#it's such a neat feature that i totally didn't try out

[lizardlicks]

You know that walrus vs fairies thing is a really good example of suspension of disbelief and how poor writing can immediately ruin it.

Further, it's a good example of how propaganda and indoctrination can be broken.

Check this out: if you are asked to believe something by a person who presents themselves as an authority about a subject in which you have little to no experience, you have no ground to question them on. Even if it seems fake, human brains are really good about going, "that doesn't sound right, but I don't know enough about [thing] to dispute that." We have to specifically train ourselves to stop and go do our own research. And if it's a big, complicated topic which you're brand new to, that's really intimidating!

This is a feature rather than a bug of being a social species. Collectively, we store far more knowledge than anyone if us could store individually. It means that even if you have never seen a walrus in your life, you can be reasonably confident that you still "know" that they're large, tusked, aquatic mammals which tend to favor colder water and they don't really go farther inland than a couple miles.

It also means that you are primed to accept new information on a subject with which you have little to no direct experience: e.g. fairies are real, you just didn't know that until now.

Propaganda and indoctrination work because they're presented as authoritative sources on subjects that the target audience doesn't have much experience with. That also means those can be combatted by research and first hand experience. Multiple times I've seen posts from people who climbed out of the weeds of Q Anon because one of those secret info drops started making claims about subjects that the person was something of an expert in: electricity, infrastructure, medicine, engineering.

It's also why you can get so into reading a great fantasy or sci-fi novel that has otherwise stellar writing and world crafting, then suddenly get kicked right out of it again when the author, say, has a character fall into a convenient, non-magical coma for a month, or they start walking on a bad fracture after a couple of days without some fancy technological assistance. You have a body, and you might not be a doctor, but you can know enough to understand that's not how bodies generally work, and if the author has not previously established that their characters aren't human and work totally differently, a pall of doubt and frustration taints everything that comes there after.

Idk where I'm going with this. I just think it's neat! Definitely something to keep in mind when trying to effectively communicate with people, regardless of if you're trying to educate or simply entertain.

[unnamed-axolotl]

HAAANDSS I've always prided myself on being able to draw them so HERES A FUN LITTLE THINGY I DID!!! Tried to get a good variety of hands here. With the humans, ranging from young child to older child to adult, plus a couple of skin tones and features. Then with the animatronics, what the difference is between a harshly-put-together robot vs. an actually well-put-together animatronic.

(AND AS A BONUS their handwriting and how I think they'd draw smilies!!!!)

HEADCANONS UNDER THE CUT, written in the order I drew them in, not the order they appear.

I started with Michael. I was originally going to make him a lot more worn out, but just kept it simple probably for the sake of my sanity. A good few scars from the stuff he's went through. He probably has rather good handwriting because he's had a lot of practice both with legal documents and probably journaling. (Not really taking into account the Logbook here. It totally wasn't because I don't know what his handwriting looks like off the top of my head and was too lazy to get out of bed and get the book to reference.) He does a pretty generic smiley face, too.

Cassie was next. I don't really draw human hands with fingernails a lot so that was a challenge. The idea here was to make a hand that was that of an older kid, but obviously not as big or with fingers as long as Michael's are, for example. I played with her skin tone for a little bit, and I'm not too experienced with working in color, so please do let me know if there's anything I can improve upon when I do darker skin tones in the future! I was trying to get that lighter tone on her underhand but wasn't too positive about it. I also gave her some funky little bracelets, one of which is a direct copy of a bracelet that my lovely friend (@masquayla-the-splendid) for me. Cassie probably has fairly decent handwriting and definitely dots her i's with hearts when she writes her name. She tries to make the smiley faces look cute.

Evan's turn! I headcanon Evan to be much younger, so I made his hands smaller and stubbier. He's pretty pale because of the whole dying thing, and he's got some freckles and moles, sort of inspired by my own hand in a way! I've got little moles everywhere so I figured I'd incorporate that into his design, partly as a way to add more flair to an otherwise plain base. Other than that, not much going on here. He's got messier handwriting because he's a kid, and in my AU he didn't really get to go to school for all that long, so his siblings probably taught him how to write before he died. The brain damage probably doesn't help much either. He's trying his best.

For Sun and Moon, initially I couldn't decide which one of the two to color. As I was making the base I was thinking pretty hard about it, but ultimately figured out that I could probably just split it down the middle, and it worked! I've been trying to give the Daycare Attendants longer fingers to reflect how their hands look in the games. I couldn't make their hands too big because it either looked stupid to me or took up too much space, so I settled with this. I also gave them little scratches on their fingerpads. Sun and Moon have different signatures, with Moon's being a little more neat while Sun's is more fun and just a tad messier. He also overdecorates a bit. Moon stays simple with his smiley faces and Sun loves to express Big Happiness in his.

Ennard's hands (particularly their wrists where their wires tangle together like that) never look the same twice when I draw them, but I like to think the placement of their wires probably changes fairly frequently too, like a Double Rex Rat who has a new coat pattern every few days. Their wires have tarnished over time, but they try to maintain just a little bit of glint, despite the rusting, which is particularly noticeable in the spots where their fingertips brush against things most often. They've also got those little stray wires that poke out of each fingertip. Of course, holding any kind of writing utensil with those Big Meaty Claws has gotta be difficult, so even if they try their hardest, it's not gonna turn out great. Same with their smiley faces. They're doing their best.

[katy-l-wood]

deviantART, Twitter, and the Death of the Social Media Subscription (And why tumblr might be getting it right.)

Okay, so I've been thinking about making this post for the last couple weeks since Twitter started melting down, and now deviantART is melting down as well which adds an interesting new twist. This post isn't going to discuss AI art directly, but I will touch on userbase feedback/administrative response in relation to what happened with dA.

Firstly, a little background on me: I grew up on dA. It was my first social media site and for a long time my only one. I started using it without an account when I was around 10/11 and made my first account when I was 12 in 2007 (which, of course, involved lying about my age). From then on I LIVED there. I uploaded art, I joined and ran contests, I became a volunteer for the forums in my mid teens, I alpha and beta tested new features, I wrote detailed write-ups of new feature launches, I watched the site launch multiple new versions of itself, I filled out feedback surveys, and I paid for years of subscriptions before I got seniority from being a former volunteer. Hell, they even offered me a job once, but I was 18 and no amount of money in the world would make me willingly move to Hollywood where they were based.

Point is, I was tuned in. Immensely. So what I'm talking about here? It's from that point of view.

dA has had subscriptions the entire time I was a member. They were always relatively affordable and offered you features that made the site better, but if you didn't have them the site was still perfectly usable. The subscriptions originally got you stuff like using journal skins, putting custom CSS on your page, access to private subscriber forums and chats, more storage room, etc.. Perks, but nothing you couldn't function without. Over the years other things were added, like being able to schedule uploads or change your username, but, again, these were PERKS. The site was still totally usable without those features. Your art still got seen, people could still find your content in the search, people could still leave comments.

But here's where Twitter and it's current nonsense comes in: as part of a dA subscription you got a special symbol in front of your name. These symbols changed over the years and originally were just standard keyboard symbols. For example, as a senior, before the symbols changed to what they are now, my username looked like this:

^Katy-L-Wood (which was affectionately referred to as the senior hat.)

If I was staff, my username would have looked like this:

$Katy-L-Wood

There were other symbols as well for things like volunteers, deactivated/banned users, and regular users. Everyone had their symbol and it worked so well. It let you know at a glance if a member was a trusted staff member that would give you real information about something, or a volunteer that could help you with harassment in the forums, or a senior member that likely knew all the ins and outs of the website.

To me, it feels like that's more in line with what Musk should have done with Twitter. He should have left verification as it was, and then introduced a new symbol to denote subscribed users. A blue plus sign or something. If you were verified AND subscribed you'd get, IDK, a blue check with a white outline around the blue. (And, even then, an additional symbol wouldn't have really been necessary, but everyone just likes neat little badges. They're like stickers. Everyone loves stickers.)

Then give the subscribed users special features that ENHANCE the site, but don't serve as a detriment if you don't have them. Give them a more robust inbuilt scheduling system. Give them security features like inbuilt auto-deleting of older tweets. Give them larger upload limits for images and videos. Give them more profile customization. Give them a longer bio with multiple links. Give them the newsletter feature. Give them the monetization features.

Because you know what? It is totally valid for a website to offer subscriptions, to try and monetize themselves. It costs money to run a big social media site, and advertising as we know it is dying. Websites need to figure out other ways to bring in money, and a good subscription model can do that.

But Twitter did not choose a good subscription model. They chose one that caused chaos to the tune of billions of dollars across multiple major industries. They choose one that would have made the site totally unusable without the subscription, due to how it was supposed to push subscribed users tweets onto the main feed.

Then we circle back to deviantART. I could talk about the downfall and now death of deviantART for HOURS. But we'll focus on subscriptions here. Because their subscriptions are no longer worth it. The majority of the fun perks are gone. There's levels to the subscriptions now, and those of us like myself who were supposed to have lifetime subscriptions as a thank you for helping moderate the site are not at the topmost level, which feels like a kick in the teeth.

And the limited features the subscriptions do have now? Many aren't perks. They are major functionality aspects. You want to get any sort of analytics for your page? Pay for them. You want to be able to take commissions via the website for more than $100? Pay for it. You want to customize your page to suit you and your work like you used to be able to do with a subscription? Well, you only get a couple choices now, and no custom CSS.

