#like i did that a lot with gw2 screenshots

[tequatls-favorite-spoon]

my art from the na vs art party!! took me a lil bit cuz i wanted to color it and that meant cleaning up the sketches and then i wanted to shade them and hajsksldhaflk

the characters from left to right:

Quinn Teeling - @sunsrefuge

Ambrose Wolfsbane - @commander-gloryforge

Finnegän - @pinecone-enthusiast

Astrëllä - @ohpollenpowder

[what-the-flux]

I came to the realization the other night that my beloved main man Oort the Truncheon turns 10 years old today! I can scarcely believe he's been with me that long, and yet it feels like I've had him even longer. As silly as it sounds, he's been through a lot with me. I'm not just talking the incredible amounts of development and IC story he's had, but how he's grown alongside me. He's been an outlet of self-discovery for me in a lot of respects, even playing a part in me accepting my own gender identity years ago, an aspect of myself I had boxed away. He gave me the courage to challenge inner doubts, prejudices and fears of self-actualization. I can't understate how important he is to me these days. Oort was also the catalyst to get me to share more of my ideas in the fandom and became my default "face" here on the GW2 side of Tumblr and through him I met so many great people over the years!

Decided to change his colors back to his OG look with classic yellow hair magilev crystals to celebrate the occasion. Thank you all for those that have followed or supported me since the beginning and all the people that came afterwards in more recent years. I may not be the most talkative here sometimes, but the fact that this curmudgeonly Warmaster and myself are still here over 10 years later speaks volumes on how much of an impact my GW2 characters and the fandom has had on me.

No screenshots remain of him from the earliest years, so have one of the first arts I ever did of him, all the way back from 2015!

[blackbackedjackal]

DogBlud traces? Like, from her own other images or from others? Can you elaborate?

She straight up takes screenshots from movies/shows and traces those or used Ependa's sketches and traces over them. She showed me and Rex her entire process on stream a few times, where she heavily leans on tracing. Here's an example:

It's not like she can't freehand, but she was so anal about how "her werewolves" looked that she straight up would trace the entire face of a wolf then just move around or add features. She used to get on to other people that "she could tell" were heavily referencing/tracing but never exposed how much she actually did it. Any human and werewolf art prior to her using Ependa's sketches were mostly traced or heavily traced, Ependa was just saving her the trouble of digging for references and making her look better by not making it as obvious how much she leaned on it for finished pieces. And yeah, it's is the majority of her artwork. I know a lot of her GW2 Charr art was traced cause I literally watched her do it with my Charr.

I'm not against tracing for practice or corrections or personal pieces, especially if it's references you took the time to gather yourself. My issue comes in with Dog, where she conveniently never mentioned how much she leaned on it for personal work, commissions, and art for others. She was just lazy and wanted to make her skillset look better than it actually was.

[bluebudgie]

Oh hi. I heard it's gifs tips'n'tricks time.

View this as a little addition to this post I made a while back.

This time I thought I'd take you through my gif making process. It'll be very specific to Photoshop CS6 but maybe some of you will find parts of it helpful regardless.

And since our biggest nemesis appears to be ~The Tumblr 10MB File Size Limit~ I decided to go for the absolute worst premise for a gif: Lots of stupid wobbly particles and gw2 bloom and transparency effects. Because huge gifs love these.

Aah, a horrifying amount of those in this single scene. Perfect!

Let's start with a little timelapse video, and I'll get into the details with screenshots below then.

So this actually went smoother than expected? Not super much fiddling needed in the end, but here's how it went in detail:

Load the raw footage into photoshop.

You can do this in two different ways: What I do is simply drag & drop the video file into the program and it'll open with a video timeline and some rudimentary video editing options.

What you can also do is File -> Import -> Videoframes to Layers and select your source video, which will give you a timeline of separate still image frames instead.

It comes down to preference, I used both methods in the past but nowadays I find the video timeline more intuitive.

Cut the footage to roughly the right length.

From experience I know that most of my gifs are around 3-4 seconds long. This can of course vary depending on different factors. Don't get too attached to the exact seconds you selected, you might have to shave off a bit depending on how evil the file size decides to act.

Optional: Change footage speed

Depending on the gif and its purpose, I slow the footage down. I usually do this for the visual effect (especially nice for showing off animation details) but it also has the practical side effect that it can help with file size. Say you want a gif that loops after 4 seconds. At 100% speed your gif will move at your original framerate (in my case 60 fps); if you slow it down but keep the same length in seconds it'll logically use less frames. That's less data to blow up the size! Yey.

Crop the image.

