#when i've gotten better at gposing :')

[verraising]

♢ Word of the Mother | Sword of the Mother ♢

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers (ू•‧̫•ू⑅)♡

Hmm.

#1: My husband. I met him back in ... I believe it was mid-1998 because I wasn't 21 yet (my birthday is in December) and he informed me I was Young. I found that both funny and very rude, given he was ... all of 24, it's just that I was the same age as his little sister AND in the half of the year where we're four years apart instead of three. In any case, we met on a MUD (go look it up, I'll wait) and just ... really hit it off immediately, clicking in ways big and small. When I finally met him face to face in early 2000, I remember thinking it was a shame he lived in California (I lived in NJ, but was out here visiting my aunt and decided on a whim to meet him too) but uh ... well, by August 2001, it wasn't a problem any more, and we got married in 2003. Now that I'm in my forties, that timeline sounds insane to me, but I promise, it made perfect sense at the time.

#2: My family. It's true, I'm a tumblr user that actually gets along with her family really well, and I'm always happy when I get to visit them. My (boomer!) parents raised us to be people, rather than treating us like their belongings, and my three siblings and I have always gotten along really well (teen squabbling aside, of course, but even that was relatively mild compared to some of my friends). I love my in-laws too! I've always felt extremely lucky when it comes to family.

#3: My cats!

I mean, duh.

#4: My online knitting circle. I have a group chat in Discord in which we nerd about our various nerd things, FFXIV being one of the primary things (but not the ONLY thing by any stretch!). I tend to think a lot about The Writing in stuff I consume, and I very often have Opinions I like to Assert, and I'm so glad I have a private place to do so, because it is a containment zone for my less-kind opinions that the internet at large is better off not hearing about, but I still need to get out of my system. They also tolerate me barfing half-formed headcanon thoughts all over their shoes, which I appreciate.

#5: Taking Screenshots. There are so many other things that could go here instead, but this is my snap decision! I have been doing crime-aided gposes for a few years now, but I still feel very new at it sometimes, and the sense of satisfaction I get when I put something together I really like makes me very happy indeed. (And then @petitfarron helps shut up my anxiety about showing anyone else what I've done, and that technically makes me happy too, showing people stuff!)

Thanks for the ask!

[woltourney]

ROUND 5 / SIDE A

Kasha Sho (@r04ch-ships) v. Chuchu Chura (@spaceace144)

Kasha Sho:

q. What is your WoL name and pronouns? a. Kasha Sho, They/She (trans queen)

q. What is your WoL's species? a. Au’Ra Raen

q. What is your WoL's class? Or classes? a. Gunbreaker + Monk

q. What data centre/server are you on, if you want people to find you? a. Crystal Malboro <3

q. Tell us a bit about your WoL! a. I want to preface this by saying I made Kasha’s lore before I knew about the Yda/Lyse thing. Im not retconning because Kasha is better than her anyways 🙄 /hj Kasha was raised in Doma on a small farm! She had a younger brother and an older sister, her older sisters name was Kasha and she was killed by an unknown group. My wol then took their sisters name and fled to Eorzea on a refugee boat. She landed in Ul’dah and started from there! Kasha is VERY aggressive, mean, and insulting. She does not know basic manners and will speak her mind freely. Eats with their hands and also eats ANYTHING… Kasha doesnt like being the WoL, but continues this role because if she wont then who will? They’re very loud and boisterous and confident. Will fight anyone and everyone. She has 97 mental illnesses and is banned from most countries. She doesnt know how to read and is an overall idiot but shes doing her best leave that little guy alone Shes also 6ft tall and buff as SHIT

q. Why should YOU win? (Answer IC!) a. I WILL WIN because Im the best fighter out here and I will CRUSH THE BONES OF MY- this isn’t an actual fight? … Um 😶 I would TOTALLY win a real fight. Just so you know.

Chuchu Chura:

q. What is your WoL name and pronouns? a. Chuchu Chura (she/they)

q. What is your WoL's species? a. Lalafell

q. What is your WoL's class? Or classes? a. PLD, WHM, RDM, DNC, and most importantly, FSH

q. What data centre/server are you on, if you want people to find you? a. Adamantoise

q. Tell us a bit about your WoL! a. This is Chuchu! She's a mute lala who became my reason for living when I started playing during covid. When I made her I want to make the least intimidating tank, so I made the smallest (yes she is min height), pinkest tank I could! She doesn't really have a lot of lore that I've come up with, but she's definitely lawful good, loves adventuring with her wolf pup, capybara, and Nigel her chocobo, and adores fishing.

q. Why should YOU win? (Answer IC!) a. :^) *waves* *lalafell dances* *dotes* *giggles*

q. Anything else you wanna add? a. She's just brought me so much joy over the past few years and if someone else can get a little joy from seeing her in this tournament, then that's enough for me. Of course I hope she still does well! I've spent hours in gpose getting pictures of her to be my wallpapers, I've gotten commissions of her, I'm even trying to crochet an amigurumi of her. I just love her so much! Good luck, Chuchu!!!

