#all i can do is basic photoshop shit

[nectar-cellar]

i blended some more skins together. well, “blended” is a strong word. i’ve just been layering skins over each other in various combos and seeing what sticks😭 these ones will probably remain for personal use, unless smalls is cool with me sharing.

i wanted a skin with a slightly more realistic, matte look. the male skin borrows quite heavily from @smallsimmer’s june skin, and the female skin uses her april skin. her work is just stunning!! i especially fell in love with the male skin instantly. <3

[transmascissues]

it's silly but the biggest reason why im not into t yet is bc im so afraid of losing my hair. do you have any solutions/tips for it?

first of all, i don’t think it’s silly — it’s natural to be worried when hair loss is talked about by so many people as like…one of the worst results of aging for men. listening to my dad talk about how much he hates balding definitely did not make me feel particularly good about the knowledge that i may very well be joining him someday. i’m not saying the fear is right, because i don’t think hair loss is something awful that we should avoid at all costs, but it’s an understandable fear given the beauty standards we’re working with, and it’s one that a lot of us (myself included) feel.

one thing that’s helped me is just…paying more attention to the guys that i interact with on a daily basis. i’ve learned two things from it: 1) hair loss is super fucking common. i’d say it’s much harder to find an adult man who isn’t balding at all than it is to find one who’s completely bald. and 2) if you forget everything you’ve been told about how bad hair loss is, you’ll realize that quite frankly, every single one of those guys looks totally fucking fine. it doesn’t ruin their appearance and make them ugly, it looks totally natural and isn’t really even something you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it. we put so much weight on it but it’s really just not that big of a deal. i’ll hear my parents talk shit about men in my family who are losing their hair when i didn’t even notice a difference last time i saw them. it’s one of those things (like so many other appearance-related things) that you really only notice at all because you’ve been taught that you’re supposed to care about it.

this isn’t something i’ve done personally, but if you really want to desensitize yourself to the idea of it, embrace the time-honored queer tradition of just shaving your whole damn head! find out what you’d look like without hair, find out how you feel about it and what you can do that makes you feel good about your appearance without hair, test the waters while it’s still a temporary change and not something permanent. that way, it won’t feel like this big scary unknown, and you’ll actually have a frame of reference for your feelings about how you look without hair rather than accepting the societal assumption that you’ll inevitably hate it. if you don’t want to actually shave your head, you could also just fuck around with bald filters or photoshop and see what happens.

oh, and if you’re attracted to men, keep an eye out for guys who are bald or balding and also hot as fuck. in my experience, there’s no insecurity or potential future insecurity that being gay for other men hasn’t helped me with. just off the top of my head, i can think of a couple actors who i think are absolutely fucking gorgeous who have helped me get over my fears about losing my hair. despite what our anti-aging-obsessed world might want you to think, there is no such thing as a physical feature that automatically makes someone less attractive, and while making attractiveness less of a priority in your life is good, it can’t hurt to also give yourself some proof that actually, you might lose your hair and look hot as hell doing it.

basically, entertain the possibility that it won’t be a bad thing at all! whether that’s just because it turns out to be a neutral thing for you or because you end up actually liking it, it’s not an inherently bad thing. i’ve ended up liking a lot of things that were “supposed to” be bad effects of t — i love the weight i’ve gained and the new shape it gives my body, i get a lot of gender euphoria from the fact that my acne is now on parts of my face that i saw a lot of guys in high school get it and i’m not complaining about the scars i get from it either because i’ve always liked the added texture that acne scars give my skin, and so on. i think there’s a lot of joy to be had in the changes we’re taught to fear, once we look past that conditioning and actually explore how we feel about it.

