#the first image is an edit and not an actual game cap

[lilis-doodle-dome]

Mafukasa swap au, with in game screen cap edits

Things that swapped:

- Parents level of overbearing (Tenma’s are incredibly suffocating, while mafumom is well intentioned but left mfy alone far too much)

- roles in the group (Emu is WxS’ leader, while Mafuyu is Niigo’s)

- appearance of Sekai (Tsukasa has a more monochrome/depressing vibe, while Mfy’s is fanciful and colorful)

- outward persona (Tsukasa is the golden boy, perfect at everything, well mannered, etc. while Mafuyu is outgoing, confident, helpful (even when it’s not asked for), etc.)

Things that did not swap:

- Gender, and therefore school’s they go to

- which group they’re in

- familial situation outside of parents (Tsukasa is still Saki’s older brother and the Tenma’s are still close with the Aoyagi’s, Mfy is still a single child)

- Tsukasa is still the one with memory issues, so Mafuyu is influenced by bad memories from her past from the get go instead of slowly remembering them (she is still completely unwilling to actually engage with said memories even if she remembers them though)

- Which VS’s they start with (Mafuyu is just miku, Tsukasa is Miku and Kaito)

Other important things: (if interested)

- Saki and Tsukasa’s relationship is a lot more strained, Saki has incredibly conflicting feelings about her brother and Tsukasa always has his front up, even around her, so they can’t have a proper conversation

- Toya also has a stilted relationship with Kasa, both the Tenma’s and his father tended to compare the two boys. So while he still looks up to Tsukasa, he has some reservations about weather his admiration is genuine or just feelings implanted in him from the adults. Toya’s much closer with Saki, as he visited her a lot in the hospital (initially at Tsukasa’s request)

- Mafmom is a single mom, and a doctor. Needless to say she is busy *a lot*, bcs of that she’s always needed Mafuyu to be self sufficient and responsible, far before the age one could reasonably except for a child. She still loves Mafuyu very much and always tries her best to give her daughter a free and happy life

- Rather than an actor, Mafuyu found her passion in writing poetry. She wants to become the best poet of all time, which is what leads her to writing lyrics for K’s songs. Only the best composer could possibly support the best lyricist after all!

- Mafuyu’s love of writing comes from remembering all the times in the past her mom would come home late at night, looking exhausted both physically and emotionally, mfy would stay up to see her and then the two would cuddle under the blankets and read together. In those moments it would really feel like none of the rest of the day existed and all those pains and anxieties would slip away from her mother as they were transported to another world in their stories

- some time into this ritual, mafuyu started writing her own stories for her mother, and while Mafumom said she loved all of Mafu’s writing there was something special about her poetry that completely dispelled all of mafumom’s bad feelings and just let her live in the lines of text

- after that poetry became mafuyu’s life, and her Sekai is built off her desire to help people feel better with her work.

- Tsukasa’s Sekai also doesn’t match canon mafuyu’s it’s not built off his desire to disappear, instead it’s his desire to be his own person and figuring out who he even is in the first place (the other three can enter his sekai due to their shared desire of wanting to be themselves without getting hurt for it)

- Tsukasa hopes that by acting, he might resonate with a role and it’ll help him learn more about himself

- since they’re in the images, fun fact, Ruikasa kizuna rank title is ‘charity case’ (in place of 1-2 weirdo wombo combo) due to people assuming perfect, golden boy Tsukasa only started spending time with Rui because Teachers were hoping he would keep Rui out of trouble and get other students to look at Rui more favorably (thus Rui is Tsukasa’s ‘charity case’)

- while kanamafu’s kizuna rank is ‘please take a break’ due to both of them trying to constantly get the other to take better care of themselves. Mafuyu always saying Kanade needs to eat and sleep rather than composing all the time, while Kanade is desperately trying to make Mafuyu realize that working all day and putting ‘110%’ into everything she does, is infact unhealthy and not ‘the work ethic every good writer should strive for’ (it is not working on either end, Kanade is too guilty and mafuyu is too deep in denial)

I have a lot for this au, but making certain things is,,, difficult. To say the least

[dirtybg3confessions]

Blog Moderation FAQs

Hi everyone!

Every time we answer an ask about the queue/inbox situation we get several of the same suggestions in our inbox. While we truly appreciate those of you trying to be helpful, I wanted to take some time to address some of the suggestions and the reasons behind our position on said suggestions.

Have you considered closing the ask box for a while until you work through what you have?

No. With as many asks as there are in the box, it would result in the ask box being closed for quite some time, which we don't think is really what anyone wants!

Closing the box would allow for us to "catch up", but it also would mean potential dry periods of content.

Keeping the ask box open means we need to scroll forever to reach the old asks, but it also means that we are set to deliver consistent content for a while, and are never at risk for an empty queue when the inevitable drop in fandom interest hits.

Why don't you post more frequently?

Actually, we do! We've exploded recently, so many of you may not remember ye olden days of our blog's founder doing their best as a one person show and we got one post a day... ish. Then, when the ask box exploded to 100 asks (haha) they brought in the first round of new mods (including me!). During this time, we were able to build a solid queue. We were then able to post 5-6 times a day.

With a healthy queue and a healthy ask box, we were able to bump the post frequency to 12 times a day. Most of the first wave of mods worked through some asks and then largely went inactive. This is fine, it happens. After struggling to keep up a frequency of 12/day as a one person show once again, we recruited new mods with some activity guidelines.

To maintain a posting frequency of 12 times a day, each mod needs to add 3 posts to the queue a day, or 21 posts to the queue a week. We ask that every mod contributes 30 times a week, that way we have a healthy buffer of content for holidays, emergencies, and just general time away from the internet.

While the confessions are sent in by y'all and editing them in photoshop is a generally simple process, it still does take time. Time in the game to find and take the screenshots, time in the editing software to create the image, then posting and tagging appropriately. Those cursed edits y'all love so much take even more time.

We're all adults here. And your mods are too. They have lives off of tumblr, often complete with bills and day jobs. Honestly, less fun than the little horny blog, but *vague gestures towards capitalist hellscape*

For these reasons, posting 12 times a day is going to be a hard cap for the foreseeable future. In the most loving way possible: If you are submitting an ask now and expecting to see it a week or even a month from now, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Submit your ask and know that it will be appreciated by the community when its time comes.

"A confession is never late, nor is it early. A confession arrives precisely when it means to." - Elminster (probably)

Why don't you just get more mods?

Have you heard the phrase "too many cooks in the kitchen"? Every person added to a process adds another variable, and the more variables, the harder it is to deliver a consistent experience. Additionally, the goal is to find people who can stay pretty consistently active, which can be a hard ask for a lot of people. We're very grateful for the team that we have now, and we aren't seeking new mods at this time.

Why don't you post more confessions about (character/female/etc)?

We are a submissions blog. We work with the content we are given. You need to be the horny you wish to see in the world. I know in general there's a lack of confessions for female characters, and there's an analysis to be made about how different gender/sexual identities interact with fandom and how that affects the content available in communities for consumption, but I'm not the person to make it.

Thank you all for continuing to be amazing, it is truly an honor to serve 🫡

[legobiwan]

Mario and Luigi "no one is going to hurt you"?

