#because of you I posted a screenshot of my color changing settings a while back

[buggachat]

Part 114 of my bakery “enemies” au!

<3 back on my bullshit

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Kofi

[pleucas]

Would you ever consider doing a colouring tutorial?

Heyooooooo

I've done a coloring post before (a few months prior), but somehow, my coloring/painting process has changed a lot since then lol. I'll give a breakdown of my process (and go into specifics on coloring) here, but please do take it with a grain (or a spoonful) of salt... I'm still very much learning, and though you can use my process as a guide, experiment on your own to find what works for you! This post got a little long I'm ngl so. open at ur own risk. it's really just me rambling and being a bit too pretentious for my own good

using my recent post as an example, my process is basically just:

first i get a clean sketch (after many hours of pain finding detailed references lol), not gonna go into that since you asked abt coloring

then i immediately go to block out shapes over the sketch. For big paintings, I don't do lineart (because i find that it eliminates a lot of depth that can be achieved with shapes and shading) — for smaller sketches and pieces, i'll do lineart tho.

I started darker to lighter in this painting because I knew I wanted harsh light. For me, it's a lot easier to project "additions" onto a surface — ie, if there's a harsh light, that's the addition vs. a shadow in neutral lighting as the addition. dunno if that makes sense, but breaking tones down like that helps me understand how i want to chronologically color smth and choose my bases:

for example, since I knew I was gonna have harsh light here, I felt comfortable with just getting the tones for my shadows down immediately. There won't be many midtones due to how extreme I saw it to be, so there was no point in finding a neutral base tone.

how i choose colors varies from painting to painting, but for this one, I decided to lean purple-blue because skk are just one of many red and blue gays (same reason why most of my other skk works lean red-blue-purple), and also because I knew I wanted my light to be on the warmer side — thus, the shadows and unlit areas will be cooler.

i also wanted it to recede (to emphasize the perspective and for depth), so for the base colors, i made them cooler + darker as they went back. This wasn't as clear in the finished product, but i think it did a good job at reminding me the vibe i wanted as i rendered

By how much I've written for this step, I guess you can assume that it's the step I put the most consideration into — and you'd be right. I think base colors really determine the vibe, and it sets you up for the rest of the painting. Sometimes I have to color adjust my bases over and over (with hue adjustments, color balance, curves) until I'm satisfied. I think that satisfaction is obtained w/ more ease as I've painted more and more. Alongside the sketch, this step takes me quite a while. Sometimes it's fun to mess with really wild color combos, but that's another topic.

Then I block out the lighting, which is probably the most drastic step but also somehow the quickest for me. Once you understand how light affects color (warmth, tone, etc) and you gain confidence with it, blocking out values in relation to base tones isn't too hard. That ofc takes practice and a lot of fundamental understanding of Shapes & Colors but there's a lot of stuff online abt the theory specifically from professionals, so I'm not gonna lecture y'all as a fanartist for glorified literary author rpf

then i just start rendering, layer by layer. above is a screenshot i took mid-rendering; at this point, dazai's clothes were basically done but I later worked on the face + hair more and textured the tie.

I try to do the stuff I want people to focus on first, because at least for me, that's when I have the most energy to make smth detailed — the more detailed an area is, the more naturally drawn you eye is to it (this is because the brain likes areas of high contrast, and details are entirely founded on the placement of contrast).

My art has never been too extremely detailed — I enjoy flatter + bigger shapes, styled texturing and silly patterns, but I find that "detail" still translates into "effort". When I look at paintings, it's very clear where someone put most of their effort — and when I can't tell, then I know I have a very confident + experienced artist who can effectively distribute their workflow (goalz). So yeah, I render in my very silly poly style but still keep that in mind.

eventually, I finish rendering. This part is kinda a blur tbh, and it always varies from artist to artist. I'd say the things I keep in mind are:

shape + form (making sure my rendering doesn't mess up gesture or vibes, and that it keeps things loose)

composition (making sure i don't overdo areas where i don't want people to focus on)

and tone (ensuring that the depth and believability of the scene stays intact so that my non-realistic style can work)

I added the bullet because i wanted a reason for the goofy expressions, just a bit more pizazz so that skk's drama was also believable lol. also visual storytelling or whtv (but that's not something i usually prioritize, it mostly comes with the concept and sketch).

I also added the bullet for some compositional spice. the dark shadow on dazai's arms was there to also emphasize the warped perspective, but it also left a weirdly empty vibe that I didn't enjoy lol. So yeah, bullet! and ofc my favorite, weird flowy line pattern thing that doesn't adhere to the laws of physics

I think a lot of my traditional painting experience leaks into my digital painting practice. I don't like lineart too much, and since I mainly work with acrylic, I rely on opaque color blocks, layering, and "carving out" shapes. probably explains my affinity for solid flat brushes in Procreate,,,,, but yeah. It's a little all over the place, but at its core, it's a lot of technical stuff mixed with habits after finding what works for me.

Dunno if this helps at all, or if it was interesting lolol. Thank you for reading until the end if you're still here! I appreciate it. I'm still learning but I've definitely learned a lot since I started this blog so it's exciting to track my progress. I'm sure I'll see this in a few years and laugh lolol.

[thisbelongsto-nohbodys]

Have you a creative process when you make comics or stories ? (Storyboard ect..) and if yes, can you explain it please ??

it depends on what the comic is. Some of them, as a recent example being the upcoming Frilda confession comic, I just come up with it and start drawing. Some of the other's however I need more preparation.

Knowing where a comic is taking place helps to find/look for any references I might need be it screenshots of backgrounds, character model sheets/screenshots, etc etc. If there's a new character or place then either in a series bible (like for my Leilana comics) or on scrap paper make sure to do some rough drafts until u find the right design. Trust me, it'll save a lot of time and paper, there's nothing worse than wearing down the paper with constant erasing only for when u finally get a design u like to have phantom lines all around from how damaged the paper is.

When writing a comic in my head, I'm able to hear the characters' voices and how they'd respond to what the scenario is. Going back and editing it is easier (tho' it makes me redo the whole scene which...yea...) however when I get an opportunity I begin writing things down. This part has the most cuts to every version that was in my head until it looks like it makes the most sense. I'll ask a friend to look it over so I can edit it again and once that's done then I get started on the rest (when I can, I ain't drawing a 4 page comic at 3 am...). Sometimes the script on paper can be wildly different from what was in your head and that's fine, I see it as ur hand(s) (hands if ur typing) editing ur brain and only putting down the important parts of the story.

Because I've been doing this for a while, I can read the script and come up with the panel placements in my head, sketching out the panels with my color-sketch pencils and making adjustments as needed (remember to draw lightly), do brief sketches of the characters and the backgrounds (where needed) and then adding the dialogue, sometimes I change up the dialogue from the script when I notice that it won't fit a word balloon that well or awkwardly, then once it's all ready I ink the dialogue, word balloons and panels in that order. Then ink the characters and backgrounds and effects. I add whatever else I need to do, shading, marker, etc etc and then it's done. Scan it in and either post it or hold on if it's a piece of a larger part.

Don't be afraid to try both scripted and unscripted comics either. I'd recommend scripting it if it's longer, and unscripted can be good for random jokes. A mixture of the two are also fine, I tend to have an outline for my Leilana comics, basic idea on what characters, setting, dialogue/jokes and then once I get the reference stuff done I start drawing. Tho' for the longer arcs, I make sure to write out a script so I can know how many comic strips I'll be drawing.

This method of course is how I find it best for me, it might not be the best for u and so if something doesn't work then don't worry about cutting it out of the step process. Comics r a fun form of art & storytelling and I highly encourage more ppl to try it no matter the skill level.

[adridoesstuff]

Comparing Elisabeth's costumes in the Vienna productions of Elisabeth das musical (Act 1)

And I'm back once again to perhaps prove a point, but mainly to pour out some of the frustration. In this post, I'll be comparing the costumes chronologically worn by Elisabeth in the Vienna productions of Elisabeth: the original/1st revival (designed by Reinhard Heinrich; lower refered to as the Heinrich version) and the 2nd revival/Schönbrunn concert (designed by Yan Tax; lower refered to as the Tax version). The Yan Tax design was first used in the 2001 Essen production, but was later carried over into the 2nd revival Vienna production in 2012 and VBW kept on using it since.

I tried to mainly find higher quality photos of all these costumes, but sometimes, I had no luck in doing that. So, at times, I will use a screenshot because nothing else was available. I mainly tried to look for pictures of the 1st revival (circa 2003-2005) and 2nd revival (circa 2012 - 2013), but I will sometimes use pictures from the original production (1992-1996).

Disclaimer: the contents below are my subjective opinion as a student of set and costume design and I will be mainly looking at what the costume tells me within the context and the construction. If you prefer costumes I don't, your opinion is totaly valid and you're welcome to discuss why you think otherwise in reblogs and comments below. :) After each section, I'll try to sum up which of the costumes I liked better and why.

Little Sisi:

Heinrich version: light blue and white trachten/dirndl with a lace apron, hair bow and ribbon choker. Not only fitting her origin as a Bavarian princess, but also sweet with the pastel colors and the accordingly fluffy, but light construction. The costume is girly, but not hindering when is comes to Sisi climbing trees and other physical activities she mentions she likes.

Tax version: short green/brown/orange plaid print dress. Now, this is a historically plausible costume, but do I like it? Absolutely not. The colors and print are ugly and don't fit Sisi's character in the slightest. And with the way the costume has multiple ruffles and pleats, it just makes it too busy to look at. And the skirt is too fluffy for this point in the show. (And they did Abla absolutely dirty with the wig they gave her in 2022 Schönbrunn)

Which is better? Heinrich version all the way. It's sweet and girly, but not too much and I love that it's a trachten/dirndl. The Tax version is just too busy with the plaid and I don't like the colors.

Bad Ischl:

Heinrich version: Dark blue short-sleeved bodice and skirt, matching hair bow and velvet ribbon long choker and bracelets. This costume is directly inspired by what Elisabeth could have worn during this first meeting in Ischl (when she met Franz, she and all her family were in dark mourning dresses, since they didn't have time to change and unlike Helene, who looked washed out in her dark dress, the dark dress really suited Elisabeth). Another little interesting historical detail I noticed here is the choker, which looks like a ribbon choker Elisabeth was mostly depicted wearing during her engagement to Franz. So, awesome that they kept in these little historical details.

Tax version: Long-sleeved bodice and skirt. Now, I've seen this dress in a ton of different fabrics (white with a broad floral trim on the skirt, blue plaid) but I think the most common variant of this costume is this beige one with the orange-red and green pattern. Now, once again, this is a historically more plausible costume, since the meeting took place during the day and so it would be proper for Elisabeth to be covered up, but it doesn't take into account any of the historical happenings. Which just seems to me like the designer didn't do any background research into Elisabeth specifically. And if we're going on pure aesthetic level alone, this dress is so plain and boring.

Which is better? Once again, Heinrich won this. No question needed. And while we're at it, the colorplay the dark dress on Elisabeth offers in Nichts ist schwer is much better that the light dress (We're about to get into lighting here, because that is also important to consider). With the reddish and blue lights for this scene, the dark dress stands out against that very red Habsburg eagle, but the light dress gets a red/pink wash from the lights, which makes Elisabeth almost visually disappear in that scene (see image below). The entire colorplay in the Tax version is simply off for this scene (because the thing that most stands out to me isn't Elisabeth, it's Franz's VERY green knitted socks).

Wedding dress:

Heinrich version: white satin bodice and skirt with silvery translucent overlay, ruffled bertha collar with beaded fringe and puffed translucent sleeves. The amount of soft texture this dress has under the stage lights is so amazing and I really like the choice of sleeve here, since it does remind me of the puffed sleeves she had on her trachten, but this is like a more grown up version. And since the sleeves are translucent and long, it gives Elisabeth the appearance of not fitting in with the court ladies, who all have short sleeves in opaque fabrics . The silvery contrasts look great and the way that white fringe looks like the fringe on Tod's jacket from the Prolog (thus connecting them visually) is *chef's kiss*.

