#or easily see that all those tools are too much for them

[fruitless-vain]

The way I try to create an inclusive environment for new bird people to not be afraid to ask questions and join the community and a good chunk of the community just replies with “don’t get a bird”

Way to be inclusive and helpful guys 👏

[petermorwood]

More on pre-electricity lighting.

Interesting to see this one pop up again after nearly two years - courtesy of @dduane, too! :->

*****

After experiencing a couple more storm-related power cuts since my original post, as well as a couple of after-dark garden BBQs, I've come to the conclusion that C.J. Cherryh puts far too much emphasis on "how dark things were pre-electric light".

For one thing eyes adjust, dilating in dim light to gather whatever illumination is available. Okay, if there's none, there's none - but if there's some, human eyes can make use of it, some better or just faster than others. They're the ones with "good night vision".

Think, for instance, of how little you can see of your unlit bedroom just after you've turned off the lights, and how much more of it you can see if you wake up a couple of hours later.

There's also that business of feeling your way around, risking breaking your neck etc. People get used to their surroundings and, after a while, can feel their way around a familiar location even in total darkness with a fair amount of confidence.

Problems arise when Things Aren't Where They Should Be (or when New Things Arrive) and is when most trips, stumbles, hacked shins and stubbed toes happen, but usually - Lego bricks and upturned UK plugs aside - non-light domestic navigation is incident-free.

*****

Here are a couple of pics from one of those BBQs: one candle and a firepit early on, then the candle, firepit and an oil lamp much later, all much more obvious than DD's iPad screen.

Though I remain surprised at how well my phonecam was handling this low light, my own unassisted eyes were doing far better. For instance, that area between the table and the firepit wasn't such an impenetrable pool of darkness as it appears in the photo.

I see (hah!) no reason why those same Accustomed Eyes would have any more difficulty with candles or oil lamps as interior lighting, even without the mirrors or reflectors in my previous post.

With those, and with white interior walls, things would be even brighter. There's a reason why so many reconstructed period buildings in Folk Museums etc. are (authentically) whitewashed not just outside but inside as well. It was cheap, had disinfectant qualities, and was a reflective surface. Win, win and win.

*****

All right, there were no switches to turn on a light. But there was no need for what C.J. describes as stumbling about to reach the fire, because there were tinderboxes and, for many centuries before them, flint and steel. Since "firesteels" have been heraldic charges since the 1100s, the actual tool must have been in use for even longer.

Tinderboxes were fire-starter sets with flint, steel and "tinder" all packed into (surprise!) a box. The tinder was easily lit ignition material, often "charcloth", fabric baked in an airtight jar or tin which would now start to glow just from a spark.

They're mentioned in both "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". Oddly enough, "Hobbit" mentions matches in a couple of places, but I suspect that's a carry-over from when it was just a children's story, not part of the main Legendarium.

Tinderboxes could be simple, just a basic flint-and-steel kit with some tinder for the sparks to fall on...

...or elaborate like this one, with a fancy striker, charcloth, kindling material and even wooden "spills" (long splinters) to transfer flame to a candle or the kindling...

This tinderbox even doubles as a candlestick, complete with a snuffer which would have been inside along with everything else.

Here's a close-up of the striker box with its inner and outer lids open:

What looks like a short pencil with an eraser is actually the striker. A bit of tinder or charcloth would have been pulled through that small hole in the outer lid, which was then closed.

There was a rough steel surface on the lid, and the striker was scraped along it, like so:

This was done for a TV show or film, so the tinder was probably made more flammable with, possibly, lighter fuel. That would be thoroughly appropriate, since a Zippo or similar lighter works on exactly the same principle.

A real-life version of any tinderbox would usually just produce glowing embers needing blown on to make a flame, which is shown sometimes in movies - especially as a will-it-light-or-won't-it? tension build - but is usually a bit slow and non-visual for screen work.

*****

There were even flintlock tinderboxes which worked with the same mechanism as those on firearms. Here's a pocket version:

Here are a couple of bedside versions, once again complete with a candlestick:

And here are three (for home defence?) with a spotlight candle lantern on one side and a double-trigger pistol on the other.

Pull one trigger to light the candle, pull the other trigger to fire the gun.

What could possibly go wrong? :-P

*****

Those pistol lanterns, magnified by lenses, weren't just to let their owner see what they were shooting at: they would also have dazzled whatever miscreant was sneaking around in the dark, irises dilated to make best use of available glimmer.

Swordsmen both good and bad knew this trick too, and various fight manuals taught how to manage a thumb-shuttered lamp encountered suddenly in a dark alley.

There's a sword-and-lantern combat in the 1973 "Three Musketeers" between Michael York (D'Artagnan) and Christopher Lee (Rochefort), which was a great idea.

Unfortunately it failed in execution because the "Hollywood Darkness" which let viewers see the action, wasn't dark enough to emphasise the hazards / advantages of snapping the lamps open and shut.

This TV screencap (can't get a better one, the DVD won't run in a computer drive) shows what I mean.

In fact, like the photos of the BBQ, this image - and entire fight - looks even brighter through "real eyes" than with the phonecam. Just as there can be too much dark in a night scene, there can also be too much light.

*****

One last thing I found when assembling pics for the post were Folding Candle-lanterns.

They were used from about the mid-1700s to the later 20th century (Swiss Army ca. 1978) as travel accessories and emergency equipment, and IMO - I've Made A Note - they'd fit right into a fantasy world whose tech level was able to make them.

The first and last are reproductions: this one is real, from about 1830.

The clear part was mica - a transparent mineral which can be split into thin flexible sheets - while others use horn / parchment, though both of these are translucent rather than transparent. Regardless, all were far less likely to break than glass.

One or two inner surfaces were usually tin, giving the lantern its own built-in reflector, and tech-level-wise, tin as a shiny or decorative finish has been used since Roman times.

I'm pretty sure that top-of-the-line models could also have been finished with their own matching, maybe even built-in, tinderboxes.

And if real ones didn't, fictional ones certainly could. :->

*****

Yet more period lighting stuff here, including flintlock alarm clocks (!)

[indulgentdaydream]

protective!jason hcs or blurb 🥰

Ok so I kinda touched on these in my latest fic but anyways i WILL elaborate bc those were just background

We all know that man is touch starved. We ALL know it.

We also all know he’s hesitant with sharing touch

It’s only once you both have been dating for a bit already, maybe three months in, that he really starts to show his protectiveness through his touch

Or at least when you notice it

He’s always at least holding your hand as you guys walk around Gotham. Depending on exactly whereabouts in Gotham is when he changes whether he’s between you and the road, or you and the alleyways.

You watched him change it up one time halfway through your shared walk, him letting go of your left hand, stepping behind you and around to grab your right instead.

“Oh? So you want me to get hit by a car and die?”

Jason only keeps his eyes on the passing buildings and the ones coming up, “The chance of that is much lower than somebody trying to mug you in this area, love.”

One day you’re both out at the bar together. He’s sitting on a stool behind you as you babble to oke of yours friends.

From over their shoulder, you see a man approaching, but don’t think anything of it.

Suddenly, you see the man stop in his tracks, freezing. You glance over at him. He looks terrified. He glances at you, his original target, then behind you again. He spins on his heel and walks back the way he came.

You look behind you, feeling Jason’s hand still resting on your hip. You almost feel a little scared yourself, seeing that killer glare that Jason’s pointing at the guy’s back.

He switches immediately the second he looks down to you, a soft smile and kind eyes, not a hint of the previous bloodlust a mere second ago. “What?” He asks, like watching his expression change wasn’t the biggest turn on in the world.

You’re sitting in your apartment at your desk typing away on your laptop. You’re trying to file your taxes, and Jason had come over to help you with it (surprisingly he knows how even though he’s still legally dead at this point and hasn’t had to pay any taxes. Ever.)

He had stood and was wondering around your room a bit while he waited for you to fill the next part out. You can hear shuffling, but you’re too focused to tune into it.

“Jay? What does this line mean?”

Jason grunts for a moment and you hear your window slide open.

You turn back around, “Jay?”

“One second.” He shuts your window again. You watch as he fiddles with the lock before easily sliding the window back open. He throws his hands in the air and looks at you. “How long have you lived here?”

You shrug, confused, “You helped me move in.”

Jason waves his hand through the air, “When?”

“Almost a year? Last November.”

Jason fiddles with the window again, slamming it back down, “This lock doesn’t work. You been sleeping in here and anyone could’ve just broken in?”

You shrug again, “I didn’t know it was broken! I don’t really lock my window often.”

Jason looks like he almost broke his neck by how fast his head whipped back to you, “You don’t lock your window????”

He finishes your taxes for you before he leaves, saying he’ll be back. Within the hour he’s knocking on your door again, a duffle bag in hand full of power tools, screws, and different assortments of heavy duty locks. He spends the rest of the night installing them.

A new one on your bedroom window that actually consisted of two different locks. A similar two on your kitchen window. Another three on your bedroom door itself. Then four on your front door.

As he leaned over your kitchen sink, screwing in the lock and blocking your way as you tried to make you both dinner.

“Is this really necessary?”

“I’m not having you practically open to every bad thing the city has to offer, love.”

“Then how are you going to come in through my window now?”

“I’ll learn to knock.”

That’s all I can think of right now okay byeee

[shooting-love-arrows]

A villian yandere? Not like those cartoon villian but the one that actually make the reader feel fearful, not because the villian is physicaly scary or something but the villian is so cunning, sly and manipulative like the knave from genshin or fyodor from bsd

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄! 𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐍

PAIRING: 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 x reader (gender not mentioned/specified/implied) TW. manipulation, isolation, holding reader against her will, stockholm syndrome, dark yandere, flag so red my eyes hurts, unhinge, yandere behavior. A/N: Inspired by manhwas I've read so far. I'm on a roll guys. I didn't expect it to be this long too but man, he's one crazy creation.

𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Who isolates you to the point of insanity. It is widely known humans are social creatures and we need social interactions. However, 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 used this fact to his advantage. Knowing that after a while people go mad when they don’t interact with other people, he decided to do just that. At first his manipulation is subtle: hidden suggestions about who is right to hand with and who's not. Little yet meaningful words weaved between innocent sentences. Then when he saw his tactics working, he began to get bolder. As the group of people becomes smaller (thanks to him) 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 starts to outwardly say they aren't people you should associate with. They are a bad influence and did you know they said this and that behind your back? Real friends don’t do that! He doesn’t do that! That's when comments about how you don't need anyone but him, who always stays by your side and was right about what he told you, each and every time. Your family isn't safe from his doings either. He never fails to drive you away from them. Suddenly they are people who lead you on and make a fool out of you. A black sheep of the family. You just had to see! Before you know it, you are completely alone with only him to talk and listen to.

