#haven't done a model swap in a while

[clericofshadows]

CLERIC'S MODEL SWAPS WHAT IF: Kaidan Alenko was recruitable on Illium?

[sunwarmed-ash]

Pup!Gavin Preview🐕😈🔞

Okay, so first of all, if you haven't heard, the first chapter of Brothers, The Eden Club sequel will be dropping this Sunday!!! Whoohoo!

Related: if you follow me, you know I cycle through ALOT of fandoms for Sinful Sunday. That being said, it's probably going to be a while until we get back to the much anticipated pup!Gavin chapter. So, since I love you guys and truly appreciate your readership, your reblogs, your friendships, and your patience, I'm gonna treat you with a preview 😈😘

(also if anyone wants to draw this, please for the love of ra9 do.)

Pup!Gavin 😈🐕🔞

Admittedly, at first, Gavin was a little hesitant to purchase the gear, and that had less to do with the price tag and more to do with the type of kink gear it was. While their sex couldn’t be considered vanilla by any means, this type of roleplay was still different than anything he’s done with Hank or Connor. Yet.

Nerves have him pushing the mask back into the bag and his hands running over his face. 

He’s being dumb. He knows Connor and Hank wouldn't make fun of him. But… 

Maybe he’ll just stick with the chastity cage, chest harness, and snap-removable underwear. That's enough right? 

He chose the blue and black pair specifically because it matched closest to the cyan of Connor’s, well everything. He can't help but associate the man with the color. A part of him hopes the android notices and appreciates it. 

He can do this. 

All he has to do is walk out of the room. 

Piece of cake. 

…

…

Maybe he’ll go after a cigarette.

…

Maybe two. 

--

He swaps cigerettes for joints at the last minute and now is sure it was the right move. Gavin’s hands push into the bag again, pulling out the mask and running his fingers over the neoprene. 

Before he can lose his nerve again, he puts on the mask and turns his feet in the direction of the living room. 

--

When he first walks into the room, neither man’s eyes leave the television. For the moment, Gavin still has the upper hand. Which is good. He doesn't want to miss either of their expressions. 

He raises his foot to brazenly walk into the room but a small voice that sounded suspiciously like V said, ‘dogs don’t walk on two feet.’

Gavin swallows thickly and drops to his knees, continuing into the room on all fours now. Towards the couch where Hank and Connor are unexpectedly waiting. 

Connor notices him first. 

Not surprising seeing as he has mega advanced hearing and all that shit. 

Connor’s mouth drops open and he exhales his surprise. 

It makes Gavin feel powerful. He’s never had the pleasure of watching ‘the most advanced model made by Cyberlife’ short-circuit before.  

Connor’s shift in attention has Hank turning his head towards Gavin now, equally if not more shocked by Gavin’s display, but he recovers faster than Connor does.   

“Shhhhiiit, ain’t that a pretty sight,” Hank grins, tossing his arm over the couch to get a better look. 

Gavin, once again, falls for the diastemaed grin. It's pathetic to think Gavin could ever be over Hank. He loves the asshole. He loves both of them. Probably wouldn't feel comfortable walking out here looking like this if he didn't…  

Connor is still stunned silent as Gavin crawls closer to the couch. His eyes never leave Gavin, but even without the LED, Connor’s ‘thinking’ face is a dead giveaway. 

Hell, maybe he’s texting V, thanking them for suggesting it.

In the meantime, Gavin continues to crawl over to the couch before placing himself right in front of Hank. 

When Gavin finally sits he makes sure to sit his crotch right over the tip of Hank’s boot. 

Gavin receives the immediate benefit of making Hank speechless too. 

One testing raise of the toe and Hank can feel the weight of the metal cage under the underwear. He chuckles knowingly before voicing, 

“Oh we got a real good boy Con.” 

Hank knocks the tip of his shoe against the cage. It sounds loud enough for Connor to understand clearly what was hidden underneath the underwear. “Didn't want any accidents right?” 

Gavin nods his agreement and makes a sound that isn’t so much a word as it is a grunted hmm.

Hank’s hand goes behind Gavin’s covered head, petting down to his neck with a deep tempered, “Good boy Gav.”

The rest of the tension Gavin was holding melts off his shoulders with that affermation. 

“But,” Hank continues, “since someone insisted we watch this, we’re staying here until its over.” 

The threat of delay gains disapproving noises from both younger men. It makes Hank chuckle. 

“Hey now,” Hank continues, “that doesn't mean we can’t still have some fun.”

[shoehedd]

Starting my Hearthkyn Salvagers this week. I wanted to do a test model with a slightly different paint scheme to my Trans-Hyperions. Same colours but a different arrangement, kind of like away colours for a sports team, seeing as they are a more specialised squad. Anyway I wanted a test model so I built one of the generic kin you get with the kill team. Only I kind of hate how their guns cover their chest armor and well.. one thing led to another and I was suddenly cutting off hands and pinning shit.

Painting him atm. he's lookin cool! (I haven't tested it but his eye should glow under a blacklight)

and well you know I was modelling and enjoying it and you get another generic warrior and your Theyn I'd kinda boring if you've done one already and... my hand slipped!

Getting that gauntlet on his powerglove seemed like it would be an easy swap with the Einhyr one. Not so. Lotta trimming. His while neck is greenstuff.

This guy started out as an attempt to kitbash a reloading figure. Using that empty hand there. Except on this one torso it just lays across their belt like that and the pose was too awesome not to use. So not really a kitbash just me not following instructions!

[robowilofficial]

While I haven't really done much with the mod (largely due to me being busy with other things in life), here's an in-progress screenshot of the Molly McGee model swap mod for Sonic Frontiers. Replaced the Koco plush from one of the idle anims with a Scratch plush, as a way to include him (might also put him over one of the DLC skins). still don't have much knowledge on this show alsdfhg

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 6.4.2024

Unfortunately, this week, I am stuck in Everything is Slow and Probably Isn't Even Worth It land.

