#// Images under a cut because I am on mobile and I don't know how they look on desktop lol!

[furby-organist]

> @arachn0philia "Angel, sweetheart! I brought back some spoils of war, from my fierce battle against the Traitor Joseph! Enjoy!"

[wolfes]

NEW EDITOR 101: A GUIDE FOR GIFMAKERS by v @shangs

Hi friends! I know I said I would do this way back in April/May when this change was announced but I've been massively busy lately so thank you all for being patient with me :)

Based on the results of this poll, I will be trying my level best to help make a guide for gifmakers to best deal with any problems that have been present with the new editor. However, it's worth noting that I have personally not experienced any of these problems myself and I have no record of any problems from other people that I could send to staff and get guidance on, so for some of these issues I will unfortunately be a broken record.

That being said, I have been using the new editor for a few months now and it hasn't been too bad. So don't be discouraged by the new editor if you still love to make gifs and share them. You may need to adapt a bit, but it's doable!

This is meant to be comprehensive and will be explanation and image heavy. Full guide under the cut.

CONTENTS:

What is the new editor?

Steps to take before posting

Making a post

Troubleshooting

01. WHAT IS THE NEW EDITOR?

Some of you may be asking yourselves what the point of the new editor even is and why it's being implemented in the first place when we already had a (mostly) functional editor. My very limited understanding of it as a CS student is app compatibility and flexibility. I'm not totally clear on the details nor am I 100% certain this is the case, but NPF posts (basically, posts made with the "new editor") first started with the mobile app. I'm unsure if the different post types were simply too unwieldy to transfer to the app - having to make a whole bunch of post types when with the new editor you can now have posts with any elements you want without the rigidity of a set post type - or if it was simply not able to be implemented, but the apps have always used NPF. The majority of Tumblr users are coming from the mobile apps. Then it became a case of having the legacy editor for the web users (which were fewer in number) and the new NPF editor for everyone else. That takes resources to keep around and it's pretty inefficient. Naturally the older editor that was used by less people was going to get the axe, especially since you couldn't tell on mobile that there was even a difference between NPF or legacy posts.

So now here we are and the posts are NPF. This means they're in "Neue Post Format." Basically, every post you make is by default a text post, containing "blocks" of other media - as gifmakers we will primarily be dealing with photos.

I understand that it's frustrating to many to see "our gifs are now rendered as text posts" and ask WHY it's happening when photos should logically be rendered as photo posts - but the fact is, there's now no real delineation between a "text post" and a "photo post." The reason NPF posts are now "text posts" is because that's how they are rendered for desktop themes, not because everyone is going to see your post as text and your gifs are going to be compressed into the quality of a potato (though I know some have seen this issue - more on that later.)

02. STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE POSTING

The long and short of it is that you may have to update your theme. More detail here for those who are interested, but check that your theme supports "new editor posts" or "NPF posts" AND that this is true for original posts (you can read more about why in this ask and, although this may be a bit time-consuming, test it out on your blog). I can say with certainty that my second theme Cygnus supports original NPF posts. This is NOT true of my first theme, though.

You can try to add the NPF Fix by @glenthemes to your own theme (beware if you don't know HTML/CSS) or try this tip by @burningblake for original posts.

Feel free to add theme makers with fully NPF-compatible themes in the notes! I have been happily using my own theme so I can't say to what degree others' themes are NPF-friendly.

03. MAKING A POST

If you're sticking around to post on the new editor and you have trouble ordering your gifs around, here's a little guide on how to post.

If I click on "Photo" from web and open up the editor, here's how it looks:

I went ahead and added three full-width gifs and the editor put them in like so:

You'll most likely also have to order your gifs around in the way you want them. You can go ahead and hover over your gifs to see the button to orient them (the four dots in the top left corner) and the button for an image description (the three dots in the bottom right corner). I've attached images of all three below:

If you hold the orientation button, move your gif around until you see the blue line that shows where your gif will end up in the spot that you want it. For example, I wanted to move the second gif below the first one, so I oriented it so that the blue line would show the marker between the two gifs:

Now my gifs are oriented nicely! Of course, this is a simpler layout, but the principles still hold.

If you save your gifs as a draft and reopen them or you just notice a large gap like this in between your gifs when you're in the editor, don't worry.

This will not show up in dash view or on a desktop theme that supports original NPF posts. For example, this is how the gifs' gap (without modification) looked in my desktop theme:

With your gifs ordered, the final step is to add alt text. You can read more about alt text and why you should use it here. (Feel free to ignore the sections about the captions on the legacy editor since it is no longer relevant. It's also unnecessary to clearly mark descriptions if they're not in the caption of your post because they will clearly show up under "ALT" on Tumblr.)

If you click the three dots in the bottom right corner as seen above, and click "update image description:"

You can add the description you like and click "update." Your photos' alt text will show up under the "ALT" bubble on Tumblr. This is generally a good practice to get into to make your content more accessible, so I hope you guys will consider using alt text regularly :)

Also, I've noticed that in the editor, if you go back and edit something it will take some time to show up. You may have to refresh the page or load it again after some time, but your edits should be there. I would not go back and edit posts again if you see your posts haven't shown up. I also advise against editing your posts on mobile because it's easier to make a mistake.

And there you go, you've successfully made a post with the new editor!

04. TROUBLESHOOTING

I'm sure you've all been waiting for this. Unfortunately I am probably going to be extremely unhelpful if the editor hasn't been refined in the last few months for those experiencing issues. I'm going to go in the categories that I listed out in my original poll, but keep in mind that I haven't personally seen any of these issues on my end so I haven't been able to contact staff with any evidence that this happened other than my poll.

Dashboard view quality issues: I haven't noticed this issue. I'm not sure if this has been fixed since the original poll was posted. If you're experiencing this issue, this is not something I know how to fix so I would contact staff with screenshots of the issue.

Desktop theme side padding: As noted before, this is a theme issue. If you change themes to something that is NPF-compatible with original posts, there shouldn't be any more issues here.

Small gifs on mobile: In my experience this was happening regardless of what editor was used; it's a bug that seems to have been fixed since this poll was created. If you're still experiencing it, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would advise contacting staff.

New editor doesn't accept gifs of size 9.8MB < x < 10MB: I haven't experienced this issue so I would say the only workaround would be to either trim the size of your gif so that it is under 9.8MB or whatever threshold seems to be the cutoff or contact staff (I am so sorry for constantly having to suggest this 😭 unfortunately there's no trick I can offer because the new editor has been taking all my gifs just fine)

Logistical issues ordering gifsets: I hope this guide has been able to answer the majority of questions and shed some light on some of the more buggy behaviors of the new editor, but if you have any more specific questions you can feel free to shoot me an ask!

HTML issues / colored text: Unfortunately it seems colored text may be deprecated entirely? This could be for accessibility purposes because I believe screen readers would read out every single letter of gradient text in captions which I imagine can get quite frustrating for users of this technology. I recommend just using the normal rich text editor. If you want small text, you can highlight and click the <s> button!

Other: If it seems like something I may be able to answer, please feel free to ask me. Otherwise... hound staff 😭

Here's where you can hound staff, btw. If you're having major issues I would advise you guys to submit support tickets. That way if there are any widespread bugs, staff will hopefully be able to fix them.

I hope this guide was helpful to you guys in dealing with the new editor, and happy giffing <3

[squirrel-art]

Finished my little compilation of Sav and her mobility aids! ID in alt for each.

Disclaimer that I'm able-bodied & open to criticism about my portrayal! Also I realized belatedly her rollator is parked in a way that would, in fact, not keep it from rolling the fuck around, my bad.

Further details about my design philosophy/Sav's symptoms under the cut.

I played Savtas through Consular Story Chapter 1 in Full Good Girl Mode, saving all the Jedi and using the shielding ritual whenever prompted. The side effects of the rituals are vague and inconsequential in-game so as to make the job of the writers and programmers easier; characters comment worriedly about the fact that you "look tired" and not much else.

Fortunately, I have none of these restrictions. I don't know how to scientifically quantify "life-essence", but in my canon the energy required to create and maintain the shields comes right out of the body of the shielder, and behaves first and foremost like a faster-than-sustainable burning of calories. In the short-term, Sav became dangerously malnourished and fatigued; in the long-term she developed PoTS and what I've been glibly referring to as "Force fibro" in my brain, because the symptoms she experiences are the similar to that of those who suffer from fibromyalgia in real life: chronic pain, chronic fatigue, disordered sleep, and brain fog.

Some of those physical symptoms are ameliorated via use of a mobility aid, so she's tried out a couple different types.

Rollator

Sav's mobility aid of choice, purchased somewhere at the beginning of Ch 2. Sav is prone to dizziness and fatigue, and has less difficulty walking than she does standing for long periods; the rollator helps keep her balance and gives her somewhere to sit for short spells when she needs to.

The wheels do make this device better for navigating flatter and more even ground, but I imagine she can swap the wheels out for all-terrain varieties. I wonder if you could put blades on them like ice skates, to move around on places like Hoth? Well, the brakes wouldn't work, so probably not.

As mentioned in a previous post on my other sideblog, the design and colors are meant to evoke the pillars of the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant. This model is bespoke, created to Savvy's whimsical specifications. It wasn't even that expensive; you'd be surprised how many discounts people are willing to offer a Jedi!

Chair

A gift from the Jedi Council upon her defeat of Terrak Morrhage and the subsequent quelling of the Force plague. It's a more expensive model, and comes with a sturdy stand to rest it on when it's charging or not in use.

Design inspo drawn from both canon sources and the wonderful hermitmoss' hoverchair headcanons post!

I deliberated for a while as to whether Sav would have been given a wheelchair or a hoverchair. I settled on hoverchair mostly because Sav wanted a certain level of independence in her movement, but nobody was sure how long it would take her to regain enough upper body strength to reliably push herself around in a manual chair.

Sav in this image is at the beginning of her recovery, but she does continually make use of her chair after regaining some of her weight and muscle mass. Her rollator became her device of choice over the chair in part because the chair is kind of bulky and heavy, and can't be easily collapsed for transport. She probably has a lighter, more maneuverable transport chair stored on the ship to utilize in a pinch.

Looking at the design of the chair, I am already dissatisfied with it - the seat isn't raked to keep her from sliding out of it, and the control panel should realistically be attached to an extension and not directly under her hand. We'll fix that in the next pass, I think, but for now this drawing is representative of the overall design and colors.

Cane

She's got a few of these! Most have an offset or contour grip because she finds them the most comfortable, and most have adjustable bases.

Her favorite is probably the non-adjustable wooden one she got from a craftsman on Alderaan, the only one she owns made of fully organic materials.

[serandipity]

This is an indie multi muse rp blog for muses from the Legend of Zelda, Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, Final Fantasy, F.ire Emblem, and guest starring a few OC's penned by Serenade or Sera. OC friendly, crossover friendly, but slow replies ahoy.

Current Counts

Drafts: 36 Starters owed: 0

Associated with: @agloryofuniicorns

Followed for a specific muse and don't want to see the others? Totally understandable! My tagging system for muses is muse: '[c.haracter name]' so just add that to your filter list and the posts should be filtered to keep your dash clean!

fandoms are tagged as fandom: [n.ame of f.andom]. Dots included. This is to keep things out of the main tags

my art is tagged as doodle book [m.use name] other art reblogged is tagged as portraits: [m.use name]

the little lady that appears in the promo image is Starlette Teaflower, a fun little oc of mine. Currently I am off dash. The best way to get a hold of me is through dm's. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Currently the q is set to pump out a post a day until I’m caught up. Thanks for understanding! Mobile Friendly Muse List + Rules under the cut

001. I am mutuals only, but I’m not super picky over who I follow. I don’t usually follow first, but I am trying to follow more people. If I follow you, assume I wish to write with you in some capacity. I do not send in passwords. It gives me anxiety. Thank you for understanding. 002 .I will only write with people who are 18+. I do not want minors interacting with my posts or with me at all. I was a teacher for 5+ years and I am uninterested in curating my private space for minors the way I had to curate my professional space. I will hard block you if you’re a minor 003. Treat me the same way you’d want to be treated. Do not push for a ship, do not push for me to reply, do not god mode, etc etc. I feel I really don’t have to spell most of this out because this should all be basic RP etiquette already. 

