#a redo of an older post of mine

[disasteracesstuff]

Skeleton Crew paying homage to the Original Trilogy.

[safert0fu]

closing the distance.

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

Everyone is having revelations, just some are larger than others.

From my story, The House of Glass. Follows on from this!

Calculus is referencing The Shooting Star and an older story of mine, The Beast of Loch Broom (warning, my lettering is absolutely terrible. I really should redo it. Check out my pinned post to go through the comics)

[britcision]

So I’ve been having a lot of the Organizing AuDHD lately, where I sit and obsessively sort things for just, a zillion hours

Things like 8 years worth of photos on my hard drive, all of my leather-working and sewing supplies into tackle boxes, grouping and organizing all of the paints and all of our craft closets, and sorting 2 years of CSP materials

(Aaaaand fully resorting and folding 3/10 fabric bins instead of just grabbing the fabric I needed to get started on a thing this is not remotely happening at convenient times)

And yesterday

Yesterday, I got my Granny��s old sewing cart

This thing had stuff in it older than my Granny herself

(Also a good 30% of grandma smell is sheep’s wool guess how I know now)

I’m talking packets of “hook and eye attachments” older than the brand for Velcro

Genuine lambswool threads from Scotland

British military surplus linen thread

This pic is actually after I already spent about 2 hours just separating and bagging things it was worse than this but here she is

So, yeah. Perfect timing. Organizing AuDHD paradise

Dragged all my sewing stuff back to the main room to redo it all again (but y’see I was smart the first time I just sorted my threads and left a space cuz I knew this lil cutie was coming)

And

Well

I promised my partner I’d clear the floors in between every time, and he has kindly offered to sort buttons for me cuz he’s also got Button Sorting ‘Tisms

(The BAGS of old buttons you guys. So. Many. Buttons.)

But. Uh. Here’s what it looked like while I was going

Featuring: my sewing box, Granny’s sewing caddy, both craft dressers, and the noble residents of Box Hell, aka every reasonably well conditioned box I have emptied for 7 years now doing duty sorting objects

(Also the paper patterns I was drafting onto broadcloth for cosplay but shhhh those are nearly done and super neat and out of the way)

And! And!

Four hours later, look!

All tidied away (for now)

I have officially sorted and rolled all of the ribbons (hers and mine)

I also discovered that that fucking massive cone of elastic does not in fact have a single fucking post in the middle there’s a tiny cardboard one that ends half way up and then it’s just a roll of PAPER

(That slid out while I unspooled about half of it to fix where the loops had been slipping off to coil it neatly again. It’s also at least two lengths of elastic but fuck it it’s in a cup now)

And! That little front drawer has been fully sorted and now holds the elastic, velcro, and zippers 😁

Most of the stuff from the main body of the caddy is at least sorted by types now, so the threads are all together and the snaps and hook and eyes all have baggies, but I haven’t touched the top two bits yet and I still gotta sort them baggies

But! I think I’ve found all the elastics and velcro and zippers! And ribbons!

And all the proper actual wool and nylons have their own bag because some of that shit feels like historical artefacts or something and I shouldn’t actually use it and just preserve it or something

It’s in really good condition and I’m a lil scared I’ll ruin it somehow and most of the ribbons are real silk and it’s just. Holy shit.

It’s so old

[guardian-angle22]

hi Heather!! your recent post made me so curious - do you have any other gif before and afters that you are particularly proud of, or that were particularly tough, or just that you wanna talk about? any and all giffing directors cut tidbits are fascinating!!

[reference to this post]

OMG HI! I love this question!! Director's cut makes it sound so fancy and I love that. 🤭

Okay, so I actually have SO MANY before/after gifs saved because I use this before/after mask layer a lot as a bit of a mind trick on myself. Sometimes you spend so long trying to edit something, changing this around, tweaking that, undoing, redoing, etc… that you lose focus on what it looked like at the start. So if I’m ever frustrated with how something is looking, I’ll often do this to get out of my head about it.

This scene from Carlos' loft in s1 is a great example of one of those:

Another reason I use this a lot is because it’s a really good way of double checking that I’m not washing out the POC that I’m editing. When you have to dramatically brighten a scene (like we often have to do with our beloved 911LS), it can really lighten the skin tones of the people in the scene. I work hard to try to avoid that and sometimes just looking at the edited gif won't tell me if I've been successful, so I'll use a before/after mask.