I've been fighting this story for two weeks now, and it just doesn't want to...be a story. I have rewritten it from scratch at least twice now, including swapping perspectives, and I haven't even gotten to the fight scene parts yet. Furthermore, it's such an incredibly niche concept, like I am really down in the sauce on this one. On the other hand, it is my sauce, like this is of interest to me, so I don't want to give up on it. On the other hand, sometimes it's like--if I am the primary audience for this, and it's causing me a lot of grief, is it really worth it? I don't know.

I am also working on an art project that is, again, primarily of interest to me, which is to say, I am attempting to redraw this loving pan over a bunch of goony-ass lieutenants. I generally draw people pretty closely on model, and I'm attempting to do a lot more stylization. I've been working on it at roughly a-lieuentant-a-day, and I am currently 5 lieutenants in, 6 to go. I am...not good at this. I mean! I think this is a good exercise for my art brain, etc etc, but it's moderately painstaking and I also kinda suck at this and I'm not entirely sure I will want to show off my efforts when I'm done.

Anyway, everything is hard right now, and I am very tired. I think that I'm not sick anymore, but it lingered so long, it's really be hard to tell if it's fully gone or not. I have been reading a lot lately, too (in part because of being sick). I have been very lucky to have read, like, 3 very good books in a row, although the one after that, I did not care for. I have two library holds due to come in shortly, so I'm trying not to start a new one until they get here. Also, while reading is good for me and I am in favor of reading, reading is a lot easier than writing, so I'm trying to push myself thru this writing thing before I get into another book, as well.

I don't knooooooooooow. Maybe I should just put this story aside and if I pick it up again later, I'll have more energy for it. I'm afraid, though, that I've got it all loaded into my RAM at the moment and I don't want to lose that. I'm probably also fooling myself that trying to write something else would be easier or more fun--I think I might just be having a writing-is-hard time. School is going to be out shortly, and it's going to be even harder to do stuff, which makes me extra mad that I am too stupid and lazy to actually take advantage of the time that is available to me, but that's just how it is sometimes.

Oh, Damage History is over now. I should probably do some sort of wrap-up post and change my pinned. I was going to do that today, but I'm not sure I feel up to it. Later this week, hopefully!

[randomnameless]

I know it hasn’t been mentioned in a long while, but Koei Tecmos work was pretty good in Samurai Remnant. The twist about the Protagonist was also really well done too. I know this doesn’t reveal much as it’s the same writers who worked on Houses/Hopes, but the main protagonist definitely makes a lot more consistency I feel since all two routes and endings are about Miyamoto Iori, with the last one being about his true nature. Still annoying waifu bait with a fox girl but Iori has zero interest.

I haven't played it, but I have no doubts KT can produce/make good games!

The thing with Nopes (and Fodlan in general) is how FE has traditional themes, and unification/imperialism isn't one of them, ditto with the "earl grey for everyone!" which means you can pick your leader and the games panders so hard to said leader that it forgets its plot.

Izuka is Izuka, Feral Ones aren't forgotten come FE10 because we follow Miccy and Miccy wants to liberate her country - Miccy says fuck to Izuka and his Feral Ones, period. End of the story (until Tibarn/Elincia/Ranulf gets to kill the guy).

Are those changes on KT's door? Given how IS, through Heroes, spinned a retconned Narrative to sell Vero - complete with "sad'n'lonely" and "surprise!brainwash" by a "sad'n'lonely" goddess, I... frankly, don't know.

Engage is a thing, where people take responsibility for the things they did when they were "brainwashed" no matter how "sad'n'lonely" they were (or are roasted for it) - and yet FEH gave us the monstruosity that was the last book, where a time-travelling sexy lady destroys the world because "reasons" compel her to do so, but she loves the player so much : that's the twist. FFS, at the end of the book, we don't even know what were those "reasons" that compelled her to destroy the world, or the snakes who pushed her to do it, the suppsoed "mastermind" was killed off-screen, and the most important thing at the end is how past present and future are merged to simp together after the avatar.

yay.

And yet, given how Fodlan plays and how Nintendo actually sent surveys to people who played FE16 something they never did (not for Engage!) before for the FE series (afaik) - I wonder who is to "blame" for Fodlan's writing, IS, KT, a mix of the two?

The lack of care (which becomes obvious when you compare FE16 to the precedent and following entry) isn't something IS has usually shown (I mean, Nopes' dev said he forgot parts of FE16 when he played the game ffs! No continuity guy in FE16?!?) - KT and IS's precendent collaboration was the first Warrior game, so why Nopes came out so... well, like it did?

If there is one definite thing I can complain and lay at KT's door though, it's the models (they're fucking ugly) and whoever decided to swap Rhea/Seiros's unique moveset (I mean have you seen her animations in FE16 when she's in her Saint class??) for a swordmaster on steroids.

[etheluu]

Hotaru v2.0

Model credits here

I've had this idea for a while now that I wanted to make an idol (or something similiar to this) OC. So one day when I was going through some of my old stuff, I decided to remake one of my (most probably) earliest models I've made that would fit the 'idol' criteria.

Her first version was made in 2017 at the latest. The one and only render I have of her is from March 11, 2017 (only if the date in the file's name is correct). I don't think I even used her first model that much if at all. Well, she disappeared for 7 years, but she's back now and she's beautiful. And now she actually does have a name (maybe she had one back then but I just forgot it).

I know I said that she's pretty much an idol OC, but you could kinda call her a fanloid too. I was very much inspired by Miku's design here, like: headset with music bars, long socks with the light-thingy on knees and thighs, the shirt (especially the triangle details at the ends), etc. In overall, I was going for this typical vocaloid-syle. The inspiration was intentional, that's for sure.

But the only one thing that she doesn't have that fanloids do, is a voicebank. Maybe one day, who knows (I doubt that my voice would fit her but it could be interesting). I never really did anything in programs like Vocaloid or Utau other than trying to create my own voicebank in the latter. Not much came out of it though as 12-13 year old me only had a microphone that came pre-built in the laptop itself and those really are not great.

