#i mean i've been using mostly emulation for stuff like this but this really really really is an asshole move and y'all know it

[zephyrfuse]

god i hate nintendo so fucking much i'll never buy another thing from them, good day. we will have to resort to emulation and fan servers from then on out completely

[meanbossart]

Ask Compilation: Advice, influences and Misc.

Apologies for taking so long on some of these, admittedly I'm much more likely to entirely forget about asks that are about me and my interests 💃 Thank you for all the questions regardless! And thank you specially to everyone who just drops nice messages into my inbox out of kindness.

I'm brazillian and a native portuguese speaker!

I'll probably return to twitter eventually, but a) I hate that place and b) It didn't make much sense to me to turn it into a BG3 account out of the blue. I am considering making an Instagram or a new twitter just to have more places where people can follow in case they don't care for tumblr, but it's just been a very busy year so far and so that's kind of low on the list of priorities. If I ever do that I'll be sure to announce it here. Have a nice day yourself!

Sorry to hear that! I've gotten a few messages before about this issue, and the problem is that since I am myself not from the US, my options are also limited :( a lot of patreon alternatives don't work for me because they either don't go through paypal, take insane currency conversion fees, or just straight up block me from signing up.

Speak for yourself, I just assume everyone I speak to online has committed some sort of atrocious crime until proven otherwise. Except for me - of course. I have never done anything bad in my life.

I still have a lot to learn! But I will basically use whatever works for me at the moment, as well as make a sincere effort to learn about musculature and anatomy so I can understand those components and how they move, instead of only knowing what they look like when still - that's how you get better at drawing from memory. Volume mostly comes from coloring and understanding light, which is it's own beast but can very much be learned from similar reference materials and observing it IRL!

My favorite places to get reference are medical diagrams, weird pictures I take of myself, 3D software (often Virt-a-mate) and questionably phrased image google searches.

My favorite artists are Jason Shawn Alexander and Sean Murphy, but I'm not sure how much of it reflects in my art nowadays! I generally seek to pick up techniques from artists rather than to emulate style.

Honestly I love that you guys generally do the thing he would hate the most: take him very non-seriously LOL

I've been in a real Chelsea Wolfe and Amyl And The Sniffers kick lately! But usually you'll also find me listening to stuff like Boy Harsher, Swans, FWF, JK Flesh Lingua Ignota, Nick Cave, David Bowie, and so on. Music for the weird gays, basically.

I went insane and wrote a 23-chapter-long-and-still-ongoing fic in like four months. But also - I'm not that good, I'm just shamelessly pretentious LOL

Hm. That's a good question, but I'm not really sure. Sincerely not trying to be a edgier-than-thou here (in fact, this has made me a little self conscious at one time or another) but a lot of art that I don't mean to be horror-y in nature at all has been associated with the genre. So perhaps I don't know what I'm doing either, LOL.

I think just leaning on making things look slightly "wrong" or "ugly" on purpose is the way, but I also find that if you just seek to depict people as they are instead of idealized versions of themselves, you will arrive at that either way.

Thank you for reading! Honestly, I'm guilty of having not read much at all since I was in my late teens, and the style I'm employing for ANE is very different from the things I would call "influential" for me, or even that I used to enjoy reading at all before. I read a lot of Chuck Palahniuk as a youth (and, no slight to people who do like him still, but nowadays I'm not sure why I ever did. His stories don't speak to me at all anymore) as well a lot of weird experimental lit that I didn't even care to remember the name of. My last book stint from one or two years ago was composed solely of historical and medical literature, and last year I got really into Cormac Mcarthy thanks to the internet.

So, all in all, I'm absolutely all over the place LOL if you put a gun to my head and told me to list my favorite books, I'd say The Indifferent Stars Above and Blood Meridian.

(Consider the reading portion of the question to have been answered above) I really really liked Beau is Afraid and think it's a really great "horror" movie. Sue me.

[tacoma-narrows]

Between the Sea and the Sky!

Hi everybody! Meet the TWO new guys I made between last night and today! Their names are Tarmac (an Aeromorph dog) and Soda (a pooltoy fox), and they've filled a desire for these two specific kinds of OCs I've had in mind for MONTHS lol. They were super fun to design and draw and I'm super excited to do more with them soon!! This piece is relatively simple but more so serves as their introduction hehe

See more about them, including refs and some additional pieces/information below the cut :] (it kind of turns into a huge braindump lmao)

Tarmac is an aeromorph, although a bit more towards the furry side of things rather than the plane side lol. His design is influenced primarily by the Concorde and the Space Shuttle! I couldn't decide for the life of me which of those two things I wanted to use so I thought "why not use both?" and here we are lol. I'm super happy with his design, with the black/dark gray markings mean to emulate the look of the Space Shuttle's thermal insulation tiles and then I really like how the red and blue stand out against the gray. I really like his icon too! I wanted to make it look like a stylized depiction of a plane (mainly a Concorde hehe) breaking through the sound barrier with a sonic boon! In terms of personality, I don't have a whole lot in mind yet. Mostly that he'd be the brave, adventurous type and since he can fly both in the air and through space, he's gonna be friends with Astro too :3

Soda is a pooltoy fox! I have wanted to make a pooltoy OC FOREVER (blame my mutuals for always posting/reblogging so many cool pooltoy OCs hehe). I finally got brave enough to actually give it a shot, and I love how he came out! I was mainly just thinking about summery themes and as I was just trying out different colors and stuff, I thought about orange soda, and that's the direction I ended up going! He's got a big stupid tail [affectionate] and can have either rounded bappy hands or have actual fingers, you're free to stylize that either way! I've only ever drawn a pooltoy character once ever before, so this was something way out of my realm of familiarity, but I'm so happy with how he came out! He's so shaped I love him so much already <33

So those are my two new guys! Making two new OCs at the same time is already a rarity for me lol. The only time it's happened before was when I made Rye and Pumpernickel back in August of 2021. And then making these guys when I had only gotten Astro about two and a half weeks ago means this is an exceedingly rare event for me lmao. My friends know how infrequently I make/get new OCs, so this just goes to show how much these guys have been bouncing around in my brain lately lol.

They are definitely gonna have some sort of connection to each other, but I'm not sure how I wanna go about that yet. Since I made them back to back, they are already connected in my brain, but I'm not sure how I wanna express that in a meaningful way. I don't wanna make them siblings bc, well, they're obv very different from each other lol, but they're kinda parallels (with one being in the sky and the other being in the water yknow), so as of right now they're definitely good friends with each other. I might upgrade that to bfs at some point in the future, but we'll see how things go hehe.

Anyways huge braindump of a post lmao, thank u for reading if u did! I'd love to hear your thoughts on these guys since they're so different from all my other characters! Also if anyone may wanna do an art trade of either of these guys (or Astro as well! I'd like to get more art of him too!) let me know hehe

[morelikeravenbore]

🦋 Writer Interview Game

Thank you for tagging me @theladyofshalott1989! Everyone go read her Like Moths to a Flame series pls (it's on my to-read list and I'm really looking forward to it!)

When did you start writing?

I've been writing for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I used to hand write entire novels lol. At school, they'd assign us a little writing project and I'd show up with like 28 chapters, ongoing. I remember reading one story aloud once and the whole room was dead quiet after, and one girl goes: "whoa." anyway, eventually they were like, hey I think this kid is gifted (or autistic LOL but why not both.)

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write? 

Not really haha. My brain really goes: HEY WE REALLY REALLY REALLY LIKE THIS ONE THING AND WE'RE NOT INTERESTED IN ANYTHING ELSE. I mean, I do enjoy reading non-fiction, and I love the classics, but mostly I like fiction/romance/light fantasy stuff. 

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often? 

Nah. I just write like me. I guess the HP series had a huge influence on me since I was SO obsessed with it, which is probably why I write past tense/third pov limited. Sometimes I'll re-read a lot of Austen and end up using a bunch of old timey words in my next chapter, but mostly I just write and it comes out sounding like me. 

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space? 

I don't have one. I write 99.9% of my work on my phone wherever I happen to be. My brain is chaos but it works for me. (Right now I am writing this on the beach while my dog digs holes beside me.)

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

It's kinda rare that I can't find a muse. Usually I just burn myself out, so reading, resting and rotting helps restore my creative energy.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

HahahhA y'all this is too personal for me *sweats* but yes: grief and shitty parents. No, that does not surprise me. I also seem to have a thing about orphans and red heads.