I don’t really care if you reblog memes or images from me. I will sometimes post my own personal art. If you like it or it is relevant to your blog, you are free to reblog it.

If I reblog something from you like a meme or something and you find you want me to reblog from source instead let me know. I try to do that but I’m mobile a lot and sometimes I honestly just forget

004. I write at work most of the time and am not on tumblr on my days off. This can mean there are days where I am not writing depending on how busy work is. I have a thread tracker to check if I have replied to something and it’s usually* up to date

*sometimes it is not and if it is not please feel free to dm me and ask.

005. Please leave fandom drama at the door!

Some of the fandoms I write in are notorious for having… contentious views over specific characters, and I do not wish to partake in this. I like my muses, I like writing them, and I will continue to write them. Additionally, I will be writing darker topics (they all will be tagged and under readmores).

If you feel the need to police me for my muses or for the content that I write, I will block you. 006. With the exception of a few, most muses are written as being over 18. This includes muses who may not be canonically that age but will be with time. All interactions with them being over 18 are set after their canon events. If this bothers you, do not follow me. 007. While I feel I’m not slow, I tend to have a lot of interactions, and I will always prioritize my friends over others. This does not mean I do not want to write with you, but you will likely see some partners receiving replies daily while you receive a reply once every few weeks. This is another case of ‘if this bothers you, do not follow me’.

On this note, I also only would like to follow blogs I am actively writing with. If we do not have a meaningful thread after 2-3 months, I will unfollow. 008. I adore shipping and will be posting a shipping call on my actual blog that will detail my guidelines in more detail. But, to suffice - unless a muse is private (or under the age of 18), consider them shippable! All muses can assume to be bisexual. Please leave any ship drama at the door too. I will ship what I want to ship and write what I want to write and tag it as necessary to give people a chance to filter like I do with everything else on this blog. If that’s a deal breaker then please do not follow me.

009. I am not afraid to defend myself if some garbage pops up. I don't believe in being nice and polite anymore for the sake of optics and "not bringing drama to the dash" anymore. I consider myself friendly, but I will not be a doormat for people who only wish to assume the worst of me.

010. If you soft block me and I find out no hard feelings, but also, I'm just going to hard block you. I will assume you no longer wish to interact with me and will follow suit. This is to cut down on the potential of me accidentally refollowing after you've quietly expressed you don't wish to interact anymore.

011. I am of the mindset that most things can be solved with a dm. I actually think tumblr's mindset of you can never be confrontational is actively harmful and has created an environment where everyone is too afraid to speak their mind or speak up when they have an issue with someone. in fear of being viewed as "toxic" or "drama mongering". Please know that if you have an issue with me and wish to discuss it in DM's I will at the very least hear you out and listen to your side.

012. Do not interact if your blog is solely used for the purpose of writing smut and producing thinly veiled fetish content. I have NEVER had a good experience with those types of blogs and have no interest in writing with them. I am fine with smut / nsfw content as long as that's not all your blog is for. I will unfollow if you do not either put your nsfw content under a read more or give me an easy way to filter it with tags. I will hard block if you engage in any of the following kinks: feederism, inflation, or weight gain. I'm not interested in kink shaming but those specific kinks make me grossily uncomfortable

Muse list below:

F.inal F.antasy -E.stinien - F.F14 -R.yne - F.F14 -H.ien - F.F14 -I.sabella ( the Dame) - FF16 - M.id - F.F16 -S.leipnir - F.F16 -C.id - F.F16 - D.ion - F.F16 - I.gnis - F.F15 - P.rompto - F.F15 -G.entiana - F.F15 - A.ranea - F.F15 F.ire E.mblem - D.orothea - F.E3H - F.elix - F.E3H - M.arianne - F.E3H -B.ernadetta - F.E3h -S.ylvain - F.E3H -M!B.yleth - canon divergent / au based - associated with @agloryofuniicorns -J.eralt - F.E3H -F.layn - F.E3H - R.hea - F.E3H - I.vy - F.E E.ngage - H.ortensia - FE Engage - V.eyle - F.E E.ngage -C.eline - F.E E.ngage -M!Alear - F.E E.ngage

H.arvest M.oon P.opuri - H.arvest Moon 64/ FomT K.aren - H.arvest Moon 64/ FomT E.lli - H.arvest Moon 64/ FomT M.ary - H.arvest Moon 64/ FomT S.kye - H.arvest Moon DS Cute H.arvest K.ing - H.arvest M.oon A.nimal P.arade W.izard - H.arvest M.oon A.nimal P.arade C.andace - H.arvest M.oon A.nimal P.arade

K.ingdom H.earts - A.qua - B.BS / K.H3

L.egend of Z.elda H.ylia - L.ore D.in - L.ore N.ayru - L.ore F.arore - L.ore S.ky Z.elda - S.kyward S.word Ghirahim - S.kyward S.word F.i - S.kyward S.word S.heik - canon divergent / o.ot au based M.ikau - M.ajora's M.ask - Request Lulu - M.ajora's M.ask D.eku P.rincess M.idna - T.wilight P.rincess T.etra - W.ind W.aker M.ipha - B.reath of the W.ild R.iju - B.reath of the W.ild P.okemon L.illie - S.un and M.oon Gladion - S.un and M.oon Lusamine - S.un and M.oon R.ika - S.carlet and V.iolet L.arry - S.carlet and V.iolet R.aishan - S.word and S.hield S.teven S.tone - O.RAS

R.une F.actory M.ist - R.F1 / R.FF S.haron - R.F1 B.ianca - R.F1 / R.FF I.ris N.oire - R.FF I.ris B.lanche - R.FF M.icah - R.F3 P.ia - R.F3 - Available F.rey - R.F4 V.ishnal - R.F4 D.olce - R.F4 L.eon - R.F4 L.ucas - R.F5 M.urakamo - R.F5 M.isasagi - R.F5 Tales of E.dna - Z.estirea R.okurou - B.erseria L.aphicet - B.erseria D.ohalim - A.rise R.inwell - A.rise C.olette - S.ymphonia Zellos - S.ymphonia Yuan - S.ymphonia Persona J.oker - P.5 Y.usuke K.itagawa Futaba Sakura Tae Takemi Kawakami Sae Nijima Ann Takamaki Otome Games Arsene Lupin - Code Realize Victor Frankenstein - Code Realize Sagihara Saikyo - Ken ga Kimi Suzukake - Ken Ga Kimi Heisuke Todou - Hakuoki Okita Souji - Hakuoki Hachirou Iba - Hakuoki Aiji Yanagi - Collar x Malice Adolphe - Virche Evermore

Other Media C.astiel - Supernatural

[ohii-san]

yes tell us about eihiyo!!!!!

folds hands okay so . to me it's very fundamental that you keep in mind eichi and hiyori were childhood friends and they've known each other likely longer than keito has known eichi and i DON'T KNOW WHY THEY KEEP FUCKING DISREGARDING IT I HATE AKIRA anyway . i'll put it under the cut i know i am very rambly

edit; i hit the image limit i am not normal

so starting with checkmate which is translated by dreamwidth user shivalries but i have a screenshot of the wiki here no i don't how the fuck am i supposed to find it it's so far back in my gallery oh my god OH I GOT IT

it's like never stated when eihiyo meets but it's Obviously fairly young because of the way they refer to each other . i have insane bias so i put them as like toddler friends but realistically they may have met shortly before nagisa came into the tomoe family, since it's stated that the foundation is falling as of ! era meaning they were far more likely to have met years prior in its peak .

SO . let's look at what eichi says here . he says he's similar to hiyori by admitting it would be like looking at himself, and this is a sentiment they both repeat in other stories; i haven't read altered but i am so sure it probably echoes this . he also knows hiyori well enough to understand that they're not particularly amicable, nor is hiyori someone who's easy to deal with when he doesn't fancy it . additionally, in pretty mission, we get these interactions;

it's very likely the two of them attended social gatherings for high society families, which would also perhaps be where hiyori could vaguely know the himemiya family from aside from word of mouth ( it's established in a hiyori side story from ! that he has met tori before, but i believe tori says it was during his time with exfine ? )

we also get to see, in altered, that eichi is more than capable of courtesy and awareness of hiyori's false behaviors . he also says here that they've known each other a long time 🧐 fascinating . okay then . so they mutually understand one another and can't lie to each other ? sounds like something people in a FORMER RELATIONSHIP WOULD SAY !!!!!!! congrats to eichi for being the most divorced nineteen year old in the world

moving on . sorry for the poor image quality i combined two screenshots so i could add the altered one since i NEED people to see it

moving onto summer live which ummm was done by kotofucius ( a long inactive tl :( hope they're okay ) right here, but i have screenshots from the wiki saved so it's what you get lol ❤️ anyway hiyori states it's been a long time since he's seen eichi, and we know this is after the war so we can assume hiyori and eichi more or less fell out after hiyori transferred to reimei . tsumugi states ( in a story i can't recall ? may be ss ) that he keeps in contact with hiyori and nagisa, and that ibara ( <- i believe he says "that kid" or something though, referring to nagisa's roommate and partner, who is ibara ) has helped nagisa grow as a person etc etc so Why did hiyori ghost eichi 🧐 but it's easy enough to understand .

i accidentally grabbed so many screenshots but wonder game gives us a decent glimpse into their dynamic too .

i put them all side by side on mobile to save space a little but the gist of this is that eichi is . very .. aware ? of hiyori's personality and mannerisms, and feels comfortable calling them out . hiyori is someone who canonically wears a facade so imo it's very interesting that eichi calls his bluffs, points out his flaws, etc without much thought at all . they're obviously close and well acquainted no matter how much they appear to hate one another .

we see it later in summer live too, he advises hokuto almost nonstop for the trickstar/eve meeting because he understands hiyori and grasps quite well that he's difficult when he wants to be, which is exactly how he ends up acting with hokuto; really the only reason they get through that meeting is eichi's guidance and hokuto getting pissed off enough to get hiyori to respect him . a tiny bit .

also, in wonder game again, we get to see the fact that hiyori is eventually dedicated to eichi's cause despite hating him . in my opinion this is hiyori deflecting; i believe they're actually much closer than either of them admit in ! era stories ( which is Basically all i've referenced so far ), and their !! banter is definitely meant to be read as far more playful

hiyori acknowledges eichi's dedication and seems to admire it, and also shut up look at what hiyori says in summer live you will not believe this shit

?!?!?!?!?! BUT YOU PERFORM WITH EICHI AND WORK ALONGSIDE HIM . YOU DON'T HATE HIM YOU BIG BITCH BABY JESUS CHRIST !!!! ohhh my god they're so insufferable okay . i'm running out of intelligent thought but i hope you now understand that eichi and hiyori do definitely respect one another, they work well together, i believe hiyori had a crush on eichi as a child and they ( like reichi ) have insane divorced energy . their fights in !! are much more tame compared to them outright saying "i hate you" HAHAH . going back to that second pretty mission screenshot ( as i said at the top, i hit the image limit ), you can definitely read it in a way more amicable teasing kind of way . i would also like to give a shoutout to this white brim moment where hiyori smacks eichi for pretending to die and traumatizing tori . real exes behavior idk personally i wouldn't assault people i wasn't close with HAHAH i also want to mention *this* white brim moment where eichi says that hiyori has been a maid, presumably worn a maid dress also ( for him ?!?!? ) before . it's probably a reference to them playing as children but i am losing my goddamn mind at the idea of like 15/16 year olds eihiyo fucking around and making a bet which ends with hiyori serving eichi .

okay i need to shut up this has been so much please read white brim ( i haven't even read it in full ) and wonder game THANK YOU FOR LISTENING PLEASE SEE MY VISION I SPENT AN HOUR TYPING ALL OF THIS AND GATHERING SCREENSHOTS

[tdp-fandom]

Shipping Poll Update

Click here if you haven't voted yet

Hello friends! As of the writing of this post, I've received 103 responses which is amazing! Thank you all so much! A special thank you goes to those who shared the poll - it is thanks to you guys that I got this many responses and I really appreciate it <3

I would like to share some general statistical data so far (the one that doesn't have an impact on the overall results) and address some feedback that I've received. Some graphs

I'm very happy to see that tumblr users have been the most active! You guys rock! Reddit has also been really active and I'm happy to see discord and twitter catching up!

