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mugiwara--ya · 5 months

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heyyy hi a little life/med update !!

ive been super super busy these past couple weeks w a ton of socialization etc and ngl i think i burned myself out lol last night after we got back home from a con (and the bar stop after it) i had a massive shutdown that lasted hours and im still reeling from it, but ANYWAYS!! med update med update wooo

so! on top of the lifesaving bupropion ive been taking all year & the eszopiclone for sleep i finally !! got put on something for my ocd, lets give it up for fluoxetine to join my beautiful, beautiful cocktail, mwah 💖💝💗💕💞💓

i know it supposedly takes a few weeks to fully Work but im already feeling a MASSIVE difference right off the bat, like yesterday i was at the mall and i ✨ touched the escalator's handrail ✨ i was literally so excited i kept looking at my hand going yoooooo im DOING it im making it HAPPEN like even my friends congratulated me on it kdsfjhakjg it felt silly but massive at the same time lol and of course i still immediately disinfected my hands but the important thing is that I Did It

and idk its like!!! i knew it was BAD like especially these past few months its been just. VIOLENTLY out of control but god the absolute relief ive been feeling is making me feel like i was still grossly underestimating it, it had completely taken over my life. right now its like, i encounter any random trigger and i brace myself for the anxiety spiral to come and then it DOESN'T and its so ??? like i still have The Thought but then i just go "ok" and dismiss it like an annoying notification and thats IT, while the last time i was on therapy i literally described my ocd as having hundreds of those cymbal-banging monkey toys of different sizes just sitting there in my brain Waiting and every single time i got triggered one of them would start losing its absolute shit - for example if im at the supermarket, on top of the everything about existing as an autistic person at the supermarket, thered be like a dozen of them constantly going ALERT ALERT CONTAMINATION CONTAMINATION EEK EEK DANGER DANGER BANG BANG BANG- and now the monkeys r GONE. get turned into mostly-dismissable phone notifs, idiots !!!!!!!!!

the only monkey im willingly keeping!!!!! is the low poly 3d model of monkey d. luffy constantly rotating in my brain <3 kfngskjdfs

also like i still do like, say, my cleaning rituals when i get back home, but idk i just. i feel Normal about it?? like calmly wiping my phone bc phones r Gross and not bc i literally see a green film of Germs And Various Pathogens enveloping it lol. anddd i havent been attacked by violent intrusive thoughts in a minute !! lets see if it stays that way. im generally super sensitive to medications too so im on low doses of everything and i wanna keep it like that lol so heres to hoping it keeps goin like this so i dont have to up my dose 8)

uhh thats about it ! having a bit of Personal Issues tm at the moment tho but im so relieved abt my ocd i kinda have the bandwidth to deal with them lol. i prolly jus need some sleep quiet and to not be perceived by anyone for a solid week.

in other lighter and unrelated news my queue is completely empty rn so it'll be just a liiiittle quiet around here for a bit but ! yeah. also i just watched the latest op anime episode and urhgrhghrghrgh it was so good hhh <3333 so yah if you read this whole thing i am giving you a little kiss on the forehead, mwah, hope you have a great week !!

#a lie. this turned into a long ass post lmfao #tw ocd #sol.txt

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overlyimmersed · 1 year

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Dude oh my god XD

(I kinda wouldn't help this turning into a live react :p I tried to keep the commentary to a minimum cuz that's not what this post was supposed to be about. But if you're only interested in my discussion about voice actors, look for bold text and skip italics.)

Ok, so, been a while since dragon ball was on this blog, but hey I don't control the hyperfixation.

So I'm watching Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero for the first time. Bad name first of all, but otherwise I'm actually loving it! XD And it's like 80% the voice cast!

So I'm weirdly good at picking out voices. It makes watching anime weird cuz there's like 6 people who do extra voices for dubbed anime. Like period. So everyone sounds like everyone all the time.

BUT

It's not extras that have me all fluffed up. It's the main cast. The new additions rather. Of course I'd recognize recurrents I've been watching dragon ball literally my whole life.

ANYWAY

So first! Dr. Hedo, is freaking Arthur(7ds)/Tanjiro(Demon Slayer)

And like sure, anime to anime, that happens all the time. Like do you even know how many background nobodies is Seven Deadly Sins are voiced by either Tien or Gohan? It's obnoxious for someone who has those two character in her top 5 faves. What's really funny, is-

Gamma 2 IS FREAKING HUNTER FROM THE OWL HOUSE! XD That's so cute I picked that up literally on the first word out of his mouth! And sure, I know Zeno Robinson does voices in other anime too, he's also in Demon Slayer. But *I* know him from TOH so that's just wild to me!

Gamma 1 is god. damned. Lancelot! That's funny to me. But not as funny as that that actor also plays Zenitsu(Demon Slayer), Those two character are so opposite. XD Though honestly, I have to commend Aleks Le for his range, I DID NOT pick on that for A WHILE cuz he uses a totally different sound for Zenitsu when he's awake vs when he's asleep.

Cheelai is Jericho(7ds) guessed that one straight away, but also Emira from toh. Never picked up on that. The elder Blight girl just acts too different I guess. So Erica Lindbeck gets a point from me for her range :p

Y'know, I've seen some complaints about the animation for this movie. And I get that, I'm really not a fan of this 3D model trend either. But honestly most of these look quite good... Except Whis for some reason? Like I don't know, something about him is just...off. Like his face looks a little uncanny and his whole body moves weird.

Just a little aside about me personally -this post is supposed to be about voice actors- but it just occurred to me. Anyone who's seen enough of my posts lately knows that I almost exclusively call King(7ds) by his true name "Harlequin". And I just noticed that that's actually kind of a trend with me. It started back in my teens, when I started referring to Goku by his Saiyan name "Kakarot". At least inside my own head. My brother and father were also into dragon ball back then and would have looked at me funny if I'd done it out loud...

on a different note, I'm absolutely going to die from cringe. Beerus having a crush is killing me.

KORIN'S EARS!!!! They never used to twitch so much! That's so CUUUUTEEE!

As cool as that sky diving shot was, why is Piccolo still dressed like that... Also love that they're just casual with Shenron now. It makes sense but it's still cute.

XD!! Shenron is Bulma's plastic surgeon XD

YES YES YES!!! HOLY SHIT! GOHAN FINALLY USING PICCOLO'S SIGNITURE MOVE!! SPECIAL BEAM CANON FUCK YEAH!!!!!!

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cavesalamander · 3 years

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My brief thoughts on this season of anime!

Just a quick review of the ones I’d recommend and/or keep watching. I managed to find all of the below on Funimation or Crunchyroll or Youtube!

Horymia: (Yes) This is looking to be a very funny romcom slice of life style anime, and seems to be a fairly good one! Had me laughing a lot. The Main couple are a nerdy quiet boy who’s actually dumb as a sack of bricks using his disheveled appearance to hide his tattoos and piercings, and a popular pretty girl who’s actually a total homebody. Their friends seem to have a lot of potential to be fleshed out as the series progresses and I look forward to seeing how it goes!

So I’m a Spider, So What?: (Yes) Whooo another isekai (excited)! This time a girl and her entire class!? Get isekai’d in a massive explosion. The main character reincarnates as a trash monster in a dungeon and must fight her way up the food chain just to survive. Meanwhile her friends who have mostly reincarnated as Cool Humans or the occasional elf or baby dragon, have mostly found each other, and want to figure out what happened/why and if they’re all okay. It’s genuinely pretty funny, though leans a little too hard sometimes on the gamey aspects of this new world. I think it may get darker as it goes along too.

Mushoku Tensei: (No) Whooo another isekai (derogatory). 34 yo old man gets reincarnated and uses his worldly experience to Learn Magic Fast and creep on his mom and prepubescent tutor. If you can stomach that stuff, it actually has a fair amount of potential? It did set itself up to touch on some interesting stuff down the road, but I’m kind of Over the horny toddler/young boy trope and it kinda just seems like the protagonist is Just Awesome At Everything but not in a remotely charming way.

Cells at Work Code Black: (Yes) If you liked Cells at Work, this is that but dingier, and is able to tackle some darker themes - like what stress, smoking, drinking, and probably eventually STDs can do to your body.

Kemono Jihen: (Yes) I don’t wanna explain TOO much about the plot of this one because it looks to be a mystery series, and the first episode sets it up the characters very very well. A man from the city is called to a rural town where animals are being mysteriously killed and found rotting. He’s tasked with finding and killing the perpetrator, assumed to be a monster of some kind. It does the horror very well, and even in the first episode manages some twistyness.

The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter: (No) Even for a blatant fan service anime this one is just......... stupid. It might have a scrap of joy to it if the protagonist were anything other than a boring sycophant. His harem just all seems to be random girls who’s singular personality traits are to be in love with him in various stereotypical ways, that he just uses to min max his Cool Stats. But like, it’s not even self aware enough to make that into an interesting premise.

Sk8: (Yes) It’s a racing anime that seems super stylish and fun and very well animated. The protagonists have some cool chemistry already, and it really leans into the Underground Illegal Racing part of the fun - all the various characters who battle in death defying races through this abandoned mine, all have seemingly ordinary day jobs. Definitely worth a shot if that sounds up your alley.

Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies moved to a starter town?: (Probably) Okay so the premise is just there in the title and is actually pretty fun. Think: a random NPC who is considered pretty weak where the monsters are lv 50 moving somewhere where the monsters are scary at lv 5, shenanigans ensue. The MC boy is hilariously oblivious to the fact that anyone with a shred of sense can see he’s insanely over leveled to the area, and just trying to be nice and polite to everyone ^u^. The tentative nature of my recommendation is that it is kind of leaning harder on the Girls are Obsessed With Him train than is ideal. How much it depends on that as opposed to utilizing the premise to its fullest extent will have an enormous bearing on how fun the show is to watch going forward.

Ex-Arm: (Absolutely not but yes) It’s a fucking train wreck.

Heavens Design Team: (Yes) God decided to outsource creating animals to a team of angels, and works as a client giving weird ass requests for the angels to fill. Hilarity ensues, and it is peak edutainment to boot. It’s so much fun learning weird shit about animals, or trying to guess the animal these seemingly random train of failed attempts leads to.

Dr. Ramune -Mysterious Disease Specialist-: (No) It has a promising premise and some good moments. The main characters are solving these weird “diseases” that people get by finding the actual emotional cause and using magic of some kind to monkey paw it into a resolution. This could be really fun and interesting, but something about the execution just... falls flat? Like maybe it picks up as the season goes on but for now it’s not rly worth it.

Vlad Love: (Yes) I was going through the list of anime this season and was like wtf is this and literally just now watched episode 1. It’s about a girl with a blood donation kink and her vampire girlfriend. Literally. It’s rly funny and over the top ridiculous but like, gay vampires.

Back Arrow: (No) It’s like... fine. It’s about these two warring kingdoms surrounded by a wall with a mountain range between. They worship the wall as god, and occasionally get gifts from beyond it, in the form of mech suits they use to fight each other in. One day a boy shows up from beyond the wall in one of those suits and no memories of anything and he wants to get back. Which... could be promising I guess? But something about the show just didn’t grab my attention.

Skate-Leading Stars: (No) It’s like Yuri on ice if it was less gay and less well written I guess...? The first episode set up the Drama competently enough, but I just... couldn’t give a shit.

Project Scard: (No) For some reason part of Tokyo has been turned into a post apocalyptic hellscape where people just murder each other. They also have super powered tattoos and use them to fight each other. Animation is very similar to Handshakers - which is an Aesthetic that may not appeal to some. The first episode didn’t rly do much for me but I could see it going somewhere if it tries.

Wave!!: (No) Might have been a tentative yes if I hadn’t gone on and watched the second episode. First ep went hard with the queerbaiting cause they want to be the new Free! but with surfing, but Ep 2 just forgot all about that entirely. Dialogue is mostly boring and there’s like 3 sets, which becomes painfully obvious very quickly by ep 2.

Idoly Pride: (No) Literally looks like they ripped off the waifus of a bunch of other more popular anime and made an idol anime with the most basic ass idol plot. Nothing exceptional here.

Gekidol: (undecided) It’s an idol anime... set after a mysterious apocalyptic event? It’s mostly so far seemed intriguing as hell but not my jam. Mysterious craters destroyed parts of Japan, and its rebuilding and the MCs wanna bring light to the world. Maybe aliens exist? Idk! I’m intrigued.

I*Chu: (No) Another idol anime but this time it’s cute boys! Idk maybe this is a decent idol anime but it rly didn’t grab me and idol stuff isn’t usually my jam. I couldn’t tell anything exceptionally unique about this one from just the first episode.

WIXOSS Diva: (No, but) I don’t normally watch spin-offs of series but I didn’t realize until halfway into this that it was one cause Crunchyroll didn’t attach it to the core line. It’s like... magical girl battle idols in VR! Which honestly if you’re a fan of that it might actually be worth checking out.(edited)

Idolls!: (No) Another idol anime! But this one uses mocap 3d models. Phoned in plot line delivered by a weird tiki statue that tells the girls what to do. Seems extraordinarily low budget, and more just a way to sell music. The whole episode happened in a single set and was basically just... girls want to make it big as idols... oh no... gotta book a stage! Yay they got one! Now must get an audience! Like... ok

Hortensia Saga: (No but) Sword and sorcery fantasy setting that’s mostly sword, main character is a princess masquerading as a male knight alongside the son of her dead parents’s also dead bodyguard. The first episode is very lore heavy and felt kinda like the prologue to a video game. So it ended up feeling a little expository and trope laden, but it has potential. Seems a bit Game of Thronesy? Wasn’t like... bad or anything, so if it’s your thing you might enjoy it.

Otherside Picnic: (Yes) I think it’s gay first of all, two girls going exploring / treasure hunting / monster hunting in a bizarre mirror world to their own. Girls are cute, it’s very interesting premise and writing seems solid.

Wonder Egg Priority: (Yes) It deals with some HEAVY themes? But it’s... a bit of a psychological horror but in a way that feels very like it’s dealing with some of the real life issues. The main character girl comes across as neurodivergent, and it’s just... idk man the first episode was good and left me wanting more.

#Winter 2021 anime #Its of course flavored by my personal preferences but idc

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northwind4 · 4 years

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Dearest WingDings（11）

*It's a story about HandPlates! Gaster and Wing! Gaster

*I’ll appreciate it very much if you point out the mistakes I made in the translation, all kinds of help are welcomed!

*previous & next

*Handplates by @zarla-s

Wing!Gaster by me

————————————————

Chapter11

“WAR AGAINST THE PLATES”

174

The coffee was ready, Wing walked over and filled two mugs.

“When is the last time we slept?”He went to the workbench and handed one of the mugs to his companion.

Gaster glanced at the clock.

“6 days ago, I think.”

175

Gaster finally recovered completely a week ago, and a new plan was launched.

The previous project was canceled, and they arranged a comprehensive medical examination for the little skeletons. They also prepared the daily activities that children of this age should have, including courses and entertainment.