What is your reason for writing?

I don't know how to stop.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

With fanfic, when people tell me my characterisations of canon characters are spot on, or when people tell me my original characters feel like canon characters, hehe.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

I don't want to be thought about by my readers at all, which is why I'll always write as an anonymous gremlin. And as far as my characters and stories go, I honestly don't give much thought to it. People are free to think what they like, it doesn't really bother me.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Getting inside my characters heads, I think. Understanding their motivations and writing them as real and flawed and human as I can.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Honestly, I love it haha! Sometimes I might cry for three days believing that I'm absolute garbage, but that's just life innit. Mostly, I write because it's one of the greatest sources of joy in my life and it just makes me happy.

Np tags: @galaxiasgreen @lyworth @gingerlegacy07 @sloanesallow @thesuperiorfeeling

[oodlyenough]

Regarding how long it took Trucy to call Phoenix "Papa". I think the better question is how long did it take for her to actually mean it. Same for Phoenix genuinely thinking of Trucy as his daughter and not a little kid he needed to help and take care of

Well, see, that's kind of the trajectory I expected to begin with -- how many years into those 7 was it before she started seeing him as "dad" enough to say it, etc. I didn't expect the game to have an answer to that and had speculated about what that might've been like only for the game to give... a pretty unsatisfactory (imo) canon answer.

But you're right, saying it VS meaning it are still different things. I don't have any specific timeframe in mind but I imagine it happened faster with Phoenix, because I think (and he says as much in canon) he really latched onto Trucy and that relationship post-disbarment, and also Phoenix is a pretty ... emotionally intense dude who needs to be needed. It's easy for me to imagine him focusing all his emotional energy on Trucy and getting super invested very quickly.

Trucy I find it much harder to speculate about because I don't think the game gives us a good sense of her interiority. I got the impression throughout 4 that she was keeping plenty of secrets (another post I've been thinking about: how much did she know in 4-1 because my impression is "everything") and so I feel like I can only guess at what she was thinking. She's unreasonably chipper in that first scene with Phoenix, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt in assuming it's largely for show. Maybe she felt she had to put on a show for Phoenix so he'd keep her around, in which case how long was it before she let that drop for the first time, and how long before she naturally thought of him first for comfort/etc instead of Zak... 🤔 I don't know but I would imagine it took her longer than Phoenix.

In general I wish 4 had given us more of them interacting together and more genuine moments. Phoenix says at the end that he's the only one who knows how she really feels, which I totally believe (again she seems like she's performing, even to Apollo) and I like the idea of them as this tight knit and sort of... secretive little unit, a double act. But we don't get to see it in action much and a lot of the references to him Trucy makes are just played for laughs or to make Apollo even more suspicious of him.

I also think Trucy looking up to/missing/wanting to emulate the Gramaryes is understandable but interesting vs Phoenix knowing they're a toxic murder polycule and wanting to shield her from that without (presumably) wanting to disillusion her. Also fandom lied to me about older Trucy's costume being blue because of Phoenix, it's Thalassa's costume 😭 which made me sad for him ngl... another fic idea among many.

This got really long and mostly off topic sorry lol, I've been rotating Trucy and Phoenix in my head since starting AA4 and, like most things in AA4, there's so much cool stuff to extrapolate on that canon just kinda... suggests without ever diving into. Much to think about

[spooky-steamel]

DATING SIMS AND DATING SIM ADJACENTS part 1

So I've decided to make a review of all the dating sims and games where you can date characters I've played yet. (Okay that's a lie, all the dating sims I feel like talking about right now)

This is a review by a player for players so buckle up, I'm doing this for the people! And it’s only part 1 so more is coming when I feel like writing again

Remember that it's mostly from memory and that I'm not a God so I can be wrong, feel free to correct me if so! Ok let's start-

MYSTIC MESSENGER

Story: Downloading an app to 'chat with pretty guys' you get thrown into the chatroom of a charity organisation called the RFA by some hacker. The head of the organisation decides to make you their newest member to fill the role of their dead leader to start holding charity parties again. Will you be able to uncover the secret behind this hacker and why he wanted you in this chatroom?

Where to play: It's a mobile game and I was gonna say 'you might find some way to play on PC with an emulator' but with its game mechanics it's not worth it

Price: The game is free but you can buy stuff inside the app but it's not needed to advance the story, just a nice bonus. I played the game without needing to buy anything

Play Time: A route lasts 11 real life days, in real time or less if you get a bad ending so it's kinda difficult to measure a real play time for it

Love Interest(s): There's 7 love interests in total, including one girl. You can either date the gamer college student, the narcissist musical actor, the overworked secretary, the funny mysterious hacker, the cat-loving CEO, the selfless photographer or another hacker but make it a pretty boy.

Main Character: The MC is automatically a girl, with only your name customizable

LBGT Representation: We know some of those dude ain't straight but it's not actually CANON but who cares about canon? The girl route really romantic and more platonic than anything but she's just lying to herself. You can hook up with a girl in one of the bad ends? Not too much representation but it's not inexistent at least.

Game Mechanics: The app is like a real chatroom, opening between certain hours to progress the story. You don't HAVE to got into every chatroom, especially those at 3 am but be sure to not miss too many so that you don't get a bad end. You can receive calls and personal messages by the characters and even try to call them back. To get a good ending you have to bring as many guests as you can to the party so you have to answer mails correctly but don't worry you can always look up on internet the answers if you don't want to use you brain.

Fandom: Not as huge as back when it first came out but still a big fandom, lots of fanarts and fanfics you won't run out of content anytime soon

Personal Opinion: Yeah I started with one of the most famous one but it's famous for a reason. I love the story and the characters, the mechanics are new even if they could have NOT MADE 3 AM CHATS EVERY DAYS but I mean it's my fault for wanting to 100% the game. Great game, it's the one that got me into dating sims and was my whole personality in high-school. You can go back to it years later and it'll still be as good, absolutely recommend.

OBEY ME: SHALL WE DATE?

Story: You're summoned into the Devildom to take part in an exchange program between angels, humans and demons by the ruler of demons. You have to spend an entire year down in Devildom going to school along with the representation of the 7 Deadly Sins who you live with. Will you survive the year, and will you attract the attention of one of them? (It's a dating sim, of course you will)

Where to play: Another mobile game

Price: Also free to play but since it's something that the people call a Gacha, trust me you'll be really tempted to buy currency to get the pretty cards of your newest blorbo. I personally didn't last long.

Play Time: There's like 40 chapters YET with each like 10 little stories in it so trust me, I've been playing for months and I'm still nowhere near the end of the game. There's also new side stories every three weeks or something so no chance of getting bored.

Love Interest(s): There's currently like 11 love interests, all guys. The 7 Deadly Sins, the dorky ruler of demons, his loyal butler, the beautiful angel and the shady sorcerer. They're all varied and not all of them are accessible from the start but you can date them all at the same time so it's a win for hoes everywhere. There's a pretty girl later on but you can't kiss her YET. There's no route just a main storyline where you kiss who you want.

Main Character: The MC is represented by a pretty pink sheep and I'm pretty sure the characters uses they/them to talk about us. You use your own name but not customize the MC further.

LBGT Representation: Gender Neutral MC = everyone is gay, I don't make the rules. The cast is pretty fruity but never outright said, except maybe for some allusions of the avatar of lust sleeping around.

Game Mechanics: To advance the game you got to use character cards to win dance battles to unlock the rest of the story. At some point you might get stuck because your cards are too weak so you gotta constantly upgrade those bad boys. That's like half of the game ngl

Fandom: Big fandom, not deteriorating anytime soon seeing as the game is constantly putting out new content. I take like an hour every morning to check every new post on tumblr

Personal Opinion: This game is addictive. I won't lie it has it's bad sides and the story is kinda progressively getting less well written but it's not a deal breaker for me. I like the characters and that I don't have to start all over again to get a certain character. The good thing about this game is that you can put down the game for months and then come back to it later when you need something to get fixated on again. Real good game for casual play, would recommend.

THE ARCANA

Story: You're a witch that is suddenly visited by Countess in the middle of the night to find the murderer of her late husband to punish him. Will you actually find what happened 3 years ago and solve the circumstances of the Count's disappearance?

Where to play: Another mobile game! But unlike the others this one should be easy to use an emulator for

Price: Free to play but if you're bored easily beware cause the button to buy keys to progress the game is easy to find and oh so tempting, and if you do it once you will never stop. Also, you need game currency for the best (mostly horny) game options but you can get them for free in the game. Or not if you got the money.

