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@flamebyrd
For those among you who post fanfic WIPs chapter by chapter, what sort of kudos patterns do you see over time? Does the number of new kudos received per chapter continue to increase? Does it drop off sharply after the first chapter? Something else?
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Hi! I'm using your AO3 Incomplete Works Userscript, and it greys out WIPs just fine, but it doesn't display the work stats (wordcount, chapters, etc) in red on single works for some reason? I tried it in Kiwi Browser on android, and Edge & Chrome on desktop, but no luck. Does that part of the code still work for you? If so, can you post a sample screenshot of how a work would look like when its stats are red? Thanks for your time!
Hello! Sorry you're having trouble. I just tried in Firefox and Chrome on Windows and MacOS and it worked for me, both logged in and not logged in. Here's a screenshot of what I see:
(work by sqbr used with permission)
It works by adding custom CSS to the Stats block - Is it possible that you're using a custom AO3 skin and it's not compatible with that?
Does anyone else have a problem with starting games? Like, I’ve had Cozy Grove on my wishlist for over a year, and I recently started an Apple Arcade free trial and it’s on there!
So I started it up, played about 5 minutes of tutorial and then was overcome with intense anxiety, closed it and a month later have not opened it again.
(I did the same thing a week ago for Stardew Valley, a game I have played many times.)
When I’m linking some art to a friend in instant messaging I used to like to link to the original artist’s post instead of a reblog.
I can’t figure out how to do that anymore. Can anyone help? I think I used to copy the link from the poster’s name on the first post in the chain but now that just links to their blog.
Color has been disappearing from the world.
A new research group used machine learning to track color changes in common materials and items, below is their findings for all color changes over time, they used 7000+ items from the 1800s to now to determine color changes in the most common items.
Below are the colors of cars by year, notice how the majority of cars are grey, white, or black compared to twenty years ago.
These aren't data points, but they are comparisons between the 'modern' homes of the 70s and 80s compared to the modern homes of today.
Carpets have equally had the same treatment of grey added to them! The most common color of carpet is now grey or beige.
Even locations that used to scream with color for decades have now modernized to becoming boring minimalist (and I love minimalism) personality-less locations.
The world is becoming colorless, why?
source paper
you can look at any folk culture around the world, past or present, and find the use of the entire color spectrum. humans are drawn to color, it holds emotional symbolism but it also reflects the land we live off of. I consider it like a celebration of life and our place in it
the problem is that we aren’t actually allowed to belong to the places we live. houses and entire towns are shells meant to be as plain as possible for the next renter, buyer, or investor. the more generic it is, the more consumers it can be sold to. And when you have a country that’s biggest population doesn’t have a distinct sense of cultural identity it will be reflected and mass produced without much complaint
people getting joy from the minimalist gray aesthetic is not the same as the estrangement this country is making between people and place, one of the most fundamental relationships humans need to survive (and be happy while doing it)
Films depict middle ages as devoid of color but it's the other way around.
When I was buying my house, people were telling me not to paint it this or that color because it would be harder to sell later. Like, I haven't even bough the house and you're already telling me to sell it! I'm buying a house because I need a place to live! I want to live here until I die or manage to move to Europe! We are not supposed to actually own anything anymore. Not our houses or cars or furniture. We are supposed to be perpetually replacing these things, paying more each time around, until we break and die and our bones are the color of the walls around us.
@duckamuck and @flamebyrd
Is this what you were talking about at dinner????
Yes, and (not to derail the post) more specifically the impact this has on fine art paints! Pigments that are no longer useful for cars or buildings (etc) can get discontinued by the pigment manufacturer when they're no longer profitable, and then they're no longer available to artists.
The fine art colour company Golden have a couple of blog articles talking about this:
The Life of Pigments in Fine Art Paints
What Happened to that Color?!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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I’m back! Tumblr suspended my account back in January, and Support just got back to me to say it was a glitch.
I’m going to turn off my Dreamwidth cross-poster though. Any new content I make will get manually posted here.
With Twitter looking increasingly unhealthy I’m hoping to come back to Tumblr in some way but I’m still figuring out what that will look like.
Incidentally, I quit Tumblr to avoid spoilers back when Episode VIII came out.