Although forgiving and overcoming the shadows of the past still had a long way to go, at least this was a new beginning.

The top-ranked items on the to-do list, right after “Accept Papyrus’ hug invitations anytime and anywhere”, was an iconic operation:

“i don’t care how long your mercy will last,”said Sans, “remove this weird thing first if you really want to show some kindness.”

W: Oh dear I can’t help wondering if you peeked at the outline.

GPS :? ? ?

W: Uh, sorry, I mean future.

W: And this is exactly what we are going to do next.

176

Plan 1

W: Since you drilled holes with an electric drill and then fixed it with screws

W: Sounds like it’s not that difficult to remove them.

G: ...

G: In order to prevent them from moving the plates themselves

He looked away.

G: I added some other magic to it

Plan 1 failed.

177

W: I made the 3D model of the children’s hands

W: Then we can make solid models with artificial calcium compounds and magic, which can act like the real bones to the greatest extent for practical operation.

W: We need about 20?

W: What’s that expression...

W: 30?

W: 40? 50? 60?

G: ...

G: Ten times more...please

178

WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO THEM YOU BAD SKELETON

179

W: (Turn on the computer to play the music Spear of Justice)

W: NGAHHH——!

G: What’s wrong with you

W: Howling to increase determination —__—

W: After all, this will be a huge project

180

Plan 5 failed.

W: It’s ok

W: It’s normal for this complicated operation to fail even 20 times.

181

Plan 26 failed.

W: emmmm

W: Sure enough, 20 is not enough.

W: Come on, there are more than 500 opportunities waiting for us!

182

Plan 159 failed.

W: Do you have more coffee?

G: I thought you would never be sleepy

W: Yeah I did not feel tired after becoming like this...I used to thought I didn’t need to eat or sleep anymore

W: Now it seems that I still have the limitation.

183

Plan 234 failed.

W: Honestly

W: If this thing is nailed to my hand

W: I’d rather break my whole hand than letting it stay on me

G: ...

W: Don’t tell me you think this can be tried to the kids

184

G: Maybe we can try to destroy the plates

W: Yes, but they are much stronger than the bones...

W: But we will never know without trying

185

Plan 287 failed.

Two scientists who had not slept for 3 days sank in the chair.

W: What on-under the earth did you use to make this thing?

W: Feels like it’s full of determination

G: It’s true that I was determined at the time

W: ...

Wing threw a part of himself at Gaster.

W: (*weakly)I’m gonna kill you...

186

Plan 299 failed.

W: Fine. You made me mad, little plate.

W: Do you think it will work if the beam of Gaster Blaster is focused on one point? Will it be strong enough to break the plate?

G: Yeah, together with the bones.

W: ...come on, I will control it

W: Ready?

W: HERE COMES THE 60000 ATTACK! !

187

The little skeletons playing in another room were attracted by the loud noise.

A large hole was smashed on the laboratory’s wall, and two Dr.Gasters were buried under the bricks and limestones. Inside the lab, the plate on the workbench was totally intact.

Wing climbed out of the piles of wall bricks. He lifted Gaster who had fallen on his body, shaking off the dust.

W: Are you okay?

G: Hmm...fine...

W: What material did you use to make that...?

W: It seems to be even stronger than the BARRIER.

Plan 300 failed.

188

Plan 324 failed.

W: It’s time to cook for the children again

W: Come on, you go to cook and take a break

G: No, you go to cook

W: You go

G: You go

W: You

Sans came over.

W: Hello kid, what’s up?

S: my brother just went to the kitchen

S: he wants to make you some—

G&W: Let’s go to cook.

189

Papyrus was waiting in the bedroom.

P: WOWIE! YOU SUCCEEDED IN CONVINCING THEM TO HAVE A REST!

P: HOW DID YOU DO THAT?

S: because i’m the brother of great papyrus

P: NYEH(≧∇≦)————!

The taller skeleton hugged his brother and kissed him.

190

Plan 401 failed.

W: One experiment failed 401 times

W: Do you know what this means

G: What

W: It means we are going to start the 402th time!

W: Yeah...!

He cheered weakly.

191

Plan 489 failed.

They made two cups of instant noodles.

W: (*eating) I always think instant noodles are better than compressed biscuits.

G: (*eating) I’m more used to chocolate.

Papyrus walked up to them.

W :?

P: (⁎⁍̴̛ᴗ⁍̴̛⁎)HUG

Gaster opened his arms and allowed the little skeleton to embrace him. From the stiffness of the action, the scientist still needed more practice.

P: WHAT ARE YOU EATING?

W: Instant noodles, a kind of convenience food.

P: MAY I—

G: No. You need a balanced diet.

The boy was a little bit lost, Gaster petted his head, and he was immediately happy again. He kissed his creator on the cheek before leaving to sleep.

W: Wow

W: (*applauding)

192

The coffee was ready, Wing walked over and filled two mugs.

“When is the last time we slept?”He went to the workbench and handed one of the mugs to his companion.

Gaster glanced at the clock.

“6 days ago, I think.”

Plan 502 failed.

193

Wing looked through the results of recent experiments.

W: We are very close...

W: Already able to eliminate all magic

W: Just stuck at the final physical removal step

W: Why did each bone break after removing the plate?

W: There must be something missing.

194

G: ...

G: I got an accident before

G: I wanted to use energy to...fix Sans’ right eye

G: ...

G: But the power suddenly went wrong and the explosion broke half of his skull.

His hands started shaking slightly, and Wing held them.

W: I am listening.

G: I put him in the tube for emergency treatment. At that time, his HP was full and all results of the physical examination were completely normal.

G: But he just refused to wake up, and the cracks in the skull cannot be healed.

G: Later I took Papyrus to heal him. It was amazing. He soon woke up and everything went well.

G: I think maybe it was not just because of magic...

195

G: Monsters are made of magic, and magic comes from our soul

G: And the soul can...generate determination?

G: Like you said, if the strength of the plates came from my determination

G: ...

He looked up at Wing’s eyes.

G: What were you thinking when you rushed into the burning core?

196

W: ...

W: Sure enough, the doer is the best one to undo what he has done.

197

W: Besides myself, I have seen many monsters using determination in various parallel worlds.

W: If there is anything in common, it is probably the condition for launching this kind of power

W: It needs a...strong reason? Like what you are fighting for.

W: But not for harm, it’s a kind of, ugh not very well described...let’s get it simple—

W: It’s to protect who you love.

198

W: You love them, you want to protect them, for which you are willing to give everything as the price.

W: Even getting burned or melted......even if everyone will forget you.

W: I guess when you decided to start THAT project, you must had something that you treasured very much. That desire exceeded your fear and every other emotions.

G: ...

W: No need to be afraid.

W: You can do it, for these people, for your children

W: For yourself.

199

Plan 513.

You can do it, WingDingsGaster.

Think about your reasons for insisting.

The reason I insisted, Gaster thought, the reason I insisted.

The rEasoN i gOt evErYThing wrOnG He thought of the war in the past, in the fire and screaming he couldn’t find his families anymore.

He remembered the desperate look on the king after losing his wife and children. There were also two children shaking together, and Wing’s burning purple eyes when he found everything.

He saw Asgore standing in front of him, holding a jar containing a human soul in his hand.

He saw his hands covered with blood and ashes.

Gaster stepped back in fear, the bone model on the operating platform shattered into dust again.

Wing gave him a hand, and he held his arm to adjust the breathing.

“It’s okay,”Wing said,“Try again, there’s no need to make yourself suffer that much.”

“It maybe hard, but love and protection should be happy things in nature.” The scientist in black made the equipment ready again.

“Try thinking about what made your strong determination.” Gaster closed his eyes.

What is that?

Perhaps it is the basic magic that his parents taught him, the first book he had got, the beautiful rain which he held an umbrella to wait for.

It is Asgore and Toriel holding his hands on the war field, and the dinner they invited him to. And the successfully running core, the anime that Alphys shared with him. Perhaps it is Wing telling him to smile more. It is Papyrus’ hug, is the smiling faces that the baby skeletons had shown when they saw him.

Gaster seemed to hear the sound of tears falling. He opened his eyes and saw mild green light, some power he had lost was calling for reviving, although it was still very little, it kept growing.

There was a warm feeling in his chest, like the resonance of the soul.

200

Strange today, Papyrus thought, the lab was too quiet.

The little skeletons walked to the door of the laboratory, where they found the reason why no one had made a sound.

Gaster lay on the bench, and Wing turned into a black blanket covering him. The two scientists was in the deep sleep, like they just ended a long war.

Two groups of intact artificial hand bones were placed on the operating table.

Test record:

Plan 513 succeeded.

To rule out chance factor and make sure, additional experiments (20/20):

All succeeded.

#handplates #wing!gaster #gaster #wingdingses #dearest wingdings

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ianmrid · 5 years

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Pokémon!

I think it is fair to say that there aren't any pokémon in the first three generations that I dislike, but I did find my Hoenn list a little harder to create than either Kanto or Johto. I think this is partly down to there simply being a large amount of new pokémon in Hoenn (135). In addition, there were more Gen 3 games which meant more final teams with which to bond. Still, I managed to narrow it down to my Top Ten. As before, I included both the original Gen3 standard sprite as well as the shiny sprite - not that I caught any shinies, despite over 100 hours of game-play! #notbitter

10. Altaria

Number 10 on this list was a very difficult choice, with Altaria just about edging out some of my other favourites, such as Zigzagoon, Medicham, and Hairyama. I think I like Altaria because it is just such a weird-looking Dragon-type pokémon! It shares a typing - dual Dragon- and Flying-type - with Salamence, which is all cool and tough, whereas Altaria is some sort of cheery-looking cloud duck. It is more of a defensive pokémon - with Defence and Special Defense stats and although it has a quad-weakness to Ice-type attacks, this is offset with a resistance to the core Grass-, Fire-, and Water-types, as well as a very useful immunity to Ground. This came in very handy as my Altaria, Floof, was a part of my XD: Gale of Darkness team. This meant it was primarily fighting in the doubles format where Earthquake is very prevalent!

09. Swellow

The standard Normal- and Flying-type regional bird of Hoenn, I'm a big fan of Swellow. It is a little frail, but it is lightning quick and can hit pretty hard due to it's excellent ability, Guts. Guts increases the Attack stat by 50% whenever the pokémon has a status condition, turning a respectable Attack into a very powerful one. My Swellow, Amazon (because of Swallows and Amaons, geddit?), was on my Ruby team and came in clutch many times with the move Aerial Ace - a move that cannot miss. Swellow was a big part of Ash's team in the animé, another reason I really like it as a pokémon - especially for the battle between Ash and Winona, the Flying-type Gym Leader. This gym battle came down to Ash's Swellow vs. Winona's shiny Swellow and was definitely one of the more memorable clashes. I really like the colours on shiny Swellow and I would love to get my hands on one, one day, although I think I still prefer the classic red and blue plumage of the original.

08. Vigaroth

Something a little unusual in my eighth slot: a middle-stage evolution. Usually the middle-stages of any pokémon line get a little overlooked. The first stage is usually extremely cute and the final stage is super-powerful and cool, leaving the middle-stage as a weird htbrid of the two that never quite works. However, Hoenn seems to manage pretty well with the middle-stages - the starters have Combusken and Grovyle who are both excellent, although the less said about Marshtomp the better. The Slakoth line is another three-stage evolution line, and I used my Slaking, Naps, on my final Emerald team. Although Slaking is extremely powerful, it is let down by the awful ability, Truant, that is shares with Slakoth - causing it to skip every other turn due to 'loafing around'. Vigaroth on the otherhand, represents relentless energy with it's ability, Vital Spirit, preventing it from ever being put to sleep. Much more fun! Also I prefer it's design to Slaking's creepy old man in rcline pose.

07. Cradily

I didn't really realise until looking at my Gen3 graphs, that I hadn't used either the Rock- or Grass-types at all in Gen2. Well, with that exact dual typing they are back in Gen3 and into a spot on my favourites list. Like Altaria, Cradily is another weird-looking pokémon that at first glance looks rather derpy, until you realise the eye-like spots on it's head are just markings and it's actual eyes peer out from the dark inside it's head. Way more sinister, although that is offset a little by the dildo-like tendrills waving about everywhere - although they did earn my Emerald team member the nickname Craydildo (ther shouldn't be a 'y' in the name - I just always spell Cradily's name incorrectly). Cradily isn't the most useful pokémon as it is built to be defensive but without many resistances, however mine still worked well as a primarily special wall, although it has a good defense as well. It was my first go at using substitute as a way to defend while using stat raising moves like Amnesia and Ancient Power to boost both the mergre damage it could do and it's already solid defences. Cradily's pink shiny is also very nice - many of my favs this generation has fair better in shiny design that last time out!

06. Grumpig

Being a big fan of pigs, Spoink or Grumpig were always going tot get onto this list. I like Spoink, but it has some weird in-game lore about the fact it can never stop bouncing or it's heart will stop, which is a bit creepy and doesn't make sense, even in the pokémon world. I definitely prefer Grumpig, and I'm a huge fan of both the normal purple and shiny yellow - it's definitely another pokémon that I would love to shiny hunt one day. On top of all that, my Grumpig, WYSIPIG, saved me from a humilating defeat against Wally late in the game. I was under-prepared and his Gardevoir would have destroyed me if I hadn't had also had Calm Mind and a super-effective Shadow Ball on Grumpig. That alone would have been worth a place on this list!

05. Kyogre

Another unusual sight on one of my lists: a Legendary Pokémon! Although I didn't actually use Kyogre on any of my teams, it is still one of my favourite pokémon in Gen3. It is a massive blue Orca whale with weather summoning abilities - what is not to like? I think it's design is very cool indeed, and it's shiny is also OK - although I am a bit bored of blue pokémon that turn a hot pink for their shiny colouration. I would love to have Kyogre on a team one day - although it is way too over-powered for a standrd play-through since it has phenomenal stats and wuld absolutely destroy most opposition. However is I one day put together a team just for battling then it would bee an ideal fit!

04. Wingull

Wingull is probably a bit of an usual choice for this list a I think most people just consider it pretty unremarkable early-game pokémon, and they wouldn't really be wrong. However I am a big fan of this evolution line as I really like Pelipper also. Their designs are kinda basic, but still appealing and theh dual Water- and Flying type is not bad if you can play around the quad weakness to Electric. The shinies are also decent - the blue parts on both Wingull and Pelipper trning a nice green instead. But I think the real reason I like them both so much, is that I associate them with travelling somewhere new. When I travel in real life, I love seeing the new wildlife in an area that really underlines that you are somewhere else in the world - and birds are often the first things that I notice in this regard. In the animé, when Ash travels to Hoenn, the boat is surrouned by Wingull and Peiipper which did a really good job of capturing that same feeling which means I will always love this pokémon family!