but if it’s something you really don’t want and you just want to improve your chances of not having to deal with it, it’s not like there’s nothing you can do! products like finasteride (oral) and minoxidil (usually topical but i think there might also be oral versions) are pretty commonly used among trans guys, for the purpose of avoiding hair loss and for other reasons, and there are plenty of other anti-hair loss products out there (though i don’t know how effective any one of them might be). if it’s a big enough deal for you, you can just decide that you’ll go off of t if/when you start noticing signs of it, since no longer having higher t levels would stop the process in its tracks. and if you don’t find prevention options that work for you so it ends up happening, you can always explore different hair styles (judging by the pattern of hair loss i see in my family, i suspect that keeping my hair long would make it less obvious if i started losing mine), find your preferred method of covering it when you don’t feel good about it (personally i love a good beanie generally and would probably wear them a lot more if i didn’t have hair to worry about because my main complaint is the way they press my hair onto my neck), or just shave it all off if you don’t like the look of the partial balding but don’t mind a shaved head. the point being — you have options!

at the end of the day, whether you go on t or not, you’re going to see your body change as you age in ways that aren’t always going to be attractive to others or aesthetically pleasing to you. that’s just the reality of having a body. even if you never went on t, you’d get older and you might see your hair thin out even if you don’t bald, you’ll see your skin start to wrinkle and sag in places that used to be smooth, your metabolism might slow or your body fat might start to gather in new places; hell, you might lose your hair for a totally different reason and end up in the same place but without the benefits of having been on t that whole time. life is full of bodily changes like that. transphobes will fearmonger about the permanent changes of testosterone all day long but the truth is, there is no escaping permanent bodily changes. whether or not you go on t, your body now isn’t the same as it will be in 1 or 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 years, just like it isn’t the same as it was at any point in your life before now. our bodies are never supposed to stop growing and aging and changing throughout our lives. there’s no guaranteeing that we’ll love every single change our bodies go through, but that’s okay! there are so many things in life that are more important than the way our bodies look. even if you go on t and lose your hair and don’t like how it looks, your life won’t be ruined; plenty of other things will bring you joy and more than make up for the insecurities.

just think about the gender euphoria and relief from dysphoria that t could give you. would losing your hair be bad enough to outweigh all of that? or is it just the pressure of a society that decided balding is bad that’s making you fear one single change despite how much joy you could have if you let that fear go? only you can decide if going on t is worth the potential downsides for you, but i suspect that for most of us, the benefits of going on t far outweigh the possibility of side effects like hair loss happening down the line.

[tickfleato]

how to make cool blobby turing patterns in photoshop

i'll preface with i learned the basic loop from skimming a tutorial on youtube, but as someone who prefers written tutorials i'm sure many would appreciate one! also, the second part of this is some of the visual effects i figured out on my own using blending modes and stuff.

i'm using photoshop CS4 on a mac so some buttons and stuff might be in different places on windows and newer photoshop versions but all the actions are the same. my canvas is 1000x1000 pixels.

UPDATES (i'm hoping these'll show up whenever you open the readmore?)

it's possible to do something similar in krita using this plugin, made by the love @arcaedex

it's also possible to do this in photopea, a free browser alternative to photoshop! the results are pretty much identical.

FIRST off you wanna get or make a black and white image of some kind. it has to be one layer. can be noise, a photo, a bunch of lines, whatever. here's mine, just some quick airbrush lines:

now find the actions tab. idk what it looks like in newer versions of photoshop but you probably won't need to dig!

hit the little page thingy to make a new pattern. once you hit 'record', it'll record everything you do. the little square 'stop' icon will end it.

now you want to do a high pass filter. you can mess around with the radius to change the size of your squiggles, but the tutorial had it set to 6. experiment!

now add the 'threshold' adjustment layer. i use the adjustments tab but i think there's also a dropdown menu somewhere. keep it at the default, 128. merge it down. (control or command + E or you can right click it like some kind of weirdo)

and finally, the gaussian blur! the radius of this affects the shape and size of your squiggles as well. i like to keep it around 4.5 but you can mess around with that too.

after that, hit 'stop' on the action you're recording, and then repeat it a bunch of times using the 'play' button, until you have something you like, like this:

WOW!! that was fun!! and only a little tedious thanks to the power of macros. anyway, here's some fun layer blending stuff i like to do. it's with a different pattern cause i made this bit first.

anyway, using a black and white gradient (or a grey base that you do black and white airbrush on), make a layer with the vivid light. this will make the blobs look thicker or thinner.

then, for cool colors, do a gradient map adjustment layer over that:

and finally, my best friend, the overlay layer. just using a gradient here bc i'm lazy, but feel free to experiment with brushes, colors, and blending modes!