Now this is probably one of the most crucial parts when it comes to your final file size, and your gif looking nice on tumblr. Since the tumblr dashboard displays images at a width of 540px, you want this to be your absolute minimum image width to ensure a crisp image. If I can, I'll make the gifs larger (I like starting at a minimum of 600px and then reduce the image dimensions if needed).

With that in mind.... choose your image crop wisely.

A "widescreen" image like this will be the most merciful in terms of file size, but might not always be what you want in terms of composition.

Given tumblr's very vertical nature, this kind of approach will look great in posts (if it fits your image composition of course), but at 540px minimum width tends to be a file size monster.

For the gif I'm attempting to make here I opted for a more square approach. The subjects of the scene fill out the image's space nicely, and it's still a nice size for tumblr posts overall. Let's see what the file size will say about this.

Replay your footage after cropping to make sure you didn't accidentally cut off any motion you didn't mean to cut.

Next up: optional colour corrections

I tend to crank up the saturation for gifs way, way more than I ever would for regular screenshots since I find that often the limited web palette can make them look fairly dull. But like everything else so far, this greatly varies depending on the scene you're showing.

Note that colour correction can increase or decrease file size depending on what exactly you're doing. The more different colours you have, the larger your file size will be.

Reduce image dimensions

Since my original video footage was fairly zoomed out, the cropped area only left me 575px of width to begin with. In an earlier attempt (that I absolutely did not fail to capture and therefore had to record the whole thing a second time) I tried to leave it at these dimensions, but the 10MB size limit did not like that so now I knew better and immediately reduced the width to 560px.

Note: After you've changed the video's dimensions it won't let you edit the speed anymore (for some reason), so make sure you've got that settled.

After all the adjustments are done it's time for the moment of truth...

File > Save for Web...

This beautiful window will open and...

Aww almost.

But honestly? That's not bad at all. I've had completely different disasters to deal with in the past (starting somewhere in the mid 20MB, good luck trying to make use of every size-reducing trick you've got up your sleeve).

Before I do any adjustments to shave off the last few KB though, I preview the gif to make sure it loops correctly. I want the Chak to sway seemlessly. Turns out it didn't, so I back out of the window to remove a few frames from the footage. And when I open the "Save for Web" window again....

Well that's anticlimatic. Apparently those few frames were enough to get the file size where I need it. (Note: Sometimes Tumblr likes to be a little b* and pretends your file is too big when you're this close to the 10MB limit. It be like that.)

While my gif journey theoretically ends here, I want to at least show you a few more things that could have helped if I had needed to get the file even smaller.

So this dithering thing I keep making a big deal of...

It can make or break a gif. In my experience this is so, so crucial to the final file size and quality of the gif.

In my own very amateurish words, dithering is a way to emulate colours that aren't actually part of the images colour palette. This is especially needed for in-game transparency effects like fog, glowy stuff, or smooth gradients. And that is part of why I chose this hell scene of all the ley line glow and the typical gw2 bloom that's particularly bad in this area.

PS CS6 offers you three different kinds of dithering techniques: Diffusion, pattern and noise.

My go-to is diffusion dithering, which has adjustable quality levels.

In my opinion it's generally the type of dithering that's often the least noticeable and creates the smoothest looking images. Unfortunately, it's also the one that creates by far the largest file sizes. Another downside is that it doesn't work super well with heavy DoF/fog etc. effects and is prone to really ugly banding, especially visible the more you decrease the quality. It looks awful for this particular scene. (Look at the glow around my asura's headpiece if you don't know what I'm talking about. Or... just the entire background.)

Both noise and pattern dithering will get you smaller file sizes, luckily.

I've never used noise so far (it tends to look messy in my opinion), but pattern gets the job done! Especially for gradient heavy gifs it's a lifesaver. It's definitely more noticeable than the diffusion dithering on static parts of the gif, but it absolutely makes up for it by not having any ugly banding effects. This is also what gave me the neat little 9.99MB file size in comparison to the diffusion dithering's 15.31MB.

Last but not least, if fiddling with the dithering or image dimensions doesn't help you get below that magic 10MB mark...

Limit the colour palette

You can either manually colour edit your image to use less colours for a more artistic approach, or you can let Photoshop limit the palette to its best abilities.

Additionally you can double click each individual colour to replace it how you see fit. (I've done that in the past when Petthri's yellow eye colour got erased and I had to bring it back manually.)

In this gif's example, reducing the palette from 256 to 128 colours has brought the file size down from 9.9 MB to about 8 MB. It can have a big effect, but doesn't always in my experience.