Tax version: white satin button-up bodice with pagoda sleeves and skirt with striped accents. This dress is giving me a whole lot of nothing. Like, there isn't anything eyecatching here. And it makes Elisabeth look kinda dowdy with how covered up she is. And, if they were going for more "historical accuracy", why then put her in a dress that could be classified as daywear (with the long sleeves and the very prominent buttons in the front) if all of the wedding should be taking place in the evening?

Which is better? Heinrich version. The Tax version is too flat and plain for me. If the Heinrich design is proving anything so far, it's that historical accuracy can easily be beaten out with good and purposeful artistic design.

Nightgown:

Heinrich version: structured white nightgown with a slightly raised waistline, broad lace straps and lace trim. Once again, I love the structure the fabric has, it looks soft and romantic under the stage lights. The straps are so characteristic and they make her arms completely bare, thus making her appear vulnerable when facing Sophie and the ladies in waiting.

Tax version: white satin empire waist nightgown with short puffed sleeves. They literally couldn't have picked a thinner and cheaper looking satin for this costume? It literally looks so flimsy, especially since this costume has no texture and no decoration going on. I think the very high empire waistline is also a rather off choice, since it would be very out of fashion during the 1850s and it is a waist placement that often looks awkward on a lot of people. And there are the sleeves. They are very awkwardly short. Especially on the concert costumes, the sleeves literally look like they have 2 cm of an inseam at best.

Which is better? I think this is no surprise, but Heinrich once again gets it.

Stationen eine Ehe:

Heinrich version: White robe with ruffled lace trimmings, long bell-shaped sleeves and a broad light blue sash at the waist. I always love when I see a good nightrobe on stage and this is no exception. The material is delicate and translucent enough to keep Elisabeth looking very vulnerable in this scene, even though she's covered up. And the amount and placement of ruffling is just right. What I also find very interesting is that sash, because that color is so eyecatching (reminds me of a robin's egg) and it really gives the robe a distinct look.

Tax version: Reddish-pink duochrome satin bodice with fake buttons and pagoda sleeves w/ white puffed undersleeves and a matching skirt worn over a circular hoopskirt. Once again, more historically plausable, but it doesn't offer me anything as a costume. By making Elisabeth's silhouette here the same as Sophie and the ladies in waiting and by not giving the fabric any sort of softening embellishments, it removes this vulnerability she should have here. And I don't get why they went for this weird pink shade, because it makes no storytelling sense. And while we're at it, why did they choose to put her in this braided wig here? In real life portraiture, we don't get Elisabeth depicted with her hair in these braided updos up until the mid 1860s. The Heinrich version cleverly went around this by keeping Elisabeth with long loose curls through Act 1 to emphasize her girlishness and naivity, so when we see her with her hair braided up in the portrait reveal, it's this clear visual breaking point for her, showing us how she matured. But in the Tax version, it's a mess when it comes to wigs.

Which is better? Once again, Heinrich takes the cake. I feel like I might be biased, but I just can't find any rhyme and reason in the Tax costumes so far.

Schatten Hungarian dress:

Heinrich version: black and dark blue striped satin bodice with a fake stomacher and puffed sleeves and skirt with a black lace apron. For how little time this costume gets on stage, it is so crucial in this design, since it is both a visual paralel with Elisabeth's Hungarian coronation gown (but here, the silhouette is less mature and it's like a dark version of that dress), but also, this dress is paralelled again in the Mayerling dresses, since Shatten in Act 1 and Mayerling are paralel scenes, where Death takes away one of Elisabeth's children because of her unadvised decisions.

Tax version: same dress as in Stationen eine Ehe, but over it is worn a red velvet atilla with gold cording and brown fur trim and a matching red velvet hat. The atilla looks decently made and the cording does seem ok. This is a much technically easier way how to do this quick costume change, but it's ok. What I don't like here is the hat. It simply looks awkward witch the placement of where it's sitting and that cord in the front doesn't make it better. And once again, I am missing the paralels!

Which is better? I will probably sound like I'm repeating myself, but Heinrich version wins again. You can never beat good paralels and visual connections in costume design.

Elisabeth, mach auf mein Engel:

Heinrich version: Same robe as during Stationen eine Ehe (but this time with a better picture). Still love it here, because this is still supposed to be a vulnerable moment (especially when Death comes in at the end). So by keeping her in this nightgown, which she previously wore at a vulnerable moment, we have an immediate connection of how she feels.

Tax version: White chiffon robe with elbow length sleeves w/ lace engageants and with a train trimmed with lace ruffles, worn over a long pale pink/peach/orange?? satin slip. And we have a dreaded return of that flimsy satin! The nightgown for the most part looks ok, but another of this production's big issues comes in here and that is a gaping issue on front closing overcostumes. (If you read my 2022 Schönbrunn roast, you might remember how I complained about the massive amount of gaping in the front Der Tod's doctor disguise had). Here, the gaping could have easily been fixed with an added ruffle along the seam.

Which is better? Heinrich once again.

Star dress:

Heinrich version: Cream bodice with gathered tulle overlay, bertha collar trimmed with pearls and 3 tiered tulle ruffle sleeves, matching skirt with draped tulle overlay, tulle sash and pearl necklace. I love how this dress isn't an outright copy of the Winterhalter portrait, but keeps the soft, etherial and dreamy vibe the dress has. This dress looks light as a feather and even if it doesn't outright have stars, it has a light shimmer in the tulle.

Tax version: Cream bodice decorated with tulle overlay w/ gold embroidered stars, with pleated bertha collar, single tier tulle ruffle sleeves, matching skirt, matching star embroidered shawl, white satin gloves and star necklace. I love how this costume looks exactly like the portrait! The design is great, but sometimes, there have been some hiccups with the execution, specifically with balancing the volume of the sleeve in relation to the skirt. The costume below is one of the better ones, but often, the sleeves end up being too big and the skirt too narrow, throwing the proportion off. And sometimes, the costume can end up looking too stiff.

Which is better? Depending on the version. For me, this will be a tie. The better versions of the Tax design are equally as good as the Heinrich versions. However, if I were to take into account some of the stiffer versions of the Tax design, Heinrich would take the win again.

[egg-emperor]

Hi Julian, sorry in advance for a lot of text.

I want to talk to you about putting a watermark on your gifs.

It really is appreciable the effort you take to share them and for people to see what you are talking about.

But I think you are taking it to the extreme that they are "stolen" or are reposted without credits, many people do the same as you and have no problem that other people share it, because it really is material that does not belong to them as well as the yours.

I have even made posts of screenshots or gifs that have reached a lot of people to the point that they use those same images as their profile picture, it has also happened in my drawings.

I think you are doing unnecessary wear and tear when it comes to sharing screenshots or gifs of game scenes.

sorry but I don't really wanna debate this, I just want to watermark my stuff and I feel better this way. it really helped bring my motivation for gif making back

when it comes to footage I use, I always set up my recording tools and do it myself, even going into the games and playing just to record which takes a while. sometimes my chronic pain makes it extra effort but I do it because I don't want to use others footage. I then compile and cut on a slow laggy editor, save as clips individually, then convert each into gifs, assuring quality is decent and coloring tweaks and crops are made so it fits the file size limit

that can take hours specifically because I want it to be all my own effort and a lot of times I don't get many notes. so it being downloaded and reposted in seconds and getting much more kinda stings. I don't mind reposts if additional commentary is added or even as reaction images in convos or as pfps. just not uploading my stuff and having that be the whole post without anything else. I at least want credit then

since I make them I can decide if I wanna watermark. I make videos on YT unwatermaked and free to use without credit despite playing all the games and recording it myself- because it's meant to be a resource. my stuff here can be used but not just reposted without changes. and while I didn't animate them, they can take just as long as my smaller drawings and have the same amount of passion put into them

so I'm going to watermark from now on because tons of people do and really I should've from the start. it's not like they cover the entirety of the gif and ruin it, it's just small text. I'm also not the only one who's felt this way and I wish for all gif makers to get the credit they deserve because this can take effort. and as an artist and writer too, I don't see it as any lesser or undeserving of watermarks and credit

[gracieryder]

Not the same anon as before, but it's been very disturbing to see a group of white people in fandom dogpile on an artist of Korean descent who lives in Korea, especially when that artist does not speak English and is obviously struggling with expressing their views in a way that might make sense to *us*. The style the artist used, even if they didn't explain it, is a very obvious East Asian style which is very popular in Koren and Japanese cultures. I looked at the artist's blog, and even if they didn't explain it in the DMs—for whatever reason—they *have*, in a subsequent post yesterday, explained their perspective as a Korean person while making this art, and I think it's extremely unfair to exclude that part of the context while talking about this. Like...idk it just feels like you guys didn't like the answer they gave or the way they answered (again! they're not a native speaker and you need to give them more grace!) so everyone has just come to this conclusion that they're a terrible person automatically. And while you personally might not have done this, I have seen other blogs—all white people—act like a bunch of bullies about it and it's super frustrating.

This fandom does have a problem with whitewashing—gifmakers do it all the time while coloring their sets! Or they make the characters of color look super unnatural because they refuse to adjust their PSDs for their skin tones! And yet I have never seen anyone call out any of the gifmakers who've done this in the past, let alone dogpile on them to such an extreme—like y'all are doing on this Korean artist. Idk. I'm Asian too, and it's super disturbing to watch.

Hey, anon. I saw this ask last night in the jungle that is my inbox, but I wanted to wait until I was awake and aware enough to answer it (and didn’t really need to go back to sleep because of work).

The only thing I would push back on here is that it’s just a group of white people dogpiling. It was not all white people speaking. They’re just the voices that ended up on that artist’s blog and got the most attention – that includes my own. Because of that, I can see why it might be perceived that way though. And I pushed people not to interact with them or the art, because that’s how you make a difference. You don’t give something attention. The lack of engagement is a stance in and of itself. The goal was certainly never for this person to be attacked, so if that’s what you’re implying has happened, that’s a problem. And that’s on me for not being more careful.

I’ve had people who appreciated the fact that I spoke up, but there have been others, like yourself, who don’t like what’s happening, and an even wider group who thought that while there was something to be said, they’re not sure I should have said it. The response has been very multi-sided. And I do believe that you and everyone else who thinks I veered too far out of my own lane are very valid in thinking that way. I spent all of yesterday debating about whether or not I made the right decision, and I had friends both white and non-white who weren’t sure either.

It also seems there have been some gross communication failures. I’ll start off by saying that I did not see the culture post. I’m blocked by the artist (fairly), so I had a friend send me screenshots this morning. I wasn’t purposely disregarding that, and you’re right that it’s important to take into consideration.

I do think there’s never going to be agreement with this person regarding Jee’s skin tone. They have the perceptions that they have because of their experience as Korean artist living in Korea, and they see Jee as being lighter than even JLH visually and because of their cultural experiences. I do not believe that's likely to change.

I’m not saying Asian people can’t be light-skinned, but this artist is drawing a character played by two very real little girls, who are not universally perceived as light-skinned, and from our general understanding, are not Korean. Their mother is Chinese, and their father has a traditional Chinese surname which leads us to believe that he is likely Chinese as well. If this is incorrect, please correct me. And when you’re making art of real people, you can’t just use your previous perceptions of a fictional character’s identity to justify coloring them differently. And they’re using gifs to defend those perceptions. Gifs are something that you and I both know aren’t trusted references. They’re colored and altered in a variety of ways.

You’re right that gifmakers whitewash regularly. I will say that people have tried to call this out in the past, but they’ve been general posts from what I remember. Nothing about individual gifmakers. It’s been a huge problem with Eddie and with turning Athena and Karen orange. However, these general callouts don’t really get a lot of traction. And that’s extremely unfair.

