#or just make a new website to host it and link it on my main website yk

[sanchoyo]

yknow if I keep Not getting Feedback on wattpad at large (I do realize I only have one chapter up rn, I'll give this until ch 10 to see how its doing to give wattpad a Chance) I COULD host my nanowrimo story on my...own website....id have to make a page thats a bit easier to read (and more mobile friendly than my current one) but thats a Possibility. The thing is coding a new page so its more focused on being a page for Reading would be TEDIOUS and id have to figure out how to add a comments section, and idk if I want to do that...but I'm def considering it 🤔

[midnight1nk]

⭐️A few days ago...⭐️

Wow, what a wholesome episode! "The rosemary to my bread", dude, I hope my future partner will say that to me one day. Now that I had my weekly dose of silly, time to check the Puzzlevision website! Eh, I bet it's going to be the same as...

[*SCREAMING*]

WOTFI 2024 PREDICTIONS REVISITED

⚠️ DISCLAIMER IN INTRO POST ⚠️

An eye for an eye...

How are we feeling, SMG4 fandom? It's that time of year and many have speculated about WOTFI as well as what might come afterwards. Myself included with my previous theory posts, suspecting that something big is guaranteed to happen. And we didn't have to wait long.

On the 14th of September, just a few days ago, the channel's latest episode, 'SMG4 and SMG3 come up with an episode' was released. But what truly made the fandom lose their mind was the sudden change of the Puzzlevision website. If you need a refresher, here is what it looked like before:

It had:

[puzzlevision.tv] being the site title and URL

Mr Puzzles' logo

A central image that transitioned between a webp to a gif file and vice versa on certain occasions

(after choosing Save As option) the image already labeled as Now Airing

Now, there was talk about this that wasn't left originally, stating that the image (that used to be larger) now had a black border around it. At least, at the time. As someone who has worked with web design, there's actually a number of reasons why this is.

Depending on the resolution/zoom setting on your device, it might alter the site's layout.

As said earlier, the image alternated between a gif to a webp. All websites require a background color underneath all of its assets so the change in image/file size may have shrunk than what was originally. Especially if you are attempting to make it look seamless between the transitions.

Long story short, It's simply how web layouts are: formatting gets a bit wonky from time to time.

Anyway, as I already mentioned, the website has changed to this,

(supposedly someone said the password was "carnival")

Then, to this:

Changes include:

The title "War of the Fat Italians 2024" with a similar URL [www.wotfi2024.com]

SMG4 logo

A whole new layout design (obviously) which just gives off 'Greatest Showman' energy

And now we've come to the present day: fans have already submitted their minigame challenges and preparing for a carnival-themed adventure. For me and other theorists, though, we're having a field day. From the clues I gathered on the website and a few past episodes, I might be able to put together what the channel has for us this year. Let's revisit my "WOTFI 2024 Predictions"!

I already covered a lot in depth in my "Puzzlevision 2: Now Airing" theory [link] and I'll be referring back to it here, so I recommend looking it over if you haven't already.

THE WEBSITE

I was honestly surprised that I was right about a couple of things. The main one being about the website itself.

The people behind SMG4 didn’t need to put this image in, they didn’t need to keep this website on. But they did.

Well, past Ink, you nailed it. And according to Cube (FM), this is the same website host.

"don't read into it too much"

Cube, with everything going on, I might as well interrogate a website for memes' sake.

Wait, what's wrong with it?

The fact that the website is used for WOTFI of all things is what's so strange. All the previous WOTFI'S asked the fans to submit their challenges through the comment section or social media. No other option was involved until now.

Maybe they wanted to try something different like what they did for WOTFI 2023?

That's a good point. It was stated that they wanted to be more experimental with their episodes. But even then, the '23 stream they hosted was on their channel, on Youtube.

Maybe they didn't want it to go to waste? After all, sites can be expensive.

Again, it's a good point. Depending on the domain they used and the apps connected to the site, it can be costly. However, I do want to iterate what I said earlier: they didn't need to keep this website up. Better yet, if they didn't want to raise any flags, why not keep the site how it originally was with the "That's all folks!" image? Why the change? Which brings us to our next point,

WHO IS THE REAL SMG4?

Let me explain...

After the change of the website, we got this post,

This brings up a lot of questions:

Who sent the letter?

If we can assume that's Four's hand, why did the post say "you" as if there is a narrator?

If Four had no idea about a carnival coming to town, then why would he ask us to submit challenges for a carnival he's supposedly hosting?

Well, they're pretty easy to answer. We already established that Marty would come back to be the most likely antagonist for WOTFI. I mean, this cardboard cutout managed to own a pizza shop, a casino, an airline company, and a spaghetti sauce brand. It wouldn't be a surprise if he also happened to own a carnival. But as I said in previous theories, Marty isn't working alone.

He's working with Mr Puzzles.

Mr Puzzles was the one who sent the letter to SMG4 just as he did for Wren in Western Spaghetti (indirect or not). It hasn't exactly shown if the letter had his seal on it. Not that it needs to anyway, they would recognize his logo and know they can't trust what's inside this envelope.

Remember how I said in my previous theory that one of the ways Mr Puzzles could control SMG4 was for our blue meme lord to be his eyes and ears? In the latest episode, SMG3 comes up with the idea of a carnival coming to the showgrounds for a week, and SMG4 wanting to go on the baby teacup ride.

Mr Puzzles was there, listening to every word they said to each other. He has been since "SMG4: Inside Out".

Could it just be purely by coincidence and just something out of improv? Sure, the SMG4 & SMG3 side episodes aren't really connected to canon. But like, c'mon, the channel knew what they were doing. Everything has to be put into consideration.

If that's true, the narrator could be Mr Puzzles, the second voice inside his head. Or, for those who love the goop!4 theory, the voice could be the demonic goo slowly taking over.

Now, back to the post!Four and site!Four. If we can assume the Four from the post is our Four, then the one impersonating Four would be Mr Puzzles, once again controlling the events in WOTFI. This time, using his website. Like Cube said, Mr Puzzles is the same website host as before. Also, look at these two:

It would be too obvious if we see a PNG of Mr Puzzles on the website again so why not impersonate his narrative foil. Well, at least look dapper while you're at it.

Or, even better, Four does know about the carnival but either the goo or Mr Puzzles are erasing certain memories.