SHOW US THE GODDAMN GIF ALREADY!!!

Not the best quality gif we've ever seen on tumblr, but given the extremely unfavourable source material I think it turned out alright. I have to admit I'm actually surprised it worked at all.

Oh well! This got long (once again). I hope this was at least a little bit helpful to someone out there. Happy gif making!

[mystery-salad]

Creation asks. 3 + 5 for Ruan Huo, Embrant, and Niutuiyik. Bonus question 13 if you still feel like talking!

Right at the top, I honestly don't know what memory depths you pulled Niutuiyik from cause he existed for like a full two months as icebrood saga started then got deleted when the chapters on the third map released and my enthusiasm for the expac plummeted...I can't find him searching my blog, no idea if you just remembered his name??? I'll answer what I can for him but honestly a lot of info has left my head on that one. 100% answering 13 as well to make up for the missing oc info there 🙏 it did delight me to see him again, maybe he'll get a remake of sorts now that I've had time to develop my own icebrood saga...don't even have a screenshot on hand of him any more 😔

3. How did you choose their name?

Embrant was simply by sound. Just syllables I like together that read to me as a sunny spring day!

Ruan's was a matter of going over old gw1 and gw2 canthan names at length until I felt like I landed somewhere that felt right for them

Niutuiyik I do not remember the full thought process, if I remade him this would mean I'd be picking a new name too because I know his name did have meaning and I'd want to keep that level of intent

5. Is there any significance behind their hair color?

Embrant's entire color scheme was based very loosely off the bird of paradise flower, which includes her hair color! It's just mostly for a nice cohesiveness~

Ruan dyes their hair because they enjoy the color and that it makes them easy to spot in a crowd despite how short they are! Their natural color is a dark nearly-black brown.

Niutuiyik had black hair, entirely because it made sense for him and I in general stick to natural hair colors unless a character dyes their hair or I'm feeling fancy

13. How far past the canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all?

Embrant is all caught up but doesn't pass, and considering she's a Warden of the Grove, her story is very very chill and simple aside from her gf being the Commander's protégé lmao

Ruan's story is constantly caught up and jumping ahead right now, they're one of my most up to date commanders at the moment. But their plot is always malleable and subject to changes if the plot reveals dictate it and it's fun✨️

Niutuiyik's story burned so bright for so little time.......if I ever do remake him, I'd talk about the story then

[nerdybookahs]

Screenshot Saturday: GW2 Screenshot Gallery

Screenshot Saturday: GW2 Screenshot Gallery #Blaugust2024 #GuildWars2

I realized it has been years since I last made one of these galleries for a zone of Guild Wars 2. In fact, the last one appeared in 2019. I thought I had done a lot more than I actually did. There are some easy favourites still open like Metrica Province or Gendarran Fields. Then again, nothing is keeping me from doing it if I want to! I will also have to go through the old galleries as…

[mmorgmachines]

Guild wars 2 free trail

#Guild wars 2 free trail Patch

#Guild wars 2 free trail trial

GW2 has a wide array of customization but not as wide as the other MMOs I've seen, but nevertheless they have nice presets. call me a perv but seriously I was hoping there was something like "boob" customization LOL.

#Guild wars 2 free trail trial

Been thinking what character should we make or what should we do once we step in the world of GW2.Īnd so the day came we were like waiting for New Year since the trial starts at 1:00AM at our time (GMT+8)īlackgate. So me and my friend downloaded the client like crazy. Special thanks to Jazzy (Celesica in GW2) for providing an invite which actually was intended for my other friend who will actually buy the game. Thanks to Arenanet, existing users can invite 3 friends to try the game for 3 days (November 15 - 18). THEN, there did came a time I get to try it. If only I had a chance to at least try it. The interest and urge to play it is there but the hindrance is GW2 being Buy to Play and questions such as, "Is it worth the time and money?", "Does it have a long lifespan?" or "Will it get repetitive and boring?" keep on bugging me. I watched videos, looked for screenshots, and read reviews. I've been eyeing on Guild Wars 2 since beta. Here I will try to give you people a review of what I have experienced on that 3 day span though I may not be able tackle all the aspects of the game. A lot of things can discourage me play a certain MMO. I've been always wondering what's the fuss about this MMO, Guild Wars 2? What's so fascinating or how it will make me play and stay, maybe because I've seen too much recycled/facelifted MMOs.