[thefreelanceangel]

(from sealrock) List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers (ू•‧̫•ू⑅)♡

Ooo, I get to do this again? Fab.

Laughter. My entire life has basically been a Sequence of Hilarious Mishaps, and when you are comic relief, you gain a deep appreciation for laughter. I love to laugh, and I love that my house has someone laughing at any hour of the day. We're silly here, we nurture whimsy, and laughing with someone over something genuinely funny (not nasty jokes or mean pranks) is a lovely bonding experience.

TANITH LEE. My Goddess of Prose. I have two shelves dedicated only to her books and I still want more. I cried when she died, I remember her every year, and I recommend her books to everyone, all the time. There is no other author who means as much to me.

Stephen King. I just trust this guy to tell me an entertaining story, you know? I think I probably reread King more than any other author because his prose is clear, simple, and easy to read, his characters feel like people and I feel like he's gotten better with every year. I've got two shelves of his books, too, and I'm collecting more. (I think I've read probably 60 of his books.)

Decorating! I've gone hardcore on the nesting in the past couple of years and really leaned into it this year. I like perusing shops for interesting things that might add a little more personality into the apartment, finding ways to personalize the place without painting the walls (damn renting restrictions) and just... creating an environment that feels like HOME.

FFXIV. No, seriously. This game came into my life, hit me upside the head with a bat, and left me reeling. The themes, the visuals, the story, the gameplay... This is the first MMO where I've done more content than RP and where I've found myself genuinely wanting to do hard end-level content just for the experience. (And yes, GPose... I pay SE my monthly fee just for a glorified photo studio. I'm not sorry.)

[sundered-souls]

LAST SONG: Tony Ann - Pulse

CURRENTLY WATCHING: Nothing actively. I started watching The OA some time ago but haven't gone back to it yet. Now if it's about "watching" in general, then I'm currently watching videos about lighting in art and photomanip. I've been doing it since yesterday, all because I initially wanted to figure out how to make a road look wet...

THREE SHIPS: Oh dear. It's been a while since I've really gotten invested in a ship. But let's say Napoléon/Ilya (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), Lan Zhan/Wei Wuxian (The Untamed) and uh... Karlach/Wyll (Baldur's Gate 3)

FAVORITE COLOR: Orange!

CURRENTLY CONSUMING: Not enough judging by how hungry I am lmao

FIRST SHIP: Honestly I have no idea. I think the first I read fanfics about was Torhu/Yuki or Torhu/Kyo in Fruit Basket.

PLACE OF BIRTH: Central France

CURRENT LOCATION: Switzerland, but this country is too small to give you more details x)

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Partnered? I think it's the word at least x) I've been with the same person for over ten years.

LAST MOVIE: Nimona, when it was on Youtube! Good movie.

CURRENTLY WORKING ON: My website, my forum, the vanilla gpose challenge, not my homework but I should

Tagged by @under-the-blood-moonlight and @shroudkeeper (on my main). Thank you both! Tagging: @corsair-kovacs @thevikingwoman @paintedscales @archaiclumina @pumpkinmagekupo @briar-ffxiv @lilbittymonster @otherworldseekers and all of my followers, really! Don't be shy and tag me back so I get to know you better :3

[quad-weave]

(I took this picture almost a year ago!)

1-year Gposing Anniversary!

Today is the day I consider my gposing anniversary--the first time I did a 'photo shoot' specifically for the point of sharing with others :) So, I wanted to take some of my earlier pictures and remake them, to see how far I've come! :)

(Why not the first photo shoot though, you may ask? I already redid the pictures to revamp the Eorzea Collection post that first shoot was for.)

------

I can't do this without revisiting my first custom Anamnesis pose. It was mainly the result of me poking around the tool and figuring out how it works, but I was still happy with the result.

But it's anniversary time, so it time for a remake!

To be honest, though, there wasn't too much wrong with the pose in and of itself, besides the fingers. It is just a tweak of an in-game idle pose, after all. So what I did was use the same shader and put a bit more thought into the framing and background!

And I fixed the fingers. You can't see it but I fixed them, trust me 😌

08/22/23:

08/06/23:

------

Next, I wanted to remake my first couples pose. I remember learning so much from trying this one out, but I also had a lot of trouble with a lot of things... and I think it took about six hours total. This set was definitely a trial. I saved and loaded these poses a few months ago too, and hoo boy. There was a lot happening, lol, and most of it was not good.