A GAME OF WITS

Speaking of the website, let's analyze the description:

Step right up, WOTFI is coming to town and we need your challenges but this time...WITH A TWIST! We're doing a carnival theme this year and we want challenges named like a minigame and a description of what they are! For example "Whack a Bob - Who can smash bob with a hammer first?" OR "Pizza Pie Peril- Survive giant pizza's raining form the sky' Guidelines - Please only 1 challenge per person - Nothing inappropriate - Please add your internet profile name in the 'name' field below Thank you and see you soon!!! -SMG4

Carnival theme, huh?

Well, last year's theme made sense. Three's notebook was stolen and was risked of getting leaked. With the casino being heavily guarded, Four and Three had to sneak in. A secret mission to take back a secretive object.

If this WOTFI has Marty and Mr Puzzles working together, then It would make sense for a businessman and an entertainer would come up with something like a carnival. The best of two worlds: fun and capitalism. Besides, the Showgrounds would be a perfect place to host it since it used to be an abandoned carnival and Mr Puzzles having something to do with the land ownership.

[SMG4: Our New Home // timestamp: 5:38]

Now, what is peculiar is the use of the term "minigame".

Ink, it's a carnival. You have to stick to the theme of carnival rides and games.

Fair, but this is WOTFI we're talking about here. If you win a challenge, you get closer to the end and win a point for your side. For WOTFI '23, every choice impacted the story and therefore the ending. If the SMG4 crew plays and wins these minigames, what do they get in return? And if they lose, would there be a punishment?

It will entirely depend on how WOTFI would play out, in three scenarios:

Marty is revealed to be behind the carnival at the beginning of WOTFI and the Crew learns that, in order to reach him, they have to win some mini-games.

Marty isn't revealed until the near end. The Crew only came because they wanted to have some fun for the day but learned that this was a sort of trap created by Marty (along with Mr Puzzles but they don't know that yet).

OR BONUS SECRET OPTION

Both Marty and Mr Puzzles revealed themselves to be the ones hosting the carnival, meaning it's less likely that Puzzlevision 2 would happen unless something else happens.

Then, there is the phrase "WITH A TWIST". Sure, it could mean that it would be different than our regular old WOTFI, just as it happened in 2023. But WOTFI 2023 also revealed the twist that Mr Puzzles was actually the one orchestrating the whole thing, sending the fax to Marty about the secret recipe and his theme scattered in the background in multiple episodes. We might get a twist by the end of this year's WOTFI as well. Bonus points if we hear a version of his theme again.

Back in my Puzzlevision 2 theory, I predicted that the final battle with Mr Puzzles would happen back where it all started. With the carnival coming into the Showgrounds, it comes back full circle.

ONE STEP CLOSER

There isn't much to change from what I predicted:

Karen would be a key character for WOTFI this year. Maybe Karen just wanted her kids to have fun for the day, or even the corporation, her former workplace, gave her a tip that Marty would be there.

The Crew would have to find Marty's absolute weakness since he's technically invincible.

And possibly Pedro coming back to assist the Crew somehow.

But now I have a new prediction, based on the latest episode:

SMG4's and SMG3's relationship would change to a whole new level. That Four may need Three for something or if Three realizes something about himself, it would change their dynamic regardless.

It's really similar to how it was for WOTFI 2023 with small bits here and there all coming back to a single episode. (The notebook, the duo's meme guardian powers, Four's forklift, Three moving out of the Internet Graveyard, etc.)

It's still too early to confirm anything, but at the very least, we now have some idea what WOTFI may be about as well as evidence to back up some of my theories.

Will we get goop!4? God, I wish. I was listening to "Friends on the Other Side" and I was just imagining scenarios of Mr Puzzles taking complete control of Four with the goo. If it doesn't happen for whatever reason, I'll write it myself.

Oh well, we would just have to wait and see. In the meantime, that’s just a theory…

AN SMG4 THEORY

🎶Thanks for dropping by🎶

[alice-after-dark]

A Dark Web Romance (Concept)

Just a fun concept that has been sitting in my drafts for a while.

@hiemaldesirae hope you feel better :)

TW for violence, abusive relationships, vaguely implied sexual abuse, cannibalism, gore, murder, implied NSFT, and other canon-typical triggers. Contains abusive StaticMoth.

Vincent Haynes, who goes by the online name "Vox," is an elite hacker who makes his money on the Dark Web doing jobs for the worst of the worst. It is through this work that he becomes acquainted with a user known as TheRadioDemon, a cannibalistic serial killer who hosts a podcast. Vox has never missed a show since discovering him and has developed a crush on the man. Sure, he may not have any interest in which parts of the human body are best suited for a stew, but he is more than willing to listen to that gorgeous voice explain it to him in graphic detail while he carves said flesh off his screaming victim.

When the host expresses difficulty with his website, Vox jumps at the opportunity and soon the two are exchanging private messages daily, even long after the problem has been fixed.

One day months later he meets Alastor Bourreau, a new resident in their apartment complex who has moved into the apartment across from Vox. Hailing from New Orleans, he has come to New York City for a change of scenery, a "change of flavor" as he puts it.

There is something...familiar about the man, but Vox can't put his finger on it.

Vox and Alastor become fast friends, something Vox's boyfriend, a jealous and unstable pimp named Valentino, does not approve of. Their relationship began after Valentino hired Vox to do some work for his snuff website and now Vox is trapped in Valentino's never ending cycle of love-bombing and abuse. He is too scared to leave the pimp, knowing full well that Valentino could have him killed if he wanted to.

He expresses these fears to TheRadioDemon during their nightly chat after a particularly bad fight that leaves Vox with two broken ribs and a sprained wrist.

And suddenly Valentino stops calling him. He stops showing up at his apartment unannounced over some perceived slight or another. He stops contacting him altogether. It's strange and confusing and Vox doesn't know what to make of it. Valentino won't answer his calls. In fact, they all go straight to voicemail until finally the inbox is full and he can't leave any more.

He decides Valentino is probably on another one of his binges and that he'll hear from him eventually.

But he doesn't. What he gets instead is a link to a livestream sent to him from TheRadioDemon. That's...strange. TheRadioDemon has never been a visual person, always sticking to his podcast format. Still, he clicks on it without hesitation.

Front and center is Valentino.

The man is strapped into a medical chair with his chest cut wide open. Vox can see the rise and fall of the man's lungs. A message pops into his inbox.