#Guild wars 2 free trail Patch

Latest patch Dev tracker Official sub Discord Optional description Nightmode Lights on Content Filters Post to look for / advertise a guild, use /r/GuildRecruitment.Post just to advertise your stream, event streams are fine.Use this subreddit as an alternative way of contacting customer support.Post template memes or no context images.Make sure any videos are marked unlisted / not public If you happen to find an exploit send details and evidence about it to the support team via a support ticket. Please include the word "spoiler" if your submission potentially contains a spoiler. r/GuildWars2 strives to be a place where you can share your Guild Wars 2 experiences and partake in discussions with players from around the world. Returning player? We've got a guide for you as well! New to Guild Wars 2? Check out our new player wiki page.

[rizardofether]

Got into ESO again. Been a while. In fact I've barely played any ESO at all, but suddenly I got very inspired to play it. I made some new characters and set up fashion for all of them, changing it from earlier for the ones that already had some kind of looks going on.

One of them has this wolf pup as a pet and it loves standing on a roaring fire, it seems.

Two of them.

[reemaroamstyria]

Dressed up my main as a bunny girl for halloween UwU

Now i’m just sad there isn’t a bunny tail skin as a backpack or something.

[thefreelanceangel]

How do you convince your RP partners to make so many alts for pairings?

I don't anymore LOL FFXIV doesn't offer nearly as many "alt" options as GW2 did. (Which is probably for the best, considering I had some 42+ characters in GW2.)

Due to my extremely restrictive availability for IG RP, I only RP with one person regularly, one person semi-regularly and two people off and on. (And these are all people I've been RPing with for over a year or more.) I made the mistake of reaching out to RP with people who primarily do their RP IG and thanks to time blindness, RL and me being a scatterbrain, that didn't pan out.

My boyfriend actually plays most of my characters' partners--L'upus, Seifer, Kona--and has played most of the older ones like Nebari. I retired a couple of characters--Narasen, Ferazhin, etc.--when their stories came to a natural conclusion and the alts that I have now are mainly for screenshots and my own random writing tidbits.

All the screenshots I take are usually done in the brief span of time I have available before work (since I work a 10 hour graveyard shift 4 nights a week) and I use CM Tools (Shhh) to give myself more than a single character to work with. So I can take screenshots with characters that ICly are living together when I haven't RP'd with the person in days, weeks, etc.

I just really really enjoy taking screenshots, so I check in with the people I have RP ties with, we chat about what the characters might be doing/are probably doing, and then I pop over with my CM Tools bit of available time before work to take a few pictures.

The nice thing about FFXIV and .dat files from the character creator and CM Tools (coughwedon'ttalkaboutitcough) is that I can make a lot of things by myself without having to bother anyone else for it. Even NPCs and other characters and whole stories!

[the-scribe-station]

Here we are, once again. Are you ready?

Once more the leaves are turning those beautiful amber and orange hues around us, the smell of candy corn being rustled from the Consortium and Priory warehouses is wafting over us, and my fur feels like it’ll implode any second now...

Aye, this is Halloween, and with it comes my annual giveaway. My thank you to this game that’s given me so much more than I ever could’ve asked for. Are you by chance interested in acquiring yourself a fancy new throne upon which to seat yourself? Check down below for details~

This year, once more, I’ll be giving away

One (1) Shrouded Bench of the Final Judge

Interested in winning? Here’s how we’ll be determining the lucky winner.

Reblog +1 entry

Like +1 entry

As with last year, I don’t have much time or energy to be going through and finding out who my past followers were. I am sincerely grateful for your patronage to this long dead and withered account, but as a Necromancer, it’s only in my nature no?  You don’t need to be a follower of mine to enter this giveaway, just make sure you follow these simple rules and guidelines!

Make sure you own GW2, and aren’t thinking of dropping it soon. While this isn’t really a rule or requirement so much as it is a guideline, I’d like to give an opportunity to players who’ve had put in a lot of playtime without much to show for.

Please don’t sell it. Again, another guideline really, but if you’re going to be entering this giveaway to sell the chair back for a quick return, then please consider purchasing it yourself.If you already have the chair and happen to win.

Please let me know if the chair is going to be a gift for an acquaintance, guildie, etc and provide a screenshot that you did send it to them. Just to be safe. I don’t it, but would rather have the notice sooner than later.

No giveaway accounts please.

If you intend to enter this giveaway, make sure to have your notifications ready and direct messages open, as I’ll only be holding the prize for 24 hours before re-rolling the rng.

This giveaway will run until: October 31st - Noon CT. (10 AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern / 7 PM Greenwich)

As a general disclaimer, this giveaway is in no part sponsored by ArenaNet. Hope everyone has an amazing Halloween!, filled with fright and delight!