Also somewhere before my journey with MMD (so think like before 2016) I used to kinda make OCs in my notepad app on a phone. I remember one of such were Vocaloid-inspired OCs. I'd download images with (as I would describe it) anime girls and come up with characteristics for them. Then I would just imagine them having journeys with actual vocaloid and utau characters (they were actual "living" beings in that "au"). So, this model is kind of a tribute to those times. A bit silly probably, but I see that as making my younger self's dreams come true by actually making a proper OC/model based on vocas/utaus.

I know that I've talked quite a bit now but I'm still not yet done.

Here's the very rough concept art of her new model. The vibes are a bit different here from the final product but I kinda like how it came out more.

Also, the one and only render I had of her before...

Literally just a head-swap with the default TDA Miku model (with just changed hue) and hair from Rem's model or her twin, idk I haven't watched that anime in years. And also the head edit that I don't know where it came from (nonetheless I apologize to the author for my younger self).

To say that she got an upgrade now would be a big ass understatement. The v2.0 is the goddess herself and v1.0 is playing limbo in hell.

Still, it's a nice comparison of my skills throughout the years. My literal beginnings with MMD/PMXE and then how after 7-8 years of model editing (and at some point modeling from scratch) it evolved into what is now.

Also as a bonus, some gifs from where I was working on physics.

motion "Kimagure Mercy" by MOKA

and whatever happened here (rigid bodies were just having fun)

[princesscolumbia]

So a small sidebar to all the everything I'm doing, I'm kinda using "Code of Ethics" to function as a bit of a warm-up for producing original fiction that will sell under the 'self-publishing' model. I'd eventually like to be able to get a full publishing deal for something, but that won't happen until I can show off my writing chops in a non-fanfic level of writing.

(Just to reassure my fans of my Ranmafics and Horsefics, no, I have not abandoned writing any of those)

With that in mind, I've had a few projects that aren't fanfic based sitting in my "to write" pile that I haven't gotten to because I was operating under the notion that nobody would read my stuff if I wasn't writing fanfics. Well, CoE is damn near the closest to fully original fanfic I've ever written. Sure, I use QuietVallerie's framework and foundation for it, but I've got completely original characters (I've MENTIONED some names in the other Troubleverse books, but if I were to swap those out this would be a fully 'ties-cut' original fic from the character standpoint), a VRMMO setting that I'm stitching together from whole cloth and a lot of inspiration from a game QuietVallerie doesn't even play, and the ending isn't dependent on anything QuietValerie's doing whatsoever. She's even acknowledged that most of her work is blatantly 'inspired' by other sci-fi works, so even if all I did was change a few names it'd be a wholly original fic that simply drew from the same inspirational sources for Troubleverse.

That said, I want to keep CoE a firmly Troubleverse fic. Not only would I like to someday (hopefully, wishful thinking, please-please-please-please-please!!!) be granted 'canon' status by QV, I dislike the notion that I should divorce MY stuff from its origin just to make a little cash. The people that are reading CoE are doing so because I set it up as a Troubleverse fic, attempting to divorce my work from that franchise after I've gained a following would be disingenuous at best.

So all that brings me to my first (public) foray into original fiction. I've decided I'll be posting to the following with a 1-week gap when I publish a chapter, and I'll be aiming for 1 chapter per week:

Patreon

Scribblehub

Archive of Our Own

And what, you may ask, will be my first project? I put the choice to my most important audience in all the multiverse; my daughter. From the available options I gave her, she picked...

Goldrush, CO

Over a century after its establishment as a 'company town' for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the town of Goldrush, Colorado was finally sold off "at cost" to the town citizens, fully separating them from the agency that jumped the shark during the union busting of the 1900s. The town has secrets, starting with the biggest one of all; Goldrush was founded as a 'dumping grounds' for the weird and unwelcome. From dumb artifacts that can control the weather (and corrupt the user) to steampunk androids to a pod of selkies, if the Pinkertons were hired to investigate and dispose of it and it was in some way 'supernatural,' then it went to Goldrush. Now that the town's independent, they still have an entire warehouse district of artifacts and paraphernalia that doesn't officially exist that needs to be stored and managed, so the town hires a logistics specialist. Lois is a woman who's just looking to start over after a nasty divorce that was followed by the tragic death of her ex-wife. So she packed her bags and moved to Goldrush from San Diego in hopes of immersing herself in the history of the unusual town to forget her own tragic history. If only she could do her job without bumping heads with the (unreasonably attractive, built like a Valkyrie from myth and legend, frustratingly stubborn) town sheriff the new job would be perfect.

If you're picking up shades of "Warehouse 13" and (more subtly) "Mystic Bayou," I've done my job in selling this right.

June will be all about finishing CoE as quickly as possible (while still maintaining the quality I demand of myself) so I can clear the decks and focus on doing as much with Goldrush, CO during July as I can before I start releasing on Patreon in August.

I'm excited about this, I hope you are, too!

[pi-creates]

Hello, greetings from Germany. I wanted to ask you something about Telltale's The Walking Dead, namely I came across you by chance when I was interested in model swapping and I think you do a good job and how you explain it very well and in detail how to do model swapping, thanks to you I learned that. My question would be, do you have any ideas or ways to maybe swap the voices or something like voice over? For example, I swapped Mariana with Gabe and I would like to swap Gabe's voice with hers.

Greetings from Australia, friend!

I'm glad you've had success with model swapping, and I agree that it would be great for the immersion of a swap if we could swap voices along with models... but I can only speak in hypotheticals on whether it's possible since I don't know.

I haven't personally tried replacing or editing sound files, and while I think you could technically make changes if you know what you're doing.... I feel like doing an actual complete voice swap would be a monumental undertaking and would require you to actually remake the audio files since there aren't files of all the characters doing the readings of all the lines. And to add to the challenge, the audio files in these games aren't named like a script of what is spoken, they are numbers and there are a lot of them since they are divided on a line-by-line basis.