NOW GO. MAKE COOL SHIT WITH THE POWER OF MATH. AND SEND IT TO ME

also these are not hard and fast rules PLEASE mess around with them to see what kind of weird shit you can make. here's a gif. as you can see i added some random airblush blobs in the middle of it, for fun.

[felassan]

Snippets 🐺💜

Users report that pre-orders they made to TFAW of the DA:TV artbook The Art of Dragon Age: The Veilguard have been cancelled (since its listings were taken down like Dark Horse's were)

Blair: "The Shadow Dragons have some great black leather combos, less feathers though." [source]. shrl: "The Mourn Watch have leather and skulls." [source]

John: "it's been a pleasure and an honor working on this with you Brian" [source]. Brian: "The feeling is mutual." [source]. Trick: "It's been amazing watching it all come together, and I am so grateful for everything you've done to make that happen." [source]

John: "the day this game ships is the day i will finally retire the sleeved blanket i bought back in 2019" [source]

John: "the wildest thing about being creative director is that about once every two weeks someone says 'hey this bizarre thing here is part of your job can you do it'. and it is a thing that you KNEW someone did but you never thought about which someone. congratulations, you are that someone" [source]

User: "The Evanuris are banished forever, he says. 👀". Trick: "Forever-ish" [source]

John: "me: it’s weird how a lot of fans think I hate Solas, it’s absolutely wild. also me: I should photoshop Solas into the ‘we demand to be taken seriously’ picture" [source]

Carly: "i can see the light at the end of the tunnel, everyone,,,, s o o n 🥴" [source]. / "I honestly can’t wait til we share more !" [source]. / User: "do you ever look at people’s reactions and theories on here like 🙂‍↔️ you people have no idea what’s coming". Carly: "Oh absolutely lmaooo" [source]

Carly: "I deleted it but I posted in our slack like “pls just tell them smtg, the clowns make me sad ):” lolol" [source]. (note: fans have been joking around and calling themselves clowns hhh, in the age-old tradition of DA clowning) "this is me empathizing and feeling bad we aren’t giving as much info (altho epler be goin off), rereading it sounds like I’m going *points* look at how pathetic those clowns are lol" [source]. / "its like we can finally yell about our work but only in limited quantities and basically at the same time fans find out things lolol oh ya and the ea snipers" [source]

Violet: "I might be screaming into the wind, but there's nothing underhanded going on. Release date is coming in August like we already said (so very soon)" / "roadmap will be very soon with some nuggets of what will be coming in August." [source: the official BioWare Discord]

Violet: "I made the announcement [in the Discord about Edge magazine's article], and it's kinda damned if you do, damned if you dont. If you do, people that ONLY want the biggest beats get mad. If you don't, people that want any scrap of news get mad. Personally, I think going towards the latter is better overall. But I'm sorry it wasn't what you expected. I am also a DA fan and care enormously about this project." [source: the official BioWare Discord]

User: "How do we all think the companions for Veilguard flirt?". Violet: "depends on the companion fsfs" [source: the official BioWare Discord]

Violet: "soon™️" / "(not trying to be a shit, it will be soon! its a holdover joke from my last studio, i have to put the ™️ every time, its a sickness)" / "real talk, im just as feral as you guys when it comes to DA" / "[re: John being aware of a meme] that doesnt surprise me, [John] gets around 👀" [source: the official BioWare Discord]

[kremlin]

"This event ends the moment you write us a check, and it better not bounce, or you're a dead motherfucker" -- Big Bill Hell

There was a time when you'd see little old ladies paying for the groceries with a hand-written personal check, holding up the line, causing an immediately-forgiven slight sense of annoyance with those behind her. Buddy. Those days are over. They've been over. What, did you think you were going to just pop a couple extra zeroes on the end of your paycheck there? Maybe scan your paycheck, open it in photoshop, make a template, print em out all nice? You think you're the first to think of that, dipshit?