This one...ballooned. I tried to get it out last night, but fell asleep during the endeavor. This is an attempt to explain/rationalize/make sense of some of the behaviors we see during TTYD, especially as it concerns Mario and Luigi. I'll say right now, neither brother is his best at this point, and I have a bit of a hypothesis as to where each of them may have been, emotionally, during this game. I think TTYD is a turning point for Mario, while Luigi's emotional lynchpin comes, to no surprise, after the events of SPM. Anyway, I'm not going to try and edit this any more than the perfunctory attempt I made. Here you go. A Mario-centric drabble that is most definitely not a drabble.

~~~~~~~~~

My dear Mario,

I have finally learned what the legendary treasure is. It is the spirit of a demon! The X-Nauts plan to revive this thousand-year-old monster and use its power to take over the world! They’re collecting the Crystal Stars so they can open the Thousand-Year-Door..they’ll find this demon’s spirit..but the only thing that can keep it locked away is the Crystal Stars themselves! You must not let them get the Crystal Stars! Please, Mario...you must put a stop to their horrible plans!

-Princess Peach-

Mario rubbed at his eyes, scraping away a week’s work of fatigue. 

Shit.

When Peach had first told him the X-Nauts (and what a stupid name that was) were planning on taking over the world, he had laughed it off. Ever since he had landed in the Mushroom Kingdom, every fifth jabroni from the castle to the Darklands had been some kind of aspiring universal tyrant, babbling on and on about taking over realms, how their new regime would be the mightiest, how they should fear me or fear my army or fear my power, all accompanied by cackling laughter suitable for Saturday morning cartoon. The threats were white noise to him now, another meaningless boast in the endless series of hopped-up, dent-headed, peas-for-brains bad guys who popped out of the brickwork like potholes on the Cross Bronx.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t been taking this whole adventure seriously before this. After all, the last time he got sent on a quest to find stars, he ended up facing off against an army of sentient weaponry bent on…well, yeah. World domination.. But those guys had actually meant business, less wanting to rule the world than reforge it, in the most literal sense, in their image. Hell, Geno wouldn’t have been sent down all the way down from Star Heaven or whatever it had been unless Smithy and his crew were the real thing.

But now Peach was kidnapped and demons were involved. And they needed the Crystal Stars to trap the demon, but those same stars would also release the demon in the first place. Mario pulled his cap close to his eyes, sagging against the public notice board in Rogueport Square, the rotten wood protesting under his added weight. Across the plaza, the gallows swayed in tandem with an oncoming breeze, the smell of spoiled fish and brine wafting over and mixing with the lingering odor of cheap booze and sweat that was the hallmark of Rogueport’s business center. 

Delightful.

Vivian had remarked, once they resurfaced from that whole mess in Twilight Town, that the port city had a certain grimy charm to it. Mario huffed, kicking away a crumpled can of Banditbar Ale. Yeah, this place had charm, all right. All the charm of a Staten Island landfill. 

“Why yes, Vivian, I spent close to twenty years as the premiere actress with the Mushroom Repertory Theater, although back when we first started, it was known only as “The Toad Troupe.” Flurrie laughed in her distinctive trill, her voice resonating from what Mario placed as the archway leading to the west side of Rogueport. “A silly name, but our founder was devoid of that creative spark that captures the imagination and whisks the audience away on a journey with you. Of course, he was a rather talented fundraiser.”

Mario grunted, sliding around to the backside of the noticeboard, which was covered in layers of colorful graffiti and three decades worth of dirt. One bright, recent message spelled out a rather graphic enthusiasm for certain body parts, ones Mario wasn’t even certain Goombas had. Not that he was about to ask. Half the population here would shank him for even thinking of the question. Goombella would drop a book on his head.

He slumped at the thought of the petite, boisterous grad student. Goombella, Flurrie, Koops - even Yoshnar. Not one of them had questioned it, had shown any suspicion that the Mario they were celebrating with, were feasting with in Twilight Town was not, in fact, their supposed friend. Sure, they commented here and there that Mario was acting a little strange, was a bit more bombastic than normal, but no one stood up and announced, that’s not our guy!

Granted, he had only known these people for a week. Not nearly enough time to get the measure of a person in the real world, but that had never hindered his traveling companions before. Geno and Mallow seemed to think the world of him.

Mario curled his fist. He should have interrogated Doopliss when he had the chance, should have pulled the truth right out from under his smug-faced bedsheets. Was it a mimicry of only the body, or did Doopliss’s magic also copy the whole of a man, as well?

And why did his friends believe that egotistical, grandstanding fraud had been him?

“Where is Mario?” Flurrie asked, her voice closer now than it had been a minute ago. She had a habit of elongating her vowels to the point of absurdity, so Mario became Mahrio, emphasis on the ah. He had given up trying to correct her after the first hour of their acquaintance. Some things weren’t worth the fight.

Mario snuck a careful look around the edge of the noticeboard, biting his lip as a mess of dirty splinters poked through his skin. His traveling companions were gathered near the entrance to the Toad Bros Bazaar, Koops worrying at his hands as he fretted about Mario being kidnapped, or worse, continuing to Keelhaul Key without them. 

“Don’t worry, Koops,” Vivian soothed. “I’m sure he’s just gathering information or reading an electronic message from Peach.”

Goombella looked up from her notebook with a small frown. “I hope it’s not important intel. I need to write that data down so I can report back to Professor Frankly.”

“I can’t go back to Petalburg without…” The voices faded out of earshot, the door to the shop closing with a brash jingle. 

Mario unclenched his teeth, letting out an unsteady breath. He’d have to come back with them at some point. Maybe Doopliss saw something in him he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge, but Mario knew he’d be in way over his head if tried to take on the X-Nauts and this demon alone. Do like you always do, Mario. Suck it up, put on a smile, and say as little as possible. It had gotten him this far, whatever that counted for. Now, as for this Flavio -

“Hey, bro!” 

A hand clapped itself on his shoulder. Enemy, his mind blared, Mario grabbing at the interloper’s wrist, spinning the man around until he slammed into the announcement board with a pained “Oof!” Not one to let an advantage go to waste, Mario lunged forward, pushing his forearm into the man’s chest, close enough to his attacker’s trachea to leave no question as to the unspoken threat.

“Mario, what the hell?” A familiar voice squeaked. 

Anxiety spiked in Mario’s gut. Luigi? What in the world was his brother doing in -

Mario closed his eyes, letting out a soft hiss between his teeth as the realization hit. Damnit. The Waffle Kingdom. Princess Cannoli or whatever her name was. Mario released his hold on his brother, pinching the bridge of his nose as he took a step back. I don’t have time for this. Luigi shouldn’t have been in Rogueport at all, somehow making his way to the crime-infested city in the days after Mario had received the letter from Peach asking him to come investigate a treasure map.  

And look where that got her. Kidnapped by aliens with crappy names. He knew Luigi could handle himself, or at least, he could in Brooklyn. Coming to the Mushroom Kingdom had done a number on his brother’s confidence, however, and whatever predilection for gangly awkwardness Luigi had had before had grown since they vanished from New York. 

He didn’t have time to protect his brother and save Peach and save the world from a demon. 

“Bro?” Luigi reached a tentative hand towards Mario’s shoulder. 

It didn’t add up, this whole Waffle Kingdom business. Not that he didn’t believe in Luigi, but nothing over the past year had convinced him his brother was ready to set out on his own, the whole incident with the Boos aside. Now he was on a quest which, on the surface, sounded far too close to Mario’s own exploits in trying to gather the seven crystal stars. He knew his brother could be insecure, but this was really…

Mario’s eyes went wide as he slapped away his brother’s hand, planting his feet into a defensive stance, fists raised. 

It was Doopliss. It had to be. Had the identity-pilfering ghost been following him from the beginning? Or were those Shadow Sirens working for him, feeding him enough tidbits about Luigi to make a convincing copy? That would account for his brother’s strange tales, the majority he didn’t have the stamina to focus through, there being too much on his mind with all the plans and kidnappings and cursed chests.

“I beat you before, you son of a bitch, and I’ll do it again,” Mario growled, pushing his sleeves up his arms. “Give him back.” He needed to get this over with now, get his brother in his own body as soon as possible so Mario could track down the last stars. Damnit, why did Luigi have to wander off like this?

“Woah!” Luigi held both his palms up at shoulder height, scrambling backwards, knocking over a trio of half-filled bottles with a bright clang as he came up against the graffiti-covered noticeboard. A pungent yellow stream seeped from one of the fallen bottles, trickling into the eroded mortar between uneven cobblestones. 

“No one’s going to hurt you, Mario. There’s - “ Luigi grabbed a tuft of hair peeking out from under his cap. “There’s no one here but me. Well, me and Torque. And the rest of Rogueport.” Luigi gave an awkward laugh. “And, you know, Torque’s not here here, he’s inside the bar. But you get what I mean.” He gave his brother an uncertain smile, holding two thumbs-up in front of his chest. 

“Where have you been? What were you doing before this?” Mario demanded, voice rising.

The miserable droop in his brother’s shoulders was unmistakable. “I…told you already? The volcano, the sacrifice? Blooey and Jerry and the bridal dress? I mean, I know it’s not as important as what you’re doing…” Luigi trailed off, finding sudden interest in the variety of grisly stains tattooed on the ground, tracing a disturbingly crimson outline with his foot.