Play Time: Took me like a week to finish one of the route without spending too much money, it all depends on how much if any money you want to spend on the game

Love Interest(s): There's 6 love interest, including 2 girls and one nonbinary person. You can romance either the pretty magician, the beautiful and smart Countess, the charming runaway supposed murderer, the cute servant, the quiet forest man or the ghost of the Count.

Main Character: You can choose your name and pronouns, this MC has no mentioned physical appearance so just go wild with your imagination

LBGT Representation: Everyone is bisexual! Canon gay couples in some routes and the nonbinary love interest uses he/him. Gay/10

Game Mechanics: The main story is just a visual novel. There's some mini-games on the side to get game currency or bonus scenes but it's mostly a visual novel.

Fandom: The fandom is not as huge as the other two but the tumblr tag is still getting fed everyday

Personal Opinion: The atmosphere of the game is amazing. Good story with good characters. Actual romantic female route??? I'm surprised, you don't get that often in games that aren't R18. There's a good ending and a bad ending for each love interest and they're both really good. I may have spent way too much money on it but it's not like I HAD to so it's kinda my fault. Good game!

DREAM DADDY

Story: You're a single dad moving to a new house with your teenage daughter who is pushing you to actually be social for once. Among your new neighbours there are several other single dads who might be looking for love? Who knows?

Where to play: I played when it first came out on my old PC but now you can also play on mobile, switch and PS4

Price: Ngl I have no clues what the free version does but I'm pretty sure the good stuff isn't free. It should be around 15$ on every platforms.

Play Time: From memory I don't think it's that long to play through it? Not a short game but I've definitely played way longer dating sims.

Love Interest(s): There's 7 dads to choose from. You can either have the cold bad guy dad, the Victorian vampire dad, your childhood bro dad, the suburban (not actually single??) dad, the dorky barista dad, the english teacher dad or the friendly competitive bear dad.

Main Character: First game on the list where you can personalise your MC! You can dress up your character sprite and change his appearance and full name. But you are a dad and that won't change.

LBGT Representation: It's a game about a dad seducing other dads, of course it's pretty gay. But apart from that, you can make your MC wear a binder and one of the love interest is implied to be transgender. You can also choose whether your daughter is biological or not, and the gender of your late spouse.

Game Mechanics: Another pure visual novel, I don't have much to add about this.

Fandom: There was a fandom back in the days but I'll be real with you, I don't think it survived so don't expect anything too big regarding new content.

Personal Opinion: It's a good game. Not life changing but it's really funny and the love interests are good characters. I mean I'm not the target audience at all but still an enjoyable game! If you're bored and have 15 bucks to spare go for it!

MECHAT – LOVE SECRETS

Story: This is just a fake dating app, there's no real story tying the characters together, each love interest has their own little story.

Where to play: Another mobile app (I swear there are other platforms at the end of the list)

Price: Technically free to play but it's one of those game where you have to pay so much game currency to have a choice that doesn't suck, so you might get frustrated and spend money to see if it gets better

Play Time: There's no beginning or end to this game, but each character story should last like an hour or something

Love Interest(s): There's a lot of varied characters of all gender you can choose from, just like a real dating app. Except with furries.

Main Character: You can choose your name and sexual orientation and for a game like that I think that's already a lot

LBGT Representation: Like I said, you can find anyone on there so yeah it ain't a straight game

Game Mechanics: It's just a fake dating app with some 'real life' date parts. Nothing much to add.

Fandom: No real fandom as far as I've seen, but at least people are talking about it

Personal Opinion: If you're bored and horny (cause yeah this game is pretty horny) you can go do one or two stories but the wait for the currency makes you give up on the game pretty quickly but if you download this app you already know what to expect. If you're a fan of story-based visual novels like me this is not it honey

MONSTER PROM

Story: You're a monster going to high-school. You need a date to prom. Need I say more?

Where to play: You can get the game either on Steam or switch

Price: The base game is like 12$ but there's a bunch of dlc or sequels to the game if you want to spend more money

Play Time: The game says a full route takes around an hour but it's definitively less. Or not, don't look at me for answers.

Love Interest(s): I'm only talking about the base game so there's 6 love interest, including 3 girls. You can either pursue the typical bad guy demon, the himbo werewolf, the hipster vampire, the girlboss medusa, the life of the party ghost or the tyrannical princess mermaid.

Main Character: You can choose one of 4 characters to play: a Frankenstein gal, a zombie boy, a fire hottie or a dark humanoid blob. You can then choose their name and pronouns.

LBGT Representation: No set gender MC which means everyone is gay. There's also some space prince dude or something that hit on your love interests sometimes? And one of the DLCs includes a trans girl eldritch horror. Pretty gay game.

Game Mechanics: To get into a route, you gotta go to school to change your stats, each characters having necessary stats to romance them. You can also play this game with other people and race them to see who gets who first! Damn I wish I had friends

Fandom: The people know about this game but the fandom is not thriving as far as I've seen. Not a big fandom but it's existent at least

Personal Opinion: Ok real talk this game is absolutely hilarious. Everything is stupidly overdramatic and it's great! Ok there's barely any story but it's not a story driven game so it's good. If you have a few hours to spare to have a good laugh, buy this game. But if you're looking for a gut wrenching love story, this ain't it.

ERROR 143

Story: You're a hacker. You decide to hack another hacker who stole your first place. This loser hacker hacks you back and starts talking with you. You start to get feelings, oops

Where to play: On Steam and Itch.io

Price: This game is fully free yay

Play Time: Like, 2 hours? It's a rather short game

Love Interest(s): There's only one love interest here: Micah Yujin. He's a dorky little shit who's probably chronically online

Main Character: You can choose your name and pronouns, the MC doesn't have a mentioned appearance.

LBGT Representation: That dude ain't straight, and there's no other characters so congrats on the fully gay game

Game Mechanics: Works like a normal visual novel who doesn't look like a visual novel. There's some hacking hangman mini-games but it's not really important to win.

Fandom: Small fandom but for a 2 hours long dating sim by god they are here, I've seen medias with 10x the amount of official content have less fandom than that.

Personal Opinion: This game is funny, pretty and the voice acting is godly. Not a huge plot to it but that's alright, just a small feel good game and for free?? If you like dating sims you gotta play it, it's really great!

[rigelmejo]

50% rule - half study, half have fun

I saw this article about the 50% rule linked on a language learning form. It is an article about art: how when you draw, try to draw 50% of the time just for fun. For yourself, for the sake of drawing and getting it to become something you enjoy and that can be imperfect. If you study, like in drawing that would be following lessons or utilizing references and trying to emulate something or practicing techniques, then try to only spend 50% of your time doing those study activities you aim to do "well" and improve with.

The idea of spending 50% just drawing for the fun of it, for the sake of creating something, not caring if it's that nebulous definition of "not good enough," it's really worth doing. For one, it's stress relieving and makes drawing something more enjoyable, and as humans it genuinely makes us feel good to CREATE things just for the sake of expressing ourselves. To get to create things, make whatever we picture and even if it doesn't come out the way we'd hoped at least it exists now? It's a release. It's letting your ideas and things you want, get a chance to really exist, when perfectionism otherwise might mean you avoid ever even trying. At least, to start to exist: because you might always try an idea again later, make it differently next time, make it again in a couple years when you're more capable. But the point is: try making it now too. Whatever you want, try, and enjoy the process.

(And as someone who's been drawing since I could hold drawing utensils as a toddler, to be honest with you a LOT of improvement in drawing skills naturally happen as you attempt to draw things you "can't" draw. Because at first, you can't draw anything. You have to draw a face, imperfectly, to figure out HOW to draw a face a little bit different the next time - and the next time - and the next time - and you start being excited how the outcome is closer to what you imagined each time. I didn't actually "practice" drawing until I was 9 and started looking at cartoons, trying to draw based on how a cartoon looks, and trying to get closer to that. Everything before that was just imagining stuff, trying, and it gradually getting closer to what I imagined. And even after learning how to look at references and try to emulate them, and learning techniques like shading, in the end a lot of drawing improvements still came from me going "I'd like to draw someone dancing/flying/holding someone/from an angle above their head" even though I 'didn't know how to' and had never tried before, so I tried, somewhat successful and somewhat not what I imagined, and then the NEXT time I tried? It got closer to my imagination, and closer, and eventually it was no longer hard to draw someone flying or holding someone. What I'm saying is: creating something just for the sake of it, even if you don't know how to make what you imagine yet, is worth it for many reasons).