I’ll be blunt and say that part of that is the fact that people tend to turn a blind eye to keep the peace, and the people in this fandom who noticed this artist’s work are the ones least likely to do so.

Another issue were the DMs, and it’s been brought to my attention by @karenandhenwillson (who I will respond to after this) and in a post by the artist, that I may have misinterpreted those completely, which is unfair of me (and anyone else who has seen the messages and come to the same conclusion). There wasn’t enough patience with someone who was a non-native English speaker, and that led to some confusion that I’m going to address when I respond to the blog I just mentioned.

The fact of the matter though is that I'm white, and I'm wading into murky waters by continuing to engage on this subject. I've turned off reblogs on my original post, and after my next response about the communication meltdown, I'm going to edit it and make another clarifying that people should read the artist's posts and my previous posts to understand their position and everything that's happened.

I don't think it's fair for me to continue to place myself in a discussion I might not have had the right to be in at all, but I'm not going to leave without publicly acknowledging the communication issue because it matters and telling people not to attack this artist. That's cowardly and not really my style.

Thank you again for this message. I really do welcome people coming to talk to me.

[schwender-exe]

Yet somehow further devlog #6

Ahoy all, it's around that time of the month again where I show off what I've been working on! While, this time I don't quite have a game ready to be shown, I do want to show some tools and scripts I've been working on in the meanwhile in preparation for a game genre I want to try and tackle.

#1 Dialogue scripts!

Since my on/off break at the start of the month, I've been reworking an old dialogue tool I've made starting way back when I was still working in Love2D. Originally, it was hastily put together, not quite understanding the full scope of how it all worked, but hey, it ran. Since then, I've ported it over to Godot and been making major improvements, taking some notes from my event system script (a script which lets you queue "events" to run in a specified order, waiting for each event to be completely finished running before continuing to the next one.) to make it its own thing!

Since the original Love2D version of the script, I've always wanted to reproduce something I saw from a tweet (which I can't find anymore, of course), which showed the in-house 'dialogue script' reader which was easy to write/read and even color coded on top of that which made it even easier to read! I remember being so inspired by that original tweet that, well, after all this time I can say I finally made something practically on par with it! here's a little snippet as an example:

This doesn't show the full scope of what I created, with ~17 keywords total, some of which having different effects depending on sub-keywords, eg. "money add 100" or "money remove 100", etc.

While it's not modular enough for me to 'pack it and ship it' out for the masses (trust me, I'd have to make a lot of changes for it to properly work more modularly and fit into others' projects), but I'm proud of what I created nonetheless.

#2 Point and click buttons

I've messed around with a point and click style game for a while, but never really got far into it because I always like things working a very specific way, and one thing I could never get working how I want them to is buttons. Specifically, the ones Godot has by default. They do their job, but at the end of the day it doesn't fit exactly what I want out of them, especially for a project like this. So I set out to code my own buttons, heavily based off and using what Godot have already set up.

Behold! ...Yeah, I know it's not much to look at, but it was hard! I swear! I mean, check this out:

I fit in a few different mouse detection types (think of it like the button's hitbox), and different ways the button will react on hovering over it! I know, I know. probably not very exciting, but it was fun to program together and get working! There's a lot more on the back-end, specifically with that mysterious "Hover Name ID", which I can set to be 'undiscovered' (like in the screenshot) if it's a location on a map, or maybe you want to have an area locked off and hidden until you progress through the story a certain amount? Perhaps the name of a character changes until a sudden twist?! all easily done with a line or two of code rather than having to wrestle the code down and change it to work a specific way.

#3 Put it together and you have yourself a Visual Novel

Yeah, that's right. I'm working on a visual novel! Hah! Well, that is as soon as I'm able to get what I deem a fun and exciting story and manage to get it out of production and available for everyone to play. Now, some might say "why not use an engine/framework that's already out there and built for visual novels so you don't have to do all this work? Like Ren'py?" and to that I say... fair point. However, I've always loved writing some of the backend scripts, even if they aren't the most pretty. They get things done the way I want them to, which means I can work more efficiently and have fun making scripts and whatnot along the way.

I know this isn't exactly the most exciting for anyone who's used to seeing me post cute pixels and miles of progress, but something's clearly up with me lately and until I get to the bottom of it I'll have to inch forward with my progress and show what I've achieved, even if it's not the most exciting.

tl;dr I made some nice backend tools which allow me to more quickly work on some fun project(s) in future, hopefully.

As always, for anyone who would like further knowledge, feel free to ask! And to all those who read this far, thank you!

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Emily Social Media in February

Now onto Emily's social media.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

I didn’t take screenshots, but Emily is posting more “puppy content” as she puts it. Makes it look like she’s in LA, but once again, no location stamps. Okay, I went and got screenshots.

@wdway:

I realize I'm not the sharpest tool on the shed but seriously the first picture in the grouping from Emily looks like gravel to me. The dog is sweet and I thought it was funny that she referred to it as a family picture with her the dog and her boyfriend. Looking at Emily in that shot her hair or I should point out her roots looks very similar to what they were in at the back end November the finale. There is seriously no way to tell when these shots were taken. But then I'm not familiar with the seasonal change of gravel, haha.

More Emily vague posting. She has a story up right now w these two slides:

@wdway:

Is her new movie Hallmark or Lifetime? I ask because her Christmas one was Lifetime. Her first TV movie after leaving TWD was with Hallmark I got Hallmark with our cable service but not Lifetime so I didn't see the Christmas movie. Is it just me that thinks it's a little odd that she is getting a lot of TV play. She's being set up as a TV romantic leading lady.

@galadrieljones:

Oh I don’t actually remember. Could be lifetime! I wouldn’t be surprised if she signed a contract for multiple films or something like that. It’s true she’s been on screen a lot this last calendar year after going some time without a role.

@twdmusicboxmystery: Agreed! Highly suspicious. I like the idea of her being set up as a romantic lead, tho!

Emily posted one of herself as a child playing the piano. I wondered if the piano was intentional.

@galadrieljones:

Oh yeah I saw that one yesterday! It seemed like she was home in Nebraska again. Like at some point my guess is she did go home but who knows. She has been very inactive lately.

@wdway:

Someone just posted in the group a video of the black cat that Emily got. It's being introduced to her boyfriend's dog. Of course I love it because it's a black cat and I do have two of them myself but I also love the fact that Norman was known for his black cat, Eyes In The Dark.

@galadrieljones:

I saw that one (cat video) and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Other than as a “luck” symbol. But I’m not super up on the cat symbolism? I don’t know that Ive ever read those posts.

@wdway:

I really wasn't thinking about it in terms of symbolism or luck or bad luck although a black cat crossing your path is supposed to be bad luck. Obviously I don't believe that since my cats are so sweet but I just thought it was funny that she chose a black cat because Norman was so well known for his black cat. If one black cat = a negative bad luck then two black cats in math would = a positive which would be good luck.

As far as symbolism in TWD cat= Daryl and dog= Beth.

In the meantime, Emily’s story today. She’s at the airport!

I noticed the songs too. One has a luck reference, while the other is called “getting the band back together.”

Norman also has a huge story with lots of relevant stuff. I will post a bit later when I’m home!!

@wdway:

Love this. Lucky for You, Get The Band Back Together Not reading anything into these title choices. Not. I'm reading sooo much into them!

@twdmusicboxmystery

So, this is an interesting one that Emily posted. The more I look at it, the more interesting things I find.

Aside from the vibrantly colored costume, the woman actually looks a lot like Beth. There's the bird, of course. Bird symbolism.

You could even argue that only one eye is showing. Well, "Showing" because of the blue glasses. But the bird is covering one eye, which gives it a Sirius look.

The flaming heart at the throat reminded me of Norman saying Beth was Daryl's little light in the dark, and it was super sad to see that light go out.

The blue and green on her neck look exactly like the plate glass windows in the Alexandria church, which we always liked to call Beth's church.

And the pearls are reminiscent of the Rich Bitch walker. The bird is also black and white. AND, the woman is wearing a yellow shirt or dress. Yeah, I can see why this one would have captured Emily's attention.

[cristenerose]

The Lost Unicorn

This is the story of a unicorn I once lost but brought back to life because of social media posts.

A few years ago, I began a digital painting of a unicorn running through an enchanted forest. I hadn't tried to do anything like this in years. I'm a professional graphic designer, and aside from a few event theme graphics or book covers, usually I'm working with commercial marketing images and text. It's fun and challenging work, but I'm a fantasy-lover at heart and I need to express that through my artwork and writing. The thing is I used to draw unicorns all the time as an 80s and 90s kid, and now as a grumpy old adult, some part of me wanted to reconnect with that magic. So, I began this work and loved it and… like I do… I put it aside while the paying stuff took priority. I'd "get back to it" when I could.

Cue the plot twist. My computer crashed some months later. And of course, I had not backed this project up like I did for my client jobs. I was heartbroken! It was gone! Faded into memory like Deckard's unicorn dream in the director's cut of Blade Runner.

But I couldn't let it go. And I had an idea. I'd shared a few screenshots of the WIP on social media. They were low resolution but contained enough pixels that I thought I might be able to use them. I had even shared a somewhat-clean image of my unicorn. I brought them into Photoshop and set to work. Cut the layers apart. Upsized the resolution. I had only enough resolution to get colors and rough shapes for the background. I effectively had to re-paint the entire thing based on that guide. But it was possible! And wouldn't have been just from memory. I changed a few details and let the work flow in different directions where it wanted to.

And here you go, you can now see the finished thing in all its watermarked glory. Hope it makes you smile.

[cornbread-but-minecraft]

Cornbread's Texture Fixer Devlog - Beta 2 - November 26th, 2023

guess i'm doing devlogs now :P. like the in the changelogs, i'm going to be going over things in the order i implemented them, just 'cause it's easier.

today will cover all the changes i made since fixing the verbose button (so the last week basically).

first thing first:

i fixed the 'dark' button's hover texture. for whatever reason, the face of the button is a darker shade of green than its shaded bevel when hovered over. the button's pressed texture doesn't have that issue, so i just replaced the colors.

i noticed the pallet was wrong when i made the first version of Thickly Be-Beveled Buttons, but i didn't do anything about it due to my idea of what the pack should be being different at the time. also, i use another resource pack that replaces this texture, so it is of no relevance to me. this fix will also be coming to TBBB.

looks kinda garish now tbh.

a small fix for an interface most people probably never see. if you're not reading the alt text, you probably can't tell what's different between the two images, but basically, because of the way bedrock edition handles UI textures, the right side of these banners appears slightly stretched. so i've fixed it.

side note: why can you even hover over these? like, it's not just a visual thing, so it's outside the realm of this pack, but just... why????

this is the mob effects screen, cropped to focus on this little problem area (it's always bevels with this game, isn't it). not entirely sure what to do with this screen, given how much it's clearly an artifact of the pocket edition alpha, but i can at least fix its textures.

this is one of the few screens that changes slightly depending on whether left hand mode is enabled or not, but the toggle for it seems to currently be missing, so i can't test the changes i've made there. hopefully it works correctly >w<

(these bevel fixes are coming to all of pocket UI as well btw.)

little behind-the-scenes: i usually write the changelog while making changes, but the posts are written after the fact. it's at this point the changelog lists a bunch of things (mostly close buttons) i actually reverted back to how they are in vanilla, since i decided they actually weren't consistency issues after all.

in previous versions of the pack, i changed the close buttons in container screens to all be part of toolbars, regardless of whether there was a help button to go along with them or not. i'll probably be tweaking this reversion next week, but there is one close button that's i'm changing to not be part of a toolbar even though it usually does have a help button, and it's this one:

you probably never noticed this, because who actually uses the how-to-play screen, but the help button doesn't work here. in fact, there just straight-up isn't even a how-to-play entry for the stonecutter at all! so i just removed the button.

next up, a few teeny-tiny changes that i can't be bothered to get screenshots for:

in previous versions of the pack, everything on the horse screen was in its java edition position, but i decided i didn't like that for the inventory label, so i moved it down a pixel.

chest and large chest screens now look the same as in conglomeration, which is to say, identical to java edition except for the text colors and close button.

simplified the JSON for the layering fixes on the HUD so they (now it) should hopefully be less intrusive and / or buggy.

some technical changes to container scroll panels (recipe book, etc.) that should theoretically make them more accommodating to how other resource packs use the texture.

speaking of the recipe book:

made the search bar shorter by a pixel so the things around it align with the pixel grid better. not shown: this also fixes the issue where the bottom of the recipe book's buttons were cut off by a third of a pixel on this tab.

also, the search bar is the correct length in creative mode now.

this thing is set up weird. also wrong. more noticeable when you hover over it. i fixed it.

i kept the outlines overlapping since that's a thing bedrock does sometimes and i think it's intentional, and i think it might be what the devs were going for here.

the pixel where the bevels meet on tabs is now consistently the correct color, that is to say: the same color as the face of the tab. (this bothered no-one but me probably.)

made this texture use an appropriate level of contrast... for a tab. it's a toolbar, but it uses a tab texture for some reason. the texture was messed up, and i fixed that, but i'm on the fence about whether i should swap out the texture entirely for one that looks more like the regular toolbar.

also the close button is a pixel higher.