Mario grit his teeth. That was something Luigi would say, right down to the shaky little inflections. Was his brother always this insecure? Had he been ignoring something deeper going on with Luigi for the past year? Something unpleasant curdled in Mario’s gut. He hadn’t wanted to face the fact that Doopliss mirrored his identity, warts and all. Was this the Luigi his brother saw in his reflection every day? Did Luigi even know how sad this looked?

Maybe it was Doopliss. Then again, from what little he remembered from his brother’s stories about his supposed Waffle Kingdom exploits, his own traveling companions were less than impressed with Luigi’s tactics, which seemed to be the literal definition of stumbling into good luck. 

As much as he hated to think it, Doopliss probably had better things to do than wreak havoc on a quest that may or may not have its basis in reality. It was true Luigi had made an astonishing number of enemies in a short period, but Princess Eclair seemed like something straight out of one of those adventure books they had liked so much as kids. He wasn’t thrilled at the idea of his brother hanging around Rogueport, but as long as all this Waffle Kingdom stuff was harmless - well, it would at least keep Luigi out of the underlevels and far, far away from the Thousand Year Door and whatever evil lay behind it.

The communication square in his back pocket vibrated. It was probably Goombella demanding to know where the hell he was. Mario brought his arms to his side, stretching out his fingers. He needed to focus. Whatever happened with Doopliss was in the past and he could waste away his time navel-gazing once this entire ordeal was over. 

Letting out a shuddering breath, Mario stepped forward, placing a firm hand on Luigi’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Luigi. It’s - “ Mario pursed his lips, weighing his words. “A lot has happened in the last few days.”

Luigi let out a watery chuckle, running his sleeve under his nose. “Don’t worry about it,” he shrugged, gaze still fixed to the ground. 

Great, like your brother needed another kick to the ego. Way to go, asshole. Mario dug his fingers into Luigi’s shoulder. Maybe Doopliss’s replication of him hadn’t been that far off the mark, after all. 

“Hey, Lou,” he gave his brother a gentle shake. “Why don’t you introduce me to your new friend? Squort or Morque, was it?”

“Torque,” his brother mumbled.

“Torque! Great! Let’s go meet him!” Mario said too brightly, taking his brother by the arm, all but dragging him towards Podley’s bar. 

“Come on, Mario, you don’t have to - “ Luigi huffed, trying to pull himself out of his brother’s octopus-like grip. “I know you don’t want to - “

Mario shoved the door to the bar open, wrangling Luigi inside, depositing his brother next to a Spike Top with a wrench on his head. The little creature made a series of rapid clicks with its mouth, somehow conveying annoyance without uttering a single intelligible word or facial expression. The Spike Top glowered at his brother, if the dead, beady-eyed stare could be called that, before turning around with an exaggerated shuffle.

Six to one, that’s Torque, Mario mused, feeling a momentary pang of sympathy for his brother. Oh Luigi, we have to talk about this one of these days. But that was for later. After the crystal stars, after Peach was safe, after the world was saved. Right now, he needed a minute to collect himself, to form a plan to find Flavio and get to Keelhaul Key, and an excuse to give his companions for his sudden absence.

“Hey Lou, is that your friend?” Mario gestured at the little Spike Top. He didn’t wait for an answer before continuing, “How about you tell me that story?”

Luigi eyed Torque warily, the Spike Top making a slight turn so its face was again visible. Luigi gave a sheepish wave in his direction, Torque responding with a loud click of its jaw and a series of buzzes that reminded Mario of a horde of angry cicadas. 

“Heh, he’s excited to hear it again, too,” Mario pressed on, willing himself to be oblivious to the mounting tension between the odd pair. 

“Well,” Luigi rubbed at the back of his neck, avoiding looking anywhere near Torque. “If you’re sure…”

“Surer than sure!” Mario exclaimed with fake enthusiasm, throwing his hands up like he was tossing two baseballs into the air. 

His brother gave a small smile, slipping his thumbs behind the straps of his overalls as he uncurled his defensive hunch, voice dropping into a more comfortable storytelling baritone. “Okay, then. It all started like this. Just as our boat arrived on Circuit Island…”

Mario let his brother’s tale wash over him, making appropriate sounds of acknowledgement when necessary. He knew this lapse would come back to bite him in the ass later, but he’d rather have a world he could fight with his brother in than no world at all. He took in a long breath through his nose, holding it at the top for five seconds before releasing it in the opposite manner, careful to not make it sound as if he were sighing in annoyance at his brother’s narrative.

Finding Flavio was his first task. And messaging Goombella, although he was tempted to put the inevitable tongue-lashing off for another few minutes. Flavio first, he decided. The name was familiar, and sworn he had heard it bandied about when he first arrived in Rogueport, barreling through every shop and back-alley headquarters he could find in a blind panic. He knew he needed to find someone who worked on a ship, some sea-faring type, although in this town, that could be anybody from a pirate to a fortune teller to a criminal on the lam. 

It wasn’t like he could just walk around asking if anyone had seen a man with a peg-leg and eyepatch. For as quirky as the Mushroom Kingdom could be, it rarely conformed to his Earth-bound stereotypes. 

“The Skuuuuul Captaaaaaaaaain!” a boisterous voice warbled from a corner table. Mario made a perfunctory nod at his brother - yes, I’m listening - scanning each of the bar patrons until he landed on a short, well-dressed man teetering on the back two legs of his chair. 

“Festiiiivaaaaal!” he bellowed in discordant tones, hugging a bright red gemstone in the shape of a skull with one atm, raising a half-full mug of Chuckola with the other.

Then again, maybe he didn’t need to go around asking about pirates, seeing as one landed in his proverbial lap. The knots in Mario’s stomach unraveled, each freed line replaced by a bit of fluttering optimism he hadn’t felt since his victories in the Glitzville Pit. 

Doopliss was out of the picture. His companions were back and his brother, if not exactly happy, was at least distracted and, more importantly, safe. The man with the fluffy white cravat and maroon jacket caressed the cheekbones of the skull gemstone, singing another loud nonsense verse into its ear. 

Mario let himself smile. He was going to come out on top of this, hell and high water.

[cecils-dragons]

I got into Furry Paws (the dog breeding website game) recently and I considered trying out Flight Rising too because I figured I’d enjoy a similar vibe but with dragons, but I am so wildly intimidated by the home page 😅 it all looks terrifyingly confusing, am I just a bit stupid or is there actually a beginner friendly way to approach FL?

Oh hey no problem, I'm always happy to help! Flight Rising is pretty casual so you can always take your time setting things up, so don't rush yourself into an overwhelmed state.

The front page can be pretty daunting at first, but it's mainly for big updates(ones with images) and dev updates(side bar), you can play pretty easily with ignoring these as they don't update super frequently and usually don't interrupt game flow if you plan to play casually. There is a big anniversary update coming which will likely make waves, that will happen the 8th so keep an eye out for that.

Now onto more specifics. On the side bar you'll find all your personal stuff under Clan

Dragon Lair is where you keep your dragons, Nesting Ground is where you can breed dragons, Gather Items let you gather a set amount of resources each day, Clan Profile is where you can see your clan information and edit your home page in a way, Bestiary is to keep track of all the familiars you collect, Messages is for your personal messages, and Achievements is where you can see and collect your cite wide achievements to turn in at the Grand Exchange.

These are the areas you'll uses most, but second most important is Shop.

Here is where you can send you treasure and gems, as well as earn a few more in the Auction House and Trading Post. Purchase Gems and Merch are ways to use real life money so don't click on those much, and don't worry, the cite makes it pretty easy to get gems(premium currency) without spending money. The Marketplace is the main place to buy things for your dragons from apparel to battle items, it will restock every 15 min and will have flash sales indicated by a torch icon. Despite it's name, the Auction House is where users can sell their items and dragons for a set price(you can only bargain and auction by chatting). The Trading Post is where you can find NPCs who offer different ways to make cash daily or on an hourly basis as well as a weekly raffle and a trading cart. Crossroads is where you can set up trades with fellow players. Custom Skins is for making custom art pieces to overlay your dragons. And Grand Exchange has some unique NPC related shops that usually cycle with festivals or seasons, these usually take unique limited time currencies that will be found doing cite activities.

Next is Play, this is where you can get money and items via playing games or adventuring.

Fairgrounds has multiple simple games to earn a maximum of 75,000 treasure each day. The games have a fairly low payout so if you're not trying to min max, don't worry about the cap. Coliseum tho, this is where you can level up and send your dragons out to fight. There are multiple venues which get harder as your dragons level up, each of the venues have different drops but you can find familiars, food, and items in all of them, including genes for your dragons. Dominance is a way for the players of the cite to "battle" for the weekly discounts for the Marketplace and lair expansions. This is done by exalting dragons, I'm not too keyed into this part of the cite so I cannot add too much information on how this works, sorry.

And finally Library, a kind of catch all for the rest.

