#longer than expected to get done

[wattice]

Marx and Pomni being jester friends!! (Alternatively, Marx accidentally giving Pomni more trauma)

Man I sure do love me my red and blue jesters with eyes too big for their skull huh

[airenyah]

Reasons Why I Need a Sexy JoongDunk BL

If you know me, then you’ll know that it’s actually kind of funny that I’m asking for this. Me. A sex-repulsed leaning asexual who, for the most part, tends to stay away from (overly) sexy and/or horny series. And yet I really want a sexy JoongDunk series. A messy, Only Friends-type of series even, perhaps.

Make no mistake, though. I don’t actually want it for me, oh no. No, I want a sexy JoongDunk series for them, for their sake. Because I feel like they’d have a whole lot of fun with it.

And here’s why I think so:

Reason #1: Dum Dum

Definitely the most obvious reason, but the LOL Fanfest Dum Dum performance: the fact that the choreography was like That. And the fact that it was their idea to switch up who bites who for day 2:

Not to mention the fact that Dunk actually bit Joong for real:

I'm just saying, they wanted “hot and sexy”, they chose this:

Reason #2: “We’ve never done this before”

The way they kept bringing up how Hidden Agenda is more mature than Star in My Mind and how there were scenes that they’d never done before*, it seemed to have been a big deal for them.

*see here for some eng subs (this video is unfortunately heavily edited)

Reason #3: “Favorite episode of Hidden Agenda? Episode 8!!”​

The way Joong immediately said episode 8 was his favorite, smiling expectantly at Dunk...

...and then was very adamant when Dunk couldn’t decide between episodes 7 and 8:

Considering their comments of how “episode 8 is special” because they’ve “never done anything like this before”... Well, dare I bet it’s their favorite episode because of the ending specifically. Unless maybe they were particularly excited about the stalker story line. I don’t think they’d done that before either.

Reason #4: Ep8 watch party live on Instagram

The way they actually sat down and went live on Instagram in order to watch, react to, and comment on the entirety of episode 8.

And considering Dunk’s comment at the beginning of this live about how it’s “something we've never done before” I’m absolutely convinced they chose ep8 to react to specifically because of the ending lmao. Unless, of course, they were extremely hyped about the stalker plot. There were no creepy stalker plots in Star in My Mind, nor do I remember any significant stalking in Joong’s other works. Or maybe the two of them were referring to the scene where Zo bites Joke’s arm. I don’t remember any biting from Star in My Mind, so who knows, it might be that. What else was special in ep8? Oh right, Joke punched the stalker. That can’t have been the “we’ve never done this before” thing, though, considering Joong was literally in a Mafia series before. Also, he punched Pepper in Star in My Mind. My theory still stands.

Reason #5: “It was more intense than this”

In that instagram live they also dropped that a lot was cut from that scene and that it was supposed to be more intense than this. Uh, boys...? What kind of choreography did y’all on set come up with for this scene exactly??

(I can’t stop laughing at Dunk's face when he agrees with Joong saying that a lot was cut. He looks like he suddenly bit into a very sour lemon lmao)

In conclusion:

Clearly they had a lot of fun with the Dum Dum performance and it seems that they were very excited about getting to do something more mature with Hidden Agenda, and also getting the the chance to do something that they’ve “never done before” in ep8 specifically. So my point stands: I think they’d have a blast playing a sexy series together. I want it for them.

Bonus: Vampire BL

Bonus points if this sexy JoongDunk BL that I’m asking for is a vampire BL!! Here’​s why:

You can find a more extensive list of vampire mentions in my JoongDunk Vampire Mentions Masterpost here.

[celestelunisea16]

Huh, looks like I haven't posted anything this week...

*Bwaps these frames for an animation I'm workin' on here*

Hehe, ball pit Starlo.

Anyways, here's yer meme, cause you 'prolly expected it from me somewhere, but if Flowey decided to not reload if Ceroba beats Clover.

[awkward-teabag]

I have to wonder how many people celebrating AI translation also complain about "broken English" and how obvious it is something was Google translated from another language without a fluent English speaker involved to properly clean up the translation/grammar.

Because I bet it's a lot.

I know why execs are all for it—AI is the new buzzword and it lets them cut jobs thus "save" money and not have to worry about pesky labour laws when one employs humans—but everyone else?