....

these last few entries have been kinda boring for people that aren't me, haven't they? well that's about to change with this last one.

everyone, i present to you, probably the biggest thing in gaming:

so you know how, on the world select screen, the close button is part of its own tab / panel thing? and how when you use a controller, the button disappears, but not the tab? well....

i fixed it :3

i would like to note that i didn't just remove the tab, this is a dynamic thing that changes based on input method! it reappears when you use a mouse or touch controls, and the servers tab even changes its set of textures dynamically as well!!

this is unironically the most complicated thing in the pack, but still actually pretty simple?? this game's vanilla system has a lot of really robust architecture that just... isn't used. far more than the game's visual issues would have you believe.

[raycatz]

Specific places the chain could spend the night (that aren't in the middle of the woods somewhere!)

I've seen a few people ask for something like this, so I've complied what I know from playing the games as well as a few headcanons thrown in. Hopefully this post is somewhat comprehensive and helpful. Feel free to add on if you want!

Below you’ll find a list of places in Hyrule that the chain could crash. I’ve included wiki links, a few art and fic recs, screenshots, and brief descriptions. Be warned if you open the read more because this post is kinda long.

Let’s get into it!

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The noclip.website is an amazing resource. It’s a gallery of extracted map data from various games and allows you to explore with a free camera. Currently the gallery includes OoT (N64), OoT (3D), MM (3D), WW (gamecube), TP (gamecube), and SkSw (wii). Need visual references for a drawing or fic? This website is going to be your best friend.

Similarities across the eras

Hyrule Castle and Castle Town. I'm not going to go over them all individually, but if there's a Castle, the chain can probably get permission from Zelda to stay. Similarly, for fics, a generic inn can be put in Castle Town. (Here’s a fun sickfic by Seeking7 which takes place in an inn set in Twi’s Castle Town!)

Cleared temples and dungeons can be camped in to escape the elements.

Time, Wind, Twilight, and Four’s eras all contain some form of secret grottoes or underground caves.

Most everyone has fairy fountains, while Twilight and Sky have sacred springs (wiki ref 1, wiki ref 2/3 (Wild's Spring of Power resembles the Skyview Spring from Sky's era. theelvishfiddler made a great comic about this!))

Four

- The Happy Hearth Inn (Minish Cap) is located in Hyrule Town. It's a two story stone building with reception and rooms on the first floor and a lobby upstairs. Each patron gets a complimentary kin stone!

- Four's House (Minish Cap). Four and his grandfather live together just outside Castle Town. Canonically, their house has a front living space and kitchen with an attached forge to the right. There's an upstairs room with two beds. For my own headcanons I like to expand the house. The front room serves as the store with the same attached (or outside) forge to the right. The living space is pushed back, with a separate kitchen and living room, and again there's an upstairs with an extra bedroom or bedrooms for the colors. There's enough space to comfortably fit the chain. Four’s house, like the rest of Minish Cap, is quaint and warm. (I like how Four's house/forge is described in Blueskullcandy(Train)'s fic Alone Together and sister_dear's fic Handle with Care. Train also named the shop the Four Element Forge which I find very fitting.)

- With the Picori (Minish Cap). There's an item in Four Swords called the gnat hat which allows the colors to shrink. If Four and the chain get ahold of these they could stay with the Forest Picori in Minish Village, with the Town Picori in Hyrule Town, or with the Mountain Picori on Mount Crenel.

- Kakariko Village (FSA) in Four's era suffered during Gaon’s rise to power. The darkness which shrouded northwestern Hyrule changed the hearts of many living there and the village was overrun by a band of thieves. In addition, Shadow set the town ablaze shortly before the colors arrived. The colors rounded up the thieves and put out the fires but many of the townsfolk still distrust Four due to his likeness to Shadow. For fics, this would be a good place for an inn. However, fire damage can still be found in some parts of the village and Four may not be entirely welcome.

- The Village of the Blue Maiden (FSA). Another good place for an inn. The colors were made honorary members of the Seeker's Guild after rescuing lost townsfolk and children from the Dark World. Push comes to shove, there's probably a staff room that the chain can crash in.

- Lon Lon Ranch (Minish Cap and FSA). Four has a Lon Lon Ranch in his era! And Malon and Talon are there too and almost no one's talked about this!!! The FSA ranch is a single room house with a basement outside. In Minish Cap, the ranch gained the addition of an attached barn on the right-hand side and a wide pasture outside. They raise horses and cows. Headcanons: Let’s expand the ranch so it’s more comfortable. Though smaller than the ranch in Time's era, I like to think there’s enough room for everyone. The barn has a very climbable hay loft and lots of minish in the rafters.

- Underground (FSA). Four's era is riddled with underground chambers and passageways. Choose any location, there's probably a basement, cave, or some kind of underground area that can be easily guarded as a place to spend the night.

Wild (botw)

- Kakariko, Hateno, Tarrey Town, Lurelin, Rito Village, Zora’s Domain, Goron City, and the stables. Any of the towns or stables in Wild's Hyrule have the accommodations necessary for a group like the chain. Perhaps they don't expect such a large group but it's never an issue.

- Wild's house in Hateno. A few extra bedrolls can be fit in the loft. There's a hallway below the loft, space under the stairs, and any furniture can easily be pushed aside to make enough room for everyone. It's a little tight but it's home. Wild's house shares the same model as other houses in Hateno. Interestingly, there’s a walled off room under the loft in Wild’s house that's open in other houses. You could add a door or knock out the wall if you wanted to. There’s also an inaccessible little shed attached to the house around the back. I adore the headcanon that this is a sauna (good art!) or personal bath. (here's a youtube video where someone clips into it to give you an idea of scale) (RokettoMusashi uses this space wonderfully in their fic Down. "A multichapter sickfic featuring Sky being the chain's primary caretaker as they're sick and laid up one by one." It’s an 8+1 sickfic and Wars gets the bath all to himself for a chapter and maybe Sky pampers him a little and it’s really sweet.) totk: The shed is opened up and we can see that it’s used for storage!

- Korok Forest. A Korok named Pepp has a bed set up in the Deku Tree’s Navel just for Wild!!! There aren't any for the chain but I'm sure something could be arranged.

- Calip's House at Fort Hateno, Selmie's Spot, the Hebra Trailhead Lodge, the Woodcutter's House on the Great Plateau, and various ruins. I may be missing a few but there are plenty of spots in Wild's Hyrule to camp that aren't out in the open. The first two I've given are inhabited but the others are open to travelers. The Hebra Trailhead Lodge is specifically for travelers and has food stored there on an honor system of, if you take anything, leave something in its place or restock it later. In addition, there are flagpoles set up at intervals guiding up the mountain from the lodge to Selmie’s Spot. At each flagpole is a crate of supplies following the same honor system. I know it’s fun to strand members of the chain on Hebra. What if they spot a flag fluttering in the distance? What if they get to the crate and pry it open with numb fingers only to find it empty? Or not? Congrats, our hero has acquired 50ft of hempen rope. This is D&D now. Link takes one point of exhaustion.

Wind (The Wind Waker)

- Outset Island. I don’t know if Wind's house isn't big enough for everyone but that's alright. It can get windy but the weather's often pleasant enough to camp on the beach. Grandma and Aryll share the wide bed on the lower floor and there’s an attached upper bunk to the side that’s Wind’s. For LU, I like to imagine he’s moved to sleeping in the loft instead. The loft could probably fit three more people max but they'd have to be careful not to roll off the edge. If it's raining, Orca's Dojo is available.

- Windfall island. It doesn't canonically have an inn but for fic purposes it wouldn't be unbelievable to fit one in, perhaps near the Cafe Bar. However, I like to imagine that the chain would stay in Lenzo's Gallery. The gallery has a lot of open space and I think Lenzo would be more than happy to welcome Wind's friends (*cough* his adopted grandson's friends) into his home.

- Tetra's Pirate Ship. How many hammocks can you shove into one space?

- The SS Linbeck. It'd be cramped. It would be sooooo cramped! The deck isn't large enough for all of them to be up there at once. There is an engine room / hull below deck some can squeeze into. Linebeck isn't happy about it, but hey, the chain's not drowning.

- Private Oasis / Link’s Oasis. If you give 20 joy pendants to Mrs. Marie, the school teacher on Windfall Island, she’ll give Link the Cabana Deed to the private oasis and it becomes Link’s. Wind owns an island! You can totally fit nine people in the cabana. Anyone put off by the magic butler can sleep in the dungeon in the basement outside.

- Dragon Roost Island.

- Forest Haven.

Time (OoT)

- Death Mountain, Zora's Domain, and Kokiri Forest. Time is in good standing with the Gorons and Zora. He was made a Goron brother after defeating King Dodongo and I like to think he remained friends with Ruto. Finding lodging with the Gorons or Zora wouldn’t be an issue. (I’m not sure when exactly Link gets set back to in the Child Timeline? We know the Gorons and Zora are already suffering from Ganon’s curses when Link leaves the forest, and from Majora’s Mask that he’s sent to a time before Zelda knows him. I imagine he’d help them again if he was sent to a time before he had.) As for Kokiri Forest, I don't think Time is able to find his way back. Perhaps some of the younger boys would be able to get there, though. Time had a small treehouse they could visit. (fun fact: in the adult timeline, if Link successfully beats Malon’s time on an obstacle course, she gifts him a cow. A COW. Which he or Malon bring BACK TO THE FOREST and somehow get UP THE LADDER into his little treehouse. He’s even got hay for it and a pitchfork and a couple of buckets and everything. Like, I don’t think a treehouse is a good place for a cow but it’s there!)

- Kakariko Village. It doesn't have an inn in-game but for fics there is an empty house next to the Death Mountain Trailhead that could be turned into one. Maybe it would be something like the Stockpot Inn from Majora's Mask? (Anju's lookalike is in this town! She'd totally work there!) Impa's house and the House of Skulltula are also in Kakariko.

- Lon Lon Ranch. The LU Ranch is larger than what's in game. It’s two stories (in-game) and we know there’s at least one guest bedroom (Talon might have his own room as well). Obviously, not everyone's sleeping on a bed but I like to imagine there's a cozy living room with a nice couch and carpets and enough pillows and blankets to go around. It's not a bad place to have to sleep on the floor, either. The spot in front of the fireplace with a heavy quilt and a mountain of pillows is the best.