Then there's Fragments. IDK why, but deviantART seems obsessed with coming up with weird little currencies that cause a ton of harm. Their first one, Points, tanked the art market EVERYWHERE, even outside the website, in a way that still has an effect well over a decade later. Now they've gone and added a second one on top of the Points, which are still there as well. This new one is called Fragments. Fragments can be used to purchase little badges that you can award to deviations you like, comments you enjoy, etc.. There's three levels and the third one, the diamond badge, is the issue here.

See. As a senior member I get gifted 300 of these Fragments every week by dA, and I get to use them to purchase the badges. A diamond badge, specifically, costs 300 Fragments, and if I give someone a diamond badge (and they're not subscribed yet), it ALSO gives them a free month of the lowest level subscription. So every month I can, essentially, hand out a free month of subscription to anyone on the site.

I just checked my account and, as I've never used Fragments, they've just built up in my account. I have over 18,000 of them right now, which is enough to award 61 months of membership. A month normally costs $3.95, so all told that's about $250 worth of memberships that I can hand out using just over a year's worth of fragments.

Clearly, dA is banking on people getting a taste of subscription and then paying to continue it. But they're still essentially handing every subscribed user a $250 check every year. 10 users and that's $2,500 they're not getting. 100 users and it's $25,000. For a company hemorrhaging money and struggling to hold on to its userbase, there are a lot better ways to keep users around that don't involve trying to coerce them into paying using underhanded marketing techniques.

It doesn't matter, though, because ever since dA launched their new "Eclipse" version of the site, and now this fiasco with AI, there are no recovery options left. They're done. They have exhausted all goodwill anyone had for them. They took away tons of subscription features, they took away tons of site features overall, and time and time again since Eclipse launched they have 100% ignored user feedback. AI is not the first time they asked "hey, how do you feel about this?" a few months before launching a new feature, and then completely ignored every single thing the userbase said and launched the feature anyway. Then, this time with the AI, they not only did that, they were outright rude towards those who rightfully called them out. During the live meeting with the CEO and concerned artists the CEO repeatedly talked over those who were present, dismissed concerns, and just outright acted like. Well. An asshole CEO.

All of this is to say: a subscription model CAN be a great way to keep a website alive, to not be beholden to a world of dying advertisers, but you've gotta do it right and you've gotta do it consistently. Twitter did it wrong, and it'll kill them. deviantART started out doing right, did a 180, and now it's going to help kill them.

But tumblr. Ah tumblr. Our little blue hellsite. They've dipped their toes in the water of subscriptions and, so far, haven't really gotten those toes chewed off for doing it wrong. And why? Because they've made it fun to give them money in support of the website. It's fun to get crabs or a shitty horse on your dash (or inflict them on others), it's fun to mock the Twitter downfall with the special double blue checks, but the site is still totally usable without these things. (Er, well, as usable as tumblr ever is, lol.)

I, personally, would like to see tumblr build a more robust subscription/monetization system, because I think it could be what saves this site we love so much. But they have to keep it fun. They have to keep it optional. They have to keep the site usable without it. They have to make people want to subscribe, not force us to because there's no other way to use the site, or because we've been tricked into it.

(Putting the words "Long Post" here so they'll stay attached even in reblogs.)

[spacebaby1]

enemies to lovers with Ran Haitani tenjiku

Where the reader is the typical delegate or group representative who seems to be the description of perfection, excellent grades and an attitude that teachers love but this is only a facade that hides a truly rebellious and disastrous girl. Ran meets her and after totally frustrating her they begin to realize that only they truly know each other for who they really are and not just appearances.

Ohhh, I like this! Enjoy! (DON'T TRY THIS AT HOMR OR ANYWHERE) T.W: controlling parents?

Be perfect...

Be perfect...

Be perfect...

The words that You remind yourself every morning as you'd get ready for the school, eat breakfast, and get to school. As if not just last night your parents were screaming and yelling at you for randomly cutting most if your hair, you mother said that she hated your hair and you father kept yelling about how disappointed he was that you are trying to rebel against his rules. Your mother wasted no time into dragging you to the beauty salon to get long extensions, and you just sat there boiling in anger.

When you got home, your father had made a deal with you, "You follow my rules, you will go to that school tomorrow, and you will be the best of the students, unlike the last school. And if you do that till you graduate, then you can do whatever you want with your life, but till then, you have to be a perfect child of mine."

First day at school; you made sure to look as neat as you can and sat in the front seat. And for the next semester you won every teachers respect; it was a nightmare that you had to pretend to be a nice, soft spoken, and always smiling student when deep down your hands ache to slap some of the boys or pull the other annoying girls hair.

What you did after school was none of your parents' business; as long as they don't find out. With your baseball bat in hand, you walked in the dark alleyway and cigarettes dangling from your lips. You sighed, taking a puff before aiming the bat on the brick wall, and kept pushing your anger out of the wall. The pain of bat bouncing as it hit the wall felt euphoric in your hands, but you didn't stop and kept slamming the bat again and again. "What's the walls crime?"

You turned to find a boy; was a bit taller and had half black and yellow hair. He had a soft, lazy smile on as you tried to make out his features more in the dark. He, on the other hand, wasn't able to fully notice your face because of your hat covering your face, "Mind your own business." Was all you said before walking past him as he just stood there looking at you disappear in the busy streets.

The next day was boring in school as always until you heard your classmate girl tap your shoulder, "someone from the other class is asking for the teachers papers. he's just outside the door." You nodded before gathering the papers and headed towards the door. You gasped slightly when you noticed the boy standing there was the same boy from last night. He turned to look at you and smiled, "Haitani Ran, from class 5. The teacher said, You have the papers?" You thought he probably didn't recognise you, so you nodded and handed him the papers rushing back inside the class. And for the next month you kept running into Ran between classes and breaks, he seemed very sweet and never get angry at any of the students and would just laugh it off If someone said something that should upset him.

One night you were in the living-room when your father came home angry immediately lashing his anger at you and calling you names because you forgot to put your wet umbrella away from the entrance and you being yourself lost your temper lashing at your father which made him raise his hand on you, you fell on the ground holding your lips before yelling curs words at him before storming out of the house, and could still hear your mothers calling for you to stop but you just needed to leave.

You've done everything they had asked you, and yet it was still not enough, which made you wanna piss them off. At this point, you didn't even care if you cased trouble and got caught because you wanted to get caught.

The rain had soaked you fully as you kept throwing punching after punching on the bridge wall because you've made the mistake to not grab your bat and beat those bully's you'll find at the park right now. "Do you punch for a hobby?" You turned to find Ran standing under the umbrella with the same soft smile then you realised that he saw you now, the real you; hair in messed bun, red eyes, dressed not so neat and soaking in the rain. You weren't the perfect student he saw every day at school. "You'll hurt your hand and catch cold -"

"Piss of nerd,"

He laughed, moving closer, "I'm as much of a nerd as you. Must be tiring to pretend to be that neat." You don't know why, but his words made you tear up from where you stood, and he just moved his umbrella over your head, "your hairs soaked." You shook your head, "I fucking hate these extensions!" You yelled ready to pull on them but Ran grabbed your wrist. "You'll yank your head off, want me to take them off? I'm good with hair. See?" He pointed at his long perfect hair which made you laugh. "What do you say, wanna key some cars before we get those extensions off?" You laughed and he joined you. You did exactly that.

[faithfulren]

secret admirer

Cody has had a secret crush on you since the beginning of the season, but he's too shy to confess. He starts leaving you anonymous love notes and small gifts, hoping you'll figure out who your secret admirer is. Meanwhile, you begin to notice Cody's unusual behavior and wonder if there's more to his awkward charm.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the sun was shining brightly over camp wawanakwa, and the morning air buzzed with the excitement of the remaining total drama contestants. today was a day off from challenges, a rare treat. you stretched your arms above your head, basking in the warmth of the sun. you were about to head to the mess hall when you noticed something unusual on the steps of your cabin.

a small envelope, neatly sealed with a heart sticker, lay on the top step. curious, you picked it up and opened it.

"dear [y/n], i've admired you from afar since the beginning of the season. your strength, kindness, and beauty have captivated me. i hope this note brings a smile to your face as you do to mine every day. yours truly, your secret admirer"

your heart fluttered as you read the words. a secret admirer? you looked around but saw no one. who could it be?

throughout the day, you couldn't help but wonder about the identity of your admirer. as you sat with the other contestants at lunch, you studied each one, trying to pick up any signs. geoff was cracking jokes, bridgette was laughing along, and duncan was teasing courtney. everyone seemed normal.

everyone except cody. he seemed more distracted than usual, glancing your way and quickly looking away whenever you made eye contact. was it him?

later that evening, you found another note tucked under your pillow.

"dear [y/n], i wish i had the courage to tell you this in person, but seeing you smile is enough for me right now. i hope these notes brighten your day as you brighten mine. yours truly, your secret admirer"

the handwriting was neat and precise, similar to the first note. your curiosity grew stronger, and you decided to take matters into your own hands.

the next morning, you made sure to wake up earlier than usual. you placed a small note of your own on the steps of your cabin, hoping to catch your admirer in the act.