Do you like it, darling? He broke your ribs, so I took his. I also took the liberty of removing that foul tongue of his.

Another message.

What should I take next?

Vox already knows what he wants before the question even comes.

Cut off his fucking dick.

It's three hours before the video ends, the main chat alight with suggestions and comments. The video goes dark every time TheRadioDemon acts, broadcasting Valentino's agonized gurgles and wails and cutting back on to reveal the new damage done. Vox says no more, simply sits back and watches the show.

He is only half watching Valentino though. Instead, his gaze is constantly being drawn to the small red fawn plush sitting on the metal table, starkly innocent beside the bloodied instruments of torture and placed so purposefully.

He knows that plush. He bought that plush.

Moments after stream ends finds him in front of Alastor's door. He's barely had time to knock when it opens and he is yanked inside and subsequently slammed up against the door and kissed.

"I was so hoping you'd catch on," Alastor mumbles against his lips. "I've had my eyes on you ever since you first tuned into my broadcast. I could hardly contain myself when I finally found you. You looked so delicious."

Vox isn't sure if he means that literally or figuratively and he doesn't care. It might be both. It's probably both. He's okay with that.

[spotofmummery]

Once More - On Creating a Personal Website

Over the weekend, I wrote the above post on my main blog about a new FREE webhost called Nekoweb. While I still use Neocities myself, I just wanted to toss this out here as an alternative, especially given where sites like this and WordPress are going in terms of the lack of your content's safety and your control of your work.

Learning basic HTML is pretty straightforward, and there's lots of templates out there to get you started. Once you get the hang of it, you might surprise yourself with how much fun you have designing your own site and not being held back by anyone else's design and content choices!

The cool thing is, you can make your own website, then link your stuff here (like I did above) to share it to any social media you like. But it's not TIED specifically to Tumblr or X or Bluesky because you host it somewhere else. So, you can still post it to social media to get the word out about your writing or art, while maintaining control of where it lives in the long run.

HTML files can be backed up. So if something happens to your host, as long as you keep your website files on your computer or other media, you can always turn around and upload it to a new host. No fear of having your stuff wiped forever because it's locked in a social media account database you can never reach.

Just some considerations!

[solradguy]

I saw your post about the Internet Archive and Archiving GG stuff for future Generations and i wanted to ask some stuff regarding the Archiving, i hope thats ok

Probably the dumber question but do you know if Daisuke has ever been involved in the Archiving of his series? I know the series started as a Passion project for him but Idk how active he would be with helping archive or fill in missing pieces, especially in the english world.

Just as a General question, are current online archiving groups mostly relying on being connected to one another in some way to reestablish fallen sources? Since very little of the internet if any is as stable as we like to believe and any service storing data may shut down somehow any day like Drive, when one host site does go down do the archivists rally together and find a new spot or do you kinda have to hope people can find the new host?

Also are there any larger scale Archivist groups someone with less ability to physically help could donate to to help preserve our online histories?

thank you and apologies if you dont like questions

Hello! Questions are fine ^^ Sometimes it takes me a million years to reply, but I don't mind them.

My answer to this got kinda long. Excuse the readmore.

We don't have any strong evidence either way what the condition of the official Arc System Works library of Guilty Gear media is like, but there have been a few times where the images they've used for things have been worse than the images us rogue archivists have. This ML illustration is definitely one they either no longer have the physical/original piece for, or they might not have a way to rescan it, because the file they use when they reproduce it is pathetically tiny. Example from the Steam release of Strive's bonus Digital Artbook:

Compared to other illustrations in the same book (two pages here):

This Ky from the website for the 20th Anniversary Pack release of Missing Link for the Switch was taken from the Guilty Gear Bible:

We know this because... He's on page 12 in the Bible and...

...they didn't erase the page number off his shoe.

So, at the very least, some Missing Link era works are likely gone/lost/destroyed/etc. It's possible some GGX thru GGXX artworks are lost too, but we don't have a concrete catalog of XX works because they never released a complete artbook for XX. It's also rumored that Keep The Flag Flying's original master file is lost but I've never been able to find a source for that. Daisuke has never reached out to any of us about our image archives and we've never offered.

Archiving is very much a western concept and it's a common thought in Japan that saving copies of another person's works is extremely bad; I've been chewed out and blocked by Japanese fans for it. It's just a cultural difference, I don't take it personally. If ASW contacts us about it though we'll definitely give them our files or take down anything they request of us. We don't want to poke the bear and risk the entire archive if we can. They seem to be turning a blind eye to our archives though, as long as it's not an upload of something extremely recent (I got DMCA'd for the Strive Artworks Archive scans).

The core of the Guilty Gear archive group works on the new GG wiki and/or are admins of the new wiki, so we're in pretty close contact with each other. Most of the archive is in my hands and, unfortunately, my hands alone. With the announcement of the Internet Archive v Hachette ruling, we've been planning on making copies of my GG archive hard drive and sending it out to the other archivists in our circle. I don't have a PO box, I can't do this for people outside the group because I don't want my physical home address to be that accessible.

That said, there are redundant digital copies of a lot of files and I have a backup hard drive of the main GG archive drive; the main drive is a relatively new 2tb Western Digital My Passport external drive and the backup is a 1tb WD My Passport that's a little older. A lot of people have downloaded copies of the files currently online (via my masterpost) and can reupload something if it goes down even if I'm not around to do it. We rely on Archive.org a lot but aren't against using Dropbox, Google Drive, mega.nz, Neocities, file.garden, or, if we absolutely must, Discord. I do not like relying on Discord and Discord files are generally extremely temporary.

The files that aren't in the archive include software or game asset rips, image files, music, and random bits and bobs. I'm working on getting the images up on the wiki but everything else is kind of in a weird zone where I don't really know what to do with it.

As for donating to support broader archivism: We use Archive.org (and their Wayback Machine) the most, so donating to them would benefit both the GG archive as well as hundreds of thousands of music, literature, research, and art groups too. Their donate page can be found here: https://archive.org/donate?origin=iawww-TopNavDonateButton

Supporting your local libraries, museums, and conservatories also supports archivism. Most of these places accept public donations of any amount and could probably direct you to other local archiving groups/associations.

