Doing god's work out there — I always loved reading the blurbs of an evolving relationship, even if I never thanked my partners enough for doing it.

A similar-ish thing I did for a bit and should reinstitute was "Testimonials", where I'd quote a really great line from a post or invite my partners to do an IC opinion thing and add that to the profile - always with permission, ofc. Was a great way to get that at-a-glance relationship status, personality section, and also laugh at great threads, all in one.

.... brb gonna go reread everything my friends ever wrote

Pulling out hard drives from computers and not telling the team assigned to work on those computers is tight

^{ILT confession: I'd post more in this thread, but I inevitably always end up flitting through a bunch of different YT videos trying to see if this one will actually show up or I'm stuck in "video not available" hell and paranoid that it also doesn't display for other people}

My headcanon is that Bruno wasn't even prophesizing here, he was literally just bein' a good uncle and saying nice stuff to his niece
But when you have a gift like that, everyone reads into every little sentence such that you can't even have normal interactions anymore without it becoming A Whole Thing™

Overwhelming urge
to go through all my char playlists
and add more Gackt

x.X

Elden Ring is the perfect co-op game because you can have one friend who rushes forwards triggering every trap and ambush, but they don't know what the blue bar is for so they can eat it anyway, while the other friend is still 2 rooms behind rolling into every wall, peeping over every ledge, and staring at a statue for five minutes wondering what it means that only the left half is covered in red ivy

Look, all I'm sayin' is Celebrity Deathmatch couldn't pick a better year to come back

Things I have called Elden Ring to irritate my friend:

• Skyrim for People Who Don't Like to Read So Much
• Less Sexy Code Vein
• Glider-less Genshin
• Social Media but with Extra Steps
• 10 Years Late to Smash Bros Simulator

Just about time for my biennial rewatch of The Girl in the Fireplace

To be fair to sludge though, that's just long enough to get through the intro track

My FC choices have gone through three big phases: Filling Gaps, Average Vault Hunter, and now I'm in my Future Canvas arc.

To start, I knew my art was bad, so I leaned into the highly customizable nature of it as a positive trade-off: simple portraits to git gud, with one or two specific traits to help fill out census gaps or underrepresented factions/races. Things like elves with darker-toned skin, an overly enthusiastic dwarven lass, or a Just a Dude with a specific scar. Straightforward, just unlikely to exist in that combination.

After that, I became more comfortable with the basics and wanted to try out newer and weirder things, almost specifically just because I could - I was also playing on more scifi boards than feudal fantasy at this time, so my pointy ears and twirling horns were traded in for cybernetic eyes and mechanical hands. I didn't draw as many portraits here, but they were definitely more over-the-top as I got into the visual storytelling side of it, often adding a detail just to see how it'd look and thinking up a back-justification to keep it later. Still wouldn't call anything from this era good, mind, but it was invaluable experimentation all the same.

I've almost circled back to the first phase recently, where it's more "plain" people who just have a couple identifying traits and room to grow. I'm more interested in the change over time now, where instead of giving my characters a scar and backfilling a reason for it, I'm going to give other people a reason to give mine one and work towards it.

.... Also, the only FC I have ever used in my entire life is Tristan from that one Fate series I still haven't seen and never will, and only then because I keep trying to write against this manipulative, self-centered flirty archetype, but it never sticks. So screw it, I am the egomaniacal Wanted Ad boyfriend now ^{Still planning to draw something One Day™ and silently switch it outyou know, one daymaybethis century}

The ideas only other people could have come up with. Whether it's contributing to a scene, picking up a wanted, or worldbuilding, other people bring such wonderfully refreshing ideas that by definition, I just never would have considered. We all have our preconceived notions and comfort picks; having someone else excited to share all of their favourites is always a great way to expand my horizons and try something new.