Legend (alttp/albw)

- Kakariko Village. There's probably an inn here but Legend may or may not be a wanted criminal after “kidnapping the princess.” This would be a fun place for Legend to pull out the First Gen ring and pose as Hyrule's twin.

- Legend's house. I like to think it has a floor plan similar to Four's. However, Legend's house was never meant to be a store. Where the front room in Four's house has been remodeled, the front room in Legend's house has been rearranged into some kind of organized chaos of tables and display cases with a bed shoved into the corner. The fireplace and kitchen are in there somewhere. In the back is a proper bedroom, bath, and a workshop/storage. Ravio's "shop" as Legend has begrudgingly accepted it's going to be for the foreseeable future can be broken down, freeing the space up for bedrolls. A couch can also be carried out of the bedroom and into the main area. Bonus points if Legend's storage room that we saw in the LU pages is a basement. (Do you think Ravio's boobytrapped the house?)

- Witch's House. The sage Irene and her grandmother live here. They don't have any spare room (except possibly for someone who's injured and then the chain has to pay for any red potion used of course!), but camping around the hut is safer than in the woods and they're allowed to use the cauldron that's outside.

- The northern sanctuary. One of the Seven Sages, Ceres, and her father oversee the sanctuary. The chain would likely be able to rest here.

Sky (SkSw)

Mostly headcanons.

- The surface. A small settlement has sprung up in the Faron Woods around the Sealed Temple and Goddess Statue. Many of the structures aren't finished yet, but there are colorful tents and stone walls with tarps set over them similar to how the bazaar is set up. I'm sure there's some kind of set up within the Sealed Temple itself as well.

- Skyloft. People travel between the surface and Skyloft regularly so a few houses may be empty for the time that it would be alright for the chain to stay in. As for the Knight Academy, there might be a few spare rooms the chain could use if they share the space. And again, the sparring hall is available. (There's a recurring theme of sleeping on the gym floor.) (Let the chain use the bath in the Knight Academy! There's a heated bath!!! Can you imagine how nice that would be??! For the chain? For Legend??? Can we have a My Neighbor Totoro scene where some of them bathe together and make a racket and an absolute mess? I bet they'd make some Knight Academy residents so mad! It'd be so funny!)

Hyrule

I haven't played The Adventure of Link so I've no idea how Hyrule's towns are set up but uhmm it sounds like he has a lot of them that the chain could stay at. How Hyrule’s blood curse effects how the townsfolk perceive him is up to you.

- Caves. They're staying in caves.

- Dungeon and temple ruins. Also an option.

- Fairy Fountains (Zelda I). Okay so fairy fountains might be “out in the middle of the woods somewhere" but they always have their own designated screens. It's a safe, distinguishable location, that comes with potential interactions between the chain and fairies.

Twilight (Twilight Princess)

Unfortunately I’m not too familiar with Twilight’s game. I know the gist of it but I haven’t played past the forest temple. I also played this game on the wii and I can’t orient myself in any of the pictures I’m looking at,, everything’s flipped help-

- Twilight's Treehouse. At first I was going to say there’s no way to fit nine people in there, but after seeing how small Twi is for comparison, sure, it’s doable. Twi’s treehouse has a base floor, double loft, and basement. For whatever reason he doesn’t have a bed? I’m going to put it in the second loft. The first loft is a reading nook with a bean bag or folded up bedroll/sleeping bag set in the corner. Someone could curl up here. Between the lofts and base level, there’s enough room for everyone’s sleeping bags.

- Ordon. I think Twilight wouldn't want to impose on the villagers and would always try to get the chain to stay at his place. However, if the villagers insist they spend the night on "real beds" then the group might split up and stay a few people each hosted in separate houses for the night.

- Kakariko Village. Elde Inn and the Kakariko Sanctuary. There’s a hot spring above the inn.

- Telma's Bar in Hyrule Castle Town. Not a place for the chain to sleep over at, but it’s a good rest stop that I think Twi would much prefer over the bustle of the city. I think he’d want to introduce everyone to Telma and the resistance given the chance. (he’s very proud of all of his families aaaa I think if you got the chain, ordon, and the resistance all together in the same space Twilight might combust from just how proud he is of everyone and how much he loves them.)

Warriors (Hyrule Warriors)

I've played the initial release version of Hyrule Warriors but it's been a while so I don't remember which stages take place in Wars' era vs others and therefore which areas can be found in Wars' era for certain. Overall, the world beyond the battlegrounds isn't really covered. It's daunting, but this opens up huge opportunities for worldbuilding.

I do have one idea for a location beyond Hyrule Castle and Castle Town.

- Kakariko Village. Impa and the Sheikah are in Hyrule Warriors and therefore a version of Kakariko probably exists in Wars' era. Has it been destroyed? Is it safe? How has the war affected it? What is the setting like? Personally I like to imagine it's aesthetically similar to Kakariko from botw but set in a bamboo forest. All the light green with splashes of bright red and deep blue of the Sheikah seems like such a fun palette to draw or imagine for fic. It's up to you! Go crazy!

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That's all I've got!

Please add to this if there are locations I missed. Also, if there are any art or fics that you think detail specific locations really well please share them!!! I'd love to learn about the worldbuilding that's been done!

[br-disaster]

Nie Huaisang’s outfits appreciation post

After the terrible loss of our second best dressed cultivator and fashion icon Nie Mingjue, the cultivation world now lacks one of it’s pillars. But little did they know, our fashion king had a disciple, someone capable of honoring his legacy in many ways.

While we all grief, a new icon rises.

And I’m here to prove that Nie Huaisang deserves his late brother’s title not only because Mingjue’s no longer serving looks -may his fashionable soul rest in peace-, but because Huaisang has always been a stylish icon on his own.

I mean, this look right here is enough proof:

 Huaisang has quite a lot of robes, and they are all so different, I decided to compile them chronologically:

1. the “assigned fashionable at birth”one

Look at this small bean with his cream-colored robes. Whoever chose this color for him did a great job, though it’s a bit weird that they looked at baby Mingjue and went “all you’ll wear is dark gray from now on” and then Huaisang was born and “cream it is!” And we don’t really see anybody else from the Nie sect wearing this color, I wonder if it has anything to do with Huaisang’s mom, or if it’s just for the dark\light color contrast,  the two young masters can’t possibly wear the same colors, it would ruin the aesthetic.

 It looks just like his main-possibly-stay-at-home-robes, like he just really loved this especific set and had a lot of other robes that looked just the same growing up.

Really small, really cute, makes you want to carry him around saying: look at my baby, he’s so stylish!

2. the “good old Gusu days” one

This is like a uniform, there’s nothing really special about it. But I’d like to point out two things:

One: the silver embroidery on the shoulders and the silver on his waist belt matches the pristine white of his robes really well.

Two: look how wide his shouders look, there you go, Huaisang, keeping the Nie shoulder game strong!

3. The “it’s called fashion, dage” one

Cream-colored again! It embodies teen!Huaisang’s aesthetic perfectly: it’s expensive, it’s pretty, it looks comfortable, but it’s minimalistic.

I mean, I have no idea if it is actually expensive, but it surely looks expensive.

It has no discernable patterns, but the fabric just looks so good, look at the texture. It looks warm and heavy (rip Ji Li). And it’s pleated, look at him! Everything about this one screams rich-carefree-spoiled-delicate-pretty-gongzi.

And well, we see him strolling around and getting in trouble instead of going straight home in this robes, then on Fatal Journey we see him painting landscapes instead of practicing and claiming he doesn’t want to become the Nie sect leader in this very set of robes. Maybe he has indeed been wearing similar robes since his childhood and wants to, you know, go back to when things were as simple as taking the long way home coming back from Gusu.

4. the “didn’t really engage on the war but needed to look good regardless” one

This one is so pretty, y’all. It’s silver and white and gray, the brothers  are matching with their disciples’ robes, you won’t find a Sect with a superior fashion sense.

I can totally understand why he didn’t change to some post-Sunshot robes. Imagine looking this good at home, with none of your friends or disciples or brother to see you. Nope. This robes belong to a banquet, even one as unpleasing and akward as this one.

(They technically saw him, since he wore the same robes while they were planning the whole Sunshot thing, but no one was paying attention to it, right? And you can’t let such a nice look go to waste)

One of my favorites, for sure. It even matches his fan. It’s peak aesthetic.

5. the “I’m only here for the food and the drama” one

I didn’t really like this one at first. It looked kinda futuristic in my head, you know? It’s probably just the really structured fabric and the color, but It was a bit too much.

But now, looking at it as I take screenshots, I like them. It’s bold and fierce and remember the shoulder accessories being a code for battle? Well, I doubt Huaisang shot a single arrow that day, but he was supposed to be competing, so it makes a lot of sense that he’s dressed like this while his brother is wearing his pretty, dark yet lighter civillian robes to watch him.

He’s even wearing epaulettes (well, I trust that that’s the name) that matches the ones Mingjue wore with his Sunshot robes! Are they the same pair? Did he borrow it? Or do they secretly comission the same robes and accessories  and wear them on alternate occasions?

These are the most battle-coded (and at the same time is not battle-coded at all, it’s too ostentatious) robes we see him wearing until now, and he is representing his sect at the hunt, he has to look like a proper heir that is capable of fighting, whether he likes it or not - and judging by how unenthusiastic he was during the opening shoot-the-wen-prisioners ceremony, I’d say he was not enjoying it at all-.

But it’s such a cool look, I really like it now.

6. the “he will throw hands with a non-corporeal entity while giving his big brother all the love and understanding he deserves” one

 This may look like the same robes we usually wears at home, but they lack the pleated part and I don’t think his long sleeves would fit inside his wirst thingy, which I now know it’s called a vambrace or a bracer,  they were quite wide sleeves.

Anyway, we again have his minimalistic aesthetic. No patterns, the only addition being the outer robe that realy looks like the one Mingjue wears with his stay-at-home robes, except with no sleeves; and the bracers\vambraces.

But look how different this looks in comparison with the previous one; he wasn’t fighting shit in those pompous silver robes, but he was so determined here, ready to face anything. This is the difference between a battle-coded look and a battle-codded Huaisang.

It’s practical, it’s pretty, looks comfortable and it’s perfect for scolding your older brother then comforting him because he gets emotional when people argue with him, ok?

Huaisang is the best younger brother, fight me

8.the “sad, sad” one

I’ll just say that the inner robes are really similar to the one Mingjue wears with his stay-at-home robes, though they are not the same. Perhaps my theory that they did comission a lot of similar itens is correct after all.

I don’t think this look is particularly good, and the context surely doesn’t help at all, but it’s interesting to see him in gray and black.

 Overall, I hate it here.

9. the “somehow even worse” one

Look, if I had to compile all his outfits, I had to include this one. But there’s nothing to say about it except just looking at him wearing it makes me sad.

10. the “you didn’t see that coming, did you?” one

This one here is a trick, ok? At this point of the story we have no idea of what’s going on and if this misterious person is important or not; all we know is that he is quite fond of patterns and dark clothing. And that he has some money.

But damn, once we find out who this is, it instantly becomes something else entirely. 

It’s so fucking DARK!! It’s Wei Wuxian’s kind of dark, it’s crazy to think our boy Huaisang, who’s been wearing light grays, white and cream all his life would come up with something like that. It doesn’t even look Nie, and that’s probably what he was going for, y’know, so no one could recognize him and all of that.

But jesus, this look is just wow.  It’s perfect for a scheming mastermind, even though we don’t really know about it yet. The scales pattern is really nice and I love when he wears this sort of robe, with the fitted sleeves and the extra fabric at the shoulders. The flame (I think) pattern is nice too, though it’s a bit too much here, just a bit. But he seems to like this pattern a lot, so let him have it

And the craziest part is: we know these robes. And i’ve seen a couple of posts about them, it’s the same inner robe he wore at the Phoenix Mountain night hunt competition, almost 16 years ago. 

Like what are these robes made of??