Donating to Wikipedia also supports broader archivism to a lesser extent. They write about events as they happen, with sources/citations, and older versions of this information is permanently available on every article and file without having to rely on things like Wayback Machine. Their donation page is here: https://donate.wikimedia.org

I also have a donation page via Ko-fi and any money donated with a note about it being for Guilty Gear will go back into Guilty Gear (via book/magazine purchases for scanning, usually). Donating to one of the above groups would be better for archiving as a whole though. My page can be found here: https://ko-fi.com/somnivagrious

Hope this answers your questions!!

[alas9]

✨ 📖 ✏️ studyblr masterpost jam ✏️ 📖 ✨ Day #6 as an independent game designer maybe?

I used to be quite extra in my 20s. I was very immersed in the world of gamer gear and stationery products, I bought too many pink peripherals for the computer and I had several pencil cases full of colored fibers. I feel that getting into the world of development has helped me refine the consumer in me a little, and taught me to be more organized and practical. Since development involves many hours of purely mental work, I make sure I have sheets and pens close to me to capture anything that comes to mind, and I try not to have my desk too full of things to avoid distractions. These are my main items that I always have in my desk and backpack.

Keyboard 60%

Mine is relatively old, it is an Anne Pro 2. As it is quite common in the world of custom keyboards, it is easy to get keycaps for it. For example, I bought it to put Keycaps in Cyrillic when I was actively studying Russian. I bought this one on amazon.

Plastic Paper Containers

I am very fond of writing by hand to develop and organize ideas, so I fill myself with papers. I'm addicted to organizers, cleaning my study and work space is something that overwhelms me a lot, and paper collects a lot of dust, so these containers save you space and hours of cleaning. It also helps to separate papers by subject, in the image I have the folders that I use for development and on the other side for Japanese.

Basic Planner

When I was a fine arts student I was very into journaling. Something that became extremely impractical for me as time went by. Today I have a planner with all the same sheets with space for the date and tasks only. It is necessarily flexible and necessarily pre-fabricated to fulfill its function.

Smart notebook with squared sheets

I always try to have squared sheets to study languages, because I feel that they help a lot to improve writing when you use more complex systems such as hiragana, katakana and kanji. They are also more useful for writing programming languages ​​if you want to do written exercises. They are very versatile and it is not paper that goes unused, ever.

Campus University Extra Fine Notebook

This is my war notebook, the one I carry in my backpack because it is light and I use it as a random note pad, whether for studying programming, Japanese, or for ideas for my game. Then when I get home, I organize the information in specific notebooks or the folders that I showed above.

Black Chinese Ink Pens

I narrowed down collections of different markers and pens to just using these. I don't have any other variety. They are the only ones I use for everything.

About programs I use to organize myself and study

Notion (and trello implementation)

Mine is pretty simple and minimalistic. I use it to set my year long tasks, such as x amount of courses I want to do, books I want to read, games I want to play, notes about aeronautics I use on my game, other documentation about other topics I care etc etc. It's nothing I use day by day. I just get there once in a while to check on things I wanted to do in the past weeks everytime I have time to work on something new. I don't use anything digital to organize day by day tasks.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is always open in my browser. It's a fixed tab actually. I use it for everything, mainly coding.

Midjourney and Gencraft to create assets and sprites

I use them to create temporary assets for my game, since I'm focused on the code only, and to see how things work I put some AI generated visuals in every non profitable project.

Neocities

It's not actually a tool, but I use it mainly to host my web design projects and to share them with other colleagues. I also dive alot in the community websites there to check for ideas and inspiration.

Github as a portfolio

I used to be quite secretive with my projects, because almost all of them, if not all, were directly linked to my work, and by clause I cannot link my personal image to the company, therefore I never shared anything I did. But I recently started using github as a platform to showcase my work and freelance projects, and I've loved it so far. I know that the tool's strength is teamwork through it, but that has not been the case for me so far.

And that's basically all I use and most people also do I guess 🦦

[niimda]

I've been following some of those plural poll blogs for a little while now. I think it's fun to answer questions, especially ones that make me have to think really hard or consult others. It's a good way to learn about the worlds I inhabit and the people I inhabit them with, but I've been noticing some (if not most) of the questions are almost.. not applicable to us or our experiences. Specifically now: questions that want you to answer as or for the collective.

"Collective favorite [X]", "[Y] that describes everyone", "Collective opinion on [Z]."

While thinking about these questions I realized that it probably feels pretty bad to be expected to be radically different from everyone you share a brain with. That kind of expectation can unintentionally de-legitimize peoples' experiences and make them feel like they aren't "separate enough" to count.

At the same time, we don't have…a collective anything. Even this body is off-limits to at least one person. Trying to make all of us agree on something has made us run into more butting of the heads than anything else in the past six years, and that feels very strange! Being asked to exist cohesively and uniformly causes some of the most upset I've ever seen.

My favorite ice cream flavor is pistachio. Verin likes specifically Quality Dairy's Death by Chocolate. Oliver wants nothing to do with any of it. To answer with a single "collective favorite" would mean disregarding most opinions in favor of one. It's a silly example, and it's true most of the questions tend to be silly and un-serious in nature. So why should we have to fight over whose favorite gets the spotlight?

There are plenty of other common plural-community things that don't apply to us, being a system of less than ten with only one (introverted) introject. We don't tend to subscribe to common frameworks (roles, origin labels, and the shiny new consciousness labels), and microlabels in general just don't seem to have that luster. Being unconventional isn't new to us for many, many reasons.

The polls aren't even really my main concern here. We don't follow many, so it's possible it's just a few of them. But it's not the only context we're expected to present as less individual than we actually are.

The name of the group, Solsten, is neutral at best for more than half of us, but existing without a link to others in the system online is heavily frowned upon. "System tags" are commonly required in Discord servers that have bots for accessibility. Intra-system communication in public is laughable & weird at best, and outright banned at worst. We are expected to be a very single group of people.

We've known about each other for years longer than we've known about the plural community, so I guess it makes sense that we don't fall in with the norms presented here. We're in the age range now where we're "too old" for the youngest members to be comfortable with, and "too young" for the oldest.

The easiest thing for us to do has been to find others through our interests, and we've been very lucky to find three(!!) other systems who we're now very close with. They don't seem to be as interested in alterhumanity as I am, but I think all I can really do is take what I'm given. They listen and allow us as much space as we need to be uniquely and separately ourselves.

This was sort of an aimless ramble from the get-go. I haven't been here long enough to make in-depth critiques of common trends. (It's my understanding that other platforms like Dreamwidth and some personal websites host wonderful content of that variety.) But maybe we should start making all of our coworkers decide if they all had to be one animal what it would be. Even if our coworkers are already strongly and separately wolves, birds, and human beings.