"to my secret admirer, thank you for your sweet notes. they have truly brightened my days. i would love to know who you are. meet me by the old oak tree at sunset. yours truly, [y/n]"

the day dragged on as you anxiously awaited sunset. when the time finally came, you made your way to the old oak tree, your heart pounding with anticipation. you waited for a few minutes that felt like hours. just when you were about to give up, you heard footsteps approaching.

cody appeared, his face a mix of nervousness and determination. He stopped a few feet away, his eyes meeting yours with a hesitant smile.

"hi, [y/n]," he said softly. "i got your note."

"cody," you whispered, the pieces finally clicking into place. "it's you."

he nodded, his cheeks turning a light shade of pink. "yeah, it's me. i've liked you since the beginning, but I didn't know how to tell you. i thought the notes would be a good start."

you stepped closer, your heart swelling with affection. "they were perfect. thank you, cody. you've brightened my days more than you know."

he took a deep breath, his eyes searching yours. "so, um, would you like to maybe go on a date? after all this is over?"

a smile spread across your face as you nodded. "i'd love that, cody."

relief and happiness washed over his features as he took your hand in his. "great. i promise it'll be the best date ever."

as the sun set behind the old oak tree, you realized that sometimes, the sweetest surprises come from the most unexpected places. and as you walked back to camp hand in hand with cody, you knew this was just the beginning of something wonderful.

[abbysimsfun]

list 5 facts about a favorite sim of yours, and send this to simblrs whose sims you adore ʚ♡ɞ

Thank you for the tag @dreamyyesenia! I had to think about this one because I didn't know if I should do Heather (who I love!) or someone else who hasn't been an MC, but she should get a little spotlight on her, too, after I featured Conrad yesterday!

Name: Heather Lea "Buttercup" Nesbitt Parents: Daisy & Neal Nesbitt (Gen 1 Heir & Spouse) Traits: Cat Lover, Geek, Unflirty, Independent (bonus), Adventurous, Neat, Insider (discovered) Aspiration: Friend of the Animals (already nailed it), now onto Neighbourhood Confidante Career: Veterinarian/Vet Clinic Owner Pets: lifetime? Ralph the sheepdog, Bernadette (Shar Pei/Field Spaniel mix), cats King Tut, Boomer, and adopted Brindleton stray Mayor Whiskers.

FACTS: - oldest of four siblings born in Henford-on-Bagley. - she mastered cooking in her teens because there was always so many people to cook for at home. She also maxed out the three required skills for gen 2 - video gaming, programming, veterinary - before she moved out and bought the clinic in Brindleton Bay. And that means I've been able to go hard with drama the whole time she's been an adult! - a skilled gamer, she's one of the best ever at Incredible Sports, but hasn't played much since she bought her clinic and started a family. - she was a straight-A student but programming was her least favourite subject - even though she eventually used her programming skills to hack into Landgraab Systems to get back at Malcolm, her ex. - I waited until YA to give her the Unflirty trait (challenge requirement) and it left her hopeless and haplessly flirting, autonomously or otherwise, throughout her teens. I knew my Gen 2 MC was a fascinating little mess of pixels based on some of her autonomous choices (trying to flirt with a drunk Bob Pancakes as a teenager, thinking evil snob Malcolm Landgraab was all that!) and her love life would be so much fun to play out. And she has totally delivered! Bonus Fact: Every child she's ever given birth to has a different father.

[chaotic-on-main]

Hi!! Hope you have a safe flight!

I would like to request how Levi would react if you caught him moaning your name.

I am just a total simp for the guy 🤤

Absolutely my lovely Anon! Sorry if this isn't what you had in mind, I had a different thought but then it derailed into this so uhhh, here! Simping for Levi is the best past time.

Same Page | CanonAU Drabble

☾ Pairings ➼ Levi Ackerman x gn!Reader

☾ Content/Warnings ➼ suggestive thoughts, awkward tension

☾ Word Count ➼ 781

Two lefts, down the hall, 4th door on the right. Suffice to say, this was not your first visit to the Captain's office. You place your hand on top of the stack of papers you currently held to keep the top papers from flying away as you make your way to the dark, heavy wooden door at the end of the hall. When you make it, you notice the door already ajar. That's odd. After shuffling the papers around so they wouldn't slip out of your arms, you rap softly on the hardwood. No response.

"Captain Levi?" A few beats of silence, nothing speaks up. His door was open though. Maybe he stepped for a moment, you think. You didn't really want to make the trek back to Commander Erwin's office, especially after he was so adamant that they be on his desk immediately. Surely the Captain won't be too mad if you placed them neatly and left quickly. Yeah.

You regret your decision immediately after pushing open the door with caution. You're frozen in place as you spot the Captain in his chair, head tilted back with his usually heavy-lidded eyes closed. His chest seemed to be rising slowly in deep breaths. He was asleep. And oh my, did he look at peace.

Not that you had any issues with the way he looked normally, his indifferent features were actually quite endearing to you. But the way the early afternoon flitted into his office windows, casting everything in a pale yellow glow, reflected off the white papers on his neat desk and onto his slack face. The permanent knot that creased in between eyebrows was now smooth. His typical scowl is now a small pout. His raven-toned hair fell back so you could see all of his face. And he appeared gentle, small even.

The door lightly bumps into the table that sits behind the door with a 'thunk' and you watch in frozen silence as the Captain stirs in his sleep, but he doesn't wake. That is, of course, until you hear your name tumble out of his soft lips, followed by an eye furrow as if in concentration. No, it didn't just fumble out like a regular greeting. It sounded like he was moaning your name, maybe even whining.

The shock from the wave of... something that traveled through your body was enough to cause the stack of papers between both arms to slide out and hit the ground, sheets pertaining to various topics scatter and flutter around to a stop. Captain Levi bolts upright, his chair creaking as he does. He stares at you with his stormy, gray eyes as he processes the sight of your fumbling figure.

"Cadet, what are you doing here?" Captain Levi interrogates as he stands up quickly and makes his way to you - where you're already on the floor furiously trying to pick up everything that fell with unrivaled speed. You grab at the last paper only to notice he had reached for it too, both of your hands touching and you can't help but pull away immediately. He picks it up and holds it out to you and you snatch it from him with more force than you intended, not daring to look him straight in the eye.

"Reports from Commander Erwin, Sir!" You squeak, your voice higher pitched than your normal. You see him extend his arm out to take them, and notice his white button-up sleeve rolled to his elbows, toned forearms flexing from the outreach. You needed to leave. You clumsily shove them into the Captain's grip and turn to leave.

"Oi, brat." You stop mid-stride, grimacing. Twisting back around, you chance a peek at his face. His dark gaze is hard on you and you force yourself to not look away. "How... long were you there before…?"

"Oh, I-uh," You have to clear your throat. "Not long." Is all you can get out. Your face feels hot - you need to leave, you remind yourself again.

"Okay." He turns his back to you and walks towards his desk while saying, "You're dismissed, _____.”

You squeak out another 'Sir' before practically running out of his office and down the hallway, pressing your back against the wall once you turn the corner so you can catch your breath. You didn't miss how flushed his cheeks and ears were, or even how dilated his irises were. You knew that he knew what he did. And you can't stop the ideas and imaginations that circle around your brain of what him moaning your name could mean. For the sake of the feelings building within your whole body, you hope you were both on the same page.

[acradaunt]

Acra's EO Guild Card Megapost

Guild Cards are a neat thing in the most of the Etrian Odyssey games. Sometimes, they're pretty pointless, but in some, they actually do some neat stuff. I… have a tendency to do multiple playthroughs, to try different team compositions (as seeing how different a game can feel based on your builds is one of my favourite things ever, and I also like abandon them before the big fights, on the hypothetical urge I want to re-fight a boss at an appropriate level an infinite number of times), so I've amassed a fair few of my own.

Why am I uploading these now? Apparently the Nexus database got borked a couple days ago, so this is the perfect time for me to get a few feet in the door. I also swear this is the last time I'll ever post about these, seriously.

EO Nexus -A total of 100 Guild Cards are needed to unlock the Vampire pseudo-class. Obviously, 100 is a lot, so they obviously expected the community, paltry it may be, to come together to make a database. And they did. And then they locked it the second they got 108. And then it died. So now I finally get a second chance to contribute.

Galeforce

-My first (main) playthrough. I actually uploaded a card weekly to help out, but I think only the first one made it on in time. It's not Heroic because it's like a NG+++++ file. This is the final card, but for the weekly set of them, um, here:

Week 0 || Week 1 || Week 2 || Week 3 || Week 4 || Week 5 || Week 6 || Week 7

Stardust

-Filled with all my C-listers that couldn't fit into Galeforce. I ran them as two separate teams; the Boss Killers (shown here), who fought the FOEs/Bosses, and Team Midriff, who did all the exploration.

Sunstorm

-A Guild consisting of classes I mostly avoid using, and portraits I hadn't (as of its conception) used before. As always, there's like another three members that get used that aren't here, including a Survivalist, Nightseeker, and an Arcanist.

Maelstrom

-An attempt at a Nuzlocke-esque run, and also an 'evil' party. Characters stopped being used if they died, but only until the end of the stratum, to not make it overbearing. Being an evil party lacking in support and healing, this was an absolute slog that I considered a total failure by the Jungle.

Brilliant

-An idea for a mage-guild that kinda went askew. Starting as a Sovereign, three Zodiacs, and a Farmer, I ultimately turned this into three single-element teams; Each consisting of a unique Sovereign, a unique Zodiac, two other characters that get earlygame elemental skills (Survivalist's Flame Arrow, Landsknecht, etc.), but the same Farmer (Hazel) across all three. Didn't take it all that far, but worked kinda well!