03. Ludicolo

Much like Miltank in Gen2 - and indeed at the same spot in it's respective list - Ludicolo is one of those pokémon that I wanted to own because I hated playing against it. The Water- and Grass-typing is so useful as it's weaknesses - Flying, Poison, and Bug - are not that commonly encountered. They can also keep themselves healthy by carrying leftovers and using the Rain Dish ability which restores health in the rain. On top of this, Ludicolo is nicely balanced with good SpDef and SpAtt so if you aren't prepared with a strategy to take them out they can really hurt. One of my favourite opponents in Colosseum and XD, a disco-themed guy called Miror B who has a giant afro coloured like a pokéball - uses entire teams of Ludicolo which gave me a lot of trouble. Design-wise, it is yet another weird looking pokémon that is a kinda cross between a duck and a pinapple with a few Mexican stereotypes thrown in for good(?) measure. It's shiny is also great with the sight colour changes giving it a more tropical look - ideal for the Hoenn region. I just love it!

02. Sableye

This entry is proof that using a pokémon can really change your opinion of it. Before plaing Pokémon XD, I would never have expected Sableye to get anywhere near my top ten, let alone the number two slot! I only chose it because I wanted a Ghost-type for my double battles since it would be immune to Explosion either from my side or the opponents, and this was incredibly useful. This alone improved my Sableye views, along with the fact that it has no weaknesses with the unique Ghost- and Dark-typing. I always liked the design well enough, but seeing it in XD - a game which has 3D models rather than the basic 2D sprites of the main series - really sealed the deal. I loved how tiny it was, and how it moved so creepily! If it han't been quite so frail, there would have been a good chance of it making the top spot!

01. Mudkip

This is the first time a starter pokémon has made number one in one of these lists - although Bulbsaaur and Cyndaquil came close. Mudkip is adorably derpy and is the face that launched a thousand pokémon memes, plus it is a line that eventually evolves into Water- and Ground-type, which I've often said before, is one of my favourite combinations. However, unlike the Cyndaquil and Bulbasaur lines - where I like Quilava, Typholsion, Ivysaur, and Venusaur a lot as well - my Mudkip love is mostly focused on the first stage evolution. The middle-stage Marshtomp is very odd-looking, but not in an appealing way, and the final-stage Swampert is pretty cool, but for some reason just doesn't quite click with me. It's definitely Mudkip all the way here - although I definitely prefer the original blue as it is yet another Water-type that turns a pinky-purple - boring! To summarise; you herd I liek Mudkipz.

And that is that! Generation 3 was an absolute epic to complete; more than doubling my time spent, the total cost, and the number of games played once all of the side games and remakes were accounted for. It also meant way more blogs were needed to document everything and even the animé felt very extended! On top of all that, with so many more final teams, there was a lot more art to commission to celebrate each group. I'll be posting these in one big go once they are all completed, but for now, with Hoenn, the Kanto re-makes, and Orre all finally in the books, I can look ahead to Generation 4: Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum!

#pokemon #pokemon playthrough #e plays pokemon #nintendo #game freak #generation 3 #top ten #hoenn

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eorzeasntm · 5 years

Photo

ENTM Tumblr Cycle 11

Round 8: Spring Fever

Hi folks! Our last round for this cycle - and on this platform - was a celebration of the warm weather and beautiful spring flowers. I asked our models to go out and take a pastel shot with some pretty spring plants. Our models all showed off their joy for the season, but the most joyous this round was:

Kota Tumet

Congratulations! The judges all loved how serene this shot was - truly the embodiment of a warm spring day.

Our guest judge this week was Twilight Dove of ENTM, the runner up of YouTube Cycle 2. Thanks Twilight!

The winner of ENTM Tumblr Cycle 11 will be announced in the NEXT POST.

In the meantime, for all our models, we have critiques and parting comments from our judges below the fold.

Judge Twilight

Adam Evershot: This shot feels a bit like I'm having a romantic spring stroll through a glade with a Prince Charming. I really enjoy the depth of the shot with you (or us?) walking toward the forest, but I wish that there was a clearer destination in those trees. The hint of the building just off to the side is a nice touch, but I wish it were a little less obscured by the foliage near the camera. I do think you've done a good job giving us a gentle action shot, and the overall feel of it makes your choice to be facing away from the camera work in your favor.

Kota Tumet: What a lovely screen shot! You look so serene, I can almost smell the flowers and feel the gentle breeze just looking at you! Great job, this shot really says "spring"!

Ni'ko Shae: I'm surprised you were the only one to take a photo in the rain! You're very on brand with your choice to take a photo with the purple flowers of the Sylphlands, I do feel like the background might be a bit too busy, and the lights behind you are a tiny bit distracting, but you placed yourself well in the frame and you lit yourself in a way that helps you stand out even though you're dressed nearly entirely in purple as well. Good job!

Peaceful Ursa: The softness of this photo helps make the bright, saturated colors feel more springy when they could have otherwise threatened to be a bit more on the summer side. I'm not sure how I feel about your choice to use the ripped paper border, it feels a bit distracting having such a jagged edge when everything in your picture is soft, it would be nice to have seen a version of this without the border or with a more pastel color filter to make the border a little less of a stark contrast. Your glamour is very pretty (My favorite glam of the round!) and fits in with your surroundings nicely without letting you fall into the background, nicely done!

Luma Lee: The colors in this picture are so nice, and I love the framing with the flowers and tree! My one gripe is that I feel that you're so far to the right that the left side of the screen feels a little empty. I really do like how this image feels though, like you're so happy to be looking at these flowers under a warm spring sky, good job this week!

Yojimbo Kasai: This photo is calm in a way that says spring to me, but the colors and the lack of any flowers or obviously green foliage make it feel a little cold. I'm torn between feeling like this image is early spring, or a warm summer's day, I really wish there was some more foliage around to really drive that spring vibe home for me. Your pose and the way you're framed in the picture are nice though, it makes me feel like pulling up a lawn chair and joining you in what I imagine is a very pleasant afternoon nap!

Yomu Kazul: Spring is the season of love, and that is what your picture looks to be all about! I love the concept of the botanist being seduced by the spring nymph, its a unique take on the theme and you did a good job with it. Your position is obviously front and center with your extra blending in with the scenery nicely without completely disappearing, the colors are nicely balanced, and you're both framed well in the shot. Nice job!

Haila Wetyios: The colors in this shot are very nice and vibrant, and your choice to use red was bold and sets you apart from most of the other contestants! When it comes to your pose and position in the frame, I like that it feels like you're welcoming the viewer to your spring garden, but I wish you'd positioned yourself in a more intentional looking way, right now you're inhabiting the space between center and 1/3d and it feels a little awkward to me. I like that you set up your garden for this shot and made sure it felt springy, and I feel like with a little bit of fiddling around with your surroundings and your position you'd have an even nicer image on your hands.

Judge Ona

Haila, my love! How beautiful you look in this image! Surrounded by such lush vegetation and greenery! You absolutely fit the role of Balmung’s flower lady! I absolutely love the variety of color and the outfit choice as well!

Things to consider: If you’re going to do a dead centered shot, make sure its exactly centered, otherwise it can just create just enough of a feeling of disquiet causing the image to appear weaker. Also, having the roses next to you with just a tiny bit of blurring, would have made you stand out much more.

Things I love: Your glamour is spot on for a spring scenic theme. I also love how you created a scene that highlights so many beautiful colors, and still allows you to be the focus of the image. The time spent to create the scene has helped to fit your own narrative, while also following the theme of the round.

Haila, it was wonderful to be able to be on this side of the table for this round of Tumblr and to be able to give you my critiques on your beautiful images.

Peaceful: You look absolutely adorable here Peaceful. I want to be sitting next to you smelling those wonderful flowers. I hate to say it, but you are the definition of Peaceful here.

Things to consider: When given the prompt of scenic, it is ok to include more of the background and have yourself be less of the focus. That being said, your use of the frame here, takes away from the overall image, and really the image would have been stronger without it. I would also caution you to use the sharpening tool wisely, as you are blurrier than the foreground flowers. This, unfortunately caused you to be less of the focus, putting the focus on the flowers and not you.

Things I love: I love how you dyed your clothes to match the color of the flowers. I also love your pose and expression. It really creates that calming feeling that I feel spring flowers deserve. Lastly, kneeling in front of the tree added an additional level of texture and dimension to the image.

Thank you for turning in such beautiful images this cycle and really taking a chance with your big Roe self. I have enjoyed following your progress and hope to compete against you in the future.

Yomu: When I first looked at your image, I was utterly confused. What is this 70’s show scene doing here and why is Yomu love drunk. Then I saw the girl in the background. I guess you’re taking after Bambi and are officially twitterpated.

Things to consider: Your extra blends in a lot. Because of this, I didn’t understand your emote. If the viewer isn’t analyzing the image, it may not be as strong as it could be. I would also try to keep all glam consistent, especially if you’re going for a theme in your image. Maybe try to put your extra in the same clothing style as your character next time.

Things I love: Your glam. You picked such a difficult theme to get right, but you pulled it off. And honestly, I have NEVER seen anyone use this hair style! The location is beautiful, and it definitely fits the overall Scenic Spring feel

Yomu, it has been so wonderful being able to see your images improve through the competition. I would love to see you try another cycle and continue to improve your images!

Ni’Ko: Another beautiful image Ni’ko, and finally a chance for you to use that signature color of yours. I would have expected nothing less of you then to find the most purple field and take the most purple picture you could get.

Things to consider: You have this very obvious purple theme, yet are wearing bright green pants. The blue butterfly seems a bit out of place as well. It blends too much, while also being this completely odd color that doesn’t quite match the rest of the image.

Things I love: Your pose is perfect for a cat who actually enjoys the rain. I also love that you chose rain showers for your image. Although we think of bright cheery flowers for the spring, we need to remember the importance of the rain through the spring and. I also love how you chose to do this image at night. It is definitely a different approach to Springtime then the other models. It was an excellent choice to say the least!

As you already know Ni’ko, it has been a pleasure to be your judge this cycle, and I cannot wait to compete against you in future rounds!

Judge Nadede

Adam Evershot: What wouldn’t be spring without a walk out in nature, taking in the fresh air of spring and seeing everything growing back anew. It is one of my favorite parts of spring actually. While a lovely shot, I feel that it is a bit on the overlit side, possibly due to a combination of outdoor lighting, filter and any extra lighting (if any) you used. You’ll just have to play around via trial and error to get the lighting to where it doesn’t look too washed out. That said, I do wish that there was some form of rim lighting used, especially around your head as it blends in with the tree and rock in the background. Nice job all-in-all and very glad to see you improving big time from last cycle to this.

Luma Lee: One thing that I enjoy about spring, all the pretty flowers that are in bloom. Not too bad of a job from you this week. The bottom half of your image, the lighting I feel is nicely done. The top half though is blown out from the sun being right over you, giving you that blinding flash of light in your image that is a bit distracting. From how your shot is set up, I feel as if though something should be in the foreground, like a minion or a bug that you’re trying to find in the flowers. Something like that would have given your image more of a story to tell. Just something to keep in mind, how can I tell a story within my image? Overall though, you’ve shown improvement throughout the cycle and feel that you’ve taken in from feedback given. Good job.

Yomu Kazul: Looking at your image, I was trying to figure out as to why you seem head over heels in love. Took quite a few times looking at your image and then I saw her, the forest nymph (?) in the background. It is an interesting play on the theme “Spring Fever” as it looks as if you are feverishly in love. Lighting around you I feel is pretty good. I do wish that your nymph had some lighting around her so that she didn’t blend in so well with grass. It took me a bit to even see her and wish I could’ve seen her sooner. Overall I think you did pretty well this week and throughout the cycle. You seemed pretty consistent in my book. Great work.

Kota Tumet: Such a lovely portrait of you this week. Your lighting, glamour, filter and pose compliments each other very well this week. Even the DoF (depth of field) is nicely done. This would be the epitome of what springtime means to me as it is something I try to do when possible (next to spring walks).Sitting outside, soaking in the sun with sketchbook, a good book in hand or have just music playing. I can say compared to your image from week 1 until now, all I can see is a vast improvement on your shots (I was blown away from last week’s image btw). Should be proud of yourself and keep up the great work.

Judge Terrini

Adam: This is a very pleasant stroll through the shroud and you have great framing here. I do have a couple of nitpicks here, one being the tower in the distance being a little hard to see, it would have a bit more impact if you could have had that a bit more prominent, the other thing being that your chosen filter seems to leave the shot's colors a bit uninspired. Something that made the colors pop more would have suited the warm colors in my opinion. It may have also brought out the yellow of your hair more instead of let your head fade a little into the background.

Haila: You seem to be all out into spring planting and I like that impression. The colors are really bright and bold but I would have liked to see you a bit more involved with the garden setting than simply being "welcome to my home." Also the choice of orange-red in your outfit makes the orange-red autumn trees in the background a bit more prominent and underwhelms the spring theme. A bolder red to match the roses or a more pastel or neutral color would have tied things together and downplayed the hint of autumn behind you.

Kota: Such a pastoral place to sit down and relax. I love the garden you found to take a seat in so much, but I think it might have been nice to have an outfit that was a slightly more pronounced pink or even a blue to tie in with the sky as you do fade a bit into the beautiful scenery. Besides that though, definitely a very strong shot overall. Lovely composition.

Yojimbo: I love this pose and the trees surrounding you are quite lovely, but the colors and contrasts do not leave me thinking spring. The abundance of white is more reminiscent of winter, the blue striped lounge is a hint of summer and the brown of your outfit seems more akin to fall. On top of this, your depth of field is focused on your torso when it would be best suited to be more focused on your face and arm in the forground. Individually I love all the elements here, but they do not come together well to fit the spring theme.

Judge Wulf

Well, you did it! You’ve reached the end of an ENTM cycle! I’m very happy and proud of all of you, and while I’m not fully able to give a personal message to each of you, I want you each to know how proud I am of you for following critiques, growing, and improving! You’ve made this another fun cycle for me to judge, and I can’t wait to see where you all go from here!

LUMA The first thing I really want to praise you for here how very in-focus the foreground is, and how much having those close-up plants really enhances the picture! The lighting is so bright here, and that’s a wonderful thing to communicate the feeling of spring. I feel warm and fuzzy all over just looking at this picture, and I’d say it’s one of your best so far! The up angle you have along with you crouching down makes me feel like I’m seeing this from the POV of a caterpillar or flower. I’m very happy with how far you’ve come throughout this cycle, and I want you to keep exploring new and creative ways to tell your story!

NI’KO You always have a knack for turning a theme on its head and showing me what I least expect, and this week is no exception! Yes, everything is dark and lacking the usual colors that one associates with spring, but in this picture? I am totally on board with it! The butterfly really stands out as a color contrast against everything else in the picture, including you! It’s a clash I can’t take my eyes off, and I’m willing to bet that’s the point! Also, after so much change, you’ve chosen to come to the final round in your signature Ni’ko look, which I certainly missed! Keep bringing your unique ideas to whatever you do I look forward to how you surprise us in the future!