[ri47]

VesalBlood May 2024 Reader Poll, Part 1

(new readers welcome)

sorry for the quiet on VesalBlood news lately! things are warming up again. let's get right down to business as we approach the resumption of VesalBlood ALTERNE: Diesem Fernen Traum

a few points of context for what I'm about to ask:

going forward, I am looking into moving VesalBlood Project stories off of AO3 as their primary host. there's a lot of reasons for this, mostly entangled in how I'd rather just host them on a more professional-looking site if I'm gonna be doing all that formatting anyway. also, frankly, I was always a bit iffy on having the primary port of access for my personal writing be the same place where I put less serious writing

as an addendum to the previous point, this decision is not motivated by censorship, money, or politics. this is entirely down to VesalBlood being kind of hard to host without free reign over html

a large factor in making this decision was that AO3's formatting always gave me trouble integrating audio and images, which I consider to be a very important part of what makes the text-based wing of the VesalBlood Project distinct from a standard web serial

it's a little unclear how to experience VesalBlood Project, as someone new to the setting, with the way things are set up now. there are side stories that insert alongside the longer form writing, but it's hard to tell people when exactly those take place when the format is split across websites. new readers need to be directed to that info

there are removed scenes that don't fit the pacing of the main stories, but which are still fully written and are considered to have happened. this isn't even touching on translation notes, writer commentary, and other tidbits that kind of free-float around the stories proper

so with all that in mind, what are we going to do to address things?

as it stands, the plan is that VesalBlood stories will be primarily delivered through self-hosted pages, mostly in the form they currently take. additionally, I'd be interested in including toggle-options to enable things like chapter notes and inline links to stories describing side events. naturally, this would include the option to enable or disable audio

but the main question I'm weighing right now is...

[eschergirls]

Hi everybody!  

It's a new month, so it's time to celebrate how awesome squirrels are and also to do a site update and to thank our wonderful Patreon subscribers (and adjacent squirrels)!

For a site update, the big news is me and our website designer (Socketwench) are going to revamp the main website (eschergirls.com) and change the overall look, probably so the web version has a grid of post previews rather than just listing the posts in a row because the current setup leaves a lot of empty space since it only previews one line of text.  Mobile users shouldn't see much change except we'll be removing or changing the scrolling menu bar so it doesn't block most of the post on small screens.  We'll also be adding a popular tag cloud so people can more easily browse the blog if they want to casually.

If anybody has any other suggestions to improve the main site's usability and readability, please let me know!!!  I'm very interested in feedback.  I'm also working on the glossary and index, so people should be able to search the tags by category of character, series, genre, etc... and the glossary should explain what some of the terms like "boobsocks" (clothing that encases each breast separately like socks), "boob flounder" (both breasts on one side of the body), etc... mean.

Also, as usual, I've been working through the archives and fixing up all the old posts to match the current way I'm formatting my posts and to fix posts that were broken during the Tumblr export.  I also add alt-text to every post I restore so people who use screenreaders can access them.  This month, I fixed this post involving Marvel's Magik on an old trading card, the two posts with Boundless Comics' Ember (1, 2), and these old PLAY Magazine "Girls of Gaming" pages (1, 2, 3). I also fixed up this submission about how video game magazines used to advertise contests where you could go on a date with Lara Croft and stuff, and I edited the post to include an update with a link to an interview with one of the models who portrayed Lara for those ads, for those interested! 

I'm still working my way through the Tumblr inbox backlog, so if you submitted a post a long time ago, you might see it pop up soon.  Unfortunately, the way Tumblr does its inbox means the older it is the longer it'll take me to reach it. :\  I apologize sincerely for how long it takes me to get through the inbox sometimes.

I'm also still appealing the many incorrectly flagged posts on Tumblr, and the arbitrary algorithmic flagging, sudden rule changes, and other issues, are why I'm trying to fix up the main site to try to get it as usable for everybody as possible so Tumblr isn't the only way to view the blog, or the only place where it's archived.

I know it's repetitive, but it's also why I really appreciate everybody who supports us on Patreon and Ko-Fi.  It gives me much needed help to pay for server costs, upgrades, domain hosting, and just keep the site going in general. :)  I really appreciate that people think what we do is worth supporting <3

So I want to thank everybody who supported Escher Girls on Patreon in March!

Thank you so so much to:

Anne Adler Cat Mara CheerfulOptimistic  Chris McKenzie Em Bardon First Time Trek Greg Sepelak Ian Cameron Ken Trosaurus Kevin Carson Kim Wincen Kristoffer Illern  Holmén Leak  Manuel Dalton Mary Kuhner Max Schwarz Michael Mazur Miriam Pody Morgan McEvoy randomisedmongoose Rebecca Breu Ringoko  Ryan Gerber Sam Mikes Sean Sea SpecialRandomCast  Thomas 

And a special thanks again to PJ Evans for donating on Ko-Fi last month! :)

Also a huge thank you to everybody for reading, submitting, and generally commenting and engaging with Escher Girls!  It makes running the site so worth it. :)

For those who want to follow us without using Tumblr, we have an RSS feed. (For newbies, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is basically a feed you can read using an RSS reader. Simply copy and paste https://eschergirls.com/rss.xml into an RSS reader and it will keep you up to date on Escher Girls!)

Thanks so much to everybody, and see you next month!

Ami

If you have any issues with the site or suggestions to improve it, please do not hesitate to contact me and let me know!

If you wish to support Escher Girls, you can subscribe to our Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ami_angelwings or donate through Ko-Fi at: https://ko-fi.com/amiangelwings.

[hall0wedwyrm]

Welcome Home came back and I just spent like 4 hours looking through the website and I think I have a little theory or two. I think i could link these ideas together but im not sure how yet

Obviously spoilers for the new update!!! I highly encourage unspoiled exploration!!!!!!