This is a Paul gif that's an example of using it for that:

That is something I wish I knew how to do early on in my gifmaking because there are some of my older gifs that truly do not do the POC on this show justice. I'm hoping to re-do some of those in my Guardian's Gifset Glowups series I just started. I mean, look at the comparison of the first time I edited this Carlos scene to NOW:

I was very very early in my learning process when I made that first one, but still... that old editing of mine is just not acceptable imo.

For scenes that were particularly tough... I think one that people might not expect to be that difficult but drove MY CHEESE TO SLIDE OFF THE CRACKER, was the soulmate scene. I think I haven't made as many gifs as my love of this scene should've warranted but it's just so tricky to edit. The few that I have made you can even see how differently they look from each other cause I haven't nailed it down yet:

ONE OF THESE DAYS I'll find a good edit balance for this scene that I love and you'll see a million gifs of it on your feed from me.🤭

And finally! Before/after that I'm particularly proud of... I mean, the proposal scene... I think they lit that scene with a single birthday candle in the corner and a child's flashlight behind their fake windows. So all the before/after edits are so satisfying:

[oreozfox]

To reference this post, every Sonic fan has some huge, complicated AU in their heads. Welp, here's some of mine. Happy New Year.

(Also thank you sm to @fontanacollymore for giving me the chance to think about my AU by talking about hers )

I call the AU Skye-verse, after my OC and the AU's main character, Skye the Hedgehog.

Here's the boy, Skye. Over almost ten years he's gone from Sonic's nephew, to unrelated, to now being Sonic's second cousin, though idk if they know they're related.

Sonic's parents, Jules and Aleena, and siblings Manic and Sonia. From the time I watched Underground I always just assumed Jules was still the dad lol.

Slightly older Knuckles from when I was toying around w designing him for the AU. He basically looks the same now except he has his Boom bandages. In fact, his design is just a redo of Knuckles' Boom design w less scary muscles, more fluff like in the movies, and his OVA hat.

Sonia X Shadow, the Shadow ship I eventually settled on bc him being the (temporary) queen's lapdog was too funny. To the right is Skye w Sonia and Shadow's eventual son, Alaric.

Finally, Sonic and Skye's ancestor, a fiery orange hedgehog named Phoenix. He was the first to explore many of the Zones we know today, documenting and naming them as well as leaving tools for survival in each one.

[wind-rider]

sorry if this seems odd or uncomfortable, but i remember seeing your blog back in 2020 and wanting to do fanart of your ocs? do you have a collection or masterpost of oc refs, or posts of them? there's a couple whose posts i can't find, like Ronin?

it was also a nebulous time where i was mainly looking at oc artists or fanartists of specific media, and i'm wondering if you've done fanart of the Lorien Legacies series, or have read them?

Not odd or uncomfortable at all, holy shit you are one of the OGs frfr. Ronin is a VERY old OC of mine! I have no idea if I even posted about him here, where did you hear about him??

Anyway, I don't have a masterpost because it's been a LONG while since I did an OC ref. I want to make some and redo others, but I just haven't had the time. I can throw some at you, though, if you like!

Beneath the cut as to not torment the dashboard:

^Castor Junipera! A newer boi, from about two years ago, though he's in the same setting that evolved from Ronin's. Art credit to @/rukkasilk, they did an awesome job with him :]

^^^Some very old art of Aaron m'boy, circa 2020-2021! He's an older OC, from around 2019, though not as old as Ronin!

^Speak of the devil, here's one of my first ever pieces of humanoid art, circa early 2020, featuring Ronin himself! He is an OLD oc, he dates back to 2014-2015, give or take. He doesn't exist in the story I'm working on anymore, but he's still dear to my heart and I'm likely going to revive him for a future one!

^Jaz! Like Aaron, he's an older OC, though again, not as old as Ronin. Close, though! This ref is from... hm, 2021 or 2022? And Jaz himself dates back as far as 2016 or so. You might recognize him if you know Ronin! He exists in the same story as Aaron, and one version of Castor.

And finally for a nonhuman OC if that's your jam, here's Soldan, once known as Tempest.