There was some outcry when Crunchyroll fired many of their translators in favour of AI translation (with some people to "clean up the AI's work") but I can't help but think that was in part because it was Japanese-to-English and personally affected them. Same when Duolingo fired many of their translators in favour of LLM translation. Meanwhile companies are firing staff when it's English to another language and there's this idea that that's fine or not as big a deal because English is "easy" to translate and/or because people don't think of how it will impact people in non-English countries.

Also it doesn't affect native English speakers so it doesn't get much headway in the news cycle or online anyway because so much of the dominant media is from English-speaking countries and English-speakers dominate social media.

But different languages have different grammar structures that LLMs don't do, and I grew up on "jokes" about people speaking in "broken English" and mocking people who use the wrong word when it was clearly a literal translation but the meaning was obvious long before LLMs were a thing, too. In fact, the specific way a character spoke broken English has been a way to denote their native tongue for decades, usually in a racist way.

Then Google translate came out and "Google-translated English" became an insult for people and criticism of companies because it was clearly wonky to native speakers. Even now, LLMs—which are heavily trained on English compared to other languages—don't have a natural output so native English speakers can clock LLM-generated text if it's longer than a sentence or two.

But, for whatever reason, it's not seen as a problem when it goes the other way because fuck non-English readers or people who want to read in their native tongue I guess.

[ayyyyysexual]

I see you've acquired a new hyperfixation :) /t /silly

Technically, this is a resurface of my Bocchi hyperfixation, but I'll forgive you for missing the first wave of reblogs a few weeks ago (/silly)

ANYWAY I CAN'T HELP IT ITS SO FUN... silly ass anime with silly ass characters. There are like zero misses in the cast I can't think of a single character I dislike, AND they're all girls (I don't just mean the main cast I mean EVERYONE it's like the complete opposite of those shows where the only girl is the main character's mom (or love interest) which is delightful bc I don't have to look for scraps of content) AND there's gay ppl like I went in expecting a few moments that you could interpret as gay but NO IT'S LIKE. ITS GAY GAY.

The funniest part is that canon one sided (? unclear) crush is MUCH less popular than her other ship purely bc of how fucking fruity her and the main character get it's the best. Like damn girl I don't see you clinging onto the arm of your proclaimed crush rn, just Bocchi, huh?

But her crush is very very funny like she is down bad.

And THAT is why Kessuko Band is actually a polycule. In this essay—

[fisheito]

If you want actually good BL reccs, I've been reading Cherry Magic recently and it's v sweet.

I also read this other one a while ago that was wholesome in a weird way: "My quiet best friend's just tongue-tied"

dude do u know what this ask feels like? like... me: *puts down the toxic high school BL midway through* *heavy sigh* *takes a swig of lavender lemonade* why tf all these yaois so damm .. i don't know. sigh. this is a young man's game. maybe i'm not fit for this no mores anon: hey so i heard u like wholesome and probably not teens *slides recs over* me: either i am unbelievably easy to read or you're just a seasoned BL sommelier. thank u dearly, anon

[saint-bestial]

@ygoc-week - Day 1: Introductions

hey!!! this is my first time participating in a fandom event week :D

meet my ygo OC, sylvester sauvage! he's been marinating in my brain since 2021. his dark signer design was the very first version of him i drew, so i thought it would be fitting to start off with that here!

he's a disgraced duel spirit possessing a human body. he originally served the Crimson Dragon as the water attribute Signer Dragon, but was stripped of his body and title after he conspired with the Earthbound Immortals to betray the god. while his memories may be gone, his soul struggles restlessly within its ill-fitting human vessel. meanwhile, it becomes quite clear the gods aren't finished with him just yet.

feral and vicious, Sylvester's about as approachable as a mountain lion. Kiryu, who he met in childhood, is the only human he trusts. their precarious friendship eventually developed into mutual romantic feelings. Sylvester, with his dogged loyalty, would (and does) follow him to the pits of hell and beyond. their bond is one forged in fire and blood.