The language learning forum linked this article, because the idea was "in language study, at least sometimes, just use the language" whether that's talking to a friend, reading novels, watching shows you like, podcasts, audiobooks, writing a journal and not correcting your errors. Spend at least some time using the language, while giving yourself the space to NOT stress yourself out about mistakes or gaps in understanding. That time can help you get used to using the language, just to use it, and just making a habit of using the language as a normal regular thing you do. I thought that was a great suggestion. Especially because I tend toward perfectionist, so reminders to "give myself space to BE imperfect" is always worth hearing.

The advice can also apply to writing too. (I don't if I've told you all I write, but I could post my writing in-progress rants on here if anyone's into that. Mostly I post the writing-progress-updates on @mejomonster under #mejo writing). Just the idea that: yes, 50% of the time you might be checking your grammar, or reading an author you like and noting their writing style and trying to brainstorm how to do some similar things, writing a story outline, writing a chapter and really draining yourself by second-guessing what style you're doing and what kind of narration you're aiming for and what you want the audience to know and thinking about the process a lot.

But the other 50%, or at least some of the time, try to just... write. Fanfiction of course can be a good outlet for this, because it's not for profit and not as high pressure due to that, and you can just think "well I'm writing for myself, if I want to write something wild and out of character that makes no sense and is unfinished and only 300 words then I can!" Also journals, and giving yourself permission to write poetry or songs that don't think about rules. But also just: you have a ton of stories in your mind, your imagination. It's okay to try and create them, even if you think you don't have the skills yet to make them that nebulous goal of "good enough." You can always try making that story again later, years down the road. But part of the skills of how to make it, you'll get BY trying to make it. And even if you don't ever try to make it again, it will be satisfying in it's own way to be able to say "this only existed inside me, and now here it is in words people can read, that I can reread if I ever forget this story idea I thought was interesting/fun/meaningful/cool/important etc., it exists beyond me now and it was fun just letting myself make it." I didn't know I could EVER write a long story until I wrote a long fanfiction, and then it taught me I could - and what parts I liked and didn't, and what parts of my writing I loved when I just let loose and let words come out like I was in a flow state. I have these scraps right now where I write one story idea I have like it's letters and journal entries, which is not my usual style at all, and it's fun to see what comes out when I try it.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Ooh an ask game! I love those things lol!

1, 11, 14, 23, 24 (I'm sorry if that's a lot)

1. Do you listen to music when you write?

Almost never. It's distracting. If I do manage to get into the writing groove with it on, I never noticed it anyway, so...purpose?

11. Books and/or authors who influenced you the most?

So let's go back to what I really liked in middle school, shall we, as that was some of the most formative writing years for me personally.

The Fearless books

The Night Room (to be fair, I still love this one)

10 Things to Do Before I Die (ditto)

The Pendragon Adventures (ahhhh, the nights I spent up late reading and reading this and wondering about the plot twists)

Like, so many Star Wars books aimed at middle schoolers

Roger Zelazny short fiction. So much.

This is a pretty heavy mix of stuff, but here's some things I know from them that impacted my writing:

The very, very close narration style

The short sentences, paragraphs, and chapters

The incredible vagueness that's meant to unfold as you read and understand it better after a reread or two or many

Trusting readers to figure things out maybe a little too much (I'm working on dialing this back--things like Zelazny and The Night Room were so captivating to me because they didn't fully make sense to me at first, and I often just end up being confusing)

Quippy tangents

Dealing with heavy stuff and off the wall concepts

As of late, I've also been really strongly trying to incorporate some of my more recent loves with things like really trying to emulate the plotting of Miyoshi and Takeuchi and the visual layout of things to adapt to my own writing, and really committing to some of the relationship work and symbolism that makes Jeweler Richard feel so rich. Committing to be strange and vague with what feelings mean. To commit to the Queer, not just the LGBTQIAP+

I think Rob Thurman's writing was what convinced me maybe I could actually write a book with queer characters in it that wasn't like. "Schlock" I think was the word I used most about it back then, because I mostly saw queer characters in really awful BL anime back then or as jokes.

14. How do you deal with self-doubts?

Whine on Twitter and maybe Tumblr and Discord, make sure I took my meds, go to bed, wake up and go back to writing. Eat some ice cream and cry about how I suck at my friends.

(Being my friend is difficult)

23. Favorite author?

Don't have one. I have a number of authors I admire for different things and different craft elements I want to emulate. There's no one specific author I think is best at those things, who I want to emulate most, or whose works I most enjoy. There's just a lot of things I like and want to learn and grow to be more like in various directions.

24. Favorite genre to write and read?

Fantasy and sci-fi, for sure. Always have been.

And after that, probably romance and YA. I write YA fantasy and sci-fi most often in novel form, especially lately, although I've also written plenty of adult ones, and a lot of short fiction in both YA and adult.

Yes, I'm aro, but I like a compelling, well-written romance. I like people being special to each other, and that's a really common way they're special to each other.

But I gotta be in the mood, because sometimes all romance tastes rotten.

[team-council-two]

Question for alpha ! (ignore my name it's fine just don't read it no reason to)

It's not really about tf2 or anything,, but it's still a question !

So, I've been meaning to learn French, as I'd find it way easier to write fics with my favorite characters in them, and also super good bragging material /j

i just want to know where to start? DeepL translate has been a lifesaver, yes, but it is still a small bit weird, sometimes not. using the right words, like turning "surprised" into "scared and then "scared" into "frightened."

i think i may find it way easier to just. learn the language.

Advice?

what do you m

Yeah imma pretend i didnt see that

Anyways. How to learn French, huh ? okay so this will be long

DISCLAIMER

I *am* French so I never had to "learn" French to speak it or read it. So i in fact will be relaying advice based on how I managed to learn English.

You really have three options here. The decade long, bullshit, no money free way which gives you shitty grammar, the painful serious method where you bit the bullet and open grammar books n shit, or the somewhat sensical, fastest and most efficient and foolproof ableit possibly costly way.

the bullshit method is what i did. I was vaguely taught basic English shit like some verbs (do, can, be, have, etc) and a couple words here and pronouns and blah blah by school, then i went on the internet at the ripe age of 13 or some shit. I read in English a lot, tried to talk and slowly built myself a vocabulary half through plugging what words i didn't understand in a translation engine (NOT the full sentences, only that. It forces you to place the word back in a sentence and think about said word in its language), half through trying to vaguely deduce stuff by myself through context clues, and while I write in a somewhat understandable way I do not know how to pronounce any of what I write (i lacked actual spoken english having medias in my diet, due to being a subs-reading weeb and neither into american movies nor youtubers). Took a good decade to get where i am right now and the way i handle my sentences is. Errr. Uniquely fucked up. i am not aware of it at alls, so i cannot explain but. Yeah. Still. It can get you here, but that's a lot of time and not for the best result.

What you CAN pick up from this method and port over to the serious one is reading in French and watching French movies. Avoid internet users tho these bitches spell ça va "sava" yikes lol anyways. This is mostly because a language won't stick without some kind of interaction with it. This is a widely known fact so i'm probably pulling a sky's blue, bears shit in the woods here. Still, shit matters. Binge the fucking taxi movies and sit down in front of some goddamn Astérix. anyways the serious method is just this but you actually read up on how the language is constructed, with its technical shit. im not sure how to do this unfortunately so i cant provide much more

If you want to be serious you get a goddamn real person to teach you, to explain you, hey here's how you build a sentence, forcing you to talk in French and to remember words and their meaning and shit, and also sitting here for your questions, to point out to you cultural stuff, slangs and so on. Self taught can be a trap. Courses like Duolingo really are good solely for reminding you to practice and teaching you to identify some verbs/words so you can somewhat start reading and vaguely get your head wrapped around the pronunciation (tho it can be faulty i heard), but its teachings grammar wise are lackluster at best, and this fucking method seems to be consistent because these things just emulate the "if you read a lot of a language with the translation you learn it" stuff i mentioned earlier except even more isolating, and you wind up with people like my gothfriend that have a year long streak on French and that still feel like they cannot wrap their head around the language at all. So yeah. This is a supplement at best. I'm trusting Ray to follow up on this post to rant about this because they are a language teacher and they'll likely have more on the topic. I personally tried to learn italian, german and polish on this. Result ? I was using french as a crutch for italian, english for german, and couldn't get through a single exercise for polish. Total learned despite 100 day streak and doing the courses both in french and english : 0

As for translation engines, I personally use WordReference. It is hand curated, accounts for a lot of slangs, includes context clues, is wonderful navigation wise for tapping back and forth between words to see what they say, it has a forum for more specific questions... It never failed me tbh.