If you're skilled enough in AI voice creation, and have the patience to individually go through all the audio files to find everything said by one character to remake them... maybe it's possible? I can't say for sure since I haven't done it, I'm only guessing based on how other things seem to work when swapping.

[lonelyghosts-stuff]

I need motivation and tips for continuing art. I used it do it so much as a kid but stopped doing it as much for a stupid reason. Someone who I became friends with was a better artist. I was never popular but I had used to kind of be a smidge known in my classes for decent art until she came along and everyone admired her more. Now obvs that wasn't her fault and we actually became friends for a while (until she changed and pushed me away down the line in middle school and high school, but that's neither here nor there). Either way, I didn't do it as much and only did it here and there.

I never really had my own consistent style either. It was all just kind doodles and some full sized drawings. I never did well with humans but did decently with like animals and objects. This was all in a traditional sketchbook too. I eventually started some digital art too as my friend did and she had a natural affinity for it. Once again, seeing myself get outdone. I have a bad habit of feeling like a failure when I am not immediately good at something I try, especially when it is something I really really want to do. Over the years I would have random surges of doing art again but would often get distracted by other things and feel too overwhelmed to pursue the hobbies I like, especially in high school and me now at 21 in college.

I am pursing a degree in animation but haven't even started the actual animation class itself, mostly just the general education requirements and then some other art classes. I finished 2D design, 3D design, drawing, and life art. I feel like my art has gotten decent for objects and animals still, but I struggle with humans. And unfortunately my life art class was pretty awful with the teacher mostly focusing on a few things regarding the body (which don't get me wrong, was helpful at first) and just assigned busy work like 20 skeleton sketches or 10 skulls and 5 full skeletons or whatever and every single class was gesture drawing of the nude models we had and progressing to shading. Again, don't get me wrong, those are definitely important and helped me with improving my skills, but what bugged me was not only how repetitive it was (it felt like my progress plateaued very early into the class as it just became the same thing every time with the teacher not being super engaging), but the fact we never got into the main thing I struggled with when drawing people; the human face.

I am trying to reteach myself how to draw now, having done that life art class like 2 years ago now. I am watching tutorials which have helped a bit, but I think my main issue is not practicing as consistently. A huge factor being motivation. I often get busy so when I have down time, I'd rather do something mindless instead of intentional work like practicing art that I am not gonna like. And when I do draw, even the things I used to think I was decent at like animals and objects and sceneries, I hate them. They look so flat and lifeless and they look super inconsistent style wise when you compare the different aspects of the drawing. It makes me feel unmotivated and scared about my future.

How can I be an animator when I can't even be happy with a still drawing I have made? I adore 2D animation. I adore art. I have so many ideas I can fully visualize in my brain but as soon as pencil touches paper or stylus to tablet, it's like I am a toddler learning how to write. Especially on digital art because I always feel like I am doing something wrong or in the most inefficient way possible. Don't even get me started on the fill bucket tool on drawing programs never actually filling in the full space I want them too and lines never being fully solid and having weird fuzzy edges that make coloring in weird. Even when I try to look up fixes for this it never seems to work (I swap back and forth between drawing in the free program Krita and Adobe Photoshop I have temporarily while in college).

There is the part of me that wants to give up, but then the strong part of me that refuses to because I know this isn't just some random ADHD hyper-fixation I have gotten. It has been a consistent interest of mine since I was in elementary school, fluctuating based on motivation and other external factors, but never something I stopped being interested in. I dunno. I guess I just needed to rant. I need to keep practicing, I know, but I wish I had someone directly next to me at all times giving me the perfect advice and helping me immediately see where I am messing something up or whatever so my improvement can be faster lol. Idk who will even read this. But oh well.

[dsumpsbluey]

Unofficial Bluey Timeline: Part II

Welcome to another post of my Unofficial Bluey Timeline. This part will be focusing on "The Weekend" through "Hotels". I will also be highlighting the recently found 2017 pilot of the show, since it pretty much is plot-for-plot a remake of one of these episodes (P.S. if you haven't done so, always read the alt text).

**But first, an update regarding my last post. While making the videos for this week, I stumbled upon a program called HandBrake, an open-source video transcoder. This was because the episode backups I mentioned were MKV files and couldn't properly work on my editing app. There, I found that it could do way more than simply convert file types, but also change resolution, apply video filters, and much more; so I found myself experimenting with how to enhance my copies, especially for the season 1 episodes. To keep it short, the program made the episodes better presentable (no distracting interlacing!), and I'll likely use them for any future video uses.**

So, without further ado, lets get in.

The Weekend - Episode 6 (and the pilot)

Bluey scams Bandit into buying magical statues.

Debuts and Details:

The walking leaf (which as of last week's recent ep "Slide", is apparently named "Leaficus") makes its grand debut.

Being as this was built off the pilot of the same name, the animation moves similar despite changes in the characters' models. This is why the episode feels janky and off-model compared to the rest of the season, b/c it is.

In the pilot, Bingo sleeps on a separate room opposite to Bluey's. While this would switch to both sharing the room in the final show, that exact room wouldn't show up in another episode until "Bedrooms" 3 years later. It's there where we learn that both girls used to occupy the room as babies before moving into their current room, which somehow lines up with the pilot (Bingo, the youngest one, occupying the leftmost room).

It would take ages dissecting every single change here, so I made a quick comparison vid of some key moments.

(Pilot video came from original Streamable upload [Just learned it was taken down :(]; Final video came from Internet Archive, as I hadn't set up HandBrake to clean my copy atm)

Differences in Character pilot design: Bluey: minimal differences aside from different orientation of back spots (They're not Disney-shaped, as I call it) Bingo: Snout shape and size bigger; Dark orange top is now two round spots on each side; back has many spots instead of just one. Bandit: Only left side of head is dark (reminiscent of a spot); no tan belly. Has the more drastic design differences of all. Chilli: Her dark brown spot is often not present, or swapping around sides. In the final episode, her brown spot overlaps her snout, other than the other way around.