It takes the law a long time to catch up with the state of the art. You're reading this on the internet, which means you never use checks. The law has caught up. Your ass will be going to prison immediately and you will see zero return.

You can't even kite checks anymore, and hell, nobody under 40 will even know what that means, due to the blazing fast, two day settlement on all ACH transactions. Let me paint you a picture.

You get paid on Friday, but it is Monday, and bills are due on Tuesday. And you're broke: $0 in the bank. Goose egg. Pop open your checkbook, go to a store, "buy" some things, write a check for the amount. The cashier takes it!

Now take those things you "bought", across town, to another store location, and return them for cold hard cash. Sweet. Bills paid. Friday rolls around, and you just make it to the bank to deposit your paycheck before it closes. After the weekend, the checks you wrote finally post, and they don't bounce! You've kited a check. You've surreptitiously taken a zero-interest loan. And we know your broke ass. The interest rate on that short-term payday loan should have been straight up usurious. We're talking 29%. That makes predatory fuckers like us horny for sex. We're so mad. Now you are going to Federal Prison. For a good minute. Fuckface.

COST: $0.10 (With banks offering free checking accounts + Bic pen)

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor sleet, if you fuck with the mail, we'll rip your nuts off" -- Ronald Mail (Inventor of Mail)

Many people have this misnomer that the most powerful people in politics are democratically elected. The president, of the United States, of America, is a stupid cartoon hotdog. All of them, I don't care. Way less clout than you'd think. Brilliantly, it is the people that the hotdog president appoints who are actually doing anything significant. The director of the CIA. The fucking chairman of the Federal Reserve. Probably the, like, most senior, uh, general of the military, and shit too. I don't know, we don't "do" army here at Bloomberg. You probably don't even know their names! I don't! These are the ones you should be seeing in your sleep.

There's another position like that. Appointed directly by the hotdog. The Postmaster General. That's a real title. He's the CEO of the mail, and buddy, what he may lack in political power relative to the director of the CEO, he makes up in raw sexual energy. Total Tom Selleck energy. Like an airline pilot. We're talking Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I'm tentpoling in my black business slacks just writing this, and all my Bloomberg newsroom bros are peering over my shoulder and also tent-poling. We're not gay though, and especially me, I'm probably the least gay, but sometimes I just lay awake for hours at night what that mustache would feel like pressed against my lips, the unbelievable and utter, total sense of security I'd feel burying my head into his hard chest.

You get it. He's your dad. And if you fuck with the mail, you've fucked with the tools in your dad's garage. And dad's been drinking. You're in for it, bucko, you are in trouble. Do you think the United States Postal Service actually makes any money? Hell no. It costs like five bucks to mail a box basically anywhere I can think of and they give you the boxes for free. You can just walk in the post office and take them. I do that, and then just throw them away, I don't know why, some kind of compulsion. Being able to move shit around like this, quickly, cheaply -- Jesus H, I've got a huge amount of money in my bank account, probably tens of trillions of dollars (due to financial knowledge gained from reading Bloomberg articles) and I could probably mail every single person ever something and still come out in the black.

No way pal. They've thought of that already. The Postmaster General is going to know every time, and he's going to grab you by the shirt collar, wearing his cool as fuck hat, and you're going to get your pants pulled down, and your bare ass spanke...I need to go use the restroom real quick.

We rely on the mail system to get important shit done. It's not something to be taken lightly, and it isn't. Trust me. This is why, like almost every other person who receives mail in this year 2023, I just fucking put a wastebasket under my mail slot. I don't even shred that shit anymore. I just burn it. Takes less time.