I don't expect a lot of activity from dreamwidth as it's a different kind of website and I barely have any followers there but I'm curious to see how it goes. I ended up not posting anything on instagram because I would need to make images and I currently don't have the spoons for that :c

The age graph is also really cool! I'm very happy to see so many active 31+ people! Almost a quarter! And I'm very grateful to the young adults, who are the main bulk of the participants! I'm also happy to see teen participants express their votes as well c:

That's its for graphs for now - I can't share the rest just yet without the risk of getting the data skewed.

What I'd like to talk about next is your amazing feedback and how a few early participants saved this poll! Read under cut.

Feedback

People Who Have Saved the Poll

I posted the poll at 2 am my time (I had been working late nights on it the entire week because of real life responsibilities taking most of my free time) but decided to stick around for a bit to check if everything was going smoothly and to finish my conversations with friends on discord.

About 7 votes in, I decided to check on the poll and I saw this message in the feedback field:

"I didn`t see Rayla/Callum anywhere. Am I just blind or?"

This person was a life saver! Because although I know I added Rayllum originally, I must've accidentally deleted it and never noticed T-T it really is super easy to accidentally click on an X and delete a row from a multiple choice grid on google forms. Thanks to that person the crisis was averted. And it really would've been a crisis, because Rayllum is the flagship of TDP and getting lots of answers with no opinion on Rayllum would've really hurt the accuracy of the data.

I had also forgotten to add opinion options for some categories in the controversial ships section, which a friend as well as two poll takers notified me about!

Thank you all for the valuable feedback! I don't know what I would do without you.

Other Feedback

A few people mentioned that they weren't sure if it were ok not to tick every ship and I realized I hadn't been clear on that in my instructions. It is absolutely fine to skip whatever you feel like skipping. If there are ships you don't care about so much you don't even want to choose any option for - that is 100% valid and it tells me important information about the ship - you're not just neutral about it, you really do not care about a ship. And if I want to accurately evaluate our fandom's relationship with various ships, this information is also important.

People also commented that there have been too many ships to go through and that's definitely true. I tried to be as thorough as I could by including every possible ship people would have opinions on but the lists ended up being huge. I am planning to change a few things for the season 5 poll. I will probably exclude certain ships that won't do very well on this poll (unless the events in S5 warrant keeping them) and try to rearrange them in a way that can help people go through them faster.

There was a related comment where a person noted that it's not very convenient to scroll back and forth through the four opinion choices on mobile and suggested using just the numbers 1 to 4. That is a very good idea - I will implement this in the next poll.

One person was asking about Breakfast Guards being included in the canon ships. While I didn't get any official confirmations, they were shown almost kissing in the episode where Zubeia visits Katolis so I think that counts as them having some sort of onscreen not strictly platonic relationship.

While I explained the kinds of ships the poll was dealing with as well as the difference between active and passive shipping, I didn't actually explain what I mean by shipping, as one person rightfully pointed out! It's not an easy thing to define but I will try to come up with something for the season 5 poll! So far we can stick to romantic, queerplatonic or nonromantic sexual dynamics.

I used the wrong ship name for Rex Igneous x Avizandum. It should be Zanrex instead of Rexandum and the wonderful @cometchasr explained to why that particular shipname was chosen! He said that Zan was a nickname for Avizandum used a in few fics featuring the former dragon king and it fit very well with how the nickname Zym works. When I don't know a shipname I often just make one up on the spot as a placeholder but I am always happy to hear feedback from actual shippers and I switch to their preferred shipname.

I got so many nice compliments and words of encouragement too! Thank you guys! It means a lot ;__;

I will try to address feedback roughly once a week and keep you all updated on how things are going!

[weisskunigin]

a study in growing up and out, how to be strong and finding your ideals

super, super private with low activity (i say, but it really depends on where my hyperfixation goes) for Trainer White from Pokemon Special and the Pokemon BW video games. canon divergent and very headcanon based with cherry picking from canon; this blog is super selective, mutuals only and you can call me kelpy. I default to b2w2/post b2w2 era unless plotted otherwise.

for ease of access:

Carrd

Headcanons tag

Private/Public Info (subject to edits) / timeline edits to accumula -> nimbasa

Memes tag

Perma starter call

wishlist plots

verse list

rules under the cut for mobile

Won't be taking commentary on N/White as a ship. Non-negotiable. My White is 18 in BW and 20 in B2W2 because that's more plausible than 14 to me for someone starting their own talent agency, even if it's silly pokemon fantasy world. I will block for this.

I RP with canon and OCs alike, I don’t mind either one. I do however, reserve the right to drop a thread for any reason, though I’ll try to talk to you about it. Discord is available to mutuals on request. Just please be aware I suffer from social anxiety so my conversational skills are not great.

This is an 18+ blog; I am 35 and prefer to rp with adults. My preference is 21+

Mutuals only! Please don't like inbox or starter calls if I do not follow you.

Singleship; White's already got herself an N and she only has eyes for him. Most if not all of my worldbuilding will as a result be intertwined with her N's own worldbuilding. Other Ns may interact, but they will always be considered AU interactions and not intersect with the 'canon' timelines.

I can and will use the block button if I feel the need; no I will not justify why I've blocked someone if I do feel the need to do so. If I've hardblocked you, it is 100% because you make me uncomfortable, we've had previous drama on other blogs/in discord and I don't wish to rekindle it, or you simply post a lot of my triggers untagged and I'm doing it for my own mental health.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE TAG HORROR, EXPLICIT CREEPY PASTA, JUMP SCARES AND GORE/EXCESSIVE GORE (IMAGES ONLY, TEXT IS FINE) WITH TW/CW HORROR. Please also tag dolls, ball joint, porcelain and very life like dolls in particular. Dolls that are very clearly toys such as barbie dolls don't need to be tagged. BJD is also an acceptable tag for dolls.

When it comes to "mains"; if White is talking about that particular character in an NPC role, you're welcome to assume that she's speaking about one of the listed blogs specifically, as it's likely something that happened with one of them. (This does not mean their blog is or will be involved in the plot we have going! It just means that if White mentions something offhand, it probably did happen and lets me, personally, keep track of where the thread/plot fits in my blog's verse(s) in my own internal organization system.)

Ask memes can always be continued and turned into a thread, no question! Feel free to reply or move it to a new thread if you wanna continue it and I'll likely reply. If I'm not feeling like it needs to be continued I'll let you know so we can plot something anyway.

While nsfw topics may come up they'll be more along the lines of canon typical violence, child abuse/kidnapping, etc. All stuff that happens in the manga and video games.

[frostbite-the-bat]

OK, I'm on mobile so it May Be Goofy BUT - here's the story of how I got banned from advertising and selling commissions on a furry server. Full edition because (beffica voice) DRAMAAAAA.

This WILL be long. I have adhd, it's 4 am, and I overexplain. you should know me by now, however. have fun reading!

vvvv under the cut

Also, warning - when a piece of this happened, it left me very upset, but nowadays I just kind of laugh at it and go "wow what an asshole that other guy." so don't worry about me (aside from the fact I have trust issues with commissions now)

------

Okay so, years ago on discord, around 2018 when I first got the name Guzma (that's where it stuck), I joined a furry server. I wasn't doing well mentally and wanted like minded people to talk to, so I joined a furry server

I befriended people there rather quickly, as I was active all day for hours in the pokecord channel. I even got past like 2k messages there which was a requirement for a level up thing and I did it in ONE day.

I became buddies with the staff and the owner. like many people she jokingly adopted me as a kid into the goofy server family tree and I considered us all friends there. (many of these people I know to this day, we just don't chat often)

However.... She turned out to be not so great. Throwing the n slur around like it's candy alongside other questionable things I cannot remember too clearly. The server was in hot waters, and despite it's popularity, it vanished one day and I was invited into a side server for people the server owner liked. It was.... Horrible. Slurs everywhere and inappropriate images (not sexual I believe tho, just bad shit.) were shared. Most of us were minors at the time, but there were some young adults, too, I think. Still doesn't excuse the shitty place it was. I was madly uncomfortable and I left.

Also before I move on, run fact! In this server and my friends were in a quackity video - I think I saw him join but didn't react and thought of just some generic raider we're gonna get rid off... I kinda always sniffed out the new joins who were raiders well. But yeah, he joined the vc, said "wanna do the owo and the furry" and then got banned. My friend who shows up next and the server owner were in this call. After the video dropped we began getting more raids, and negativity towards the furry Fandom in general got a bit more aggressive with teenage kids with war pfps joining the server to call us furfags and to die. So yeah! Fuck quackity for underestimating his impressionable fan base and for doing joke raids in general. not my only beef or drama regarding him, but I'm not sharing that.

Eventually I got contacted by one of my still good friends who I met there, about joining another furry server - where the actual story takes place! But, I believe, backstory with these people is necessary. And we did want drama, didn't we?

A lot of people from the old server moved here, so I adjusted quickly. Most of them were ex staff, and so they became staff here eventually too. I chatted there daily and constantly, and I'm still considered a trusted highlighted member there even if I haven't spoken there in over a year. (well, I stopped speaking there like around 2021 in general... Only joining for small chats and sharing my art only. A year ago I stopped entirely.)

But like yeah, I was a respected member there and people knew me there. I was basically friends with all of the staff. I was like the only og person who didn't join staff there.

And, as always, I became friends with the owner and we had our own little adopted family tree again. things were good! It was fun.

Until I did some commissions for Minecraft skins (2019ish going into 2020 at the BAD part of the story I believe), and a friend of the server owner contacted me. I did his commission (HAD TO WORK WITH A CRUSTY SHADED PAINGING JOEG AS MY REF BTW. BAD.) and delivered him his skin! He'd ask a lot for updates, but... I didn't mind it.

I got paid in discord nitro, as I was and still am unable to be paid in real money. Especially back then as a minor.

That went smoothly! He then commissioned me again, this time for a full piece. It was to be of his fursona and the server owners fursona, full-body - got an drawing as a pose reference to use. I forgot my work process here, but it was slower. Back then I tried a more realistic style before I grasped anatomy as well as I do now - without much stylization. Especially back then in furry spaces this sold better than heavily stylized cartoon styles... I yet had to accept this type of style even if I wanted. So... I wasn't having fun with it.

I'd get asked a lot for updates, again, but I did get the drawing done! Both loved the piece and at this point it was clear they trusted me for commissions. I mean I was recommended to the commissioner guy, who I'll call Ourple at this point(his sona was mainly purple colored) BY THE SERVER OWNER, who was my friend.

until, I get a commission again... And it's of the two characters again! I forgot the secofics, but it was meant to be tropical themed. I... Struggled with this one deeply. I didn't have fun with it and I struggled with school and my grades and my pretty severe bullying.

on top of that my undiagnosed adhd, and this was before I learned about any mental health or disability positivity. I knew I had adhd but I didn't know what it did yet. In my eyes and to everyone else, I was just lazy - even if it was painful for me to just.. Want to do something and my mind and body not cooperating. Its HORRIBLE.

And, issue is, I already got paid, and claimed my 6 months of nitro as payment... I couldn't give a refund. You see where this is going.

So, he gave me approximately 6 months to work on it, saying to take my time though, and that he'll check on the progress. I said that's fine... And I began initial sketches the day of. I didn't like them much and I struggled a lot. I dropped it a bit and just did things in my own life... With this kind of in the back of my mind.

Sometimes he'd ask me for updates and I'd deliver. And then about 2 months in, he noticed I was posting doodles and shit posts that took me just.. Super quick to like 5 minutes. Tho this memory is fuzzy and I max mistake it for another dms call out incident from him. He annoyed a Lot.

he finally snapped and went into my dms, asking me how DARE I draw other things when he commissioned me.

