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For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Commended by BerkaZerka on 11/15/2020 10:58:50 AM
So as the ridiculously small handful of you who bother to look at the forum already know, drama is afoot. Basically, some very emotional folks from another IF community went through some entertaining lengths to get at us. (They're not from CoG if you can believe that, but an even sillier place). Although I'm sure you've all been reading about this in the paper: Now if it had just been one quivering puddle of hormone treatments with friends ratings bombing us and going about their half assed Discord harassment for...whatever their still unexplained reasons are, that might've just gotten a lol when eventually noticed. But now that we know they've been encouraged and assisted by the mods of Intfiction, we have our Afghanistan. Now this is all rather unfortunate timing from my perspective. Intfiction was the hub for some major IF competitions I've been trying to get folks here to pay more attention to, and I was actually in talks with MHD and a couple of others over arranging a big push to encourage entries from here in the next one. The tragic and ill informed ideas many IFers have about CYOA style games I believe comes from the piddly linear little things they always get that insult the name of choice based fiction. If they had read any games from you guys, obviously they would realize they were awesome. CYS has been perhaps just a little too complacent and content to sit in its own corner of the internet and let the interactive fiction world roll by. And true, maybe that's a good thing when half those other communities are all about passive aggressively stifling creativity now. But hey, ain't no motivator like spite, so maybe it's time to take a peek outside the Vault doors, rally the troops and go forth to carve out some new territory now that we know there's certain people out there who will just hate that. First order of business will be retaking our old outposts on TV Tropes and the IFDB and maybe establishing some new ones on Reddit or something, so we're going to need to volunteers for that. I'll put up a guide for uploading our worthier games to the IFDB, but besides that we need people to simply rate them and put up some little spoiler free comments now and then. Any given commended CYS game is better than half of what you'll find on the database now, so lets expand our holdings there and upkeep the list so we don't get overrun by any more barbarians. As far as shoring up the defenses around CYS itself and guarding our gates and trade routes, well it's simple, the health of a writing site hinges on readers and their feedback. Writers will always be writing and looking for a place to share their work, but it's ratings and reviews and people showing interest and helping each other on the forums that keeps them in place and encourages them to hone their craft. The site stores the numbers; there are hundreds of you checking out the games every day, but only a fraction will rate them and it's even a smaller number that leaves any kind of comment. So that's my request to the bulk of you, if you're enjoying the site and want a simple way to contribute but don't have a lot of time, just click that End Games and Leave Comments button after you finish a story, or even part of a story. Leave a rating and if you can, even just a sentence or two to let the author know that there's someone out there reading and thinking about their creations. If you don't have an account, you can quickly make one that will allow you to save your progress when reading, and as you rate things you'll accumulate points so that your ratings having more of an impact on a game's overall score. As for our authors, the next year and the rest of this one, let's polish up our armor and go on a crusade to do what we already do best, but better and more. Let's all read ninjapitka's smug, flexing article and get some more T H I C C epics out there, and lets keep being the community that actually likes to read and talk about cool things that other people write too. (Yes yes, I am pretending that I ever actually finish things by saying 'we'... >.>) I think everybody has a big fat glorious epic inside them somewhere, and to encourage more of you to let them out, I'm going to take the money I had set aside for MadHattersDaughter to make covers for IFComp games, and leave an open offer on the table for a $25 commissions from her to the first dozen people to write a game with a 100k or more word count between now and the end of next November. (Of course it has to be a true 100k, with no reliance on copy and pasting the same pages because you just didn't want to learn to use a variable or whatever...) Also, since for reasons I forget I've found myself with a subscription to https://depositphotos.com, in the next ten days before I cancel it, if you see a piece of art there you like just let me know and I'll get you a big watermark free version. From what I've seen, the photos are pretty good, and a lot of the illustrations range from pretty okay to laughably bad. But there's really nice landscapes and atmospheric stuff in there too that would make for a good title page for whatever you might be writing. We're gonna be brainstorming some ways to show more recognition for our reviewers and people who assist in the Writing Workshop too, because that's often a thankless job that many of you go above and beyond on anyway. Now let's go forth and be so freakin incredible that any lesser humans taking shots from the shadows are recognized right away as being on the wrong side of history. Because as we all know, CYS can kick the chicken soup out of the rest of the IF world, stuff them in their lockers, steal their manga money and then just write simply better IF while Endmaster stays behind to get acquainted with their moms. Small version of the banner for those who wish to show their patriotic spirit by putting it in their profiles: (Thanks to MHD for the awesome art yet again.)