COST: $0.63 (Postal stamp)

"Can call all you want, but there's no one home // And you're not gonna reach my telephone // Out in the club, and I'm sipping that bubb // And you're not gonna reach my telephone" -- Lady Gaga

I read something wild that the children of today do not know what a dial tone is, because of how fucked up and stupid they are. Isn't that super fucked up?

While it's not really our style, allow me to fill you in on some ancient, arcane knowledge about the telephone. You can turn it on, and then you can punch in numbers. Any numbers. Random ones, or maybe not random ones. If the ten numbers you punch in are the same as the numbers in someone else's telephone number, their phone will ring, and then you are talking to them. This is called "Phreaking".

Here's the kicker: You can tell that jackass anything you want. "Oh, Hi, Yes, I am Reginald Sumpter calling from Avalon Consulting LLC, we are just following up on the invoice we sent you. Please remit to ###### routing ###### account."

BOOM! Your name isn't Reginald whatever and that company doesn't exist, but you just received a deposit. It's fucking beautiful. What have you done wrong? It isn't your responsibility to handle who your business' clients/etc are, it's their's. If they want to just pay you money for no real reason, well, that's kind of on them, isn't it? I haven't stuck a pistol in your face and demanded everything in the register.

Well, it's too clever. It's too slick. This is the United States of America. It's one thing to commit a felony like armed robbery, it's another thing to piss off someone in charge of the accounting division who uses a special bathroom you need a key to get into.

You can do it on the computer too, I use a PC Computer at work and send email, so you can see how it'd work there. You can make a document that is indifferentiable from a real invoice and, straight up, 1/3 of the time they will pay that shit. Lmfao.

It's called wire fraud because, uhh, duhhhh, there's wires. What do you think that thing is strung between the telephone receiver and the dialer? And computers? Give me a break. There's so many wires with those.

COST: $0.25 (Coin for payphone)

"People calculate too much and think too little." -- Charlie Munger

It is insane how dumb the common man can be when it comes to our world of expertise. I hear this same sentiment, like, ALL THE TIME:

"Durr hurr I will buy an insurance policy for my car or house or whatever so that in case something happens to it I will get money". And then that same person proceeds to drive safely or not burn their house down. Dumbest crap imaginable.

Let me break it down for you. Insurance is a two player competitive game. There is a winner and there is a loser. Go take out an expensive insurance policy on your American sports car. Buy a neck brace, a football helmet, and pack that bitch with throw pillows. Then get in the left lane of a major highway at like noonish, let it rip and then SLAM on your brakes. Hit from behind! Your fault! Congratulations. You have won insurance. How this gets past people is beyond me.

You can only do this once or twice before the insurance companies catch on. Then they don't want to fuck with you. It is also..I don't know man...something feels off about taking a car or a house, which like, some guy had to build and just destroying it, but that is only a weird emotional thing, since you're making money, more than whatever the destroyed thing is worth, so in reality you've built that house plus some extra. You've contributed.

COST: $106.00 (Average monthly car insurance payment)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

SUBSCRIBE TO MY WHATEVER FOR PART TWO, COMING SOON. i'll post it later today probably. whatever time frame will juice the numbers. have a sneaky peaky

disclaimer | private policy | unsubscribe

[kiophen]

Re: tags on that ask about callout posts (not the same anon), can I ask about the 4lung situation? I haven't looked into what happened too deeply but from what I have seen nothing is super well documented or explained

If its too much and you don't feel like getting into it don't worry about it, feel free to disregard. I'm mostly just curious since I've heard things and it was mentioned

I was prompted to do my own digging into the whole situation surrounding her a few years ago. She was excluded from an online music event due to someone bringing up concerns with the organizers privately. I found that basically every public accusation about her is not true, and/or redacted by the accusers. The only true accusations are the ones that really don't matter; she retweeted porn on main and was a babyfur. These things were used to bludgeon her with pedo accusations and back up all the fake shit thrown on top to make it more convincing.