[iztopher]

hi. at this point it may be evident what i'm about to say. but for that ask meme: ALL OF THE QUESTIONS

JHFDASK YESSSS okay here we go!!!

1. Art programs you have but don't use: Clip Studio Paint!! I pretty much ONLY use it for the grid and text feature, otherwise I don't like the workflow haha

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even): Drawing in profile is the same to me from either direction, but for 3/4 view, I naturally gravitate towards / find it easier to draw people facing left

3. What ideas come from when you were little: Since I've been into Aveyond for so long, and that's what I mostly draw, I have a lot of ideas that pretty much originated as "I wanted to draw this as a kid and didn't have the skill to"!

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw: Te'ijal and also Galahad. it's the hair.

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself: Finished art I'd say I share a good 90% of it! Once we get into sketches... hoo boy, maybe 40%?

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it): Whatever this is, it's either too specific to the piece or too subconscious for me to think of it

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate: traditional illustration, painting, watercolor...

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in: A heads up that my answer to this is sad but I'm trying to talk about this type of stuff relatively openly, so: spring 2021, I watched Willy's Wonderland for the first time w/ Ishti + Moonie; we kept talking about a Galahad & Mel AU for it. I had two pictures for it planned, and I drew one of them, and... the timing worked out where Moonie never got to see it, and I've lost the motivation to do the second one. But I like the first one and I'm glad I drew it and I take some comfort/peace in the fact that I was working on something I was excited to share with her at the time.

9. What are your file name conventions: I have a folder for all my art, a subfolder for every year, and then a subfolder for every month, which means there isn't that much overlap! so unless I have a funny title idea my file name conventions are generally pretty straightforward: "mella1.sai", "teijalahad.sai", "teijalstudy.sai" etc etc

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw: Does armor count? If not, gambesons.

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what: Yes!!! Pretty much always music, occasionally video essays. Usually I'll pick a song and play it on loop, or if I'm in the mood for more variety I'll pick a playlist or an artist and listen through that. I also really like drawing while on call with people.

12. Easiest part of body to draw: I'm so sorry for my answer. Boobs.

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing: I'm not sure I have an answer for this one, actually - there's a lot of artists I like the work of who I wouldn't want to emulate, but that feels different to me?

14. Any favorite motifs: Not really, in theory I really love flowers but I almost never draw them

15. *Where* do you draw (don't drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth): I used to draw pretty much everywhere, but post chronic pain it's my desk only because using a tablet hurts wayyy less than a sketchbook!

16. Something you are good at but don't really have fun doing: Landscapes / natural areas from photographs lol

17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what: Water ALL the time, coffee if it lines up properly

18. An estimate of how much art supplies you've broken: Very few!! Probably less than 10. I mostly draw digitally

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.): ARMOR AND WEAPONS

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy: Hands and armor!

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways: Honestly the art styles unlike mine that I like tend to be ones... I wish I had... I'm really drawn to realistic, somber, softer stuff

22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any: Tendon gliding exercises! Tbh I should start doing more, it might help

23. Do you use different layer modes: VERY rarely, mostly not

24. Do your references include stock images: Yessss

25. Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by: I KNOW this has happened but I'm totally blanking on it

26. What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended: I'm not sure if this counts but pretty much any time I get a "cute!" response on a te'ijalahad picture I'm like oh no please do not say that,

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with: I tend to warm up by drawing a headshot of the character I'm going to be drawing, but lately I've been trying to shift to warm ups that are more focused on like, the action of drawing and loosening up

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines): I participated in a zine that ended up not happening, and I've done several fandom exchanges!! Mostly the Aveyond Winter Exchange, but also the Oneshot Podcast Network exchange on AO3 (yeah it was AO3 but I did art for it)

29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically: Infinity Train!!! absolutely adore it, the art style doesn't really inspire me at all & because I got into it in the thick of my hand pain I never got used to drawing it

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated: None! I mostly draw Aveyond so pretty much all of my art is in the 1-10 response zone so it all feels pretty consistent gdjkgklsdf

[azapofinspiration]

Writer Interview Game

Tagged by @grassbreads

When did you start writing?

Uh, I started attempting to write my own stuff around 5th/6th Grade (though not much came of that; most of my own stories and characters just turn in the microwave of my brain rather than on the page).

Writing fanfic though (which is most of my writing) is a bit different. I had a friend who wrote fanfic in middle school (though I didn't know that it had a name and community online) that I would read over and proofread/edit for. So I was also inspired to write a couple fanfics and lines for my fave series at the time, Inuyasha and Chrono Crusade.

But I didn't know what fanfic was and actually start writing regularly until I was in college. I was looking for official art, stumbled into fan art, which then lead to fanfiction on FF.Net and the rest was history.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I do read smut when the mood takes me and I don't write that at all. Though admittedly, depending on the context, sometimes I kinda zoom through the sex stuff to get to whatever catharsis or crisis the characters are going through in that setting. The closest I've gotten to writing that is just fading out and implying sex happened.

Other than that, I read and write hurt/comfort, fluff, angst. Fantasy, adventure, slice of life. I mostly stick to what I know and only occasionally dip my toes in elsewhere.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

As a kid, I wanted to emulate the author of HP. I no longer wish to do that for obvious reasons, though part of me still admires how back in the day her works spurred practically a whole generation to read.

I know once someone told me that a poem I wrote was a similar style to Robert Frost's but that's the only time I really remember someone comparing my work to another author (and I don't think I was even a teenager yet). I don't usually write much poetry anyway so it's kinda a moot point. Usually when people talk about my work, comparisons aren't much of a factor.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

My writing space is mostly my apartment, usually either my bed or my couch/love seat. I use a laptop to do most of my writing, though I have on occasions used my phone if I'm compelled to write elsewhere or need to be sneaky about it.

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

It's just a hobby for me, so I write as I can when I can. The coming up with ideas is usually the easy part. The actual getting them written down and comprehensible to others (and motivating myself to do so) is the hard part.

I've got tons of ideas rotating in my brain, mostly for fanfic but also for my OCs in the way back.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

I mean, I do write a lot of hurt/comfort. While I do write angst, I don't like completely hopeless endings. I like something that allows at least a smidge of hope to linger.

I guess if there's anything close to a theme, it's about people being there to support each other. I've written this as family, friends, and romantic partners. Actually, a lot of my shipping fics are in an amibiguous, is it romantic or platonic zone, because I don't necessarily care about the specifics as long as they're together and supporting each other.

What is your reason for writing?

I think it's fun even though it can be a lot of hard work. And I like to get these ideas out of my brain and share them with others.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I've often been told that my characterization is really strong and feels true even when I do AU settings completely different from canon. I also think my dialogue has gotten a lot more natural sounding over the years.

How do you feel about your own writing?

I like it. Sure, when I've just posted a fic, I may be fed up with it due to all the writing and editing and proofreading I've been doing, but I'll eat it up the same as any other fic or story I read within just a couple of weeks. I write the stuff that I wish I could read and want to put my own spin on, so of course, I do usually like my writing - even if upon reading it I suddenly notice grammar, spelling, or word errors that weren't caught in all the proofreading and spellchecks I did.

Still, overall, I do like my writing and I'm proud of how far it's come.

Now, perhaps if I could just get some stuff written about my OCs...

For whoever wants to do this, feel free to try this game yourself. I'll tag @theroadtosomewhere and @xlillyle to play if they want to (no pressure).

[drizzileiscool]

Pelipper Mail!

-A blue coat and large Chargestone Cave rock for Cobalt,

-A poster that displayed a current-day Palkia (As current-day as a Samurott living between the Ghetsis 1 and Ghetsis 2 eras could get, anyway,) and a purple-and-blue lava lamp for Crys,

-And a Toxic Orb, Sobble, Drizzile, and Inteleon plushies, and a custom-made TM03 Water Pulse for Azure!

"I am SO sorry for the late arrival for these gifts. I was focused on doing so much for Delibird Day, and I totally forgot that I didn't send you three's gifts yet! But... It's done now. I really hope you enjoy these!