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
"You called?" a hollow voice echoed from the eternal inky blackness within the hooded robe of the ominous figure looming in the doorway. "Oh, hey Endmaster," the red haired elf woman said, standing up from her desk and stretching. "Sorry to bother you, but I finally had a chance to sit down and try to do some writing the other day, and my holy silver quill pen keeps burning my hand. Any idea what's going on? I know sometimes you kill people in here with dark enchantments while convincing them it's me..." "Nope, not recently. But it might be that you're just evil now." "Evil?" Mizal frowned and shook her head. "You know I'm not, I'm always trying to help orphans learn to read and explaining why their parents didn't love them." "Hmm, well it could just be a temporary side effect after I raised you from the dead," the necromancer suggested after a moment's thought. "What the--what? You raised me? When did this even happen?" "Oh, I guess about a month ago? Remember, we were at that diplomatic meeting in Intficia and then their leaders attacked us while we weren't paying attention." "No, I don't remember. What the hell..." Mizal sounded upset. She went over and uncovered a mirror in the corner, expecting a long, mildly cringe description of herself the way it always happens when protagonists do this. She was so surprised and relieved when this didn't happen she had to sit down a moment. "Huh. I really do look considerably more evil. But I don't remember any of this at all. And you never even mentioned it to me?" Endmaster shrugged. "Not that big a deal." "It SEEMS to me like it really might be." "Look, do you expect me to make a special note of it every time someone rises from the dead around here?" he snorted dismissively. "What's next, noticing when I kill someone? And evil or not, I can't really say I've noticed any major different in your behavior." "Okay, fair point." Mizal sighed. "But now what? Leaders of another kingdom tried to assassinate us? Or succeeded, in my case...so shouldn't we...holy crap, you've got an arrow in your back!" "Oh, guess I missed that one," he commented, trying to twist around and get a look while Mizal gingerly extracted it. "There's some kind of message wrapped around it..." The elf unrolled the paper and started to skim over it. "Looks like they cast some kind of sealing spell around their kingdom to keep you out for a thousand years...but...it's so long, and boring...and besides, those things never work. I'm surprised they even bothered when everyone knows all it takes is a small sacrifice to Ip'Vpn to cancel them." She shook her head and wadded up the notice. "But look, we can't let this insult go ignored. Let's meet back here tomorrow with the Council and discuss what we're going to do. And I guess I should go check over the records because I still don't even know what kicked all this off, or if we might expect another attack here at home." THE NEXT DAY "Man, when did everyone get so lazy?" Mizal gazed out the window of her tower at the sleepy city and shook her head. "Eh, they always were. But I flew out and had a look at our outpost at the Intficia border, and that place is in shambles. Nothing but bones and dust. I just saw one guard, and he was dead or sleeping or something." "Which was it?" "Which was what?" "Was he dead, or sleeping?" "Oh." "Well he's definitely dead now, lol! But where's the Council at, I thought you wanted them here too?" "Yeah, them. They were late and didn't fill out any of the paperwork I asked for, so I cast them all through the Hell Gate. I guess I can get them out again later if we really need them." "Why would I care? Anyway, I saw you sent out a call for volunteers to defend the city walls, but the outpost is going to need a lot of repairs too and I just don't know if this lot is going to have it in them. Everyone's gotten fat and lazy, like Ford." "Hey, they just need a little encouragement. I believe in them, they'll step up. And if they don't, I'll kill them. Uh, I mean...damn, is this evilness is going to wear off soon?" "Sure." "Well...honestly, I could get used to it," the elf admitted stepping off the ledge of the tower and unfurling massive black wings that blotted out the sun. She glided to the ground, Endmaster fading into being from a dark mist beside her. "I have so much DARK ENERGY coursing through me now, it's great. Even those awful caffeine potions I bought that tasted like cough syrup have nothing on this. So I'm just gonna take a group out and start repairing the outpost myself. I'll call it...Operation Unwavering Warpath!" "Fine by me. I guess I'll hold this place down while you're gone," Endmaster said, waving cheerfully as she left. "But what about the townspeople? And the Council? How are you going to convince them all to fight?" asked loyal Deputy Tim, who had totally been there the whole time and now marched beside her towards the outpost. "Screw the Council, they won't even check a few boxes on a sheet of paper when asked. As for everyone else...well I've got to try and pace myself with this whole evilness thing, so first I'll just bribe them. And then I'll play this song." (All art taken from depositphotos.com)