His "uwu hii hugs how's da commission doin? OwO?" talk was gone and he suddenly began speaking very formally and scarily, and well. It scared me. I forgot what exactly I said but I did mention hey I'm a kid and I'm stressed??

But he didn't speak to me he said something and bitched out, using the server owner as someone to speak for him. the server owner knew how stressed Ourple made me and how bad this kinda was - seeing I couldn't refund and I simply wasn't doing the commission.

OH I FORGOT TO MENTION. IM NOT GOIGN BACK. HE CONTACTED MODS ABOUT THIS FIRST INSTEAD OF GOING INTO MY DMS. I JUST REMEMBERED THAT. THE OWNER DMS CAME FIRST. my memory is a bit bad when it comes to unpleasant situations, apologies.

so he got THE STAFF INVOLVED WHO WERE NOW SOLVING THE SITUATION WITHOUT ME EVEN INVOLVED. the person IT WAS ABOUT.

AND I even explained to purple hey I have adhd and I'm like a kid you're an adult you should've known better commissioning a fucking child (15 at the time?? Idk... Years and numbers may be incorrect in the story.)

But he was still angry and refused to speak to me. And I was too scared to speak back. I cried and cried and I was so worried.

At this state I could not do the commission especially as my mental state was just... Bad in general at the time mostly due to school.

And then... A saint old friend from the previous server... A total sweetheart of the sweethearts, who was also dating someone who I called uncle who was genuinely the bed test ever who I had MANY pleasant commissions with - came in and offered help and that the staff discussed things.

they would finish the commission for me and I take some time off to focus on myself and get better. and this was someone with basically professional level art. Fancy fun very well rendered art, could so stylized and cool as hell realistic too. And I couldn't thank them enough for the offer and their kindness.

Eventually... Time passes... And I get over all this. I continue my school life and my art life as I did. I began posting more art and at this point I think it was 2021 and I was into bugsnax so this is my early new Tumblr era I believe. he noticed I've been drawing again - and demanded I finish the commission.

Turns out he also denied my friends help to get a free commission from an arguably better artist, because he was so bitter over me. He basically saw that I was better and wanted the commission done. I think this was told to me through server owner, too.

So... I did finish the drawing. More quickly put together because I couldn't care less, I wanted to be done with it. He got his stupid commission and we were done.

But... Then... As I was switching up art styles (this could've been before it, too, remembering the styles I used... But I think it was After.) I decided to open quick headshot commissions, for steam stuff and nitro! it was fun as the ppl who commissioned me were my good friends from the server. It was advertised on the server, too, in the advertising chat where artists can advertise their commissions for all to see.

And then I was contacted by a different mod, or server owner I can't recall ... And my commission advert on the server was removed. I've been informed that I'm BANNED from posting ANY AD on the server, as it was something that was discussed between the mods when Ourple went whining to them instead of asking me about the commission. I was NOT INFORMED ABOUT THIS. so I was like?? What load of BULLSHIT??

And WELL.. TIME WENT ON... SERVER OWNER GOT INTO DRAMA... RACIST SHIT AGAIN... I GOT SCREENSHOT OF THINGS AS THEY WERE DELETED I CAN PROBABLY SPILL SHIT ON THIS GUY IF I WANTED...! one day a small argument in general broke out basically and Boy, Were Messages Being Deleted. But... I stopped being active because of some Of My Biggest Life Trauma Ever when I broke up with my ex friend. It scarred me horribly I won't elaborate however.

So I was inactive... And the server got a new owner (also a friend of mines, we still chill we just don't talk. Tho someone else may own it now idk) and I eventually asked mod friend if I can advertise there again since CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP and I was told yea ur fine lol.

So yeah. That's how i got banned from advertising on a furry server

In retrospect, it shows to be more knowledgeable when doing commissions, and to have a way of refunding someone. But also, thay the commissioner, an adult in the situation, should've been more responsible as he knew he is commissioning a minor who Most Knew Is Unwell.

He should've handled it with more nuance instead of harassing me and scaring me at first (Literally pulled up the doodle I did and went What is this? You do this while daring not to work on your PAID WORK? YOU DARE HAVE FUN??) and then refusing to speak to me and get help and free shit from others - and used someone else to speak for him. Big props for the other mod friend for being so nice to me and willing to take matters into their own hands, prioritizing my mental health first.

I've learned a lesson from this, of course, but wow I didn't need to get through all that. delightful!

[ukyokuonji]

Rip, I'm screaming rn. Anon that asked me like a month ago what my name is, I thought I answered and realized I didn't and answered on mobile today and somehow lost the ask, so lmao here is both my name and a mini landing page as I am working on my current landing page!!

Quick about, byf/dni, and things to tag.

Again my landing page is a wip, should be here soon!! Mayybe under a cut who knows I'm on mobile.

[Icon ID: Akane from the 2024 Ranma 1/2. She is scowling and wearing a yellow shirt-dress reading "Caribbean Sea." End ID]

About

Call me Ami or Katara!! I'm 20 (almost 21), a fat disabled queer nb woc (no being non-binary and a woman of color is not an oxymoron). I use she/they pronouns.

I'm latine and desi! I live in the US (New England lmao 😔) which like I don't think is important then I find out that some of my mutuals are canadian or british or something and I lose my mind.

Puedo hablar español pero tengo difícil escribiendo en español. Y entiendo que eso no tiene sentido porque leer en español es más fácil de leer en inglés. Pero cuando estoy escribiendo en inglés estoy pensando de las reglas de español, y en español estoy pensando con las reglas de inglés 🙃. My extent of speaking in any sort of desi language is saying hi, bye, "I don't know", "hurry up", food names, and family titles in my family's language. And even then I mess up because my cousins are all married now (and have been for years) and I'm meeting their spouses now and being told there's a word for sister's husband, I don't have to call them bhai, and yeah

[ID: A person sitting on the ground holding their face in their arms. Their eyes are closed, and their mouth is open as if screaming. End ID]

Before you follow/Do Not Interact

DNI

- General DNI criteria (racist, homophobic, transphobic, radfem/terf, misogynistic, islamophobic, anti-semitic, xenophobic, pedo apologist, incest shipper/apologist, etc.)

- If you "age up" fictional characters who are minors to write smut fics about them.

- Can't think critically about the media you consume, and think that popular pieces of media/fiction doesn't affect reality

- If you ship real people

- If you support jkr in any way, shape, or form

BYF

- Minors can follow, but would appreciate it if you're 14 or older. I say this as someone who's been on tumblr since before the age of 14, and am hoping to impart some of my wisdom onto you

- I'm super critical of all my media interests, and very vocal about pieces of media/characters I don't like! If that bothers you, don't follow!!

- I hate t*ylor sw*ft. I'm a classical musician and I actually have a lot of reasons both of just her music and how she presents herself to the public. Yeah I hate her 😘

- I don't really have a tagging system, (I'm trying but it's hard) so if you like neatness, dont follow!! Will tag trigger warnings tho!! Ask if you need something tagged.

- I try and reblog images/videos with descriptions, but that's hard and time consuming so sometimes I don't. If you see me like a post of yours and it doesn't get reblogged for like four months that's because I started writing an ID, got interrupted, and saved it as a draft and haven't had a chance to finish it.

Things to tag

- General triggers (violence, death, assault, racism, etc)

- Flashing lights

- Sharks

- Clowns

Yeah thanks!!

[ID: An edited screencap of Anakin Skywalker from Revenge of the Sith. He is in a spaceship, and his profile is visible. He has a communicator headset on, and is speaking into it with a smirk. The caption reads "This is where the fun begins." On the left side of his face is a semi-transparent behind-the-scenes photo of Hayden Christensen dressed as Anakin. His hair is messy and stuck to his forehead, his gaze is downward and dull, his lips are in a tight line. He looks defeated. End ID]

[elixlozgamer]

Im probably gonna get a lot of hate. Im probably gonna get death threats in my ask box (again. Yes Im looking at you "kill the soldiers" anon. Speaking of which, anon will be OFF until this post stops getting notifs. Block me if you don't want to see any other opinions than you own, because I'm allowed to have them.)

Rest of PSA is below the cut. TW for mention of death threats and possible cussing.

But we do NOT need to send death threats, things with smutty themes, etc. Into a celebrities ask box all because they're gonna be on this site.

They're people just as much as we are. If you don't like them, theres a handy-dandy feature called "blocking and moving on". Not writing rude messages. Not saying "Blazing a post is a pvp attack". (Because god forbid an artist use a feature to be seen)

I understand not wanting big corps to make their way on Tumblr. Believe me, I do. However Tumblr's advertising (or at least on mobile) is easilly skippable/you can scroll past or actually look at the ad if its somewhat interesting.

Also, Tumblr sells shoelaces for 19 dollars. That should only be like three dollars, but it shows that it really does need the money. (@indigoartistqueen mentioned that, along with other various things in this article) Such as paying programmers to create new features. Paying artists to create new logos and themes. paying the employees that check out the reports. (which I am rlly sorry for them bc I just so happen to keep finding really rude comments or things shipping an 8 year old with an 1000 year old.)

So, if tumblr got a little more money, then merch will cost less. Features will cost less. You can crab someone for less for goodness sakes. (Speaking if which, if you REALLY hate a celeb that badly, run them off with crabs.) But tumblr, just like any other site and app, NEEDS money to keep it running.

Also, don't you think SOME form of algorithm will be good? Or at least better search results? Because artists do tend to use very different tags. (Like memes, funny, lmao, lol, etc.) All that could be grouped under "Funny" so that people can actually find and search for their content easier.

Not to mention that with the way the tumblr staff are, I highly doubt they're gonna be implementing things that will cause a riot from their supporters, like the algorithm, bc the blogs ARE the algorythm, reblogging stuff they like to spread it out.

But just a better tagging system! i myself have stopped posting art as much because I just DON'T get seen! People just don't like or reblog my work, but if I were to blaze it, I would suddenly have 1,000 notes full of threats and "this is a pvp attack. Everybody block on sight."

Now, getting back to the celebrity thing. So many people have said that they don't want any political opinions to divide this site. Well I'd hate to break it to you, but we have, in some form, a type of political dispute. Usually its over the type of view one should have on a fiction character. How you can interpret them. What headcanons are correct. Which fandoms better. Which characters hotter. I could go on over the disputes! Plus the political side of tumblr! Science side of tumblr! Religous site on tumblr!

It never ends! If you don't like a celebrity, DON'T SEND DEATH THREATS TO THEIR ASK BOX! Some will actually commit it! Instead, BLOCK. THEM. It's easy! Don't pay attention to it! Just block them. If you really don't like them, send a cursed image, like I don't know, Patrick Star in stripper heels! A perfect circle thats slightly off! Do NOT send threats, because they're humans just like you! (Or as a Fairy myself, xenogenders as well)

Point is, quit trying to run celebrities off this site all because you're afraid of contriversal opinions that you don't agree with! Just block them! It's there for a reason! It's not like roblox where you can only block 100 people total!

Use the block feature. Don't fight fire with fire. It will ONLY get worse. You don't see firemen using flamethrowers, do you??? No! Please for the LOVE OF WHOEVER OR WHATEVER YOU BELIEVE IN quit spreading hate! It only makes things worse! You're only making yourself worse! Just because tumblr is an anonymous site does not mean you can do whatever you want... Because guess what? There's other humans right behind that post you just saw! (Unless its a bot ofc, that's a different story for another time)

Respectfully, have a good day. If you don't like my opinion, block me. If you send me a threat, I'll block and report you.

[intergalacticbaldness]

Tumblr mobile killed the quality, but! Doodled my personal headcanons for ear lengths because I am in LOVE with the idea that they grow with age

Click on the image if you wanna see if without the crunchiest quality ever, also more dumb thoughts about this under the cut

Okay so. The idea of ears growing as they age is already great enough, but what if it was MORE than just that?