What a weird way to make an episode about the weekend. This episode doesn't really rely on plot, and just shows us a glimpse of the Heeler family, which is still neat. As for the placement of this episode on the timeline, by rule the final version of the episode is considered canon as opposed to the pilot. Despite both version's plots being very similar, and the separate room pointed out earlier, it doesn't seem fair that an older version of an episode would be in the timeline, as it doesn't fit with the rest of the series.

Favorite part: The walking leaf scene, I quote it everyday w/ an exaggerated accent.

BBQ - Episode 7

Bingo prepares a pepper capsicum salad.

Debuts and Details:

This serves as the introduction of Uncle Stripe (Bandit's brother), and his side of the family, featuring Aunt Trixie, and cousins Muffin and Socks.

There is a mention of a "Auntie Mary" and her salad dressing recipe, but she is never mentioned in another episode again.

This is the first of many episodes that have been altered in international releases. For this, every mention of 'capsicum' is replaced with 'pepper'; no significant cut of scenes occurs, as mouth flaps were the only aspect changed between versions.

Streamable link, cuz I just learned there's a one video limit

The intro scene with Bluey and Bandit prepping the grill serves as the first of a recurring element of the two copying each other, either through movement or verbal.

5 cans and a water bottle were destroyed during the episode.

Bingo learns how to turn on the hose

Chill episode, you get to feel the struggles of Bingo wanting to relax, while also tasked with creating the best pepper capsicum salad imaginable.

Favorite part: When Bingo is getting the salad dressing. The scream, in particular, gets me everytime.

Fruitbat - Episode 8

Bluey learns to dream in order to become a fruit bat.

Debuts and Details:

This marks the debut of Mackenzie, his dad, as well as Rocko

This is the first episode to span multiple days, going from night to next morning (2 days)

The stairway wall has no changes from its last appearance, however the fridge is reoriented to how it was in "Keepy Uppy"

Bluey is revealed to like fruit salad.

Fun episode. However, the main plot doesn't exactly start until 4 minutes in. Wish there was more to the dream than just flying and eating fruit, though; perhaps something more imaginative.

Favorite part: Bingo's iconic shot of her sleeping.

Horsey Ride - Episode 9

Bluey and the gang ride their dad's as horses.

Debuts and Details:

Polly Puppy, Bluey's special toy makes its debut

Bandit and Stripe play as Gallahop, and Sparkles, and they are technically married at the end.

There's what seems to be a porch in the backyard, that I swear never shows up ever again (unless it does, in which I've haven't seen it)

Universal Rule #1 of imaginary play - Animals can't talk; there is a clear violation by both horses during the wedding scene

Fun episode, nothing to say other than flirty Bandit is my favorite screencap.

Hotel - Episode 10

Bandit books a room at the Heeler Hotel.

Debuts and Details:

Bingo is Slobber-Dobber, I guess? Aside from that, there's really nothing else to bring up

The episode, while being fun, doesn't really have much to talk about, timeline wise and in general. It's not bad per se, but it's very minimalistic.

Favorite part: Bluey smacking Bingo's head on the bed.

With that, part II is complete. While there were some interesting details with this batch of eps, they haven't caused too much of a dent in terms of the timeline. Surely, next week, we get some nifty details for our timeline. As always, leave any comments about details I may have missed, and I'll see you next week.

[jessicajagg]

King of Fighters: Maximum Impact (2004) PS2 Review

SNK was in a weird spot during the early 2000s. Their contemporaries had shifted nearly all of their focus on 3D games made to be played at the home but SNK continued to produce their coin-op titles for a dwindling arcade industry.

In an era where arcade games were largely released in collections, SNK put out single game home conversions with little to no extra features while Neo Geo emulation became more prevent online.

None of this is to say SNK's output at this time was lackluster. Metal Slug, Garou, Samurai Shodown and King of Fighters continually pushed the standards for pixel art, still looking gorgeous to this day. But the market trends had shifted and without a digital market place to sell shorter arcade games they had trouble finding an audience outside of hardcore enthusiasts. Hence in 2004, rather than another yearly entry of KOF we would receive a 3D spin-off "King of Fighters: Maximum Impact"

Maximum Impact ditches the staple team battle system for a traditional 1 on 1 bouts. Team battles are only available in versus mode and have loading screens inbetween each round. The game still mainly takes place on a 2D plane with the only 3D manuver being a side-step that I personally didn't find particularly useful. What is incredibly useful are the 'body slams'. Simply hold forward or back while mashing punch or kick and you'll perform a little combo string, no doubt a mechanic implemented to help newcomers but it can go boths ways and you can easily find yourself cornered.

Which brings me to the most frustrating aspect of this game, the final boss Duke. Now we all know and accept SNK final bosses are bullshit but Duke has to be the cheapest and most uncreative version of an SNK boss. Duke has an aoe super that will drain more than 80% of your life in a single hit. He can activate it instantly and unless you hit him just before it activates he has super armor, meaning most of the time if you press a button he can just activate his super and get you. Said super also breaks your guard when you block it, can't be jumped over and because Duke has infinite meter he can just spam it over and over again.

But the thing about Duke is that it's also insanely easy to break the fight if your character has a good jump kick. I've had fights last between 1 minute to an hour entirely depending on my characters ability to bullshit their way through the fight.

The game features 20 characters, 6 of them being original. The story sees two lead characters, brothers Alba and Soiree take on the KOF Tournament to wrestle control of Southtown from the aforementioned Duke and avenge their friend Fate. If you play as anyone else you basically get the same intro and outro cutscenes for everyone with minor dialouge changes.

The original character designs are rather hit or miss. The only real stand out is the disciple of Kim Kaphwan 'Chae Lim'. The others range from unremarkable to bland, it's not surprising alot of them haven't made any return appearances.

The game does however feature some stellar alternate costumes and models for each character. Some of which are so good, you have to wonder why it isn't the default. The alternate costumes for Mai and Yuri in particular are ones I'd love to see make a comeback.