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Reserved for links and lists.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

If I don't end up deeply regretting agreeing to this I'm going to be very disappointed in you all. ;~)

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Any updates on the 150 Moose lost in the Indian ocean? I imagine CNN would be covering it, like they covered flight MH370 for ten years after no one else cared.

Side note: I'll get off my ass and finish one or two long games I've started the last couple of years by next November, but only for CYS.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Beautiful. Enjoy this rotfloling rabbit as payment for your work.
View post on imgur.com

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I wonder if he can do that flip wearing a helmet? EDIT- aw looks like the rabbit is gone now. Whoops.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Lmao, nice. This is pretty much entirely how I envisioned it going tbh. The spambot is a nice touch.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
tldr lol

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Don't worry, this update was for other people.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

I'm not up for writing 100k stories, but I will rate and leave comments!

Glory to CYStia!

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Well. 

It would be stupid for me to falsely declare that I can write a story with 100k+ words. 

I will, however, support any decision from the administration of CYStia.

Glory to CYStia!

PerforatedPenguin Squawk

No punching holes for a while, time to go hyperdrive commenting and rating...

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Dang, those were not idle words. You go little penguin!

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Esteemed Mizal,

I, PerforatedPenguin, request a half an hour of non-commenting, in hopes of searching for an appropriate profile picture, preferably one of a perforated penguin.

With respect,

P.P.

 

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Check out depositphotos, I can download a hundred of those things and will need to before the 27th.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

There are many ways a penguin can become perforated if you're not too picky.

https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2017/3-17/YmesnwxzgM-8.png

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Hey hey hey!

I like it...!

This will replace "tempPenguin', what I had before...

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Alternatively, here's a better drawing but with less emphasis on the penguin. Choose whatever you want, lol.

https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2017/7-7/yDPqQXQMd4-10.png

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

You know, this is even clearer!

Thank you, very helpful connoisseur!

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Always happy to help!

Update to the update

3 years ago
For those of you who aren't up to writing a story that size but still want to participate:

There's a trophy the site gives out when you've rated 100% of the published storygames. If you possess this trophy now or at any time before December 2021, hmu and you may also have the $25 commission.



Also, just mentioning that Killa has the new Dark Fantasy category up, so stories will be being moved around today and there may be new opportunities for features.

Update to the update

3 years ago

So, uh...

how many are there total?

Update to the update

3 years ago

Let's just say there's a good reason she's giving us an entire year. According to the About Us page, there are currently 1,058 published games on the site. That means you'll probably have to rate two or three per day for the next year if you're to have any hope of getting there. A lot of those should go pretty quickly though, so don't feel too intimidated by those numbers.