"I'm just looking out for you like a best friend should be doing." 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 wanted to vomit when he said those two, blasted words.

Who snaps and ends up locking you up. Now that you're completed isolated and you happen to start living with him, he locks you up. In a bedroom with a bathroom attached who only has necessities and nothing you could harm yourself with. You can bang, scratch and kick at the door all you want but those doors won't budge. 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 is fully prepared. Those doors were expensive but it was worth it. Those locks could be opened by him and the material it was made of could not be so easily destroyed without certain tools you didn’t have. And you're yelling, begging and crying? It is like music to his ears. He'll often sit at the door and listen to you, basking in your voice, and when you're quiet (either pass out from exhaustion or too tired to continue), he'll pick up from where he ended the last time, manipulating you again. His sentences are repetitive and he wants to drill those into your head. He'll tell you how no one is looking for you, how he's all you need, how he'll take care of you and so on...

"Those people want to hurt you. I am doing this for your own good. If you want, I can bring you something? I was thinkng about tamagochi! They are so cut, aren't they?"

Who has to show you some tough love. 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 didn’t expect you to realize just how much he loves you. That’s why he tried to be an understanding partner and be forgiving towards your rash and childish tantrums. But he has his limits too. For example, he notices how you don't eat meals he oh so lovingly has prepared for you. If you don’t want to eat, then he won’t force you. He just doesn't bring you food for the next 2-3 days. Only water. And on the fourth day, he'll bring you a proper meal again. Of course, like he expected, you ate it all. See? It’s not hard to act your age. You don’t see it but 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 smiled in glee when he saw an empty plate. It's a good sign!

"I'm relieved you like the food I prepared for you. I cooked it for the first time but when I saw the recipe I knew you'd like it."

Who you grow to not only fear and love. He is your captor, the one who took away your freedom and cut all ties with society, who manipulates you and ends up breaking you. Who you feared, despised and cursed like he was the source of all evil. But the longer you stayed in the little room that became your whole world, the lines between hater and love began to blurr. Not that you realized it. At some point something switched in your brain and although you feared him, you began to ponder over his words. Maybe he's right? After this period of time, no one ended up looking for you. No one cared enough to do so. And you do only have him. He always makes time for you, brings you delicious meals, and sometimes even gifts you a little trinkets when you act good. Not to mention you live in a nice bedroom with a bathroom too. He never touched you without your consent or forced you to do anything. You could make a choice to bathe whenever you want, pick one of the books he brought you and read and so on. Your brain was suggesting that he is a caring best friend who takes care of you and protects you from all those monserts that want to hurt and bring you down. Soon enough his actions made your heart speed up.

"I knew you'll love me..." 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞! 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 teared up when he heard your confession. It was worth the waiting becaouse now he can bulit a perfect life he always imagined having with you. "I love too. So, so, so much sometimes it hurts."

All of the published posts on this account/blog belongs to @shooting-love-arrows. I do not consent to my works being: translated, stolen, published or reposted on this and other sites. Likes, reblogs, comments are highly appreaciated. Thank you.

[originalartblog]

"Nawy what do you MEAN quick-ish 3D render it's got scratches and everything and I thought this was real for a minute!!"

Well, first, thank you very much that was the intention ❤, and second, you see, all speed is relative, and between finding my references, modeling, texturing and lighting, on top of having to learn how to make convincing gems, it still took me quite a few hours. I, however, cut corners everywhere for speed, and I wouldn't put this piece in a portfolio in its current state.

But! for the curious, I thought I could do a simple breakdown of how the witchcraft happens, without using too much specialized language to make it more accessible. In short,

In this case, I’m talking about a 3D model that was textured (colours and stuff) and then lit (lights on!) to make a pretty final picture. The objective is not to make a tutorial, but to put in simple terms what a 3D artist does to make something go from this, to that:

(people curious and/or trying to see if this interests them welcome)

I'm skipping the 3D modeling part altogether, since it isn't where most of the magic happens here. Just know that to be able to add colour and stuff on a 3D object, you have to go through the process or "unwrapping" it, which is like doing those foldable cubes in reverse

and then we can draw on it!!

Now, the good stuff:

Surfaces (metal, plastic, fabric, wood, skin, etc.) have different looks that make you able to differentiate them on sight. To make something look realistic, you have to try to replicate real life into the 3D world (duh.)

The software developers took care of the hard part (math and coding), so as artists we can play with the parameters available to make something pretty. What those parameters are depend on which "recipe" we're using. One of the most common "recipes" for realistic results is called PBR: Physically Based Rendering, named that way because it's trying to replicate real-life light physics. In this case, the 4 basic parameters are called albedo, roughness, metalness, and normal.

Albedo is the base colour of the surface (easy stuff). Roughness is to determine if a surface is rough or shiny. Metalness is to say if something is made out of metal or not. The normal is there to add all those tiny details you don't want to or can't sculpt on your 3D model (engravings, fabric bumps, etc.)

The roughness and metalness are black and white images because the information you're giving to the software is black = no and white = yes. It's easier to understand in the metalness image, where everything that is NOT a metal is black, and everything that IS a metal is white.

The normal is a bit more complex, but in short, it uses the colours green and red to know what is up/down or left/right, and will help the software fake relief on top of the model. You don't make it by hand; it's computer-generated from other stuff I'm not getting into.

With the technical stuff out of the way, we can actually use these. There are specialized softwares that will let you preview the results of each parameter in real time, so you can see what you're doing easily. This is what I have.

That software comes with some types of surfaces that are already set up, like the fabric in my piece, which was already 85% good for me straight out of the box. Then, it's up to me to use the tools available to decide how shiny a surface is, if there's dust or scratches and where, what colours things are, if there's metal parts, etc. That's where you can see a 3D artist's skills.

And finally, you bring it all together into a specialized software that can render 3D stuff and use those images on the corresponsing parameters, and then light the scene.

Because it all comes down to this: the light! For something realistic, light is vital to get right. You can pour your heart and soul into those tiny scratches, but if you don't light the scene correctly, well...

So we carefully light the scene to get some nice highlights to make the textures look good and highlight our subject (it's basically a photography studio inside a computer)

And then we add some camera effects...

and voilà! pretty picture!!

... and if you somehow did notice something different with the bolo tie from my last post, I did find out while taking all these screenshots that I messed up my initial renders in a way that made everything darker than it was supposed to be and that's why my gold looked so muddy...

I hope this was interesting and that you learned a thing or two!

[velvetchrry]

━━━━ THE COLLAPSE

pairing: captain john price x f!reader

2k. you move to the mountains of montana and meet your new neighbor. *tw: kidnapping

Your next door neighbor was admittedly a little weird.

You were pretty positive he was one of those doomsday prepper types that you heard of when you moved to the area — but you hadn’t seen hide nor hair of his 'bunker’ yet. You know some of them are pretty well hidden, and you’re a bit embarrassed to admit when he invited you over for a fish fry dinner after you first moved in, you totally went snooping around for it.

As strange as he might be, he seems like a nice guy. Genuine type of neighbor and you don’t want to piss him off, considering he’s your only neighbor. There’s nothing around the two of you for miles. That, and he’s actually been a pretty neighborly neighbor.

He always seems to know where you are but you figure it’s probably just because he’s clearly ex-military. When you catch yourself drinking coffee and staring at him from your porch as he fishes on the lake you share — he waves at you. When you’re trying to fix the fence on your small garden — he’s over right away with tools. When you’re struggling to carry your groceries inside — he’s around the corner, lifting over half of them out of your arms. Telling you that ‘you should really buy in bulk, love.’

And honestly, he’s right, you should. It’s been such a pain in the ass to get and haul groceries considering you moved to bum-fuck Montana — but oh is it ever beautiful. You get an absolutely breathtaking view every single day… but it takes away almost a full day from you in order to drive into the nearest town, load up, and then drive back home and unload them. By the time you’re done, you’re so tired you don’t have any energy to do anything else.

The power goes out one night. You’re not a child anymore, but it really is dark out here without any lights on. Eerie. You’re not from here. You don’t know what could be lurking out there, in the dead of night.

He comes by — of course he does. He’s got flashlights, candles, blankets and whiskey. Says the first two are to see with, the last two are to keep you warm. You let him inside just as the rain turns into a downpour.

You stay up most of the night together, talking. He tells you about his past in the military, you tell him about your writing, how you moved out here to focus and get out of the city. He pours you another drink and you have half a mind to refuse, but really you can’t let him leave yet. You’re a little scared to be by yourself out here tonight. He leaves when the power finally comes back on, only an hour before sunrise.

Loneliness seeps into your soul after a few months. You decide to invite some friends from college for a long weekend. You let him know of course. The plan is to do some hiking, but you’re sure you’ll end every night rowdy in your house. You tell him not to hesitate to show up if you’re all being too noisy.

He comes by that Friday morning, after everyone has arrived the evening before. Offers to be your hiking guide. You think, why not? You honestly aren’t much of an outdoor girly and can’t say you’ve ventured very far out here before. Might as well let the expert do it. He seems happy to — chatting it up easily with everyone, showing them little things in nature here and there.

When you get back to the house, everyone is so impressed by him they insist he comes by tonight for dinner. You almost can’t believe how easily he meshes into your group when he’s at least 12-15 years older than all of you. If you didn’t know better you would have swore he graduated with the rest of you.

He’s always on your team for any of the games you play and he's fucking good at all of them. Almost maddeningly so. You win flippy cup and pong easily. You team up in drunk Jenga and he makes you feel like he’s moonlights as an architect with how quickly you both become champions.

There’s no way he’d join you all skinny dipping in the lake — or so you’d thought. But as the rest of you tear your clothes off at the edge of the docks and jump in one by one, he’s there. Stripping down into nothing. Winking at you before he hightails it into a cannon ball. You hope what little moonlight there is doesn’t allow him to see the blush creeping up your cheeks. Doesn't allow him to track how your eyes move up his body — strong, sturdy, rugged.

One of the guys suggests playing chicken and he’s diving under and lifting you on his shoulders before you can fully register what’s happening. The soft, sensitive flesh of your pussy rubs against him with each movement and it takes every last ounce of your willpower not to grind against him like some sick fucking pervert. He’s your neighbor after all.