There ya go! Hope that's satisfactory for ya :D Oh! Almost forgot- as for Lorien Legacies, no fanart here, but I have in fact read the series! A long time ago, mind you, around... 2018 or 2019? But I still remember the rough plotline and characters. Quite honestly it was a bit shocking to see that series mentioned, I've hardly met anyone else who's even heard of it!

[thatonecrookedsmile]

You know, one thing I don't like when I digitally color sketches is that the colors end up looking a little desaturated because of the paper. It doesn't look bad, I guess, but I have to eventually find a way to "fix" it eventually.

Anyway, today marks 6 years since BATIM Chapter 4 was released. Damn. I know I say something similar every time I recognize the passage of time, but it's hard to believe that it's been more than half a decade since this chapter came out. Time passes, I get older, it's crazy! And I wanted to do something to celebrate. I've never been able to do anything to celebrate this chapter's anniversary since 2019. Which is a shame because "Colossal Wonders" is my favorite chapter in BATIM. Some of my favorite moments from this game are in this chapter.

And every year I try to do something to celebrate the anniversary, but I never manage to do it and it sucks! And as usual, what I really wanted to do this year didn't end up happening. I'll probably do it at some point later, but there was no way I could execute the idea I had in mind in such a short amount of time. But I still wanted to post something today, so something small will have to do.

In this case, oh hey! It's Bertie and Lacie! In recent times I've been going back to old designs of mine of the human cast of the Bendy universe, and since CH4's anniversary was coming up, I thought it would be good to update my designs for both Bertrum and Lacie. It's been so long since I last drew them, so it's about time. I liked the general idea of the last versions of them that I did in the past, so I tried to keep those ideas still, in a way, but at the same time giving them new life. Lacie falls more in this case, tbh. Bert still maintains some of the previous idea, but I had to change a few details. He still looks good, tho.

I originally wanted to put Jack Fain here too, because,by all accounts, Jack Fain only came into existence with the release of CH4 and the remasters of the other chapters. As much as you can put him on CH2's anniversary,he, at the end of the day, was only introduced on April 30, 2018. Problem is, I didn't like the drawing I made of him. I don't know, it wasn't that good in my opinion. And I didn't want to redo the drawing again (this would be my third attempt) and I wouldn't have enough time to redo his part. So today we'll just have Bernie and Lacie. Sorry Jack. Maybe next time, when I show my CH2 cast designs in one place.

Once again, happy anniversary to Chapter 4! This is my favorite chapter of the game to date. It includes some of my favorites from the story, it has several surprises that caught me the first time I saw the chapter, it brought new updates to previous chapters that added things that I still like to this day (and this goes especially for CH2) And overall, it's a pretty cool chapter me thinks. 👍

That one day we can hear more from Bertrum and Lacie again.🙏 (Especially Lacie. Seriously, don't you guys think it's wild that Lacie is the only one of the human cast of BATIM who hasn't appeared in practically anything since the first game. Like, yeah, she's mentioned in the Handbook, but other than that, she's not mentioned in nothing else after, whether in games or books. I think about this from time to time. Truly one of the Bendy characters of all time)

[thelovesickbakery]

Um, baker? If i asked you to take my submission down, would i be able to send it again later for you to put up? I realized that I shouldn’t be in a relationship yet.

If you can’t that’s fine, I understand.

—♡—

Hello!

Something of such nature would be reasonable, and there is nothing wrong with this course of action. Based on whatever motivations their creator might have, submissions can be taken down at any time, as requested, and new submissions from these same creators could be submitted at a later time to be republished — no problem, no questions asked.

Please, follow your heart about that which is best for you at this time. And if you wish to do so later, you are always more than welcome to redo a submission here.

Oh! And if the final decision is for me to take down this submission of yours, simply let me know via another ask of this nature or a direct message — in the event of such being an older post, a link to it would be appreciated.

I hope this answer of mine is satisfactory. Have a good day/night!

—♡—

[louiesselfshipramblings]

Pokemon Selfship

Okay I had a version of this post I was writing before, but I kinda wanna start over cause this topic is like...weird for me? Interesting? Interesting. Stick with me.

Gonna be honest, I have a lotta Pokemon crushes. Like, a LOT. Melony, Nessa, Raihan, Irida, Ryme, Sada, Rika...those are just the few I can name off the top of my head lol. They're just so many pretty designs!