The visuals while they don't match the visual splendor you'd see in the previous years KOF 2003 or Namco's 3D fighters of the time they get the job done. The music doesn't quite hit the mark but there are a few standout tracks. The english voice acting however is hilariously horrendous as nearly the entire original KOF cast are given voices that don't match the characters at all. The voice acting was the biggest point of contention from reviewers of the time, so much so that the Xbox port gave the option to swap to the Japanese.

Maximum Impact for all it's faults is a fascinating time capsule of the times and SNK's efforts to break into the mainstream. The game was successful enough to see a sequel 2 years later that would greatly expand on the foundation this game laid out.

[imunbreakabledude]

Late congrats on the bowfa, it really is a game changer and i cant imagine much better it is on an iron. Any idea on what you want to farm out first? I dont know if you found this guide but there is a method to do sara gwd without chugging stams here's the link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaqZaAw0DHk

But i dont know if its worth doing sara or kree, i think acb would only get used at like nex since you have bowfa now and armadyl is such a meagre upgrade over blessed dhide, if you have that, that i think it would only be worth it to get if you have masori to upgrade already. I think the items they drop are just more important later in progression vs the now that bandos and zammy are. But i think kree and sara are considered easier because kree is kinda just sit and hit and sara you just run around not taking any damage from the boss.

Also I didnt see that makeover update osrs did since i've been playing rs3 but that is a pretty sick update. I'm right there with you on wanting the ability to swap between how the armour looks and maybe similar updates for rs3 if the player model update ever happens. Newer armour sets havent been as bad but some of the older ones are like, why? At least let me dress up the dudes the same way. But rs3 has been fun otherwise, cool quests and skilling. Getting stomped by the harder bosses isnt as fun but super satisfying when i finally get the clear, hard mode sanctum is the biggest example of that. I will say though iron is easily the best way to experience the game, there are a lot of interesting bosses, minigames and quests that you can just skip if you sit at one boss hard enough and buy everything. Group iron would probably be better when that comes out in a few months since you get to completely side step solomons store and share some of the horrible grinds.

Also also if these asks are weird please tell me, I don't mean to be creepy or anything i just like talking about runescape

thanks! I am definitely happy to have the bowfa, almost less because of what I want to do now and also not even because I was tired of gauntlet but because it removes the fear of going super dry at gauntlet and getting miserable and wanting to quit the game. as far as I can tell there's no other drop that "locks" you into one place for so long if you don't get it on rate (i know it doesn't really "lock" you from doing other content, but i mean, everyone knows, red prison is a prison bc it just Makes So Much Sense to keep going and get bowfa before most other PVM that it FEELS BAD to not have it)

thanks also for the guide, watching it once it already looks like a pain to me (i am lazy as fuck and any guide that has multiple colors of tiles or like, more than a couple sets of super intuitive tiles to step on looks like way too much to worry about to me lol. I'm sure I will appreciate it some day though).

also to clarify I don't plan on "grinding" kree or zilyana at all. I just wanted 1kc of each GWD boss for both fremmy elite + unlocking nex (which I got, last night!) I might do a bit more of each of them to see what combat achievements I can get, though. Because to answer your question, that's my next plan - going for Elite combat achievements. I'm quite far off from them and it will require me to get a lot more experience at a variety of bosses I haven't done much/at all. so that's my goal and I'll hope for useful drops along the way. but I want to enjoy the variety that is now afforded to me.

my other goal is diary cape, which requires 93 slayer (and I want 95 eventually for hydra, too), so basically I'm doing slayer and trying to use any tasks I can use for bosses OR other important drops (like, if I get a greater demon task, which i haven't for a WHILE, i'm kind of suspicious lol) then I'll do TDs. or Kril after I get 2-3 synapses. Black demons I'll do demonics of course. Anything (besides those) I can do in catacombs I'm doing there to amass ancient shards for eventual emberlight.

there's some content I can't get slayer tasks for (don't plan on unlocking boss tasks anytime soon) - like Zulrah, Bandos, and ToA, which all have key drops I ""should"" be prioritizing, so I guess I'll mix them in whenever I'm feeling up to it.

I'm glad rs3 is treating you well :) I didn't realize that rs3 didn't have group iron yet. that should be fun. and no worries about sending these asks, not weird, it is fun indeed to talk about runescape :)

[thognnn]

Game update after 5000 years

So Im pretty sure its been over a month since my last update. To be honest its because I haven't made much progress on my game until now. My original plan was to start Alpha V3 by making the prototype for the human model and I was making good progress on that until I realized I had to edit/rework the model causing me to go into a slump of making no progress for like a month straight. However, I now feel (mostly) out of that slump and have actually made some amount of progress, at least enough that I feel like making a progress update.

First, I implemented a new weapon, being a shotgun. This weapon shoots out a bunch of small bullets in a spread (like a real shotgun). It also does a bunch of damage up close, but can't really be used effectively at long distances. I also added a comically large amount of recoil to the shotgun because I feel like it will be used to find creative way to get around levels.

The second major edition is "spells". These are sort of like the augments from Cruelty squad in a way as they can give certain buffs to the character and have their own inventory for them, which you can swap to with Shift. Similarly to weapons, you can only "hold" 4 spells at a time. Currently there are only 2 "spells", these being Feather Falling and High Jump. Feather Falling cuts your gravity in half while lowering your terminal velocity so taking fall damage is impossible. High Jump just increases your jumping height. I have plans a more but I just needed something basic to get started with.

My plan now is to go back and finish the human model, since a lot of what I want to do for Alpha V3 is kind of "locked" behind getting that down. Once I get the human model down, my next major goal is to finish the 2 new levels and rework the current level, at that point Alpha V3 will be like 75% done and playtesting will start. Due to a bunch of factors I can't even give a good estimate for when Alpha V3 will be done. My original goal was by September but that its happening anymore lol. I think the earliest I can see Alpha V3 getting finished is end of this year.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully wont go MIA for over 2 months again!