Forums is where you can chat with other players over many topics, you can also check guides here and ask for help(this is a generally nice community). Dev Tracker tracks anytime a dev posts, whether it be in the side bar or in the forums, it's just an easy way to check in on cite news. Which Waystone is for helping with daily tasks and for seeing what you can do on the cite at the time, you can toggle it on with a switch located in the upper right corner of their page, this will make a little waystone hang around your page as a quick hop back to the Which Waystone. Search allows you to search for other players as well as search for specific dragons. Scrying Workshop does three things, it can check a dragon's linage compared to another dragon to make sure they can breed, show possible offspring of two compatible dragons, and most importantly, scry dragons(aka play around with a dragon generator). Game Database is where you can look up any ingame item to see more information on it. Encyclopedia holds information on FAQs, cite lore, upcoming events, and logged retired events and items. Finally, support is how you an reach out to the FR team if you're having issues with the cite or other players beyond a forum post.

I hope this could help a little! I know it's a bit long and rambly, but I'm always open to more questions! Hope you enjoy these funky dragons

[ryan-nugenthopkins]

hockey art tag game

post your first ever hockey art, your latest hockey art, and your favourite hockey art. then tag three hockey artists.

First ever hockey art:

The first ever edits I attempted for hockey were tarot cards. Unfortunately, I, one, ran out of ideas, and two, realised I was not actually enjoying making these edits/hunting for suitable photos, so the series is now dead in the water. I'm adding my Hanged Man edit here because it will never see the light of day otherwise. Everybody look at it. It's really good.

Latest hockey art:

As seen in this poetry edit! Boy, was this one a grind. I had a very specific idea in mind about faces, bodies, and how talking about players through the lens of teambuilding and salary caps is kinda dehumanising in general, but it was difficult to convey it in a way exactly I wanted. It worked out though! Thank you @ullybug for helping me with this one mwah

Favourite hockey art:

As found in this edit! I think my favourite edits are usually the ones I make to supplement my own AU worldbuilding, but I don't usually post those because they're admittedly a bit "simplistic" in their construction (they're more moodboards than proper edits) and require several thousand words of context to explain (my academia AU comes to mind; also - how the hell do you explain League of Legends esports to a layperson???). But in terms of ones actually published - this one was such a perfect storm of finding the exact right photos for the image in mind and the accidental parallels. Nuge and Hall and Eberle as the supposed saviours of the organisation in 2011ish vs McDavid and Draisaitl. Replaced by some and in turn, others were replaced by him. Especially in how expectations for him have changed from offensive superstar to a more supportive, all-rounder role.

Tagging @junmielle as my co-conspirator in all things Oilers AU, and whoever else wants to do it!

[exhausted-archivist]

Cut Content: Plants

I'm slowly making my way through my Herbalist's Handbook project and through the process I've been yanking out references of all fauna in dai, cut or final. So, I thought I'd share some of the cut plants/fungi I've found. They fall into three categories: Cut but Canon through other sources, Cut but Canon - different design, or Cut Entirely.

Personally, I enjoy finding the remnants of such assets in the game files, there is a bittersweet joy in it. Knowing that BioWare did consider adding in the elements and variety I craved but also knowing they likely got cut due to time, scope, or mechanic limitations. I really hope they continue to add new flora for us, and I hope to discover even more in the next game. I'll be interested to see if any of these make an appearance later and if they'll have any of the uses I'm outlining in my herb project.

For more plant posts see: Flora of Thedas Real Plants in Thedas

**Edit - changed the language because tumblr decided to post the image arrangement differently than I had it.**

Cut, but Canon Plants

These first two are actually the same plant- or rather fungus. On the left is a weird one that technically falls into the cut but canon - different design but wanted them side by side.

This is spongeroot. A little surface mushroom that we only know by name thanks to the World of Thedas (WoT) vol. 2 book and by the file names. The left is the cut design, the right is the final design (sans colouration) that we actually see in WoT. It's found in the Trespasser DLC files.

ALT

The second is called ghoul's mushroom. This is a deep mushroom codex. It is one of the most commonly used mushroom by herbalists. [source] Other then that we don't know much about them, but they're found in the base game Inquisition files. Given that they have garden cards, we can presume they were at the very least harvestable at one point.

ALT

Cut, but Canon - Different Design

From top to bottom we have the cut designs of Ghoul's Beard - Short, Blightcap, and Spindleweed - Landform.

Ghoul's Beard Short This has no real difference from the final game version other than it is stockier and bushier than what we see in-game. Personally, I enjoy the exploration into such a simple variation as it would be rather common to have differences in length.

Blighcap This is another common deep mushroom used by herbalists in Thedas. We also see mention of blightcap in WoT vol. 2: "Flat-capped and gray that grows in clay: Blightcap, the hunter's bane." Given the image is stylized, I can't tell accurately the colours, but it isn't flat-capped and thus why it's placed here.

Spindleweed - Landform Interestingly, DA2 had a similar model for when it introduced spindleweed. Though the leaves here are only a single lobe instead of three lobes on the DA2 spindleweed. This is an interesting variation to me because it would lend more variety in the spindleweed family but it would also explain how people could grow spindleweed in their garden away from water.

ALT

Cut Entirely

From top to bottom we have blade lotus, desert bloom, and desert rose. There is no information on either as they seem to be completely new plants that were intended to be introduced into Inquisition's base game.

ALT

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[socratetris]

Since it is taking quite some time, and because I pivoted from the easier thumbnail I made before WARFRAME: Lua’s Prey released, I figured I would share a little bit about what goes into my process for taking an in-game art asset and turning it into something that will pop and stand out in a youtube thumbnail.

This is not a statement that my edits are better in any way. In fact, I think my edits drastically lose a lot of what makes the artwork as present in-game work as a part of the game’s world building and artistry. Never the less, I am working in a different medium.

I consider the creation of youtube thumbnails a transformative version of collage. While some are much better than others, and by no means am I claiming mine are great, I do not discount digital collage and just copy-pasting other images. (Though people often do just that in this industry.)

First is taking a screen-cap of the image.

Second, painstakingly erasing everything around the subject in Gimp, being mindful of where the lines are meant to be, their thickness, and preserving as much as possible. This was a particular challenge on Voruna’s wolf friends, because their line work is done in the same yellow as the murals they are placed on. The line work makes aggressive use of lines that suggest space and shape, yet ever connect. Leaving a lot of the original wolves without exterior linework. My process will change this gestalt quality. Which is a pity.

Third, copying the layer. Bringing the figure to 0 contrast so that the shape becomes a single color. Selecting the shape. Growing the area of the shape by a tiny amount, “2.” then merging the layers with the wolf on top, thus creating a black outline. I actually do this step between the brightness/contrast and the sharpness parts of step 4, because introducing such a large amount of the color black I feel throws off maintaining the colors of the image. So i would rather keep it for all the parts of those filters that introduce more black outlines and shading to the image.

Fourth, over the years, I have made a streamline method of how much to change the saturation, the brightness/contrast, the sharpness, and for exaggerating linework with GIMP’s “Cartoon” filters. This time, I had to deviate, because too much brightness ended up hiding the yellow line work. Most especially on the green wolf Ulfrun. To Keep those lines on the chest visible, I had to add a step. Desaturating just the colors inside the linework > erasing them to create a transparency > cutting all brightness and maxing out contrast to turn those exterior lines black > then dropping the transparency down to 15% on that layer and off-setting the lines. The result being the lines are now visible without fully covering up the image, but we still lose some of that gold. Had I not been working on just these wolves for 4 days, I would have instead erased all but the lines on that chest fur and made them into a darker, goldenrod color, with similar decreased transparency and offset. But I didn’t want to spend all my time on this. I need to keep going to eventually see if my concept for the thumbnail will work as all. Dymar’s color, by far, is the least preserved by this process. What was a fairly muted blue-indigo vibe transformed entirely into a bright cyan

This was all just the first step. I currently have no idea how I am going to space the wolves, nor where I am going to place text into the thumbnail. The center piece of the image is going to be the Grineer Worm Queen’s hand holding an edited Prex (warframe word for playing card/poster). I will follow up with a post of the last wolf and the prex after this one.

But at least I hope this exposure of my standard process helps to present making thumbnails as something that can be more involved in an artistic sense. A lot of effort, trial, and error goes into trying to make the images into something both new and familiar, while preserving the artistry of the components and meeting the end of catching the eye of a person scrolling through a webpage.

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: March 2023

It’s getting nicer out but I’m still spending plenty of time indoors watching and reading things, don’t you worry.

……….FILM……….

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) It’s been years since I’ve gone back to this and it really is one of the best superhero movies ever made, right? I hope the next one succeeds and it leads to more animated features. It just...you can do so much more. Sure the live-action superhero movies have a lot of animation but they’re bound by our physics and the uncanny valley and it’s just not the same.

……….TELEVISION……….

Ted Lasso (Episode 3.01 to 3.03) Glad to be back. It’s been interesting seeing the online rise, then fall, then rise again of support for this show but honestly, who cares? Do you like watching it? Great. Do I like watching it? Absolutely. It’s a project that was planned from season 1 and it shows and I wish more media was approached in this way.