I did once get a selfship drabble with Irida (dunno if the writer is here on tumblr, but if they are I will tag her in a reblog), and that was fun. Had a lil thief guy who gets taken in by her, learns to be a better person. I might revisit it! Thing is...a lotta people assume Irida is like a kid! Okay, sure she's inexperienced and clearly new to this, but this woman is at least twenty. And then those SAME people will claim Adaman is an adult when it's clear they're supposed to be in the same age range and...ugh. You get it.

The Gen 9 ladies, I think it's more I just like their designs. I did write a bit of smth with Sada, but I never got super far. Plus a lotta fans seem to headcanon Rika as a girl liker, which is fine and it is just headcanons, but I dunno. She's great, I love her, but I think I just lack a connection since I kinda fell off with Pokemon in Gen 9. Same reason with Ryme, even tho I love old women.

Gen 8, tho? Now, I'm a big Gen 7 head, but there's a lot I like about Gen 8. It was the last gen I really followed intensely, especially with the character designs and animations. Gen 8 prolly has the best gym leader cast of em all, with my top three being Nessa, Raihan, and Melony. Bea is also really good imo, but those are my top three.

With Nessa and Raihan, I mainly ship em together, in the sense of like "I want them to be happy with each other" sorta deal. Course, I could poly it, but I dunno.

So that leaves Melony...I actually DO have art of a Melony self ship, but it feels...off. Like, an older version of me that longer feels accurate. If I were to redo a Melony self ship (and I am highly tempted), I'd prob redo it from the ground up. A new take, sorta deal. Might keep the notion all her kids are mine cause I love doin stuff like that. Could also ask around other Melony selfshippers, the ones of the sharing type.

At the very least, I think I was able to narrow down my actual feelings to just Melony, same as I did with Mariah. Which is good! Granted, I still do love Nessa lots, same with Raihan...maybe I'm just back in my Pokemon era lol

[odetojupiter]

sharing another older fic of mine bc i’m finally writing the next chapter (had a disaster last year where i’d nearly finished writing it all up but my laptop crashed and i lost it all including the plan i had sooo i had to redo it all) but

it’s a pjo/camp halfblood au for aftg, if ur interested!

u can read it here: oh burning, now i bring you hell

should be posting the next chapter by the end of this month!!!

[snakebites-and-ink]

This blog’s main tags, listed for your browsing convenience

#My writing - fiction I’ve written, including drabbles and WIP chapters

#My non writing posts - Original posts of mine that don’t fall under the “my writing” tag

#My posts - Aggregate of my writing + my non-writing posts; all my original posts

#other people’s writing - self-explanatory

#whump - self-explanatory

#whump thoughts - whump ideas, prompts, concepts, tropes, etc. that aren’t written out in scene form

#whump memes - self-explanatory

#funny - self-explanatory

#lol - second tag for funny stuff. I don’t have a set distinction between the two, which one I use is mainly based on whim and there’s some overlap. If I had to explain maybe I’d say the lol tag is a bit more casual??

#memes - self-explanatory

#encouragement - Posts that share encouragement, obviously, but sometimes also adjacent stuff like positivity, validation, etc. 

#writing - posts about writing/being a writer/etc.

#writing meme - self-explanatory

#animals - self-explanatory

#marine biology - My tag for aquatic biology. Includes both marine biology and freshwater biology, which I know is not actually marine biology but I didn’t want to redo the tag. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#quiz/generator results - for those posts that link a uquiz or random generator game or some such and I paste my result in a reblog

#lgbtq+ - self-explanatory

#advice/resources - self-explanatory

#completed - masterlists of finished series

#housekeeping - things I’d like my blog viewers to know, information regarding me and my blog, useful information in general, organizational posts, etc.

#blog housekeeping - subtag of housekeeping mainly for keeping my blog organized and holding blog info

#art - self-explanatory. So far it’s all other people’s art because I haven’t posted any of my own here.

#biology - self-explanatory

#science - self-explanatory

#cute - self-explanatory

#my tag for things I haven't really tagged yet - All kinds of posts that I didn’t have the energy to tag properly when I reblogged them. Originally I wanted to put this on every otherwise untagged post so I could stay ✨organized✨ and find things, but by now I've accepted that it's not really feasible to tag every single thing I reblog without stunting the amount of posts I find myself willing to reblog.