[ascalonianpicnic]

30 questions: GW2 edition

I was tagged by @just-eyris-things and @where-is-caithe to fill out @pr-gw2 ‘s lovely question set <3 which i took forever to get to riiiip but here we go~

You can draw, write (to explain in details or not) or just post screenshots! If you miss one it’s totally okay, whether it’s by lack of answer or time. Have fun!

1. Favorite living world season? while I think 4 was probably better in terms of writing and gameplay, I think lws3 is still my favorite. It was the first new story updates I got to experience in game and @mystery-salad and I played all the updates together so it was really fun! It’s just a really nostalgic season for me

2. Favorite expansion? Path of Fire. It’s really good man, it’s so good and so pretty and the plot I’m <3

3. Favorite soundtrack? Alpine Marches!

4. First profession you played? Necromancer! I’d say it was an excellent choice~

5. First race you played? Sylvari, and I still main her to this day~

6. Favorite Destiny’s Edge character? It was originally Caithe, and I love Zojja a lot, but after a ton of hate Eir got back in April and May, I’m an Eir stan now. That’s my milf and she’s amazing

7. Favorite Dragon’s Watch character? Kasmeer currently~

8. Favorite Elder Dragon? Jormag, sorry for being massively gay for them

9. Best boss fight (story)? Probably the fight with Balthazar at the start of the Departing? Though to be honest I’m a huge fan of all of the Balthazar fights, his mechanics are really fun and his visuals and dialogue are *chefs kiss*

10. Best boss fight (fractal)? High Priestess Amala, it’s such an interesting fight but such a fucking tragic one

11. Best boss fight (raid)? I’ve only fought Cairn and never won but he’s cool. Based purely of aesthetics, Samarog is my wife, and I am very interested in Dhuum and the Soulless Horror

12. PvE or PvP or RP? RP my man, y’all hit me up for some rp Please

13. Favorite canon couple? Kas n Jory~

14. Favorite fanon/self made couple? for oc/oc it’s def Aildyn and @mystery-salad​‘s Matthias, and for oc/canon, Rhosill and Canach just hit a warm spot in me

15. Favorite quote? “They’ll write more songs about you. Keep your legend alive. I’ll find whoever did this. I promise.” Norn pc to Almorra’s body in Whisper in the Dark, I did in fact tear up hard at that

16. Most emotional cinematic?  Hard to say, since none of the most emotional moments for me were cinematics, but dialogue over action that adds to scenes, like leaving Blish in the Mists, or Executioner Amala’s death, where you and Braham are just stuck in space together for a few minutes after. That said, maybe when Braham pushes you free of Joko’s spell and takes your place so you can fight? Was that a cinematic?

17. Favorite VA? Sumalee Montano, the voice of Marjory

18. Post a fun screenshot! uvu

19. Post a landscape screenshot! It’s the best I’ve got on this laptop sorry ^^’

20. Most used mount(s)? the Skyscale, it was well worth the effort

21. Favorite mount skin (for every mount you have)?

Overall - Desert Scarab for the beetle

for the rest - Storm Ridge (raptor), Sun Temple Gecko (springer), Magnificent Hummingbird (skimmer), Stardust (jackal), Sky Bandit (griffon), Starclaw (warclaw), Shimmerwing (skyscale)

22. Favorite weapon? in general, i adore axes and how they’re used on every class with access to them. in terms of just skins, Sharur and the merciless focus are my two favorite skins.

23. Favorite gear set? Zodiac, definitely. I know it’s skimpy and ridiculous but I love it

24. Favorite title? “I’m rich, you know” is my dream title, but “good apple” is my favorite of the ones I have

25. Something you worked really hard to get? I made Chuka and Champawat this year!!!! It took forever

26. Favorite GW2 Youtuber / GW2 related video? now is my time to shill! @yolosmith​ has some really fun wvw roaming videos that you can find [here] !!!

27. Most used miniature? Mummy Legs

28. Most used novelty? The bouquet of roses~

29. Number of achievments points? 10,581 points, I don’t put in a ton of effort to gaining points for the sake of it

30. Something you’d love to see in GW2? I want More norn content! Especially anything about Forgal or his father since we’re meeting new followers of Ox/Dolyak

I’m not going to directly tag anyone since I literally have no clue who has and hasn’t done it and I’m late to the party, but if you see this, I’m tagging you to do it, fight me

[bluebudgie]

10 YEARS OF GW2 – A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Hello peeps! As a little countdown to GW2's launch anniversary on August 28 I decided to dig up some old memories and take a small look at my personal journey through the game. Each day I'll make a post about another year.