Spy x Family (Episode 1.08 to 1.25) Okay needed to shift my expectations with this one. I really thought we’d get more of Yor and her assassin life. She’s kinda just a background character to Loid and Anya and that feels like a missed opportunity.

The Great (Episode 2.09 to 2.10) Great cap to the season. Full arcs for characters, a satisfying resolution and yet still enough of a hook to get me excited for the third season. Just some gorgeous, funny, dramatic television. Big fan.

……….YOUTUBE……….

Why everything you buy is worse now and How America’s richest donate their money by Vox Okay the first one really helped explain why stuff seems to be lower quality and it’s not just “better back in my day” sorta stuff. It’s just chasing that elusive profit, you know? And seeing the stats on how the wealthy donate was eye-opening. Taxes seem good. VIDEO (Worse Now) VIDEO (Richest Donations)

AI and Image Generation (Everything is a Remix Part 4) by Kirby Ferguson I’ve always appreciated the Everything is a Remix series and this only reinforces that. A measured response to AI image generation and what that means, why it’s flawed, and what happens next. VIDEO THE FULL PROJECT

What Does Glass Onion Have to Do with US? by Vivian Strange Okay a lengthy one but worth it. A new perspective on Glass Onion, a refresher on why I really liked US, and a really great connection between the two. Also a really great breakdown of the murder mystery as a genre as well and why it’s having a resurgence. All around great stuff. VIDEO

……….READING……….

Arabian Nights (Companion Library Edition) (Page 124 of 244) Thrifted this and for some reason never knew it was a collection of short stories? Which seems obvious now. Anyway I’m sooooo slow at really short story collections but they’ve been interesting to read. Something about the translation feels like a slog to actually read but the stories included are a lot of fun. 

Wonderland Revisited and the Games Alice Played There by Keith Sheppard (Complete) I’m super picky when it comes to adaptations of Carroll’s works. Many take Wonderland and make it dark, twisted, and mature (meh) but I find the more interesting take is one that continues with the same momentum. This one doesn’t quite work in capturing the spirit of the original books for me but there’s a lot of really great ideas in here.

Superman for all Seasons by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale (Complete) Having loved their Batman books I picked this up and, being younger and dumber, didn’t like it at the time. Where was the action? Where were the villains? I was naive. Going back to this I really appreciate the study of Superman, the narrative through the supporting cast, and the struggles that can’t be resolved through punching. Man Loeb & Sale were a team.

Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex Ross (Complete) As an one-off story, this delivers everything I’d want out of an FF adventure: group banter, weird worlds, and lots of mumbo jumbo science. Plus I mean the artwork is truly humbling. I had to read it twice and I still only 80% understand it all but that’s not a complaint. Totally worth picking up if you have even a passing interest in the Fantastic Four.

Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 5 & 6 by by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, and more  (Complete) Decided to pick up with my reread of the Ultimate Spider-Man series again and woof I forgot how much I didn’t like volume 5. The first half is an Ultimates story that I STILL find too wordy, and the movie tie-in of the second half never quite clicked. I dunno maybe there are too many losses and not enough wins for Parker in this one? Volume 6, however, is great. It has one of the most frustrating deaths in the series but it really explores the aftermath and impact. And introducing Johnny Storm and using him as the reason Spider-Man gets back into the hero stuff is really great. Spider-Man doesn’t need to solve all problems with punches and this book gets that.

……….AUDIO……….

Wild Planet by The B-52s (1980) After listening to a greatest hits album on repeat as a kid, I’m going back to the early stuff. Can’t get Private Idaho out of my head.

FREE I.H.: This Is Not the One You've Been Waiting For by Illuminati Hotties (2020) They always pop up in lists when I search for “more stuff like Sleigh Bells” but it finally clicked for me after listening to content//bedtime. Love this album.

……….GAMING……….

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) Whoa okay so my weekly group just fled the land of the Fairies after some drama with the Queen of the realm (you can read about it here) and then my Mof1 game ALSO had some Fairy drama involving the Queen. Apparently she’s a dramatic lady.

And that’s it. See you in April!

[tiredassmage]

the many jackets and that one set of boots i must really fuckin’ like (i do) of cipher nine, lmao. base game - makeb edition.

if he starts collecting rifles like len did pistols, so help me, i won’t be able to handle the (lack of) inventory slots.

i’ll give you a ramble about them beneath the cut; that’s how these things usually go, right? xD (send help)

the red blade - hutta edition! fashion is an agent’s greatest weapon. agent gives me an excuse to dress them up from the second they’re born into the game and i milk it for all its worth. he needs to wear this jacket more often. he looks cozy in it. puts him in his thundershirt emotional support pirate jacket.

lightweight tactical - generalized home turf, lightweight ‘fit. glory to the empire and all that patriotic imperial officer jazz.

stealing theron’s jacket - he will inevitably actually steal theron’s jacket. eventually (and theron will steal at least half of his). but right now, he doesn’t know what a theron is. home turf overcoat good for getting caught in the kaas city rains and telling your enemies (hunter) that you have a better bitchin’ jacket than them. just a nice damn jacket.

for the resistance! - terror cell infiltration on balmorra. trying not to let sanju get himself killed. possible resurgence of the low-key comfy trenchcoat on makeb. when we need to look convincingly unimperial.

light armor stealth - “sir, your emotional support trenchcoat will not protect you from poisoned blades.” when i needed to put him in something a bit more physically protective than bubble wrap. a mask to open the tattooine arc because of suspected betrayal from the ghost cell contact. enough armor to feel not like a tissue paper unicorn on the frontlines of corellia, but not enough to turn him from a stealth operative into storming the bastion.

cold weather - the return of the king. alderaanian mercenary work. almost getting killed on hoth. the man, the myth, the legend, the return of one of his almost iconic outfits i had him wear way too much in his first playthrough. the outfit that made me realize he looks damn good in this green. (it’s a little unfair.)

casual - something a bit more off the job. something potentially for a defecting cipher agent. kaliyo drags him to bars and he has to look nice. kaliyo drags him to a lot of shit that doesn’t always go well, but at least he looks good dealing with it akdfndslfdsf.

belsavis - jostling with the bounty hunter for title of republic’s most wanted. orchestrator of prison heists. he’s not paying them in credits. smart ass, hard ass, nice ass. ahhem. (rip belsavis crew, he might’ve genuinely liked some of you if he hadn’t been ruthlessly using you to destroy a galactic conspiracy.)

sith intelligence - a little out of order. cropped up a few times as a dressier sort of uniform. good for play-pretending at more diplomatic aims on voss. bonus fact: he gets adopted by my emperor’s wrath post class-story to keep an eye on the bickering dark council. savosta is tired of their bullshit derailing the war effort and he is just one fuckin’ guy. him and tyr shaking hands about being done with this shit.

bonus!!!

imperial officer - i can’t keep a straight face too long. standard imperial officer affair. my brain is generating a generic bad guy (mustache twirling levels) imperial officer image every time i see him in this that just makes me crack. i’m still mad he looks good in this. i can’t take me or him seriously about it, but he looks good. and also putting him in the little cap shaves like 10 years off of him and then i get emotional about all of the damage the class story does and we don’t TALK about that sO. it gets to stay on the merit of i know this is something he’s worn at least once. nebulous interlude outfit. (the secondary color picked from this jacket not being black was INCREDIBLY jarring btw, it comes up this bright like red-orange thing and like holy facial hair of the emperor that was. hmm. that was a thing. that happened.)

[happyk44]

[ID: Edited memes featuring Dungeon Meshi characters

1: Falin: Professor: you are failing this course

The rat living in my shoulder bag who I spent time training instead of doing the course work: *pops head out and plays sad wah wah wah wah noise on trombone*

2: Izutsumi: Nobody cares

Thistle: @/bigboy be silent, keep your forked tongue behind its teeth, I have not passed through fire and death to exchange words with a witless worm

Izutsumi: @/sean rankln jr blow me

3: Edited text change with a couple panels form the Dungeon Meshi manga added to the right. The text associated with Laios has been blurred out but the messages take up most of the image. In the Dungeon Meshi panels, Laios is the one talking.

Laios: You know, the spiders' silk is so strong, they can sometimes even catch small dragons.

Laios: I heard that in west they have the technology to spin the silk into fabric-

Kabru: Damn that's crazy

4: Laios: what's your biggest fear

Marcille: Being forgotten

Laios: damn that's deep

Laios: mine is the kool aid man but I feel kinda stupid about it now

5: Tweet from noel jon lovitz @/nbadag: me [peeling a banana] may I take ur jacket lol

coworker also in the break room: do you thin other people can't hear you

Laios's image is placed beside the "me" part of the tweet and Chilchuck's image is placed beside the "coworker" part of the tweet.

6: Cropped tweet reads: When we both fall asleep [sleep emoji] [scream emoji] [two heart emoji] [sparkle heart emoji]

Picture of two people sleeping. Only their faces are visible.

Reply tweet from Isaac Whittemore @/6ixice: so the bed bugs takin the photos

Falin and Marcille's images are placed beside the first tweet, indicating that they are the people in the first image, and Izutsumi's image is placed beside the second tweet.

7: Cropped text that indicates the other person's message was read yesterday.

Kabru today at 13:54pm: Oops I didn't read this until now [flushed emoji]

8: Marcille: Love this site, I can read all the animorphs boobs, thanks!