11. the “sneaky, sneaky” one

The famous Nie pattern, am I right?

I love all theories about this one and as I took the screenshots, I noticed how his inner robe is the same as robe number 8. Huaisang says no to excessive buying, please reuse your clothes!

I’m particularly fond of the theory that Nie Mingjue comissioned robes for both his didi and his boyfriend Xichen, but I can accept that Huaisang just inherited his brother’s robes, though the flame pattern (once again proving we won’t guess Huaisang is behind everything not even after seeing him wearing the same patterns as in episode one twice) at the bottom is definetly a Huaisang thing.

I really like how heavy it looks, and the black thin stripe.We know it’s the same pattern as Xichen’s robe but seeing it combined with the back and light gray of the Nies really gives it a distinct identity.

12. the “and the oscar goes to...” one

Look at him, all innocent-looking placing all the chess pieces on their right places. Gotta love director Nie.  And it makes so much sense that he would wear something as light as this robes for this moment. He wore light colors for most of his youth, when he was carefree and naive and harmless; he cultivated a reputation of being dependent, fearful and stupid even. In this moment, more than ever, he needs people to believe this is exactly who he is, and what’s the best way of doing it?

Yes, reminding them of your old self. All he does is pretend and lie while he cries and faints.  A director and an actor too!

Throw yourself at your brother’s sworn brothers trying to look harmless while annoying the hell out of them? check.

Faint conveniently as your brother’s murderer lies at your face about killing said brother because even you have limits and you can’t watch that fuckery and not want to murder him right there? check.

Pretend to be stupid while conducting the protagonist and pretty much everybody else to ask the right questions and therefore unmask the terrible things your nemesis did?  also check.

And the robes are really pretty, look at the texture at the bottom right!! Silver and white go really well together. Wide, wide sleeves and this heavy-looking fabric. Superb, really, one of my favorites again.

And look at him carrying his saber (which he  probably left at Pier Lotus later)!

13. the “...and cut!” one

Look at these robes and tell me they don’t absolutely look like something Nie Mingjue would wear. You know he would. 

And it’s such a contrast to his previous robes. The white and silver one for looking innocent and lost and funny; the dark gray to look like a serious sect leader who will endorse the accusations against his enemy (Ok, he did act confused and lost and innocent in these robes, but he also showed real shock and grief and sadness, he did show his true feelings too)

He’s honoring his brother here, he did it, he brought justice to him, he defeated his brother’s murderer.  He spent years wanting and waiting for this moment, it’s only fair he would do so while looking so much like his beloved older brother.

I love everything about this look. The color palette is almost the same as the one robe his brother wore to the post-Sunshot campaign banquet. The dark,shining gray, the black, the thin bronze\golden stripe at the collar. Even that extra overlaid fabric at the bottom front of his robes is the same as Mingjue used to wear. Beautiful, really.

He would be really proud of you, I hope you know that, Huaisang.

14. the “I may or may not steal your chief cultivator status, watch out Wangji” one

I know he would never steal Wangji’s post, cql!NHS doesn’t even want it; but like, we deserved Chief cultivator!Huaisang, right? So it was worth the joke, I think.

The inner light gray robe yet AGAIN, I suspect this is his favorite inner robe.

We have some bold patterns here, so elegant. I really like when he wears this kind of outer robe, accentuating his shoulders, suits him really well, And this is such a Nie color palette, just like the previous one. In fact, Huaisang wears way more dark colors than we give him credit for. Especially after becoming sect leader. 

Sleeve game on point too, really long. And it matches his fan as well.

Lovely look, I wish we could have seen more.

In conclusion: 

King of versatility, resusing 16 year-old robes AND looking damn good while doing it! He looks good scheming, he looks good lying, he looks good fainting, he even looks good tricking people into stabbing other people!

 Name a more iconic king, I’ll wait.

[firelxdykatara]

Hello! I say this in the kindest way possible, but can you please provide evidence that theowelspeaks is a terf? I'm a black zutara shipper and for years have really felt shoved by the fandom and it hasn't been my safe space. But YOUR blog and you made me feel better. I'm not in your discord but you're being accused of racism. I don't follow the owlspeaks and wanna support you but if you're being accused of racism why are you calling someone a terf?

Can you please show where they are a terf? I'm only asking this because I really REALLY love you and I support you. And if they are a terf, you need to provide evidence. It is heavily suspicious when a person of color calls out a white woman on racism and you don't address the accusations but just call them a terf. I want to support you I really do because you made me feel comfortable in the fandom, but I need to see concrete evidence that they're a terf. Never mind, I saw the whole situation and honestly I'm disgusted I ever follow or looked up to you. You're literally no different from other racist white shippers. I think there went my love for zutara.

I'm going to take this at face value--not that, on any real level, I actually believe you were a follower of mine or did anything close to due diligence, because if you were or had then you would know that I never actually called that blogger a terf--and answer as respectfully as I can. Mostly because I want anyone who has genuine issues with anything I've said or done to know that despite whatever's going around about me right now, I am willing to listen to criticism if it comes from a place of good faith.

(You can think whatever you want about my insistence on 'good faith', but the fact is that I have weathered being slammed with accusations of pedophilia and other horrible things over differences in headcanon of shit like character ages or writing a fic set years post-canon because I felt like it, right down to the insistence that I'm a horrible racist because of my url, so no. I'm not going to listen to someone slinging slurs and buzzwords in my inbox just because they claim to be a poc. And before that sets anyone off, the slurs I'm talking about are aimed at my queerness. I do not consider being called racist or a white bitch or whatever slurs, because they aren't.)

First of all, once again, I never called that blogger a terf. You can easily read my post about them for yourself and see that--ctrl+F for the term 'terf', and you will not find it. Why? Because I called them out on peddling radfem rhetoric, (which they are) not for being a terf. All terfs are radfems--it's in the name--but not all radfems are terfs, although all radfem rhetoric is exceptionally harmful to queer people in general, and queer poc more than most, as is the nature of intersectionality.

Anti-kink rhetoric, and the insistence that some kink is inherently harmful and that no one could legitimately have these kinks or fetishes without being mentally ill or traumatized, is radfem rhetoric. That's where it comes from, that's where it leads to, and I'll be honest here, 'radfem' is not an identity label. It's an ideology. You do not get to parrot core tenets of that ideology and then claim to not be a radfem. That simply isn't how this works.

Furthermore, I have no idea who the person behind theowlspeaks blog is. I will take them at their word that they are not white, but that doesn't exactly narrow things down--and considering the fact that they chose to put me on blast for their small but dedicated ring of followers rather than actually coming to me personally first about any of this (their blog is very obviously a burner, and it wouldn't have been that difficult to approach me since I've only ever turned anon off once, for one night to give myself some breathing room, and otherwise my asks and DMs have always been open), I have no reason to actually care about what they're saying. But I point out the lack of knowledge of their identity because a) they didn't even reveal themselves as not white until.... yesterday? or something, when they were directly asked about it, and b) trying to frame this as 'white woman accused of racism calls person of color a terf' is... disingenuous at best given the fact that I have been calling them a radfem (which they are) since well before they posted that screenshot and my name wound up on their blog, so you got the order of events just a little backwards.

I blocked them initially because of the radfem rhetoric they were peddling about kink and fetishes, and I have the right to establish that boundary. This blog is for me, it is my space, and I do not have to expose myself to views I find gross or harmful just because they dress it up in faux-woke terminology and try to pretend they actually care.

If they cared about real people more than the fictional characters they are so adamantly 'protecting', then they wouldn't have brushed off the actual racism (from one of their followers--they're more than happy to blast me without any evidence, but that's hardly out of the ordinary for people like that) that was brought to their attention by refocusing the discussion on the fake people who literally can't be hurt by any of this because they don't exist. They wouldn't be ignoring the two woc who chose to contact them and tell them why they made the choices they did regarding both the discord and the smut week event, while being perfectly happy to platform anons who may or may not be who or what they say they are.

I, for one, am not going to apologize for caring more about real people than fictional characters. I'm not going to apologize for thinking it's absolutely ludicrous to pretend that fiction is somehow harmful just by existing, especially when it's appropriately tagged so that anyone who finds the content harmful can avoid it. I'm not going to back down from these opinions just because a handful of people have apparently decided I'm a horrible person because of it. And I'm certainly not going to apologize for thinking it's despicable that someone who was not involved in the conversation chose to leak out of context screenshots rather than privately contacting any of the people involved or even going to any of the mods, before going right to an anonymous blog. You may not care about me or my mental health, but I had panic attacks because of that leak--not because I said anything untoward in that screenshot, not because I've ever said anything in that discord that I wouldn't happily stand behind on my blog, but because I no longer felt safe. And I am not going to bare my trauma to a complete stranger to justify that lmfao.

So, like, think what you want to. I'm pretty sure that blogger is getting high off of the drama they are creating, none of which would actually have happened or been any real issue if more people were able to think, gee, maybe this work that is tagged with things I don't want to read about is not for me! Maybe I shouldn't read this piece, since it would probably upset me, and there's plenty others around for me to consume! I do not trust that blogger's intentions. I do not trust that they actually give a shit about any real people, or they wouldn't have posted an out of context screenshot of... literally nothing tbh, when they had no right to and are now protecting the identity of the person who leaked them instead of giving a shit about any of the real people in that space who no longer feel safe because we aren't sure who we can't trust.

But you've already made up your mind, and I can't change that. I genuinely hope you have a nice life, and find fandom spaces more suited to your tastes.

[fu-yao]

#showyourprocess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thank you so much for tagging me @lan-xichens​, I’ll try my best to explain how I made this set from start to finish hehe ♡ and also a big thank you to @suibianjie​ @highwarlockkareena​ @nyx4​ @aheartfullofjolllly​ and you as well Kris for putting this all together! Content creators get a lot less recognition than they deserve for all the time they put into their content, so getting everyone to see the (sometimes excessive) process we all go through to put our content in our blog, I hope it creates a positive change!! 💖

1. Planning

The set in question was actually requested by someone so they could celebrate their friend’s birthday! At first I wasn’t entirely sure if I was going to be able to finish it on time (college is very hectic right now) but I was able to finish it three days before the deadline which was may 1st! ^-^

The first thing I did was decide what characters I wanted to use in the set, I first reached out to the person who requested the set if there were certain characters they wanted me to use but they said they didn’t know enough to really give me any directives outside of the quote. I decided, since the quote is applicable to the entirety of the show, that I would try to put in as many characters as possible.

Thus, of course, came the hunting for scenes. Those of you in the net discord surely know I came into the content help channel a few times to ask for certain scenes here and there, and eventually I had to download an additional 10 episodes to the back then 20 or so episodes I had in my CQL episodes folder.

As you can see I have 30 random episodes of CQL downloaded (slowly but surely getting to the point where I have all 50 episodes downloaded) and I think I ended up using scenes out of at least 20 of those episodes.

I planned out beforehand what characters I would use per gif. I knew obviously I would start out with Wangxian, them being the main characters of the show, and then would work my way down the list. The second gif consists of Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning. They’re all family pairings, two being siblings and one being a married couple. The next gifset consists of the Yi City characters, then the fourth gif consists of the juniors, and the final gif has Jin Guangyao, Mianmian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Xichen in it.

I have to admit though that when I had made the first four gifs I’d forgotten who I would put in the last gif and the when I thought about it the first time around I could only think of Lan Qiren and the very cursed Yaoyang ship 😭 it was only at dinner time that same day that I remembered I hadn’t put Jiang Cheng in my gifset yet and that’s when I thought of the other characters as well.

I had already made my first two gifs when I went to check Hanyi’s blog for layout inspo and eventually I decided I wanted to try a triangle-ish layout, which I doodled below. I eventually ended up changing the layout of the last gif in the final design. It was also the first time I would work with a triangle-ish layout so I was a bit nervous as I was scared it wasn’t going to work out...