DAY 1: 2012

Where else to start this journey than with my first screenshot ever taken? Not quite at launch but not too long after, on September 18, I started my first MMO experience as a Charr ranger called Reydur.

I'm sorry at what time now? Go to bed, seriously.

In the following day I immediately created two more characters (gotta try out your options after all!), my Norn engineer Fjadrar:

(the lady on the right, posing with my girlfriend's norn Sváfnir)

And my Human thief Liggja... posing with (also my girlfriend's) Nathanaël, in town clothing (anyone remember that?). They both look so, so different these days. Not just their clothes.

Yes, it appears my first three characters covered all the medium classes. I don't think I did it on purpose, but you are talking to buttcape apologist Nr. 1 here, so...

I'd like to show you some amazing screenshots here but somehow a large portion of them are of moas. I don't know either.

I mostly spent my time exploring the open world (that much hasn't changed in 10 years it seems). Despite experiencing the game in an average of 15 fps on medium-low graphics settings, I absolutely fell in love with the game's environments.

I especially remember enjoying Dredge and Skritt themed places. There's just something about those muddy grey and brown tones that always did it to me....

I also loved playing through the personal story to try out all the different race options. Reydur, my main back then, had the honourful task of completing the personal story as pact commander....

...aaaand never did. I really, really couldn't beat it back then. Don't ask please. I wasn't good at this. And knowing myself, probably in armour 35 levels too low. Don't have evidence of that anymore. I still haven't finished the story on her to this day...

Then, in december, the first Wintersday ever happened! Remember when the festival took place in Lion's Arch?

I still love this screenshot a lot. We didn't really think about it yet at the time, but our Norn eventually became girlfriends :D

And as a final deed for the year...

That's Hvitti. Yea I know it doesn't look like him. He wasn't a revenant obviously, he had a slightly different name, but in character concept and personality he was the same, so it counts. But that's not what I'm getting at here. It's the plush gryphon. I don't remember the details of how to obtain this mini back in 2012 at all, all I remember is it seemed like a very daunting task to me (it probably really wasn't) and I was terrified I wouldn't be able to get it in time before the festival ends. Evidently I did manage, and I was very proud of it!

That concludes 2012! Onto 2013 :D

Permanent additions to the character roster that year:

Links to all posts: 2012 // 2013 // 2014 // 2015 // 2016 // 2017 // 2018 // 2019 & 2020 // 2021 // 2022    

[khorren]

GW2 Photo Challenge - Day 25 - Friends

I believe that in GW2 you have more friends than you realise. Whether it’s your allies in WvW, or just that one guy you see at a world boss every day and you wave to. Friends can come together at unlikely and weird times. And of course they can be the people you talk to on discord or in game every single day for the past 8 years.

I know I’ve told this tale before, but it’s an important one for me :)

For me, the biggest coming together of friends I have experienced in Guild Wars 2 was in April 2013. My dad has just passed away sunddenly and unexpectingly and I mentioned it to my guildmates. What happened next still floors me to this day.

Some of my closest friends got together and started a collection both in game and with IRL money. Some had contacts with the Jade Quarry WvW community that I was active in, and suddenly the bank of one of the guilds, [AoS] became a crowdfund bank to store materials to go towards Juggernaut, the legendary hammer I was working on.I had no clue about any of this, I was just bumbling about my own business. I got mails and PMs from people who I’d only vaguely bumped in to in game expressing their condolences. I got a message from the english speaking liaison from [FOO], a really big, dominant WvW force in the South-East Asian timezone which was super sweet.

PvP and WvW communities can get a bad rep for being toxic shitholes, and yeah, competitive game modes definitely showcase some of the finest dickwads in any game, but that these WvW people came together for me was like... idk man, I don’t have the words. But people can do some amazingly good things sometimes.

Anyway. 9 days later I was called to Divinity’s Reach and was greeted by a giant circle - slash - mishmash of JQ people, my friends, and also just... random people. One of them gave a really mushy speech in Teamspeak, and then I was told to go to the guild bank of AoS. Inside there was so so many materials to go towards Juggernaut, including the pre-cursor. A few of these people offered to drag me through Sorrow’s Embrace to get the dungeon currency, since I hated dungeons.

6 days later, everything was put together, and since it was a WvW crowd-funded present, it had to be made in the mystic forge in our garrison, and then we went on a Blackgate murder spree to go kill some [ICoa].