"Did you know she attempted to KIDNAP a KID?? Oh, the kid said it wasn't a kidnapping and the accuser said they jumped to conclusions and apologized? Well did you know she TWEETED a SLUR? Oh that was actually photoshopped by kiwifarmers? Well did you know she SEXUALLY HARASSED a MINOR? Oh, that was actually her shitty ex-gf trying to make her look bad in retaliation to a bad breakup? Well did you know x and y and z misinterpreted or fabricated things? Well at least you can agree that being a BABYFUR is something worth ritualistically harassing a trans woman, over right?"

One reason why stuff isn't well documented is because the main person who was pushing the accusations so hard ended up apologizing and retracting and deleting a lot of posts (and also I think they're suspended, which deletes all their tweets, and most of this shit happened in twitter threads). They did get bullied into removing their apology too.

Another reason is that a lot of the situation was people seeing the original callout posts years ago, internalizing the message "This Person Bad Pedo Bad Bad Person Bad" from it, and then later being like "Ummmmm isn't that person a pedophile? Yikes?" to their friend who brought her up who then says "Oh My Fuck I am Sorry I Did not Know that!" and then it just gets spread around like that through uncurious people who don't care enough to check

I have my own collection of archived tweets from when I was trying to find the root of these claims and might make a full writeup about the situation someday, but also I have complicated feelings about whether I would be just be immortalizing this shitty behavior, if it would just lead to more people trying to harm her, or if anyone would even learn anything from it. Also I don't want the person who started the accusations to get dragged back into this since I can tell they were being manipulated and gaslit as fuck by other bullies into making this such a big part of their life for so long.

Specifically about the kidnapping thing: After one of her shows, she and a friend drove a teenager to an Arbys to get picked up by their parent as a nice gesture due to some trouble the teen was having. The situation was catastrophized by either this teen or the accuser into a "kidnapping" (there is conflicting information, they both blame each other) and then the accuser tweeted it out. The teen has since said they didn't really think they were being kidnapped, and the accuser said the kidnapping aspect was made up.

[sibmakesart]

hello! i really love your art & animations! i'm not sure if someone has asked this already but: what do you use to animate? & how long have you been animating for? do u know of any tutorials/classes? (i'm a beginner learning on my own atm!)

hi ! thanks a lot :D

Software wise it depends, procreate for the little sketchy animations, toon boom story board and harmony for bigger projects, sometimes blender even ^^ and unity for work, but its special for video games, i even animated a lot on photoshop when i started !!! never again !!!

i composite in after effect or premiere, depending on what needs to be done, sometimes both for big stuff, but if youre learning animation, focus on the basics before the aesthetics (you can fumble your way into compositing way more easily than anim)

ive been animating on and off for 5 years, 3 of wich were in animation school (during which we surprisingly did not animate much lmao) i got this film out of it tho lol

as for tutos....

i cannot recomend enough The Animator's survival guide, you ccan find the free pdf on the internet, and a bunch of people explaining and showcasing it on yt, its basically the bible for 2d animation

this vid is also very good to get a feel of animation, and the basics, the guy also has v good classes on his channel

but basically the best way to learn is to animate ! a lot ! and look at animations you like, download them and look at them frame by frame : how does the timing work, how doess that character moves, etc

ACT IT OUT ! FILM YOURSELF IN YOUR ROOM DOING STUPID SHIT ! ANIMATE IT ! (believe me, im as sad as you that this is the answer to good anim... but it is...)

and what kind of anim do you like to make ! fights ? chara acting ? sfx ? theres a LOT in which you can specialize (if making a living out of it is your goal) so play around in a cheap/free/cracked software and see what you like and what works for you !

animation is a very complete field : you gotta know perspective, anatomy, acting, composition, exercising any of these skills ultimately makes your animations better !

3d anim is a whole other can of worm, but (IMO) still requires 2d basics,

TO CONCLUDE :

just go ham on doing weird shit and consume, consume,consume animation : short gobelin/carlarts films, all of richard williams filmography, obscure russian animated movies from the 70's, youll ALWAYS learn something, thats how you learn best

Happy creating !! animation is AMAZING the way i felt the first time i made something that MOVES ? unparralleled

[rainbowsky]

Anonymous asked: this is why we can’t have nice things.. [redacted]

Speaking of 'this is why we can't have nice things', Anon...