Update to the update

3 years ago

Actually, i can make that happen...!

Update to the update

3 years ago

Those are brave words coming from a newbie. Guess now's your chance to prove yourself. Seriously though, good luck! I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun with this, as there are a lot of good stories floating around on here. Of course, there are some sub-par ones to slog through as well, but those are usually on the shorter end of the spectrum, so your suffering shouldn't be too unreasonable.

Update to the update

3 years ago

"I will!", he shouted through clenched teeth, his mind set upon the wealth and riches brought upon him after the glorious mission has been accomplished.

Update to the update

3 years ago

I, for one, am a huge fan of fantasy. I'm excited for Dark Fantasy, and all the creative stories that will arrive!

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Ave, glory to Cystia. 

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Not sure I'll be able to contribute a 100k game anytime soon, but I have been feeling pretty motivated lately, so maybe it's time to start channeling some of that energy into this site again. Time to crack open an old WIP or two. Anyways, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who are sick of the PC crap going on in most of the general writing community as a whole because of the way it waters down anything actually interesting, so getting our name out will make it clear that there are other people out there who share their sentiments. I'd love to see this site get bigger, so shoot me that subreddit link once someone gets around to setting it up.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

There appears to be an empty subreddit that's been sitting there for 3 years.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChooseYourStory/

Alternatively,

https://www.reddit.com/r/CYS is unmodded, and anyone can take it over upon request.

Not entirely sure why anyone would use reddit rather than the forum though. They seem redundant.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
We could advertise individual stories at reddits where people might be interested, if they allow that.

There are some good historical stories here that educators might like for instance.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

You're right. It would probably be wise to advertise CYS stories on general purpose interactive fiction or even writing subreddits. I'm not aware of any large ones that would allow it though.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
The Donner Party, the Mutiny of the Bounty, Hunting the Ripper, the Alphabet Killer.... yep we've got all the wholesome educational topics for school children here courtesy of @Will11.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Huh? I've been woken from my slumbers full of happy wholesome dreams of imminent Republican meltdowns by... something. What is going down? Apparently there has been some sort of attack... I noticed a bunch of trashy comments on my stories a while back but just assumed another class of kindergardeners had stolen a laptop again and wandered onto this site. Tbh I just lump noob comments into this general category of "noobs" which gets forgotten and deleted from my memory bank straight after reading. I have literally no idea what's going on and unfortunately this is pretty much my normal state :D

If this is a thing to get more people to read and rate stories I'm all for that though. People come here to get their stories rated and reviewed. The more that get read and reviewed the more people will come here / stick around / write more. I like the idea of everyone who gets the shiny 95+% trophy getting a points bonus or something :) Used to be points or commendations motivated people (like the Thara-Minnieking competition) but now maybe we need a new thing... A war might be just the thing :) How do we win this thing?

If it helps I've got a bunch of finished cys stories that I've just been too lazy to upload :) One of these days...

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Seems like it was mostly Discord drama. That being the purpose of Discord.

TLDR some teenager from another site argued with someone from here, and a thread was made here to share the screenshots. Then there was some discord harassment from their friends and downrating of CYS games that were on the IF wiki. (Maybe here too, I'm not sure.)

Then somehow they got a mod at the intfiction forum to ban mizal and Endmaster over it all. I'd never been to that forum but I understand it's the nexus of all evil now and needs to be taken down for the good of the free world, or something like that. I lost track of how many people were involved or how they were all connected. 

This thread is mostly about getting commissioned art as a reward for good behavior, but I'm not sure how many people will read that far.

 

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

I'm just waiting for someone from intfiction to come in here and throw a fit abour how this is an attack equivalent to the Holocaust. I'm sure some people will take one look at this thread and start calling us Nazis without actually reading the thing.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Honestly given that one of their "leaders" is too much of a faggot to actually confront anyone directly and encourages that sort of faggotry over there, I'd be really surprised if anyone actually was brave enough to even do that much.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

That makes for such a boring war though. I was hoping for a little more drama and chaos. How else am I supposed to entertain myself? 