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

While 'Renan is off finding the holy grail, slaying one and a half high dragons, burning the rotting corpse of the crucified king, and having a personal crisis, Noya is also having A Great Time in the Deep Roads! :) Including but not limited to fun activities such as: nug wrangling, being trapped miles under the earth for weeks on end, finding and killing two paragons, and encountering horrors beyond her imagination that will fuel nightmares for the rest of her life! <3

[rohirric-hunter]

Hey dear! As you are one of the lotro specialists on here I have to ask: did you do the epic battle in pelargir? Because I just can't finish it, every time I play the instance one of the twins dies, no matter which approach I try. I am a solo player, but at this point it seems like I will never be able to complete the battle and continue with the epic storyline :( do you maybe have any tips or tricks for me?

Bear with me as I hit you with kind of a wall of text, because this is a question with multiple parts to the answer.

I assume Retaking Pelargir is your first Epic Battle, since it's the first one required to advance the main quest. The thing is... it's kind of a terrible first EB. It's not impossible to complete it solo without having already done some EBs before, but it's really hard, and I think you have to already be really familiar with the instance. (In fact, I honestly think it's the hardest one to solo, personally.)

Ultimately the reason why you're not succeeding is kind of technical. EBs are designed with sort of a cumulative gameplay style in mind; the more you do them, the better you get at them, by filling out your EB Promotion skill tree, which is a lot like your regular trait tree, but more annoying. Promotion Points are gained by completing objectives in EBs (the better you do, the more Promotion Points you get), and then you can use them to unlock EB-specific skills, like the ability to use siege weaponry, command soldiers, or whatever the hell is going on in the Vanguard trait tree. And unfortunately, you can't easily solo Retaking Pelargir without a fair number of Promotion Points already invested.

Once upon a time, you had to do the Rohan EBs to advance the main questline through Helm's Deep, before they added the Storied Tale instances that let you skip them. (I think they plan on doing this for the Gondor EBs too, but just haven't gotten around to it yet.) As a result, by the time you got to Pelargir, you already had quite a few Promotion Points under your belt that prepared you for the challenge.

Basically, you have two options. You'll have to get someone to run it with you, or you'll have to get some Promotion Points.

It's a pretty fun instance so if you're willing to venture into LFF you might find some people willing to run it with you, and if you get a full group of six you can usually get away with just running along with the group and attacking enemies as they come. Alternatively, if you have a friend who's already got some Promotion Points you can duo it. As with most instances, the duo setup is exactly the same as the solo setup, so it's easy to take a friend through. (If you're on Crickhollow or Evernight, I have characters on both servers who can do it, although with my current schedule finding a time for this might be a challenge.)

Before I launch into the somewhat messy explanation of how to earn Promotion Points, it's worth noting that you can just buy them. It's in the LotRO Store under Account>Content>Instance Finder, 395LP for 10. I don't think this ever goes on sale, although with the new store interface you can probably use coupons on it. If you're really frustrated and just want to get it over with and don't want to play with other people, this might be the best option for you.

Personally, though, I think that's overpriced and always earn my Promotion Points in-game. In order to do this, you're going to have to do other Epic Battles. Good starter EBs are Helm's Dike and The Defence of Minas Tirith. But you might want to avoid the latter, as it is also part of the main quest later on, and Helm's Dike is easier IMO anyway. It almost plays itself, although it is a huge timesink. (In order to get through the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, you'll have to do The Defence of Minas Tirith and Hammer of the Underworld, but don't worry! They're way easier than Pelargir. If you get through Pelargir you'll get through them no problem.)

So. How to earn Promotion Points. This is, in my opinion, very inadequately explained in-game, so my apologies if I'm overexplaining. It took me forever to figure this out.

Every Epic Battle has one main objective and several side objectives. You earn Promotion Points by completing these objectives. The better you do, the more Promotion Points you earn. There's a finite number of Promotion Points you can earn from each objective, but you can replay the instance as many times as you need to earn them. There's no way to permanently lock yourself out of Promotion Points, so don't worry about that.

The first time you run an Epic Battle you're not going to do well (or even succeed) on all your side-objectives. That's part of the design. The idea is to earn a few Promotion Points, do the battle again, do a little better, earn a few more, etc. etc. and so on. But as I said before, Helm's Dike is pretty easy, and has a lot of side objectives so even if you don't do well you'll come out of it with a good number of Promotion Points. The thing to keep in mind is that your first few runs are going to suck. This is normal, you're not doing anything wrong.