#my tag for things without a tag - same as my tag for things I haven't really tagged yet, but older. I’ve essentially replaced it with my tag for things I haven't really tagged yet, but didn’t go back and retag all the posts it was on.

I use other tags of course, but this should cover the most major ones.

[snowfolly]

I don’t usually post WIPs but here’s one.

(I’m redoing of an older work of mine and so far I’m much happier with it)

[java-dragon]

Bookbinding Tips for Beginners by a Beginner.

Trouble Shooting edition.

As I am redoing- and reprinting a text block from scratch. I learned some stuff that may help along the way. This will be brief. I am still compiling all of the photos I need for the potential last post of this little series of mine.

But some trouble shooting.

Printing

Printers are by nature a horrendous beast. Once you think you have them figured out they will either throw a temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums, fuck up the print, or make you grovel by their perch pleading for them to read the file.

"I have single handedly gotten my grandmother, and my mother to realize that there isn't a Nigerian Prince that needs their help. I have recovered corrupt files, and gotten that 90s VCR to work for some inexplicable reason but hell it made ma happy... I am the biped in this equation.... Now print you son of a bitch!"

I can't trouble shoot those moments but I can help make misprints a little less "Void your spine and your soul" at the same time.

This is me advocating for JS Binder- and getting your pdf broken up for the pure simple reason you can track the pages easier. I have had my printer pull two pages at a time and print on one side of one page, and print on the other side of the other page. The easiest thing to do is to pull the pages that have printed, and pull the pages that have misprinted. Stand them up so they're noticeable and allow the rest of the printing to conclude.

Now with adobe you can select what pages you need to reprint from the document in question, and there is a small section around the middle/bottom that has the page count. To reprint only the pages you need track the document number down for the ease of use:

The page count for Adobe looks similar to this.

For the ease of this example I'm just going to say that my printer fucked up the first and second page of the print.

Hit print:

The layout for Adobe PDF reader will look as such.

In the "Pages to be Printed" Section near the top hit "Pages" and manually type in the page numbers. For this example One (1) and Two (2).

Also remember to flip everything on the short edge or else you will be having right-side-up and up-side-down pages alternating. We don't want that. Always ALWAYS make sure to flip on the short edge.

What if the printer misses a few pages? Similar concept but a few more steps before we get back to the print stage.

Best I can say- is if there are a massive amount of missing pages or they just don't look gook.

Check your ink levels. If it's not the ink, do a head cleaning usually there's a setting for that built into the software or on the printer itself. I can only speak to inkjet printers, if you have a toner printer.... damn lucky. Toner printers print damn fast and are quieter and more reliable than inkjet.

Anyway, once the cleaning has been accomplished and it looks like everything is as it should- see above or grin and bear the whole reprint for that section of your bind.

Usually I've gotten away with just going through the software for ink head cleanings. In extreme cases you might have to manually clean the heads. I know certain older printers are like that. Best I can say is find the manual and see how it goes.

IF that doesn't work still....

Invest in a toner printer if you can and borrow your friend's inkjet if you're printing colour covers for your books.

[eli-writes-sometimes]

Eli Writes Sometimes - Updated Intro/Masterpost

Last updated - 22/9/24

Hi! I'm Eli! I write sometimes (as the name would suggest)! I'm trying to be more active here on writblr, so I'm redoing my intro so it's more up to date with what I'm writing now.

About me

My name is Elias, but I go by Eli most of the time

My pronouns are it/he (interchangeable, but please don't just use he/him)

I'm a minor, so please be respectful of that

When not writing, I play the flute and the piccolo

This is the picrew I made my icon with

@ev-enhotterthanyou is the best no 1 fan and husband I could ask for <3

I'm also three rats in a trenchcoat - if you get it you get it

Where to find me

I have a shitpost/fandom blog at @eli-is-an-idiot

My AO3 - I only really post about my fanfic on my other blog, but my fic masterpost is linked below if you're interested

About this blog

As you might have guessed, this is a writblr!

I'm aiming to read and reblog other's writing, as well as posting more of my own original writing

I primarily write fantasy, with a focus on queer characters, found family and magic, as well as stories based on my own experiences

WIPs under the cut

I have a lot of old ideas and rambles about stories on here, so if you see something from a few months ago and don't see it here, I've either given up on it or just not had any ideas for it recently and it felt wrong having it in my intro

Ok with:

Being tagged in tag games - I love these, and I want to try and interact with other people in this community more, so if you want to tag me in anything, please do!