PEACEFUL I love this frame – so much. It makes anything look like it was taken out of an old storybook. You do an excellent job with using this frame to create interesting edges to your photo. Your photo itself this week is also one of your strongest. You’ve clearly been listening when it comes to lighting, motion, and angles! One thing I super love about your photo this week is how you’ve made yourself compliment your surroundings – the purples and blues on you really serve to blend yourself in with the lavender around you! Peaceful, you’ve really improved over these past eight rounds, and I can’t wait to see you go further! Remember all you’ve learned this cycle, and make sure you keep trying new things!

YOJIMBO I can hear the soft piano and the breeze that accompanies this picture. I also think I hear the ocean, given a bit of your attire! Seriously, this picture is so relaxing! You very much take up most of the frame, but you’ve got a lot of little details on the edges that clue us into the full picture of what’s going on here. The blue sky, the corner of the umbrella, the tree branches, and the little bit of bench all come together and we fill the rest of it in with our mind. This is a good example of not needing to show everything, only what’s necessary. You’ve done an excellent job this cycle, and I hope you stick with us and keep showing us what you’ve got!

#ffxiv #ffxiv screenshots #entm #eorzea's neo talent management #entm tumblr cycle 11

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zachsgamejournal · 3 years

Text

COMPLETED: Mega Man Legends

Move over Sahelanthropus, I got all the walking mechs I need right here.

This game is great!

I BEAT IT!

I think it took about 8 hours (not counting a few reload/restarts here an there). While a few of the games I’ve played recently also took around the same amount of time, I kept feeling...frustrated about my progress. Mega Man Legends, on the other-hand, was a constant joy to play! I’m so blown away by how great this 1997 game is. I could gush over it all day, but Imma try to be focused...

The Story

This is where the game started off light and unimpressive, but ultimately turned out quite well. The story felt very basic: “The world needs crystal energy (refracters), and I play a ‘Digger’ that looks for them be exploring ancient ruins. But while I’m a well-meaning digger, there are ill-meaning pirates to worry about.” While the story wasn’t much, it did present the story very cinematically. The cutscenes told the story the gameplay couldn’t, but they didn’t overwhelm the player like Metal Gear Solid.

The player eventually crash-lands on an island with a city and lots of people. The player may speak with these people, even performing sidequests and developing relationships. The characters aren’t super deep, but they all have some personality and story. It helps build the charm of this world. I really appreciated it.

The antagonists are a family of pirate siblings. Tron Bonne is interesting in that she’s a bit of a brat, but has affections for Mega Man. She’s also moved by his heroism and genuineness. She finds herself emotionally conflicted between her older brother who insists on being “bad” and her feelings for Mega Man that shows there’s a better way to live. Though this is mostly used for comedic effect, it also makes her the most interesting and well-rounded character. At one point, Mega Man thinks he may have killed the pirates (including Tron) in a major battle. The heroes treat this as an unintended tragedy, and do not rejoice in their victory (I love it!), then later, Mega Man finds Tron alive is over-the-moon. She’s put off by it, but conflicted. After Mega Man defeats the trio again, the eldest brother, Tiesel, offers his honorable recognition of Mega Man’s superiority and offers to leave in peace. Tron is surprised and touched, but then it turns out to be a ploy.

It’s all pretty silly but still engaging character development.

The game’s story contains quite a bit of mystery. Why are Reaverbots activating? What’s hidden beneath the island? What’s the connection? It’s revealed that these ancient ruins (which are from a more advanced civilization) actually contain a weapon. This weapon feels that humans are over-populating and that it should purge the island as a population control effort. Mega Man finds this cruel and stops it. In the process, it’s revealed that Mega Man has a deep connection to system that wanted to purge the island. It’s hinted that he may serve some deeper purpose: maybe to act as the moral compass of unfeeling, ant-human protocol? The message I got was that humans destroyed the earth, causing a great flood and societal/technological collapse. So then machines were created to limit human influence, but their purpose is so old and outdated, it’s become an artifact itself.

There’s a fun twist here where Mega Man is captured. But the pirates realize that it’s more important to save the island than defeat Mega Man, so they release him and support his victory against the boss.

It’s still not super deep, but much deeper than I realized. And with all the various characters and personalities, it’s one of the best story experiences I’ve had in a game (though a bit goofy).

The Graphics

Are great! There’s a few issues. I think PS1 games pre-1998 had a different look and feel than post 1998 (and then again, post 2000). It feels like early game artists were still trying to figure out 3D modeling with limited hardware. So a lot of the best known tricks hadn’t been discovered yet. So MML definitely has a few Pre-1997 qualities, but it also has plenty of areas where it really looks great.

The savior is the cartoon-styled graphics. Most characters have solid-color clothes and accessories with few details. Because the art is consistent throughout, it just feels right. And then the facial animations are great. Games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and Metal Gear Solid had in-game cutscenes, but the characters’ faces were unanimated. Sometimes they’d bob their heads to imply speaking--but it was all kinda goofy. MML, on the other hand, included moving mouths and changing face expressions during cutscenes. It really sold the cinematic vibe and is quite impressive for PS1 game.

So even though technical limitations really prevent this game from looking great, the art-direction and advanced facial animations keep this game looking great!

The Gameplay

1. Controls

Unfortunately, the controls kind of suck. Mega Man controls somewhat like a tank. A tank that can move side ways. While games like Mario 64 had free 3D movement with a camera that tried to keep up--MML has a camera that stays firmly facing forward that only rotates when the player rotates MM.

It’s a little off-putting. If I push “down”, MM runs toward the screen: completely facing the opposite direction of the camera. In most 3D platformers, the camera would try to rotate behind the character. Not MM. It keeps facing the same direction. When I stop moving, MM turns back to face the same direction as the camera.

I think they were trying to make shooting and combat easier. And I think their head was in the right place. But it makes the game hard to learn. Still, once you get used to it, it works ok. This is the worst part of the game, but the difficulty is well balanced that I don’t feel punished by the controls.

2. Combat

The combat isn’t super deep, but that also means it’s not overbearing. The combat feels more like Crash Bandicoot, with each enemy having an attack pattern that must be learned and subverted. But mostly, you just got to know when to shoot it. So it keeps the combat accessible while also interesting and mentally challenging. This is better than a lot of American Shooters that just have you fight a variety of projectile based enemies--run, dodge, shoot...

Adding depth to the combat is a cool customizable Buster (gun). You can collect a variety of parts that boost Attack, Range, Attack Speed, and “Reload”. Some parts affect more than 1 stat, allowing the player to try a variety of combinations to boost their effectiveness and compliment their play-style. You may also change configurations based on the boss or enemy type. It’s a simple, and fun system that adds plenty of depth to what could have been a straightforward action title.

What’s also neat about these parts: they’re often rewards for side-quests. Such quests might be rebuilding a clubhouse, participating in game shows, or finding a lost loved-one. It’s great because it provides a lot of bonus quests for the player that meaningful and rewarding both as an experience and on a material level.

The boss fights are also pretty interesting, assuming you’re properly equipped. They can be a bit challenging or confusing, but they’re quite diverse. Maybe you’re defending the town from bull-dozer bots, or engaged in air-to-air battles, there’s plenty of unique experiences. I was especially impressed with the walking-mech battle. I think there’s another boss just as tall, but this involved a very destructible city block. It reminded me of the Sahelanthropus battle of Metal Gear Solid V...or does that battle remind me of this? Either way--it was just more icing on top of a great experience.

3. Adventure/Pacing

I like to differentiate between action and action-adventure. Action, to me, is very linearity and to the point. Action adventure often asks the player to do more than fight their way to the exit, but to discover the path to the exit. Even better, they allow the player to discover much of the game--allowing for maximized freedom in progress.

Zelda Games are often the best examples of letting the player set their own pace and find their own way. Ocarina of Time is a true stand-out here. The game doesn’t tell you want to do, but pushes you in the right directions. Still, you’re not often limited to one set order of events to proceed and can do some quests in any order. Mega Man Legends does this as well.

Once you get past the first hour or so, the game really opens up. There’s people to talk to, secrets to find, and there’s rarely a rush to complete the next objective. You’re free to grind for resources and buy that gun upgrade, or just push through--relying purely on your skill to overcome challenges. But what really makes the game like this work is the “down time”.

Dark Forces 2, Mysteries of the Sith, and Jedi Outcast are fun action games--but there’s only one thing to do: fight your way to the end. Even if there’s sub-objectives to the over-all level, there’s no freedom. While several Mega Man battles take place in the town, the city is usually a place of no combat. But there’s plenty to do, secrets to find, and characters to interact with. And once a dungeon has been defeated, it’s nice to go back and look for secrets or grind. It makes the game way more diverse and I feel more in control as a player.

This is really important. Because the Star Wars games (and even Thief) are sooo straightforward and 1-dimensional, I get fatigued very quickly. And seeing as I like to beat a game before moving on, I get frustrated. I feel like these games are in the way of me finding happiness. Not a good reason to play games. But MML made me happy to play it. Even if I didn’t feel like taking on the next dungeon, I could do side quests or grind on an easier dungeon and not feel like I’ve wasted time. It all helps me succeed in the future. And that gives me joy.

Mega Man Legends is joy!

I started this game way back in 1997 or 1998, and I restarted it many times since. This was the first time I beat it, and I love it--absolutely. Likely a top 10 game for me. I hope to add this to my rotation of games to replay till the end of my days--but then again, I’m curious if Mega Man Legends 2 will outshine it??

#Zach's Game Journal #COMPLETED #Mega Man Legends #PlayStation #PS1 #PS1 games #Video Games #Gaming #DuckStation #Emulation

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anshitachoudhury · 3 years

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Technical review of Intel 11th-Gen Core i9-11900K and Core i5-11600K

Intel’s 11th Gen Core S-series desktop processors, code-named Rocket Lake-S are now in the wild. I was sent an Intel Core i9-11900K and a Core i5-11600K so I could put them through their paces. Intel also supplied an ASUS Republic of Gamers Maximus XIII Hero motherboard with the new Z590 chipset to test the new CPUs.

Intel’s 11th Gen CPUs still utilise 14nm silicon the same as their predecessors. As with the 9th and 10th generation of Intel CPUs, the Rocket Lake chips use an LGA 1200 socket. Except for the H410 and B460-based boards, they are also compatible with last year’s 400-series chipset motherboards (subject to bios updates). This means that you can likely slot a new i5 or i9 in as a replacement for your 10th Gen CPU. But should you?

The “K” suffix denotes that the CPU is unlocked and suitable for overclocking. There’s a premium for this over the locked version of the CPU over the regular version. The KH versions of the chips are the same as the K versions but without the Intel Xe-LP-based UHD integrated GPU. There’s some money to be saved if you are not interested in overclocking or the on-board graphics capabilities.

Whilst owners of select 400-series motherboards can run Intel’s Rocket Lake CPUs, to get the very best out of them, you’ll likely be looking to pair them with a motherboard boasting Intel’s new 500-series chipset. You really can’t beat ASUS motherboards and the Z590 ROG Maximus XIII Hero is no exception. Whilst in the past I’ve had issues with them, that was a long time ago. Nowadays ASUS produces motherboards that are both virtually plug and play, but also feature the advanced settings required of seasoned overclockers and PC tinkerers. The easy-to-use UEFI BIOS menu puts control of the inner workings of a PC right at hand. AI overclocking can still give mixed results, but for most will give a performance boost without much in the way of overclocking knowledge, but more on that later.

The big selling points of the ASUS Z590 board are native PCIe 4.0 support, 2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) ports, and a header for a front USB USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, as well as Wi-Fi 6E. It’s also got two m.2 slots running at PCIe 4.0 x4 and another two running PCIe 4.0 x4. Setup was relatively painless, with the Asus motherboard pretty much self-configuring to the 11th Generation processors. I tested both the CPUs using Passmark’s Performance Test software (CPU only), Cinebench R23, 3DMark (CPU score only) and the Blender benchmark. I didn’t check any games, as they only really benchmark the GPU performance.

The benchmark results were all rather predictable showing notable gains for the i9-11900K over last year’s i9-10900K, with the more modest Core i5-11600K doing a good of catching up, at the rear. I was surprised to see the Core i5 11600K beat the i9-10900K in all but one of the Blench benchmarks. The i5-111600K performed will in the single-core Cinebench test as well, again beating the i9-10900K. Interestingly, for the i9-11900K, Intel has dropped the core count from the ten of the i9-10900K to only eight. This is likely a limitation of the 14nm fabrication process. Even so, the 11th Gen i9 beat the 10th Gen i9 15226 to 14043 in the Cinebench R23 multi-core test.

The Core i9-11900K base clock rate is 3.5GHz with an all-core turbo of 4.8 GHz and a max boost via turbo Boost 3.0 to 5.2GHz. The Core i5-11600K has a base clock rate of 3.90 GHz with an all-core turbo of 4.6 GHz and a max boost of 4.90 GHz. Realistically, this means that providing the CPUs are running at less than 70 degrees C, for two cores you may see that max boost (utilising Intel Thermal Velocity Boost), but as soon as there are more than two active cores the frequency will reduce (across all active cores) to 4.8 GHz for the i9 and 4.6 GHz for the six-core i5.

Stress testing both CPUs, I managed to get the i9 to 5.1 GHz but suffered some thermal throttling. It’s a warm chip like its predecessor. I was using a 2x120mm AIO cooler, nothing flash, so I wasn’t too surprised by this. It would be good, however, if Intel were a little clearer and realistic with their marketing, though. With some tweaking, I’ll likely be able to get more out of i9, but that’s outside the scope of this review. The i5 boosted to 4.90 GHz without issue.

Both the CPUs also have native support for DDR4-3200 memory. With a 500-Series motherboard, they support up to 20 CPU lanes of PCIe 4.0. A motherboard with an Intel 500-series chipset, once equipped with an 11th Gen Intel CPU, unlocks the PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 socket (one of four M.2 sockets on the ROG Maximus board). I was able to install a WD_Black SN850 NVMe SSD and get a rather spectacular 6966.76 MB/s Read and a 5368.31 MB/s write speed. Compare this to the rather pedestrian 130 MB/s read and 65 MB/s write for a regular hard disk. I did have a little dabble with the ASUS AI overclocking tool accessible from the Maximus XII motherboard bios. I’ve had a lot of success carrying out quick and nasty overclocks using earlier iterations of this tool. Despite running the Intel Extreme Performance tool to train it, the Asus board’s AI overclocking decided that for the i9 11900K a 51% overclock was in order. This proved unstable and in need of a bit more messing about than I had time for. I’m sure I can get a stable OC, but perhaps not 51% with a moderate AIO cooler. The i5’s AI overclock was a more modest 31%, but still not stable. I’m not saying that overclocking is out of the question with these CPUs, but a better cooler or some fan adjustments may be needed.