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Got it :)

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I think I might finish a game that is about that length in the not too distant future. (This means months rather than years).

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
With the publication of my Goldbird story, I consider this done (Although the Goldbird might get a bit more polish in the future.)

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Nice job being the first claimant.

(There are a few other people who qualify, but it's not my job to pay attention to things for them.)


You can just message MHD to hash out whatever details, and I'll pass along the payment when she's ready for it.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
No need for payment. I can take care of whatever.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
If you want to commission your own art from MHD, well you should because she's great, but the $25 tier art reward from the site was the whole point of this thread.

I've got $600 in the war chest that I'm hoping we see enough activity to need all of, considering that our war against the Intfiction forum has been fully sanctioned and funded by the US government.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I thought the point was to inspire people to make good story games. I know MHD is great (I've been around for a bit). What would really help even more if people point out ways to improve the goldbird story. The number of distinct paths through it is already too high to test all of them, but there could be even more crosslinks. So if people were to point out what they wanted to do in certain situations I would be happy add more options ion. (Also I have only implemented a third of the planned main lines in that story so far, and obviously more polish is needed.)

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I would love to help you with feedback, but I don't want you get angry at me if you don't like my opinion. So I normally I simply don't let feedback in other contest entries if the feedback will be negative. But if you really want to hear my opinion send me a pm.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
You had the biggest story and the last one published, might be a little while before people going through the contest stories start getting to yours.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Killa misspelled "End Master" for the new category.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

He got close, I guess...

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

I figured it was just a term of endearment he used. 

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Commended by mizal on 11/17/2020 7:40:31 PM

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Can we get this lady a commendation?

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I wanted to be subtle.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I like it: Dark Fantasy, When darkness calls, you must answer... QUANTUM PHYSICS :D

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Hey, that's clearly a spellbook, and there's a backpack, such as the kind frequently carried by adventurers. Furthermore, the backpack is dark and has a monster inside.

But it sounds like MHD may be willing to redo some of the art on the site.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

I believe I said All of it and Gladly. ;~)

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Awesome :D MHD's stuff is really good :D :D

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
YES

I offer you my sword.

(But only figuratively Mizal, I'm still a minor.)

Maybe this will finally be the push I need to finish one of my planned storygames. They'll be epic enough if I can just figure out how to handle the branching. I would love to have art of the main characters.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Like any good war, national holidays should be planned afterward for all of the CYStian heroes!

Failing that, there should be moment of silence for the dead.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

I planned to write one of my longer stories anyway. Since I've wasted half the year being busy in real life, I'll try to commit to finished one long story in the second half. No need for the commission, this is good motivation for me to actually write a long story. If one person comments, "It'a good but I wish it was longer." Then I have failed. All of my stories have a comment like that. Also, I make no promises that it will be good. It's my first sci-fi story after Mizal convinced me to start that rather than continue my lame fantasy epic.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Anything for CYStia. Now let's see if I can turn that smug, flexing article into a smug, flexing 100K word story. The question is, can one double dip into the rating and writing commissions? Also, for anyone deterred by the large word count, it's not really that much for an entire year of writing. Spread across 11 months (giving yourself a month for uploading and proofreading, because we all proofread our work, right?) it's about 9,030 words a month, which is little over 300 measly words a day. This entire post is over a third of that now. I've never broken the six digit word count, but I think this is a good opportunity for it.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

The Assassination of Endmaster by the Coward Hanon

 

I'm not much of a writer but I'll try to rate more of what I read, I feel very called out here. 

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I see the new penguin kid and tmanaking and AL doing loads of comments, not to mention the nice detailed reviews we got from the discord population at gunpoint. I'm going to chalk up this part of things as a major success and uh, I guess I better get a few reviews out this week too...