Winning was almost a guarantee with the two of you, even with you on top, because of how absolutely solid he is. Hands digging into your thighs, keeping you flush against him. It doesn’t matter who you’re up against because no one can push you off your perch on his shoulders. Your nipples perk, exposed to the chill of the night.

You’re fucking drenched and leaking onto him, you can tell. You just hope he’s distracted enough that he can’t feel your warm juices running down his back. You feel the prickles of his beard hair rub against your inner thigh and you have to bite down on your tongue to suppress a moan from escaping you. When he drops you back down into the lake after your undefeated streak and hits you with a whispered “that’s my good girl”, you almost try to hop back onto him then and there.

Fuck, you need to get laid.

Your friends leave once the weekend is up and it really hits you how well and truly alone you are here. Nothing can beat the beauty and serenity of Montana living — it wraps around your lungs like a creeping vine to take your breath away — but it makes you almost long for the hustle and bustle of the city you left behind. The trips to a girlfriend’s place for a glass (or bottle) of wine after a shitty day. Going out to bars and dancing the night away on a weekend. Hell, even just getting takeout when you don’t feel like cooking. All of it — the price to be paid for living here.

You can’t even begin to think about the detriment it is to your dating life. Sometimes — on the nights where you let your mind spiral — you imagine what it’ll be like living out here alone for the rest of your life.

Shockingly, you do meet a guy without even trying. Jake. Run into him. Literally in fact — you accidently trample over his foot at the grocery store with your cart. You feel so bad about it, when trying to make it up to him you find out he only lives a few miles away from you. He’s cute; outdoorsy type. Avid hiker, knows the area around your place. You invite him over for dinner tomorrow as an apology.

You go simple, not wanting to overdo it. Steak, cooked to a perfect medium rare, and baked potatoes. The two of you sit on your patio and chat until the stars come out and it’s too cold to sit any longer with soft breeze coming from the lake. Jake gets a fire roaring in your cozy little living room and you both curl up to it on the floor with a glass of wine.

He spends the night. You wonder — are you being too easy? Honestly… yeah, probably. But to be fair to yourself, you needed this… badly. You’re in quite literally the longest dry spell of your life. Living in the mountains hasn't helped that.

You jolt, waking up in a sweaty sheen that coats your skin. All night you’ve had the feeling that you’re being watched. It’s probably due to the fact that Jake, who is snoring lightly in your bed next to you, told you a few ghost stories about the mountain being haunted. That, and it’s easy to be paranoid living way out here.

Jake hangs around more and more. You go hiking, fishing, stargazing. Strangely, the more you see of Jake, the less you see of your neighbor. He’s not out on his boat on the lake anymore; you don’t see him grilling in his backyard or hiking the trails around your place’s. It’s… weird. He was such a solid fixture in your life when you first moved here.

It’s been over a month since you last saw him. The ghost of him lingers everywhere and it's starting to drive you crazy. When you’re tending your garden and you notice the part of the fence he helped to fix, you think of him. When you grill fish with Jake for dinner, your mind wanders back to him. Your mind plays tricks on you too — the back of your neck prickles and you think he’s going to be there when you turn around. But he’s not, he just… disappeared into thin air.

You decide you’re gonna go check on him today. It’s Saturday, and it’s a beautiful and sunny day. Typically a day you’d see him outside around the house. Jake’s coming over later tonight and you would like to introduce them to one another, especially after talking him up to Jake. Maybe he’ll come over for dinner?

When you get to his place and knock on the door, there’s no response. The door creaks open a bit from the force of your small hand. The house is dark and silent. You gingerly cross the threshold into his house, taking one tiny step into the foyer as you call out to him. It’s been a while since you last stepped foot in here.

You don’t want to intrude on him or his privacy but you’re honestly starting to get very worried at this point. What if he’s hurt? You push the door open a bit further and take another few steps in, again calling for him.

The house is just as neat as you remember from last time — nothing looks to be out of place. The dishwasher is running so that’s a good sign that he’s okay. You open your mouth to call out his name again when suddenly someone comes up to you from behind and presses a cloth to your face. You panic, limbs flailing wildly and inhale more of the slightly sweet, acetone-reminiscent scent. Your screams are muffled by the hand covering your mouth, and you scratch at it, feeling the hairy arm of whoever is behind you until the world becomes black.

When you come to, you feel a little foggy. You’re in… a basement? There are no windows, just industrial style lights. A bed resides in the center of the room — a bed that you are currently tied to — with each limb belonging to its own post.

Holy fuck… holy fucking fuck. Sheer terror spreads like poison through your body. This can’t be real. It can’t be. You’re too old to be kidnapped. You think you’re probably too old to sex trafficked… maybe? The rational part of your brain tells you to slow down and formulate a plan, but the other side of your brain — the one that’s currently reacting to the situation at hand — is kicking and screaming and gouging into your skin. The handcuffs on your wrists and ankles dig deep, biting hard into your skin.

You scream when you notice a shadowy figure hulking just out of eyesight. It moves slowly, so slowly. You throw yourself as far as you can to the other side of the bed, trying to get away from it.

When the figure steps into the light, your blood turns to ice. Sweat glides down your back in swift rivulets even as a chill seeps into your bones.

“…John?”

“Yes, love?”

[jakeyp]

GRID + TORN PAPER + RAINBOW LAYOUT TUTORIAL (yeah, i'm sorry, but that is the title i came up with)

Hi everyone! This tutorial was requested by an anon, and we're going to make a gifset like this. You need, as usual, basic gifmaking skills and basic photoshop knowledge, but i'll try to explain this as easily as possible!

You'll also need a torn paper brush, which you can download here.

And here are the links to download the fonts used in my gifset: x, x

Okay let's start!

→ First you're going to create a new canvas, and it will be 540x540 px. Make sure to click on create video timeline (if you dont have a timeline, go to window > timeline. We'll leave this canvas there waiting for us :)

Then, onto our first gif. We're going to make the small square gifs first. All i do is resize the image and make it 120 px high, and you'll see why in a moment.

Make sure to remember the number of frames of this gif!! All the gifs we're going to put in the same canvas should have the same amount of frames.

Okay, so we have our first small gif:

As you can see it's a smart object, and I added some brightness, but so far that's all. You can sharpen it, but i like to sharpen until i've colored it. Now onto the important part:

Most of the gifs i worked with were mostly blue (aside from the skin color), which is recommendable, because you can create lots of colors starting from blue, using the hue/saturation adjustment, or camera raw filter. I also recommend you to use a gif that doesn't move a lot, so it'll be easier to color the background:

For the tutorial, we have our predominantly blue gif, but we are going to make it yellow, which is the opposite color, so it's the hardest to get. I hope you can see how i manipulate colors, and do it yourself :)

Here, you can use camera raw filter (filter > camera raw filter) to turn the blues and purples greener, like this:

And click ok to exit the camera raw filter. Then, we're going to use hue/saturation (image > adjustments > hue/saturation) to turn it yellow:

Since it was cyan, i changed the cyans, but if you got a much greener result you'll have to use green (duh, right? i dont know i just dont want anyone to get confused akjsdhs)

And you can also add a selective color adjustment to make those yellows more yellow:

The reason i don't directly use hue/saturation is cause it might look ugly and lose quality, or it wont pick up all the colors i want it to but they're also very small gifs so if you wanna do that, do it :)

I sharpen it until this point, but if you already have that's okay.

Now we're going to color the background! For that, you just add a new layer, and set the blending mode to color.

Then you'll use your brush, set it to 20px and 0% hardness, and pick the color you're using for this gif, you can use the eyedropper tool. This is why it's important that the gif doesn't move a lot, so you can color the bg like this:

I colored carefully around the edges, and that's the result. In some gifs from my gif set I colored Jake's jacket too because i was too lazy, but this looks cleaner :)

You might want to select the color layer and the gif layer to convert them both to a smart object, just to make everything easier. So, be careful, because after that you won't be able to change anything!

But let's say you have a scene that you want to include, and it moves too much and has no blue and it's going to be a nightmare to color it.

Well, don't worry, you can! Simply, instead of manually coloring everything, you can just choose to add a gradient map to it (image > adjustments > gradient map), like this:

And this is the result:

Just remember, it has to be the same amount of frames as the other ones!

You repeat the process, until you have 10 small gifs. I made around 5 manually colored gifs, and 5 gifs with gradient for each gif. That's a confusing sentence but i hope you get it.

We are going to start pasting the small gifs on our first canvas.

(You can paste them one by one but i did this so you can see my 10 gifs)

You're going to create a square that has to be 108x108 px, using the rectangle tool. You can remove the default white background.

And you may be wondering, why did we not just crop the small gifs into those dimensions? Well, you can do that, but to me it's much easier this way, because sometimes cropping isn't accurate, or it's tedious.

Place the small square on top the gif you're going to crop, right where the face of the character is (or whatever objects you're giffing), and while holding ctrl, click on the square. It will select it:

You're going to create a layer mask:

And then drag that layer mask to the gif:

And voila! It's now the same size as the small square. Once that's done, right click on the layer and convert it to a smart object, because we have to remove that mask. Make the square layer invisible, and start placing your gifs where you want them:

You're going to repeat that process with the rest of the gifs, and then place them all together. Don't forget that if you're making the first gif, they will all be at the bottom of the canvas, if it's one of the middle gifs, one row should be at the top and the other one at the bottom, and when you're making the last gif, they should all be at the top. Here we're making the first one, so they will all be at the bottom:

If you forgot to check that all the gifs had the same amount of frames, you can fix it here, just make sure no gif is past this little guy:

Okay! Now, to create the gutter, we're going to add a layer mask to each small gif, so that we can cut some of it.

The gutter has to be 4 pixels, (i recommend you to REALLY zoom in). What i do is make sure the width of the gutter takes 2 pixels from the edges of the gifs, since they are all together. As you can see in the image above, there's no a single empty pixel between the gifs.

This is a close-up of what i'm talking about. I select two pixels from each gif, and go all the way down to create the gutter:

(I hope I'm not over or underexplaining)

I usually use this tool when i have to make so many selections:

But that was just an example :)

(Another way you can do this, is by changing the size of the small square from the beginning and make it be 104x104 px, but i don't know why that seems more complicated to me ajsdks)

Anyway, this is what we have so far:

Now we're going to create the big gif. Its normal dimensions are usually around 1920x1080, unless you have different dimensions and have to crop it, but whatever it is, we're going to resize it and crop it to be around 550 px wide, and 400 px high:

We'll do the same thing of adding an adjustment of gradient to it to make it the color we're using. For this, i usually add a brightness layer before, because sometimes the gradient is a bit dark.

