommended version is from Nov. 14, 2015)

Trilogy Save Editor (You can grab it here. Alternatively you can download it via ME3Tweaks Mod Manager under the Tools options)

The Blender head importer script (You can grab it here. Make sure to get the 2.8 version)

The base head model for male/female Shepard (I’ll go into detail on how to get this one later)

PART A: Getting the .me3headmorph

This part requires:

ME3 Gibbed Save Editor

A ME3/LE3 save

Open the ME3 Gibbed Save Editor. It should look like this when you first open the editor:

The save editor will automatically locate the directory for the OT ME3 career files, meaning that when you click Open, it will list all of your careers. This is useful for those using OT ME3; not as useful for those using LE3. Instead, what you want to do is click on the arrow beside the Open button, which will give you two options. The one you want is the “Open from File…” option:

From there you’ll be able to navigate to your saves and open the save you want. By default it’ll open the directory for OT ME3 saves. You may have to navigate manually to the LE3 save directory. While Gibbed save editor was originally made for OT, LE saves have the same filetype and will load normally.

Once your save is loaded, it will show the basic info for that save, like this:

The tab currently open is the Player > Basic tab. Navigate towards the Appearance tab. It should look like this:

What we’re getting here is the .me3headmorph, so you can ignore the other stuff for now.

Click on Head Morph, then “Export to File…”:

Save it wherever you like. It will save as a .me3headmorph file. Great! You now have the headmorph of your Shepard.

PART B: Getting the base head model

This part requires:

Legendary Explorer

You have the .me3headmorph of your Shepard, but you also need the base head model before you can actually apply that data. For this, we’re going to need the CC base head model.

Legendary Explorer (LEX) is the modding toolset for Mass Effect and Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. You can use it to view, browse, edit, or export any file from both the OT and LE versions of the trilogy. LEX has a tutorial wiki covering a variety of modding topics for those who want to try modding the game, but for now all we’re going to do is export a 3D model.

When you first open Legendary Explorer, it’ll look like this:

Click on the “Meshes & Textures” tab. You will get these programs:

Open Mesh Explorer (abbreviated as MSH). You’ll get this:

(If it’s your first time using Mesh Explorer, you won’t have anything under “Recently opened items”. Also, read the Welcome page, as it has some useful info.)

To get the head mesh you need, you’ll have to open the Package file it’s contained in. Normally you can search where the assets are located using the Asset Database (a different LEX program), but for the sake of the tutorial I’m just gonna go ahead and tell you the package file you need.

Go to File > Open, and if it doesn’t automatically open to the appropriate directory, navigate to your game’s directory. It should look something like this:

Origin Games\Mass Effect Legendary Edition\Game\ME3\BioGame\CookedPCConsole

(Steam users, refer to your game’s file directory path by right-clicking your game in your library, then go to Manage > Browse Local Files.)

Locate and open the file BIOG_MORPH_FACE.pcc. This is what you’ll see:

There are multiple base head models here, but the one you want ends in _CC (so HMF_HED_PROCustom_MDL_CC and HMM_HED_PROCustom_MDL_CC). The models that start with HMF are the female models, while HMM is the male models. When you click on the models on the left, they will render on the right:

To export these models, right-click on the entry you want on the left, then click on “Export Mesh to PSK with UModel”:

Save it in any directory you want. After that it will ask for the output format. Just select “psk” and click OK.

(btw, if this is your first time exporting with UModel, LEX will automatically install UModel for you.)

Once that’s done, File Explorer will automatically open to the directory you saved your model in. A folder named after the package file you exported the model from will be created, and inside there will be three subfolders. The model will be in the SkeletalMesh3 folder.

Congratulations! You now have the base head model. Now it’s time to put it all together.

PART C: Putting it all together in Blender

This part requires:

The .me3headmorph file you exported in Part A

The head model you exported in Part B

Blender

(Make sure your scripts are installed!! If you don’t know how, follow these instructions (just ignore the “Open Blender 4.0.0” part, it should still apply to 2.8))

When Blender is open, delete all the default items in the scene (the cube, the camera, and the light source). Once that’s done, go to File > Import > your PSK import script, then import your head model. (If you’re using a different script than the one I’m using, there may be an option to scale down your model. Make sure this is unchecked.)

Now your scene should look something like this:

To hide the bones for the head model, click the eye on your imported model on the top right.

IMPORTANT: Once you import the head model, DO NOT MOVE IT!!! This will mess up the face import. You can move the model after you do the import.