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Of course! Join us, for the Glory of CYStia!!!

I still haven't fulfulled my goal of ten ratings yet....

SUCCESS!!!

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

I'm just trying to do my part. This site might be a shithole, but it's my shithole.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

I see this as a major success, too! :]

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

I'm not sure about being able to crank out another large game anytime soon, but I could work on finishing moving Blade of the Hollow over here, sprucing it up with actual variables so it works like I'd originally intended, and actually writing the rest of the ending pages.

 

I'll try to set aside some time to write some reviews as well.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

Neat to see there's still drama around here

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
If you're going to show up to my crusade, you better be wearing the chainmail dress.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Seems like there's a decent number of people trying for the 100k stories, both veterans and noobs. Should be interesting seeing what the final crop will be.

I'm also seeing so many more comments pop up which is the main thing I'm happy about, so I'm declaring the first phase of the war, raising the militia and reinforcing the walls, a success.

I'll bump the Outpost thread and have the guide to uploading on the IFDB up this weekend, plus add some more games. We just will need people to make accounts over there to rate things.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I'm guessing the betting over/under number here is one.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

I'm a bit busy with assignments and end of year exams now, but I would try to finish a 100k story during my school holiday and read/ rate more stories when I can.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
If you need help with anything math, science, or so let me know. :)

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I used to do people's math and science homework for money. Allegedly. Of course I always gave them the disclaimer that studies suggest not doing math homework may cause failure on math tests, but fortunately for me they never heeded the warning. Allegedly.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago

I used to teach these classes of 600ish engineers and marking those exams was the worst most soul-destroying work ever conceived by mankind. The really absolute worst is if you get one who is clearly struggling on question one, then do well on question 2 and you think 'hey maybe you learned something after all'. Invariably, question 3 and 4 will just be empty pages. Marking that stuff really literally gave me nightmares.

The whole idea of having exams is actually pretty silly, particularly for maths. Exams test if people can repeat learned tasks under stress and that is about the opposite of what maths actually is. Particularly working in the UK,I felt my job was not really to teach people. It felt what the government was asking me to do was give some proportion of students bad marks so that they would be more accepting of the boring jobs and bad pay that the higher tiers of society would assign them to.

When I finally quit and moved to California my wage more than doubled and generally my life became much more sane. Really made me wonder why I hadn't done this earlier.

Edit: marking (B.E.) = grading (A.E.)

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I never got to graduate level courses in my math college career besides one that served as upper division undergraduate and early graduate class (abstract algebra), but even way before that, exams began to get ridiculous. In one physics course I took, for example (from the mathematical methods class), the exams were so ridiculous that they were take home open book exams. I never want to hear or see the words "coupled oscillation" ever again...

However, take home exams may be the way to go for this sort of thing. Sure, people can cheat. But really, when you start getting to the upper division undergraduate stuff, in order to cheat you have to at least know something, otherwise you won't know where to look.

Side note: did I cheat? Well, I went to my former linear algebra professor for help on that damned coupled isolation problem. If I recall correctly, she helped me with using the Jacobian to do a coordinate transformation, and with some chain rule stuff. It helped. That might have been cheating though. (to this day I remember very little of it, because I never went far enough to get a job in the field, unless you count tutoring, which evolved to doing homework for money ;) )

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
Last day I'll be able to get depositphotos art for you guys. Might be something you can use for the new dark fantasy contest in there. https://depositphotos.com/portfolio-3584689.html Zake found this artist who has some pretty cool shit. Not too much of it is dark fantasy specifically, but there's a lot of cool and evocative scenes in there I could see as being the basis for many writing prompts. Dude obviously has a liking for people standing in front of mysterious portals.

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
https://depositphotos.com/12337825/stock-photo-base-on-mars.html

For the Glory of CYStia

3 years ago
I like how that gallery is just a handful of Mars CGIs, followed by two solid pages of Underwear Woman and her power of Boob.