If we look at the three oldest vampires we know, the Baron being nearly a thousand years old, Petyr being eight thousand, and the Sire literally being classified as "ancient", there's a clear progression of them becoming more monster-like as time goes by.

And yeah, sure, it's possible that's they only look like that for character design reasons. Like, Baron looking older and less human to give him a sense of higher power and to differentiate him from the main gang, since they all have an approximate 200 year gap between each other and all have the same vamp features (fangs and ashy skin due to being.. dead), despite him being no more than 250 years older than Nandor while looking like THAT.

Petyr is a clear reference to Nosferstu, and the Sire is literally the first vampire ever, BUT it's fun to think about this kind of things! I love vampires for what they are, although the idea of them becoming more and more monster-like throughout the ages is SO funky and can also be read into a lot more, as if they're losing any humanity they have left.

Like. Nandor being the one to have an existential crisis and wanting to be human again while also being the oldest just HITS when you think that, according to this logic, he's changed the most, and is also the closest to hitting an age where physical changes are much more prominent than just ears and fangs, so he's come to that realization and is just... oh fuck.

(Similarly to how some humans view turning 50 as "well I guess this means I'll never be able to feel young again!" due to wrinkles starting to get more pronounced, or hair starting to grey quicker on certain ethnicities)

So with all that being said!! Have some headcanons of physical changes vamps go through and the approximate ages they're at when these things start to happen:

- The quickest changes to occur are obviously during the initial transformation, literally dying and technically coming back to "life" as a vampire, growing fangs and having other transformations of the such. We've seen with Jenna that this is NOT a fun process, and while the actual physical changes don't take long to manifest, it can take months, possibly even years, for the body to get used to everything, depending on if the new vampire has someone to guide them through this process or not.

- At around the age of 100 is where more noticable physical changes start to occur, such as ears filling out to be a more pointy shape and fangs slightly protruding from under the upper lip. Both ears and teeth continuously grow, albeit very slowly.

- At 500, new ear muscles have been fully developed, making emoting with ears second nature, as well as greatly facilitating the process of hiding them, tensing them up to lay closer to your skull while you brush your hair in front of them being no harder than faking a smile. From this point forward, ears will begin a slow process of becoming more bat-like.

- Once a vampire gets to around 750, new physical changes start to manifest, such as teeth beyond just the canines starting to sharpen, as well as nails becoming tougher over time, growing to a natural point, starting to resemble claws after a couple centuries or so.

- By the time they've lived for a thousand years, it's essentially impossible for vampires to blend in with humans.

- As the centuries go by, as new millennia come and pass, they'll continue to slowly change until they can barely even be considered humanoid anymore. Skin going from ashy to grey, going from fangs to a mouthful of deadly sharp teeth, bone structure slowly changing to resemble something completely different than the human they once were.

[inessencedevided]

(You can find the set that this gif belongs to here 💙)

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours

I was tagged by @aheartfullofjolllly. thank you so much Pat! it was really fun to reflect about my own process 💗 You can find her post here and @lan-xichens' post that started it all here :)

Also thank you @huigusu 🥰 (who tagged me for my nie brothers set) I'll get to that one in a few days!

Now Pat gave me two sets to chose from to show my process, so obviously I chose the more complicated one :P

I only work in Photoshop CC 2018. I know that there are programs out there for easier cutting and sharpening but I have only just figured out how to do that in PS and I am too lazy to figure out any other programs right now xD

1. Idea and Planning

This set, like most of my sets with lyrics started with me reading the poem, clutching my heart and going "oh shit this fits my favourite characters!!". The idea actually started with me thinking that the first stanza of the poem would go really well with wwx during the burial mounds arc. Then I realized that the last stanza fits lwj better than him and from there came the idea to contrast the both of them next to each other. This is when I realized I wanted to do a dark-light contrast set, though I did not know that I would go with red and blue at that time. My idea in the beginning was just to do a black and white set

I was really impressed by how Pat said that she plans her sets around exact timestamps. Because I don't do that at all ^^ I just get ideas for which scenes would fit (in this case the wwx burial mounds scenes and lwj's kneeling and punishments scene) and then I watch the scenes to narrow them down.

Back when I made this set, I still used a screenrecorder (AceThinker Screen Grabber Pro to be precise. They have a test version that allows you to record up to 3 minutes) and recorded the scenes I needed from Netflix. This worked well enough but now I have the entire show saved on an external drive and it makes a world of difference when it comes to gif sharpness

Now, in this case I had to repeat this step once because when I was almost finished, I realized that I wanted a gif for the lwj corner but let's pretend I didn't do that and that's the way this gif was always going to look because otherwise this post will be way too long ^^

2. Creation

Short disclaimer: The creation process for this gifset was anything but linear. Multiple effects I used here were things I had never tried before. I just had a vague idea and tried to realize it through trial and error. So whenever I say "then I did xyz", it is implied that I ultimately went back to that step several times and changed stuff ^^

I started with the Wei Wuxian part of the gif. I usually use a frame rate of 0,06 (with some variation depending on gif length and size). I work in timeline so I converted all the layers to a smart layer. Then I resized the gif into a square, leaving big chunks of the gif empty (as can be seen below.) I flipped the gif horizontally, so he is looking inwards. This was simple because I felt it fitted the composition better. Then I imported the Lan Wangji part of the gif, again with a frame rate of 0,06. (Image 2)

After that I created a layer for masking in a separate PS document by rotating a square until it was point down (is that a rhombus?). I sized it to match my gif (540x540 pxl) and copied it over. (Image 3) a bit of masking magic and ta da! There's the basic layout (Image 4)

I put a layer of solid black behind wwx to get rid of the transparent bits (Image 5) and then started adding more white and black to both sides by adding solid whit and black layers that i put masks on and changed the opacity as i needed (Image 6)

("reading" direction: from the upper left to the lower right corner)

Then I fiddled with the colours a bit. The first thing I always do is using the curves layer to get more contrast. Then I use the colour balance tool and the selective colouring tool to get rid of that cql-typical cyan tint after that it's just trying to have it look "natural" while the colours still fit the overall scheme. This was difficult here because wei Wuxian’s side of the gif was very dark and when i turned up the saturation to see which colour dominated it was a very weird mixture of multiple colours. That's when i decided that I'd just go with red on his side, since lwj's side was already so blue and those to look great as contrasts.

After that just came a lot of fiddling with selective colour layers and brightness and contrast unti I has happy. There really wasn't much to it ^^. (Image 1)

After that I added the text. I knew I wanted the two lines to for a square of some kind. So I tried different fonds until I arrived at the one below. The two lines are in seperate layers so I could move them around and change the spacing between the letters until I was happy with the layout. I also changed the layer mode for the text to "difference" (is that what it's called in english? my PS is set to german sorry ^^), keeping their colour white. (Image 2)

I originally hadn't planned adding anything else but I felt like the gifs (plural because I switched between the gifs of this set) was still kind of empty and lacking, so I added the tear down the middle (a tutorial for that is either coming up later or already posted. I recently got an ask for this :)) (Image 3)

It still felt empty after that, so I tried different overlays. Okay no, first I wasted a lot of time on different free image sides but then I tried out different ones until I chose the one you can see in the finished gif. I liked that one because a) I felt the round shape was a nice contrast to all the straight lines already there and b) because once I applied a black and white filter to it and switched the layer setting to "difference" (again, i hope this is the correct translation) it looked a bit like a moon. (Gif at the top)

("reading" direction: from left to right)

And that's it! :)

Although in general, these gifs took so much fiddling! I went back and forth between them a lot and sometimes almost redid the entire thing because I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning and by the time I noticed an error, the only way to fix it was ti redo everything. So yeah, this set definitely is the the one that took me the longest out of all the ones I've posted so far.

3. Posting

I save all my gifs to my drafts first to see what they look like put together and to check if they look any different on mobile. Usually i do this several times and change stuff until I'm happd enough with it to hit post. Once i am happy enough, i can't hold back. Doesn't matter if it's at a time when nobody is online, i hit post 😅

And that's it!

Tagging:

@lanwuxiann for this gifset (I adore it so much. I've looked at it and read it severat times since you posted it and the poem just kills me every time!)

@suibianjie for this gifset (The combination of static images and gifs in your gifs is always absolutely perfect! This one is only my favourite of yours because the light coming from behind wwx is just so pretty!!! ^^)

@sweetlittlevampire for this piece (It was soooo hard to pick a piece of yours because I have so many favourites! But this one is just so out if this world, I want to know how you worked that magic :D)

@wei-gege for this set (sparkling shijie! 😭 that set is so incredibly beautiful! I love how you matched the colour of the overlay with her dress!)

@purplexedhuman for this set (your gifs are always incredible! I chise this one because it showcases both your colouring skills and some really intricate effects)

If any of you have already been tagged or don't have the time or energy for this, obviously no pressure to do this at all! 🥰

(btw, I originally tried to place the actual text of this under a "read more" cut but somehow it always messed with the order of the images, so this ended up as a rather long post. sorry!)

[damejudyhench]

1, 4, 9, 16, 22, and 35 please :) you don't have to answer them all though!

You asked for it - you got it ;)

(This is a long post and I’m on mobile so I’m not sure how to do a cut, I’m sorry everybody)

1. From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!)

I’m a solid three, rising to four when it comes to smut. (The Max/Ideal Max/Pearl fic may be a five).

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

@funkypoacher has been a huge inspiration to me in this fandom. Hers was the first TOW fic I read. And talking to her has helped so much in terms of thinking about character and motivation. I’ve never written an oc the way I am now and that’s down to her.

@paliseizy and @vairasmythe ‘s writing really encouraged me to let my own freak flag fly. I love you guys.

In terms of published authors, Kazuo Ishiguro, Annie Proulx and David Mitchell just blow me away with what they can do with words and I dream of one day being able to do a fraction of what they can.

9. Which character(s) do you find most difficult to write?

Characters whom I consider bad or wrong but like, in a mundane way? To use examples from the Outer Worlds, I’ve written Rockwell cause he’s hugely entertaining, cutting about the place high on space cocaine laughing at the suckers who are gonna get iced. I haven’t, but I feel like I could write Akande, cause I feel she’s a paladin, a true believer and that’s fascinating even though her beliefs as I perceive them are diametrically opposed to my own. Ellie is just kinda selfish? And she makes a big deal out of rejecting Byzantium but her values are kind of exactly the same? I feel like if I ever wrote a character gettting into a debate with her it would just end up as a mouthpiece for me arguing with her as the embodiment of all too many real life people. And I don’t know if writing myself as winning or losing would be worse.

Pearl just told her that if she wants the big cabin that badly she can fight her for it, and that shut her up.

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)?

I really like when characters who pride themselves on being in control are forced to get overwhelmingly horny. So sex pollen, heat/rut fic, alien sex rays etc. I don’t like ABO though, it’s subtly different in a way I can’t quite put my finger on.

22. Do you listen to anything while you write?

I’m pretty much always listening to music, and if I hear something that really reminds me of a character or situation, I’ll save it and listen to it again while I’m writing. Characters I really vibe with get their own playlists, but I don’t have a specific writing playlist

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

I am gonna take the opportunity and point out that I dropped one of my oc’s into Terror on Typhon as an Easter egg and no one has asked about him!

The man Nyoka is arguing with and then kisses at the start is Aloysious Millstone, a professional gambler and con artist and her future husband. His mother was a Rizzo’s secretary, his father was an executive who was visiting Cascadia. He never acknowledged his son, hence Millstone.

Unlike Nyoka, Aloysious was evacuated from Monarch when it was abandoned by the Board, but he resented everything about Byzantium and fled back to Monarch as soon as he was able by talking his way onto the catering crew of a space yacht headed for Fallbrook. Once there, he abandoned ship and got a job in Fallbrook tending bar. He is able to ‘code switch’ between Monarch native and Byzantium elite, and he uses this ability to scam the patrons out of some extra bits.