If you look on the right of the scene, you should see a section called “Mass Effect Face Importer”, which is located under the Object tab (this tab should be displayed by default). Expand the face importer and you’ll get this:

Click on the file button and navigate to where your .me3headmorph is located. Click “Accept,” and your .me3headmorph’s path will be loaded. When you’re ready, make sure your head model is selected, then click “Import HeadMorph”.

And boom!!! You should now see your Shepard’s headmorph applied to the model. For comparison, here’s the male base head before and after I imported John’s headmorph:

And for further comparison, here’s John’s face in-game:

So there you have it! You now have your Shepard’s head as a 3D model. From here you can save it, export it, edit it, do whatever you want with it. It’s your city now.

….But also I said I’d cover extracting textures so-

PART D: Extracting your Shepard’s textures

This part requires:

Trilogy Save Editor

Legendary Explorer

So you may notice that this guide requires two different save editors. The reason for this is that Trilogy Save Editor (TSE) does not export your headmorph in the filetype required for the script. That being said, It’s much easier to view Shepard’s headmorph data in TSE, hence why we’re using TSE for this part.

(Also, TSE is referred to in a lot of customization mods, so if you use hair or headmorph-related mods you’ve already used TSE in one way or another.)

When you first open TSE, it will look like this:

Click “Open,” and File Explorer will automatically open to Documents\BioWare. Follow the usual steps to getting your save.

When you load your save, it will look like this:

Currently, it’s on the General tab. Click the Head Morph tab to display your selected Shepard’s headmorph.

(Oh yeah, you can also get the file path for your Shepard’s hair mesh if you wanted.)

What’s nice about TSE is that it displays an asset’s file path. The first part of the file path will always be the Package file the asset is placed in.

For textures, click on Texture Parameters to expand the list. To display the parameters for each entry, simply click on each entry to expand it.

In this particular example, HED_Diff is the diffuse texture for Shepard’s face. The package file for this particular diff is found in BIOG_HMM_HED_PROMorph, and the filename for the texture is HMM_HED_PROBase_Face_Diff_Stack. Typically, this means you now have the info needed to open the file in Package Editor and locate the file yourself.

But there’s an easier way, and I mentioned it already: The Asset Database.

On the LEX menu, click the Utilities tab, and click on Asset Database (abbreviated as ADB)

If this is your first time using the Asset Database, you’ll need to actually build the database before you can use it. Each game needs its own database. You should be able to build these by going to Database and selecting “LE3 Database,” then click “Generate New Database”.

Once your databases are generated, the window should look like this:

To look for textures specifically, click on the Textures tab.

Take the name of the texture you need and paste it onto the search bar on the top right. It will automatically filter the file list to the files that contain the name. To view the texture in the middle, click on “Toggle Texture Rendering”.

Whoa, now you can see it! On the left is each individual file containing the name you searched. On the right are the usages – a list of the Package files containing that specific file. (NOTE: Package files from mods are highlighted in red. Vanilla Package files are in black.)

To export the file, click “Export to File,” where you can save it to any directory. You can save the texture as either a PNG, a DDS, or a TGA.

And there you have it! You now have your Shepard’s face textures. You can repeat this for all the textures you need. Note that some of the textures have alpha channels, which will come into play if you decide to edit them. Some textures, such as the eyebrows, may not actually be diffuse but rather normal textures. This is due to the way they’re applied in-game. But that’s a topic for a different guide :)

If you do decide to edit your textures by baking in the colours, you can go back to TSE to view your Shepard’s headmorph again, but this time expanding Vector Parameters. Here’s what it’ll look like:

(All the vector parameters have the option for inputting RGBA values as well as selecting a colour via colour wheel.)

If you’ve gotten this far and successfully followed the steps, then congratulations! You’re well on your way to making self-indulgent content using your beloved Shepard characters and/or learning how to mod Mass Effect in general. If I get around to making more guides (read: if people want them), I’ll get into more detail on other things, particularly on how to mesh swap your Shepard into the game. For now, extra notes:

If you need extra advice on mesh or texture modding, I recommend joining the ME modding Discord. Here’s the invite. There are people there who actually know how to texture/mesh mod better than I can lol

Alternatively, here's the Github wiki for LEX modding tutorials :)

This is mostly a comment, but I am so glad the 2.8 version of the script exists. Back when I first did this I had to use 2.7 and it took a lot longer, especially with the way it affected UV maps. Luckily the 2.8 version doesn’t affect the UV maps, and in fact made this entire process much easier and less archaic.

Incidentally, the reason why I learned how to extract CC Shepards from the game wasn’t even for ME modding. It was for XNALara. Anyway here’s a meme:

[sleepysloth99]

Your Favorite Martian Headcanons, pt 2 of ?

This time, I'm doing it with Gen 2.