I think its pretty clear that Wally. either literally him or his consciousness, is somehow trapped in the website. In the newest post on the News site, the website host says that they had to unfortunately had to close the guestbook due to there being a lot of submissions. The most important part though is where they say, "I believe closing the guest book was a good idea anyhow. There are. There are images I don’t remember uploading to decorate your messages. I don’t know how they got there." This, plus the way that the names of the images were seemingly written by Wally, makes it the most likely that Wally is inside the website. He was adding various images and messages to communicate with us, but now thats taken away from him since it closed. I think he then resorted to just drawing and leaving messages on other pages, through his doodles. The various drawings that appear on the main pages lead to messages from Wally. He wants to hear us speak to him, which is kind of how a kids show like Welcome Home would work. The characters wait for the kids to respond, but they can't actually hear us from inside the screen. Wally, therefore, must have knowledge that we can see him and hear him and he wants to be able to hear us. Wally talks about eyes a lot. In one of the messages he leaves, he even draws a pair of eyes and teaches us how to draw them, and I'm now realising that its probably so he can see us through them or something? (this is kind of a big block of text, but I like this theory)

Also the entire tape of 14 was so weird. Barnaby acknowledged the previous tapes, such as Howdy's story about his family and Julie's bad jokes, and having Home respond to him. Wally, as all the other ones, is completely silent... but Barnaby acknowledges that he is silent? He sounds genuinely concerned when he realised, asking what was wrong. HOWEVER, He doesn't say Wally's name, rather referring to him as buddy and pal n such. The most important part of this is how the tape ends. In all of the other tapes, the last character to speak says Wally's name directly (my favourite example being Frank saying "We're all safe here, wouldn't you agree Wally?") and what I think is a scream in the static. In tape 14, there is no scream, but it sounds like a creak, implying that Home said Wally's name and not Barnaby. I'm not really sure what the problem surrounding Wally's name is? Because there definitely is a problem with the characters acknowledging Wally in the tapes, which are potentially segments of the show.

I'm definitely going to re-look through the website again because i definitely missed tapes 3 and 5 (I noticed that theres is 14 in total and I might even try to listen to them in order too)

[aureumdev]

Welcome to The Aureum

Hi! I'm a newer software dev, but with a long history with programming (thanks to this accursed site in 2014 and my desire to join robotics) I also happen to love writing and art, and have a lot of OCs. I always struggled with keeping them organized and finding a software that works for me.

Enter, The Aureum!

What is The Aureum?

The Aureum is a work in progress web based app made with electron that I am working on so that I can organize my characters in a bit of a different way. A lot of elements and planned features take inspiration from the fandom community wiki, mixed with some of my other favorite world building websites that just ended up not being a good fit for me.

I made this blog so I can easily keep track of my development progress on this, and maybe make some cool new friends in the process.

What does it do?

Currently? Very little, other than make characters with information.

However, I'm currently working on a number of features, one of my most ideal features being project organization. This would allow me (and other users ofc) to sort their OCs and locations BY the project. Maybe you're a writer working on a few different series/stories at the same time, and you need some way to seperate them. Maybe your a game dev, visual novel creator, etc and you just want to have some way to store all of your story and character information in one place.

I also have some more fun and 'unique' features that are being worked on, like an automatic reference sheet generator, which prints out some of your characters information like name, age, height, weight, body type, and some of your preselected colors.

Another favorite feature I'm working on are the personality sliders! In the characters page there are sliders that you can edit to have a little more of a 'fun' view of how your characters act. Here are some screenshots of the layout from within Figma!

Currently, I'm setting up the data storage structure so that we can input all of this character information and still be able to create a project after to put the character in. But while I'm still working out the kinks, here's a list of the main planned features that will be implemented before i send it out to friends to alpha test!

Features

Multiple Projects/ Worlds

Entirely locally hosted, no internet connection required

Personality sliders

Character sheet generator

Timeline feature per project/world

Ability to link to sources and citations

Relationship linking between characters (Similar to fandom wiki setups)

The Aurei - The golden ones, your favorite OC's flagged so that you can access them faster, especially if you have favorites from multiple projects.

Random generation features, for things like art prompts and writing prompts.

Ideas for future releases

D20, d6, etc dice roller

Fake social media screenshot generator similar to twinote or photonote

Additional timeline just on a character by character basis

Ability to sort OCs by tag - by gender, species, location, etc.

Dark mode (maybe custom color palettes for later that users can upload/customize via css)

and more!

Okay but when will it be done?

Truthfully, who knows? I'm solo deving this software for fun, while working a full time job on top of my normal small game projects I make. It might be functional in a few months, or it might take a few years. Ultimately, I have no timeline for this project, and I want to be up front right out of the gate. Once i get a stablle build with the main character and project features implemented and organized, I'll send it off to friends to alpha test, and if all goes well for a few weeks, then I'll post the alpha build for others to use.

Why are you doing this?

the short answer is just because i want to. The longer answer is because, while I love using things like notion, obsidian, metos, worldanvil, etc. I find that there's always one or two things missing from each of them that I'd personally like to have. A lot of these softwares/websites are created with specific things in mind, like note taking, etc. But for me, I make games, i do art, i write stories, and I'm a DND Dungeon Master, so not all of those softwares will work for my every project.

I wanted to make something that would work for everyone, for all of their creative needs.

Also a mini note, to anyone who comes back and sees this or is curious, this project *will* be free on release to the public and likely hosted on itch.io. There are currently NO plans for an online sync or any only features, as that is not within my devstack or technical abilities at this time.

[peppermint-chocolate-cherries]

The Pure RNG Hetalia Showdown (FAQ)

Over the next couple weeks, I will run a series of polls where you have to vote for canon Hetalia characters.

Poll Results Summary has now been posted, to summarize the results of the round robin and report on the Congeniality qualifiers.

Also, a new Tumblr sideblog @hetalia-rng-showdown has been created to host future RNG tournaments!

Master List of All Poll Links

Round Robin #1 - Winner: Finland

Round Robin #2 - Winner: England

Round Robin #3 - Winner: Seychelles

Round Robin #4 - Winner: Poland

Round Robin #5 - Winner: Prussia

Round Robin #6 - Winner: Canada

Round Robin #7 - Winner: Germany

Round Robin #8 - Winner: France

Round Robin #9 - Winner: South Italy

Round Robin #10 - Winner: Scotland

Congeniality Showdown Poll - Lithuania has been crowned Mr. Congeniality!

Final Showdown Poll - Tie vote between Canada & England

Final Showdown Tiebreaker - England has been crowned Pure RNG Champion!

Congeniality Contestants

Austria, Lithuania, China, America, Wales, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Hong Kong, Ancient Rome

What are we voting on?