And using a 600px brush with 0% hardness, you can add some "light" on a new layer, like this:

Selecting all the layers, right-click on them and convert them to a smart object. Again, be careful, because once its a smart object, you wont be able to change any of it!

Then we paste our big gif on the canvas with small gifs, and add a layer mask to it. Using the torn paper brush at 600px, remove some of the gif to shape it like the torn paper. Make sure you're using black, otherwise it won't work correctly:

To make the effect better, add a layer UNDER the big gif, and using the torn paper brush, with the same size, you can paint under it:

Yeah, I covered some of jake's face, but that's how it supposed to look so the effect works!

And finally for the text! I used Granesta, at 150 px, and at -10.00º to make it a bit askew.

We're going to double click on it and give it a color overlay, set to normal, and give it a solid shadow if you want, then place it right here on the corner:

But as you can see, it's too big for the gif. So we're going to add a layer mask to it, and again, shape it the same way that we did with the gif. Make sure they're exactly the same shape, like this:

And that's it! This is our final result:

As always I'm sure there are easier ways to do many of these things, this is just how i do it but if you know an easier way to do it, go ahead. I hope this was at least understandable enough so you can apply the logic of it any way you want :)

If you have any questions you can send me an ask and i'll clarify!

If you found this helpful i'd really appreciate it if you left a tip on my ko-fi!

Happy giffing!

[cerastes]

It's kind of amazing that a horny game like Nikke actually included stuff like Cyberpsychosis. Nikkes going insane or committing suicide if they are reminded too much that they are actually full-conversion cyborgs. The reason why they don't have a lot of cool gadgets like built-in thrusters or weapons. And then you have someone like Snow White who replaced a large chunk of her body with enemy robot parts.

Nikke is this really cool thing to have Existing in the space, even if I don't play it anymore, because of how charmingly unbalanced it is as a whole, making the charming parts of it all the more apparent.

It's got barebones gameplay, the seams of which burst the moment you do high level content and realize there's not much it can do due to its limited concept. Combat rarely translates to whatever is going on in any story thematically, being thus gameplay being more of an abstraction. There is a gulf and an ocean of power between fellow characters of the same rarity, meaning a max rarity character might do absolutely fuck all while another one, with the same odds, might snap the game in two with ease. It's story is absolutely nothing to write home about. It's a setting that can be best described as "self-indulgent incel nice guy heaven", where your character is The Only One to be nice to all these poor second class citizen superpowered voluptuous supermodel living weapons with tits two times your head and asses big and heavy enough to easily crush cars. Everything jiggles. It's so insanely predatory with its flash sales after every little thing you do.

And yet, the basic story it tells, it tells well. It's fun. It's entertaining. It knows what it is, and it has fun with itself, but it doesn't throw all pretense, either. It walks the razor-edge thin line between having a goof and telling a story with emotional depth. What it doesn't have in complexity or originality, it makes up for in sheer moment-to-moment, with good scenes, with good execution of things we've already seen. The showdown with Modernia lives rent free in my mind, Commander loading the Vapaus round, as Modernia or Marian, no way of telling, begs them to put down the weapon, because she's already back to normal, Commander shooting, and Modernia catching it with her teeth, and then growling the most guttural threat with freshest purest fury: "You shot me. Your really shot me! Shikikan!" and then drilling Commander right through the chest. And everything that happens after in that scene. It's got interactions out the wazoo, both mundane and touching. It has music that goes from "background music that really works" to "handcrafted for the moment and the character in its excellence". I think it's because Nikke knows what it is, but doesn't reach the self-mockery rung of the ladder. It knows what it's doing, and it's still sincere about it, even if it dares have fun at its own expense sometimes.

So, with that on the table, the take on Cyberpsychosis present in Nikke is incredibly powerful as a narrative tool because it tells you just how much of a jury-rigged slapdash product Nikke are. They are not cutting edge technology, they are literally something they pumped out quick as can be while telling everyone in the world that's still alive that they are cutting edge technology. And all, all of the safeguards are ultimately subject to willpower and perspective. Some Nikke go insane if they are too machine-like. Snow White has basically rebuilt herself over and over hundreds of times in her forever war. Nikke cannot aim at humans, so Crow instead puts a steel plate on the ground and ricochets her bullets off of those to shoot Commander successfully. Aiming is something you do with your senses normally, right? Rose figured out that she can just wear a blindfold and convince herself that what she's slashing is not a human, but a Rapture, and that's how she disemboweled and killed her Commander. Just by not seeing and fervently believing.

It's really, really cool how they go about it.

[johannestevans]

Finding Your Style, Part I: Shape & Silhouette

A deep dive into deciding on your own personal fashion and tailoring your clothes to fit.

Also on Patreon / / Also on Medium / / Leave a tip.

Introduction

Before I start with the actual meat of this piece, I want to establish what this series of guides is not going to be. These guides are going to be about building and cultivating your wardrobe and accessories for you and your preferences.

I have no interest in and will not be going into how to look good (or revoltingly, how to look “slimmer” or similar), how to be fashionable or trendy, or alternatively, how to look unique or dress differently to everybody you know.

I often get frustrated when pieces about cultivating one’s personal style stumble across my dashboards and they advise the reader to pay attention to the latest trends, to make a moodboard, cultivate a capsule wardrobe, and leave it at that — a moodboard can be helpful if you’re a visual thinker, and there’s nothing wrong with a capsule wardrobe as a tool, however.

I have a particular style of dress, I like to play around with a lot of colours and fabrics, a lot of patterns, and a lot of the people around me tell me I dress well and that they enjoy my style: I have never read a style guide that is envisioning a man who dresses like me, or even a man who dresses even close to the way I dress.

When I think of someone’s personal style, I’m talking about aspects of their appearance and the mode in which they clothe and carry themselves that are distinctive to them.

Firstly, this doesn’t mean that they dress uniquely, and like no other person around them.

I know guys who basically dress themselves to match mannequins in particular stores, and they look good for it — when I see them around, even if I haven’t seen those mannequins and don’t shop in the stores they shop from, what makes them distinctive is particular colour palettes, brands, and also a clean-cut, neat style that works really well on a shop mannequin. What they’re wearing obviously isn’t unique, but it is distinctive, and it is a particular visual I associate with them when I see them.

Secondly, when we think of distinctive qualities, I might associate them with a specific style that isn’t inspired by a high street store or particular fashionable brand — people who dress in vintage clothes and are always kind of ’90s or ’70s, or people who dress in lolita or goth or emo or cottagecore or identify with another subculture that has a particular visual signature.

Apart from fashion subcultures, there might be other aspects — yes, specific high street brands, but there are all kinds of other visual signatures like particular patterns (someone who always wears stripes, for example), other brands or media (e.g. someone who wears a lot of stuff printed with anime characters), particular places or hobbies, et cetera. I’m currently fleshing out my wardrobe and trying to find a lot more pieces that are nautical or sailing themed, so there are a lot of anchors, compasses, helm’s wheels, and ships incorporated into my wardrobe.

And thirdly — this is one thing I want to impress very firmly, because far too many pieces that focus on fashion don’t take this into account at all — one of the most distinctive qualities is how much I might recognise a friend’s specific needs for comfort in their style of dress.

I, for example, have a lot of cardigans, jumpers, woollen vests and waistcoats, etc, and in winter will often appear in multiple layers of wool underneath another layer of leather because I get cold so easily; even in summer, I’m often wearing a t-shirt under a collared shirt, sporting a cardigan, or even wearing three-piece suits. I know other people who basically from spring through to late autumn will only ever be wearing one layer, particularly just a t-shirt or long-sleeved shirt, because they overheat so easily.

This is going to be a series of pieces, and I want to focus on a handful of specific points to focus on in cultivating your wardrobe and accessories:

Part I: Shape and Silhouette

Part II: Fabrics and Materials

Part III: Colours and Patterns

Part IV: Garments and their Construction

Part V: Accessories and Details

Part VI: Eras & Epochs, Subcultures & Alternative Looks

Part VII: Thematic Cohesion

Part VIII: Editing and Adding to your Wardrobe

A lot of style guides are written with people in mind who are trying to look good at work, especially at office jobs, and subsequently they assume a certain level of conformity with business casual or other “acceptable” styles in mind, where standing out to any degree is considered in poor taste, but more importantly, where things like personal comfort aren’t taken into account.

Your personal comfort in the clothes you wear, whether that’s to do with your resting temperature, if you feel most comfortable in any specific fabrics or textures, if you feel comfortable under multiple layers or only one, how many pockets you have and how accessible those pockets are, how exposed or free certain parts of your body are, etc, is far more important than virtually any other aspect in selecting your wardrobe.

There are absolutely garments or styles where you might either enjoy the discomfort or think it’s worth withstanding for the visual effect, but that’s really up to you to decide, and anyone who says that you should be uncomfortable on your day-to-day, or that it’s normal and therefore desirable to feel uncomfortable in your own clothes, is a prick.

As a species, we wear clothes to keep our bodies warm and safe from harm, and while we might enjoy looking good or projecting a particular image, our comfort, safety, and our feeling of security in the clothes we’re wearing is no less vital.

Especially if you’re used to dressing in uncomfortable clothes, it can be hard to figure out what you actually do feel comfortable in, and that’s okay, that’s a process.

A lot of us have basically had it embedded into us, after years of conditioning, that there is only one way to dress, one way to exist, and that this is in-keeping with what’s Appropriate or what’s Pretty or in line with any other expectation, and unlearning that is hard, but it’s a process, and it’s possible to work through it.

Shapes & Silhouette

The first thing we often talk about when it comes to fashion, and the first thing a lot of clothes designers sketch out and visualise, is silhouette — if you find that hard to envisage, imagine yourself in whatever outfit is a favourite of yours, that you’re behind a canvas, and you’re being backlit from behind.

Your silhouette is the shadow cast by the shape of your body and your clothes — when someone first enters into a room, when we take in their outfit, we take in the broad strokes of it and the silhouette it casts, the shape of their body.

You might want to cast an initial impression that emphasises particular bodily qualities you’re proudest of, makes you seem taller or shorter than you are, slimmer or fatter, curvier or squarer, softer or more angular.