Puff Puff

He's going into therapy now. Gen 1.5 him was an asshole and now he's trying to improve.

He's in a huge situationship with Tig, trying to be better for her, but he kinda doesn't know how.

Despite his job as a waiter, it is better pay than his previous job.

Puff Puff lives with his grandma after she left the nursing home back in 1.5, but he lives there half-time. He leaves when he's either on tour with the guys or if he vanishes since he tends to do that sometimes. He always comes back, though. Surprisingly, he is very protective of his Meemaw.

He's made amends with people he's messed things up with. Him and Deejayne aren't friends but are on civil terms now.

He eventually got back in touch with Wilton (Nerdy dude from gen 1.5) and they talk a lot.

Deejay

Him and Deejayne are still very close! They facetime very often, and Deejayne invites him over during the holidays.

He uses online therapy since it's more in his budget, and he definitely finds YFM to be a therapeutic outlet.

His change of voice was because he got vocal lessons from Puff Puff and Benatar.

He got back in touch with estranged family.

Over the years since gen 1.5, Deejay is no longer the "voice of reason" since the guys all matured more and now the role of being the voice of reason is a little more evenly distributed among the 4 members.

He's still in charge of paying Netflix, though.

Axel

He decided to get buff since constant and structured movements helped him focus on his songs and calmed him down.

He's got folks somewhere, he doesn't know where. But he does know that his number one family is in an RV.

Both him and Puff Puff stopped being too mean to Benatar after he openly expressed a dislike for it.

Over the years, the guys have gotten closer as the four of them matured and understood the need to be more deeply connected in order to be a stronger band. As a result, Axel is more open to talking about how he feels now and encourages his bandmates to do the same.

He's still crummy with emotions, but he tries. He mostly uses the drums to convey his feelings.

He's getting treatment for his herpes back in gen 1.5. He's a lot more responsible with sex now.

Benatar

He actually became more assertive over the years. He's still polite, but he doesn't let anyone disrespect him anymore.

He teaches Axel English work and literary analysis since Axel was unable to finish high school.

He was initially picked on because he was the odd one out in terms of lifestyle. The other three were poor and had physically abusive parental figures in their lives. Benatar had a nice house and was well off, but his mother was emotionally, verbally, and mentally abusive, and his father was around but he wasn't emotionally available for Benatar and would frequently parentify him. This explains his passive and quiet demeanor in the past generations of Your Favorite Martian.

He plays GTA 5 and stops at the redlights, acts nice to everyone, but gets headshots every mission, gold every mission, and he stalks pedestrians at night. Don't worry, he stalks all genders of NPCs at night. He's also terrifyingly good at escaping the cops.

He had Puff Puff sing "Real Girl" for him because he's still too shy to sing a whole song by himself. He hasn't done that since "Jupiter."

In the world where Your Favorite Martian takes place, humans in the human world are presented as works of fiction. In our world, Your Favorite Martian is a cartoon band. In the world of Your Favorite, however, humans are works of fiction. We come in the form of movies, books, and other sources of media. Each person in the world is a work of fiction of some sort. With all that said, Benatar wrote "Real Girl" because of his "fictional" crush on a girl from a movie he watched. The movie was about the girl as the protagonist and her life as a young woman navigating the world of womanhood. Benatar made this song because he knew that the screen was a barrier separating two worlds, hence why he called her a "Real Girl" even though in his world, she is a fictional character.

[rockdwarftv]

So I've discovered Knave 1e

And It's everyone's problem now. Not so much fancy text this time but I've been going crazy making little systems for it. Like the first one, which was originally going to be in D&D 5e but I couldn't make it work there as easily. The system allows PCs to enchant any item with quality.

The effect any given spell gives is intentionally left out, as it should be up to the referee and the player as it what their enchantment does in the end. The next rule, again, was for 5e. But, translated well into Knave as I wanted the game to stay lethal but I wanted it to be a player decision. Sometimes a death would just be boring and that's dumb. So with this, you get to choose if you die or if you'd like to roll for it.

This would have had nice tables but google docs is ASS for arranging two tables next to each other.

Next is giving weapons a firm range. Knave had basic rules for this but I wanted to expand them to give players a little more wiggle room. The ranges use the base movement of all NPCs of 40 ft.

Knave also offers multiple ways to resolve attacks, while I prefer roling against a static value (ie Armor Defense), I wanted to offer players a way to actively defend against attacks. At a cost, however.

Rolling with your defense bonus gives you a chance to debuff the enemy, but puts you at higher risk of eating an attack. And even the rare chance of fumbling so badly the attack is made worse. Next was my crack at a monster, this is largely custom and based on the giant bloodworm statblock from AD&D. It's main purpose is to showcase how I want to handle conditions, this was made before Active Parry but it uses the same kind of idea.