Chilchuck: It is spelled 'books', dunbass

9: Kabru: do people actually preheat their ovens

Senshi: this is the worst post I have ever fucking seen

10: Laios, wearing a crown: I'm wearing $1.4k in clothing rn...what a time to be alive [sleeping emoji]

Mickbell: aye that's cool man, yo, uh...turn ya location on

11: Mrs. Tansu, texting: Answer your phone

Kiki: Gimme a minute. I can't find my phone

Mrs. Tansu: Ok

Mrs. Tansu: You are an awful child. You know you're killing me. You're killing your mother

12: Thistle: whatever *becomes an enemy of the state*

13: Tweet from brent @/murrman5: [me telling my story how I survived a plane crash and lived on a deserted island for a year] it was crazy

[friend who once got a text from me where I accidentally called the grinch the grink] was the grink there?

Lycion's picture is beside the "me" part of the tweet and Fleki's picture is beside the "friend" part of the tweet.

14: Tumblr post from @/doomsneigh: friend: I wish someone loved me

me about to tell my friend that i love them: oh, you haven't heard?

Mithrun's picture is beside the "friend" part of the post, and Kabru's picture is next to the "me" part of the post.

15: Zon: everything can be solved with violence

Marcille: Except stupidity and ignorance

Zon: turn your location on

16: Laios: u like to play bug game?

Kabru: Which one?

Laios: bug game is where you look for bugs on the ground and you find as many as possible

Laios: me and my sister Complete

17: Laios: What movie is this

Toshiro: I love you man

Laios: I love you too, but seriously what's the movie called

Toshiro, in all caps: I LOVE YOU MAN

Laios, in all caps: I LOVE YOU TOO BRO

/end ID]

dunmeshi meme texts pt.3

[seeminglyseph]

As I learn about the concept of Fake Video Games as a like... fun genre of creation on the internet I also am thinking of like... the way I first experienced Danganronpa 2 which was a fan translation of the game as it was being played, basically typed out on a forum with screenshots and awkward videos of cutscenes that had translated scripts you could read along with because basically they had filmed their PSP or Vita or whichever device it came out on, and posted it on either early days youtube or some other video hosting site.

The concept of pulling a Lacy Games or something like "Oh I remember when I was a kid I was super into this niche game" but they experienced it fully like. as a fan translation with screen caps and videos and stuff, but now half the links are broken and all they have are like. things they saved on their computer or something.

like yeah it's a really basic concept, the point is to make the actual like. game or story interesting or fun or scary lmao.

this continues to be odd brainstorming and stuff, but image and text based stuff seems uh. generally more within my skill level. someday I'll learn. uh. video editing and that entire other genre of the media skill tree. for now I feel like. I repeatedly find myself looking at all the projects I want to do and get overwhelmed and then stop, and maybe if I like. start smaller I'll actually start something. because like. I simply cannot seem to start projects.

[senstless]

Splinterlands Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge Dax Paragon

Another weekly challenge battle post featuring bronze level cards in action and winning in Gold 3.

I'm back again, for back-to-back days with a splinter lands battle post. I am focusing on my collection will continuing to share the success I can find plane bronze League cap levels as high as I can and still win. With two days left in the season I am currently in gold 3 and hoping to push to the bottom of gold one for the end of the season reset. I think I picked a decent battle to share so let's get to it.

Weekly Challenge - Dax Paragon

Edition: CHAOS LEGION Rarity: EPIC Element: LIFE Attack: MELEE Abilities: N/A Health: 3 Speed: 2 Attack: 1

Reasons Why I like it While Dax Paragon clearly gets better at level 2 with addition of amplify and level five with affliction, but it is still very useful even at level one. Honestly I didn't notice that I still was playing a level one card and I had not yet leveled my love to level two. This is something I intend to take a look at the next season and see if I'm able to level it up. I currently don't have enough copies of regular foil, and I don't have any gold foil versions to play.

Either way Dax is a great card even at level one. When you consider it has a mana cost of only two, it is a powerful car to slide in to either fill mana, or in Little League matches. One magic damage with two speed and three health is a pretty solid card. Depending on your summoner you could boost health by one or have it as the next complement to arrange heavy lineup.

The Matchup

MANA: 42

Ruleset: Tis but Scratches: All Monsters have the Cripple ability.

Ruleset: Little League: Only monsters and summoners which have a mana cost of 4 or less may be used.

SPLINTERS: Earth, Life, Death

Initial Rule Set and Mana Gameplay Thoughts

This is an interesting dilemma. Little League games are already going to have monsters with limited health and when you combine that with his butt scratches where each attack will take away one health from the base it makes it difficult to put out a strong lineup. Well I typically think little league matches favor Earth and magic, the fact that damage will be done to the underlying health even if the attack only Hits armor I think swings is back to a life approach. I actually have no idea what my opponent will set up and I'm just going to play for what I consider maximum damage.

Summoner GENERAL SLOAN I want to attack with the highest damage considering the low health these cards. I think it's better to get the boost of the arrows rather than one boost of health.

First Position XENITH MONNK Pretty solid Little League card with good health and self-healing. And hopefully has enough speed and health to last a couple of rounds

Second Position TIME MAGE I have found in these matches that speed matters a lot more than in higher men images. If I can slow them down and get all of my tax in, I may be able to knock out some monsters before they get a turn.

Third Position DAX PARAGON About as protected I think it can be, while still trying to keep my range monsters in the lineup as long as possible

Fourth Position VENARI CRYSTALSMITH I figure healing either the monk or the Time mage will do nothing but extend my lineup as long as possible not to mention it gets a boost to range attack damage.

Fifth Position GRENADIER This was a late substitution, played solely to counter Riftwing or Pelacor Conjurer being in the tank position and being difficult to take out.

Sixth Position TOWER GRIFFIN Who's the best option I could find that was left. Decent speed, okay health, and flying should hopefully mean it's a decent rear tank.

Opponent Lineup & Match Play

Summoner THADDIUS BROOD biggest impact I see fatty is having is the fact that takes one health away, and it literally matches this can be devastating

XENITH MONK very similar to my lineup, only it's a level one so it has less health. That's a big bonus for me.

RIGTWING a great play, especially since it has scavenger and will start to increase its health significantly as monsters fault

VENARI BONESMITH strong play with life leech as it should counter a few hits as it itself deals out a blow.

LIFESAPPER just like brown Smith great likely to the great option for these matches.

SCAVO HIRELING not really sure why this card since his very little armor. I guess if I only had a single sneak attack it would help protect against that.

URAEUS great ballet sneak card that can eat away at my house.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Thoughts - and Chances to Win Again

Going to splinter tools.io I see that I have a 87% chance to think my victory. I think this points to the risk and power of Life leech and rift watchers. If I have a miss in my attacks, then they might have an opportunity to build up more health. If you get a lucky with rng, it's easy to add a couple of misses and you could end up losing when you look at my opponents of speed plus flying.

~~@senstless

[funjoushi]

Miki/Souma is a perfect ship don’t @ me

This ship has taken me on one of those journeys that feels like it has just lashed me against the rocks and left me stranded. So bet prepared for a little bit of some slightly messy but extremely passionate meta.

I started out with “haha, Hakuouki keeps making rival pairs with blistering sexual tension” to “maybe this could be a tasty fucked up ship” to “oh no they are husbands” which is always a wild ride to go on let me tell you.

In general I tend to only get attached to an mlm ship once every ten thousand years. From my observations these ships tend to have a lot of intertwined personal history and themes of loyalty/sacrifice/self-loathing and idealism

However souma/Miki has some particular aspects that really stick out to me

As mentioned before, Hakuouki has a habit of setting up rival and antagonist relationships with a lot of sexual tension wether intended or not. The most notable being Shiranui/Harada and Kazama/Hijikata.

Kazama/Hijikata is only nominally similar as it is much more of genuine enmity but I do believe that the ultimate source of that rivalry is in personal weakness and seeing that weakness reflected in the other. Hijikata whole struggles with the loss of his humanity, and Kazama who rejects humanity altogether.

Shiranui/Harada is one much closer to Miki/Souma in that they are two very similarly motivated men who just happen to be on opposing sides. Shiranui and Harada are both motivated by loyalty to their friends and by love(you cannot convince me that Shiranui wasn’t in love with Takasugi).

Miki being Souma’s rival specifically never made sense to begin with and still doesn’t really, but as a result it leads to a much more fascinating dynamic. They aren’t sworn to kill one another nor obsessed with the other, but instead just two guys caught up in their own stories and cause them to clash.

The fact that they are not directly antagonistic to one another is something that is key to their potential dynamic. Yes, they started out at odds due to the factional divides, and Miki did accost Chizuru which earned Souma’s dislike, but on a personal level, it’s never more than a surface level dislike. Miki thinks Souma to be foolish and wasting his potential while Souma thinks Miki to be nothing but a brute.

However, in reality, they are far more similar than either of them first realise.

During most of their interactions, they appear to be pretty starkly contrasted. Souma is earnest, hardworking and incredibly humble. Meanwhile Miki is prideful, blunt, and distrustful.