One time however, he makes the mistake of trying to scam Lilya Hagen - he’s never met her, has no clue who she is, and she does seem kind of absent minded. He is locked up while the SubLight management debate whether or not to feed him to Mini Malin, but ultimately they decide that he adds a touch of authentic seedy glamour to the image Fallbrook projects, so he becomes a professional gambler and card sharp in residence, under Catherine Malin’s protection in return for a cut of his takings.

Nyoka initially despises him because she thinks he’s a phoney through and through. But she comes to see that he loves the thrill of the hunt just as much as she does, only his prey is different. They both want to see a strong independent Monarch. And he doesn’t lie about himself to her - he’s very honest about who he is and what he wants, and unlike her previous partners he would never exaggerate his skill on the trail to impress her. He couldn’t kill a rapt to save his life, but he does look very fetching in a pair of rapt skin boots, and she likes being the one who hunted them for him.

[mantrabay]

A Little Known Shortcut.

Wandering the roads. It has me under a spell.

Even when prickly brambles

scrape my eyelids or those bony ankles are being twisted by tooth like stones. The angular sort clustered mischievously among the green shoots that litter every footpath.

They lie in wait, in ambush.

It goes with the territory for this seasoned footman.

Meandering landscapes are house and home to the spiral lanes and clover clad hills that are rife in my area.

Their rustic heritage sometimes sacrificed to the orphanage of malleable motives.

Crop farmers obsessed with bountiful harvest.

A restless developer pushing the limits of an urban jungle.

Fellow traveller in league with fugitives from the cockpit.

The pressure cooker of modern life.

The town dweller with split loyalties who clings to the tumult of the city but hankers after some rural idyll.

Culprits one and all.

A lair from the hubbub.

Dwellings of the quaintest kind huddle together like dots in a matrix separated only by a minuscule space.

The more alluring aspects of tradition have been preserved.

Among these are shortcuts or bypasses.

Those sequestered passages that shave miles off for the perennial rambler or clueless hitchhiker.

The eye becomes a lense to all these

things hidden or supposedly hidden.

Human vision as sensor to magic trails.

Those tucked away secret spots beloved of local wiseacres.

They festoon the sprawling countryside at random.

My name is Eric Spring.

Anthea, my partner a transcendental meditation teacher retired early at an early age.

Her withdrawal from work was never meant to be permanent.

A final decision hinged on Anthea's ability to purge that fiendish veil of sadness that had been shadowing her.

There were several obstacles in her path but they weren’t insurmountable.

Thoughts of Anthea in her halcyon days haunted me.

Mental pictures of a vibrant woman imbued with passion.

Poignant evocative heart-tugging images.

Bar excursions into town my station is that of Anthea’s carer.

This eternally stoic woman is mindful of her mental boundaries and the abyss concealed by each of them.

But she is not prone to self-hate or abuse. The more lethal plagues of the psyche hadn't yet impacted on her.

Anthea was groping for exits but hadn’t found the signs.

She remains housebound as I embark on those age defying treks into town.

We keep in touch by mobile phone.

A very angelic sensitive looking person is she.

Reminiscent of a Sunday Times editor.

The accent filters every noun and stresses every nuance.

Like the sounds from an early morning orchard.

Anthea's job became monotonous and her other pursuits painting and writing fled without trace.

A budding artist’s most dreaded syndromes struck.

Writer's block. Artistic vacuum.

The wellspring of her imagination now devoid of those inspiring flashes that sustain creative impulse.

She had few outlets bar my care and a lady called Fidelma who had the edge on me with regard to local knowledge. I longed to hear Anthea's voice on my device.

Her hypnotic voice bridges gaps.

You feel close even when speaking to her from a distance.

I love the walks and savouring all those pivot points of folklore.

I pride myself on my intimate knowledge of every branch strewn rivulet, stream and layered rock formation.

My links to the environment are almost erotic as I crave it's sensual touch.

At times I enter a tranquil zone where the shutters are drawn.

Just myself and all those habitats.

“Hello Eric? Lost in thought again.

How is anthea these days?

I spoke to her over the phone a few days ago.

I sometimes drop in on her when you are out.”

Fidelma speaking with that chirping red robin voice of hers.

She had this penchant for suddenly appearing like an archaeological site.

And she vanished just as quickly leaving the person she spoke to scrambling to process her asides and insights before they disappeared.

Neighbour, friend, root and branch archivist whose grasp of detail was legendary.

“She seems to be coping.” I said.

“Glad to hear that. Maybe I can pay a flying visit some time soon.

But aren't you a foolish man to be imposing all those Olympic Marathons on yourself?”

Fidelma about to share one of her treasured nuggets.

“I love walking but any tips?”

Spring enquired naively as events soon demonstrated.

“There’s a shortcut…..a little known shortcut.

People in the know recommend it though I have never actually used it myself.

Maybe I will one day.

See, it's on the right hand side up the road there.

Think it might be useful when you want to get home in a hurry.” She concluded.

Fidelma in advanced middle age was still sprightly and youthful in her ways.

I missed a text from anthea and Fidelma noticed.

“Yes. I have one of those gadgets too.

Keeps me connected.

Took me awhile to master it.

Wish there was a shortcut for that.

But I'll best be on my way.

Take good care whatever the route.”

As always having spoken to Fidelma I wondered about in a trance.

Another colourful aspect of Fidelma’s personality was her “Banana Skin Syndrome.”

She could lose her balance betimes when enthusing about a topic or when she stumbled on an area that fascinated her.

The feet were a little wobbly.

All this against her philosophy about how interconnected everything is.

The mind is an antenna sending out signals to others was a frequent broadside of hers.

Even when Fidelma said very little she always had this magnetic effect on others.

Those terse one liners could trigger an avalanche in the mind.

Her thin phrases were always shrouded in a well crafted poetic meter.

It was in the tone, gestures and body language.

Those beady yet expressive eyes scanning her environment like a radar screen.

A cascade of images and sound bytes ensued when she left.

Several hours passed as my mind was in overdrive like a central processing unit.

I heard this inner voice telling me to explore this “shortcut.”

Having texted Anthea I then proceeded to this offshoot of a lane.

It was going to lighten the journey of this slope and pavement plodder.

Off I went down this quaint country shortcut.

Nothing out of the ordinary to begin with until Anthea rang.

“Gnawing feeling of sadness.

My mind is a dark blue canvass at the moment.”

Her lilting twang mingling with the song birds at the start of my downward journey.

I sensed this was urgent and started to walk quickly.

That's when problems arose.

Just a plain country passage with a primarily flat surface at this point.

There were houses on each side and some weeds strewn and partially mangled, turned to mulch by wild and indiscriminate boots.

Strange feelings welled up within me as I felt like a geyser at yellowstone.

The puff and splutter of tractors in nearby fields as furrows, the epicenter of future yields were turned.

Scarecrows were strategically perched in the meadow behind the right hand hedge to ward off some menace or other.

Something told me to relate my surroundings to Anthea.

If only to divert attention from an impending gloom.

Those barely audible inner prompts again.

“Eric, I don't want to pressurise you but at the moment I feel this dark cloud.”

Eric paused.

It then occurred to me that I was engulfed by dark foreboding clouds in tandem with a rising rainbow like haze.

As Anthea continued her disorders seemed to be complemented by external threats of rain intermingled with sunshine.

“I feel, Eric there is a radiance trying to break through.

Just to see you … your presence is a light which I could focus on.”

Then I realised that speed was of the essence.

That's when I could have panicked.

Anthea’s voice seemed louder, but also more lyrical as I realised this obscure

overlooked route could have done with some restoration!

Tufts of grass oozing slime.

Mounds of mud with pockets of oil stained water.

The briars were a shock team that endangered every part of the human body.

I was conveying all this to anthea as I was trying to dash at my normal pace.

Oddly Anthea’s tone of desperation started to dip.

But she did appear less tense as I told her this story over the phone.

“Someone told me this is a shortcut.”

Eric said gingerly.

“Who was that ? Anthea asked.

“Fidelma. We met on the main road just a short while ago.” I responded.

“You know her a bit better than I do.”

Anthea observed. “She's going to call over one of these days I'm sure.”

By now Anthea, initially nervous was mellowing as I continued with my frantic running … and staggering commentary!

She didn’t have had much to excite her over the last five years.

But I had to be careful lest those dark brooding phases returned.

Like a roving reporter I regaled her with lurid descriptions of limp green shrubs, tea brown leaves shredded on fissured rocks, juice dripping blackberry bushes with foraging earwigs seeking shelter from the sun.

But here I was almost knee deep in tangled foliage while keeping the love of my life up to speed!

The labyrinthine outcrops and mock craters were all included.

Suddenly misfortune struck without warning.

I nearly sprained my leg as I fell face down on a grassy patch.

Sprawled awkwardly across this surface my phone went flying but I managed to catch it.

“Eric, are you ok?

I don’t mean to be a burden.

Will I get someone to meet you at the end of this lane or short cut.”

Anthea again.

“I'm fine, Anthea.”

Eric said before slowly rising.

I kept detailing my observations and Anthea was reacting positively.

But I made it eventually with the sounds of the road as guide.

The temperatures continued to rise causing perspiration.

Peering thru the maze of entwined growths I saw … Fidelma.

“Where did you spring from?” Eric punning his own name.

“Fidelma ...you fell too.” A question that might have appeared tactless.

She was getting up, having fallen when taking her bearings it seems.

“Fidelma …. thanks but no thanks.

The shortcut.” I said.

“You are shivering.” She observed.

“I am. Spring responded.

“Got to get to Anthea because she might be in need of help.” Spring continued.

We both headed for my house as quickly as possible.

But it wasn’t far.

I texted Anthea and she answered by saying she had every reason to speak to me.

One wondered what that might be.

My face whitened.

Fidelma and I soon reached the house where I lived.

Eric pressed the doorbell as his heart pounded.

The door opened suddenly and we couldn't believe what we saw.

“Anthea, is that you?

I haven't seen you smile like that in years.”

I said.

Fidelma and I were perplexed to say the least.

“It’s early days yet but those locusts of darkness hopping around in my head maybe dwindling.

Those creative juices returned when I sensed your anxiety down the lane because I didn't want two sick people in this house.

But you brought splashes of vivid colour into my drawing room.

I could almost smell the rustic fragrance of every wilting petal and the creaking of every twig.

You set a whole cycle in train.”

Anthea then showed me two items she was working on.

“I have started a rough sketch of the lane you detailed and a short story.

There's been a sea change.” She said.

“Oh I wonder what I'll call this sketch and that short story?

Any ideas?” Anthea enquired.

Fidelma and I looked at each other and spoke almost in unison.

“I think we both have a fair idea what they both might be called.

Your story included.”

A little known shortcut indeed!

Photograph and short story copyright protected

[an-aura-about-you]

Aura's Big Ol Rusty Quill Gaming Thing

Because I started binge listening to this before getting invited to a liveblogging chat for it and don't want to just body the chat with a mountain of words, images, and links. This is gonna cover the mostly-abridged version of my reactions up to RQG #66-ish and all the specials up to that point. Why is it that way? Because when I started listening I did it through Youtube, which does the playlist with just the story episodes. So I listened to the metacasts and specials after the fact. Also get used to me referring to things as my best friend because that's just something I do.

This is really long hence the cut.

I'm gonna start with the characters because I can! Or more specifically the London Rangers- "We're Still Working On The Name." (These are my favorite kind of jokes.)

Bertie: Man, at this point I can't believe I started out having a crush on this guy. I want to qualify that with it being akin to the same strange attraction I have to Super Macho Man from Wii Punch-Out!! Namely a man with a lot of muscles that's kind of a petulant jerk, the kind of guy I wouldn't actually want to spend a lot of time with in person. As it turns out, that applies to fiction as well! But Bertie is at least the sort of character I can enjoy from stupidity or getting his comeuppance.

Hamid: I perhaps relate to Hamid too much. I mean, let's look at the facts: college dropout, knows stuff about banking because family, likes opera, cries a lot, issues with parents. But then I tend to like the squishy magic users. Also him being a halfling just makes me think of Dragon Half. I know the setup for the world is different but I can't help but picture this happening somewhere in his family tree:

I mean, it happens. But also I have an appreciation for the character who's had it good learning about the world. Lots of fluids, though. Wasn't expecting that many fluids.