(WvW ranks were character bound back then and I mostly did WvW on my thief. So seeing rank 4 on my guardian was just lol! Bbie Aoife! Before she was Aoife, and she had white hair :3 )

I made a lot of good friends during those time, many of which I’m still in contact with, some have fallen outof contact for whatever reason and they’re all people I’ll never forget. They’re my friends <3

Bonus screenshot of some badass bitches <3

[pinkplantmakesstuff]

Okay I gotta know more about Alec’s dragon powers! How did he get them at first? Was he born having Zhaitan like powers already for did he receive them somehow?

This has taken a bajillion years for me to write omg but thanks for asking @inkberrry it makes me really pleased ;0; (Also I was gonna add art and screenshots to explain better but I got anxious about taking so long so one day I’ll do that separately)

Right so Alec is SUPER like, Mary Sue canon breaking baloney and I was really embarrassed about sharing him to start with but the fact people don't seem to mind is really nice?? (I had a BAD time with some super canon sticking people initially oops) So yeah most of this is over the top and doesn't follow the official lore AT ALL. ALSO I'm only up to Living World 3 atm so this might all change!

Also this is gonna be SUPER LONG (Maybe so I’m going to bung it under a cut)

Right so there are 2 ideas I am toying with and this is the first;

The first idea is that he is somehow able to absorb magic. 

Maybe some of Zhaitan's magic spilt into him before he was born and he's more susceptible to accepting and assimilating magic then most beings (for reasons I don't know oops). 

So his only magic is absorbing and taking other really powerful magic. So if the dragons didn't exist? Alec would have no powers.

I THINK it's said that when the dragons die their magic flows back into the world, and considering Alec is LITERALLY right there he gets a whole dose of evil dragon magic, which is affecting the powers he controls but also his form.

Because he can absorb the powers, after fighting Zhaitan his risen/necromancey got stronger, and once he fought Mordremoth he can control plants and tendrils (And combine the two powers too!) 

ALSO! He looses his arm fighting Mordremoth/saving Trahearne (Yeah it's a Trahearne is rescued au too) instead of simply repairing Caladbolg his new tendril plant magic and the fact Caladbolg  IS a magic sword, it fuses to his stump as sort of a plant sylvari sword arm that changes between normal planty arm to big cool sword arm (This happens in the second idea too!)

Second completely wild, over-the-top, maybe the one I’m leaning towards idea that makes Alec completely self-indulgent/important ;0;   :

Heads up I know nothing about the massive in-depth wider lore of GW2 and don’t have that much interest in learning? To me gw2 is a fun playground for me to create things and stories in so bare with me XD

So you have the six human gods who made everything? Well WHAT IF they had like, a rival thing that was like, an evil demon thing that was just as powerful. I call this dude “The Destroyer”. 

So The Destroyer wants to destroy! He hates the six and is like “I’m a jerk blah blah blah I’m gonna make these six evil dragons to fuck up the cool stuff you are all building and those humans and the stuff others are creating. This weakens him a LOT and the six gods kick his ass and he “dies”.

Cept he doesn’t die! Zhaitan as one of his creations power, accidentally reforms a much MUCH weaker version of the Destroyer as Alec or like, reawakens a weak dormant destroyer who takes over a human babby. Cept he doesn’t know this, is raised as humans and with humans and is basically just a timid dude who tries to do good.

Because the Destroyer created the dragons, each one he kills Alec reabsorbs a portion of it’s powers! (So like the first idea basically)

I know a bit about Balthazar so I think it could be neat that Balthazar recognises Alec as The Destroyer (And iunno what happens in PoF that much so I’ll leave it there for now.)

Either way the Destroyer is no longer the destroyer and just Alec the tired Commander.

Also this explains in my head why Alec survives SO much bullshit all the time whereas I’m pretty sure a normal human would have died preeetty quickly in his shoes. ALSO explains why he didn’t go mad when he saw the Eternal Alchemy coz I guess he’d be part of it???

ANYWAY weird ramble over. Sorry this isn’t super coherant or fancy or even edited/read a second time to make sure it makes sense (Or even that dragony in the end? The third option is he just, is connected to the dragons somehow which was my initial idea but then I got carried away over the past few months). And ta again for letting me indulge omg! Also I tagged your main blog iunno if you’d rather I tagged ResonatingFern oops >.<

[bloomins]

30 Questions: GW2 Edition

This can be done in many different ways: get asks by your followers, pick some questions for yourself, answer the whole damn thing at once, etc!

You can draw, write (to explain in details or not) or just post screenshots! If you miss one it’s totally okay, whether it’s by lack of answer or time. Have fun!