The problem with a lot of silhouette discussion is that many clothing designers abhor and loathe clothing anyone who isn’t a white, thin cisgender woman: imagining silhouette becomes about imagining a base body that serves as a mannequin and clothes that are draped on her, rather than about imagining a range of body types and different silhouettes that might go with them, complementing or contrasting the base body on which they’re built.

Subsequently, when people talk about clothing for fat people, particularly for fat women, a great deal of emphasis is placed on a silhouette that attempts to disguise or hide the body’s natural shape, whether that means making them seem nebulously slimmer by increasing their perceived height or by some other method, or increasing or decreasing their curviness.

The problem with that, apart from the fact that it relies on a vociferous hatred of fat people, of fat people’s bodies, of body fat in general, an odious bigotry in itself, is that a lot of the time, it doesn’t fucking work.

It’s instead people writing pages upon pages of advice on how to make yourself appear smaller and lesser, capitalising on people’s taught and conditioned self-loathing, and a lot of it is just clickbait. I’m by no means saying it would be ethical or correct if a lot of this advice did work, but the fact is that it doesn’t.

Someone might take your outfit with lots of layers and rounded shapes to it and assume you’re fatter than you in fact are, because multiple layers make you look larger — it could also be that simply wearing those soft fabrics make people think that you’re rounder, which they associate with fatness. In contrast, someone might take an outfit with lots of angles to mean that you’re bigger than you are because when we drape our body with angular clothes, they often work by sticking out from our body and creating corners where they don’t exist — but, people might associate that angularity with a lack of body fat, either with bones or with muscle, and therefore think you are bigger, but less fat.

We live in a fatphobic society where people make a lot of judgements based on how fat they perceive you as being. Because of the aforementioned fatphobic society, we also live in a society where people might associate you with fatness (or some other physical trait they consider negative) because they dislike you.

If you speak loudly or “a lot”, people might perceive you as being fatter than you are — if you barely speak, they might perceive you as being thinner, because you take up less apparent space, no matter what you wear or what shape you present.

There is no way to win, is my point.

You cannot win against bigotry in a fundamentally bigoted society by trying to change subtle perceptions of angle or size or light or shadow, and the people who say that you can are lying. The point of those lies is firstly to sell newspapers and screentime, but the second of them is to make the reader think that a bigoted society’s attitude toward them is their fault, because they weren’t employing enough tricks to deter the bigotry.

When I talk about the varieties of silhouette you might want to attain or aim for in your clothing choices, or how well-fitting or loose a garment might be for you, it should be in line with your preferences and your desires, whether that’s about aesthetic, comfort, or something else.

Photo by cottonbro studio via Pexels, with guide lines added by me.

When envisioning your silhouette, the key points of your body might be:

your head

your shoulders

your waist and hips

your feet

This depends on your body shape and also on the sorts of outfits you’re wearing — it might change for you depending on the clothes you’re wearing on a given day, or you might cut a drastically different silhouette in boymode versus girlmode, or in summer versus winter, etc. 

Think of these as anchor points on which your clothing or accessories are draped over or mounted from, almost like you might envision armour slots in a videogame. When you envision your silhouette, it’s how your body immediately appears when lit from behind — your legs and arms aren’t irrelevant here, and the shape of sleeves, trousers, and skirts will absolutely contribute to your silhouette, but depending on your body in motion or how you stand, these won’t always be immediately distinctive, whereas your head and torso will be.

As well as being the place where your clothes drape from, these might be the points where your most important accessories might be placed — headbands or hats, shoulder clasps or shawls or collar pins and such, belt buckles or suspender clips, and your shoes or boots. These points become the focus to which the eye is drawn because they’ll be the most static parts of the body, whereas other parts in between might jiggle or flow. 

These points aren’t part of some sort of rule you have to follow — it’s more of a handy shorthand to help train your eye into seeing the particular shapes each part of someone’s body cuts, and what the overall effect is, and how much you like or dislike the effect. 

You might feel that some of these anchor points, when emphasised or de-emphasised, add or take away from your dysphoria or your general self-esteem, make you feel more feminine or masculine, just look really fucking cool or really hot, etc. Think about those when you start sketching out your shapes in your head and what you like best. 

When you really want to imagine a silhouette, do what I did with the first three images — there’s the outfit itself, I’ve drawn the anchors at the top of the head, the top of the shoulders, the waist, and then the feet. Contrast that silhouette with this image:

Photo by Becerra Govea Photo via Pexels, with guidelines added by me.

This person has a different hair style, but see how with the shape of the dress, the waistline is drawn in compared to their shoulders, and would be even if they weren’t posed with their elbows outward? See how their waist appears to be smaller in contrast with the wide sweep of the thickly layered, loose skirts?

A useful exercise when thinking about a silhouette you like is to draw these anchor points and then either draw in lines following the outside of the body’s / clothing’s shape, or you can separate into each section and think about the simplest shape that silhouette can be boiled down to: a circle, a square, a triangle, a straight line.

In the two images I’ve indicated, I’ve focused on the waist as an anchor point because it’s the base of the suit jacket and then where this dress is drawn in — on your body, you might find that somewhere else on your pelvis is better for you to draw the line.

Have a look at this TikTok and look at all these bodies in motion, the clothes they’re wearing, how much skin is or isn’t being revealed, how loose or fixed each piece of clothing is, how much contrast is or isn’t present in the different shapes on show. Think about each different silhouette and how different or similar they are to one another.

(A TikTok of an NYFW fashion show in September from Remi Jo on TikTok.)

Look for the motion in these garments and in these people’s bodies — the parts that jiggle, that flow, that have free motion — and contrast them with the bits of their garments or bodies that remain more static. Many of these garments bare skin or flesh, and many of them cover a lot up, depending on the garment’s design — look at shoulder pieces, busts, waists, skirts, hemlines, sleeves. If a garment stands out to you as pleasing, cut it up in your mind and look at each piece of it individually before you consider the whole again, see what stands out most to you.

Generally, for modern men’s tailoring, the focus is often on the lower-slung hips rather than on the higher waist. If you’ve got a squarer body, your waist and hips might be the same or almost the same width, to the point you have no big distinguishing angle between the two points — you might want to think of your anchor point as at the base of your hips, in line with your backside; you might want to think of it as at the absolute high point of your waist if you tend to very high-waisted trousers or skirts. 

If you’re fatter and have a significant overhang to your belly, depending on whether you like to wear your waistband underneath the overhang and have your belly rest on top / over it, or if you wear looser clothes or generally keep your belly within the waistband, for example under your dress or your skirt, this might change how you think about your silhouette too. 

You might still be looking from the tops of your shoulders, but then the end of that “shape” might be in line with your backside or your upper thigh instead because that’s where you can see the lowest part of your belly in your trousers or leggings, or in a maxi dress, it might be a straight (or mostly straight) line from your shoulder down to your feet. Alternatively, rather than focusing on your hips or specifically where your waist is, you might like to make sure your middle point is at the widest point of your belly — if you’re wearing a belt, you might like the belt buckle to rest in the middle point there, or have the waistband of your skirt there so that you have the maximum flow to the skirt. 

And remember, as I said about how the most key points might be different depending on what sort of outfit you’re wearing or what the occasion is, consider how much you’re going to be sitting down or from what angle you’re going to be viewed by others. 

If you’re generally going to be sitting down while wearing a particular outfit, your midpoints at the waist might be less important to you than your shoulders and your feet — and if you’re going to be viewed significantly from above or below (for example, if you’re on stage or performing in a theatre), or from a further distance, this might make a difference to what key points you want to focus on. 

If you use a wheelchair, depending on how big your wheelchair is compared to you in terms of its back and shape, you might like to take its angles and colours in complement to your outfit — if you use a cane or crutches, or if you wear a prosthetic limb for some events but not others, you might want to consider the asymmetry or the squarer shapes cut by your mobility aids. 

Similarly, if you’re in costume and you’re wearing or using a really important prop like a stave or wand, some sort of weapon in the hand or slung on the belt or worn in some sort of other holster, you might want to employ similar complementary or perpendicular angles. 

For example, if you’re wearing something that’s really angular and is going to make one shoulder, side of your head, or side of your waist/belly seem much higher than the other side, you might want to match that angular shift to the side you don’t have a limb or use a cane or have a prop to continue that exaggerated angle — you might want to make it go to the opposite way to offset the imbalance. 

--

I’ve talked a lot above about how to observe and identify shapes and silhouettes in outfits you’re observing, but only a little bit about how to actually construct and cast them. 

For a lot of people, the shadow cast by your head is going to be the same every day depending on your haircut or hairstyle: if you have shorter hair, you’re unlikely to change it much on the day to day in a way that will be noticeable at a glance.

If you do have longer hair or you change your style regularly, you can think about the shape that your head is casting in contrast to your outfit — if you alternate, for example, between having a big ‘fro and braids or twists that are much tighter to the head or are gathered at the back of your neck, those will be pretty dramatic differences to your silhouette; ditto if you go between different ponytails or braids and different up-dos, whether that’s a bun or gathered braid or similar. 

If you wear hats and/or wear headscarves, those will make a big difference too — a beanie casts a very different shadow to a Panama hat, different again to a boater, a baseball cap, or a bandana. 

A more structured hat or other garment for the head — a tiara or crown, for example, or more structured hair styles that come out from the head such as bantu knots or structured wigs and up-dos, will be more static; looser hats, scarves, and loose-worn hair will have more flow and wave when you move, and will stay in motion as you walk or even as you turn your head. 

How visible do you want your neck to be? The lines of your jaw, your chin, your ears (and earrings), your brow, the nape of your neck? Do you enjoy the sensation of fabric or your own longer hair touching the tops of your shoulders, or being a weight on your back? Do you need the shade from your bangs or longer fringe, or that a structured hat will give you?

From your head we can jump to the broader part of your actual outfit or the garment that covers most of your body. 

Your shoulders and your hips / waist / the widest point of your belly are where the garments you wear are going to rest — shirts, jackets, vests, coats, all of these are going to sit on your shoulders and either cling closely to your body or hang over it; loose fitting trousers and any sort of kilt or skirt are going to hang off your hips or the widest point of your middle. 

Depending on your outfit and how your legs are clad, your feet might not actually be particularly noticeable — if you’re wearing shorts or anything with a shorter skirt, more attention is going to be drawn to the feet in contrast to your legs, ditto any sort of skinny trouser, legging, or tights. This goes especially for bigger boots, trainers/sneakers, and various heels.

MSCHF’s newest crowd pleaser, the Big Red Boot, is distinctive because the Big Red Boots are extremely shaped like boots, but not particularly like feet.