On a similar note, feel free to send me asks or DMs about your WIPs or OCs, or just anything you want to talk about, I'm always happy to listen!

On the other hand, if you want to ask questions about my WIPs, I'd love that :)

Not ok with:

Any kind of hate speech or prejudice

TERFS, transphobes, homophobes, ableists, racists or anyone that doesn't respect other people's existence - unkindly fuck off

Bullying

Entirely NSFW or 18+ blogs (I'm a minor)

Wips and navigation under the cut:

Tags:

There is quite a noticeable pattern in my tags, if you couldn't tell

General writing things - #eli writes sometimes

Things that don't include my writing (including games) - #eli doesnt write sometimes

Tag games - #eli tags sometimes

Ask games - #eli answers sometimes

Art - #eli arts sometimes

Reading- #eli reads sometimes

Each WIP has its own specific tag

FANFIC MASTERLIST

WIPs:

I have a lot of old, dead or on-hiatus WIPs, so if you see anything about God of Chaos, Face the Music, For All In-Tents and Purposes or Jason King's Guide to the Supernatural, then those are all old stories of mine that I do want to go back to someday, but these are my main ones:

CURRENT WIPS

Five Man Band

A collection of ocs and story ideas that i'm planning on writing short stories around, and that I'm considering turning into a webcomic one day when I have the skill!

Here are the current stories in the Five Man Band universe I'm working on!

FIVE MAN BAND MASTERLIST

Shifting Faces

(used to be called just Five Man Band, when this was just an idea for one novel)

Phoenix Hunter is different - labelled an Anomaly, their ability to shapeshift has always been a guilty secret. But when they are recruited to the Anomaly Rehabilitation Agency, a place that promises to train them to use their powers for the better, it feels almost too good to be true.

Their suspicions are almost confirmed that once they meet their new team - a self-proclaimed "five man band", with only four disillusioned members left and one crucial member missing, leaving only an empty hole where she used to be - a hole that Phoenix is meant to fill.

With a threat bigger than all of them approaching, can Phoenix gain their new team's trust in time to stop it?

Intro post HERE

wip tag - #five man band (older posts) #shifting faces (current posts)

The Almighty's Angel

The story I'm writing for the 40K in 42 days challlenge, based around Kai's backstory and his past catching up to him.

Kai Allen has been free of the cult that he was raised in for 10 years, and short of the god he once worshipped occasionally showing up to taunt him, he's managed to put it all behind him. But just when he thinks he's finally escaped, a figure from his past suddenly reappears, searching for answers about what happened to the girl the cult revered as the chosen one, his childhood best friend, a girl apparenntly killed by the A.R.A. - a girl that Kai is far too familiar with. Kai must grapple with his former and current loyalties as he tries to keep his past from his teammates, all while a drama-mongering deity hangs over them all, pulling strings for his own entertainment. Will he overcome his inner conflict, or will it consume him?

Intro post HERE

WIP tag - #the almightys angel

OLDER WIPS

The Princess, the Pauper, and the Pirate

My main WIP, currently working on it the most and doing a nanowrimo-like challenge where I try to write 50000 words in three months rather than one

Three strangers. Three stories.  When Kai, Vera, and Rune’s paths cross in the middle of the forest, the three of them share stories and swear to help each other, come what may, as allies in a world out to get them. Together, they face everything from pirates to cruel parents, and work to try and take down the system that stacked the cards against them from the start.  Will they succeed, or will they be crushed like everyone else? 

Intro post HERE

Genre - High fantasy

Status - First draft

Specific WIP tag - #wip ppp

Face the Music

My NaNo WIP, I hit 50K and then immediately started working on something else, so there will be stuff about it, but not as much as PPP

When Miles Baldwin, a quiet kid who keeps to himself, is sent to a three-week long music camp, it sounds like a death sentence. But as he meets new friends, including trans boy Finn who is loud and proud about his identity, he starts to come around, even beginning to question his own gender. Irritatingly, not everyone is as open to change as Miles and his friends, and as the music swells and tension builds before the final concert, can Miles come to terms with his identity without falling victim to the bigoted nature of his fellow players?

intro post HERE

Status - First draft

Specific WIP tag - #face the music (I also used #eli does nano 2023 for other nano stuff)

Superlosers

Four roommates, each with a unique power, each with their own set of wildly different personalities. They barely know each other, the rent is due, and an egomaniacal villain is threatening to destroy everything they hold dear - and only they seem to care or want to do anything about it. For the sake of the world, let's hope they can get their priorities straight.

