Vivi-0n - I'm New Here - Tumblr Blog

200% hollow purple

🐉

Girls want only one thing…

submissive in the way a livestock guardian dog is submissive to the sheep it kills wolves for

lycamarr commission for @teamarr :3c

[Click for better quality. Reblogs are appreciated. I also do art commissions]

for a war drum

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

ZZZIBLINGS ‼

He gently pats your hand.

(◡‿◡✿)

(ʘ‿ʘ✿) “what you say ‘bout me”

(ʘ‿ʘ)ノ✿ “hold my flower”

Birds of a Feather previous / next

Commission of Acheron in a suit that I designed! With the monochrome version!

was playing "fetch" with the ocean today by tossing stones into it and watching them wash back up with the tide a few meters away, and it got me thinking about grief and the things we carry with us even after we lose them

Things that work in fiction but not real life

torture getting reliable information out of people

knocking someone out to harmlessly incapacitate them for like an hour

jumping into water from staggering heights and surviving the fall completely intact

calling the police to deescalate a situation

rafting your way off a desert island

correctly profiling total strangers based on vibes

effectively operating every computer by typing and nothing else

ripping an IV out of your arm without consequences

heterosexual cowboy

I love doing nothing, what I don't love is the inevitable overthinking that comes with doing nothing

lycabelle sketch from last week teehee

pose reference

PATREON | COMMISSIONS | KO-FI

Zenless Uses Mechanical Pacing/Styling Like Red Dead 2 Used Animation Speed

I think something a lot of people agree with about ZZZ is that it feels cozy. That it feels like a place you'd want to hang out at. That you want to try hitting up Godfinger, or get to watch Mr. Chop at work first hand too, etc. like that. I would argue this is far and away more true than even with a lot of other gacha games... But why? Nothing ZZZ does is revolutionary after all so what allows it to cultivate this vibe?

It is in the pacing of everything. The fact that when you spend too much time grinding for materials, it kicks you out so your MC can take a nap. How a cutscene plays when you get coffee or a bowl of noodles. How instead of just going to a menu to access this stuff like with HSR's assignments, you have to go back to your own video store, talk to your Bangboo and assign them not to nebulous tasks but to making sure your business gets promoted. There is a flavor and texture to these things that is actually built of inconvenience that makes it not quite feel like real life but how one imagines real life in an anime world would be like. More fun, vibrant and exciting but you still do have to wait for your coffee to finish getting made.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is famous for doing something similar to this with its animations. So as to immerse you in its vibe, it makes everything take FOREVER. Not literally be the amount it would take in real life but evocative of that work. However, friction there adds weight to all of your actions. Adds to understanding the labors of Arthur Morgan. It is not meant to be cozy but at best cathartic, at worst like a proper day's work. That doesn't quite line up with ZZZ's goals, does it?

That's where the small touches come into play. You stay up all night gaming at the arcade? Hey, they have complimentary breakfast and free rooms for you to crash in. Your noodles aren't done in a regular manor but by an over the top demon man with mechanical arms. Even more purely mechanical, more numbers intensive things like crunching down equipment and making new ones is done in a music parlor where you listen to records on vinyl. What it evokes the most with all of this is the Gathering Hubs of Monster Hunter. The grand orchestration of the cat chefs, the endless line of metal and work at the blacksmith, etc. like that. None of it seems like work, at least in Monster Hunter World, but people doing it for the love of the craft and like we're all here for sport and entertainment, not because it's actually much of a hassle. This is why I know people, and I will often do it too, who still to this day watch the cooking animation for every meal in Monhun and I actually make sure to do it in ZZZ too to help make sure I still connect with this vibe.

BUT.

This is not a perfect goal. Not by any means. Part of how they have attempted to achieve this is through the pacing of mechanics. Everything needs a proper introduction that's metered out so as to avoid the game EVER feeling overwhelming. It also needs to be introduced with its own place in the world so if a place is locked off to a different area... Good luck. They did break this with the HIA Club but ONLY it and if they hadn't, it would have been another five hours, when it already takes a long time, to get to being allowed to use your energy in any way because of where it's located in the world. It also knows it can't introduce the grind up front which is why instead of getting to spend energy, the game's first activities on Sixth Street are eating noodles and playing Snake Eater with Billy at Godfinger. It's introducing mechanics but it's prioritizing vibe over mechanical usefulness. It is a mixed blessing because it's trying to get you invested first like it should but it's struggling to know how to pace that.

I think this is part of why there are so many level gates in 1.0's content. You have to get to level THIRTY. SIX. to clear the main story. That's over half the account levels in the entire game. However, if they didn't slow you down, you'd never engage with the small side quests on the streets, or in the Hollows, that will help endear you to the setting and help solidify its tone before you're done with the main content. More charitably, it also tries to imply that ZZZ is a more chill experience. That it's not trying to rush you. Too bad that I kind of need to get to Proxy level 50 so I can max out my character levels and have any chance of clearing like ANY of the limited time Shiyu Defense content they've put out currently so that pressure is still being applied in places that are just copy and pasted from other Hoyo games.

It is messy and unique, like so much of ZZZ. I don't really say any of this as either praise or condemnation but just to dissect it. To see how it works because flourishes like these matter. Even in regular books, with no mechanics, the sort of strength of language, the shade of purple of the prose and what the story focuses on can cause different vibes. A soft, low stakes romance is probably going to spend a decent amount of time just with our two leads being in pleasant situations and not even panicking. A more whirlwind romance might make everything really intense to try and sell the emotion its going for. Meanwhile, something that's meant to be dramatic and teases to potentially end in tragedy will tinge most scenes with a small bit of intrigue and try to make sure the audience never really gets to sit entirely at ease, not until the calm before the storm that brings it all crashing down.

These are tools in your toolbox and your audience will like them or not. For me, I find them to be a mixed bag. Something I loved when there was a lot to do and now something that makes the time between patches feel more straining on my patience with the game. What are your thoughts though? Do you find ZZZ cozy or does the pacing frustrate you? And as always, see you next tale.

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I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

Is there a word that’s a mix between angry and sad