EOV -Definitely where Guild Cards are seen the most. About 2-4 times every floor, there'll be an event that'll use you GC database to have another guild interact with you in the labyrinth. If you have none, you'll be introduced to memelord Conrad of the Freeblade Guild about 110 times in your course of a playthrough. In stark contrast, Nexus only has GC events maybe a dozen times across the whole game.

Starlight

-Main guild. Not a lot to say. It's a Chain-oriented party, because I love Fencers/Landsknechts.

Bundt

-Cake pun. See, bundt is a type of cake, and the guild is filled with Brouni. As in Brownies, the fairy/pixie/sprite, but I'm punning off the--- ANYWAY. Horrific offense, but don't die easily. Kinda miserable against a few specific enemies like the coffin jerks on 15F, but otherwise worked astonishingly better than you'd expect. Which is; not GOOD, but totally serviceable.

Necrocosm

-My original 'evil' guild, featuring two Necromancers, and edge as far as the eye can see. Two Necros work pretty well together; typically Velvet summoned them and Rue made them explode. The fact Necros heal and have evil vibes let them succeed where Maelstrom would totally fail. I also didn't bench anyone for dying, so that probably helped too.

Firebird

-This playthrough is only saved at Amalgolem and took like a single weekend to get there, so I didn't remember squat about it. Amalgolem is like my single fave boss in the whole series, so I just had to leave a file there. It's heavily skewed towards non-humans, and the bottom deck of the guild is just full of nigh-on unusable cross-classed horrors, like a Celestrian Pugilist and Therian Warlock.

EO2U -Probably where Guild Cards are the most functionally useful. Lets you get the Grimoire Stones the attached character has on hand as many times as you can afford. Pretty nifty, as Grimoires are semi-random in spawning.

Skyquake

-So I didn't actually buy EO2U when it came out for a variety of factors, not least being unaware how different it was from the original EOII, my first EO game. So I've only started this and Untold I fairly recently.

Ironroot

-Holy Gift gives you extra experience, but each level costs twice as much to trade as the previous. That is, you need two level 3 Grimoires to get a level 4. Or 128 level 3s for a single level 10. So having a Guild Card with lowish level Holy Gift is actually pretty dang useful to have.

Untold

-Story Guild. Haven't… uh, haven't exactly been Motivated to do Story mode in Untold 2. On paper, I really dislike the team composition. In practice, hasn't been so bad, but still not enough to make me play them more than necessary.

Fellbloom

-Now legally required Evil Guild. Probably won't ever get past Chimaera.

EOU -Unlike the sequel, Guild Cards don't let you choose what to get from the friend's Guild Card. You just get given a random Grimoire Stone once per playthrough per Guild Card. Kinda lame.

Untold -Unlike later games, only one save file here, and the game nigh-on requires you to play through the Story Mode before doing Classic in NG+, so, that's where we sit.

EOIV -First game to use QR codes. III had Guild Cards, but I don't know how you'd trade them. They do serve a purpose here; each Card gets given a random treasure, and having a Card lets you find that treasure in the overworld. Most are crap, but some are circumstantially useful, and some are permanent stat-boosts, IIRC. I don't think mine was very good…?

Zephyr

-Uh, EOIV had a glitch where your Ventured Days would go up dramatically every time you paused. I think it comes into affect if you ever do NG+. So I haven't actually played for 48 in-game years. Truth be told, now knowing of a way to back up save files, I am admittedly tempted to make a new EOIV playthrough, since it's been like a decade, but for my own sanity, I really probably shouldn't.

[p-artsypants]

Paint it Black (2) Observing

Robin disappeared three months ago. Now, Jump City's crime rate is mysteriously being taken care of by a normal, albeit strange, teenage boy who goes by the name Black. As the Titans befriend this lunatic, they begin to see a correlation between him and their missing leader. Will they be able to find Robin, or will Black turn them all insane as himself?

Ao3

"So?" Beast Boy asked, a grin on his features.

"I met him. He seems...strange. I wonder if there is something wrong with him."

"Of course there is!" Beast Boy shouted. "The kid's living a delusion! He's totally Schizophrenic! He’s 9th level crazy banana-pants bonkers!"

"Where's your degree in Psychology?" Cyborg asked.

Raven chimed in. "I couldn’t read his mind when I saw him. He's too...random?"

"Random? More like utterly out of control! He must have gotten brain damage or something!"

"Like you?" Raven quipped.

Beast Boy didn't skip a beat. "I don't doubt I have brain damage from all the fights I've been in, but there's no way you can compare us."

"I will agree and say that Black is very strange. I am concerned for him though." Starfire added.

"He told me he was homeless," said Raven. 

“I saw him take money from a drug dealer he took out.” Cyborg scratched his chin. “So he’s not panhandling.”  

“What do we do? Mention him to the police?” Starfire asked.

“Let’s just…keep an eye out for him. Maybe he’s a friendly neighborhood weirdo, or maybe he’s a problem.” 

—-

It continued like that for the weeks following. Each Titan would take turns performing patrol at night, while the usual super villains would crop up randomly in between. Nearly every night, for maybe only a few minutes, they would cross paths with the young man known as Black. Each time, they would try to weasel more information out of him, but more often than not, he left them with more questions. 

“Cyborg! Thank god! I need help!” A young man came running up to him. He looked rather roughed up and had a black eye. 

“What’s up, man?”

“I know we were wrong. My friends and I tried to shoplift from the Quick Mart, but then my buddy tried to actually mug a customer. It was so wrong and I know that but the dude went ape shit and just started beating the hell out of us! I’m the only one that got away! Please Cyborg, my brother’s back there and I think he’s gonna get killed.” 

“Alright alright, I got you man, take me there.” 

The young man ran back the way he came, Cyborg hot on his trail. The Quick Mart was just around the corner. The windows were plastered with posters and neon signs, so much so, the inside couldn’t be seen. 

“Wait here,” Cyborg demanded, and headed for the door. 

Whatever supervillain he was expecting to see, he didn’t see them. Instead, Black sat on the counter, nonchalantly eating a pint of ice cream. 

There were four unconscious young men on the ground, and the cashier was crying behind the counter. 

“Aww man,” Cyborg groaned, looking at the carnage. 

“Hey! Borgy-Boy! Want some Chunky Monkey?” Black held out his spoon.

“Man, what did you do?”

“Can you believe these Ding Dongs tried to mug me? I only have so much money to spend on food, and they’re trying to take it!”

Cyborg gave him a hard look. “What about all that money you’ve taken from the people you bust?”

“Hey!” Black pointed his spoon at him. “Most of that money went into the offering plate on Sunday!” 

Cyborg stared back in shock. “You go to church?”

“Sure! Free coffee, free music, free air conditioning and heat, it's a swell deal! I don’t really know what they’re talkin’ ‘bout, but that Jesus guy sounds like a real neat fella!”

Cyborg shook his head. Black had a talent for derailing situations quickly. “What did I tell you about beating people up?”

Black whined. “But mooooommmmm! They started it!” 

“I called the police,” the cashier finally sobbed out. “They’ll be here at any moment.”

“Whoops! Looks like I gotta vámonos!”

“Did you pay for the ice cream?” Cyborg asked sternly. 

“YeEEEeeeeEEEs!” Black sassed right back. 

“Good, then you’re ready to wait for the police with me.” 

Black’s attitude changed slightly then. He paled and his lips became taught. “Nah, I’m good.”

“What if I tell you you have to?”

Then Black’s face fell, a much darker, hateful gaze on his face. “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to. Not anymore.” 

“Anymore?” Cyborg took a step toward him.

Black launched from the counter, springboarded off Cyborg’s shoulders and landed at the exit. “Bye Borgy-Boy! Love you!” And he was gone.

“Damnit!” Cyborg shouted to the ceiling. 

—-

“Okay, I think he’s a problem,” Cyborg announced without preamble. 

Starfire, Beast Boy, and Raven all looked at him startled. 

“Who?”

“Black! Who else!? He beat up a bunch of shoplifters at the Quick Mart and then dipped when I told him to stay for the police. Why would he run if he had nothing to hide?”

Raven raised a brow. “So you want us to capture him? Take him down? Yeah, we all know what he’s doing is illegal, but he’s doing us a huge favor. We don’t have time to worry about the little guys.” 

“What if we were to just observe him more? Mayhaps this is a temporary thing?”

“Temporary insanity? I’d love to hear that argument.” Beast Boy chuckled. 

“Fine, another week or two of observation. Then we have to decide what we’re going to do about him.” 

—

During Raven’s patrol, she got to have her own fun with a jewelry store break in. She passed by the roof just as the burglar’s broke through the window. 

Thinking that was all the action she was going to see on her patrol, she began to return home, only to be distracted by someone singing. 

Well, it was more like caterwauling. 

“I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT!” 

It was a crime to be singing so poorly and so loudly so late at night. A crime to Raven, at least. All this required was a stern talking too. 

Raven followed the sour notes down a backstreet and into the warehouse district. 

“Why am I not surprised?” Raven drawled. 

Black was still singing at the top of his lungs, and sort of dancing down the alley. In both hands, he held cans of spray paint, and he was spraying the walls. 

Raven landed behind him. 