The on-board UHD 750 GPU, whilst not in the same league as a discreet gaming graphics card like an RTX 3070, is not bad if you are not interested in hardcore gaming. The UHD 750 scored a very modest 635 graphics score in 3D Mark Timespy compared to the score of 3724 with a five-year-old GTX 1060 GPU. In theory, though, you could play something like Battlefield V, but I wouldn’t expect to be able to get much more than 30 fps out of it, even with the graphics turned down. For something like Photoshop or even video editing software, you should be able to get by with the UHD 750, if not exactly the optimal experience. More demanding graphics applications really need a dedicated graphics solution. If you have no need for the integrated graphics, getting the KF version of the CPU, that has no on-board GPU, will save you 50 bucks or so.

With an RTX 2080 Ti plus a Gen 4 WD_Black SN850 NVMe SDD in the motherboard, Passmark gave both the i5 and i9 configurations a 99-percentile result, putting them in the top 1% of machines tested. This is something that’s not to be sneezed at. Whilst this is all very exciting stuff, as a consumer, I can’t help but think that this technology is being deliberately trickled out to fuel an annual iteration of motherboards with noteworthy if moderate, enhancements.

To be honest there’s nothing here that says that the average PC user needs to replace their computer more frequently than every five years. Even PC gamers should be OK for three years, with only the most dedicated requiring an upgrade every two years. Apart from bragging rights, there is no need to upgrade your PC components annually.

Intel’s 11th-Gen CPUs and the Z500-series chipset are engineered to offer enough to differentiate between last year’s PC models and this year’s. If you are in the market for a new PC the Z590’s connectivity alone, especially the native PCIe 4.0, is worth the investment. But, if you are still rocking a Z490 and a 10th-Gen CPU, you are not really going to get the bang for your buck.

There’s no doubt that both the Intel Core i9-11900K and Core i5-11600K are fantastic CPUs if only a modest upgrade from last year’s components. I’d say that the i9 is reserved for enthusiasts, with the i5 being more suited to general PC tasks and even high-end gaming. Nevertheless, if only for the benefits of the 500-series motherboard chipset opened up by the 11th Gen, these are the CPUs for those that want the best desktop solutions that Intel has to offer.

#MAKAUT #MARPOINTS #MARACTIVITY #MAKAUT_UNIVERSITY #MAKAUT_MAR #MAKAUT_ACTIVITY #TECHNICALREVIEW #makaut_mar_point

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womenofcolor15 · 4 years

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The Oscars Were Pretty Dry, But The Afterparty & Watch Party Scene HIT – The Wades, The Wests, The Wilsons, Klay & Laura, Kerry, Tracee, Tessa, Lena & MORE!

In case the Oscars didn’t do it for you, the afterparty scene was super LIT. Go inside to see how your faves Kanye & Kim West, Gabby & D.Wade, Ciara & Russell Wilson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Tessa Thompson, Lena Waithe and tons more hit the afterparty scene….

This year’s Oscars ceremony was REAL white, dry and unseasoned.

However, the afterparty scene was lit with melanin and celebs def brought their A+ fashion game to Vanity Fair’s annual Oscars afterparty - hosted by Radhika Jones - held at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. All the “IT” folks were there to mix, mingle and have fun.

OK...we see Gabrielle Union and her hubby Dwyane Wade coordinated their party 'fits.

Rocking a spring-inspired floral look, the former “AGT” judge slipped on a white strapless Giambattista Valli midi dress that featured white 3D flowers cinched at the waist with a diamond-encrusted belt. She paired the dress with a bomb pair of Jimmy Choo’s ‘Thyra’ sandals.

In case you've been under a rock, catch up on all the deets involving Gabby and her departure from "America's Got Talent" HERE.

Coordinating with his wife, the retired NBA baller rocked a white blazer with lace detailing, black trousers and black shoes.

Mr. & Mrs. West were in the building! Rapper Kanye West showed up at the soiree in an all black Alfred Dunhill 'fit while his wife Kim Kardashian West rocked a dramatic Alexander McQueen dress for the festivities:

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Before The Wests went to an Oscars party.... #KanyeWest #KimKardashianWest

A post shared by TheYBF (@theybf_daily) on Feb 10, 2020 at 5:54am PST

We see you Queen!

American Son actress Kerry Washington killed this Zuhair Murad couture outfit, styled by Luxury Law.

If you haven't heard, she's starring opposite Reese Witherspoon in Hulu's upcoming miniseries, Little Fires Everywhere. Peep the explosive trailer HERE.

Another win for Zuhair Murad!

"black-ish" starlet Tracee Ellis Ross looked like goddess when she hit the carpet in this gold Zuhair Murad Spring 2020 Couture gown with a pleated cape.

The Golden Globe winning actress accessorized her look with Jennifer Meyer Jewelry.

Twirl sis!

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@vanityfair portrait by @markseliger and BTS images by @katiecouric #vfoscars

A post shared by Tracee Ellis Ross (@traceeellisross) on Feb 10, 2020 at 1:01am PST

The Wilsons have been super busy this week, hitting up fashion shows and doing date night. Ciara had to get cut out her dress, Russell Wilson has been getting clowned on social media for his new hair. Either way, they've been outside, bumping along with their growing baby.

The "Level Up" singer is pregnant with her third baby STILL out here looking like a bag of money:

The "America's Most Talented Family" judge stunned in a custom sparkling Ralph & Russo gown that featured a thigh-high slit and crystals.

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A post shared by Ciara (@ciara) on Feb 10, 2020 at 10:22am PST

Sheesh. We love to see it.

We were counting on Chrissy Teigen to gives us some meme-able moments during the ceremony, but that sadly didn't happen. However, chick was on the afterparty scene with her hubby/EGOT John Legend.

The "Lip Sync Battle" color commentator floated on the carpet in a seafom green Georges Hobeika couture gown.

Speaking of EGOT...

Oscar nomiee Cynthia Erivo was in the running in two categories and had she won one, she would have officially reached EGOT status. Not only that, she would have been the youngest person and the one who reached the big feat the fastest. Unfortunately, she didn't nab an award last night, however, chick slayed the Oscars red carpet and the afterpary carpet.

The British born actress wowed in a lilac and teal gown with a thigh-high slit. It resembled her white Versace gown she wore on the carpet.

After chatting it up with celebs on the red carpet for the Oscars before the show, "POSE" actor Billy Porter changed from his Giles Deacon couture gown to something more dance ready. The Golden Globe nominated actor slipped into this custom purple and lilac Christian Siriano 'fit, topped with a custom Sarah Sokol Millinery brimmed hat, and a "F*CK U PAY ME" clutch by These Pink Lips.

Billy stay shutting down a carpet, honey.

Kiki Layne is def becoming one of our faves to see on a carpet because chick hardly ever disappoints. Like, ever.

The If Beale Street Could Talk actress looked regal in this sparkly gold Michael Kors gown, styled by Wayman and Micah. The hair, her skin...walking perfection.

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#reginaking x #prada Hair: @larryjarahsims MUA: @makeupbylatrice x #vanityfair

A post shared by Wayman + Micah (@waymanandmicah) on Feb 10, 2020 at 8:59am PST

After getting kissy with Brad Pitt, Oscar winning actress Regina King hit the afterparty scene in a baby blue and black Versace gown, styled by Wayman + Michah.

"Westworld" actress Tessa Thompson looked bomb on the carpet in this mint green trimmed in black vintage Versace high slit gown. Sis snapped with this one.

Actress Megalyn Echikunwoke posed it up at VF's afterparty after cheering her man Chris Rock on during the ceremony.

The "Almost Famous" actress posed it up in a white strappy Hamel gown paired with Stuart Weitzman heels.

Fab directress Ava DuVernay follows a specific blueprint when it comes to her red carpet looks and her Oscars look didn't stray from what works for her. The "When They See Us" director wore an emerald green Galia Lahav gown, styled by Jason Bolden.

On the carpet, the SELMA director snapped shots with EMMY winning writer Lena Waithe.

"The Chi" creator - who recently announced she was getting a divorce after less than a year of marriage - rocked Rich Fresh threads for the Oscars afterparty.

Television producer Shonda Rhimes was all smiles on the carpet in a printed black and white dress.

Oscar winning producer Spike Lee kept his custom Gucci suit on where he paid tribute to the late NBA icon Kobe Bryant. His wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, joined him on the carpet.

Yasssss! Fashion model Halima Aden totally killed this look. She was styling and profiling in a custom-made Atelier by FANG signature pleated fan gown. It was def a one of a kind look that she pulled off perfectly:

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I MEANNN!!!! Dream dress thank you sooo much @katie.keim & @byfang_official for this one of a kind LOOK

A post shared by Halima (@halima) on Feb 9, 2020 at 10:46pm PST

Hmmm...no. We're not feeling model Joan Smalls' Schiaparelli look. What about you all?

"This Is Us" actress Susan Kelechi Watson was picture perfect in Naeem Khan and Stuart Weitzman heels.

"Grey's Anatomy" star Jesse Williams hit the carpet solo, sans his girlfriend/ZOLA actress Taylour Paige.

Rapper Wiz Khalifa put his blunt down long enough to snap a flick on the carpet.

Hmm...do y'all see what we see, or are we reaching?

After celebrating her man's birthday, BlacKKKlansman starlet Laura Harrier posed it up with her BAE/Golden State Warriors player Klay Thompson.

The Spider-Man: Homecoming actress wore a Louis Vuitton ensemble that featured a bustier and a stripped skirt.

Los Angeles Lakers player Anthony Davis brought his longtime girlfriend/mother of his daughter Marlen P. Both. It's rumored he may propose soon.

Singer Miguel and his wife Nazanin Mandi looked goodt.

Looks like singer Usher - in a silk Balmain 'fit - saw something that caught his eye.

Singer Anderson .Paak was too cool for school.

"How To Get Away With Murder" star Aja Naomi King looked like a princess in a Mylah Morales dress, styled by Wayman + Micah.

Come all the way through, Jurnee Smollett!

The Birds of Prey actor looked amazing in a black LBV plunging neckline hooded jersey gown, Jimmy Choo heels, styled by Luxury Law.

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Sometimes you just need a little bit of Grace in your life. #vanityfair #oscars

A post shared by Jurnee Smollett Bell (@jurneebell) on Feb 10, 2020 at 2:33am PST

Musical icon Chaka Khan came though looking like the musical goddess that she is...high slits and all.

Bad Boys For Life actor Martin Lawrence brought his fiancee Roberta Moradfar to turn up.

"When They See Us" actor Michael K. Williams pulled up on the party scene.

"Parks & Recreation" star Rashida Jones wowed in a long, black gown.

Our political queen!

Congresswoman Maxine Waters looked like a bag of money.

Maya Rudolph - who presented during the ceremony - kept it cute in a maroon mini dress.

Trans activist/"POSE" executive producer Janet Mock posed it up alongside "POSE" actor Angel Bismark Curiel.

"Queer Eye" star Karamo Brown and his fiance Ian Jordan got kissy on the carpet.

EMMY winner Keegan-Michael Key brought his wife/film producer Elisa Key as his date for the afterparty festivities.

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Tradition #vanityfairoscarparty

A post shared by Gabrielle Union-Wade (@gabunion) on Feb 10, 2020 at 8:33am PST

Photos: Getty/MEGA/Backgrid/INSTAR

[Read More ...] source http://theybf.com/2020/02/10/the-oscars-were-pretty-dry-but-the-afterparty-scene-brought-out-all-your-faves-%E2%80%93-the-wade

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justalittlemango · 4 years

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Entry #16 - 21/01/2020

Well, it’s safe to say returning back to Cheltenham and the whole dorm life has been fairly bittersweet! I guess I adapted very well when I was back home (and I mean, who wouldn’t when you are blessed enough to not worry about money for that period, and great parents who are willing to help you out as much as possible!) It was quite sad on the final day of coming back here with my dad dropping me off, but at the same time it feels quite nice. Nice to have my privacy back, my own bathroom schedule and be able to use my gaming PC again!

It’s currently 6am as I write this, sadly my sleep got interrupted by a phone notification, turns out a friend was spamming me on Steam so now I am awake. The power of the internet right there folks, being able to wake someone up from thousands of miles away. However, I am not too fussed. My semester starts again today, and my lecture is at 11:15 so it’s not all too bad.

Initially I was kind of freaking out, predominantly due to the fact that my first lecture this week involves group-based work... and I guess I’m not really satisfied with the input that I had put in before Xmas for the group, but oh well. I am hopefully willing to change that with this next lecture coming up.

I want to try and get some organisation into the group. Sort out roles for each group member so we know what we’re doing and contribute more ideas together. I think before Xmas I was just so drained, tired and stressed with all the other assignments that my mind just went completely blank. However, it’s a new year now, new semester and that means I gotta be back on my A game.

So I’m feeling relatively optimistic about that, albeit nervous.. but hey, I’m still here and I’ve managed to get through all this shit before in my life, there’s hardly anything stopping me, other than how negatively my mind perceives me. In all fairness, my mood has been quite good ever since Christmas and my last post. I’m hoping it stays that way! I’m satisfied with the long break I had, and now it’s time to work hard again. This project should be fun anyways.

I don’t imagine this project/assignment will be too time-consuming regardless.. we’ve got 4 months to do it and we’ve got a very very basic concept that runs... I guess we just need to keep adding stuff to it over the next 4 months and see how far we get into it. Least that gives me hopes about time-keeping for the other assignments I’m starting this semester which I’m sure will be just as stressy as the ones I’ve just done :^)

Talking of assignments, my creative skills assignment got graded, the one which heavily involves Photoshop, Illustrator and all that graphic design stuff. I got 68, which was 2 marks off the top criteria.. So I’m happy with that! Considering a pass grade is 40, an extra 28 marks on top of that I’m chuffed with. So that’s kept me very positive recently that my work isn’t utter crap!

I am sorta worried for my other two assignments that are yet to be graded. One assignment which is the creating a game in Unity that I had to request an extension for, I feel like I’m going to get a low grade or not pass at all... trying to write the code myself was so difficult so uh, some sort of it was uh, “referenced” from online, i guess. My 3D modelling assignment I’m also sorta worrying about as I rushed it towards Christmas as I requested an extension for that too. Oh well, I’m going to try not to let it play on my mind...

On a more positive note, I decided to get this student housing thing sorted once and for all. I can’t afford to go back into student halls, and I’ma be real with you, but the flatmates you get can be obnoxious as fuck. Not saying that my current flatmates are like that, but uh, we just live and let live and we don’t really speak to each other. But they like to hog the kitchen a lot, and that annoys me. So I don’t really want to put up with that again next year.

I organised a Discord group thingy between my bf and a friend from the course, so we could get a 3 bed house that’s close to the campus. Thing is, this student house is ideal for me because the rent is so cheap compared to student halls. So if I can get this student house, I’d be able to keep and spend so much more than I get right now. Lets put it this way, in student halls at the moment, I only get £300 to spend across the 3 months. If I was in a student house, on average I’d have just over £1k to save/spend over the 3 months. Yum fucking yum!!! So I really hope to fuc that we can get a place sorted!