Wasn’t tagged, but it looked super fun so I’m gonna do it. :3 

1: Favorite living world season? Living World Season 4 was amazing. It awakened (hah...) my love of Palawa Joko and all things Elonian, and also dove into some really amazing, top notch story content. Boy howdy. Season 4 had me REELING on multiple occasions (hello ending of episode 3 and 5. JEEZ.). 

2: Favorite expansion? Path of Fire. Just... Just beautiful. I still park myself in Vabbi just to enjoy the scenery and culture of the place.

3: Favorite soundtrack? Path of Fire’s Soundtrack is so good. I’m a fan of non-Western music, so it’s got some different sounds that I enjoy.

4: First profession you played? Engineer. It was new compared to GW1, plus it gave me some SERIOUS steampunk vibes.

5: First race you played?  Human. I still got my girl Torris Brookes. <3 

6: Favorite Destiny’s Edge character? Zojja (RIP). She’s so bitter and petty, so she creates some good (even if sometimes unnecessary) conflict.

7: Favorite Dragon’s Watch character? Taimi. I really do enjoy her dialogue, and I’ve been missing her as of late.

8: Favorite Elder Dragon? Kralkatorrik actually brought me to tears when I saw him the first time. Magnificent. 

9: Best boss fight (story)? Palawa Joko. :3c

10: Best boss fight (fractal)? Oh, that’s tough. Hm... I do like Arrk’s final Shattered Observatory fight quite a lot. 

11: Best boss fight (raid)? Really, I enjoy all of wing 1. Sabetha is a BITCH, though. 12: PvE or PvP or RP? PvE. I have PVP achievements on my nearly completed panel and I hate it. They’re the only reason I venture into PVP at all.

13: Favorite canon couple? Jory and Kas. I wish nothing but the best for them.

14: Favorite fanon/self made couple? I don’t really have one, tbh... Uh, anyone’s characters x canon characters? My OC Rin hangs out with her djinn buddy Nefes a lot, but that’s not really a couple... *squints*

15: Favorite quote? “Gross” -   Bonnie Kunderah, Apprentice to Snargle Goldclaw. And also “WHAT??” *incoherent crashing and banging and scrambling* “Did you say chak?!” - Gorrik

16: Most emotional cinematic? Yeah, gotta go with Trahearne. We had to put my cat down 3 days before I played that instance due to a terminal illness, so that hurt extra hard.

17: Favorite VA? OH, I CAN’T CHOOSE, they all do so well!

18: Post a fun screenshot! 

Was grabbing me a good hand reference for  R E A S O N S.

19: Post a landscape screenshot!

Was taking more refs for  R E A S O N S.

21: Favorite mount skin (for every mount you have)?

Raptor: Canyon Spiketail (This I use for my sylvari, Deorsa)

Springer: Kourna Jackrabbit (Long boi for my long gurl, Rin)

Skimmer: Spined Longtail

Jackal: Fulgurite Ridgeback

Griffon: Northern Feather Wing

Beetle: Synergetics Gyrocycle (sorry Petey, I still love you)

Warclaw: I only have the default skin for this, but Vigilant Saberclaw is cool.

Skyscale: Shimmerwing is cool, but LISTEN. Bearded dragon is just so cute. 

22: Favorite weapon? There’s so many cool ones.I really love shields (Chrono main forever ago). I prefer more realistic, less flashy weapons. For RP purposes.~

23: Favorite gear set? Marauder shoulders and pants with bucaneer coat and privateer boots. I would wear this in real life if i could, I  think it’s beautiful. 

24: Favorite title? The Eternal (that BITCH, Sabetha).

25: Something you worked really hard to get? H.O.P.E. My first ever legendary. When I learned that I didn’t just *get* it after completing T4, it almost drove me to taking a break from the game. I might’ve cried. I became so poor after finishing T4, I didn’t have enough money to waypoint.

26: Favorite GW2 Youtuber / GW2 related video? I love me some Wooden Potatoes and KROOF Gaming. 

27: Most used miniature? Palawa Joko. :3c He follows my girl, Rin Smallwood, around.

28: Most used novelty? My skyscale lounging chair, or the Desert King chair. Usually both accidentally.

29: Number of achievements points? Currently? 20,983. Gonna get 22/22 of No Quarter tomorrow.

30: Something you’d love to see in GW2? Call me terrible, but more Joko content on Halloween. Still think it was a missed opportunity to have Aurene barfed up his head. We could have gotten a new legendary focus that wouldn’t shut up.

@mindlessabnormity​ @diesvitae​ @brahameirsson​ @pr-gw2​ and anyone else who happens to see this and wants to do it. :) If you haven’t done it already.