However, if you recall...Souma was very different when he first met the Shinsengumi. When Souma was still employed by his domain, he was ashamed of his clan’s neutrality and disgusted of the general state of the country and of the bushi class. He at first views the Shinsengumi as nothing but violent wolves, but eventually comes to learn and understand them and want to be counted among them.

Which is to say that Souma in himself has some similar idealistic, judgemental and spiteful tendencies that Miki ends up displaying during his time in the Shinsengumi. Miki overall appears to view the Shinsengumi as similarly foolish and misguided

This viewpoint of Souma’s I view to be not all too different than how Miki views things, he simply has a different set of base values and puts a lot more value on birth station while Souma values action and conduct. At their core, both are unshakeably loyal which eventually leads to their actual clash.

Another major factor in my like for this ship came in one of the ginsei no shou episodes.

In a scene directly after Souma, Chizuru and Nomura escape Edo after Kondou’s execution, Souma reflects on how he now feels that he can understand how Miki feels. Looking back on how Miki became unhinged and obsessed with revenge after his brother was killed. Itou was like Miki’s sun, he states. Something that illuminated the path that he followed and made everything make sense. And Souma viewed Kondou in a similar way and in that moment feels blinding rage and a desire for vengeance towards those who killed Kondou. But then essentially Souma insinuates that the only thing keeping him from a path of bloodshed is his remaining friends. And so in that way he does not at all blame Miki for his revenge quest.

This section directly highlights how Miki and Souma mirror one another and hold within them very deep similarities.

Souma’s main character flaw is that he is deeply self-critical and has basically no self-esteem. He constantly pushes himself too far out of a desire to improve himself but without support that will only lead to ruin.

We can extrapolate some similar points from Miki, based on how over the course of Souma’s route he becomes increasingly more suicidal as his quest for revenge sends him to deeper and deeper depths, which culminates in him trying to die upon Souma’s sword in the final chapter.

However, Souma notices this. Souma could have easily chosen to just end it all there, but again. Souma has no particular grudge against Miki. And in truth, he pities and identifies with Miki. 

It really just gets me, man. Like, I know that it’s because Miki survives historically, but despite that, they managed to make it so completely and utterly in character. It absolutely makes sense that Souma would show mercy. But what is truly beautiful to me is that said mercy is not out of any sort of pride or high morals, but out of pure and simple empathy.

Just about all of Miki’s former fellow Goryoueiji members are dead, his beloved older brother is dead. And on top of that he is estranged from both his birth family and adoptive family(historical detail not brought up in the game but it SHOULD BE). And while Souma has lost a lot, he still at the very least has Chizuru, and Souma’s humility also compels him not to take that for granted and reach out a hand to someone who wasn’t so lucky.

And considering that they do both survive, and as Souma says they “do not know what the future has in store” :) who knows! Maybe their paths may cross again.

Yes, I fully understand that the fact that Miki did try to kill Souma and Chizuru at one point might be a turn off to some people, which is fine. But also Chizuru was about to be killed by the Shinsengumi upon first meeting them. That’s just kinda how it goes in the world of samurai! And because the grudges aren’t specifc, that’s why I can still find them so compelling. Also I do find it so fascinating that Souma’s kyoto winds bad ending only occurs if Chizuru lets him kill Miki. Hmm! Funny that!

Anyway, in conclusion. This ship is good and no, I will not shut up about them. Thank you for reading and pls ready my fic--

[sweetnessfollowsmp3]

[Image Description removed from the cut:

Nine screenshots from Mob Psycho 100 with posts I found on Tumblr edited onto them.

The first is a screenshot of Shigeo Kageyama being thrown against a wall by Teru. Edited on top is a post by normal-horoscopes that reads, in all caps, “ITS PRETTY TOXIC OF YOU TO HURL ME AGAINST OBJECTS IN THE ROOM WITH YOUR MIND POWERS YOURE NOT EVEN THAT HOT”.

The second is a screenshot of Shigeo with repressed emotions swirling inside of him. Edited on top is a post by saoirseronanlynch that reads, “babygirl i can repress feelings you’ve never even heard of before”.

The third is a screenshot of Ritsu Kageyama. Edited on top is a post by lesser-flamingo which reads, “a niche character trope I like is the person who is nice, a good person and acts well adjusted, then they do something where it’s like. oh you’re secretly a little bit insane actually”.

The fourth is a panel of Douzen Roshuuto from the REIGEN manga giving a curse to Tome Kurata. Edited on top is a Twitter post by longwall26 that reads, “It’s not the most ethical move in the world, but in a pinch you can hand off a cursed object to basically any baby.”

The fifth is a screenshot of Shou Suzuki turning invisible. Edited on top is a post by whatt-to-do which reads, “for my next trick I will disappear without an explanation”.

The sixth is a screenshot of Momozou Takenaka leaving the telepathy clubroom. Edited on top is a post by siriuslydoubtful-deactivated202 which reads, “I love when I’m about to clock out and a coworker says ‘you’re leaving me?’ like first of all it’s so touching to know that my presence here offers you some semblance of joy and relief from the misery and anxiety-inducing stress that out work environment causes. Second of all yes bitch I’m OUT I’m gonna go play some viddy games suck it”.

The seventh is a screenshot of Shigeo yelling awkwardly and blushing. Edited on top is a post by loversexeunt which reads, “critical thinking skills are canceled! they have now been replaced with the constant desire to hold hands with someone”.

The eighth is a screenshot of Arataka Reigen. Edited on top is the headline of an article from The Onion which reads, “Zing! I Just Got You With Another One Of My Trademark ‘Complete Lies’“.

The final screenshot shows Shou Suzuki is talking bluntly with Ritsu. Edited on top is an anonymous ask answered by oomshi, which has been edited so that it looks like Ritsu is saying, “Did u grow up without a positive male influence”, and Shou is replying, “didnt everyone”.

End Image Description]

‘‘not this again esp” yeah. yeah (¼ next post)

ID in alt text and under the cut in case that doesn’t work

Keep reading

[muffinrecord]

My animation Project is going well! Apparently I’ve recorded 1294 videos. The image above is all of the characters with the completed recordings-- I finally have more characters with all the recordings needed over characters who are still missing some!

I do need to still stitch each character’s videos together. ...Not really looking forward to that, to be honest.

One problem I do have is that I can’t record the Doppels or the character poke/victory animations if I don’t have the characters. For the most part this is fine, because I have ten million alts and also some friends who let me borrow their accounts if they have someone I don’t. But unfortunately I don’t know anyone who has the first crossover girls. So... I’ll have to figure something out, haha. If I was smart with this sort of thing, I’d just edit it together with in-game assets but I actually have no idea what I’m doing when I work with video editors.

Anyways if you were curious, that’s what I’ve been up to! I work on it for about three to four hours a day. It doesn’t seem like it’d be a lot, but it’s actually kinda time consuming?

If you’re curious, here is what will be included:

Attack: Single-target (Charge, since Accele brings in an annoying text popup)

Attack: Blast-Horizontal

Attack: Blast-Vertical

Connect: (onto another character)

Magia (I re-recorded all of these so that they’d be consistent, music-less, and better quality from my phone)

Doppel (same as above)

Victory-Poke

Victory-Poke (if they were uncapped and received a special uncap animation, I include both the uncapped and capped versions)

YOU GUYS HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE HOW HAPPY I AM THAT I HAVE MY 4*-ONLY ACCOUNT. BECAUSE THAT MEANS I CAN RECORD ALL OF THE UNCAPPED GIRLS CAPPED ANIMATIONS-- AKA, RYO ISN’T A FLAMING HOT MESS THAT MAKES IT HARD TO SEE THE ANIMATIONS!

If you’re curious, here’s a link to the google drive that I’m uploading to. Please note that these aren’t edited videos so some of them are a lot longer than they should be haha.

If you want to use any of the recordings for your own purposes, please feel free. You don’t need to ask. Even when I’m done making the actual completed video for each character, I might keep those recordings separate in case anyone wants to use them.

[gr-ogu]

Hello! As requested, here is a tutorial on how I make my gifs. I would like to preface this by saying there are many ways to make gifs, and there’s no right or wrong answer imo. This is just how I personally go about doing so!

I will be using PS CC 2017, but as long as you have the video timeline option, it shouldn’t matter too much; on any version of PS, you should be able to adapt anything I mention here! You will also need some kind of screen recording software. I’ll talk a little more about that under the cut.

To start, you need the source material you will be making the gifs from! I get mine from snahp(.)it (avoiding links so tumblr hopefully doesn’t banish this from the tags lmao) and I always opt for either 1080p or 2160p. Not all laptops will support 2160p as it’s 4K, but either works great! You just want your gifs to be the best quality possible.

Next is where the screen recording comes in. I don’t use the screencapping method to make my gifs (where you use a program to cap a clip and then load those caps into a stack in PS). This isn’t for any particular reason… it’s just how my friends, (who very kindly taught me to gif), had always done it, so it’s now how I do it too. Personally, I find the quality to be just as good as the screencapping method, and have never noticed a difference between the two.

As I have a PC, I use the software built into it for screen-recording. If you go here: theverge(.)com/2020/4/21/21222533/record-screen-pc-windows-laptop-xbox-game-bar-how-to – you can see how to use the XBOX screenrecorder to record from files you have d*wnloaded. This also works on some streaming sites, but I think it depends on what browser you use. Personally, I recommend Firefox, as that seems to bypass a lot of the blocking and ads that occur when trying to do this sort of thing.