You can pick your favourite, a contender, a dark horse, an underdog, or go pure chaos and see what happens. This will ultimately end up becoming a popularity contest, since all the Hetalia polls so far have been swamped with people just picking their favourites, but why don't you all try something different for once and see what happens?

How will this work?

The round robin will have 10 different polls, each with 7-8 different characters, lasting a week. After the week, the 10 winners will come together into a final showdown poll.

If there is a tie in any of the round robin polls, there will be a 24-hour tiebreaking poll. See the full description in the section below.

Runners-up in the round robin poll might be selected for the Congeniality Showdown poll. See the full description in the section below.

Who is all in the poll?

If your character has a page on this Hetalia Wiki character article look-up page, they're in one of the polls.

https://hetalia.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Characters

Note that I am not including nyos, 2ps, animals, humans or other entities, just the nations themselves.

How will they be grouped?

I plugged the 78 names into this random number generator website, which split them up into 10 groups of 7-8 characters.

https://www.randomlists.com/team-generator

For extra randomness, I clicked the "Rerun" button twenty times. That's why this is the "RNG" poll, it's pure luck who your fave is up against!

Why is my favourite minor character up against so many mains? Can't you fix this?

Read the above again, please.

And funny you should mention skewing the group selections, because my friend was just trying to conduct her own set of polls. The axis/allies would've all knocked each other out in the first round, and some of your favourite minor characters would've actually moved on for once. But some people complained about the choices of minor characters and their groupings, even going so far as to insult her personally...

So guess what, you're getting this poll series instead out of spite! Congratulations, your favourite minor characters are all in the polls, their groupings are purely random, and every character has a 10% chance of being up against Romano in the first round!

But what if I don't want my fave to lose to Romano in the first round?

Finally, a good question. When you find that poll, vote for your favourite and not for Romano, then reblog the post and tell all your friends to vote the same as you! Make sure you're a united force though, Romano only needs the one extra vote if you're all divided.

Don't worry about spamming my notifications with reblogs, I want to see that the polls are being shared, just be respectful in your tags please.

When can I see who's all in the groups?

You'll find out when I post the polls, as this FAQ post is going up before I even run the RNG. EDIT: The RNG has now been run, the polls are all drafted and scheduled, and the first is live! Links to all 10 polls will be added at the top as their posts are posted!

As for timing, I will post the first poll at approximately 6:00pm PDT April 18 2023, with the other polls all scheduled on 12-hour increments after that.

Once the final poll is closed after its week of voting, which will be at 6:00AM PDT on April 30th, I will create the Congeniality and Final Showdown polls.

What is this newly added Congeniality Showdown?

With the variety of options in these polls, there will indeed be a few nations that lose their round robin poll by a small margin of the vote. For these oh-so-close losers, there will be a Congeniality showdown to honour them for giving the victors such a close run for their money.

As the 10 polls each close, I will track the difference in voting percentages by which the losers lost to the victors. The 10 losing nations whose losing percentages are closest to their victors will go in the Congeniality showdown.

For example, Nation A won the poll by 32%, while Nation B finished with 25%. Nation B’s percentage difference of 7% is what determines whether they will appear in the Congeniality showdown. Should the other 9 polls results in 10 other nations getting less than that 7% difference, Nation B will not make the cut.

What are the Tiebreaker Rules?

This section is being added in case one of the round robin polls miraculously ends in a tie. Obviously Tumblr will not allow more than 10 entries into a poll, so a tiebreaker poll is the chosen method of breaking any ties!

I will post a 24-hour poll with the two (or more) nations that tied in the round robin poll, where you all have ONLY the 24 hours to vote. I will announce the tiebreaker poll ahead of time, so that as many of you as possible know during what period of time to search for it and vote.

Whoever wins this vote moves on to the final showdown. For the runner(s)-up, since they managed to tie the winner on the original poll, which makes a voting difference of 0%, they automatically take one of the 10 spots in the Congeniality showdown.

Tiebreaker polls will be scheduled for the period of April 30th to May 3rd if required, so please watch carefully for the posts. I fly to Norway on May 6th, so the Congeniality and Final Showdown polls must get posted before this Canadian goes on vacation.

[maziekeen]

Excuse me, bit of a novice question, but how exactly do you apply a network theme to s blog? And how to you edit it and add pictures? I've got an rp blog and I've been meaning to use one of your network themes for a muselist

hi there! i'm sorry this is so late. this is how you do it:

where to add the code

you'll need to create a new page, then change the type of the page from Standard Layout to Custom Layout

now the page will accept html, css, and javascript like the main page, you just paste the code from the network theme

how to customize

to edit texts and links, it’s just change the html code. you’ll need a bit of knowledge with html and css to locate the tags and stuff, but if you don’t that’s ok too, just see how it looks on the page and look for text or images on the code to know where’s everything

to add pictures, you'll need to host them somewhere and paste the link there. the options i know are:

tumblr’s assets: 

go to Edit HTML > Settings Icon > Theme Assets

then at the bottom of the page will open the theme assets with an important note you should keep in mind. then click on add a file to upload the images. after that, you can select a part of the code above and click INSERT

tumblr’s draft:

create a photoset and add the images you want, don’t worry if they look weird because it’s not the right size

then post as a draft. right click on the image you want and open on a new tab, now you’ll just copy the url and paste on the code. the final with .pnj that’s tumblr converting stuff, just like they do with gifs, don’t worry about that too

imgur website:

make a new account if you want to have control of the images you have, then go to new post

upload the image and after the upload, right click on the image you want and open on a new tab, now you’ll just copy the url and paste on the code. pay attention to the extension at the end of the link, .jpg or .png, etc

that’s how i used to do, but mainly with tumblr’s assets and draft. anything you need about my themes you can ask me and i will help you <3

[spiders-around]

site updates. hi

there's https://spiders.neocities.org/w-selfportraits now.