[cyle]

Yo what's identities

tl;dr: it's my internal codename for a very ambitious project to fix all of the issues with primary and secondary blogs on tumblr. the project is not actually in flight right now, it's been on the shelf for years.

gs;wm:

as you probably know, and lots of tumblr users know, primary and secondary blogs are pretty confusing. you can only like/reply as your primary, you can only make a secondary/sideblog private or have more than one member, but you can reblog and post and send messages as your secondaries, etc etc. the logic table of what you can do per blog on your account is weird, to say the least. we get feedback about this all the time.

this is a holdover from how secondary blogs were originally built: they were just tacked on to the existing user model, via your primary blog, at a time when tumblr was growing super fast. behind the scenes, your secondary blogs are the same data model as your primary blog, but the actual relationship they hold is with your primary blog, not with your account. so it's like your secondary blogs are "children" of your primary blog, rather than being siblings, as one would probably build it today if we could do it all over.

and there's a lot, lot, lot of code and plumbing that relies on this assumption, so it's not as simple as just fixing that problem and magically having the ability to like/reply/follow/etc as a sideblog. this stuff is very very old, from the time when tumblr was a blogging network first and not a social network, so it made sense then. it doesn't make sense today, from a product point of view, if you consider tumblr a social network first.

the most basic "fix" for this could be a simple account switcher, like other platforms have, but this wouldn't solve the problem for existing users who have tons of sideblogs they may want to "swap" their primary for, or reply/like as, or whatever. you'd have to make a whole new account, and/or we'd have to do some magic on our end to detach all of your sideblogs and make them into separate accounts for you, which would be pretty jarring.

personally i think that account switcher option is pretty lame: we can do better.

instead of an account switcher, i think it'd be much more interesting to be able to "act as" any of your blogs within the same interface, kind of like how fast reblogging lets you quickly choose which blog you're reblogging to. messaging lets you pick which blog you're sending as when you start a new conversation. why not have the same option when long-pressing on the like button? or the follow button? or the block button? there's some discoverability to figure out here for sure, but it's surmountable.

and this leads to some other interesting potential changes to how someone could use tumblr via multiple proper blogs, like having a different dashboard per blog. different set of likes per blog. a more straightforward way to break apart how you curate your experience on tumblr. easy to just throw away your old blog when you wanna restart, without having to make a whole new account. hence, you'd be able to have "identities", rather than a primary blog and sideblogs.

sounds neat, right? i think so. but it's a fair amount of work to get this done. a lot of untangling has to happen. it's totally doable, it's just tedious. some of the pieces are already in place on the backend, we just haven't picked up the rest of the work. it's hard to prioritize this because, while it sounds neat, the number of people who would actually use it is probably pretty small -- but we'd never know until we try.

anyway, that's identities on tumblr. ✨

[earthstellar]

how would you go about doing SG bumblebee/goldbug? i have a few of my own thoughts but i’d love to hear yours :0

Thanks for asking! :)

There have been a few slightly varied depictions of SG!Bumblebee/Goldbug, but I'll just take a general approach here and not fixate too much on any one story. :)

It's been a while since I've read SG content, and I've never done so with too much of a focus on Bumblebee specifically, so please take all this with a grain of salt as I haven't had any time to go back and re-read the relevant content! :')

Bumblebee: A Basic Character Trait Analysis

With Bumblebee in the main canon, we can isolate a few common traits across almost all of his various appearances:

Friendly

Fairly outgoing if shy or awkward at times

Young (by which I mean, inexperienced or less experienced than others)

Highly motivated and energetic

Brave / Curious (he's a scout, so this makes sense)

Cares about others / his team mates

We tend to find these traits endearing!

In fact, this is why Bumblebee is often the "child audience appeal" character, and features so heavily in merchandise and advertising!

It's also why he could carry his own solo film; It is easy to believe such a character would be willing to engage with humanity, overcome any fear/hesitancy with a wide-eyed honest approach (literally, they have redesigned his model several times over the years to emphasise his optics to hammer this home visually), and he's least likely to come across as scary to younger kids because his inquisitive and open nature comes across as friendly and non-threatening-- Even though he's a giant robot from space.

But then!

In Shattered Glass, we tend to see him depicted as:

Ruthless

Disinterested in others for the most part unless they serve a purpose for his goals

Highly focused (could overlap easily with highly motivated) but only when he takes personal interest

Far less of a team player unless necessary

Cunning but willing to abandon a plan or situation if he deems the risk to himself or his goals to be too great

We tend to find these traits intense or even off-putting; SG Bumblebee comes across as more selfish or manipulative, and a lot is lost from what we find interesting, compelling, relatable, or enjoyable about his original universe counterpart in this trait-swap.

(Personally, I think we never really got a Shattered Glass style episode in any animated media at least in part because Bumblebee is mostly the "kid-friendly" character, and doing SG Bumblebee might be considered by Hasbro to be too jarring or potentially genuinely upsetting for the target younger audience for them to ever commit to greenlighting a legit SG episode.

Among other reasons, lol, but Bumblebee is usually specifically used to appeal to the youngest children watching any TF media, so I can see how they would want to dodge this potential concern.)

Why This Is An Issue:

Generally, in the context of the SG comics, this is why Bumblebee/Goldbug can be a little off-putting or outright unlikable for some people.

We don't really see him as being Bumblebee anymore, even an alternate universe version of him, because his core traits are just totally removed and swapped out.

Like I said in my other SG analysis post, in order to relate to the characters and continue to accept them as different versions of characters we are already familiar with, at least SOME recognisable elements of some core traits needs to remain.

Otherwise, they become just a little too far removed, and we stop being able to really see them as who they are supposed to be a mirror image of. They start to become new, different characters altogether, in an unfamiliar universe, which doesn't work when the unfamiliar universe is, well, unfamiliar-- We have no connection to it, once the characters lose our interest or become too unrecognisable.

This isn't universal, of course, but this tends to be one of the problems with Transformers SG content in general; I love the concept 100%, but there needs to be a balance with the trait-swapping.