“I’M TRAPPED IN THIS BODY–CAN’T—GET OUT!!!”

“Vandalizing private property? Some hero you are.” 

“AH!” Black startled, whipped around and sprayed Raven in the face with red paint. 

Luckily she clenched her eyes shut so she wasn’t blinded. 

“Oh! Mrs. Magpie! I’m sorry, you startled me!” 

Raven tried to wipe the paint from her face. “So I noticed.” 

Black took out a rag from his pocket and started rubbing her face before she batted him away. 

He slunk back, defeated. “And to answer your question, I wasn’t trying to vandalize this wall. Someone else already did that. I was just trying to make it…less Hitler-y.” 

Raven looked at the wall. On half were some interesting black and red swirls, still wet, and the other half had about a dozen swastikas punctuated with profanity. 

“I see. You were covering it up.”

“Yeppers! Are you proud of me, Rae Rae?” 

The last thing she wanted to do was indulge this lunatic. “You know, if you talked to the owner, he’d probably give you some paint to cover the whole wall in an even coat.” 

He scoffed. “There’s no art in that!” 

“Oh, so now you’re an artist?”

“Am I not allowed to have a hobby?” 

She huffed. “Fair.” 

“I’ll take it more seriously. I’ll practice and make it really good! A series of pretty alleyways by me!” 

Raven was out of shits to give. “Fine. Go ahead. Wow me with your murals.” 

Black grinned gleefully and jumped. “You won’t regret it!” 

“See that I won’t.” 

“Oh,” he licked his thumb. “You have a little paint—“ 

She summoned a force field to stop him from getting any closer. “Don’t even think about it.” 

—-

Usually, Black had a tendency to seek out the Titans, or let his presence be known. So when Beast Boy found the young man digging through a dumpster, he quickly changed into a mouse to watch from afar. 

“In the deepest ocean, the bottom of the sea, your eyes, they turn me,” Black sang a tune Beast Boy swear he heard before, but couldn’t place it. 

Beast Boy scurried across the ground, coming closer. 

Black was bent over at the waist, his torso inside the dumpster, and his singing echoed with a metallic ring. “I get eaten by the worms and weird fishes. Picked over by the worms…and weird fishes.” 

Where had he heard that before? The radio? He was usually pretty hip with modern music.  

“Ah ha!” Black cried triumphantly as he emerged. He had a prize in his hand. 

Beast Boy eagerly waited to see what Black had found and was so excited about. 

Another watch. 

The young man cinched it on his wrist, so quickly, it looked like he’d done it a hundred times before. “You don’t have a battery, but that’s okay. I still love you.” 

A dead watch. What was so exciting about a dead watch?

Black then rubbed his stomach. “Hmm…me hungy!” And he turned and left the alley. 

Beast Boy waited until he rounded the corner to turn into a sparrow and followed him. 

Black skipped down the street, his tattered trench coat fluttering behind him. 

Coming down the street was a dog walker, a man with a husky. Black saw them and ran to them. “Ohhh! A puppy! What’s his name? Can I pet?!”

The man looked startled, but ultimately said, “uh sure. His name is Plinko.” 

“Hi puppy! Hi Plinko! Who’s a good boy?! Who would rip someone’s face off to protect his owner!? My name is Black. What’s your name?”

The man looked even more startled and started to tug his dog away. “Sorry, I have to go.” 

“Okie dokie then! Bye bye Plinko! Bye bye Plinko’s dad!” Black waved enthusiastically. Then he continued his merry way down the street. 

Beast Boy watched in fascination, and prepared to intervene if Black showed any kind of threat towards the man. Thankfully, he didn’t, just behaved oddly enough to frighten the man off. 

Black broke into a sprint, running at a wall. When he reached it, he used a fire escape to climb up the side of a building, then leapt onto a short roof. From there, he cartwheeled and flipped to the other edge and jumped over to the next roof. 

He was fast. Beast Boy had to morph into an Eagle to keep up with him. He was used to seeing kids parkour, and the hobby had become more popular over the years the more stunts of Robin’s had been captured on camera. But Beast Boy had never seen someone move like this. It was almost inhuman. Black flung himself across distances anyone else with self preservation would have avoided. He flipped and twisted as he went, ignoring laws of physics. 

Then, they were at the Quick Mart, and he strolled in like he hadn’t been performing gymnastics across the rooftops. 

Beast Boy quickly shifted into a fly and flew in before the door shut. This was kind of fun. He didn’t get to do stealth missions often. 

“Hi Laura!” Black chirped. 

“Oh. Hi Black.” The cashier looked nervous and swallowed thickly. 

“Got anything fresh? How old is the pizza? Is it all dried out like jerky?”

“I just put a new pie in,” she said with a sigh. 

“Then I want a slice! Not one with pepperoni’s though.” He shivered.

She gave him a solemn nod and cut him a slice of cheese pizza. 

“Hey chicky-poo, why are you nervous?” He asked as he grabbed a drink from the fridge. Just a water. 

“We’re not going to have any problems today, are we?” She asked sternly, but looked pale and nauseous.

“Problems? Me?! You know I’m here to solve problems, right?!” 

The cashier didn’t answer. 

Black placed his hands on his hips. “Is this about those shoplifters earlier this week? Did Borgy-Boy or the Popo give you a hard time?”

She took a shaky breath. “They were fine. I just…what you did to those boys.” 

He scoffed. “What's a couple broken fingers and fractured skulls among friends?”

“Um…I can’t imagine those guys think you’re friends…”

“Well, then they’re doodoo heads. How much for the water and the pizza? Ohh and this candy bar?”

“7.83.” 

“Oh. No candy bar then.” He pouted. 

“5.70.”

Black dug around in his pockets and took out some bills and coins. “Is that enough?”

“This is a button.” 

“Oh. How much is that worth?”

The cashier sighed and helped him count out the money on the counter. Beast Boy prepared to intervene if he didn’t have enough, but thankfully, he did. 

“And, you had a little extra, so you get a nickel back.” She handed him a coin. 

He grinned. “I think I like them! Most people don’t, but that’s okay. Not everyone has to agree!” 

“What?”

“Nickleback! They do the song from Shrek!”

“Honey, that’s Smash Mouth.”   

Black sighed. “I can’t count change and I can’t remember Nickleback’s discography. Is there anything I can do right?”

Break bones, apparently, thought Beast Boy. 

“Well, you do the crime fighting thing pretty well. Maybe once you get your memory back, you’ll be able to do other things.”

Black’s face soured. “No no, I’m going to learn new things, not remember old ones.” He took on a far off look. “I don’t want to remember the old things.”

“Oh…kay…” Laura said, leaning away from the counter. 

Black brightened considerably. “Thanks for the pizza! See you around Laura!” Then he looked to the wall, right at Beast Boy. “See you around, Jolly Green!” 

Beast Boy shifted back into a human, falling off the wall and startling Laura. “Duuuude! How did you know?!” 

“Come on, how often do you see a green fly?”

“Often?! How–!?” 

Black tsked. “You gotta be better than that, Beastie Boy! Ch-check, check it out! Wh-what what’s it all about!?” He started rapping Beastie Boy lyrics and he nonchalantly strolled out the door. 

Beast Boy stood still, staring open mouthed. 

“I had no idea you were there,” said Laura. “That kid is something else.” 

“Yeah, but what?”

—

Cyborg arrived from the lobby, the huge box with him full. He dumped out the contents, letters, on the table and started to sort. 

“What’s all that?” Asked Raven. 

“Mail. It’s been sitting out there for a while and I just can’t put it off anymore.” 

“Tired of all the condolence cards?”

“Very.” 

“Anything for me?” Beast Boy asked, peering over the table. 

“You can help me sort, and then you’ll know.” Cyborg threw a bunch of flyers away. “Man, I bet some of these are a month old. Hope none of it was time sensitive.” 

“Oooo what’s this?” Beast Boy picked up a thicker envelope with handwritten addresses on it. “It’s addressed to all of us.” 

“Who’s it from?” 

“Says, ‘Jim Baker.’ Never heard of ‘im.” 

“Probably fan mail. Maybe we saved him and never got his name. God forbid another condolence card.” 

“It’s thick. It feels like there’s something in it. Maybe money?” 

“If it’s money, we have to send it back,” Cyborg said sternly. “We can’t take it.” 

“Well then…maybe not money…” Beast Boy grinned, preparing to pocket the money anyway. He tore open the envelope, but instead of money, there was just an SD card and a note. 

‘Teen Titans,

This was left in my possession, but I think it’s meant for you.’ 

“H-hey Cy?” Beast Boy passed the envelope over to Cyborg. He scrutinized the note and then put the SD card into his arm to scan it for viruses. 

“Looks clean, but whatever is on it is slightly corrupted. The card doesn’t look like it was taken very good care of.” 

“May we see it?” Asked Starfire. 

“I can try to pull the file off.” He took the card over to the main computer and popped it in. “Oh, looks like multiple video files. Let’s see if they’ll load.” 

“Do you think someone has sent us a movie to watch? Shall I make the popped corn?”

“Something like that,” Raven answered, setting her book aside. “Don’t bother with the popcorn though.”

When the video started up, the picture was pixelated and grainy, the sound cut in and out. 

“Get—to work? —so old.” 

A face was in frame, black and white, and hard to make out. “It has to work. It’s the last chance I have.” 