Intro post HERE

Genre - Urban fantasy

Specific WIP tag - #superlosers

The Remnants of Shadows

When beloved Alya Maxwell, renowned pillar of the small community of Blackburn, disappears with only shadows swarming around her house to give any idea of her fate, no one really seems to care, giving up on her as a lost cause.  But two teenagers, both from totally different background and both with their separate reasons for trusting her, don’t accept this, and they begin to dig into what really happened. But when old, buried secrets begin to emerge, how far will any of them go for the truth?

Intro post HERE

Genre - Fantasy

Status - First draft/having a crisis over the plot

Specific WIP tag - #wip tros

That's all for now, thanks for bothering to read this far :)

[cindylouwho-2]

Etsy Moving to Square Photos on Shop Home Pages

Screenshot of my shop home page in July; these photos will change to squares in "early August".

Although Etsy hasn't sent out warning emails or posted notifications on shop manager dashboards yet, the forum Announcements section let us know that Etsy would be changing the ratio of images on shop home pages in early August. (Yes, they are only giving us a few weeks notice. Perfectly reasonable, right? 🙄) The decision was based on the much-maligned tests run in June and July, where many shops saw their product photographs bizarrely zoomed and cropped, with no explanation from Etsy.

Turns out that those tests showed a higher conversion rate for squares, so that is where Etsy is headed. Problem is, we don't know if they are going to properly adjust the crops or not, which they did not do when testing. During that experiment, many of my square photos were zoomed then cropped off on one side, in part because Etsy hadn't removed my previous use of the cropping tool for rectangular shapes. The issues were just as bad or even worse for sellers who mostly used rectangular photos to match the shape of Etsy's gallery displays.

Many sellers are panicking, worrying that they will have to redo thousands of photos in just a few weeks time. Etsy states that "No immediate action is required, however, you may want to start taking and uploading images with this format in mind." Since search pages will still have rectangular product images, squares will not always work (unless set up to look decent in both shapes).

What should sellers do?

I suggest waiting to see what your items look like in this new format before making changes to older images. We don't know whether or not Etsy is going to fix the problems displayed during the experiments. Shooting new listings with both shapes in mind is definitely a good idea, but it is possible your older photographs will look good enough to avoid getting out your camera again.

My best guess is that they will not make the same weird cropping errors with already square photos like mine, as they are not currently doing that on Market pages, where square photos are the norm. See an example below, and compare to the screenshot of my shop home page rectangles above:

Note that my earrings show up fine as a square on the Market page. This listing photo was shown cropped off on each side during the shop home page square test. However, my original photo was taken to look okay as both a square and an Etsy gallery rectangle: a square shape with extra space above and below the earrings. The listing photo in the top right corner above was apparently taken to fill the rectangle shape on each side, so the earrings on the right and left are cut off in square view. This is a problem that many shops may face, depending on how Etsy formats the new home pages.

If you want to check how your current photos look as squares, use this trick to see them on a Market page. (You may need to narrow results by price to find your listing easily.) However, remember that we cannot be certain this is how Etsy will display pics on home pages come August. If we learn more about it, I will update this post.

UPDATE (August 2, 2023): Unfortunately, Etsy went live with the changes today and didn't fix any of the shop home coding, so my photos are weirdly cropped again, and I cannot fix them with Etsy's cropping tool. This shouldn't happen, as my photos are already square!

This is what Etsy has chosen to do with my square photos. Why not just, you know, display the squares I uploaded? Sigh...

If you are taking new photos and want them to work in both formats, you will need to leave space around the outer rim of the image, so you don't lose vital parts of your product when Etsy changes the photo shape. I've been using squares with empty space on the top and bottom of each shot, which is so far working fine on the Market page squares. This may not work for all types of products, however.

If you learn anything from Etsy about this, please post below, or send me an email, so we can share this info with other sellers.