Some Possible Ways to Address SG Trait Swap And Make It Slightly Less Jarring: Bumblebee Edition

To retain more of a connection to Bumblebee as he appears in the SG universe, it would help to retain more of his original universe traits of genuine curiosity or sense of wonderment, carried over from his main universe counterpart which we are more familiar with.

Not only is Bumblebee a scout, so he does tend to exhibit a personal and professional curiosity-- This is why he is often the first bot to run into human beings when looking around or exploring a populated area for the first time.

But also, we associate curiosity with youth, and therefore with some degree of innocence.

While SG!Bumblebee/Goldbug is very experienced and more "hardcore" as it were, it would still be nice to retain this genuine kind of curiosity as a personality trait, rather than a professional trait.

Sure, he knows professionally that he needs to stay behind cover, or shouldn't ask questions. But personally, he is curious.

He wants to know, he investigates even when he maybe shouldn't and discovered some things as a result, or maybe we get a brief moment where he is less motivated by underhanded selfish goals and instead is primarily motivated purely by an interest in something that catches his eye, something he's spotted before anyone else has.

We could get some moments where his motivation is not something underhanded or cruel or conniving, but rather, just a little innocent curiosity. Just so we could see that we can recognise something in this character, so there's a little hope that comes up-- Oh, maybe he has the capacity for some good, maybe somewhere inside his spark there is something untouched by his outwardly aggressive behaviour, etc.

And while this may not be the case in whatever story, it is an engaging thought for readers/the audience to have. We still want to think there's something more under all that toughness and selfishness;

And that makes sense, because it adds some interest and potential depth to his character.

By which I mean, a common problem with SG is often that the characters are so obviously and overwhelmingly evil that they come across as one-dimensional villains, rather than alternate universe versions of characters we care about.

We generally don't get to see SG Autobots do anything other than be comically evil, unnecessarily cruel or violent, etc. and it winds up falling a little flat because it removes a lot of the complexity from these characters as we know them through their original universe counterparts.

Case Study: Star Trek Mirror Universe

I'm going to pick DS9's mirror universe, because there's a great example of this, good and bad.

A great example of "Trait Swap Balancing" (as I call it) is Kira, in the mirror universe episodes.

Kira, in the main universe, is a victim of violent oppression who obtains a position of relative authority on board a previously occupied space station which orbits her home world, out of a personal desire to oversee the restoration efforts and ensure her people are not taken advantage of by Starfleet immediately after the prior oppressors are made to leave the station, as she does not initially trust Starfleet to act on their promises or remain within their agreed upon limited remit.

Kira, in the mirror universe, is a collaborator and secured her position of power through political finesse and social manipulation, running the same space station in the mirror universe but as a singular representative of her planet's position in the oppressive interplanetary collaboration, lording her power over Federation indentured slave labourers as an Intendant.

Why is this so effective?

The audience doesn't totally hate Mirror Universe Kira, because we see that even in this universe, she is revealed to have some doubts about what is going on and the collaboration she is an active participant in once she is pressed further, and her emotional stability is obviously in question; She copes primarily through lashing out at others and engaging in overly-personal manipulative behaviour.

She is unstable in her position, and we get a sense eventually that she isn't as happy with the situation as it first seems. She believes that collaborating is her best chance to spare her people the worst of it, even if it means subjugating others, and this appears to be a root cause of much of her personal instability.

Thus, she retains some critical traits from her main universe counterpart, we recognise this as being the same character at heart, who made very different choices (choices which appropriately mirror her decisions in the primary universe).

She retains her love for her people, and we find out that her motivation in both universes is actually the same: She wants to keep her people safe. In the main universe, she did this by fighting against her oppressors. In the mirror universe, she attempted to do this by joining her oppressors.

So, there you go!

Even though Mirror Kira is awful, we don't hate her. Because we can see where her outwardly evil actions and harmful behaviours have a basis, deep down, that is rooted in a trait which makes us like the main universe Kira: She's trying to do good for her people in both universes.

In the Mirror Universe, this took a terrible path, and her behaviour and actions are oppressive and evil; She is still willing to go along with it in the Mirror Universe. The trait reversal is still very much present. She is still a "bad guy" in the Mirror Universe, very much so.

But we can still recognise some critical key traits from the main universe Kira in her, so we don't start to see Mirror Kira as another character entirely, we don't experience any disconnect there despite the extreme differences in their behaviour and thought processes...

And as a result, we can believe that this is really a Mirror Universe.

We don't have to like Mirror Kira. In fact, we're encouraged not to. We just have to accept her as a mirror universe counterpart to her character in the primary universe.

And retaining those core traits, as differently as they manifest in the mirror universe, is a great way to make Mirror Kira more interesting and familiar to us as an audience--

--Because we can see that yeah, this is the same person. Just different.

Comparing DS9 Mirror Universe to Shattered Glass

Compare this DS9 Mirror Universe example to a lot of the currently available Shattered Glass media, and how the characters are "trait reversed" in many of these stories.

Do you feel you can see any of the "liked traits" of the original universe characters present, in any way or to any degree, in the SG counterparts?

If so, in what situations? How did these liked traits come out, and how did it affect their decision making, if it did at all? Was this engaging? Did it help you recognise the character as more relatable to their original universe counterpart, or make them more definitively recognisable as being a mirrored version of the more familiar main universe version of the character?

If not, how might retaining certain liked traits help provide some character depth or improve recognisability of the SG version of the character? What are ways in which the SG character might become less "flat" feeling or more rounded out by the inclusion of some element of a likable trait or two from their original universe counterpart? What are some ways an SG character could retain some recognisable likable traits while still being suitably evil?

Just some questions to consider!

I think one of the main reasons why a lot of people struggle to get into the Shattered Glass media, despite the great concept behind all of it, is that the trait swap is just too much of a 100% trait swap, and we don't really get to see any recognisable traits underlying any of their actions, behaviours, or thought processes in the SG universe.

Of course, this is just my assessment of things; I hope this was an interesting read for you, and I'm sorry it took me a few days to get the time to type it all out! <3