I ain’t really got no fear of anything going wrong tbh... we still got quite a bit of time, and there’s still some good choices going around in the area near the university- which is convenient as currently where we stay it is an hour walk to campus, and yeah.... not worth it. I might also mention it to a few friends on the course if they want to also come live with us, but it looks like everyone is sorted... so I think it’s best that we just find a place, inquire, see if we’re happy and then slap the deposit on it.

Conveniently, my dad just got his redundancy money from work and has offered to pay my deposit for me which is a MAJOR help, otherwise I simply would not be able to afford it and live at the same time. So I feel very blessed knowing this. Of course, once we get to the house I am not going to blast any of the money, in fact I might just spend it how I do now, very minimally. Reason being? Overdraft. I gotta get out my overdraft. My bank has started to change the limit of how much is fee-free, and at the moment I can take out up to £2000 and it’s fee-free, but at the end of this year it’s going down to £1500, then the year after it’s £1000, year after is £500 and then so on.

So realistically, it is absolutely in my best interests to go for a student house. I need that money. I have also been looking at costs about doing an internship in Canada, and yes, it is fairly expensive once you count the application fees, flight fees and the fact that the Canadian government want you to prove that you have 2400CAD in your bank to prove that you can sustain yourself in Canada.

I have been looking at the invitation pools for UK residents to take the working holiday visa scheme in Canada, and right now it seems 3k people have signed up, and there’s 6k slots... so... that’s filled some hope in me! I just really hope I get a place!! It is absolutely my dream to work in Canada for the year. I just gotta be on top of my game on December 2020... as I believe that’s when the pools next open. I just hope they don’t mind being there for only a year when the visa grants you two years! But uh, they don’t need to know that hehe... or maybe they do. lol idk.

But yes, a student house is needed in order for all this to be accomplished. I know for a fact I would be more comfortable staying with my bf and a coursemate rather than more random people that I have to awkwardly say hi to when I want to grab my noodles from the kitchen. But yes, I’m estimating that over the second year, I’ll have about £800 or so to spend. That’s amazing. And I want to invest £500 into my overdraft so I can go down to the fee-free amount (£1500), and then do the same for the next instalment so I can go down to £1000, and then save whatever is left from the final instalment to try and sustain myself for if & when I go to Canada. They ask for 2400CAD in your bank, and that’s £1400... I guess as long as I have that in my bank they’ll accept me, and then once I get in I can focus on paying that overdraft off.

I’ve heard internships in Canada pay minimum wage, so if I have extra money in the month that I don’t necessarily need, I’ll send it to my UK bank account and help me get out of that overdraft, as when/if i’m in Canada, the fee-free amount will reduce to £500 or so, therefore I need to get that paid off. I don’t think it should be too difficult, but I’m super relying on these things working out, and lets be real, there’s a very high chance of all this not working out. Though, I won’t allow myself to. I will find a student house. I will save the money I get when I’m at said student house. I will pay my overdraft bit by bit. I will try to save up 2400CAD so I can get accepted into Canada, but the most important part: I will try my best to entice Canadian game studios to accept me..

That last part, that’s going to be tricky I think... I hope I am good enough that they will accept me as their intern. I don’t know really. I still don’t know where I wanna go , but anywhere in Canada I’m happy with: particularly if it’s Toronto or Montreal. Hell, I have still been learning French for just in case I do get a place in Montreal. They speak French there? well heck, so will I with all this time I got to do it. Plus, I’ve been wanting to learn French for a while, but just needed a sort of kick up the butt to say “ok, here’s why you should ACTUALLY do it!” and yea :3

That being said , I would also be happy if I got accepted at a studio in Vancouver.. a bit far and very much behind time-wise from the UK, but hey it’s only for the year, I may as well live it up aye? Of course, I am still banking on myself to get accepted into the pools and be invited by the Canadian gov, then consult jobs/studios all over Canada with my work and stuff, then save up the money to get into Canada, all simultaneously while trying to find a roommate in whichever city I get to (however, this seems like a rather simple one as I’ve already seen many apps that can help find roommates and offers seem to come & go A LOT.)

A roommate would definitely be ideal for me, as it would help split the rent. If I’m going to stay in a city like Vancouver or Toronto, it isn’t really possible for me to sustain myself on minimum wage in these cities. So a roommate is ideal. Besides, I need friends when I get there anyway! lol

I wonder if I’ll look back at this post in a few years and think... “Wow Kurt, you thought it was that easy?” - part of me thinks this goal is far-fetched, another part of me sees it as perfectly accomplishable with the correct amount of time, planning and finances. So really... I don’t know. I would say at the moment, probability is low in the likeliness of me getting in, because my work is still a bit.. questionable, as I am still a fresher after all. So I gotta rely on producing really good work that catches the eyes of employers, host a website with my portfolio on it and send it to just as many Canadian studios as I can and then hope for the best. I just really want this goal, it’s an even more motivating goal than thinking of graduation, honestly!

Welp. I posted a lot on this one, but everything I said here is 100% the things that run through my mind a lot of the nights. I am going to stay optimistic, I’m going to work to the best of my ability and make my creations look appealing, I am going to get that student house so I can be happy financially and secure myself & my goals. Til next time

~mangie

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dylan-hayes · 7 years

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Dream Land chapter 2-3

I’ve went a head and created a patreon for anyone that is interested in supporting my stories you can find my patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DiaperDante

Chapter 2

“Just chill out man and let me explain.” Max said as he begins running test on my augs to verify their settings.

“You better because this is way up there for being unusual.”

“Remember how I was explaining that Dreamland takes your earliest memories and then tries to compile them to make the experience possible.” Max asked as he continued taking measurements using his diagnostic tool

“Yeah I remember but I really don’t know how something that a baby wears has to do…. OH” I said now understanding his reasoning behind the disposable underpants.

“You see dreamland is still in beta so basically I’m reverting your mind to that of 1 -2-year-old which means you probably weren’t potty trained.

“So, I’m just going to be a babbling poop machine is that what you’re saying?” I asked still feeling the outer plastic that held the disposable underpants with in.

“Not quite, you’ll still retain some adult aspects but that really depends if you want to try and fight the drug but listen Douglas I haven’t tested this drug on humans yet only simulated computer models so what happens god only knows.”

“Ok I say, I’m going to get changed and before you asked I already looked up how to put on a diaper I should be fine. “I said as I got up and headed to the bathroom.

Inside the bathroom, I flicked on the light and closed the door behind me. I took a deep breath as I stared into the mirror as I could see the look of desperation for trying to find the next drug that would give me that next level mind altering experience. I ripped open the plastic package and pulled out the diaper from within, the diaper was an adult version of pampers cruisers. The diaper was almost an exact replica, it had all the details that you would find on its baby variant. I stared down at the cookie monster on the front panel as I rubbed my fingers across the cloth outer layer. I begin to wonder how Max got this diaper considering that pampers never made adult diapers or at least I thought they didn’t. This could mean one or two things, Max had somehow gotten a hold of the manufacturing data from PG and 3d printed the diaper but with larger dimensions. Or Max has some friends at PG that made him the diaper to the size he wanted, thinking about this only raised more questions that I didn’t have answers to or really want to know.

I left the questions to swirl in my mind as I pulled off my pants and underwear, I pulled the pamper between my legs and pulled the back up before pushing myself against the door to keep the back in place. With the back of the diaper being held in place I then pulled up the front and first taped the right side followed by the left side. I took a step back from the door before glancing at the mirror to confirm the diaper was nice and snug as per the instructions I found.

“So far so good.” I said as I turned around to make sure everything looked good.

After a few minutes of examining the new garment taped around me I quickly pulled up my pants and left the bathroom leaving my underwear behind as I hurried back to Max. Leaving the bathroom, I could already tell my walking had changed to that of a waddle as I crinkled my back to living room where I found Max casual sitting watching TV.

“So how did it go?” Max asked casually staring at my waist.

“It’s a diaper and I’m wearing it, let’s just leave it at that.”

“Alright, let’s head to my room so that I can get your augs connected to the wireless monitoring tool so I can gather data in real time and make adjustments.”

I walked to Max’s room before I laid down on his neatly made bed like I had done countless times before. Max was right behind me and only stopped for a second to lock his door and enable the aug wireless diagnostic tool on the panel beside the door.

“Hey, don’t mess up my bed.” Max said as he continued to adjust settings on the panel.

I felt a slight ping in my head followed by a voice say, “Diagnostic mode enabled and wireless communication is stable.”

“Hey, your connected to my augs so I guess that means you’re ready to start it.”

“Yep, so are you ready for this?” Max asked as he took a seat at his workstation.

“Well I didn’t just put on underwear that I haven’t worn since I was two so I would say yes I’m ready to go.”

“Ok here we go.” Max said as he took as seat at his desk and turned to face his computer.

Chapter 3: Nothing Ventured Nothing lost

Max typed a few commands on his computer and after hitting enter I heard my aug’s internal voice announce.

“deploying software payload.”

Soon after things begin to get a little fuzzy, it was as if everything was completely new to me. The best way to compare the feeling was when I was young I remember really wanting a PlayStation 6 for Christmas but mom couldn’t afford or at least that’s what she told me until I opened the present on Christmas day. The joy, surprise, happiness I got from opening the box realizing that my letters to Satna had been read and answered.

Looking over at Max my emotions went chaotic but in a pleasent way, I felt happy, excited, and thankful that Max was my friend. Soon my senses started to change, the bed I was laying on felt as if it was being snuggled by a warm blanket that was slowly morphing around me. The lights and color of the room was much more vivid it was if I had gone from watching a movie on low quality to it jumping to 8k HD quality. It was almost over whelming to my senses as everything was as if I was doing it for the first time. It wasn’t long after I had started making sounds that resembled that of babbling while my limbs unorderly kicked happily about. I was in complete bliss everything was so new and amazing that is until I felt a strange pressure just below my belly, Max could tell something was going on because my happy babble wasn’t as loud and I had stopped moving about as much. I focused for minute which allowed my adult mind to break through when I realized the feeling was that I needed to pee.

The strain to focus my mind was too much as I felt my bladder suddenly release as I felt a small trickle turn into warm stream that turned my once dry diaper into a wet squishy one. The feeling of releasing my bladder was astonishing, it was if I had been holding my bladder on a long car trip before finally finding sweet relief of a restroom expect this time my restroom was taped tightly around my waist. I could tell that my diaper was wet but just how wet I could yet determine as I begin to feel relaxed and extremely tired. Slowly my eye lids begin to drop and just like a candle in a storm I was out.

Friday 11:23

“DOUGLAS wake the hell up its getting late and I’m not sharing my bed with you.” Max said as he tried to shake me awake.

Slowly I begin to wake up, groggy, mind clouded and upset that I was awaken from my peaceful slumber.

“Why can’t you just sleep on the other side of me?” I said as I begin rubbing my eyes to motivate myself to wake up from my peaceful dream state.

“Because I don’t want to sleep beside someone that is wearing a wet diaper and said person could leak on me and my bed.” Max said as pulled at the top of the diaper that was sticking out of my pants.

At that comment, my eyes sprung open and I sit up on the bed uneasily. As I got my bearings I noticed I was still lying on Max’s bed but from the looks of it I had moved around a ton causing Max’s perfectly made bed to be history. Pillows were on the floor and the covers along with the sheets were hanging off the side of the bed. On top of all that I could feel that I had soaked the diaper I was wearing. I begin thinking back to previous hours but everything seemed disorienting like I was watching video that kept skipping major sections before reverting to its original play spot.

“How long was I out?” I asked as I slowly got of bed.

“Well considering you took the drug around 6:10, I’m goanna say 5 hours.” Max said as he brought up a data log on his system.

“I’m guessing that’s my data log from while on Dreamland.” I said trying to get my legs to wake up.

“Yep, this should provide some good feedback on how to make this bad boy better.” Max said pointing to an aug system file that I assumed was dreamland.

“that’s cool” I said yawning.

“I’m goanna go take this diaper off and head home.” I said as I started to waddle out of Max’s room.

“Alright there should be a trash can in the bathroom but before you head home I want you to take this file and apply it to your aug just before you go to sleep and if you experience anything abnormal I want you to call me and then send me your last hours aug log file. “Max said as begin making up his bed.

“Alright” I said as took the aug file using my phone.

I really don’t understand why Max would make up his bed when he was going to go just un-make it to sleep in it but Max always insisted that you sleep better in a made-up bed.

“Alright mommmmmmm, I’ll let you know if anything happens.” I said as I unlocked his door and waddled my way to the bathroom.

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exilesofembermark · 7 years

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Game Dev Update | 6.9.17

Who is that? What’s he so sad about? What’s that on his head? Read on...

Welcome back to the Exiles Game Dev Update, wherein we cover all things happening in the world of the game and its development.

Last time, we covered a bunch of content, gameplay experiments and visual evolutions on the Exiles UI. This Update goes across the board with a look at the way we’re setting up battle environments, a new NPC, lootz (as always) and an introduction to the fellow that will guide you through your early experiences in Embermark.

ENVIRONMENT BREAKDOWN: VANISIR

We’ve mostly shown our classic foresty Wildewoods battle environment in the past (or the Arena), but we’ve been quietly working on many different Battle setups for different Zones and situations all the while. This time, let’s take a look at Vanisir, the southwest Zone known for arid land and DANGER (ok, fine, every Zone in Embermark is dangerous-- it’s a fantasy-post-apocalyptic landscape after all). You can see from this setup that we’re taking several 2D paintings and arranging them in UE4 to achieve our 3D-but-hand-painted look:

AMA TRANSCRIPT

We had a rousing discussion in our 2nd-of-many Ask Me Anything a few weeks ago on the Exiles Discord Channel, with subjects ranging from Abilities to Stats to World Events & Houses tackled. Besides lively banter, several Exiles won coveted items when the game launches via “rolls” in chat.

In case you missed it and want to get all the info & shenanigans, you can find the entirety of it here for posterity (our gratitude goes out to community stalwart Drakythe for capturing the AMA and posting the transcript).

BANDITS!

A Faction exists in Embermark that doesn’t really acknowledge (or respect) any leadership other than its own-- the Raiders. If called to fight as a unit or untied Faction, they probably wouldn’t fare well, but when encountered in Quests or random encounters in Exiles, they can be deadly.

Of medium build and questionable (read: awful) morals, the bandit can be found in Wildewoods and Askala among other Zones.

Don’t like the red bandanna? FINE...

Now, a significant constituency of the Exiles community are Rogue-friendly (yes, that is a term), and I’m not saying this Bandit here is reminiscent of what you might expect your player-Rogue to be like... OR AM I.

What I can say is that because we’re using the player models for creation of NPCs, we have the ability to appropriate their equipment for YOU. So a shout-out to you Rogue-friendlies out there-- consider this gear a bit of a preview to what kind of gear you might outfit yourself when gameday comes...