2. Creating

I use Avisynth 2.5 and Adobe Photoshop 2021 (the paid version, unfortunately, I need it for school except I didn’t need it this year but I wanted it so I paid for it with my own money ouch) to make my gifsets! I always start out with trimming down all the scenes I’m going to use into three to five second videos and putting them through Avisynth. This time around I did it separately for each gif I made, simply because I needed so many scenes. I would include a screenshot of my “gif vids” and “temp” folders but I’ve already deleted all the videos, which is what I usually do immediately after a set is posted.

I’ll try my best explaining this gif by gif since each one had a different layout!

2.1 Wangxian

I think I had up to five different designs of this gif 😭 it started out with the gif on the left originally being more centered and the quote right smack in the center but somehow it felt a bit too... empty? I changed up the design and pulled the gif over to the right and put the two closeups on the left, the exact opposite of the gif I eventually ended up with. I switched things around one more time and saved the gif as you can see it right now, except I didn’t include the lines yet. It was only as I finished up my fourth gif that I decided this gif needed lines as well so I added them ^-^

2.2 Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning

I got the inspiration for the font layout on this gif from this Wenzhou post! I hadn’t tried it before and when I did for this gif I was very happy with the way it turned out :D I wanted to portray that life is a pile of good and bad things, as the quote says, in CQL by mirroring these happy scenes side by side with the sad scenes

2.3 Yi CIty

My first time working with the triangle layout!! Putting in the lines and making sure they would line up with the second gif took me the longest of all actually  😭 I think once I got the line on the left in I just copy pasted it and flipped it horizontally so I didn’t have to fiddle around with angling it anymore :’) my original idea was to get a happy Song Lan scene and a sad A-Qing scene, but when I stumbled upon this A-Qing scene in ep38 I just had to put it in there because her smile is so precious 🥺 Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen in the center are also supposed to be mirrored, with Xue Yang embodying the “bad things” and Xiao Xingchen the “good things” ! I also think the Yi City characters fit this part of the quote very well!!

2.4 The Juniors

Ah yes, the junior quartet!! :D I had this planned out from the very beginning, that I would include happy versus sad juniors in the “vice versa” part of the quote, and I think it worked out quite well! My first idea was to put the “vice versa” completely in the special font and have it typed out over the gifs like I did with the “vice” but as I typed out the “versa” I realized it had one letter too much to be able to do that 😭😭 it took me a while to come up with how I would position the “but” and “versa” and after some moving around I decided to just place them the way I did in the final gif! For the font, I duplicated the “vice” and added a stroke to the duplicate, then I changed the fill setting to 0% so I could slightly drag the duplicate away from the original layer to create the effect that’s in the gif — also, finding a scene in which Jin Ling smiles is really difficult.... he barely even smiles in the scene I ended up using :(

2.5 Jin Guangyao, Mianmian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Xichen

The final gif!! I feel like this might come a little across as “I promise I didn’t forget these characters” because they’re a very odd quadruplet to put together, but they were the most important characters left to put in the set! I was thinking of putting Nie Mingjue in here together with Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen, but I did feel he fit more with his brother up in the second gif. Mei @mylastbraincql​ cheered me on making this gif for which I was very grateful :D <3 the layout came to be after I googled “how to evenly split a rectangle in four” because I didn’t want a repeat layout in the set  (*/∇＼*)

2.6 Coloring

For the coloring I pretty much did all of the tweaking on the first gif and then copy pasted all of it onto the second, third, fourth, and fifth gif. This is usually the way I go about my coloring, I will always edit certain gifs if necessary but I don’t think I had to change the coloring much on any of these gifs? Maybe I added in a curve layer here and there, but nothing major! This is really one of my preferred coloring styles, even though I try to step outside of my comfort zones with other sets ^-^

3. Posting

I will always upload sets into my drafts and edit the caption in there as well, clicking on “preview post” a couple times to check everything looks good on my blog as well, before I post a set. However, this time, since there was a deadline and I finished before the deadline, I put this set in the queue so it would automatically post on the 1st of may! Knowing myself, I would’ve forgotten to do so </3

Whew that was... a lot 😭 did it make any sense? Probably not, but it was fun to ramble （ ´∀｀）

I’ll tag

@blinkplnk​ with this set !

@wuxien​ with this set !

@wendashanren​ with this set !

@wanyinxichen​ with this set !

@yibobibo​ with this set !

@mylastbraincql​ with this set !

@sugarbabywenkexing​ with this set !

@yiling-recesses​ with this set !

@jiancheng​ with this set !

Please feel totally free to ignore this if you’ve already been tagged and don’t want to do it again!! <3

[qingxintea]

➼ chongyun || hiraeth

tw: mention of knives (no violence), kidnapping, explosion _______

you angled your camera to catch your face and upper body correctly and adjusted your blinds for the correct lighting. you put thin pieces of yellow and pink paper over your lamp to give off a sunset lighting sort of aesthetic in your minimalist room. your tiny cacao tree sat in the corner of your room, setting some sort of simple beach vibe.

then, you began to stream.

you watched as majority of your followers came to view as you sat in your rolly gaming chair. the greetings came rushing in and you noticed two of your friends had came along too, xingqiu and chongyun.

"hey gang, it's kingexplosionmurder here with your weekly sunday stream," you smiled and watched as comments came in asking you to notice them. beginning to select randomly, you flicked a short strand of hair behind your ear. "you have been noticed, yourlocalsugardaddy," you blessed them. and you swore you chose randomly.

on the other side of the screen, chongyun's face slightly flushed before eating his popsicle again. yes, that was his username, selected by xingqiu after the guhua heir was somehow able to trick him into selecting so. the situation must've been that he accidentally consumed some jueyun chili's, that was also xingqiu's doing.

he watched you smile as you explained your schedule for this stream, when he noticed you suddenly began laughing. it sounded genuine, he wanted to believe it was genuine, but there was a trace of disappointment in it. he observed your face, noticing you were looking at the chat box. "i agree too, scarymoose."

scarymoose: this streamer's kinda dog shit ngl 😐

by instinct, his fingers grazed over the keyboard as he analyzed the tone. this kid wasn't joking around with himself, he was really out to bring you down. he exhaled, shaking his head, wondering how you would deal in the situation.

yourlocalsugardaddy: miss karen this isn't yelp 🙄

he wasn't content with that yet, things could've gone onto more serious matters, but he knew you liked to keep your chat clean and peaceful. you went to the farther extents to keep that from happening, agreeing with rude comments yourself as a said joke, but actually have it sometimes harming you.

so chongyun tried his best to keep you happy.

redrumreaper: yo moose chill 😳

he recognized his friend xingqiu also trying to calm the situation as you just laughed it off and attempted to continue, sooner enough just beginning to ignore all his comments. some other viewers came up to your defense but in all honesty, you wanted to move on.

"s-so, i found some silk flowers outside of wangshuu inn yesterday, aren't they pretty?" you took a tiny bouquet of the said silk flowers and presented it to your viewers, holding it next to your cheek. the pink tone of the flowers matched the color of your cheeks and made for a nice picture. chongyun would've screenshotted it, but he respected your privacy.

yourlocaldumba$$: yes they're so pretty we love you 😍

13lue13erry: yes ong ong 💕 thiccer than my granny

Straw13erry: don't bring madame ping into this 💀💀

colino: are you sure it's alright to take from someone's legally owned property ?? much less from their garden

Straw13erry: u mean ur neighbors don't harvest ur flowers every day? 🙄 privilege spoke 🤚

yourlocalsugardaddy: vv pretty 😳

redrumreaper: simp 💀

you slightly choked over on your side and xingqiu calling chongyun a simp, for you. quickly clearing your throat, you regained your composure. your viewers could see that your cheeks had been dusted with a darker shade now.

13lue13erry: 👀

Straw13erry: 👀

yourlocaldumba$$: 👀

redrumreaper: 👀

sireluck: 💀

bazinga: 👀

dandelionn: 👀

poetichoe: 👀

"okay- anyways," you pushed that aside, watching the chain of 👀's coming in. you weren't too sure at what they were referring to, but just assumed that they were interested in xingqiu exposing chongyun. but, there was no way chongyun really felt like that, right? it was just a friendly compliment from what you believed. "just a tiny flex but y'all guys, i am so cracked at apex, not gonna lie. for all the new followers out there," you randomly commented. 'and to change the subject.'

"actually, you know what? fuck the schedule, let's go to trolling little eight year old kids posting selfies on instagram. due to certain reasons i'm just not gonna be blurring their usernames out, but please don't spam these people, i don't wanna be cancelled 💗" you sweetly smiled as you pulled up instagram and started streaming on your phone.

of course your sus notifications ruined it 🤡🤡

because xingqiu took advantage of the situation, sending messages to your discord. nothing mentioning your romantic life because he knew better than that, but just trolling. 'HEY GANG. ITS ME, TONY, AND TODAY WE'RE GONNA SEE IF IM FASTER THAN THIS MOUSE TRAP.' 'TURNS OUT, I AM NOT FASTER THAN THIS MOUSE TRAP.' 'AN UPDATE, IT HURTS. ALRIGHT. BYE GUYS.' you tried hard to contain your laughter, but certain giggles came out in the end, giggles that made chongyun's heart flutter.

xingqiu just kept spamming without a stop, to the point that you accidentally clicked into the notification instead of someone's username on a selfie post. so now everyone could see your group chat with xingqiu, chongyun, and a few other viewers that were actually your other friends.

13lue13erry: oh no 🤡

Straw13erry: 🗿

yourlocaldumba$$: HAHAHAHA WE'RE EXPOSED 🤡👌

just water support boy 😔: image.png

oh my god he's sending chongyun catboy edits. you made this concerning noise, glad no one really seemed to know who chongyun really was on twitch. you went back to instagram, beginning to dm a random kid, ignoring the situation that had just happened.

chongyun choked, slight heat running to his cheeks. what the fuck was xingqiu doing- how did he even get those pictures? maybe it was that one time xingqiu forced him to go to a furry con, but how did he ever get the time to photograph these? he nervously fidgeted and played with his fingers.

13lue13erry: 🤡

Straw13erry: 🤡

yourlocaldumba$$: 🤡

redrumreaper: 🤡

<— oraoraoraor

kingexplosionmurder: chav check

oraoraoraor: what

kingexplosionmurder: chav: check 😹😹

oraoraoraor: bruh

oraoraoraor: who tf are you

kingexplosionmurder: hope you like baddies cause i'm bad at everything 💗

oraoraoraor: bruh ok i'm blocking

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

oraoraoraor: 😐

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

oraoraoraor: wtf

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

oraoraoraor: wait wait UR that one twitch streamer?

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

oraoraoraor: ig ur fans gonna be so disappointed in you

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

oraoraoraor: hahaha wtf i'm gonna post this and tag you

kingexplosionmurder: stop dming me

afterwards you sent a barrage of really cursed images and left the person on read when they tried to complain and get a reaction out of you. you chuckled, extremely satisfied with yourself. this is what your viewers followed you for. you went on hunting for another user, "GO Y/N GO" filling up your chat.

you were just about to dm this other kid until you heard a ring from your doorbell. "oh what the fuck, i didn't invite anyone. but you know what, i'll pull something up to entertain y'all guys while i'm afk." searching on youtube, you typed in 'banana fish ep. 1' and clicked on the longest video you saw. then you got up from your chair, making your way to the front door.

you didn't mute yourself before because you thought there was really no need to, and you underestimated your mic sensitivity. god did you wish that you could go back and time and do just that.

twisting the doorknob, you opened your door and was met with... a certain, someone.

someone that you recognized and has caused you so much pain, and it was all so fun and games before they had to come along. "bruh. aight what you here for fam?" you played it super chill, though you were really sick and tired of this person's shit.