For MAC users, I have been told handbrake works well, as it converts MKV files to MP4, which can then be used to make gifs. You only need to convert part of the file to MP4 depending on how much you want to gif, and this also bypasses the screenrecording stage, as you can edit MP4 clips on Quicktime. I am told you can split them into smaller clips by going to edit > trim and it saves the new clip!

I have also used anyvideoconverter for small clips, but I can’t say what it does to the quality of your video, or how big of a file it lets you put in! With the XBOX screenrecorder, it doesn’t matter what type of video files you get, as the recording will save to MP4 anyway.

LOADING YOUR FRAMES

Now, go ahead and record whatever clips you want to gif. Make sure you have the video timeline open, by going to window > timeline. Then, go to file > import > video frames to layers.

Next, select and open your clip from where it has saved (with the XBOX recorder, it saves in video > captures). You should see a little window pop up, where you can move the sliders back and forth to clip your recording to whichever part(s) you specifically want to gif. I recommend trying not to load a lot of frames into photoshop at once, but I would be a hypocrite to say that, since I do it a lot lmao. Just be patient if you do!

Once you have chosen the length, click okay. Never, EVER, I repeat NEVER click the button that says “limit to every __ frames”. This really ruins the flow and quality of your gif—it’s better to have shorter, but smoother gifs, I promise. And with tumblr’s new 10 MB limit, it shouldn’t be a problem anyway!

Then, your frames should open up. What we want to do is make them into a smart object, so we can edit all the layers at the same time. To do this, click the small button in the left-hand corner. ALWAYS click this first. If you don’t, it will only convert the first frame to a smart object and the gif won’t work.

Give it a second to sort itself out, then, on the right-hand side, select all your frames at once using the shift key.

Then, go to filter > convert for smart filters. This might take a minute. Don’t click anything else in case PS gets angry lmao, just leave it for a second and it’ll do its thing. The more frames you have, the longer it takes! Now we have our gif, but it needs to be cropped, sharpened and coloured!

CROPPING

You want to start by selecting the rectangular marquee tool on the left-hand side, then drag it across by clicking and highlighting the area you would like to crop your gif to, like so:

What I tend to do is select everything inside the black lines you sometimes get around your gif (this depends on what file you d*wnload), and also the tiniest bit inside the sides. This is because I’ve found if you crop it right up to the edge, you get a tiny bit of transparency on the sides of your gifs, which I’d rather avoid.

Once you have your desired selection, go to image > crop. Now, the dimensions for tumblr are 540px width, so all your gifs have to be that width. However, the length is up to you. I really like big gifs, so sometimes I even make a full square, or even longer. It’s entirely up to you, and what kind of set you want to make.

For the purposes of this gif, I will stick to what I usually go for, 540px by 350 px. This will mean you’ll have to crop some width off, but that’s okay, since Marisa isn’t central anyway. The cropping is always trial and error for me, as sometimes people move out of the frame within in the gif. The best thing to do is just try it, and then move the slider in the timeline window at the bottom to see if the person stays inside the gif, and if not, adjust accordingly.

Next, go to image > image size:

In this box, if I put the width as 540, the gif is a smaller height than I want, as it keeps to the dimensions of the gif when you load it into PS. That’s okay, just put the height you want instead, and we’ll crop off the excess.

Then click OK. Using the rectangular marquee tool again, we need to remove the excess width. Part of the reason I like this version of PS is that it tells you the width of your selection as you do it, but you can always use the ruler as a guide, and check the size of your image by going to image > image size again.

Again, use image > crop, and your gif should now be the correct size!

You can also use the crop tool in the timeline window to crop the length of your gif:

However, I tend to wait until later on to do this (which will be explained further down!)

SHARPENING

Next you want to go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen.

These are my settings. However, 0.4px is very sharp, too much so, but that’s easily fixed.

Go to filter > blur > Gaussian blur and then set it to 1.0.

Now on the right-hand side, we need to reduce the blur, so double click the little adjustment button, and change the opacity of the blur. I usually go for 20-30%!

Then click OK, and that’s your sharpening done!

COLOURING

I picked this scene on purpose as it’s dark, so good for showing how to colour a gif. I have a base psd which consists of some very basic adjustments, but it mostly exists so I don’t forget what adjustment layers I like to use. I adjust them every time I make a gif, essentially colouring each gif from scratch.

In this case, the psd actually makes it darker. So, what I will do is turn each layer off, and adjust as I go. A lot of people say using lots of adjustment layers ruins the quality of your gif… I have never found this to be true, as long as you are gentle with them. If you whack the brightness right up to the top, it’s going to ruin your gif no matter if you use 1 adjustment layer or 100. I would just say use your common sense, and adjust a little at a time!

I start with a simple black to white gradient map set to soft light, because I think it helps you see depth once you add some brightness to it. I usually do this on about 10%, or more if needed. It’s probably unnecessary, I just like how it looks!

Then, I move onto using curves and levels. This is where things can diverge depending on who you’re colouring. If this person is white, it doesn’t matter too much. If they’re not white, you don’t want to white wash them. My best advice is to play around with it. By adding vibrance and other (usually the red) selective colour settings later, you can ensure you don’t change the person’s skin tone from what it originally was. You can also use layer masks at varying opacities (various shades of grey), on your curves and levels, to remove some brightening so that you’re not changing anyone’s skin colour. Just brighten slowly and check in with yourself honestly about how your gif looks.

Some people don’t like using levels, or curves. It’s completely up to you. I tend to use both because levels are good for bringing depth, even if not brightening (though I like to use them for that as well). 

One thing you can do is use the white point of the gif to make PS adjust the curves itself, however I like to drag the sliders myself and see what it looks like. Just make sure it’s not too bright, as we will be using further layers to brighten more, after.

Next is levels. The slider on the left controls the black point, the one in the middle controls the midtones, and the one on the right controls the white points. The black brings depth, the midtones adjust the overall brightness, and the white points produce stronger highlights. Again, you’ll get a feel for how this works as you practice. Just don’t use the white point excessively, especially if your characters are not white.

Then I add vibrance (+20!), because we’ve removed a lot of it when lightening the gif. Next is exposure, which I find brings out the highlight and shadow areas more effectively:

Then colour balance! This helps with scenes that might be a certain colour, i.e. too blue, too green, too red, etc. Moving the sliders in the opposite direction of the colour your gif is will counteract it. The best thing to do when accounting for different colours, is to make a new layer every time you change colour, so that you don’t get confused. I always add a new layer for colour balance and selective colour if I want to change more than one thing. So one for red, one for yellow, one for pink, etc. 

A layer of brightness just to make the gif pop, and because the scene is extra dark, I added a very gentle extra curves layer:

SAVING YOUR GIF

Time to save the gif. You can go ahead and file > export > save for web (legacy) now, but then you’ll have to reopen the gif to reset the frame rate from 0.07, to 0.05. Instead of doing that, I use a modified action. The original was made by the very talented @elenafisher! So I do not take credit for that at all. You can find the original here: elenafisher(.)tumblr(.)com/post/190817437374/gif-sharpening-action-2-preview-download and in my resources tag. Please reblog it if you’re going to use this!

To use an action, first make sure you have actions turned on in window > actions. To load in your action, go to the little lines circled, and then load the action from your downloads:

Obviously if you don’t want to sharpen your gifs yourself, you can use the action as it is, and it will give you a beautiful glowing effect. If you’d just like to use it to flatten your gif into frames like I do, make sure to take out all the items I have highlighted:

Until it looks like this!

Make sure you have the layer under the file name highlighted, and then click the play button at the bottom! (If you get a screen saying select all frames cannot be found, don’t worry, just click continue!) You can delete the layer that does that if you want, I just keep it in case I realise I’ve forgotten to do something, because you can click cancel and edit your gif before you flatten it. Of course you can undo the steps to get back to the smart object version of your gif, it just takes longer!

And now your gif is in frames and set to 0.05 already, so you don’t have to change the speed! All you need to do now before saving is change the gif cycle to “forever” in the bottom left-hand corner:

Then to save the gif go to file > export > save for web (legacy). Sometimes, the gif is bigger than the tumblr 10MB limit. You’ll be able to see this in the bottom left-hand corner of the gif save settings. If this is the case, I like to preview the gif, to see whether it would be best to cut frames off of the beginning or the end, or both. When you’ve decided, you can select the frames at the bottom, and in the right-hand side panel, and delete them both using the little bins/trash icons.

I keep checking and deleting frames until I get the gif under 10 MB! Just don’t delete frames from the middle, as then you’ll have the same issue as if you selected “every other frame” when making the gif: it won’t flow!

Lastly, these are my save settings:

So that’s it! That’s how I make all my gifs. Blending I do when the gifs are in the grouped, smart filter stage, whereas text I add on during the framing section above! Really hope this is helpful, please feel free to ask any questions you may have! 💖