Anyway, once you've built up some Promotion points, you can really start making a dent in Pelargir. Ideally, you'll want one hundred twenty. Sixty, however, is just fine. As a general rule, you want to invest in the Engineer (yellow line) trait tree in Rohan and the Officer (blue line) trait tree in Gondor. (Vanguard is only useful if you're playing with other people.) Pelargir is a little bit of a special case, though. If you have one hundred twenty Promotion Points, put sixty into Officer to unlock Two-handed Stance and sixty into Engineer to unlock the ability to deconstruct barricades. In the Officer trait tree, invest points into your heal and haste orders. Ignore banners (they buff other players) and corruption removal (it basically never comes up). In Engineer, get as many levels in traps as you can and then focus on Disable Contribution. If you have sixty Promotion points, set up one of your trait trees to have all of them in Officer and the other to have all of them in Engineer. You'll be switching between them throughout the instance. You can only switch trait trees out of combat, but I'll explain where to switch in a little bit.

Ideally, your trait tree should look something like this:

The key to keeping the twins alive during retaking Pelargir is to keep fights from lasting too long. Out of combat, they heal very quickly, so as long as you can get them to drop out of combat regularly they will be fine. Throughout the instance, you will want to right-click on Captains to buff the damage dealt by their squads. If you're using two different trait specs, start in the one with points in the Officer tree. First, click on the sword icon in the Captain's menu and then on the axe icon to switch the squad to Two-handed Stance. This will make them deal more damage, but have less defense. They'll be fine, though, because you can heal them through this menu. My go-to strategy is to just hit all the buffs at the beginning of the fight and then hit them again as soon as the cooldown ends and repeat.

(Epic Battles are less like other instances in that you're more directing/commanding troops rather than doing the fighting yourself.)

As soon as you have the first captain set to two handed and have buffed his troops, switch to your Engineering spec for your traps. (Officer buffs still work in this spec, but they're weaker, so try to buff before switching whenever possible.) The first part of the instance is pretty basic, just take down the corsairs as you run up the stairs. As you start the final climb to the winch above the gate, drop a trap in front of the door in the wall, then switch back to Officer spec when Elrohir starts talking about opening the gate. Defending the winch is pretty simple, just keep buffing your troops and taking down corsairs until the gate is open. If you have enough Promotion points to have traps in Officer spec, drop them as often as you can, too.

As soon as the gate opens and Aragorn enters, jump on a mount and run down the stairs to the next gate. As soon as you can, click on the next captain (click through the gate if you can), switch him to Two-handed Stance, and buff. (You may have to dismount for this. If you do, mount up again immediately. This part is all about speed.) Then, immediately switch to Engineer spec and ride forward to where you can see barricades. I assume this is where you're losing the twins, as this is where they always die for me in this instance. Buffing your troops here will help a lot, but the only thing that consistently keeps them alive for me is the barricades, and this is what you really needed all those Promotion Points for. You have to have sixty promotion points in Engineer to deconstruct the barricades and reposition them. You want to deconstruct them and move them to the chokepoint between the two static barricades. (You may want to load up Helm's Dike and practice moving and placing barricades, as it's kind of an awkward system, and in Pelargir you only have a very short time to get everything set up.) The barricades should be two deep, and spread out a little bit, as their area of effect is a little bigger than their actual model, and no enemies should be able to get through this chokepoint without passing through them. This will slow down enemies dramatically, essentially giving your troops free hits on them. Enemies will also sometimes attack the barricades instead of your allies.

You can still attack enemies while building the barricades, as long as you don't move, but be careful, because when you're done with the barricades you want to be out of combat so you can switch back to Officer spec. Enemies in Epic Battles prioritize NPCs over you, so as long as you haven't attacked anyone in a bit you should be fine. If you are in combat, find out who with and take them down without aggroing anyone else ASAP. A good alternative to attacking while building the barricades is dropping Engineer traps, especially caltrops, which damage enemies over time and can be devastating in combination with a wall of barricades.