And after this point, you might have different points entirely that you construct away from your body — big earrings can be a point of interest; the hem of a shorter skirt, for example, might stop at your mid-thigh or knee, and that might be at an angle with your shoes; if you wear flared trousers like I tend to, you might create another point of contrast at your knee or at the mid calf.

Some points to consider are: 

Which parts of your body or your shape do you enjoy most, want to most emphasise, or want to draw most attention to? Are there any parts of your body or your shape you feel less comfortable showing or emphasising, and would like to draw attention from?

Are there any silhouettes, for any gender, that you feel most drawn to and interested in? For example, do you particularly like the shape cut by certain styles of suits, robes, dresses, or other garments? What points do you like most, are most drawn to? What points are the same from outfit to outfit? 

Think of cartoons and other animated series you like or have enjoyed, which normally have distinct styles and place emphasis on certain body parts or shapes for each characters. Do any particularly appeal to you? Do any characters look especially fun or cool compared to others, because of the style they’re drawn in or what garments or armour they’re drawn in? Cartoons will show an extreme, but they might help you visualise something you’re particularly drawn to because the extremity makes it so visible.

Apart from the shoulders, middle, head, and feet, do you want to create any further points of interest? Draw attention to your elbow or knees, dangling earrings, shift the silhouette of your feet by elevating your heel or sole?

Do you want your garments to hang from your body and be loose, or do you want them to be more tightly tailored? A garment that “hangs” will generally rest on your shoulders or around your middle and then be looser or boxier — a more fitted garment will hug tighter to the lines and curves of your body, and the extent to which will depend on the fabric weight and the construction of the garment. 

How much is your silhouette different in motion, standing, seated, or otherwise? How much does it change with different mobility aids, or in different seats, while doing different activities? 

And that’s it for that piece!

I am going to go through the other parts of this bit by bit — originally I was going to do this as one huge deep dive, but it just became untenable in terms of length. Let me know what you think, which bits are most helpful, and please feel free to mention anything you’d particularly want me to cover in the other pieces as I go through them. 

[fallenneziah]

Dating the Transformers Decepticon Boys.

Some little headcanons for some of the boys.

Shockwave:

Small hand in big hand, small hand in big hand!

Shockwave is reserved. Once in a relationship with you he has to come to terms with the emotions he thought he would never feel again. So he takes his time in coming to know both you and these new ideas and feelings that are surrounding him.

He's horny.

Despite being alone most of the time and focusing on his sciences, Shockwave will not pass up a single opportunity to get down in the berth. At first he would not interface at all, but now he likes to get in time at least once every couple of days, a week at most.

He's jealous. Easily too.

Another emotion he isn't used to it jealously, so when someone does something to turn that switch, whether it be talking, staring, or touching, he will lose it.

Everyone is already pretty scared of him, like Soundwave, he doesn't need to say or do much to make a point. But he will strain his stance above yours and shadow you with his structure. He'll burn his look into their soul until they get the hint and scurry.

His love language is gifts. He loves to present you with his projects and make different things for you. And he won't say it, but he will cherish every little trinket you bring him in return.

Behind closed doors when his work is put out of the way he is very affectionate. He wouldn't say it but he never thought you'd want him in a berth because of his lack of s left arm. But you two got around it and you make sure to nestle little compliments into your conversations.

Knockout:

One hundred percent the guy who will come around behind you as you use his tools and guide your hands while whispering the instructions in your ear.

A tease.

He loves to drop subtle hints around the Nemesis and will kiss you around the hallways.

Everytime you come back from a mission he urges you to the medbay and will look all over you for scratches or dents. Same before you leave, he wants to make sure those puny Autobots see his sparkmate at their best.

He is a tease, but he doesn't have as high a sex drive as someone like Predaking or Makeshift for example. He enjoys a good frag, but blow jobs under the operating table are his favorite kind of intimacy.

He is very jealous. Not in an insecure way, he is very sure in his image. However, he doesn't like when others make sly compliments about your frame. Sure, they can tell you how amazing your paint is or the curve of your hips, but if it's anything explicit he will be very upset. He'll threaten them with his blades, "If you want one so bad, why don't I give you a new look!" Or something along those lines.

If he's feeling more chill and sly, he'll walk over during the conversation and slip his servo against your hip plating. He'll caress your waist and watch with the smirk of the devil as the mech or femme slowly comes to realization.

He loves when you compliment him. His love language is words of affirmation and gifts, so you'll find a miniature version of his vehicle mode next to your bed or some other kind of trinket.

Predaking:

Very, very, very protective.

He makes sure to put any unworthy mech or femme in their place. The second anyone - even Megatron looks at you funny it is on.

He has a very high sex drive and will often leave you locked in your berth for hours just so he can love on you. He's mindful of your body however. He'll make sure to mark you his up and down your frame from your neck cables to your ankles.

He was eager to learn about you when he met you. He found an instant attraction and his long dormant mating protocols would roar to life every time you looked his way.

He will court you with shiny objects he finds. Often bringing back sharp scrap metal or rocks. He adores giving you gifts, but touch is his love language.

He could sit in his bed and hold you close until the world exploded. As long as you are with him he feels at peace and confident.

He was very shy around you at first. He wasn't a clumsy doufas, but he would show off his strength by straightening his stance and glaring down other mechs. He enjoyed showing off his beast form in front of you and would act so confident and put together. The second you opened a conversation with him. The poor boy couldn't put a sentance together he was so embarrassed and nervous.

Predaking is un-fucking-touchable. When the Vehicons or the commanders see the markings along your frame they steer clear. If any unlucky 'con is so dumb enough to get on Predaking's turf and even attempt to court his mate it's over. There is no point in running. Death in inevitable.

Either that or he will beat them to near death.

Once your back in his arms he'll hold you close the rest of the day and growl lowly at anyone who comes near.

The only person he trusts to be around you is Shockwave. As a predacon he is constantly in protect mode and anything that is his will be protected until he dies.

Megatron:

Megatron took a liking to you quickly. You caught his eye with how fluent you were with your tasks and how reputable you were on the battlefield.

Only the most powerful and fit can be his mate, and he thought you were perfect. So, he decided you were his. He wasn't exactly sure how to get your attention or how to work a relationship all that well. So he just started telling the vehicons you were his until you found out. When confronted with the facts he seemed only slightly embarrassed and more confused. "Yes..?"

You told him you'd think about it so Megatron let it be. Manz is impatient as fuck. He was so head over heels for you that if you couldn't make your mind then he would court you.

Poems. Poems. Poems. EVERYWHERE.

He would leave them on your desk, in your room, anywhere he knew you would see it. With respect of the vehicons because if they caught him being such a simp it would end his career.

He doesn't have the highest sex drive, but he enjoys fragging as much as the next 'con. Once he gets you in his room he will keep you there until he sees fit for you to leave. And whatever happens in that time happens.

He's also less of a jealous person and more protective. If someone makes s suggestive move or talks to you in a certain way he will act. Commanding and assured he will back them off and get you in his arms to protect you.

His love language is words of affirmation. He will praise you when you have done something good and you do so in return. He definitely enjoys it.

Starscream:

I can't decide between these two so I will leave them here... He is either super horny all the time, or, like Megatron he has a lower sex drive but once in the berthroom it can last quite a while. Round after round.

He gets flustered around you easily. He'll stammer and try to appear smaller and more innocent like he does when he is in trouble with Megatron.

Once he gets his hands on you however he is a tease to Cybertron and back. He will whisper words in your ears while you work or give your aft a pinch as you're walking by.

He doesn't hide your relationship either. Every seeker that exists knows of you two. He's not afraid to be open and deliberate about how you two are.

Therefore, most on the Nemesis are aware you are taken and busy themselves elsewhere. Those few who do might just get away with it.

Starscream is the most jealous out of everyone on the Nemesis. He is very insecure about himself and everything in general. All he is confident in are his dumb plans and his backstabbing ways.

Of a much larger mech attempted to court you he might just leave you to handle it. You're capable of saying no right? And if you don't then he'll be spark broken.

If it's a Vehicon or a seeker he will feel much more confident in himself. Often times using his rank to boss people away from you and back to work. But when he can't hide behind his rank he gets much more nervous. Overall, you're kind of on your own if things get physical.

"You scratch my back, I scratch yours," His love language is definitely acts of service/favors, and words of affirmation. He loathes getting praises and is a sucker for the treatment. But he also enjoys doing favors for something in return, and vice versa.

Soundwave:

An absolute cuddle bug in bed. When no one is looking he'll scoop you up in his large arms and hug you against his chest.

He never confessed his attraction, you came to him. He refused to confess, but he would leave you sweet notes and quotes from popular poems whenever he could.

He acts cold and distant but you know better. Soundwave isn't a mech who is known for his emotions. He does not speak and you are not an exception. The relationship can often feel one-sided and conversation is limited, but you find peace in it.

Your relationship is way underground and no one even suspects that the two of you are into each other. So when someone asks you out nervously on a date, you couldn't blame the guy.

Soundwave isn't jealous. He has learned to work around his emotions and has very good control over his outbursts. So before you respond he'll reply, "Negative." In a deep, almost threatening voice. Usually followed by you apologizing and explaining you are already taken and going about your business.

It's simple.

But if you are defied and they continue to push, he'll simply get Laserbeak to chase him away for a while.

You are very appreciative of Soundwave and all that he does for you. He love to kiss his faceplate and around his collar fins. And he enjoys it. He'll lean info you and purr happily as you kiss along his jaw.

Soundwave's love language can differ from time to time, but he most enjoys quality time with you. Even if he's working and drowned out in tasks he enjoys the presence you bring to the cold room. If your rambling on he'll do his best to listen.

*********

Apologies for any spelling mistakes :/

[jedidruid]

Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age: Lightsabers and Blasters and the Jedi

If there's one concept I love to rotate around in my head, its the Jedi's use of lightsabers and how they rarely use blasters outside of very extreme or fringe situation.

Like, we know its a purposeful choice on their part. It's far far simpler to get good at shooting a gun than it would be to become a master sword fighter. Add the Force into the mix, and the Jedi would become even more deadly warriors in a galaxy where they're already among the best, if not the best.