Tired Of Spiders Dot Neocities Dot Org NOT Updating The Lore? me neither. i honest to god forgot there was so many lore pages, but yeah, there's another one. this one links to a bunch of other lore bits. there's too many pages. too many. too many. too many.

you access this one through the MAIN PICTURE in https://spiders.neocities.org/z-aboutme

and yes, the layout pictures have changed.

not the font though. that's a me issue from the place i get the screenshot from

now go to https://spiders.neocities.org/z-news and play the crossword. you know you want to. and leave a silly comment in the chatbox if youd like

notes:

YOU. YES, YOU. IF YOU DON'T HAVE A WEBBED SITE. MAKE A WEBBED SITE. NOW.

if you know very basic html and css and don't want to make a layout, listen to me now. enter NEOCITIES.ORG. create AN ACCOUNT. click on WEBSITES, you will find it sorted by most popular. the first one should be SADGRL's website. enter SADGRL's website, search around for the LAYOUT GENERATOR. it will give you instructions on how to use it. with that, you can have the code to a pretty layout that's easy to mess with and modify at your liking.

do use W3SCHOOLS to learn html, css and javascript, and WHATEVER ELSE! it is another free webbed site with interactive pages to practice the code as you go!

you can put ANYTHING in a website. you can make a page that's only pictures of your pets. you can make an interactive adventure. you can make your own academic blog full of your own essays on whatever topic. you can just post a ton of art. you can make a music page. you can infodump. give book reccs and reviews. host a thousand GIFYPETS and nothing else. upload entire books in a single html file. make a wikipedia for your ocs. make a fake site for a random fictional place (restaurant, hotel, whatever). you can make a thousand fanpages about your favorite media. i can keep going. make a website. neocitie

you can have a page that's only widgets you found in random websites (like the crossword puzzle). you can make a ton of dressing up game pages. ypu can make a character generator. you can make a random image generator. just google javascript codes. you can remake homestuck. you can make a page that's only a draggable image. you can customize the cursor image for the viewer. you can make a webring. you can just make a neocities account to follow other websites and see when they update. or you can get the rss feeds. you can use RAREBIT's webcomic template for uploading webcomics. I CAN KEEP FUCKING GOING! I CAN F

i got carried away . yes you can reblog just for the website ideas. don't even THINK about asking permission to do any of these btw i don't own any concepts. you HAVE TO make at least one of these or youwill die by my goddamn blade

[adultswim2021]

The New Big Ball With Neil Hamburger | Unaired 2008 pilot debuted online: November 7, 2013

The curse of Tasty Tuesday has been lifted!!! For some reason.

An Abso-Lutely production in 16:9?? As I live and breathe! The New Big Ball with Neil Hamburger was an absurd game-show produced by Tim & Eric's Abso-Lutely productions. It’s produced a little more like a sketch about a game show than it is like a traditional game show. It doesn’t feel like a “real” game show, really, but nothing in it suggests that it’s completely scripted.

The main appeal of the show is Neil acting as a host and using very Hamburgian turns-of-phrase. In a trivia question he casually refers to Michael Caine as an alcoholic, and Billy Crystal as a “disgraced comedian”. He also bitterly berates his contestants, including one who doesn’t share any personal information about himself, opting to refer to himself as just a plain person. We also have Corbin Bernsen in an isolation booth for literally no reason. 

This is pretty funny! I wouldn’t have minded if they did a season of this, honestly, because Neil cracks me up and the idea of him just hosting any show is already funny, almost no matter what it is. I do think the start of the show is funnier than the end, which isn’t so bad. Like the Richard Dunn talk show, I would have happily sacrificed a weaker episode of Awesome Show season three to air this instead.

Notable Tim & Eric connections include the muscle woman who appears in an Awesome Show season 5 sketch. When Neil eliminates one of the contestants, he tosses a drink his face and has the muscle woman escort him out in a headlock. Also, the audience shots would be used later, I think in the season 5 opener as well as the Chrimbus Special, but I’m not positive if it’s one, the other, or both. 

I’m reviewing this here at the end of 2008, because it was reportedly shot in 2008. I’m not positive if the particular version of the pilot floating around actually IS from 2008 in any sense. I mention this because I found a few things that casually dated it being from 2010, meaning maybe it was reshot or it wasn’t properly edited/finished until 2010. There's no copyright year at the end, at least that I saw.

It was made available in 2013 on Adult Swim’s website. The copy floating around now looks pretty cruddy; too bad for what could be the first HD-produced Tim & Eric production (not counting Nite Live, of course). 

My personal theory was that this was shot between seasons 4 & 5 of Awesome Show. I also think it’s very possible that season four was produced fairly far ahead of when it aired, which makes this being shot in 2008 still possible. I sorta get the impression that seasons 2-4 were shot rather quickly. But I don’t know this for sure. I hope I didn’t fuck up big time by not reviewing this in 2010. That would suck so much dick!!

EPHEMERA CORNER:

Moral Orel: “Nature” (combined cut) | January 1, 2009 - 12:00AM

For some reason I can't get that link to display like it usually does. Hopefully it's fixed by the time this posts. If you're reading this, I didn't fix it. Sorry.

On New Years Eve, Adult Swim ran a Moral Orel marathon that kicked off with a 30-minute combined cut of Nature, parts one and two. They aired the entire third season followed by the first five episodes of season one (in production order).

[sibyl-of-space]

about me: this afternoon, i bragged on my private twitter about how i am “immune to peer pressure” because despite going to a school that is trying to make me a Professional Composer TM who is Businesslike and Polished i still have a website that is very clearly and shittily coded by hand in HTML and full of anime fanart and shit.

however, upon posting this, i realized it wasn’t true. i have been in the process of creating a new landing page, and the purpose of that landing page is to hide the current clusterfuck of an index page behind a link so it’s not the first thing people see. sure the new landing page was still tacky, I made it of course it was tacky, but it was SOULLESS. it didn’t have my mikleo zestiria fanart background and it had a link to a youtube video of my stuff instead of interactive cheesy sound effects. it SUCKED!!!!!!

anyway, so i was overcome by outrage at myself for letting myself in fact be convinced to compromise on my tackiness [the entire point of that website was to host MY ART on MY TERMS!!!!] that i went home and spent like 3 hours updating the main index page again so that it *by the loosest definition* includes the new things that i am supposed to include [links to an “about” page, a demo reel, a portfolio page... that are all WIPs at the moment] but still is a tacky mess and maintains MY MULTIMEDIA ART GALLERY as the #1 most important centerpiece.

basically i have just spent a really long time updating my website so it looks like this, which is only slightly different from how it looked before, and every bit as tacky:

I realized that the problem is I respect my lesson teacher too much so I actually listened to her when she told me to make a clear, concise landing page. If anyone else had told me that I would have ignored them [and I have, multiple times]. But I listened because I respect my teacher.

Unfortunately I care more about being insane and TRUE TO MY #VISION than listening to my teacher, even though I respect her. So. Back to tackiness... with a renewed vigor