well , mostly done . 5 moods left to make - envious , blah , lethargic , satisfied , and content . that in mind though , no ideas come to mind for any of these - nothing that would work within bounds of this theme , anyway . still , this is huge - out of 132 moods , only 5 not unique . of course , some of these still come from original batch back in october , and could do with some extra attention . 

but ! someone was also kind enough to make promise of gift time when this mood theme was in final stage ! really grateful for that , especially now with extra costs to consider ( grrrr ) - every mood should now be fully up to date :)

with need of distractions indeed , turn to thaliendir and sheogorath once more . do not mind if there is another influx of new posts there .
put together simple masterpost of links , mostly for artfight . this means tidy up and rewrite some of older posts - some of these now behind access list or private , to mark need for rewrite , or else not relevant but want to archive .
would also like to iron out basic history for ellona , and maybe make similar masterposts for ellona and kiliban both . probably not yet , at least .

or at least , imports of old ones . did put this on backburner , and now that cohost is gone , this will be slightly more work - have to reconstruct format from json files .
so , please pay no mind if accidentally forget to check no reading page on some posts !

paid account time is up now . no more edits to kossai mood theme ! unfortunately also did not finish - but part of that was from run out of ideas , to be fair ... differentiations without mouth and eyebrows is hard , for sure . will have to work on those ...

mood theme is very fun feature here ! with paid time on account , can even make custom one . some people use pictures from favourite media , others adapt free to use emoticon art , or just anything which strike fancy . of course , can also pixel art ! especially fun for sona characters , really bring personal flair .

but sometimes , not really sure where to start with that . well , here is kossai method . :P
this apply for specifically static base pictures . animations still use mix and match process to create base , but then bring into separate file for ease of animation .

bottom layer group - base
things that will never move or change . for kossai sona this is head shape , ears , and beard , as well as basic white outline layer for visibility on dark themes .

next up layer group - eyes
specifically , in 4 layers , from bottom to top : sclera colour , iris colour , pupils and highlights , and outlines .
some moods do call for iris and pupils to move . to prevent clip oddities , both these layers set on composite mode clip to backdrop . this is why eyes come in separate layer group - otherwise , iris movement would clip onto skin as well .

assortment layer groups - facial modifications
kossai sona do not have mouth or nose , so this come in 3 subcategories : eye mods , eyelids , and facial flushes .
eye mods cover any kind of eye which is not standard : blown pupils , closed eyes both upward and downward , wink , spiral eyes , squeeze shut , bill cipher reference , and blank slate . most of these also include background of skin colour to cover standard eyes , but could just as well choose to hide eye group .
eyelids cover tweaks to eye shapes : sad eyelids , angry eyelids , tired eyelids , cheeky eye smile , devious squint eyelids , and twitchy eyelids in 2 forms .
facial flushes include blue sickness , and yellow blush . for each kind of flush there is 1 full layer , which do not accomodate any eye shapes , and then duplicate and erase as necessary to conform with other shapes . not elegant , but functional .

last layer group - floaties
objects which help to clarify emotion . specifically , kossai floaties fall in categories of punctuation , and props .
punctuation include hearts , ellipsis , ellipsis and heart , exclamation marks , question marks , interrobang . these work for intensifiers - say want difference between angry and irate , but not sure how to make different . exclamation marks , or perhaps censor bar , could intensify expression , without need to make something fully new .
props include rainbow paint pour for artistic , dirt cover and leaf for dirty , stanford pines glasses for nerdy and geeky , frost cover and icicles for cold , and finally , out of order post-it note for exanimate .

finally , here is some example of how kossai put these in action : 



base face and blown pupils create curious .
rainbow paint pour and eye movement create artistic .
stanford pines glasses and hearts create geeky .
squeeze shut eyes , frost , and icicles create cold .

again , animations such as these :


belong to separate files .
devious , for example , use frames of standard face , standard face with bill cipher eyes , and then various eyelids to create blink cycle .
crushed meanwhile use sad eyelids , warp perspective to " flatten " sprite , then draw rock to fall into frame .

hopefully this is of some kind of use , or at least interest to others . :)

one ability which might miss here is reblog - or rechost , if so prefer . nothing is quite like that here , but these ideas might help .

1. copy-paste and host on personal journal .
but whoa there , stop and hold on ! yeah , do not do this without clear and explicit permission . if something is behind access filter , then journal owner want this to stay there , clearly .
worth mention this is also not necessarily common behaviour - tend to be exception , not norm .
but say permission acquire , OK .
this will be of course , any other normal entry on page . will show on reading pages unless explicitly turn off , have ability to tag to personal conventions , so on and so forth .
there is side effect that this content will not disappear even if original journal owner do - that might be nice if some tragic digital accident wipe account , but become thorn in side if actually want to delete .

so is there another way ? well .

2. make entry with link to original post .
again , if something is behind access filter , then journal owner want this to stay there - but at least in this case , post would still be behind lock . still , probably ask to do this if post is not already in public eye .
one benefit is this give more opportunity to contribute thoughts and comments as part of share - after all , want people to click link , right ? so should probably explain why like so much !
again , this have same benefits of any other normal journal entry .

and something else , too :

3. memories .
memories feature is nice . there is more limit on tags here , so probably will not have full hierarchy . these also will not show up in reading pages of followers .
however , these might be easier to browse , as will almost certainly have shorter list of tags than full journal . and while memory tags have certain limits , titles can contain information too .

unfortunately there is no way to directly give long form comments on memories , but this lead nicely into ...

4. combination strategy !
memories do not just apply to posts from other journals . can choose to make memories from personal posts , and as well from posts that generate in RSS feed accounts .
( important caveat : RSS feed posts will eventually expire - so this choice is not great for longevity , but might work if expect will only need memory temporarily , such as event announcement from off-site . hat tip to tropicsbear ! )

that in mind , might choose to share video or article link as regular journal post , with unique tag like " gallery " so people can easily view - or even split into hierarchy to get more specific .
but if that piece really stand out , and want people to definitely see this , could choose to put post in memories . this way , someone would not need to go through whole tag list to find correct tag , and then look through tag to find that specific piece .
memories can be smaller , more specific list of curations , in essence !

none of this is really perfect standin replacement , but , hope these things might help . :)

place to ask questions ! because this is something which will miss from cohost …

all comments here go through screen - no one will see , in other words . 
answers to comments here will likely go into separate new posts , to allow for full range of answers and rambles .