Obi-wan's time undercover as Rako Hardeen shows that he's able to match the skill of someone know as the "Marksman of Concord Dawn" with little issue. Kanan and later Ezra show just how much of an edge the Force can give in a shoot-out. In the first episode of Rebels, we literally see Kanan drop three or four stormtroopers in rapid succession while driving a speeder bike. All when he's still actively disguising/holding back his connection to the Force. We even see examples of mixing blasters and lightsabers in the Jedi games, with Cere Junda using both at the end of Fallen Order and Cal developing his own style of it partway through Survivor.

Every time we've seen a Jedi pick up a blaster, they can easily match trained soldiers and experienced fighters.

It's easy, and that's arguably why we don't see more Jedi using them.

To be a Jedi, a blaster is a clumsy weapon not because it somehow inaccurate or unwieldy, but because it gives them too few options.

For a Jedi with just a blaster, the only way to defend themselves against other people with blasters is to shoot back. Sure they could try and shoot the weapons out of their opponents' hands, but even then they would have no way to defend themselves or others from numerous shooters, nor would it stop a disarmed enemy from grabbing another weapon and undoing the Jedi's progress.

For a Jedi with just a blaster, the best way, the safest way, to end the fight is always going to be to shoot to kill.

When a Jedi has a lightsaber, however, it gives them so much more flexibility. They can provide cover for their allies or those they are protecting, they can turn blaster bolts back on their aggressors to discourage them from attacking, they can more easily advance to nullify the main advantage of blasters or more easily retreat and escape from any pursers. That's not even mentioning all the practical uses a lightsaber has as a tool outside of combat.

And sure, it's not that blasters in and of themselves don't suit the Jedi way. Stun blasters or emp/electrial blasters could be useful if they suited the situation.

But again, it's not about whats optimal or easiest, its about what those options take away from the table.

If you see someone running towards you with a blaster, you might risk pulling out your own and shooting your way out, depending on how desperate you are. After all, if you are thinking your life could end at any moment on another's whim, it's becomes more enticing to take the initiate and put yourself on even ground.

But if you see someone with a lightsaber? Where the danger at range comes not from being shot, but from your own attacks being turned against you? It might make you hesitant to attack, more willing another way out of the situation, whether through surrender, fleeing, or talking things out.

Does it always work out this? No, of course not. Fear makes people act impulsively, recklessly. But at the very worst, it can make it easier for a Jedi to deescalated and take control of a fight, where a blaster might only escalate the situation beyond anyone's control.

All of this is not to mention how the use of blasters can affect a Jedi's mentality. Cere Junda and Cal Kestis both rely on blasters in their darkest moments, when Cere returns to the Fortress Inquisitorius and when Cal is pursuing someone who betrayed him and killed those he cared about. Ezra's switching to use a proper blaster instead of rebuilding his stunning blaster/saber combo marks a dangerous shift in his thinking.

After all, it's all so easy to shot and kill someone, you barely have to move or think. Aren't some enemies not worth the effort of using your lightsaber? Maybe they're so inconsequential they're not even worthy to die by the weapon of a Jedi... they're less than worthless, less than a real person, they need to get out of the way or be forced out of it, how dare they oppose you!?!?

... ... ...

A lightsaber is a Jedi's weapon because it reflects what a Jedi is.

A lightsaber can be as dangerous to its user as it can be to their opponents. It requires training, self discipline, a sense of purposefulness that a blaster simply doesn't. The Jedi know what happens when they seek a quick and easy path....

A self-imposed limitation. A defensive weapon. A purposeful weapon.

An elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

[forgeofthenine]

Could I request the tiefling bachelors with a lover from Elturel who opts to leave with them when the tieflings are exiled from the city?

This was one of those requests where I started writing and just couldn't stop, I love this idea and it was so refreshing to just be able to write off vibes without any real issues. Thank you for the wonderful request Anon, I hope you enjoy <3

The bachelors when their partner joins them in exile

Dammon

Dammon isn't stupid, he knew when Elturel was returned to the surface that tensions wouldn't resolve easily

What he wasn't expecting was for his non tiefling lover to come find him as he packed a bag of whatever tools he could carry

There in his workshop doorway is where you stood, panting and catching your breath, and Dammon pauses

He's wondering how you might say goodbye to him, after nearly a year of being lovers no goodbye seems like enough to him

It's hardly a shock when you launch yourself into his arms and pull him down for a kiss, what does surprise the blacksmith is when you ask to join him afterwards

It's a quiet plead, you know it sounds desperate but time is running short and it's impossible to imagine a life without this man

Dammon is honestly conflicted about the whole thing

He wants desperately for you to be safe, to live a good life, to be happy

You both know however that the two of you are happiest when together, and he's spent so long imagining the life he'll share with you

Despite the dangers he knows will be waiting on the road, he agrees to take you

Dammon will selflessly shield you from any mockery or criticism as you both leave with the pack of tieflings

He's happy to protect you from danger or cold while on the journey too, it's easy for anyone to see his dedication to you in the way he acts

However, it would be a lie to say Dammon doesn't worry sometimes that you both might've made the wrong choice, that being exiled with him might be your ruin

Those thoughts will only be quashed in the future, when you both reach Baldurs Gate, but for now you two snuggle by campfires as Dammon sneaks some of his food onto your plate

Zevlor

Zevlor is in bad shape when Elturel is returned to the surface where it belongs

He and the rest of the hellriders disgraced, his fellow tieflings all being driven from the city

The paladin has a couple residual injuries from the fall and the ensuing chaos, trying to nurse them as he and the others are driven out

It all happened so fast, things passing by in a blur until he hears someone calling his name

It's no secret you're the lover of the hellriders general, the two of you had been together happily for a couple years now

He's shocked to see you sprinting over to him, a satchel thrown over your shoulder as you call for him to wait a moment

As soon as you reach the man he's ready to pull you against him, trying to hide you from the judgemental stares of others as he asks what you're doing

Zevlor is honestly speechless when you tell him you're joining him in exile

As much as he loves you, he doesn't want it at first

The most important thing to him is that you stay alive and safe, he can't guarantee that if you join him on the road

It's only when you tell him 'staying in Elturel can't guarantee that either' that he'll finally acquiesce

He's careful to take notice of your comfort, making sure you have good shoes and a warm blanket even if it means him going without

Zevlor is both dedicated and a protector, sometimes it takes you talking to him before he sees that he needs to be a priority for himself too

You spend your time sat on his makeshift desk in the grove, making sure Zevlor eats and drinks enough while looking over his maps

Rolan

You'd known Rolan and his siblings for years, your families close as the four of you grew up together

The budding wizard had always been drawn to you, much to his own annoyance at times, and it was no surprise when the two of you became lovers as teens

When Elturel was returned to the surface there was chaos and confusion through the streets, seemingly the only thing people could agree on was to blame the tieflings

Rolan himself was focused on trying to get Cal and Lia out safe, not worried about himself so long as they make it out unharmed

What draws him out of this focus is when you meet the trio at the gate

Your face is flushed, hair a mess from your heedless running towards the group of tieflings, and at any other time Rolan would consider it an attractive look on you

His own clawed hand grips yours as you pull him into a firm hug, and as soon as you ask to join him you feel the warmth of his tears against the skin on your collarbone

It's so relieving for him to know you still want him, despite the shunning that comes with it

Your thumbs wipe away the tears gathered in the corner of his eyes when you both pull away, his hand quickly taking yours as you all join the group of refugees beyond the walls of the city

While tempers run hot between him and Lia as you all journey, particularly when he wants to split from the group in the grove, everyone can rely on you to calm him

He struggles with the lack of privacy and the high tensions both wearing on his patience, but having you to confide in is endlessly helpful for him

Even while on the road, you two often sneak away to spend time alone and if you're lucky Rolan might even put on a bit of a magic show for you, much to the amusement of his siblings

[kayuripax]

Valve news and the AI

So. I assume people saw some posts going around on how valve has new AI rules, and things getting axed. And because we live in a society, I went down the rabbit hole to learn my information for myself. Here's what I found, under a cut to keep it easier. To start off, I am not a proponent of AI. I just don't like misinformation. So. Onwards.

VALVE AND THE AI

First off, no, AI will not take things over. Let me show you, supplemented by the official valve news post from here. (because if hbomberguy taught us anything it is to cite your sources)

[Image id: a screenshot from the official valve blog. It says the following:

First, we are updating the Content Survey that developers fill out when submitting to Steam. The survey now includes a new AI disclosure section, where you'll need to describe how you are using AI in the development and execution of your game. It separates AI usage in games into two broad categories:

Pre-Generated: Any kind of content (art/code/sound/etc) created with the help of AI tools during development. Under the Steam Distribution Agreement, you promise Valve that your game will not include illegal or infringing content, and that your game will be consistent with your marketing materials. In our pre-release review, we will evaluate the output of AI generated content in your game the same way we evaluate all non-AI content - including a check that your game meets those promises.

Live-Generated: Any kind of content created with the help of AI tools while the game is running. In addition to following the same rules as Pre-Generated AI content, this comes with an additional requirement: in the Content Survey, you'll need to tell us what kind of guardrails you're putting on your AI to ensure it's not generating illegal content. End image ID]

So. Let us break that down a bit, shall we? Valve has been workshopping these new AI rules since last June, and had adopted a wait and see approach beforehand. This had cost them a bit of revenue, which is not ideal if you are a company. Now they have settled on a set of rules. Rules that are relatively easy to understand. - Rule one: Game devs have to disclose when their game has AI - Rule two: If your game uses AI, you have to say what kind it uses. Did you generate the assets ahead of time, and they stay like that? Or are they actively generated as the consumer plays? - Rule three: You need to tell Valve the guardrails you have to make sure your live-generating AI doesn't do things that are going against the law. - Rule four: If you use pre-generated assets, then your assets cannot violate copyright. Valve will check to make sure that you aren't actually lying.

That doesn't sound too bad now, does it? This is a way Valve can keep going. Because they will need to. And ignoring AI is, as much as we all hate it, not going to work. They need to face it. And they did. So. Onto part two, shall we?

[Image ID: a screenshot from the official Valve blog. It says the following: Valve will use this disclosure in our review of your game prior to release. We will also include much of your disclosure on the Steam store page for your game, so customers can also understand how the game uses AI. End image ID]

Let's break that down. - Valve will show you if games use AI. Because they want you to know that. Because that is transparency.

Part three.

[Image ID: A screenshot from the official Valve blog. It says the following:

Second, we're releasing a new system on Steam that allows players to report illegal content inside games that contain Live-Generated AI content. Using the in-game overlay, players can easily submit a report when they encounter content that they believe should have been caught by appropriate guardrails on AI generation.