“That is Robin’s voice!” Starfire shouted, standing to her feet.

“Really?” Beast Boy asked. “I can’t really tell.” 

“If you get caught, they’ll kill you.” The other person said. 

“Then I won’t get caught.” The camera shifted, showing more of the room, though it was grainy. The camera shook hard a few times and the picture became clearer. There was a young man, about Robin’s age, wearing a hospital gown. 

“Why are you messing with that thing?” He asked. 

“Secret,” said Robin’s voice. 

“Whatever dude, just don’t include me in this.” 

The camera turned, and they could see the nose down of the person Starfire thought was Robin. 

“That is Robin’s chin!” Starfire screamed. 

“Yeah, it is,” said Raven. 

“This is…not what I was prepared for. There’s twenty of us here,” Robin whispered. “Is that too much information? Crap.” 

And the video ended. 

“Play the next one!” Star demanded. 

Cyborg obeyed and played the next file. “I’ll set these up to play back to back.” 

The next video played, and it was immediately apparent that something was wrong. The camera was under a bed. They still couldn’t see Robin’s face. But his hand was on the ground. 

“There’s a red light.” He stated. “So, that’s good.” He breathed, a long, low exhale. Somewhere in an adjacent room, someone screamed. Robin took another shaking breath, then, to everyone’s surprise, he started to softly sing. “When I'm at the pearly gates, this'll be on my videotape, my videotape. Mephistopheles is just beneath…and he's reaching up to grab me.”

Starfire sat at the edge of her seat, holding a pillow to her chest. She had never heard Robin sing before. To everyone else, it was fine, but to her, his voice was perfect. Soft, gentle, and so so sad. 

“This is one for the good days and I have it all here in red, blue, green. Red, blue, green.” 

Robin’s song stopped suddenly as the scream came again, worse than before. He shifted closer to the camera, and continued his song as low as he could. “This is my way of saying goodbye. 'Cause I can't do it face to face. So I'm talking to you after it’s too late.” 

Starfire gasped. 

“No matter what happens now. You shouldn't be afraid, because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen.” 

And the video ended. 

A red exclamation mark displayed on the screen, determining that the video was corrupted. 

“NO!” Starfire shrieked. “Cyborg, you must recover those videos! It is the only clue we have to Robin! Please!” 

“Star, I’m going to try, but there’s no guarantees.”

“If you do not recover those videos, I shall never forgive you!” 

“Dude, he said he’s going to try!” Beast Boy yelled back. “We just…have to be patient.” 

Starfire fled the room, her cries loud enough to rattle the walls. 

“I’ll get to work,” Cyborg stated as he retrieved the disc and left. 

Raven and Beast Boy left shortly after, both lost in their thoughts.

[herrscherofmagic]

so this is gonna sound kinda insane, but for some reason... the more I see HSR promoted, the less I actually want to get back into the main story and catch up on it.

Like 99% of the time promo material is meant to promote something and get people excited about it, and obviously that's true for most people. But the last time I saw promo for HSR was the early peaks at Penacony, like the little reveal of Acheron for the first time. Since then I haven't actually watched any trailers or livestreams (tho i never really watch version livestreams in the first place), and everything I know about Penacony is just from seeing people talk about it on social media.

Just now there's this new short featuring Acheron & Black Swan, and it seems cool... but I don't really feel like watching it at all, nor does it make me want to dive into the game to see what's going on. That should be the total opposite of what the trailer should be doing to me, and I know it's not the trailer because other people are definitely hyped up because of it.

It's not like I've heard people talk shit about it, because i've seen almost nothing but praise for it. I know that when I actually get to doing the Penacony story I'll probably like it, but it's kinda weird that I feel almost no compulsion to actually try it out.

I feel like it might be because Penacony didn't really interest me much in the first place. The Luofu arc was really underwhelming to me, and I've found a lot of the companion missions in the game to be... lacking? Like when I look at the companion missions my nearest equivalent I can think of its the Story Quests in Genshin, which each feature a particular playable character. But most of the story quests in Genshin were really engaging to me, even the "boring" ones like Ayato's story quest. The Genshin quests always got me caring for all the characters involved, even NPCs, while HSR's companion missions often felt like glorified side quests at times. So when it comes to Penacony, there's just this feeling of "okay, so what?"

Maybe it's not that I don't like HSR, but that I like the idea of HSR more than actually playing it? Like I love Belobog a lot, a good deal more than the Luofu, and it always felt like the most "alive" place to me. HSS was neat but pretty small, Luofu felt off in some ways because of the story pacing, but Belobog felt like a solid story from the get-go. I have some ideas for fanart featuring the idea of swapping the roles of Bronya & Seele in Belobog with a "Wildfire Bronya" and "Silvermane Seele", because I find the setting and characters and factions of Belobog quite compelling.

I enjoy the characters of HSR too, so it's not that. I'm still insane about Kafka and Stelle and I spend a ton of time thinking about those two and even working on art for it, though I have very little to share because I'm about as productive as a soggy napkin >.>

But on the subject of Kafka, that reminds me of something similar that happened before. When the game started I was really intrigued by Kafka and her role in the story, but when we meet Kafka almost immediately after reaching the Luofu, it actually made me less interested in her. The mystery of who Kafka was felt more compelling than actually going around and engaging with her in the story in Luofu. Ditto with her companion mission, which I finally did yesterday- it was alright, and I enjoyed seeing Kafka & Stelle together, but the mission itself didn't feel like anything that special.

So with all the promo material like the trailers for Kafka, and her role in the Luofu story, I actually got kinda turned off from Kafka and her character. But as time went on I've gotten interested in her again, and now she's once again one of my favorite characters of HSR.

I don't understand why I have such an odd inverse relationship with HSR. You'd think engaging with the story and promo material would make me like the game more... but it doesn't? I feel almost better just consuming HSR's story second-hand from other people, and then working on my own headcanons of the characters and parts of the setting that I enjoy.

I also feel like it might be because of the amount of mindless HSR-praising-paired-with-Genshin-shitting I see online. So many people are like "GeNsHiN cOuLd NeVeR" and then straight-up lie about the games? they act like HSR is some next-gen VR immersion with incredible everything, but then I load up companion missions, these main missions that feature playable characters, and there's multiple scenes with completely stiff mannequins and voice-over with no lip-syncing at all. Then people go "omg Genshin is so stiff, HSR is so much more alive" and I'm wondering what parallel dimension these people are from and how can I go there??? Because that's just wrong. There's a handful of moments where HSR shines really well, usually brief cinematics and animated shorts, and the protagonist is more engaging and immersive, and there's a few more facial expressions. But dialogue and scene shots are still really stiff in HSR, meanwhile Genshin's just been getting better and better.

maybe that's why I'm actually not-as-interested in HSR? because I keep seeing people mindlessly praising it over Genshin, making bullshit arguments with no basis in reality to justify it as something "superior" when it's not really much better or worse, just different?

and on a somewhat related note, there's also the over-the-top hornyposting of the HSR subreddit which I used to frequent, even though I haven't been there in weeks now. That was also pretty annoying and it wouldn't surprise me if that was also turning me away from the game a bit.

idk. i want to enjoy HSR, but there's something in my mind that's keeping me from giving a damn about it. Or rather than something, it's somethings, namely the combo of all these different factors. Promo material that doesn't really engage me, a vocal but obnoxious minority of elitist fans that frustrate me and make me less willing to engage with the game itself, and various issues I have with some of HSR's lore and story.

[altraviolet]

Do you think after all the good redemption arc stuff a seriously evil character would go through on the Lost Light- would Transformers Animated Blackarachnia and Transformers Prime Soundwave have a neat dynamic; and become somewhat friends?

That is if they’ve ever traveled to the TFA dimension and picked up Blackarachnia.

I have no idea, to be honest. I'm afraid I don't know TFA BA very well as a character, as I only saw TFA when it came out and not since then. One would hope the LL's inhabitants would be able to help anyone move away from the worst of the Decepticon ideals and become happier people.

Lemme look at the wiki and see if I can figure something out real quick.

*reads*

holy crap, she was Elita-1? ok I kiiind of remember the ground collapsing all around her and being left to the spiders. I see she has a special ability- "to borrow powers from other beings." I love outlier abilities and were I to write something, this would definitely feature.

Man this wiki article is long

OKAY

It looks like a lot of her character-driven actions are around ridding herself of her organic side. Sooo... the LL's casual acceptance of organics would probably help a lot. She wouldn't be ridiculed for her appearance or abilities I don't think. IDW1 biases were around forged vs CC and most if not all the current LL mechs don't care about that. At this point in my story, they've come across so many weird iterations of TFs that a half organic one is like, totally cool, man. They wouldn't judge her based on that.

So how would they judge her?

Welllll maybe she'd try to pull some kind of thing when she first boarded, like steal/smash together a bunch of med bay tech to try to rid herself of her organic half. And then the characters would have to react to that. And then her 'redemption' arc could follow. I don't see her pulling a Soundwave and trying to take over the ship and hand it off to Megatron, as the wiki article indicated she thought other Decepticons' loyalty was annoying.

So. Uh. idk. I'd really have to understand the character better to give you a thorough answer. If you want to imagine her and TFP SW being friends, you can. I've written TFP SW to have a sort of transactional aspect to his friendships- if someone has something interesting to offer, he will take interest in them. Otherwise he's kinda like 'meh.' I don't imagine my take on TFP SW to be particularly interested in her unless she had something to offer him.