This has been a very busy year and I don't have a lot to log, but I don't want to break my streak of posting these! I missed my usual December 31 date so I'll probably backdate this entry after a week or so. Books Suradanna and the Sea - Rebecca Fraimow A Marvellous Light - Freya Marske A Master of Djinn - P. Djèlí Clark The Library Book - Susan Orlean The Affair of the Mysterious Letter - Alexis Hall False Value - Ben Aaronovitch (Audiobook) What Abigail did that Summer - Ben Aaronovitch (Audiobook) Games Moonglow Bay (2021) (Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
I'm experimenting with using headings for these sorts of posts rather than bullet points... does this work for people or would you rather the bullet points? Awesome Games Done Quick Awesome Games Done Quick 2022, the January edition of the twice-annual Games Done Quick speedrunning marathon, is on right now, raising money for the Prevent Cancer foundation. It's always a great time and I recommend checking it out! Most runners (and/or their commentators) do their very best to make it understandable to newcomers and everyone is generally having a great time, even when it goes horribly wrong. Booster I got my COVID-19 booster! For those who are wondering, I got Pfizer Pfizer Moderna, and I had reactions to the second Pfizer and the Moderna - aches and pains and fever in both cases. Public Service Announcement: The entirety of a household should not have a vaccine on the same day, our house was very miserable. AO3 CSV bookmarklet Yesterday I had an email from an AO3 user asking if it was possible to make my AO3 CSV bookmarklet include extra information from the History page, like the number of times visited and whether it's updated since last visit. This seemed reasonable so I quickly whipped up a beta version of the bookmarklet to accomplish that. Check it out if that would be useful to you! If anyone has any other requests (other than making it work on more than one page of results at once, although if you do want that I recommend checking out naye's post about using Page Zipper for this), please let me know! (Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
Links go to my Dreamwidth post about the work. Books New Times, New Hell - 林知落 Winter's Orbit - Everina Maxwell The King's Avatar - Butterfly Blue The Haunting of Tram Car 015 - P. Djèlí Clark A Dead Djinn in Cairo - P. Djèlí Clark Any Way the Wind Blows - Rainbow Rowell Copper Coins - Musuli One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells First-Class Lawyer - Musuli [in progress] Games Ikenfell (2021) Donut County (2018) Tetris Effect (2018) Chicory: A Colorful Tale (2021) Mini Metro (2015) Unpacking (2021) TV The King's Avatar (2019) [in progress] Music Tetris Effect Original Soundtrack Ikenfell (Original Game Soundtrack) Chicory: A Colorful Tale (Original Soundtrack) Moonglow Bay (Original Soundtrack) (Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
Time is passing My LiveJournal is now old enough to drink in the country it was "born" in* (link goes to my tweet with a screenshot of the email they sent me). I haven't used LiveJournal in several years now but I never deleted my account and now I'm paying the price, I guess. *If I am right in my assumption that LiveJournal was hosted in the USA when I joined. Story Mode: Final Fantasy XIV PlayFrame has started a Let's Play of Final Fantasy XIV solely focused on the main storyline! I am enjoying it so far, even though at this point it's still very much a MMORPG plot. The playlist of all episodes to date is here. MMOs are not good for my mental health so I'm glad for this chance to experience some of the story of this Critically Acclaimed MMORPG (TM). Card Poll My holiday card poll is still open! Although at this point they will almost certainly be late holiday cards (depending on your holiday). If you just want to get on my birthday card list (no guarantees, I'm a terrible procrastinator), feel free to leave the holiday-related questions blank. (Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
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I have, over the past couple of years, accumulated a vast amount of card-making supplies, and I never make cards. Therefore, I would like to send cards to people on the internet!