Today's changes are the result of us improving our understanding of the landscape and risks in this space, as well as talking to game developers using AI, and those building AI tools. This will allow us to be much more open to releasing games using AI technology on Steam. The only exception to this will be Adult Only Sexual Content that is created with Live-Generated AI - we are unable to release that type of content right now. End Image ID]

Now onto the chunks.

Valve is releasing a new system that makes it easier to report questionable AI content. Specifically live-generated AI content. You can easily access it by steam overlay, and it will be an easier way to report than it has been so far.

Valve is prohibiting NSFW content with live-generating AI. Meaning there won't be AI generated porn, and AI companions for NSWF content are not allowed.

That doesn't sound bad, does it? They made some rules so they can get revenue so they can keep their service going, while also making it obvious for people when AI is used. Alright? Alright. Now calm down. Get yourself a drink.

---

Team Fortress Source 2

My used source here is this.

There was in fact a DCMA takedown notice. But it is not the only thing that led to the takedown. To sum things up: There were issues with the engine, and large parts of the code became unusable. The dev team decided that the notice was merely the final nail in the coffin, and decided to take it down. So that is that. I don't know more on this, so I will not say more, because I don't want to spread misinformation and speculation. I want to keep some credibility, please and thanks.

---

Portal Demake axed

Sources used are from here, here and here.

Portal 64 got axed. Why? Because it has to do with Nintendo. The remake uses a Nintendo library. And one that got extensively pirated at that. And we all know how trigger-happy Nintendo is with it's intellectual property. And Nintendo is not exactly happy with Valve and Steam, and sent them a letter in 2023.

[Image ID: a screenshot from a PC-Gamer article. It says the following: It's possible that Valve's preemptive strike against Portal 64 was prompted at least in part by an encounter with Nintendo in 2023 over the planned release of the Dolphin emulator for the Wii and Gamecube consoles on Steam. Nintendo sent a letter to Valve ahead of that launch that attorney Kellen Voyer of Voyer Law said was a "warning shot" against releasing it. End Image ID.]

So. Yeah. Nintendo doesn't like people doing things with their IP. Valve is most likely avoiding potential lawsuits, both for themselves and Lambert, the dev behind Portal 64. Nintendo is an enemy one doesn't want to have. Valve is walking the "better safe than sorry" path here.

---

There we go. This is my "let's try and clear up some misinformation" post. I am now going to play a game, because this took the better part of an hour. I cited my sources. Auf Wiedersehen.

[cheseely]

Hi, I'm sure you get this often but I really love your recent genshin artwork, do you think you could explain your painting process? I love the colouring effect in that piece especially. Thank you.

Thank you so much! I got a few messages like this from my previous piece (thank you guys for the staff pick & blaze btw, I really didn't expect all the support😭) so I thought I'd share a bit of my process below as thanks.

I always do my lineart first because it feels less daunting to me when applying colours. I will do some rough colours first so I can easily adjust it to my liking.

Next, I make sure to separate each character into different layers when I clean it up. I like to work one character or object at a time, it's less overwhelming for me that way, and I can use clipping masks for ease of rendering.

I'll usually apply some adjustment layers on top of the base layer for shadows and highlights. When I say base layer, I just mean a layer of the colour without any effects.

I like using 'hard light' for shadows, and 'screen' for highlights, but you can really use whatever clicks with you.

Rinse & repeat this process for every character in the illustration. Note that I make Furina the focus so everything behind her will be less rendered than the elements in front of them (Neuvillette is a lot less rendered compared to Furina, and the painting in the back barely has much shading).

Once I render out each asset in the illustration and add shadows & highlights to my liking, I then to merge foreground/ midground/ background elements so I can make the overall illustration clearer to read. I don't want it to feel messy or overcrowded, and I think it's easy to get tunnel-visioned in small details and lose the clarity of the entire illustration.

Make sure to zoom out constantly and make your illustration B&W to check the values to see if the drawing is clear.

I created a simple S curve with the values for readability, and have the foreground elements have darker values & contrasts.

As for the BG, I wanted to add more textures into the drawing, particularly the painting in the back. Here's an image of it when I only added in the base colours.

I use the smudge tool to create more texture once I fill in the base colours. Since I don't really 'paint' anything with the textures in, I just put in the base colours and take a textured brush to smudge it. However, over-smudging can lose the painterly texture I want, so I usually smudge vertically or horizontally in a single stroke to create a sense of movement.

Another thing to note is that I only textured the BG, I thought it would help it blend into the background a bit better. I usually wouldn't do this for the foreground because I want those elements to be clearer.

At the very end, I tend to spend a fair bit of time just fiddling with more adjustment layers, various filters (such as blur, or noise), or liquify small details to really finalize the piece. Just vibes...basically this is me

Anyway, I hope that was helpful & it made sense!! Feel free to message me if you have any other questions & I'll try my best to answer! I might've glazed over a lot since I didn't wanna make this too long.

[karereiko]

Hello, everyone from Yuumori fandom.

Guess what, because of Concert that will be held in July all parts of Moriarty the Patriot Musical (op1-op5) are available to rent and watch online. With my Morimu fanarts or other talks about it I often get asked where you can watch it, often my answer is that you have to buy DVD or Bluray to watch this wonderful adaptation of Moriarty the Patriot manga. I know it's a big cost and hard to get for some so Streaming like this is a great opportunity to watch Morimu.

Official twitter posted few days ago about this possibility and here is the post with all information about it:

1600 yen is great amount to check if you will like it and wach it because I think it's worth any money, director who made morimu clearly loves manga, he treats source material with care and even makes it batter at some times, there is also a lot less cuts than in anime, like a lot. May be little spoiler or not, but Baskerville arc is there and Durham date too, as well as many Sherlock and John stuff that was cut in anime, some things from Moran arc etc. this is already big selling factor, right?

Actors are amazing and they love and care for characters they play. I wasn't into any actor adaptations before Morimu, I was ok with musicals but not caring too much about them and Morimu sold me since first part and it only got better and better each part even if you think that's not possible. Songs are there to make emotions and moments deeper or to have real fun with plot they show, they are not there just for song to be there. So yes high recommendation for you all to check Morimu if you didn't saw it yet. The most amazing thing is that you don't need VPN to buy those streams.

I was going to write about this few days ago and was busy, good I didn't because I talked with friends in Yuumori fandom who knows morimu and we were troubled to recommend this stream to people who doesn't understand Japanese. Morimu is faithful adaptation so almost like 70% lines comes from manga and you should understand what's going on if you read manga. Still, with subs it's a lot easier.

Kana did amazing job in creating English translation for Morimu Op1-Op4 at this point, all who bought DVD/Bluray versions of Morimu are using those subs and if you decide to buy own copy after seeing stream then those subs works great with DVD/Bluray versions.

So we talked over the stream matter and from what we checked with this plugin to Chrome it's possible to play subs with Morimu stream after you rent it (It works only with Chrome but if you know other program like this you can try it on different browsers, we only checked Chrome and this plugin) :

The only matter is that Kana saved subtitles in .ass file format, but you can easily format them to .srt file format that this plugin plays with this site:

You just open subtitle file and save it as srt, and open it with plugin to your Morimu stream. If you will have any more problems with subs them write me a message and I will try to help as soon as work let's me.

I think this is the easiest option that creators gave us now to watch Morimu, it was never so easy to buy or rent it until now, you had to use crazy VPN programs and other stuff to just check on it. So this is best option since for sure it won't last forever. Such promotional streamings are only around when new part is coming up, currently Concert I mentioned.

So for other things I wanna to say. If you get your copy of Morimu then please don't share it, don't post it to any social sites. Company that makes Morimu is quite strict with that matter and they do search who uploads those musicals and strikes them down/ deletes files even on places like google drive. Even without it, it's a matter of love for Moriarty the patriot. As much as fandom wants more people to watch those musicals, any piracy might destroy our chances to get Op6, possibilities for future streams and other stuff. Currently with Op5 we reached end of Final Problem arc and there is hope that maybe one day New York arc will be done in op6. Any piracy, sharing and messy stuff might destroy such chance, so please if you hold dear MTP then respect those rules. Watching streams with your friends in closed groups after you buy it isn't bad but please hold from any public sharing (they would be taken down anyway, but it would still put us fans in very bad light).

I know end of this post was not nice but it had to be told. I hope this possibility will help you see Morimu and fall in love with it like I did. I would recommend at least seeing OP1 and OP2, it should hook you and OP3 is where everything hits even more than op1-2, more hits from songs, more hits from sherliam stuff.

Hope to see you in Morimu cult :D... ehem... fandom. May you have "wind" (for some Great Detective) in your heart like William....

[crownmemes]

Fallout Sentences

(Sentences from Fallout (2024-). Adjust phrasing where needed)

"Get that jelly mould out of here!"

"Everyone knows who I am, but do they know who they are?"

"Maybe you should do what you do best - run and hide."

"I'm not letting anyone else get hurt on my behalf, okay?"

"Violence is merely a tool."

"What would you know about where I'm from?"

"Us cowpokes, we take it as it comes."

"You come from a world of rules and laws. This place is indifferent to all of that. I do not think you would be willing to do what it takes to survive here."

"The question is, will you still want the same things when you have become a different animal altogether?"

"I know that it can't have been easy for you, what with all the murder and dirt."

"I think this conversation would benefit from some actual ideas."

"You saved me!"

"How do you live like this?"

"Now, that right there is the closest thing we've had to an honest exchange so far."

"I come from a place where the world is what you make of it."

"Everyone wants to save the world. They just disagree on how."

"The things I'm willing to do for you never cease to amaze me."

"You might be the only one of my invites that actually showed up!"

"You smell good."

"That was weird, right?"

"Trust doesn't come easily to those of us with a guilty conscience."

"When it comes to leadership these days, dangerous is what they call a prerequisite."

"Somebody's got to step up and bring some order around here."

"In my experience, the apple tends not to fall too far from the tree. Is that true in your case?"

"There's always some new little faction, isn't there?"

"Hypocrisy is like violence in the movies; if you only let the bad guys use it, the bad guys win."

"Our test subjects were less compliant than we anticipated."

"Your ignorance cannot excuse your cruelty."

"Such a display of loyalty! You don't see that much anymore."

"The future of humanity comes down to one word: management."

"What? No! When you put it like that, it sounds downright morally questionable!"

"War? War never changes."

"You see what this place does to people?"

"Maybe you can stop them, maybe you can't. Maybe all you can do is try."