"(y/n). we need to talk," her stern voice made you flinch as you just stared straight into her eyes. you simply nodded your head and crossed your arms, shifting your weight onto your right leg. "we're thinking of taking you back home."

your froze, your breath hitching as you just stood there, waiting for her to go on. clenching your fists and looking down, you stayed silent for a little moment and questioned, "...why?"

"well, you have a stable income source, right?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips. "you can finally be of use to us," she clasped her hands together, a bright smile on her face. your finger twitched, awaiting an explanation. "you're a streamer, yeah? so you can be a useful asset to our family name."

"...you only want me to come back so i can make you all seem... good?"

and here you thought, just for a second, that you would be accepted back into the place where you really belonged. your shoulders slumped, as small tears began to well up in your eyes. "and for our profitable gain of course, it would be a shame to not acquire that from you."

you composed yourself and looked up. "im afraid my profit can only cover for one person, and it would be myself that i focus to make a suitable and independent living out of. you've kicked me out ever since i've graduated from college and had me fend for myself, now inviting me back once i have a stable job?" you breathed, fiddling with the sleeves of your black hoodie.

"oh, not inviting, dear. taking."

confused by her words, you let your guard down as she suddenly pushed a warm cloth over your mouth as you let out a constrained scream. you tried to break free of her grasp, reaching for the switchblade in your pocket, but the drowsing chemicals from the cloth took control of you and you felt disoriented. "you... bitch..."

your head hit the floor.

》●✿ time ● skip ✿●

silence.

thats all you heard when you awoke.

pure, unfiltered silence that overwhelmed you as you were completely lost. what was happening?

you tried turning to the other side of your childhood bed, the moon casting light shadows into your 'room'. there was a rope around your wrists you noticed, so you brought them up to your lips and starting gnawing on them until it broke apart. (guys we feral its not a furry instinct ok?/ ??  ?)

the material had irritated your skin, but you put that aside for now. escape- thats what you really needed to do. it was fairly dark, but you didn't have a good estimate of time. the analog clock was broken and set to a different time that displayed 11AM. you sat up, your fingers running along the frame of the window next to you.

for a moment, you stopped, thoughts rushing into your head. what if you could start a whole other life here where things could finally be peaceful, what if you didn't have to feel so isolated anymore, what if you could- ...

no. (y/n), get yourself together. what has happened will anyways stay there, and there is no healing scars. ...still, you couldn't shake off the feeling of missing this home so much when you had an amazing childhood, though full of fake actors who had manipulated you.

opening all the cabinets silently, you grabbed things that you assumed would come to your aid. a tiny backpack, which you then stuffed with other things around it. a first aid kit, a spare knife just in case, along with a clean oversized sweater and a couple dollar bills. all that, along with a compass.

you turned towards your window, stepping on your bed.

pushing open the sides of your window, your stepped on, the brown coldness of the frame coming in contact with your feet. you shivered just a little bit before stopping to think. what would you do once you were out of here? you barely knew your way here. and not to mention, your devices were still left at your other house, so there was no way of contact.

...

did your stream ever end? even if it did, had you muted yourself before leaving? no, you didn't, and you could remember in precise detail. someone out there, anyone, would be willing to help, right? you couldn't possibly be here forever, not when you're basically blown up all over your socials?

your friends, yes, your friends! xingqiu and chongyun were watching the stream and had made obvious interaction in doing so, and they'd be willing to protect you. if they just had a lead...

but... what lead was there? all they heard was the woman's voice and, that was probably it, wasn't it? only a voice with no other clear features that could identify her. it looked like you were doing this on your own.

you came in contact with the blades of grass tickling your feet and conveniently found a pair of sneakers outside. it definitely wasn't yours, and it smelled like the scent of your old room. most likely, it belonged to someone from inside your house, lavender and mint, but who inside there was in the age range to wear modern day sneakers..?

brushing that question aside, you unhesitatingly laced them on and they were just a bit too big, but you could manage.

you breathed, inhaling the freedom intertwined air, a much needed factor of bringing you back to your lost sense of happiness. then, the fear struck you once again, because you needed to improvise now. you needed to run, but which direction? you barely knew this place at all.

you dug around your pocket for the compass you had and it was pointing east. you remember that stepping out of your house was facing west, so you were going the right way... but who knows how messy the path was? it couldn't have been an exact pathway, but going directly ahead was your simplest option.

you heard a pair of footsteps coming from inside the house, probably a few seconds away to opening the door. you sucked in your breath and ran, ran as far as your legs could take you. your intimidating speed and played into your advantage, and taking one last look, you saw the lights on, before continuing.

a few minutes into it, you felt some elemental energy. it was a sense you learned to develop since you were young, giving you the upper hand in a variety of situations. you followed the trail of glowing lines, the air starting to get colder and colder. you shuddered, the crisp coldness nipping at your skin.

you sat below a tree, taking your backpack off your shoulder and took out the oversized sweater. you put it on over your black tee and light blue skinny jeans, its nostalgic aroma filling your sense of smell.

it was... warm.

it shouldn't be warm.

the warmth proved as a sign that someone had worn it before, but this size was from what you knew, too small to fit the woman you came across again, and you absolutely did not recall any other beings within the house. it was a small household.

suddenly, you remembered what she said.

we're thinking of taking you back home. you can finally be of use to us.

plural. you should've noticed it before and you shook your head, slightly disappointed in yourself. you didn't remember any other birth siblings. could it be the fact that during the time, they had, in a way, replaced you?

you sat up, then suddenly went drowsy. your eyelids were getting heavy as your back hit the same tree. ah, that clever bitch. you chuckled to yourself, but still unsatisfied how this was gonna end. reaching inside your pocket, you grabbed a bomb that a little kid gave you, and threw it as far as you could. it wasn't as far as you hoped, but it was exceptionally far considered your sleepy state.

in a few couple seconds or so, it was going to explode. you did that to divert the attention of her and slowly ran as far as you could. a few seconds in, you gave in, hoping that your efforts were enough. 》●✿ perspective ● shift ✿●

chongyun heard an explosion.

he raised his head in the direction smoke was coming from, and made a run for it, then stopping to think. no, you're smarter than this. he gathered his shit together and remembered that one day klee gave you a bomb. he deducted that you had used it as a diversion, and began to search around the area.

and finally, he came across your sleeping body. to ensure your living state, he crouched down and let two fingers travel across your neck, searching for a pulse, and was relieved when he found one, pulsing at a normal rate.

he then carried you on his back, picking up the pace since he deducted someone was out for you, would you need a distraction. he remembered some details of the woman, she had ended your stream with your sleeping form in her hands, a dirty smirk coming across her lips. she had dark hair with some natural highlights, but that was all he saw because the rest was concealed by a cloak.

a few minutes, maybe half an hour later, you began to stir. chongyun decided that he ventured far enough to liyue and slowed down for your comfort. he wanted you to get some well deserved rest. but slowly, you woke up, but only the tiniest movement was made. your eyes were still droopy and you wanted to return to sleep.

but the sight of pastel blue hair kept you from doing so.

you felt the familiar silk coming in contact with your arms as he kept on trudging forward at a more consistent and smooth pace. "..chongyun?" you muttered out weakly, earning a small smile from the male. he hummed in response, continuing forward.

your mind was cloudy, unable to interpret the language of the world. but softly, words effortlessly escaped your lips, "... did i do the right... thing?" blinking multiple times, you awaited his answer.

"yes, yes you did," his soft voice reached your ears, making you smile a bit. you nuzzled deeper into his shoulder, clinging onto him tighter, unwilling to let go.

"thank you," you whispered.

he chuckled a bit before responding, "anything for you."

_____

bro ending is a little off because i'm wrote this at 2:53AM and so my brain has went ⬇️⬇️ also i'm just hungry

copy and pasted from my wattpad,, @ppeachtea_

[addierose444]

Paperless Student

This semester, my school system is almost entirely paperless. I occasionally jot things down on a Post-It note or scrap piece of paper, but in terms of my day-to-day operations, everything is digital. The one other exception is that I took a paper circuits exam a few weeks ago. In past semesters, I have had a hybrid system consisting of digital notes and problem sets completed on paper. Even during the fully remote fall 2020 semester, I did my work on paper and then used a scanning app to convert it to a pdf. To read some of my other posts about organizational systems, click here. 

Being a paperless student isn't for everyone, but has been great for me. The main drawback of a digital system is the increased cost and screen time. To be a paperless student you ideally have a laptop, tablet, and stylus. To read about my specific devices, click here. You may be able to get away with a 2-in-1 device, but it’s suboptimal for remote classes. Specifically, having to split your screen between the Zoom class and a note-taking application would be annoying. In the case of handwritten digital notes, it would be even more difficult as the camera angle would be terrible and you would have no space to write. 

Course Materials:

All of my classes have course materials and assignment submissions on Moodle. (Moodle is an open-source learning management system). In addition to resources posted to Moodle, many courses require textbooks. I primarily read textbooks on my iPad. Some are official ebooks with designated apps whereas others are just pdfs. Additionally, one of my classes uses a free online textbook that is read from the browser. You can read about saving money on textbooks here. 

Notes:

I take all of my notes in Microsoft OneNote. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you are probably are tired of hearing about OneNote, but you’re not getting an apology from me! One thing I love about digital notetaking is the ease of editing. For instance, I can move things around, erase mistakes, and change ink colors. The other key advantage is that if you keep things organized it’s really easy to look back on old notes from past semesters. Even if you are not super organized the search tool can be a lifesaver. That said, flipping through current notes in a notebook is a slightly smoother process than hunting around for the correct page of a digital notebook. I typically handwrite lecture notes on my iPad and type textbook and other reading notes on my laptop. I also type my lecture notes for my UMass computer science course. (You can read more about Five College registration here). Typed notes make sense for that class because there is a lot of information with important details that are necessary to know for the quizzes. One nice thing about remote classes is the ability to take screenshots of key figures and other diagrams. Actually writing things downplays a key role in remembering what you are learning. Thus it’s important to not become dependent on screenshots. On the other hand, if you are spending all of your time trying to write/draw you are probably not actively engaging with the material in real-time. 

Assignments:

In this section, I will be referencing the specific classes I am taking this semester, which you can read about here. For COMPSCI 230, we have online tests and quizzes as well as programming assignments. In other words, it's all digital by default. For CSC 250, I typeset my homework in Overleaf which is a cloud-based LaTeX editor. For EGR 220 and PHY 210, I handwrite assignments in the default notes app on my iPad. I also occasional sketch diagrams for my CSC 250 assignments. Notes is a very bare-bones application but have served me well this semester. You can have lined or graph paper while you write, but once it's exported to a pdf the lines disappear. This hasn’t proved to be a problem but also isn’t ideal. A missing feature is the ability to resize hand-drawn diagrams (and other writing). It also doesn’t clearly mark the end of a page so you do have to play around a bit to export your work into a nice pdf. If you don't mind spending money on apps, I have heard good things about GoodNotes and Notability. For other assignments, I also make use of Google applications such as Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Speaking of Google, Google Drive continues to be my file management system of choice. I use Google Drive to store all of my school work (aside from the notes in OneNote). Furthermore, I designed a whole programming contest using Google Drive which you can read about here. 

Tests:

I learned the hard way that tests should not be completed in the default Files app! The pdfs get really large and which can result in syncing and saving issues. Having now transitioned to using the PDF Expert app, I haven’t had any issues. I still prefer the experience of annotating in the Files app, but I no longer trust it for exams. One nice thing with PDF Expert is that it still syncs cleanly with the Files app and thus iCloud. 

Time and Task Management:

To round out my digital system, I use Google Calendar, Tascal, and Toggl Track. I use Google Calendar to keep track of all of my events, the associated Zoom links, and deadlines. Tascal is the task management app I built last summer. Finally, Toggl Track is a time tracking application that I have been using since senior year. The data can be useful in helping predict how long an assignment will take, but the main benefit is that it helps me stay focused on the intended task at hand.