ABILITIES UI REDESIGN

UI 2.0 is on its way as we watch people play the game and discover optimizations ourselves. One we attacked this month is the switching of Ability Sets (remember, Ability Sets in Exiles can be 4 Abilities in the basic combat we’re testing and 8 in the “Deck” version we’re also testing). Using a list view to toggle between what becomes quite a few saved Ability Sets for an advanced player becomes cumbersome, so we added in some additional options for ease of use:

Ability Set title at the top

Arrows (and swipe, of course) for switching between your saved Ability Sets

Pips below the current Ability Set to show both which one is active and how many you have

This underscores some things that we’re experiencing in play sessions

THE ELF IN ACTION

We’ve shown the evolution of Exiles’ wood elf characters since the beginning of this project (here, here & here), so having him in the game now is really exciting for us. We’re doing a little extra fudge factor to get his arrow to do different things (stay tuned for additional VFX we’re working on), but you can see his Sharpshot Ability here:

With a sideview of same here:

And Gunslinger’s animator-extraordinaire Andrew even used the arrow as a comedy device in the elf’s death:

Found all over, but concentrated in Wildewoods, Feral Moon and Askala, these wood elves are no fans of their brethren in the southern island Zone of Queviel. Those elves made an exodus during the Collapse to get away from the destruction, leaving their wood elf cousins to fend, adapt and evolve into the wilder, more martial elves that you will encounter often.

HELMS & TELLS & TUNICS

Each month, we increase the Exiles library of loot and show a few choice pieces to illustrate both our stylistic choices as well as our experiments in gameplay. As we turned the dwarf I showed last month into a formidable foe (and sometimes ally), his gear was adapted into player-wearable items, and we gave it the color-tell treatment (go here for explanation). We’re in the process of figuring out how far we need to go to get the effects telegraph across to players, cuz where this helmet definitely says “green” to the opponent...

...this one has a certain style...

You’ll see where we landed when closed testing begins, and I will likely address this whole system in a later update.

It also occurred to me that we’ve never shown (or even mentioned) TUNICS before, and what’s a fantasy RPG without that word (or item)? Well, it’s not going to deflect much in the way of damage, but here are three tiers of a mage tunic for your wearing pleasure:

And of course, the latest in power-fashion magery:

All of the items that I’ve shown in the last few updates are now in the game, and we’ve been upgrading and improving our backend system that pushes content into the game in real-time. I’ll be starting to post video of more extended gameplay and battles once we get more finish on the feedback systems, but for now, take a look at another GIF of equipping, featuring the Spear, Axe, Shield and armor set show in the past 2 or 3 updates. Please note the now-working rarity icons!:

(click here for a much longer and better GIF unbound by Tumblr’s file size limits)

THE NARRATOR (& HIS MANY HIDDENS)

The backstory and Lore of Exiles has been a fun and evolving part of the project, and as the preview stories started coming together with Bound, we realized the need for creating a character who acts as the voice (check out the Pocket Gamer article on Bound’s announcement of award-winning writer Andrew Saxsma as the talespinner on Exiles). We needed bit of a narrator. So we went through a process of coming up with who/what we wanted him to be and do. We went through many iterations of look and feel and reference to get something that nailed the tone of someone who would engage in telling you these stories...

(With great respect to GRRM, who sees Jorah Mormont in the above? Which one?)

Then we started playing with the type of fellow he might be, what he would be equipped to do, to survive and to know...

Until we arrived at a backstory and personality that we’re pretty excited about, but...

...then we SHROUDED HIM IN MYSTERY.

Har. So I’ll say little else other than there are no less than 2 major signals about who and what our Narrator is in this illustration. We shall reveal those items in due time. For now, I give you:

NARRATIVE - A GLIMPSE

There are quite a few episodes of the Exiles storyline in the can now. If you’re just joining us, we’re telling some of the backstory of the game before it’s available, and once the game launches, we’ll be telling the story of YOU. By that, I mean we’ll be reporting on the storyline as players play out their adventures, using the data from the game and the choices you make to direct the ongoing narrative.

Very soon, our friends at Bound will release early episodes of the backstory (told by our haunted friend above), so now-- have a read through of the very first mid-episode snippet from our coming Tales...

A farmhand and his wife, who had been pulling behind them the few belongings left of their home, mentioned in passing that there had been an attack against House Resolute that morning, before the sun had risen.

They described a horror of the loudest thunder and the hottest fires that rained down from the skies over the gulley of central Siege, barraging the fortress at its heart. Mages, it was rumored, of a rival House had rallied against the hoarding House Resolute. These Mages, I learned, wanted retribution for the deprived territories and as I neared the mountain’s peak, I witnessed fires devouring the countryside and ash falling as snow from bloated dark clouds.

Though Hurinyl withstood its aggressors, neighboring encampments were leveled and homes and farmland for miles vanished.

More troubling was that a message of blood and destruction was delivered that morning, one which would resound for ages to follow. That message, my friend, was quite clear: Man had lost his abundance, his satisfaction. His eyes, and all they desired, had turned upon his neighbor.

The rise of the Houses was signaled. War was coming.

What?! What was Resolute hoarding? What mages? Who’s the “bad guy?” Who had the power to engulf the whole countryside? Stay tuned, Exiles...

REMEMBER

We’ll keep sharing details as we head into testing (remember to PM TheWizard on the Exiles forums with your device type if you want in on closed testing & beta later), and you can count on early impressions from the testers throughout our various channels.

If you haven’t already, follow along with the Exiles development on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven’t, I’ll find you. And SMITE you.

THERE’S CHAT CHATTER EVERYDAY AS WE READY TO BATTLE

If you want to hear about the game, ask questions or connect with others who are helping the development team think about features, design and narrative, hop into the Discord Channel for live chat and say hi– it’s a friendly lot with plenty of daily shenanigans (there’s even a Shenaniganizer).

THE BONUS: A TURNAROUND

Lots of “Fs” in this one...

#gamedev #hearthstone #rpg #ue4

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singereden · 7 years

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Attention Clexa Fandom!

Dear all of Clexa fandom,

I nearby have a needs to implore you for your help.

As you know, our two fandoms will soon be coming head to head on the Zimbio poll, which is great because both Clexa and Supercorp deserve to be there and to win (as do all the other ships too).

However, as the stupid fates would have it, there can, unfortunately, be only one winner… And I’m kinda trying to gather enough guts to ask you guys to help us win.  I know this will sound silly to you, because I know how much you love Clexa (heck, *I* myself love Clexa too! For being as iconic and game-changing as it has been for *all* of the fandoms and queer people wanting to see themselves positively represented on tv… Plus I do genuinely ship the Clexa babies… though I chose to stop watching the 100 after Lexa’s death), but just before you dismiss this entirely, just hear me out.   

It is important for you too.

Some of you might know about what’s been going on on Supergirl and some of you may not. Basically, to sum up, the Supergirl staff were very wonderful in that they wanted to explore the journey of a beautiful character, Alex Danvers, Supergirl’s sister, as a gay person, to give her a girlfriend and let us watch their journey unfold. Their story started off very strong, even if recently they have been getting less screen-time. More than that, Supergirl as a show in general has been a very positive game-changer too, especially in season 1, where the message of being strong, independent, self-reliant and ambitious, especially as a woman, was proven to be central to the drive of the main character and the narrative. Since the beginning of the second half of season 2, however, this message was slowly but surely beginning to turn more and more warped. I actually don’t know what the writers are thinking right now but basically, our heroic, exemplary Supergirl, Kara Danvers, has become reduced to someone who not only tolerates someone (her boyfriend) that insults her, puts her down, ignores her boundaries and requests, and defies her repeatedly, but to someone who would actually date a person like that. I think we can all agree that this is a wrong and very damaging message to send to the viewers, many who are teenagers, and many who are little girls and boys, and impressionable to such a message. And now, on top of all that, after Kara got fired from her job, which she explicitly said she loved and which we have seen her work SO damn hard for, she concedes that maybe being a superhero and having her (emotionally abusive?) boyfriend will be enough. It’s come to a point where I no longer recognise my favourite character and my favourite tv show.

The thing is, I can easily stop watching (ok, maybe not easily, it’ll be a fricken addiction to break!) but I know that other viewers, especially all the younger, more vulnerable ones, will probably just keep going. And the reason I know that is because at their age, without question, I would be one of them. As a teen and a young adult, I would literally swallow the sickly-sweet trope of a flawed, broken person needing love from a forgiving girl in order to change and become a better person. I subconsciously soaked this message in and then applied it to my own life as I got older, with, unfortunately but not surprisingly, dire repercussions, from which, I have to admit, I’m still recovering. I’m sure that many of you will be able to relate to this. And I’m sure that many of you will know just how wrong and harmful this message is. Especially coming from a show that has built its entire fan-base by portraying a strong, positive role-model for girls and women.

The one good thing that has come out of all of this is another character on Supergirl: Lena Luthor. From the beginning, because of her last name and its connotations, Lena has been portrayed as a possible suspect and villain. The thing is though, she has proven herself time and time again to be better than that, to be a force for good, to be a firm ally to both Kara and Supergirl, and has even taken it upon herself to rebrand her brother’s company and turn it into something positive to make up for all the damage that Lex Luthor had done in the past. She had even gone directly against her own mother when the woman had turned out to be deranged and aligned with Lex’s ideals. Therefore, on the show, Lena Luthor has been portrayed as a prime example of what an independent, ambitious, strong woman is. But what was even more wonderful (and surprising) to watch was the incredible positive dynamic that has developed between Lena and our very own Kara Danvers/Supergirl.

I can honestly say that this dynamic was the greatest surprise to come out of Supergirl season 2, because while some expected Alex to come out as gay, nobody foresaw a Luthor and a Super working together like this. And WOW do they work well together! I mean… Just on every level! On a professional level, the two women are so respectful and supportive of one another. On a personal level, they are so sweet and wonderful to each other. The respect between the two of them is every bit as worthy of Clarke and Lexa’s, because they too, are women powerful in their own right, working together for the benefit of all. And I think if you guys had seen them (and I’m sure most of you have anyway :p), you’d be proud of them and you’d want to see more of them just being awesome together. The only difference between Clexa and Supercorp is that one is a canonical ship and the other is not. Yet. If ever. And the thing is, they so easily could be because their chemistry is off . the . charts . I mean… I could go on for ages here but to spare you the reading time, just look them up on youtube.

If they got together, the internet would explode. They would literally be Korrasami 2.0, except 3D. And they would rule so hard, and it would be the most beautiful thing ever! (Besides Clexa, ofc.)

Unfortunately, because the writers have already presented Supergirl’s sister as gay, the chances of Supercorp actually turning canon dropped significantly. I mean, how many mainstream shows do you know of where there is more than one gay couple included?

Exactly.

But the sad thing is, it actually could work so well. Not only would it be the most organic thing for the characters, where they’d get an outlet for all of that chemistry, but it would take Supergirl to an ICONIC level. More so, it would rescue it from that hole it seems to be heading for with the current storyline, specifically that of the questionable relationship with the questionable boyfriend. (I just want to clarify, I have no problem whatsoever with Supergirl being in a heterosexual relationship. However I *do* have a problem with her being in any kind of relationship with any person who is, frankly, bad for her.)

To sum up and bring all this to the final point: the chances of Supercorp becoming canon are small. The producers and writers so far have not been very acknowledging, let alone supportive, of our fandom or our ship. There’s even been mention of an actor/actress having rolled their eyes when asked whether they ship Supercorp, as if the thought of two women with an amazing dynamic being more than friends is a ridiculous concept. (I do have to say, this in particular really broke my heart, because with all the Sanvers-ness they’ve included in the show, and all the overwhelming feedback they’ve received from the fans and how much it has meant to people, how much it has positively affected everyone, it’s like they’ve actually missed the entire point.)  Other than that (the rolling of the eyes), no one on the production team has made any comment on Supercorp whatsoever, even though this ship is literally one of the best drives they have going for their show right now.

If Supercorp were to win the Zimbio polls, the actresses would be approached for an interview. If Supercorp were to win the Zimbio polls and the actresses approached for an interview, the writers and producers would most likely hear about it. If this positive, beautiful dynamic between these two strong, powerful women were to win, the production team might begin to take Supercorp a little more seriously, where they might acknowledge it in some way or they might just think twice about ruining the story and Lena’s character by turning her evil, while they elevate the questionable boyfriend to the level of hero.

But more than anything, if the production team were to notice just how beloved Supercorp is, they would realise that positive representation doesn’t stop with Sanvers. That representation of diversity in real life doesn’t end with one, secondary character, gay couple, that we need more, and that when we see palpable chemistry in a positive relationship, who happens to be of the same sex, compared to that of a questionable relationship of a heterosexual couple, we deserve more. Gay or straight. Though to be honest, if Lena Luthor were a man, pretty much all Supergirl fans would have married them off by now because, as I said, their chemistry, and the positivity of their relationship, is unmissable and inspiring.

It’s more than just a ship at stake here, it’s a call for action for positive representation, which I’m sure, you all are for anyway. Clexa won the Zimbio poll last year, and rightfully so. They fully deserve to win this year too, but I don’t think much will change if they did win. Not for you, and not for me. If Supercorp won, we would be one small step towards changing the game once again, in always striving for more… More positive representation, more equality, more fairness. This is exactly what Clexa stood for and still stands for and that is why I think you will understand the importance of this.

So please, I am asking you: Help us get Supercorp to the top. It will be a victory for all of us. And let’s see whether we can begin to change the game for the better once again. If you agree, please vote, share this and help spread the word.

Zimbio poll is here:

http://www.zimbio.com/brackets/TV+Couples+March+Madness+2017

#supercorp #clexa #clexakru #lexa #clarke griffin #lexa x clarke #clarke x lexa #heda lexa #heda #long live heda #wanheda #lena luthor #kara x lena #lena x supergirl #karlena

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tinyplanetsandscreenshots · 7 years

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How to make Tiny Planets [and Panoramas]

Make fancy looking things without going broke buying Creative Cloud.

By now, you’ve probably seen a lot of those fancy looking panoramas, 3D photospheres, or images that look like Tiny Planets / a Super Mario Galaxy level / King Kai’s Planet. The way this is done is similar to how NVIDIA Ansel creates 360 pictures, but isn’t automated (yet…).

You’ll need: Microsoft Research’s Image Composite Editor (ICE) A first-person camera

You’ll want: Image Editing Software (Paint.NET or FastStone Image Viewer are my go-to) Access to a Dedicated Capture Mode – OR – the ability to use Time-stop, No HUD, No First Person Player Model, FOV control, and Free cam/No Clip.

Game and Camera Setup

Have a look through your library, and find a game where you’ve got access to a First-Person camera. While any FPS will work here, many other games have these hidden away as a debug camera. For instance, XCOM2 and ABZU have these, despite not being first-person games. Third-Person cameras won’t work with this method, since the “pivot point” of the camera is out in the scene, rather than at the “lens” of the camera. If a game has a dedicated Capture Mode (Mad Max , Shadow Warrior 2, or anything that has NVIDIA Ansel), use this. If the game doesn’t have a dedicated capture mode, see if you can make one with the console (Things like Noclip, Time-stop, Disabling HUD), using GeDoSaTo to get rid of HUD items or great big things that say “PAUSED” in the middle of the screen, or using Cheat Engine to take control of the camera when I shouldn’t. I tend to check things like DeadEndThrills or PCGamingWiki for an idea of what I’ve got available to work with.