I think part of a redemption arc for TFA Blackarachnia might be going back to who she was as Elita-1. What she liked about herself then, what she didn't, and matching that up to who she is now and who she wants to be. She can either accept herself as she is, or find tech to change herself into something she can accept. Author's choice.

Hope that answered your question. Thanks for the ask =)

[umichenginabroad]

Run Forrest, Run! Tales from the San Fermín Festival

Week 8

With only two more weeks left in my program, I'm already feeling sad about having to leave soon. I like the routine I have with work, I know old town like the back of my hand, and most importantly I'm never let down by my favorite spot for icecream (shoutout Boulevard!). Like the true San Sebastián local that I am, I did a mix of things around the city this week. There's a really cool building called the Tabakalera right by the river and train station that I ended up visiting several times. It used to be a tobacco factory but has now been converted into a cultural center which features exhibitions from local artists, a library, co-working spaces, gastronomy lab, and beautiful view of the city skyline from the top floor. When I was there working on a drawing, I met a woman named Rosalia who does illustrations in her free time. She had something like 60+ drawings on procreate of her comics, and we had a really nice conversation about our shared hobby and how she plans to publish a book of her work in the fall! She also complimented my spanish which really made my day, and I plan to keep in touch with her :).

The main lobby of the Tabakalera! I could spend hours here (more than I already have)

Passing time in Pasaia

Later on in the week, Jayashree, Deidra, and I embarked on a hike from San Sebastián to Pasaia which was around 3 hours total. There was an elevation gain so it was neat to see the city from that vantage point, and the walking itself went pretty smoothly. The trail is part of one of the routes for Camino de Santiago so we crossed paths with some backpackers and had the markings on the trees to guide us. We saw an abandoned fort, cliffsides, bunches of hydrangeas, and a fortress! Sadly could not go up since the path was blocked off. Sorry Rapunzel, we're unfortunately not your rescue crew. There was also a suspicious looking bridge that Jayashree bravely crossed and Deidra slapped a random plant on her arm, but besides that, we all made it out alive. The last time I was in Pasaia I had been stranded with the Penn State kids so this really was a trip down memory/nightmare lane.

Jayashree really does not have an ounce of fear in her body. Can't be seen as well from this pic but the drop from the bridge was pretty steep

Knights of the Wine Table

On Saturday our advisors from the university organized a daytrip for us to a small town called Estella, a monastery, and wine tasting tour at Bodegas Monjardín. We weren't in Estella for very long, but it's special due to having a lot of centuries old medieval architecture. Near the river, we found a super angled bridge (pretty much in the shape of a triangle) which I don't know why it was built that way but interesting nonetheless. The monastery was very intricately designed and had also clearly seen many seasons. Oddly enough, it featured a wine fountain and I have to say that it didn't taste half bad. For an official rating from a self-proclaimed amateur wine enthusiast, 6.5/10 taste and 8/10 experience.

Now, onto the wine tasting. When we first got there, we were welcomed with a glass of the Monjardín rosado and given an introduction to the history of the winery. Everything was in spanish so I really got some listening practice in, but for my friends in the group who didn't know it they just had to rely on catching keywords lol. It was interesting to hear about the fermentation processes and methods of how to make the different wines, such as chardonnay, roble, espumoso etc. In the storehouse area, we got to see some bottles older than us, along with some random taxidermized boar heads. We were then led into a room where the tour guide gave us a spread of bread, cheese, walnuts, olive oil, and two wines to try. It's safe to say that all of us thought the wine was really strong, but Izzy and I made a valiant effort to finish our glasses. At the end of our tour, we left with high spirits for sure.

"When there's a wine, there's a way" -inspired by classic millennial wine captions

Dazed and Crazed in Pamplona

Sunday was the last day for the Running of the Bulls festival in the city of Pamplona. In order to watch, and for my friends who wanted to actually run with them, we had to get there absurdly early. Took the 5 am bus to get there around 6, and stepping out of that bus station felt like entering a separate reality. It was like literal Gotham City or some sort of apocalyptic fallout wasteland with the amount of people passed out, still wandering around drunk from last night's party, and in general just being creatures of the night. Along with that, there was a very noticeable stench wafting through the streets. The best way that I can describe it is an unholy combination of trash, alcohol, smoke, garbage, and pee. One of those smells that you just really can't forget no matter how hard you try (and I've tried). When we made it to the route where the running would take place, I split up from Mateo, Jayashree, Riky, and Ian to claim a spot at the barricade so that I could have a good view. I was on Calle Santo Domingo right across from the town hall, which is one of the first areas that the encierro (running) takes place at. The full route is 875 meters long, and goes straight to the arena as the ending point. My friends were posted up closer to the end so that they could run into the arena and try to juke out the bulls so I unfortunately couldn't watch them. However, being front and center on the fence was very worthwhile since I was able to clearly see the bulls and people run past. It was quite the experience seeing guys do their stretching routines, bless themselves, and throw up right before it all started. Take a look at my POV below:

The runners prepare for battle...

Corre, Corre!

You might be wondering why so many people are wearing the exact same clothes. That's because the official colors of the festival are red and white and you would really stick out if you wore something different. Traditionally, runners usually wear the pañuelo (red bandana) along with the fajín (red sash). However, you don't have to be a runner for that and it's encouraged to wear the full garb. I really ended up taking this to heart and started out with just one of the bandana and sash each, but came out with 3 bandanas and 2 sashes. I fully evolved in the spirit of San Fermín!

The fit is fireeeeeee

I met up with my friends after the events ended in the arena and luckily all of them ended up being okay. Riky got his shirt torn and his side kind of cut by the bull's horn, Mateo saw a guy get trampled behind him as he was running, and Jayashree got pushed into the barricade (and came out unscathed but with someone else's blood on her shirt). I have so much respect for them because I know that I would've ended up worse if I did that. After walking along the streets, seeing some shops, and getting a quick bite to eat, all of us were super exhausted. For a little bit we went to a park and just laid down in the grass to pass the time while waiting for our bus to get there. To summarize this undoubtedly crazy experience, I enjoyed getting to be a part of the festival and see the famous encierro!

¡Viva San Fermín! ¡Viva!

Emily Dobao

Biomedical Engineering

IPE San Sebastian, Spain

July 15th, 2024

[enigmaincrimson]

Have ya thought about using a fc instead of the same damn pic each time? It's kinda annoying

(I don't have much control over dealing with technical limitations. Faceclaims come with their own annoying baggage.)

(Rant incoming... since you have no idea how many times, I've been asked these questions over the years)

(Like, even if I could find someone that look perfect for the part, getting and building a reaction image set isn't particularly easy. You have to not only find as many images as possible, but also clip every single icon into neat little 100x100 squares and well... that's even if you can find anything at all.)

(Frame extraction helps, but now you have to download a copy of that episodes they're in, brute force the extraction of every single frame from the source media, then you have to sift through all of those frames...)

(Same goes for a manga ass well... lots and lots of clicking, waiting, sorting, and trimming.)

(And that's if I get lucky and the face claim I found has any useable media to build from. Most of the time, the choices don't fit for what I am looking for.)

(So, I resort to using AI or other tools to create prototype references. However, those are just as fiddly and time consuming... despite what you'd think. If it was a canon character, it wouldn't be too difficult as the tools are usually decent on staying on the road, but it turns into a total chaotic mess once you start getting creative.)

(For all the constant tweaking, poking, and prodding, I usually only get lucky and maybe have like one or two viable images that actually are even legible, let alone fits what I was looking for.)

(I'd keep ranting like this, but that isn't even including the usual roleplay politics that have been swirling around here for as long as I can remember.)

(You could spend months putting together an icon set and then everyone just kicks you to the curb because of some overhyped nutjob sees a post you made 7 years ago and throws a nuclear fit over the subtle use of purple.)

(And don't get me started on the "no canon face claims" debacle from ten years ago.)

(Picking out face claims, building prototypes, or any kind of visual reference isn't something you just do. It's going to be a creative process and it's never going to be that simple.)

(Also, I'd add... yes, I have, but Murder Drones is a face claim unfriendly verse, the character makers I've found so far are pretty terrible, and the tools needed to get the AI to even try to get the right look is extremely fiddly and not very well made.)

(Most of the renders are missing eyes, have extra limbs and physical features, or just looks like she's melting... and it really doesn't know what to do about facial expressions.)

(Besides, people are going to complain regardless of what measure I take, so why should I care?)

(And no, I can't just go and pay someone to draw them for me. Neither can I afford such a thing, but even if I could without any penalties and didn't have to risk ending up on the street for it or worse, I don't feel comfortable with doing so without knowing exactly what I want in the end.)