Zolf: I was not expecting to relate to Zolf as much as I do but hoo boy do I relate to Zolf. On a lot of things, really, but in particular issues of religion and mobility. Just, I really want people to respect Zolf's autonomy about his legs and his mobility aids. Also I'm interested in his morality, but in the sense of thinking differently and kind of feeling like if he tries keeping up some of what he said before he's just gonna destroy himself under the weight of guilt. People can only do so much, after all. And this is on top of my thoughts that morality does not provide One Size Fits All solutions because the same actions under different circumstances mean something different. Though there's also something to be said for working with the knowledge you have and not beating yourself up over that when you get more knowledge.

Sasha: Sasha Is The Actual Best??? I Love Her????? For a character with not a lot of charisma, she's out there meeting people and making friends and I am here for it. And stabbity! Friends and stabbity! Two good things that maybe shouldn't be things together because we don't stab our friends, we stab the people that they're fighting.

The relationships between the London Rangers!

Bertie and Hamid: These two are funny when they're in their element (ie being rich snobs) and just as funny out of it with Hamid desperately trying to be a moral compass. But Bryn said these two are friends for a reason and I see it.

Bertie and Zolf: I kinda can't believe these two didn't come that close to dueling before the point it got to. And I kinda can't believe it was a fight concerning the author of a series of romance novels. I mean yeah, that was a straw that broke the camel's back situation, but still! By that point I had been calling that it'd come up as a big thing, but I didn't realize how right I'd be.

Bertie and Sasha: I love the way Sasha is just 110% Done with Bertie. A+ comedy routine, not sure about the adventuring.

Hamid and Zolf: I like how these two push against each other! And how Hamid seems to have trouble reading the room sometimes and just says things when it's not invited, and that seems to happen the most with Zolf. It's like, Zolf has this air of, "I know where this is going and I am not going that way right now," but then Hamid will just insist upon it. It's actually fitting that we start the story with Hamid losing most of his money in a casino: he has a habit of pushing his luck. But they also seem to be the two most invested in acting morally, which makes for good interactions when they don't agree on what action to take!

Hamid and Sasha: I want these two to be besties so bad and they seem to be on their way to that. I was so unspeakably glad when we got to Prague and had a nice little break for these two to go out and eat. I would read fic of that. I will need to read fic of these two being pals. I just straight up melt when Sasha's like, "Alright, Hamid? :D" I was also :D when I heard that. besties4lyfe

Zolf and Sasha: These two are surprisingly professionally compatible and I can dig that. It possibly helps that they're united in being Done With Bertie. Granted, Zolf is more literally done at the point I'm at, but we'll get to that.

The story up to now for me! With the help of me chatting to others about it and the aid of the Season 1 catchup episodes!

-I didn't know how the initial meetup would go, but I like how it works out! Also we basically have jobs now. I feel like I've fallen into some jobs like this.

-Also the fact that Hamid initially sticks around because he runs into his old mate Bertie from uni. Relatable. I got jobs like that.

-Podcast: *gives me Lord Wellington* Me: Okay! Beef Wellington exists! That's enough for me to start figuring out other foods for a prix fixe menu!

-I think I speak for everyone when I say Edison is a little punk and he's not funny.

-The Robots Have Shown Up To Take Our Jobs?

-Wellington: *dies* Me: Wow, ok, guess it's time for Earl Grey!

-I'm putting Cherries Jubilee as the dessert for the party.

-This is a Looney Tunes cartoon brought to RPG life and I'm very happy about that.

-*to the tune of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* Obligatory Sewer Level, Obligatory Sewer Level, Obligatory Sewer Level, Heroes in a Sewer! Kinda Gross!

-*Sharpdene voice* Oh, I got us a good read! I can sense the poop robot's ghost in this very room!

-Oooo Other London! Eels and Sasha backstory!

-Hamid gets a magic ring he can't remove. I See No Problem With This.

-Keeeeeeeeeeeeesh

-I might do multiple prix fixe menus just because I want the keesh to have its own showcase.

-Bertie is somehow good at being a statue.

-awwwwwwwwww pubby :)

-Teen Girl Squad-sha seeing someone competent in her field: I Think I Have A Chance With This Guy! Narrator Strong Bad: EXPLODED! Sasha: Owww! My most of me!

-That notebook's got hooks for days.

-I'm curious to see all the drama Zolf's ring is gonna unlock like the dueling arena in Revolutionary Girl Utena.

-The British Museum aka Dog Incident 2.0 (to me anyway)

-The catchup reminded me of the Flesh Golem and I kinda wish it hadn't.

-Awww I wanted the skellies to get scurvy.

-Fantasy Lawyers And Fantasy Computers!

-I Have Spent Too Long Working Bank Customer Service To Be Able To Deal With Hamid's Attempts To Try Smoothing Things Over With This Bank Employee That Is Almost Certainly Fired.

-Swarms My Beloved!

-The catchup is further cementing the Hamid and Zolf dynamic I mentioned loving before, the clash of morality. Yes! Love that stuff!

-OSCAR WILDE! Kinda glad that I didn't end up making the jokes I planned on making about him in my big TMA/Chzo Mythos crossover because I was unfamiliar with him/his role in this podcast, so I don't know how I would've reacted to any wink wink nudge nudge comments I might have gotten. I did leave minor references to him and sorta-Byron-thru-Lovelace in the fic, though.

-Love that Oscar Wilde and Bertie did that. Love that for them.

-Bertie somehow stops a riot. If he wasn't shouting to do it, I'd say it's out of character.

-Out of everyone I thought would get arrested first in this campaign, I wouldn't have bet on Zolf.

-"Jennifer, no!" JENNIFER, YES!

-So wait, if we're making the Single Female Lawyer jokes about Hamid, does that mean there's fanart of Hamid wearing a sexy miniskirt? I feel like the answer to that is, "Most Definitely Yes," but I'm not sure if I want to seek that out yet even though I'm confident he can rock it or just let it come to me in time. Posting this will possibly be sufficient if enough people get this far into reading this.

-Man gets outta jail and immediately gets scolded by his religious superiors. Thank goodness Zolf's got his romance books now.

-Oooo a ludicrous travel bet! I do enjoy these! It's even funnier that it's primarily a way to manage Bertie.

-That tentacle guy we don't know anything about is my best friend.

-I love that Sasha wants to commit grand theft auto as soon as she knows what an auto is.

-Bertie is every rich person ever. I know that's the point, just wanted to say it.

-Sasha making friends with the gargoyles is beautiful. :)

-Ohhhhhhhhh No The Memory Stuff.

-Ah, the most incompetent encounter ever, so bad it actually breaks the party up.

-Thank you catchup for doing the Journey joke about Bertie taking the midnight train going anywhere.

-I'M SCREAMING ABOUT AMELIE ROSE AND THE LAST LETTER YOU'LL RECEIVE FROM ME FOR A LOT OF REASONS.

-Wow Bertie You Are Actually Revolting.

-I've got stuff to say sort of related to Notre Dame, but I'm writing this after I wrote that and I wrote it about something a bit later. So read it there I guess?

-Oh my god everyone buried aliiiiiiive. Not only is everyone dying, I'm dying with them. I'm having fun though.

-This tentacle monster ready to kill everyone is my new best friend.

-Mr. Ceiling is proof that genre is made up of expectations. I recently went through Psychonauts 2, which I don't consider horror but it has a setting in which I EXPECT brains. Like, a LOT of brains that aren't in their heads anymore. And I can be like, "heeheehoo, brain's rolling around in hamster balls! This one's voiced by Jack Black! And hey, here's my brain! :D" But then in RQG I get dropped in the equivalent of a Saw film and before I know it Mr. Ceiling is showing up and scaring the bazoobs outta me!

-When I started listening to RQG, the opera season started and I listened to like the second half of the Met's broadcast premiere of Eurydice. (Y'all might remember the sobbing if you follow me here.) Anyway, weird that I encounter two new-to-me pieces of media that both state that a person losing their memories is akin to death within the same week.

-Dang, way to pull off the It Was All A Simulation thing. Best part to me was Brock asking Hamid to look after Sasha. :'( My besties.

-Four elementals? Is it Final Fantasy time? Why yes, I think it is.

-So is Bertie knowing French now immersion learning through a successful dice roll or Bertie being so stupid he flipped back around to smart? *listens further* Ahhhh he's so stupid he flipped around to smart. I know there are mechanical reasons, but this is my "this enabled the mechanical reasons" thinking.

-I ain't trust nobody in this mixup. And by that I mean any big groups currently moving like the established mobs or the meritocrats or most anybody else.

-Man This Is Some Messed Up Bombing Stuff.

-Oscar you're useless. (somehow simultaneously affectionate and derogatory)

-I sometimes forget just how much of a grip the Thrilling Adventure Hour has on me, but then something will happen like Amelia Earhart showing up and before I know it I'm singing the theme song to Amelia Earhart, Fearless Flyer.

-HARRISON CAMPBELL

-And all the drama tied in with Harrison Campbell. The True Plot Is Everyone Getting Into Romance Novels.

-Hamid. Honey. Being all judgey about romance novels? You listen to opera. Granted, I'm not the most well-versed in opera, but I've seen a fair few, at least 10 or so. I've certainly seen enough for me to know opera tends both towards melodramatic and trashy. Heck, I have seen sex acts in operas! In audience view on the stage, no curtain or screen! (Clothed, but that's a technicality because I haven't seen Salome yet.) This leads me to believe you're just going to the opera just for the sake of society outings (which WOULD match both the setting and character) or you're being a picky possum who doesn't want to admit the trashy things you like are trashy.

-Hey, if I'm talking about opera anyway, what kind of operas exist. Operas like Orpheus in the Underworld can still exist, but since the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is one that would have actually happened, how long would it have been before it was considered okay to take a real life tragedy and turn it into a comedy? And what about operas based on Biblical events? How's our good friend Oscar Wilde supposed to write his play Salome that will go on to become the opera of the same name if there's no Salome for him to write about?

-OH WAIT I CAN USE OPERA CAKE AS A DESSERT FOR ONE OF THE MENUS I LOVE OPERA CAKE!!! And I'm willing to bet Hamid enjoys opera cake, too.

-Me explaining to my sibling Raz (they/them) the Whole Harrison Campbell Thing in Discord, lightly edited to remove some irrelevant content and swears so any bit of this could be copied to the chat:

Me: Ok, so originally it WAS gonna be romance novels BUT then I started listening to Rusty Quill Gaming and a huge fight breaks out over romance novels.

I am not even joking.

Raz: What?!

Me: In character that is.

Raz: HOW

Me: Zolf used to be in the navy and is officially considered AWOL, so he gets court marshalled. While in jail, which is only a formality so he doesn't leave, the jailer gets him into this romance author he likes and Zolf gets hooked.

Raz: Pffffffffffft

Me: After Hamid successfully Single Female Lawyers his way into defending Zolf in court, everyone's free to leave. (And yes, EVERYONE was saying Single Female Lawyer about it even though Hamid is male.)

The Futurama is strong with this group.

So when they leave, Zolf has to go see his church because he's a cleric in the Cult of Poseidon and Poseidon's not very happy. Somehow Zolf has fallen out of favor with his patron deity. So the Cult suggests Zolf and his crew make their trip to France by boat.

Raz: Hold up

Me: Bertie is Having None Of This and intends to go to France by means of the Channel Tunnel while everyone else goes out to sea.

Raz: This is a world where Poseidon is real

Me: Yes.

Raz: But they are going to FRANCE

Me: Yes

Raz: Feeeerrrraaaaannnnce

Me: It is a different version of Victorian England and eventually other places in a different version of the 19th century.

Anyway

Bertie meets the romance author on the train.

The romance author learns to HATE Bertie. Which, honestly, same. I'm kinda ashamed of liking him before because he's pretty darn awful. But I can't deny he's funny, so I don't begrudge the matter too much.