Once you're out of combat, switch back to Officer spec and keep buffing your troops for the rest of this fight. During this bit, there will be two optional side objectives and one required side objective. My advice is to ignore both of the optional ones. You don't have to complete them to complete the instance, and one of them will ask you to leave the immediate area, which can get one or both of the twins killed unless you have a rank 6 Engineer (and sometimes even then). The other one sends a boss after you. If you ignore him, he will despawn after 90 seconds or something. I recommend only engaging him if one of the twins does. You can also cut grappling hooks to reduce the number of enemies attacking you; I never do this as it makes this stage of the fight last longer, but it can help prevent you from getting overwhelmed.

The required side objective is Kisung Teng. Once he spawns, you're basically done with this part. Immediately focus in on him and take him down ASAP, as he speeds his allies up and can do a lot to counteract all your hard barricade-building work. But by the time you take him down pretty much all of the other enemies should be taken down themselves.

If you get this far, congratulations! That's the hardest part of the instance. It's a cakewalk from here. There's still a slight chance of losing a twin at the very end but it's not too bad. The instance is paused at this point; Elladan and Elrohir will run ahead to the next gate but they won't open it until you follow them. I recommend switching back to Engineer spec, deconstructing a barricade, and picking it up, but to be honest you don't have to. If you do, wait for the cooldown to reset and switch back to Officer spec before following the twins.

Another captain will run in from the right after you pass through this gate. You know the drill. Switch him to Two-handed stance and buff. There are a few enemies in the streets here, but nothing too challenging. When you get to the very last bit of the instance, switch back to Engineer spec and then place the barricade, if you have it, somewhere along the wall to the left, where it will catch enemies climbing up. There are two catapults set up here; build at least one of them and then start firing it into the corsairs you can see below. This will reduce the total number of enemies you have to fight hand-to-hand. When they start to make it over the wall switch back to officer stance and start buffing, but keep firing the catapult until you can't hit the enemies below anymore. At this point there will be another optional side-boss. If it's Thisarti my advice is to ignore it, if it's Okurayo definitely attack him and hold his aggro or else he might take down one of the twins.

After a bit of this, there will be a cutscene where Aragorn and the Oathbreakers will arrive on the scene. You have a brief reprieve during the cutscene; my advice is to heal your troops during this time. Then a whole bunch more corsairs will come your way, pursued by Oathbreakers. You can try to hit them with the ballista before they climb up the wall if you want, or not. The regular corsairs aren't much of a concern to be honest, especially with the Oathbreakers that follow them up. Keep an eye out for Zagaroth. He's the last non-optional boss, and once you've beaten him, you've won the instance, pretty much.

TL;DR: the two main takeaways are that you should be buffing your soldiers constantly, and you gotta set up those barricades or you'll get overwhelmed. Keep in mind that in order to succeed at the instance and advance the main quest, you don't have to do any of the side objectives (except Okurayo), so every time the game tells you to do something proceeded by "New Quest" you can probably just ignore it. Elladan and Elrohir dying or the winch being destroyed are the only failure conditions. I've never once seen the winch actually get destroyed, though, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just stick close to the twins and keep all your troops doing as much damage as possible as fast as possible.

EDIT: I just realized I mentioned Helm's Dike as a good way to get Promotion Points and then moved on, and I forgot to say that I have a mostly-finished guide to Helm's Dike somewhere that I can dig up and post if you want, which should help if that's the route you decide to take.

[sureuncertainty]

okay yeah so this silence agenda edit is gonna be. more intensive than i thought. i genuinely don't know if the book is gonna be done this year. i want it to be good, I don't wanna rush it. so we're gonna see, but it looks like I might be pushing my publishing back to 2025 or later :/

[maxbanshees]

woahoho...

[dragonicstyle]

not as much went on in the art side this week, but that's fine! I got some solid work done on more sideview poses. My hope is that all the poses are done next week (for the lance at least. Though I dont expect that changing the spearhead to an axe will take too long afterwards)

[selenitis-draws]

~Bunny Day at Mostro Lounge~

[hexcitrine]

randomly looked at this account to update my age and holy shit it's been a while since i posted here..........i have a small pile of art i have yet to post but hbhbshdbshbd too lazy

[someguyiguess23]

Ted's Monologue

Another digital comic that I've been working on for the past couple of weeks. Based on a little thing I wrote a while ago involving Monty and Ted. I hope y'all enjoy this one!! ^^

[araedi]

// prepare for a spam soon >:) not freed from college for the year yet but only one more essay is technically due before January so I'm excited to get to some fun writing at last!!!