The reshoot is more of a reimagining, though. Unlike the other shoots where I replicated most of the image, I've changed the outfits, some of the background, and tweaked the poses a fair bit.

Let's face it, when I first tried this pose I was out of my depth, and now, with a deeper understanding not only of Anamnesis but how to frame pictures and choosing shaders, I have a couples pose set that looks far more natural and soft.

10/17/22:

08/06/23:

-------

Next is this picture. At the time I was still getting the hang of post editing, and also was dealing with some... oddities with the dress. Which had me crop the shot at an unusual resolution.

But now, I know how to be more subtle with my post-editing and shaders, and I've gotten better with lighting, too. In general result looks more natural :)

10/23/22:

08/05/23:

------

Finally, I have this photo shoot with Laurent. This one was special to me because it's the first time I used some really dramatic lighting, and I still really liked how it turned out.

However, there were issues with other parts of the composition (the giant knife, everything being shot from the same angle, etc) and I always wanted to give this another try :)

It's a bit brighter this time around due to the changed location, but the lighting still feels pretty dramatic. This time I did some different, more dynamic angles, and I took a bonus picture :)

Oh, and I learned how to scale weapons down. Why are weapons so huge in this game...?

11/20/22:

08/05/23:

------

I really enjoyed remaking some of these shoots--while I knew I've improved over the year I started, being able to see the differences side by side really lets me see my growth.

Here's to another year of having fun gposing :D

[miqojak]

Can you explain more about your “do not reblog” rule? /gen

Do you not want reblogs of anything ever or just certain things? I try to check tags but tbh I’m still not really clear on the why so I do t know if I’m doing this right.

Hey, thanks for asking!

What it really boils down to is that it is incredibly hurtful when you've spent years looking to make contact in an RP community, and no one will reach out for RP, or show genuine interest in your OC... but complete strangers in the RP community will come by to take your OC aesthetic for their OC, and never interact otherwise, which is ultimately just using another person for your own gain.

If you like a character's aesthetic, and it's similar to your own OC's... why not go ahead and interact? (Send asks, or comment on posts or reblog writing or gposes with tags about how much you like the character, or whatever! ) Wouldn't that be a good first sign that your characters might get along, or have similar interests of some kind? It's a social hobby, after all, so you gotta talk to strangers eventually... so who better than someone whose OC blog intrigued you to begin with? If you like the aesthetic but not the OC... why not just follow the same resource blog they did, for more of the aesthetic you like?

An RP blog is essentially for helping to meet other RPers; it's like making a scrapbook about your character to show/advertise to others, to see if they might be interested in RP with your lil guy - "here's what they're like, are you interested?". But when people come by and only take from you, and don't engage in any other way, shape, or form? They don't reblog, or even hit the heart on your original works ( ie they literally just take aesthetic posts they could have gotten from the same resource blog that I did, so I get a notification, thinking it was someone actually interested in engaging in our shared, social hobby - but it's just someone who wants something from me) - or support you by maybe sharing your original work at all... well, it certainly makes *me* feel used, and it's both hurtful, and frustrating. It makes me feel like I'm just an object, and not a person behind a screen looking for contacts in a community that only seems to stop by when someone wants something; it makes me feel like people don't think about the person behind the screen.

That said, I explained it recently like the old "neighbor asking for a cup of sugar" thing - if I know you and we interact and I know you're not some stranger who only comes by to take from me what you will? Why wouldn't I be willing to share/ 'give you a cup of sugar'? There are definitely people I think are great on here, who support not only me, but so many others in the community, by sharing creative works and writing fun tags on them, etc. But if a complete stranger showed up at your home and didn't ask for a cup of sugar, but barged right in and started helping themselves to everything in your fridge... wouldn't you be upset in some manner? They didn't say hi, didn't introduce themselves... they didn't say anything at all, and you have no idea who this person is! You'd probably lock your door, and not open it to strangers anymore - plus, it's not like you wouldn't make them a sandwich if they were a friend in need, but it's off-putting to be used... and doubly so when you don't even know who this person is.

I've lost a lot of my desire to try and be active, myself, because no one seems to reach out for RP anymore (all my longterm RP friends from years ago have quit RP over the last few years because of this - they were always the ones putting in all the effort with reaching out to new contacts - among a handful of other reasons), and as a fellow anxious person... you just gotta bite the bullet and be social at times if you want RP, you can't hide behind social anxiety in a social hobby (don't I know it). You can't just hope it falls in your lap. But between being regularly ghosted by people (who seem to only want ERP, and disappear when it doesn't happen) - and Tumblr mostly just being a hurtful experience... I've largely gone inactive, and try to share others' stuff when I do log on.