View Poll: Holiday cards
* Please note that if this is chosen with an animal you are likely to receive an animal wearing a santa hat. Sentiments are intended to be suggestions, not prescriptive. All occasions are welcome! Themes and motifs are chosen from the materials I have available. Make of that what you will. (Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
Things have been pretty rough recently for various reasons, so I'm going to distract myself from all that by talking about a few things which have been bringing me joy. Animal Crossing: New Horizons 2.0 A couple of months ago I decided to do a bit of date manipulation to finish off the art collection (by resetting the same day over and over) so I could finish my museum and maybe quit the game. I accomplished this, and Nintendo promptly announced a huge update with thousands of new items and new things to do every day. So I'm back on that horse and loving it again. I've updated my dream at DA-4989-3336-9453. It's been raining so once again there are flowers everywhere, and I've rearranged a few things so all my spare flowers are hanging out on the beach. Which is to say, if you need flowers, please let me know! New things since last time are a new entrance with two bridges, a farm area, the beginnings of a treehouse, and a redesigned museum garden. Also, the clock room is getting out of control. I also spent way too much money on packs of the new Amiibo cards so if anybody wants to trade doubles, I'm in! Speedrunning Pokemon: Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Nintendo Switch remakes of the 2006 Nintendo DS games, were released the other day. I mention this not because I'm playing them (I'm not), but because the speedrunners have discovered a ton of new glitches and strategies to go fast, and I'm loving watching how excited they are to find them. So far this includes: - If you turn the music off, the game skips all the level up and healing jingles and it shaves minutes off the run. - If you hatch an egg in front of a particular NPC he will no longer block you from proceeding to Sunyshore City while it is experiencing a blackout - If you use surf immediately after fighting a trainer near the water, you can float over the terrain (or under it) and progress the story in unintended ways, including by skipping Victory Road completely It's still early days and they're still trying to figure out what categories and rules to formalise on the leaderboards, not to mention the risk that any of these glitches could be patched at any time, but it's the discovery process that's bringing me joy anyway. Mini Metro (iOS) Friendship ended with desktop PC version, now mobile version is my best friend. I'm not going to say I'm good at it, but I also haven't linked it to any social media, which means it won't show the global leaderboards, so I have no idea! I'm finding I get the most joy by coming up with my own challenges, usually "only use the 3 lines it starts with". Unpacking (PC/Switch/Xbox) This is a very fun, short puzzle game about unpacking a person's boxes into various dwellings over their lifetime. It has a wonderfully subtle type of storytelling, as you get to know the person through their belongings, what changes and what goes with them from house to house, along with the decisions you have to make about where to put their belongings in each house. Very cute pixel art, some of it very nostalgic. It's short for how expensive it is, but I really enjoyed it. Since I finished the main story, I'm just achievement-hunting now. (Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
So what happened here was that my friend and I came across a promo Tweet for the upcoming manhua adaptation of this Chinese webnovel which had a very poorly translated summary, and in the course of finding a better summary I became intrigued enough to read the first couple of chapters of the translated novel and then I finished it within 48 hours. It's omniscient POV, like most Chinese webnovels I've read, but you're mostly in the head of Xue Xian, who is a very arrogant, belligerent millennia-old black dragon. His narration is frequently hilarious. The love interest is an amnesiac monk - the strong, silent type. I really loved all the characters in this and I found the ending very satisfying and romantic! It's very readable too, I didn't find it dragged too much and each chapter left me eager to read the next. Even though the content is quite serious the tone is very light. ( Content notes: )
( Vaguely spoilery musing. )
I read JQ's translation. Translator's introduction is here, then you can get to Chapter 1 here, and once you reach the end of the edited translation you can access Chapter 63 from here. (Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
I haven't written anything in well over a year, but sometimes an idea just won't let you go. Strategic Retreat (2689 words) by Flamebyrd Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 全职高手 - 蝴蝶蓝 | Quánzhí Gāoshǒu - Húdié Lán, 全职高手 | The King's Avatar (Live Action TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Hán Wénqīng/Yè Xiū, Hán Wénqīng/Yè Xiū/Glory Characters: Hán Wénqīng, Yè Xiū, Zhāng Xīnjié Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Light Angst, Rivalry, Bickering, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Sharing a Bed, sometimes a family can be two people and a video game Summary: Han Wenqing waved off the anxious front desk staff and planted himself in front of the slumped figure. "You must have a death wish, coming here in the middle of the season." In which Ye Xiu makes himself Han Wenqing's problem, and Han Wenqing is up for the challenge. ( More Author's Notes )
(Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
A couple of months ago my friend told me she was watching and really enjoying a Chinese drama on Netflix that was: - Just like a sports manga, except about online gaming - Almost entirely romance-free - Featuring a healthy dose of secret identity shenanigans Sold, I said! Except that I'm very bad at watching things, so I decided to seek out the novel instead. It hooked me very quickly, and then I realised it was over 3 million words long. Anyway so I read it all, accidentally through less-than-legal means because the officially-licensed site that hosts it did not make it at all clear that all chapters beyond 90 were behind a poorly-described paywall, not just a login requirement. I'm not going to say I read every word - a lot of the battle sequences (and there are many) I just skimmed for dialogue. And then I convinced my spouse to watch the live-action drama with me! We're up to episode 20 and really enjoying it, with a couple of caveats: - When the show is trying to be funny, it gets extremely cringey - We really want to punch some of the antagonists in the face - Sometimes the heartfelt speeches about the power of Glory get a bit cheesy There is an animation available too (on YouTube, legally) that I would like to watch eventually if I can convince anybody to do it with me. So, am I recommending this? If you love long drawn out sports power fantasies about being the absolute very best at the game while mentoring new and under-appreciated players into greatness, definitely check it out! If you don't, I don't know that it will make you a fan of the genre. It really shines in showing the way all the pro players know each other and relate to each other as friends and rivals both on and off the field (as it were), and the mentorship parts can be really touching. There are also moments that are completely heartbreaking. The protagonist is an asshole but somehow I love him anyway, and the secondary (and tertiary) characters almost all have distinguishable traits that makes them memorable and fun. (Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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🎮 My gaming YouTube profile suggested a Let's Play of Mini Metro, a puzzle game about building urban train systems, and about halfway through I got twitchy wanting to try things, so I went in search of where I could buy it. (As an aside, I really recommend IsThereAnyDeal for getting an overview of the pricing of PC games.) Anyway, it told me it was on sale on the Humble Store (sadly, it isn't anymore), however before I headed over there it occurred to me to search my inbox in case I'd already bought it in a bundle, and it turned out it was in the Itch.io Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid! So I loaded it up on the media PC and had a happy couple of days building train lines. I can definitely see it being a stressful game for some people, but I found the ability to continue in "endless" mode took the stress out of it for me and I could just enjoy trying to optimise my system. 🎨 My watercolours and swatching tools (see last post) finally arrived! I had a nice, chill time swatching all 34 of my watercolour tubes (although now my shoulder hurts - maybe I shouldn't have done all 34 in a single day). I have updated my watercolour spreadsheet with the new colours accordingly, although I didn't think to mark them in any way. I should have added a date column on this. Now I just need to... make some art? That sounds fake. 🖼 Relatedly, I just discovered the concept of Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) and I love it and want to make some. I also have a box of blank watercolour postcards I recently rediscovered! Filing tiny art under the list of things I'd like to post people if I ever get around to making a form. 📖 My library hold on Rainbow Rowell's Any Way the Wind Blows came in, so I'm about to start reading that. Here's hoping I like it more than Wayward Son! (Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
I feel like I've been coasting on neutral for a while, so here are some random good things in my life to remind myself that there are things to talk about. * I made a large pot of ultra strong T2 Sticky Choc Chai, adulterated with extra loose leaf Ceylon tea, and froze it in 1/2 cup portions. Now I can just defrost one with some milk and extra water and have chai without the trouble! It's really good. * Had my second Pfizer dose on Monday. Spent Tuesday in a feverish haze but was feeling decent again by Wednesday. You go, little immune system! * Finished Chicory: A Colorful Tale with my spouse and thoroughly enjoyed it. I haven't quite got 100% of the things yet but I'm pretty close! I wanted to do a full reaction post but to be honest, I don't have a lot to say. The soundtrack has been bringing me great joy and brightening my workdays. * On that note, I got a new contract for part time work until the end of the year. This is ideal, because I'm also studying. * I got this set of photopolymer stamps for swatching watercolours, which I loved so much I immediately ordered a stamp and die set to do individual colour swatches. It's shipping from the USA so it will be A While before it arrives, but I am looking forward to having some neatly categorised swatches. * Speaking of things that are shipping from overseas that I won't see for a while, I ordered Yet More Watercolours and am impatiently waiting for them to arrive. Relatedly, I'm also waiting for a new palette to arrive because I've run out of room in my existing one... * I also bought more materials for making greeting cards! Would anybody like to receive a random card in the mail? (Originally posted on Dreamwidth.)