[lunarwildrose]

I was recently diagnosed with PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) and vitiligo (autoimmune skin disease), the latter of which also causes you to not only lose pigment in your skin, but also your hair, and could cause premature white streaks ... I have a white streak like Rogue, with my hair going white since I was 21, on this note. 😳

I am really feeling the melancholic features of the PMDD, and having mood swings on top of being lethargic, which is also affected by being sickly again ... I kept saying I feel like I have covid again, and recently Micky found out he was at a table read with ppl who have covid, but didn't find out until after the fact. Bogus. 😞

The good news is all my lab tests came back okay, but the bad news is I can't go on birth control for PMDD, cos I have menses migraines and seizures. The OB-GYN doctor said BC doesn't help PMDD anyway, regarding the darker impulses, and that only a SSRI can. I'm on a SNRI, and thankfully found out the one I'm on does help with PMDD, but it still sucks I can't lessen the agony. Guess I'll need better coping skills, but it's kinda hard when I feel like I'm losing control of my life during PMDD days. 😔

I have a referral to follow up with the neurologist again, and I'll try to do the sleep study this time around. My convulsions are bothering me while awake now, not just when sleeping or trying to sleep. *sigh* 😔

I'm insecure about having vitiligo now, I'll need to see a dermatologist about it, which I've been meaning to do, since I'm still concerned about my butterfly rash, which is a big reason I won't go out in cold weather, and try to avoid sunlight which I'm allergic to, it seems, as I get itchy all over, break out in rashes, etc. and my face will have a flare up, and that makes me really insecure.

I also need to see an optician for my eyesight. It would be kinda neat to wear eye contacts, I always wanted green ones, and I saw a super adorable pair of glasses online I wanna get, they're totally my cutesy, colourful style! 😻

I'm not sure if I still have to do an EKG? I can't get in touch with primary care, and was actually rejected when I tried to get an emergency appointment. 😔

My chest X-ray had shown nothing bad, so maybe that's why I haven't heard or seen anything about an order for an EKG? I still have the weird chest pains, so I'd still like to get one, though ... Micky thinks they turned my request for an emergency appointment down cos my symptoms match long covid, and nobody knows how to treat them. 😔

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A post shared by 🌱🐈‍⬛ Sha Yuri Pris Akridge (Nabi) 🐦‍⬛🍃 (@lunarwildrose)

[goobiegoobert]

Could I ask for the Glamrock band confessing to their crush...'s twin by mistake?

Just like you?

_______________

A/N: I love this idea so much and for no fucking reason??? It's just muah perfection a brilliantly silly idea

Warnings: None! Maybe just a little bit of identity issues so be careful just in case!

[ GN reader ]

_______________

Glamrock Freddy

This was his moment, puffing out a bit being told by others that taking time to yourself and deep breaths helped, couldn't say he understood it perfectly but with each pretending breath it did feel quite silly. Maybe that was the trick? Feeling absolutely silly until all your nerves went away!

It didn't really make things much better, though what did help was having a good old conversation with a buddy! Chica understood to a specific degree of his nerves but ended with a shrug and pats on the back pushing Fazbear out the dressing room with words of encouragement.

❝ Go get 'em, Faz! ❞

It took a good while but he did find you! Circuits start to fry and warm them beyond recommended safety features, placing their paw on your shoulder giving it a warm shake and hesitant chuckle. You seemed so, surprised and confused.. Chica had already gotten to you huh? So stumbling over his words with garbled buzzes from their talk box making it hard to decipher until muttering out a very defeated 'Do you love me too?' Only to be pushed away with shock and anger on your face until.. Oh no, in all the words of Fazfuck dictionary could the one Freddy Fazbear tell he fucked up. This wasn't you huh? Each way the twist of disgust didn't feel right, your noose didn't scrunch up how it usually did and the eyes seemed differently colored too.

➤ Let's just say that he instantly began to apologize and ask who this person was! ➤ If they didn't respond at first he'd start trying to correct things in a soft voice about how he was looking for Y/N L/N, and thoroughly apologizing nearly a thousand times over to this person ➤ After initial shock and disgust from your twin, it morphed into them laughing at the damn bear nearly choking on themselves and using the animatronic as support ➤ Freddy could absolutely just collapse here and now, wouldn't even mind his case being slapped on a new endoskeleton and getting scrapped ➤ Teasing ensued from this look-alike, taking their sweet fucking time to milk this ➤ Letting time pass and finally allowing their hurting stomach to ease up from the constant pressure until mentioning something about you to him ➤ Freddy was zoned out for a good bit until leaning down and allowing your twin to whisper some funny little findings to him, which in the case at point raised Fazbears confidence in managing to land a yes from you skyrocketed ➤ Good luck !!

Monty Gator

No. ➤ I have to be real with you guys, Monty wouldn't be fooled, king absolutely knows which one is which like fucking Haruhi from OHSHC. ➤ I feel maybe once he fucked up and got his shit wrecked by your twin bc he went in to give you a smooch on the top of your head from behind ➤ Thinks having a twin is neat and will confuse the rest of his band with his games from this ➤ As well to this he totally befriends your twin simply for the fact it's funny as fuck to em

Roxanne Wolf

Wouldn't fail their confession but! ➤ Roxanne is here for you tbh, has managed to figure you out fair and square ➤ Sill can slip up between you two but still can and will fuck up ➤ Instantly apologizes and when you're around expresses all her guilt by hugging you and promising she'll never do it again ➤ Still happens but every time is so awful for her, it's almost as if she's betraying you ➤ mostly confuses you two if she sees one of you from behind ➤ gotten pretty good at telling apart the front!!

Glamrock Chica

It had been almost an hour of you two performing karaoke during the time of Chica surprisingly not being too busy for once, surely this was the moment!

You paused and asked to take a break to use the restroom before sprinting off and leaving the chicken to her own devices whilst thinking about how to pull this off now or never right? At least Chica believed this confession to be a do or die, a real rockstar moment. So once she'd seen you pass by the window and rearrive knocking onto the greenroom door she'd open happily simply awestruck and pick you up placing pecks all over you carrying you into the room.

Only to realize you were banging your fists on her chest and squirming about with a scowl on your face, huh weird. So putting you down with a tilted expression, gears within turning about processing why you seemed so upset.. usually excited about being smothered in her affection what happened!

➤ It took you walking back into the room to be super confused ➤ literally looked back and forth between the two of you multiple times before placing your twin down and moving to pick you up and study you ➤ Man chica feels really bad now :( ➤ Literally apologizes to your sibling and to you before just picking up where she left off to continue professing how much she really loves ya! ➤ Not the most hung up one about it but instead finds it funny that their first attempt at confessing to you was met with a practice dummy look alike ➤ Has a hard time understanding the concept of twins but overall such a sweet girlfriend about it 10/10

[chocoenvy]

Not… not me seeing that yandere imagine and IMMEDIATELY THINKING OF HOW FUNNY IT WOULD BE (not for Reader lmao) IF THEY DIDNT GO TO YAE MIKO FOR HELP AND DECIDED TO JUST ESCAPE, bUt, in their way out of the island/shrine, they meet a blonde lady who says she will help them :)! Oh she is so kind! (Signora just acquired a familiar without even knowing, she just wanted to mess with Reader a bit but grew attached to them DJAKSNSK)

WHICH LEADS ME TO THE BIGGER POINT! Signora doesn’t trust her fellow harbingers to take care of you when she is away on missions, so who is better for the task than her majesty:)? Tsaritsa and Reader shenanigans ensue. Meanwhile Ei and Miko are tearing Inazuma apart looking for you lol

(in reference to this post, warnings on that post and this massive yanderes!!)

YOU, MY LIEGE, HAVE AN AMAZING TASTE IN WOMEN

oh to be in a toxic pentagon with the tsaritsa signora yae and ei, about to start the second archon war all because you were a familiar that wouldn't learn your place.

okay but im just- ei would totally guilt trip you aND THAT'S A VERY UNHEALTHY TOXIC THING... BUT SHE'D BE SO HOT?? She'd be glaring at you, grabbing your face with her hand telling you how stupid it was for you to try and leave. How much trouble you've caused for her, Inazuma, and Snezhnaya. All because you didn't want to learn your place and listen to her.

You'd try and point out how Yae can do whatever she pleases and she's Ei's familiar as well. Perhaps it was the nature of how you and Ei met, I'm not really sure and honestly I doubt the reader knows for sure. All Ei knows, though, is that she can keep you safe and hers forever. She can't control who stays in her life, who leaves and who stays, but she can control you.

And then Tsaritsa and Signora offering you more freedom if you go with them, it's not necessarily a lie! You'll be able to go all across Snezhnaya and more. So long as you have an escort of course! That escort being one of the harbingers (specifically Signora) or her majesty herself! However you know how busy they can be... and there's no way you're going out without causing a big scene... so you can only really go to deserted places... so... basically... you're trapped back at square one.

Except Fatui found family baby!! Because i've been thinking about them again as always lol

You think you're going to be lonely, just as you were in the Plane of Euthymia, with no one to comfort you but her majesty and maybe Signora.

But... you were surprisingly wrong. You were never alone - something you got used to during your centuries of being with Ei - but it wasn't just the Tsaritsa or Signora that you were around.

Like they had told you, they get very busy, but that doesn't mean that the other harbingers can't spend some time with you.

They sent Childe in first, just cause he's the most approachable (and maybe you have some animalistic features?? like yae?? and Childe is probably really good at handling animals) So they introduced you to him first.

And the two of you got on really well! He was nice and if you didn't know better you'd be convinced he wasn't a harbinger. Of course you were sure he's had plenty of practice with his family so you're not that surprised

Please imagine how absolutely livid Ei and Yae will be to find out you've been not only associating with Scaramouche but enjoying your time with him.

To get to the point where you can say the Fatui feels like a family to you? Including Scaramouche? You've forsaken your god - the one you belong to as her familiar - and you can never go back.

But Ei and Yae will get you back. Somehow, someway.

I just think... angry Ei and Yae... are neat :)