Have a wonderful holidays, dudes! All of you!"

-@thatoneguy031

oh wow!!! thanks so much for all of this stuff!!

i don't think I need the toxic orb right now, since I've mostly forgotten about that weird makeshift move emulator thing I've been working on, but it's still nice to finally own one! and this tm as well, how do you even make one of those!? i mean, paldea does have this machine that creates tms, but I thought those machines only existed there! and all these plushies as well, they all look so cute!! is it weird that I'm calling the drizzile plushie cute while cobalt is here? I don't want him to get the wrong idea..

..you know we're sharing a body right now, right? I know what you mean, and to be honest I also don't think of you as more than a friend either. so.. thanks for calling the drizzile plushie cute?

... I guess it does look pretty cute. I mean, just look at that smile! and the eyes too!

even so, drizzile plushies seem IMPOSSIBLE to come by these days! how did you manage to find one? they're almost always going for around 90,000 pokedollars, and silph, the only company that produced drizzile plushies, stopped creating them sometimes last year! these are actually really rare! they might not be as rare in your world, but its still extremely hard to come by one over here!

I'd give you three some gifts as well for delibird day, but literally none of us know how this "pelipper mail" thing works here. sorry about that..

So, what's with this weird rock looking thing.... oh right, I guess nobody really knows enough about me. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not complaining. I appreciate this gift, so thanks for getting it for me!

I'm getting a weird electric sensation whenever I touch it, that's pretty neat! I wonder what would happen if I put it near crys's poketch...

HEY! COBALT! NO! DONT YOU EVEN TRY TOUCHING MY POKETCH! THIS IS THE LATEST MODEL!

Oh wait, did I hear something about delibird day? There's a ton of stuff here near azure's phone... is some of this for me? there's only 2 things left..

Oh, neat! A lava lamp! I've always wanted one of these! The colors on this seem really cool, too! Thanks!

So, what's this other thing on the ground? It looks like a poster of some sort.. there's nothing on it.. I think it may need to be flipped over...

.....

OH MY- IS THAT PALKIA?? THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I LOVE PALKIA!!!

THAT'S THE POKEMON THAT GAVE ME NEW LIFE AS A LAMPENT!!! Oh yeah, dialga's also there in the background too, I guess.

That reminds me, I was actually planning on visiting snowpoint later this week to see how much it's changed! I also plan on visiting snowpoint temple, and the temple of sinnoh as well if I get the chance.

thanks so much for all these gifts!

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

I think they went with kotone and makoto bc that's what Puzzle and Dragons did iirc; and speaking of how've the p3 and 4 ports been for ya if you got to them? I've heard they're both not that good lol

Yeah I know it's cause of that, and I HATED it when they did that too. But at the time I could give Atlus the benefit of the doubt that "oh it's just a placeholder for a collab!"

I just hate the crisscrossing of canons, it makes it very messy. Because now it's like "well why don't we just use Souji Seta then? I mean at least he has more in common with Game!Yu than Anime!Yu!" Doesn't help that Kotone (and when I say Kotone I mean the stage play only) and PQ2!FeMC don't feel like the same person. I dunno maybe I just need to watch more of the stage play, but Kotone feels a bit more sassy/dry humored at times. Like both can be lil shits but they have a different approach to it.

ANYWAY! As for the ports, haven't bought them yet. Waiting for a sale. 1) No physical means I'm in no rush to buy, 2) Which means I can wait for a sale, 3) I don't have time atm anyway (doing other stuff).

I heard it's mostly P3P that's having issues. I agree with some of the criticisms, it claiming it's a remaster is stupid, cause it's barely a touched up port. I think they should've added the skill inheritance thing (SMT3 did it, was it really that hard/bad to do?). Like I had no expectations of them adding really anything, but you'd think they could do just that. Well....no problem, reloading a fusion in P3P isn't as bad as FES so.... 8U

I stand by P3P is fine, but it should've been called a port not a remaster. Shame Atlus still couldn't do that and pissed on it's grave tho. u_u (if I was playing, I probs still enjoy it)

I also have a nice save file going on my fan remastered emulator anyway so I'd probs just play that just for it's new/fresh experience. If anyone got me, I know P3P modders got me!

[riverxkeichains]

4 Days Later, So Far...(UPDATE!!!)

WARNING: THIS IS LONG!

4 Days Later, After coming back from work? I looked at my Tumblr Account.

...

HoLySHIT!

I Didn't Expect This to happen So Far, I got 50+ likes? and Some Reblogs on my Mavis x Rosie Art? Omg...

*Screams, Cries of Joy*

I'M SHOOK, SURPRISED, AND I'M SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS AT THE SAME TIME!!

And you Know? I Think I got there So Far.

Okie Okie Sorry About that I got really Excited there, Because my other art and post either got little likes + Reblogs or Noun of them stuff, And This? I didn't really expect to get this much likes and some reblogs on my Mavis x Rosie Art ;;v;;.

Alright *takes a deep breath* Allow me to introduce myself For all time sake, For those of you Who don't Know? Hi My name is River K.C., However you can call me R.K.(Mainly), Rio, Keithlyn, Keith, Kei, R.K.C.M., or any nickname as long as it's not rude. I'm a user who post a lot of My Art for the most part, sometimes shitpost and Personal stuff(Not all, Since I rather not reveal most of them and Will for the most part, keep things a Secret. I'm very protective towards my Life and History, So NEVER EVER! ask me questions such as my age, my real name, or even asking me to do a face reveal -.-, So Please Don't  ask me those type of personal questions~). As of Recently I've been getting a Tons of likes, Some Reblogs, on my Recent Art and Honestly I can't Thank you all enough. This Is just Beautiful, Like Really Beautiful, That I didn't expect That I would get This much Likes. Like I said from the started I haven't get too much likes on any post form my other stuff for a very long time. Before I made this account I was once formerly using keixblade, Reason why I didn't uses Account anymore because I felt like I need a new Fresh Start of my blog and Things have been changing over the Years so That's why I decided to make a new blog and you know after making a new blog I've been starting to post again, such as my previous art, older post, welcoming myself, and I started to finally reblog for the first time which I haven't done in my old previous account. After that, I checked out my favorite artist, have plans to follow them soon. I don't usually post at the weeks but I'll definitely try my best to post my stuff at the weekends, You know Saturday, Sunday, But Sometimes Friday, I might be able to sometime post on the week of I had the free time to do so.

Story Time~! Before I made this Account and During Late March 2021, when I started to have some interest in TTTE for the first time, I looked up at some websites to research on the series and watched abit of Episodes about it(Thanks to Steve' Reviews Tugs, Thomas for PS1(Highly Recommend you all check it out if you had the JP PlayStation or an Emulator ;), and a Fan Animation That I won't tell because I'll talk about this in the Future, it's that one Fan Animation that I'll give a review on soon it's a pretty controversial one 😅 Yeah you know Exactly Why I'm Talking about, So DON'T Bash on me for this) So far It's Interesting, For the most part I Mostly got some Thomas info from the Wiki, Reddit, and Tumblr as well. When I did got to Tumblr, I check out some of the TTTE Art Most of them that I came across from my experience are really good :) But out of all the artist in the site? One Actually caught my interest and decided to check their blog out, their art is Beautiful and how amazing their Humanized Version of TTTE style is. And that blog I'm talking about is none other than @asktrio516, I always looked up to them, so much so that this was before when I started to come back to tumblr to started fresh. This blog gave me so much nostalgic feelings for some reason, not because of Thomas But Because of the human Version of these Characters, In Fact? This isn't my First Time That I look up to an artist for their art and for their humanized version form Another Show I'll take about soon(I Even alot of Fanart of this person's Human Version of these Characters, Again will make a separate post about it). So 2 months after Getting into Thomas for real, I saw the asktrio516 blog posting the Official Ships in their blog, Obviously I was very Excited when I saw it and In Fact? I Actually Loved Most of these Pairing that is Featured in this posted(Stay Tuned for the next post ;))). After reading the post, I saw one Pairing that Interested me and it was Mavis × Rosie, I always have this feeling that ngl? I always see them being together and wish they can have some Screen Time Together(Yes I know What's Going on but we don't Talk about that Disaster...yet....😤.....Damnit just God Damn You Mattle). So For A while? I've actually been planning on making an Mavis and Rosie Drawing in Emma's TTTE Human Designs. So it only took a quite for a while to get there, Reason I didn't do this sooner because of work, I had to help with my Friend, and I was very nervous yet shy at doing Mavis and Rosie being together at first. Thankfully with enough confidences and encouragement? In August, I ask the asktrio516 admin on Instagram if I can Asked something on tumblr, Fortunately they respond with yes(Honestly I was so Happy About It 😁) so at the same month, That's where I officially got my new Tumblr Account since I felt like my old Account is a bit dated and This is where I also have the confidence to ask the asktrio516 admin if I can draw Mavis with Rosie being together(Since Again they mentioned of having interested of doing this ship) and That's how the story goes c:.