If the game doesn’t have either of these, don’t worry! This process will still work, you’ll just have a few extra steps (These are covered in the Tips section).

Image quality is the highest priority when making these things. We’re not trying to be playable, we’re after capturing the mood of the environment. That said, I tend to turn off post-processing effects that add things like dirt or scratches to the lens, such as the psuedo Bokeh effect in XCOM2, but that’s up to you. On FOV and Capture Resolution: Wider angles will make the capturing process *much* faster at the expensive of image quality, but tighter FOV will give you more environmental detail (Most games don’t include Perspective Distortion, so it’s like cruddy version of supersampling that won’t turn your GPU into molten slag). Our software can do Gigapixel resolution panoramas if you’ve got the RAM (and ability to open the final image), but for most games, you’ll have massively diminishing returns for FOVs below 80. You may also note that I didn’t mention the resolution of your screenshots. While this is normally a big deal in screenshots, higher resolutions have diminishing returns when you’re making panoramas this way. Worry about getting the smallest object you care about in the scene looking good, rather than trying to force as many pixels as you can into each shot. Feel free to use GeDoSaTo to capture at 16K if you want, but it probably won’t be worth the effort / fire hazard.

Capture Method

With your scene all set up, start taking screenshots in all directions. I like to start at the horizon, do a 360 degree (Azimuth, in Spherical Coordinates) sweep, capturing about every 45 degrees for an FOV of 90 (i.e. take a shot, look at the objects at the edge of the screen, move the camera so those are now in the middle, take another shot.). Once I’m back to the start, change the elevation (Altitude, in Spherical Coordinates), and repeat this process until you’ve got a screenshot of every single direction. If you’re not sure that you’ve got a shot, take an extra one. The more photos, the better (provided your scene isn’t moving).

Stitching

When you’re reasonably satisfied that you’ve got everything, quit the game and look at the collection of screenshots you’ve got. Open Image Composite Editor (ICE), and drag-and-drop them into the main window. Once you’ve got them all in there, check that Camera Motion is set to AutoDetect, then click Next. This will start the stitching process, where ICE does some quick optical object recognition, and finds a way to overlap as many of the images as it can. This can take a while, so go have a nice cuppa tea, a Bex, and a lie down (Don’t worry, it never takes more than 3 minutes on my machine, even with a few hundred images).

Projection

When the stitching is complete, you should see something like this:

The Spans 360 degree Horizontally and 180 degree Vertically underneath tells you that ICE was able to find enough information in all directions to recreate the entire scene.

Now comes the most important part: Choose a projection.

To Make a Planet: we select Stereographic, and set the Orientation to: Roll 0 Degrees Pitch -90 Degrees Yaw 0 Degrees

If this works, you should have a little planet! You can adjust the shape of this using the mouse, but I tend just rotate the scene instead so I don’t introduce additional distortions.

[Alternatively, if you just want a fancy panorama like you see of GTA V or The Witcher 3 on Steam Community with several hundred likes: try another projection then just crop out the area you want. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy! YOUR WINNER!]

Cropping

So, you’ve got your pretty pretty all set up, now it’s time to get it into a saveable format. Select Crop from u the top, and after the panorama is projected, you’ll have your scene again. Looking at the Width and Height, you’ll probably notice that the full image is a mite over 15000x15000 pixels. That’s great and all, but a lot of programs will flat out refuse to deal with files this big. Also, there’s probably a lot of extra space around the interesting parts that you’ll want gone, or maybe missing bits of the sky if you didn’t get Zenith. If you’ve followed the guide and only rotated the planet scene, the middle of the planet will be the centre of the image, making auto-centering and cropping super easy. Here, a 10000x10000 pixel crop looks good to me, but this is down to personal taste. My general advice is to see if 7500x7500 will contain everything of interest to your scene. Once you’re happy with the crop, hit Next and move on to Export.

File Formats

I do two exports here. The first is a high quality PNG at 100% scale copy of the scene. I’ll then make a 95-100 Quality JPEG with a Width and Height between 4500-5500 pixels. This is to keep the image size under the 8MB that Steam requires, and to prevent Steam from throwing up additional errors (I’ve had a lot of problems getting it to accept images above 30 megapixels, but your experience may differ).

Alternatively, use a good image editor to downsample the PNG to something under 30 megapixels and below 8MB. I really like FastStone Image Editor for this, the Crop board is excellent.

Sharing

Upload your JPEG to the Steam Community Hub / Flickr / Imgur / Tumblr /, give it a name, and feel the glow of adding something beautiful to this world. Or just print it out and throw it out the window at a passing dog. That works too.

Troubleshooting

Sometimes ICE will get confused by a scene and fail to project properly. In this case, you can try importing the bare minimum number of images, as something in the scene might have moved or asset reuse in the game will have caused a problem. If this fails again, I often just recapture the scene.

ICE comes with a very basic Autocomplete function for filling in gaps in panoramas. If you notice Grey holes (or if the Autocrop button doesn’t select the whole image), these are missing bits. If they’re not in your scene when you crop at the end, you can ignore them, but otherwise you can try the (quite computationally intensive) Autocomplete system. This will produce variable results, but can work in a pinch. Otherwise, load up a dedicated image editor (Paint.NET or GIMP if you’re broke like me) and clean up the errors in that.

Tips

Everything ICE does, Adobe’s Creative Cloud can do. But ICE is free, extremely easy to use, doesn’t require an internet connection, and can run on any version of Windows newer than XP.

Get Steam to screenshot in PNG, and use these instead of the default JPEGs. Since ICE accepts PNGs as inputs, you can cut out bad parts of the inputs and leave them transparent.

The general rule of thumb: avoid scenes where you’ll have big objects 30 degrees above the horizon. Buildings or Mountains will distort like crazy, and you’ll have this weird bulbous mass that can look very weird. Sometimes trees will look ok though, so experiment and you should get a good idea.

The closer an object is to the camera, the greater the distortion. If you want an object to look relatively normal (Say, a car or a person), try to keep it at least 5 meters from the camera and within 15 degrees of the horizon. However, distortion on people can look *really good* if you’ve got a good eye for composition (See this GTAV shot by a very clever peep).

Another rule of thumb is try to avoid putting anything too interesting directly underneath the camera. Keep this part of the scene relatively boring and go for more eye-catching detail around the horizon. If you’ve got something like a highlighted path in your scene, capturing the scene directly on top of the path doesn’t look as nice as being a few meters away.

Some games will have HUDs that you can’t turn off. In this case, crop out the HUD before stitching, and just take your screenshots a little closer together. Same goes for games with really strong Vignetting that can’t be disabled at all (Looking at you, Mass Effect 2).

There will be games where you’ve got no access to anything that makes capturing a scene easy (The Long Dark is my favourite example. There’s no console, subtle vignetting, no pause, and the player’s breathing makes little clouds in the middle of the screen). In these cases, I do my best to try and capture as quickly as possible. Things like moving clouds and horrible animals coming to gnaw on my guts will mostly be dealt with by ICE, or can be photoshopped out later. Or use it to turn one deer into a distributed herd. Up to you!

This technique will work in the real world, too. Camera + Tripod + the ability to edit out shadows = Good Times.

Worried about Perspective Distortion making everything look weird? ICE should be able to compensate for it in almost all cases, unless you’ve somehow turned your camera into a Duck eye. I’ve done a real-world shot with a 14mm fisheye lens, and ended up with a panorama that had no noticeable perspective effects on it with ICE.

Don’t worry about needing a powerful PC. I used to do this on my first gen i7 with 8GB of RAM and an ATi 5870 (“ Top of the line in ’09! ”), and got the same quality as I get with my NVIDIA GTX 1070 and 32GB of RAM. Image projection, stitching, and editing can be computationally intensive, but if you can run Steam on Windows, you can make pretties.

Example Materials

Here’s a link to the source materials I used to make this. You’ll notice there’s a hole at the top of the scene, but the Autocorrect can fix it for you if you want to use that. Try playing with a few projections to see how these things work without stressing about the capture process, but most of all, have fun trying this stuff!

#guide #how to #diy #screenshot

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luckydreamsublime-blog · 6 years

Text

How to Approach Your Technology Coursework 3 Steps

How to Approach Your Technology Coursework

Introduction: How to Approach Your Technology Coursework

This instructable and the attached pdf file show in a simple step by step approach how to achieve good results in the UK GCSE Technology exam. It is specifically aimed at product design but applies to all technology exams.

Attachments

Step 1: Why Students Fail

The aim of this hand book is to guide you through the process of designing and making in a way that will ensure you meet all of the requirements of the exam board.

This is a step by step approach and none of the steps should be missed out.

Success is a product of the effort you put in. The majority of students fail because they:

Miss out sections of the project Do not meet the required deadlines Produce poor quality, rushed or incomplete work. Waste time in class when they should be working Fail to complete work at home for Homework or during holidays.

Step 2: How to Get High Grades

Factors leading to higher grades include

Projects that stretch the candidate in terms of overall difficulty (concept, skills, techniques)

The design development of the product is clearly shown and reasons arc given for decisions made

Clear, dimensioned views, using CAD, are offered to aid manufacture

Less time is spent on the folder than the making

Quality of manufacture and finish is appropriate and of high quality

Awareness of CAM is shown in parts of the project

CAM is used to aid manufacture, if appropriate

Consideration is given to commercial market needs and a system is suggested to produce the product in numbers.

https://www.the-essays.com/analysis-essay are reviewed and tested throughout the making process (project diary)

Step 3: The Help Booklet

The attached pdf file contains a booklet written for our students to guide and help them succeed.

Attachments

Did you make this project? Share it with us!

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18 Discussions

I can't do better than direct you to http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/www.picaxeforum.co.uk/ the picaxe forum. Explain your problem, with pictures of your board etc and a circuit diagram even if you have to hand draw it and they will help you.

The main issue with not programming is the power supply so double check that.

In the end even if your project doesn't work - BUT is complete you can still get 90% of the marks provided you understand and explain why it isn't working and that you have run out of time. You are making a prototyep on a limited time scale the exam board and your teachers have to be reasonable if you have made a decent effort and mark what you have done.

Ah now I completely screwed up my coursework for tech, teacher wasn't there and that was during a bad phase of being stoned in school constantly and being hungover all the time, however I got 98 & 99% in all my exams for technology so i ended up with a C grade.

Reply 9 years ago on Introduction

Mmmm you get out what you put in! Many students are unaware that time passes very quickly and they need to keep on top of their work, Letting it slide is a recipe for failing or at least not doing as well as you could. Good grades come from organisation not necessarily from being smart! If you intend to go to university get a grip on yourself and get organised or you won't cope! believe me. AND the temptations will be even bigger to slope off and do whatever seems preferable to working.

Reply 9 years ago on Introduction

Aye, know what you mean there, wised up a lot, now in tech, independent studies do make the temptations to be lazy or procrastinate much bigger. On another note that was particularly condescending.

Reply 9 years ago on Introduction

OK I am a teacher by profession and a senior students tutor - i see many every year go down the same route having decided to dedicate another 6 years to their education and the toss it away - i long ago stopped saying the pleasantries every one mutters in these circumstance and started tell it how it is. However I know little about you and you sound like you have sorted yourself out now - hopefully others will read this an react early enough to make the difference. If I sounded condescending I apologise. But please you recognise the situation ;)

Cool I just moved to Europe and I'm going to a British school this will help me with my GCSE's next year.

Reply 9 years ago on Introduction

Good thats why its here - :)

I forgot to say the folder should be between 20 and 30 A3 pages long single sided each page full and the design should take about 17 hours of work and the making about 28 hours making a total of about 40 hours for the project.

This all is dependent on what your sons school says. But that is the exam boards opinion on the subject. OCR will do it in A$ or electronic format i.e. on a CD AQA will take the project on a CD in power point but few schools do it.

The folder is easy -

A web diagram to show how the projects he might do have been searched fro - Cover a range - home work toys leisure with typical projects in each category. For the Robot select toys and expand to investigate what might be involved; Micro - picaxe - Arduaino - Basic Stamp. Motors driver, Motors , gear boxes, Wheels, LEDs, Body work, Plastics, Modelling, Infra red control, radio control, wire control, Intelligent robots. Object avoidance, Light seeking, line following. Batteries, End user and their needs/expectations, Safety,

From this he can create a brief. This is a description of the problem he is trying to solve. (NOTE not the solution) From the Brief and the analysis he will know what to research, his research should be very focused on what he needs (hence the analysis), work from several sources, books, internet, magazines. from the research he can formulate a specification. This is his solution to the brief. It should describe the functionality of the product. i.e. what it must do, perhaps what it might do as well as any safety issues.

From the specification he can produce some ideas (perhaps 10 or so) of how he can go about doing the things it says the product will do.

From the best of his ideas he can select those things that will go into the final product - the development. this includes orthographic drawings of every part he has to make. A plan for manufacture and a costings chart. and some 3D modelling.

test the product against the specification.

Evaluate the project over all highlighting good points and bad points and any issues you had and how you solved them. Try to show how you think the product could be improved with a few sketches to cover those issues.

Many thanks for the guide. My elder son starts GCSE product design next year and this will be absolutely invaluable. We have started thinking about a project and come up with what we think is a good one, but outside his capabilities at the moment. He's a bright lad with a keen interest in electronics (PicAxe) and mechanics and I'm sure I can bring him up to speed pretty quickly. He'll even need to use the 3D fabricator that his school is so proud of. (When I was a lad we had a choice of metalwork or woodwork ;¬) I am slightly worried that because of the training and guidance I'll be giving him that it may be seen as me spoon-feeding him (which I will take pains not to do). Hopefully his performance in lesson time and his documentation will make it clear that this is not the case, but do you have any suggestions as to how I can allay this potential suspicion?

Reply 9 years ago on Introduction

Hi, If he is into picaxe and programming why not make a small toy robot, perhaps as a kit so he has a range of materials and a package/instructions to make. i will repost in my blog my students hand book for GCSE product design and let you know the URL. Will take a day or so. Your help is essential BUT make sure it is more aligned with encouragement to understand what he is doing rather than doing it (either for him or together) If his school work to the rules he should do everything/ folder and practical in school under the supervision of his teachers. They may / should allow preparation work at home that can be brought in on a memory stick to go into the folder. Remember Picaxe.com the forum an invaluable source of information and help on picaxe micro controllers . Get the syllabus and read it with him. The marking guide is in there turn it into heading fro the folder that way you hit everything. After that it is about how thoroughly you do it.

Cool, I've done my GCSE I got an A. I made a cd/dvd rack, I was gunna post an instuctable but never got round to it. I think I let myself down in the exam. I'm doing As level now. Its so much harder, but what you've said is definitively true, its all about the effort you put in.