Star here, what's on the menu today? A few quick update on current animation projects for splinterlands, and then some fun free gifs to watch or download or do whatever with.

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What's Coming Up?

First, I'll be covering the first Heloise Gold Foil (GF) auction, pseudo-live, similar to the first epsiode of "AUCTION HOUSE." People are liking "AUCTION HOUSE" the auction, and folks also seemed to like the "AUCTION HOUSE" cartoon episode last time. Actually of all the projects lately, that probably got the best response. So I'm going to make sure and keep it going. Keep an eye out for our coverage of the first GF Auction!

Second, I have the most ambitious and fun animation project yet in the works, but it's taking a while to learn some new animation skills and I'm just not ready to post it yet. The focus will be land, Praetoria of course. Look for it soon. I'm hoping it will break new ground on content creation for SPL Praetorians 💪 (Teaser: My Peakd banner image is a clue about what I'm working on)

So anyway then, what am I posting about? In an effort to not go too long without posting, and also because I often embark off on little side projects ("mental palate cleansers"), I've got three mini-gif stories I thought it might be fun to share:

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1) Keep Your Brains Protected Around Olivia

If you happen to play me sometimes in modern ranked battles, then you know I really, really like the new epic Rebellion reward card called Olivia of the Brook. She has this really fun-to-use new ability called MIMIC where at the beginning of round 2 and each following round, she gains a random ability from an opposing monster on the enemy team. She also has a 25% chance to gain a random ability from an opposing monster when it succesffully lands a hit on her.

Battles with Olivia are really fun and can get a little bit insane tbh, but in a really good way that makes me want to watch the battles, whether I win or lose. That's a great indicator! Hopefully a sign of even better gameplay to come. Rather than do the old "share an Olivia" battle though, I thought it might be more fun to make a gif that imagines how Olivia "MIMICS" a new abiltiy. Here's how I imagine Olivia sneaking up on an opposing Meriput Magician, and taking his tank heal ability:

(The size is small on this gif because of the Peakd upload limit and the complexity of the layering here made the gif have a larger than normal file size. I have the full size, full definition verison if anyone wants it, I can send you separately. It's pretty fun to watch in full size.)

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2) Ghostly Tells Epic Ghost Story

If you're on splinterlands discord tavern too much like me, then you may have caught an epic real life ghost story by our one and only @ghostlybg. Not only that, but hive/spl whale @azircon was there, and ecouraged ghostly to post the story on peakd, which I think he is doing soon. So I won't give any spoilers... only teasers!

Here are two gifs that were inspired by ghostly's story:

The 7th Floor

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Sinking into bathtub

(I like this one a LOT. To me, this has intensity and beauty, way more than the stupid stuff I normally do. Even though it's slow, simple, heavy and dark, this is my favorite thing I've done lately.)

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NFL Kicker Kicks a Can

For the last and final gif, I can literally start us off like the previous one: "If you're on splinterlands discord tavern too much like me, then you may have caught an epic ..." quote by @cryptkeeper17. If not, here it is:

I find beauty in this quote. Divorced from it's actual message. It has a unique poetry, whether purposeful or not. Here's the gif:

Kicker Picks the Can

My wife is funny. She purposefully calls sports "MORTS" to make fun of it 😕 She really dislikes watching sports and takes active measures to avoid having to ever watch sports, especially football! So I asked her today, "If I said to you, those people are always procrastinating and putting important things off, they're like an NFL kicker who's always ..." and then I let her finish the sentence.

She was very tentative in her answer (fearing some trick!) but finally the words trickled out: "Punting the ball?" Yes!

Then I asked what if someone said "they're like an NFL kicker who's always kicking the can down the road" 😵 I wish I had taken a picture of he face in that moment, so we could put it on a meme that says "ARE YOU OKAY?!" Even her, who actively purges sports from her life---even she had a gut visceral reaction to that being like a WTF moment ?! It was amazing. And I love it. There's power in that kind of universal, deep-down gut level common revulsion that can cut across demographics and interests, and get to the common culutral core set of information that (even if we try!) we cannot get away from and "de-program" from our brains.

I also challenged anyone to come up with anything that hit all those same buttons from a literary perspective and (srry) but no one came even close, including myself and my wife who tried and actually devoted some actual brain time to it. So I know you probably hate me by now cryptkeeper17 but I think you should be proud. Without even meaning to, you created joy and art and poetry and made multiple people's day better.

Sometimes art, poetry and beauty comes from strange places.