I Really Apologize This is this So Frickin Long!

...

Again I Have to Thank all you all for the Likes and Reblog of my Mavis x Rosie Art for asktrio516 blog~ It really Means alot, and I definitely have to Thank asktrio516 She's one of my Inspiration and i'm glad they accept my permission for doing this art(I'm sorry but Thank you so Much and Also Happy Birthday Emma 🥳).

You know Because of that? I might post some more Thomas the Tank Engine stuff soon and Even at some point? Might make a Full on TTTE Side Account for both Normal and my TTTE AU(Since There's at times that I will posted other things that isn't Thomas related(Also more info of my TTTE AU Coming Soon-) Heck! I might do some more TTTE Ships Later, If there's a high demand for them from Me? I might able to do Murdoch × Arthur, Gordon × BoCo, Proteus × Lady, and Hiro × Henry Next(4 of one of my Favorite Underrated Pairings, there's more I will do but for now I'm putting the ones that people haven't heard of or haven't talked about that much, Yet~ ;;))).

Hell! I might even do my favorite popular Thomas the Tank Engine pairing soon.

(Don't ask why because I'll make a expiration soon on why I love them but for now, There's just something that They have in my taste of shipping)

Thank you for Reading this and Have a great day, Goodbye~☆.

[scifinal]

DW s12e10: It's Quite Unfortunate That This Child Keeps On Regenerating

It's only fitting that the first post on a blog called "SciFinal" should be about a season finale.

Not that fitting is the fact that in said post I'm going to begin where it all started for me.

Part One: How I Even Got into This Mess of a Show in the First Place

While I call myself a huge Doctor Who fan, even a – *gasp* – Whovian, I must admit I am not as familiar with the franchise as I would like to be; I've seen the new show, I've seen Torchwood (though, admittedly, I had to force myself to finish the fourth season – but that's a story for another day), I've listened to a handful of audio dramas (including Kaldor City, which I consider to be canon for both DW and Blake's 7) – mostly Torchwood audio dramas, but who cares, – I've read a couple of comics, I've got a novel or two somewhere on my bookshelf, I've seen the first couple of seasons of the classic show, but that's about it. I can't say I grew up with it – it wasn't on TV when I was a kid, there isn't an official Ukrainian dub, et cetera, et cetera. I first heard about it when I was about thirteen, when my classmate did a project about something they liked – and was pretty dismissive of my peers' hobbies at the time, believing myself to be somewhat above them, so I didn't pay much attention.

Then somebody finally pressured me into watching it (I believe I was fifteen or something back then) and I loved it. The first two episodes of the first season, I mean. I watched those, texted my friend something like "consider me a Whovian now!" and abandoned the show completely only to return to it maybe several years later.

I loved it. This time, for real.

Doctor Who has been with me ever since that time, it has a big soft spot reserved for each and every Doctor ever in my heart, and for each and every companion. I know full well it's cheesy, and it's stupid, and it's technobabble-y, and it's glorious in all of its cheesy technobabble-y stupidity.

And I hate this finale.

Part Two: Doctor, Why

I hate this finale – because I hate Chris Chibnall. Mind you, not the gentleman himself (I don't even know what he looks like, and I can't be bothered to Google), I hate what he did to Doctor Who.

Now, when it was revealed that the would replace Steven Moffat I felt... nothing. What did you expect? I had no idea who the man was. I know now he's made Broadchurch, and I know he wrote a bunch of stuff for Torchwood back in the day, including Cyberwoman. I had to drop Broadchurch because of how well-handled the depressing atmosphere was, and I love the flawed, dumb, sexy-cyber-bikinied, almost-fifteen-minutes-of-Ianto's-whining-including (I know because some time ago I literally cut almost every single moment of Gareth David-Lloyd whimpering, moaning, groaning, screaming, and mugging at the camera out of the episode and made those bits and pieces into a beautiful clip show called "I HATE THIS" to explain exactly why his face was and still is so punchable) mindless fun that is Cyberwoman (this is also one of the two episodes in which they actually do something fun with the pterodactyl living inside Torchwood's underground base). The latter also led to the creation of one amazing in how it develops Ianto's character audio drama entitled "Broken". I love Broken. I am now forcing you to look at its cover because of how much I love it.

Here we go. Now, back to the point of me rambling pointlessly

In his video "Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here's Why", a well-known YouTuber hbomberguy pointed out how Steven Moffat's problem is that he is more than capable of writing a good one-off episodes, but ultimately fails at managing multiple complex, overarching stories, as visible when you look at the difference between Moffat's individual episodes and his run on the show.

Now, I believe that Chris Chibnall suffers from the same affliction: he's a good screenwriter but a terrible, terrible showrunner. Sure, he's made Broadchurch, but Broadchurch, in its essence, was a complete singular story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There were no bigger, incomplete arcs expanding at the expense of other episodes, and the show did exactly what it was originally designed to do: it told an uninterrupted story.

Here comes Chris Chibnall's run on Doctor Who.

Now, while Steven Moffat was ultimately not very good at managing overarching stories, he tried to do so nonetheless, and the fans seemed to like his attempts. And while I can't be sure as to whether it was Chris' original vision for the show or he and his co-writers were merely trying to emulate Moffat, he attempted the same. A friend of mine has even pointed out how, to her, it was painfully obvious how the writers of the finale were desperately trying to copy Moffat's style (to give you some context, she grasped it from a 30-second clip of the CyberMasters' reveal, and that clip basically consisted of me filming my laptop's screen and laughing at their design, making the video wobbly and the audio distorted). At the time of writing this post this friend hasn't seen a single episode of Chibnall's era and, as far as I know, has no wish to do so – mainly because of two reasons that both have something to do with the finale:

Somebody's already spoiled it for her, so who cares;

I ranted to her about how shit this finale is and now she hates everything about Chibnall era.

I am very sorry for the latter, since I genuinely believe there are some nice episodes in these seasons, and I especially like the "historical" ones, they really are quite a lot of fun, I like Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison fighting badly CG-ed alien scorpions, I love Lord Byron and Mary Shelley running around a haunted house trying to escape from a Cyberman (even though it's all too similar to the Agatha Christie episode from Russel T Davies' run), I adore that episode about Rosa P–– oh, wait, no, that one was crap and ripped off Blake's 7... Anyway, I love Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, I am a big fan of Graham, I like Ryan just fine, and I can put up with Yaz, even though it's been two seasons and I've still got no idea what's her personality supposed to be, and I absolutely love the new Master (he reminds me of a cute little pug with a big Tommy gun). There is plenty of good stuff in these two seasons, they are lots of fun to watch, but this finale... Oh god, this finale.

Part Three: We Had All of Time and Space at Our Fingertips and We Ended Up with This

We are getting to the point of this whole thing. I would love to begin with the obvious, the twist, but there's so much wrong with this who-cares-how-many-parter than this one big thing.

It is inept. It is impotent. It is incompetent. It is bad at almost everything except its okay camera work, somewhat good (for a British TV show, I mean) effects, and its really solid performances.

Its editing is tone-deaf to the extreme. There is a moment in the final episode where Ko Sharmas asks who will be the first to cross the Boundary and step into the unknown, and immediately it cuts to Yaz walking towards it, all fast and silent. I would love to show you a clip of it, but I don't have one and I can't force myself to download the episode and sit through this shitshow again just to present you with a ten-second clip. Nonetheless, that part is not edited like a dramatic moment. You edit comedies this way. Bad comedies. Bad editors edit bad comedies this way.

Its plot is incoherent. There are several plot threads in this finale, and they're managed in a way that doesn't make the viewer care about all of them at the same time, rather the viewer goes "oh, I've completely forgotten this was happening" and then, before they can even begin to care, the show cuts to something else. It's all over the place and oh so annoying.