Anyway, Bertie messes some stuff up with the train and leaves everyone stranded in the tunnel because he and Zolf made a bet about who would get to France first. (Zolf did that basically to manage Bertie and his awfulness.)

So everyone's in France and we're having an AWFUL time because there's a messed up machine run off a lot of brains in jars like something straight outta Psychonauts and the gang gets trapped in its clutches.

Raz: We gotta quarantine the awuflness into a small tight area out of the way!

Just shove it

Shove it over THERE

Me: They fight off the messed up brain machine, but when Bertie's retrieving some loot he finds a book from the romance author that Zolf was keeping in the quarters the brain machine provided. So Bertie reads it and it is RIVETING.

Skip ahead skip ahead, the gang's leaving Paris on an airship to Prague and guess what the romance author is a passenger.

Bertie catches on that the author's specifically avoiding him and has figured out that the author plans to use Bertie as inspiration for a villain. Sasha makes friends with the author. Zolf meets the author without realizing it was him and freaks out when he learns about it, wondering if he should go find him again. Hamid reads one of the author's books and thinks it's overly melodramatic trash.

Raz: Does Hamid think it's hammy?

And Zolf sounds like ma guy

I like him

Me: Bertie eventually finds the author and straight up throws him overboard. (Don't worry, he's attached to a safety harness and the crew on a lower level pull him to safety.) When all of this comes to light, Zolf and Bertie get into such a major fight that they nearly duel. Zolf, who happens to be Bertie's employer, ends up firing him.

Raz: "I'm no villian!" Proceeds to do something villianous

Me: Yeah, that was probably the second worst thing Bertie's done. I say second because at least the author survived.

Raz: Wait....France...ariship...fantasy version of Victorian England....is this Case Study of Vanitas?

There's even a dramatic fall out of the airship scene!

Me: *makes i dunno sounds*

Raz: *puts in a relevant gif of character from said anime, speaks a bit about that*

Me: Is Amelia Earhart a gnome in there? Because Amelia Earhart's a gnome in here.

Raz: But anyways, what happends next? :O

Me: She threatened to shoot Oscar Wilde.

Raz: This is the best timeline

-Prague's a flying city. It's a flying city. Of course. Of course! There's always a flying city! I know the JRPG tropes! I know what happens to the flying city! It's gon FALL! It's gon FALL! I don't know when, but it's gon FALL!

-Also because Lunar was my first and favorite JRPG, I picture Prague as Vane even though I know that's literally not right. And I know John Truitt's not gonna be here, but I think about flying cities and I can already hear his wonderfully melodramatic yet nasally performance.

-Zolf :'(

-FRANZ KAFKA!

Yes I did pause in listening to sing that.

-Okay. So. I accept that working in opera is different here than what it probably actually was like at the time because this is made up stuff and we can do whatever we like. However. My knee-jerk reaction upon hearing Hamid's sister works in the opera was, "Wow That's Spicy."

-And that's literally the last thing I heard. The knee-jerk reaction was THAT powerful. I stopped right in my tracks.

Commentary on the metacasts and specials!

-"Everyone wants to turn into a dragon; nobody wants to turn into a dungeon!" Alex, it is episode zero, the character creation metacast, and you are already sleeping on my best friend Brick Road who fulfilled that very ambition and became Dungeon Man.

-I can relate to getting emotional about numbers. I've mentioned it before and I'll probably mention it again, but when I moved to a different department at my company, I got tipsy at my celebration dinner and started getting teary-eyed explaining baker's percentages. (For the record, I currently work in banking. The only overlap is numbers.)

-Dang, how are y'all so good at playing Jenga? I wish that one was filmed so I could see it.

-Lydia makes the best characters. Always. I want to visit the universe that surely exists in which every piece of media has at least one character of Lydia's creation. Shoutout to my best friend 1973. Your time with us was brief but unforgettable.

-I was laughing to the point of tears at Superfight. I specifically stopped to text my sibling about the gladiator who believes the floor is lava and can't stop crying.

-So thanks to me convincing Dad to listen to TMA and me relistening with him, I've heard the Deadlands special 3 times. I'm not complaining about this. XD

-Quiet Simon prancing through piles of Ferrero Rochers:

-Alex always plays characters I love to hate, and that's a remarkable skill.

-*jellyfish pops out of a person's wax arm* Me: *gasp of delight* My best friend! *more jellyfish appear* Me: I'm just so happy right now!

-And we all ended up in a hell dimension! The end!

[bootycallreverie]

"Please can we not make her mayor?"

I woke up today to this fascinating question regarding Cllr. Ana Bailão’s votes to uphold systemic oppression within the Toronto Police. “Please can we not make her mayor?”

It was a deceptively complex question that got me thinking of some of the fundamentals of activism, social change and politics, that I wanted to unpack this question bit by bit.

I’ve cut it into five sections: PLEASE, CAN, WE, NOT MAKE HER, MAYOR.

///

1. PLEASE

I assume this softens the meaning of the phrase - “I want her out of politics” is pretty harsh – especially in the context of a man publicly critiquing a woman. Yet it shows us something important – we are implying we need permission to participate in politics.

Why are we asking for permission? And to whom is this appeal directed? Last time I checked, I don’t need permission to do most things in life, including participating in the political process. Our US-based friends did not ask for permission when they recently revolted against their governments; they did it even though they faced police brutality, neo-Nazi paramilitaries, psychological warfare, a global pandemic and more.

The “please” comes out of the respectability politics that makes “Ontario” as a political entity so curious. “Please don’t gut our healthcare!” is not coming from a position of strength. (Anyway, it’s much easier for progressives to walk back overzealousness in the name of justice than it is for people to walk back bigotry.)

To best challenge power, we must never apologize for having ambitious convictions. We need to champion big ideas, even if they’re ahead of the curve. Two months ago, police reform would have been considered impossible in America. And they were right, it was impossible...under the existing model. So they changed the model.

Change – especially lasting change – comes from the grassroots, so while it’s not a bad thing to support progressive political candidates, parties and organizations, it is *significantly* more important to support issues-based activists and organizations (i.e. if you give $10 monthly to the NDP, why not also give $10 to your favourite advocacy group?). Issues-based groups are formed to challenge one specific cog of power at a time and can therefore deliver deep, fundamental and long-lasting impacts. (Plus…this is a great way for potential candidates to gain some experience; get those ppl knocking on doors now and they’ll do much better in 2022.)

2. CAN

If we are asking “do we, as a community, have the capacity to elect someone better?” The answer to this is yes, but if we’re instead asking “will someone within the existing structure please FINALLY get off their ass and challenge her?” then we might ask ourselves why this hasn’t already happened. The civic left has largely allowed Cllr. Bailão (and, to a lesser extent, Mayor Wonderbread, who is merely a pathetic, respectable version of Rob Ford) to go unchallenged because she’s been deemed impossible to beat, but by not challenging her, the civic left has allowed her career to continue essentially unfettered because they don’t want to spend resources on a race they’re unlikely to win. If only there were some other downtown districts where a new, young generation of activists can start to build their careers…except the seats available are full with straight white boy progressives.

Why does the civic left protect Gord Perks, Joe Cressy and Mike Layton? Like…honestly…I just don't see what the big deal about Joe Cressy is. He bumped Ausma Malik out of the 2018 election instead of doing the right thing and making way for a supremely talented racialized woman like I'd hope someone committed to true justice would. There is even a movement in the democratic party to ask white men to not run in safe seats. [This paragraph and the next have been edited for tone, thank you to Colin Burns for encouraging me to rethink my words and my misdirected anger, my frustration naturally lies with Cllr. Bailāo's behaviour.]

Gord Perks verged into alt-left territory last year as a free-speech absolutist and consequently an apologist for bigotry when he should have defended trans folk. He even shared his disappointing thoughts publicly (yup, he did, they’re still up, don’t @ me on this one, you’ll regret it: http://gordperks.ca/toronto-public-library-chief-librarians-decision/) so considering who he seems to be, we can do better after 14 years? (TL;DR – there’s need for renewal in a lot of parts of our movements, and the labour movement is no exception.)

Mike Layton is a lovely man with his heart in the right place. I’ve volunteered for him and would gladly do it again. It therefore pains me to recognize that his last name is more than a name. I’m happy for everything he (and his team) has contributed in a rapidly changing district. My concern is that lefties can’t afford to support dynasties in the same way that liberals and conservatives can, especially in downtown districts where our odds of winning are good and where we ought to be supporting talented Black, Trans, Indigenous, disAbled and economically-disadvantaged candidates that are already on the front lines of social change. (This list is illustrative, not exhaustive.) By the time of the next election, Mike Layton will have been there for 12 years. Perhaps it’s time for him to open an opportunity for others.

3. WE

Who is “we”? Is it people in this district? Is it people in Toronto? Is it progressives? Whoever can identify this “we” and mobilize them will have the best shot of defeating her. This is the “coalition” people describe as needed to win election. Of course, this includes whoever’s running for office and their team. That organizing work needs to start right now if there’s going to be any chance of a lefty winning this seat in 2022. (If you think she isn’t already considering her council seat successor, remember that her old boss was Mario Silva, who was *coincidentally* Davenport’s City Councillor and MP for a combined 16 years.)

4. NOT MAKE HER

This is maybe the biggest hurdle to get over since “NOT ANA BAILAO” is not an option on the ballot. Considering there are no formal (lol) parties or slates on council, her name recognition is her biggest electoral asset, so a keep-it-safe campaign won’t work. Plus her public image is fairly non-toxic, so as pissed off as we all are, most people won’t be swayed by a STOP BAILAO campaign from the left (the trope of the conservative woman can be very powerful – thanks Maggie – so expect her campaign to lean pretty typically right).

When we say “Cllr. Bailão should not be Mayor” we rob ourselves of the ability to say “I think this person would make a great mayor” or “these are the some of the values I want in a mayor.” – and I don’t mean just of the City Council types. (At this point, Josh Marlow is the other councilor to watch.)

I hate hearing “why can’t we have AOC or Jacinta Arden or Anne Hidalgo or Ilhan Omar?” They didn’t come out of thin air. We already have those people here, we just haven’t elevated them to where they can make a difference and this is why. (Also, lefties, let’s seriously push for term limits and ranked ballots…especially the term limits, most ppl out there love the idea, it costs zero dollars and ensures districts have a healthy amount of turnover.)

5. MAYOR

Toronto City Council is a “weak mayor” system. The Mayor need council approval for pretty much everything important. The Mayor will find success or failure on how well he can build a team of reliable allies on council. It’s something thing Mayor Wonderbread does too well: his allies don’t offer a lot of different views. A hypothetical Mayor Bailão would probably do similar.

So then how rigid should a politician be? Are they supposed to be trustees, where we trust them to do what’s best for us and we have a check-in every 4 years? Or are they supposed to be conduits of public opinion with little regard for context? Or is a councillor meant to reflect the demographics of their district, even though they can only truly embody one set of lived experiences as an individual? Or perhaps, in the case of Cllr. Bailão, someone not dedicated to steering the ship but merely running the engine, not caring where it sails even though we've seen icebergs on the horizon? We’ve grown up in a SimCity generation where we think the mayor can make whatever they want happen. As great as that might sound sometimes, in a democracy, accountability matters. But it must come with a recognition that SimCity mayors don't fear the wrath of the voters.

///

I want to recognize that a 10% reallocation is fucking pathetic and still Toronto council couldn’t do it…but at least we know where we stand, and with whom.

We often look at politics as a sport or a soap opera, and it feels great when your team scores points or your favourite character delivers a knockout performance. Even I was like “dang girl” when Nancy Pelosi defiantly ripped up the President’s speech. I was also touched by Jagmeet Singh’s touching display of emotion the day after he was ejected from the House of Commons for calling out bigotry. But that’s not politics, that’s a long running TV drama series, so as disappointed as I am in what happened, I’m not gonna yell at her in the street because White Man Raging is not a great look these days…or ever.

So let’s not make this about my neighbour, Cllr. Ana Bailão. Let’s make it about the system of oppression she has willingly chosen to uphold and tearing that motherfucker down piece by piece.