Something Knave did not touch on at all, aside from stating a speed, was exploration. I wanted to steal from PF 2e for this so I made my own little simplified system.

This makes exploration feel a little more boardgame-y, and assumes there aren't going to be rolls for random encounters going on all the time. Ideally, unless the PCs are actively exploring new areas and not simply traveling between them, there should only ever be encounters which the referee has planned. Or, ones which match the movement of other groups on the map.

To tie into this, I've also worked out a Influence system, or a fame system.

PCs doing things should attract attention over time, they should have a real affect in the world they are in so that players understand their actions are actually doing something. It also could very easily tie into classic OSR ideas of building their own keep and managing hirelings. Doing that would draw the attention of local groups, for better or for worse!

Thank you for coming to my Knave ramblings. I like Knave a lot and I'm currently converting some modules into my own level 1 to 5ish game to run with these rules.

EDIT: (8/3/2024) I MADE MORE KNAVE STUFF

Made weapons a touch more interesting! Damage types now give bonuses, and the type of weapon is used to determine their bas damage and quality, not pictured because it's a big ass list lmao. Damage is also a flat value! If you deal damage you deal the maximum of a weapon's damage dice now, instead of rolling the dice.

Armor has been brought up to use the same mechanics as weapons, and adjusted slightly in how armor defense is calculated.

YEA PLAYER FOCUSED SPELLCASTING No more pre-made spell lists! Let the players make their own!

[ultimategenshintournament]

Okay!

I've taken all of your wonderful submissions and made the official bracket for the Ultimate NPC Tournament!

Just like last time, all Round 1 matchups are randomized to avoid any kind of bias on my part.

You can find a full list of all the Round 1 polls below the cut:

Round 1A:

Kun Jun vs. Carter

Rajkumar vs. Ararycan

Enjou vs. Anisa Purbiruni

Benben vs. Dunyarzad

Chouji vs. Moon Carver

Ekaterina vs. Ba & Giant Ba

Ying'er vs. Kichiboushi

Kazari/Hanachirusato vs. Glory

Margaret vs. Marjorie

Childish Jiang vs. Elynas

Round 1B:

Hui vs. Teppei

Dainsleif vs. Nameless Bard

Alice vs. Caterpillar

Adelinde vs. Caribert

Xinghuo & Echo vs. Kumi

Amos vs. Osse

Lyudochka Snezhevna vs. Ruu

Zhiqiong vs. Idyia

Neko vs. Cesar

Kama vs. Jeht & Jebrael vs. Mamere

Round 1A will be posted tomorrow! Remember to share this tournament with all the Genshin fans in your life!

[ajaxbell]

The Truth subtitle files

The Truth/Let's Start Reasoning season 2 is an amazing show, but I think we can all agree the English subtitles are a mess?

Because I wanted them for myself, and I'm always happy to share, here are some very slightly cleaned up subtitle files. You're welcome to download and use these files or edit them yourself as you see fit. (And I'll continue to add new ones as the eps air.)

For clarity, I'm no translator. My Mandarin is barely above toddler level. All I've done here, for the most part, is fix names. There's several places where names are translated literally causing confusion. king for Wang, shellfish/shellpot/scallop for Bei Guo, minibus for Xiao Ba, and so on. Plus the many variations of push for any instance of 推 Tuī.

I did take liberties in a few places. In ep 8 there's two NPCs called Tui AI and Tui Ai (推AI and 推爱) and for English reading clarity I rendered Tui Ai as Tui Mou since there's several instances where they seem to be saying 推某 (Tuī mǒu) so I just went with it.

In a very few rare instances I slightly restructured a sentence. So definitely not fixing for accuracy here, just clarity for following along if you don't understand any Mandarin or simply find the machine translated subtitles in the chaos that is this show even more confusing.

There's a text file in with the subtitle file downloads explaining how to use them if you don't already know. I'm in the US and watching via YouTube, so these files are for those specific videos. If you want to further edit the files, any text editor should do (but I recommend Notepad++).

Again I pretty much only fixed names, and left most the wild weird artifacts of machine translation. Because honestly I find it adds an enjoyable surreal quality to the show. I only wanted to be able to follow who was being referred in the show without having to rewind and listen to what they were saying when the subtitles failed at their job. ETA - there are now two folders at the link, one with files with mostly just fixed names, and one where I've fully edited some files in an attempt to make all of it more coherent. But again I'm not translator (still I think it's better than Tencent gave us on Youtube).

But really sometimes the subtitles are so good they are bad, right?