The plot armour is painfully obvious despite every attempt to disguise it. There wasn't a single, solitary second when I believed the Doctor was really going to sacrifice herself and, lo and behold, here comes the old guy ex machina to do it for her. The only questions I was asking at that moment were "How are the writers going to prevent the Doctor's death now that they've seemingly created themselves a way to go on forever?" and "How can Whittaker care so much about her performance in this scene she's literally almost crying?". I wholeheartedly related to the Master asking "So why are we still here?" and shout–– hiss–– mumbl–– whatever-ing "Come on, come on, come on!" – at that point I've suffered through at least forty-five minutes of utter nonsense, people going preachy, religious Cybermen with Dalek motivations, that absolutely ludicrous scene in the previous episode when the show was trying its worst to make me perceive autonomous flying Cyber-heads with laser eyes as a serious threat, a shit twist and... Oh.

I've got to finally touch on the shit twist, haven't I?

It doesn't make sense. No, I mean it. I guess it makes sense from the show's writers' standpoint to retcon everything in a way that would allow them to go on forever without having to come up with a way to circumvent limited regenerations, yes. And I won't be touching upon all the lore people say this twist has ruined. No. It doesn't make sense as it is.

The twist is revealed to us by a madman that claims to have hacked into a database, claims to possess control over the Doctor's mind, and gives the Doctor and the audience no actual solid proof that the Timeless Child is, indeed, the Doctor. We have Ruth, sure, and she's nice enough (damn, I want that vest), and she's a Timelord that happens to own a TARDIS that looks like a blue police telephone box, and she calls herself the Doctor. Here's Ruth:

I really like Ruth. She also makes no sense from the show's timeline standpoint, since the Doctor's Type 40 TARDIS only got stuck looking like a police box in 1963, so there's no reason for the Doctor to not remember being her.

We also know that the Judoon have identified Ruth as "the Fugitive"... except in one of their previous appearances in the show they weren't able to identify their targets exactly and thus were seeking out non-humans. There is a possibility that they were only looking for a Time Lord on Earth.

You know what? It's possible that Ruth is actually the Master messing with the Doctor. I have just as much proof of this as I have of the fact that the Doctor is some kind of an endlessly regenerating superbeing.

But this is not the most maddening thing here. I loathe it, but I don't loathe the twist itself: I loathe its lifelessness, I loathe how empty, how unemotional, almost robotic it feels. When somebody'd spoiled the finale for me, I got angry, and I started asking questions, and when later I saw the actual thing...

This gif. I can't even explain how accurate it is. I stood there, in the middle of my kitchen, episode paused, holding a cup of cold tea and desperately looking around as if in my surroundings I could somehow find that emotional reaction that this show failed to evoke. I was ready to burst into tears of how empty it felt, and how empty I felt, and how the same show that has Christopher Eccleston go from literally foaming at the mouth with pure hatred to shocked silence in a matter of second because of one sentence that you, a viewer, can't help but be astonished by failed to make me feel the tiniest speck of literally any emotion. And slowly, I felt that vast void in my chest fill with sheer, pure, flaming hatred for the person who made me feel nothing, for the story that left me not bored – but empty.

And the next moment, in its own unique way of being absolutely tone-deaf, the show introduces the CyberMasters, looking ridiculous, being asinine in concept, making me burst into laughter with their dumb design. Wow.

So.

Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who is no longer a show. Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who isn't even, as somebody on Stardust said, a fan fiction. It's a rollercoaster. A lackluster rollercoaster that lifts you from the vast caverns of frozen hell, devoid of any life whatsoever, soulless and abandoned, to the heavenly torture of being so bad, so utterly awful and ridiculous, that you can't help but laugh as you watch something you used to love be distorted and deformed to the point where you can't recognise it anymore nor really care. This is what Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who has become. And I'm going to continue my ride on that grotesque rollercoaster. I'm going to pirate that ride and get on it again. Because I'm a masochist. Because I want to feel something, even if it's hatred towards those that make me feel nothing.

Because some time ago my fifteen-year-old self watched the first season and learned a lesson that I hold dear after all these years – that I can't abandon hope, and that someday, somehow, things are going to get better. That the future is being written right now. That the future can change.

[blazehedgehog]

Regarding emulation, I've seen a video on YouTube by Nerrel called "Let's imagine a world without emulation" which I'd think you enjoy. It makes the argument that emulation is necessary to preserve old games. But I bring this up because some idiot tried to debunk the video (Poorly) with a rebuttal titled "Imagine a world without pirates" about how piracy is evil and they only want free stuff and fan games having no right to exist.

Man, I had a whole huge post typed out here and then Firefox acted like it was going to freeze, so I restarted my browser without realizing I never finished writing my response. I guess I’ll try to get back where I was…

What’s interesting to me in this video is the part where he talks about the idea that not everybody pirates games because they want to steal something without paying for it. His example is the Wii U emulator, CEMU, which is currently making over $6000 a month on Patreon. People sometimes emulate because they want features and convenience they can’t get anywhere else.

(Speaking personally, I installed CEMU recently because I didn’t want to keep digging out my Wii U to just replay a little bit of Mario Kart 8 every now and again)

The problem here is that Nintendo ascribes to specific mantras when it comes to providing users with customization options.

Nintendo games are so polished that the end-user shouldn’t want any options, because the ideal solutions have been found and implemented. In other words, it’s so good that you won’t want to change it.

Optional content is inefficient and expensive. Spending money to develop something only a fraction of their users will actually touch is a waste. (This also applies to why so many Nintendo games never had much in the way of bonus, post-game content until recently)

The ultimate takeaway here is that Nintendo is frugal to a fault. I’ve relayed the story before, about Gunpei Yokoi’s history in developing toys for Nintendo in the pre-video-games era, where he would boil concepts down to their bare parts and cut features to reduce manufacturing costs. This allowed Nintendo to undercut their competition while preserving the core of the experience. Not low effort, but laser-focused effort in a few important areas, with the potential for reaping high rewards.

This is the same company that deletes custom Smash Bros. arenas and Super Mario Maker levels for being “unpopular.” Speaking from personal experience in developing level editing tools, even the most complex Super Mario Maker levels probably aren’t much more than 50kb in size. This means that you could store millions of levels on a $10 64gb thumb drive. On a professional web server, we’re talking hundreds of billions of levels. Nintendo could store every Super Mario Maker level ever made for upwards of a decade and never have to worry about running out of space. And yet, they delete “unpopular” levels anyway.

Even if it only accounts for 2% of their profits, Nintendo can and will go for it as long as it’s easy enough. And, with regards to emulation, nothing is easier than the pennies spent on ink and paper for a Cease & Desist notice. Again, one single act of laser-focused effort with exponential benefits.

What’s interesting is that Sega kind of used to do this. Back in the day, there was a site called Sonic-Cult, and they were a research hub in to beta versions of Sega games. They also hosted lots of things that made Sega unhappy; development kits, leaked versions of games before they officially released, things like that. So, Sega would send them Cease & Desist notices.

Sonic-Cult was the misfit scourge of the Sonic community back then. They openly terrorized anyone at length that drew their ire. When Sega sent a takedown notice, Sonic-Cult gave them the middle finger. “Freedom of information” and all that, but also “screw you for trying to control us.”

Sega backed down. It was more trouble than it was worth.

Which makes me wonder about Nintendo. When Nintendo sends a takedown notice, people comply outright. Nobody challenges them. Nintendo, whose wallets are ever tightened, pennies constantly pinched, gets to steamroll their way all over their most dedicated fans with minimal effort. If Pokemon Uranium is to be believed, they quit exclusively out of fear, not because Nintendo sent them a letter.

What would happen if somebody actually pushed back? At what point would the benefit be overshadowed by the investment, for Nintendo?

Now, Nintendo is no stranger to putting real legal muscle behind its threats, but mostly that’s towards raids on huge piracy rings in China. For something like AM2R, Nintendo actually stands to gain very, very, very little should they take it to court. Would they really do it?

Obviously, people respect Nintendo. Hence why they comply with Cease & Desist notices, sometimes even sight unseen. Sonic-Cult, for all their baditude bravado, often acted more like they had a deathwish. They pretended to be invincible, but it’s not hard to imagine an alternate universe where that backfired on them hard.

Sega vs. Sonic-Cult was also over 15 years ago at this point. Nowadays, you can’t even get away with hosting files on your own personal server as a means to escape the long arm of the law. One phone call to your ISP, and suddenly that server you’re running from your bedroom is forced offline.

All of this is theoretical, of course; but given Nintendo’s precedents, it’s an interesting train of thought to have.