Tl;dr If the only thing people want is aesthetic posts... why not just follow the same resource blogs - why use the blog of someone trying to make connections? If they want to RP, or establish some sort of connection by mutually sharing each other's creative works, and sending asks and doing tag games, etc. - (ie if they want to establish a rapport) then that's amazing! Full steam ahead.

But it hurts, and ultimately makes me feel pretty worthless when I love a character I've worked hard on and tried for years to establish, and then most notifications are just another name of a stranger who only comes by to take aesthetic posts they could have gotten anywhere else.

Sorry for being long-winded - the ADHD contributes to that, but I've also had some people be incredibly entitled and cruel when I was blocking them, and pointed out to them that the only notifications I had from them for many months was them simply taking aesthetic posts, and never interacting otherwise... as if they felt entitled to pump my blog for their own OC's aesthetic (or its someone who follows me and just instantly starts combing my blog for their OC's aesthetic... conveniently skipping anything that's actually original work I spent time creating) - so I tend to overexplain, these days, so it's clear that it comes from a place of hurt, and trying to protect myself and cultivate a healthier circle of people around me... its not out of malice, or grudges, etc.

[arabella-ffxiv]

what do you use to edit your photos!! i've recently gotten into edits but don't know where to start :((

I use polarr and snapseed. They are really amazing. The best thing to do is practice using everything in them until you find a style you like. Also when your taking pictures in gpose make sure you zoom it in all the way on the slider to get better definition.

[woltourney]

ROUND 1 / SIDE A / POLL 11

Chuchu Chura (@spaceace144) v. Archon Valusk (@dapperpea)

Chuchu Chura:

q. What is your WoL name and pronouns? a. Chuchu Chura (she/they)

q. What is your WoL's species? a. Lalafell

q. What is your WoL's class? Or classes? a. PLD, WHM, RDM, DNC, and most importantly, FSH

q. What data centre/server are you on, if you want people to find you? a. Adamantoise

q. Tell us a bit about your WoL! a. This is Chuchu! She's a mute lala who became my reason for living when I started playing during covid. When I made her I want to make the least intimidating tank, so I made the smallest (yes she is min height), pinkest tank I could! She doesn't really have a lot of lore that I've come up with, but she's definitely lawful good, loves adventuring with her wolf pup, capybara, and Nigel her chocobo, and adores fishing.

q. Why should YOU win? (Answer IC!) a. :^) *waves* *lalafell dances* *dotes* *giggles*

q. Anything else you wanna add? a. She's just brought me so much joy over the past few years and if someone else can get a little joy from seeing her in this tournament, then that's enough for me. Of course I hope she still does well! I've spent hours in gpose getting pictures of her to be my wallpapers, I've gotten commissions of her, I'm even trying to crochet an amigurumi of her. I just love her so much! Good luck, Chuchu!!!

Archon Valusk:

q. What is your WoL name and pronouns? a. Archon Valusk, he/him

q. What is your WoL's species? a. Raen Au Ra

q. What is your WoL's class? Or classes? a. RDM/DRK

q. What data centre/server are you on, if you want people to find you? a. N/A

q. Tell us a bit about your WoL! a. Archon is always willing to spend the day out and about, enjoying the sun and flirting, using his silver tongue to haggle down merchants, and treating friends and the occasional stranger to extravagant gifts. If he can't be fashionable, there's really no point in existing, so he enjoys creating (and crafting) a variety of outfits from his extensive wardrobe and sometimes swimming in the Goblet's pool. Not one to think too far ahead, he takes every day on its own terms, enjoying the present for what it is… Sometimes to the detriment of any long-term plans. He might trust a bit too easily, but given that he got a second chance after fouling things up, he feels it's only fair. His background in political negotiation usually pulls people to his side--and if not, his training as a soldier comes in handy. He used to feel pressured by expectations, but has become confident, if a bit embarrassed, at all the attention, and will definitely use it to his advantage if it can help someone or change a situation for the better. When push comes to shove, he'll fight hard with a stubborn streak, but he finds it more exciting and fulfilling to weave together a new partnership if possible.

q. Why should YOU win? (Answer IC!) a. "Let's see… Disaster gay, silver tongue, pretty boy, heart of gold. Anything else you need? Well, sure, it might be tempting to think some down-on-his-luck pirate should get a shot at the top spot, or a muscley sword-swinger could beat me out, but I think it's more about who you relate to, don't you? C'mon, let's make it happen!"

q. Anything else you wanna add? a. Archon: Himbo Lite(tm). Two whole brain cells and one big heart. Gap moe to the extreme.