I've closed my inbox to anonymous asks.

Congratulations Anon. After four and a half years of taking anonymous questions from people, yours was the proverbial final straw that broke the horse's back, or whatever that saying is.

Copious swearing under the cut. Prepare yourself for the sound of branches cracking and breaking in the storm.

I can't even begin to imagine why you'd think that is something I would want to see. What the actual fuck? Did it not occur to you that that might be extremely homophobic and distressing for me to see?

I don't know what part of "I don't want to hear any more of this" people don't understand but FFS, I just can't do this anymore.

I'm not here to explain, coddle, comfort or commiserate over hateful statements and badly photoshopped BS toxics are sharing on Twitter, nor am I here to compensate for people's unwillingness to curate their online experience. If I wanted to deal with Twitter BS, I'd be on Twitter.

I'm not here to be a social crutch, either. If a reader has a question about something someone posts on Twitter, they should ask them. They shouldn't come to my blog and send me an anonymous message asking me what someone else meant!

I cannot believe the sheer volume of both of these kinds of asks I get.

THERE IS A REASON I AM NOT ON TWITTER

I take curating my online experience extremely seriously, and I purposely block and avoid all of the worst toxic shit. Especially Twitter, which is a raging cesspool. What point is there in me doing all of that if I can't avoid it anyway because people bring it to my inbox?!?

At the risk of putting my foot in my mouth like WWX, I have to ask, "Who raised you people?"

This all strikes me as really basic stuff, here. Take a few seconds before you send an ask, and reflect!!

Is this something that belongs on another platform? Is there a really good reason why I'm bringing it to this platform?

Is this something rainbowsky wants to hear about?

Is this something rainbowsky has repeatedly, repeatedly told people not to fucking send?

Is this something I should be handling myself by simply blocking and ignoring the person who posted it? Do I really want to play the role of spreading toxic, fucked up lies and garbage farther and wider than where I found it?

Is rainbowsky the right person to ask about this, or should I be asking the person who posted it?

Do I really need to be anonymous for this? Why can't I message rainbowsky privately, or reply in the comments of a post? Why do I want to hide my identity for this simple question or comment? How does being anonymous impact any relationship building or community building that could be happening?

Have I considered rainbowsky's feelings and experience in all of this?

If I haven't taken some basic steps to make this a collaborative, positive, community building experience for rainbowsky, why should he want to post my ask on his blog?

From now on if somebody has a question for me they can damn well do it off Anon. If you don't want me to publish your name say so in your ask and I will respect your wishes, but I will know who you are and you will be accountable to me for what you send. End of fucking story.

Sorry for the bitchiness, please don't take it too personally. I am just really at the end of my tether. My life is stressful enough as it is without having to deal with stuff like this.

[mspaesthetic]

Tidbit: Placronym Pixelation

So you got this fresh placroynm that you don't want engraved with a sophomoric name? Not a problem. You can reject that stupid shit with a pixelize/pixelate filter.

Photoshop

First, you will have to make two more duplicates of your name text layer, so three text layers in total. One for when it's first displayed, one for the first frame of pixelation, and one for the second frame.

With your first duplicate layer selected, go to Filters>Pixelate>Mosaic..., which is a terrible name for it, but hey, I'm no Photoshop developer. Set the cell size to 11.

For the second duplicate layer, set it to 14.

GIMP

Pretty much the exact same steps as in Photoshop, this time the filter is located under Filters>Blur>Pixelize...

I would suggest right-clicking on the text layer and choosing Composite Space>RGB (perceptual) instead of the default (Auto), or going to the top-right corner of the Layers tab and switching the group of blend modes from Default to Legacy. Basically, doing so will make the semi-transparent pixels as dark as they are in Photoshop, otherwise they will appear too light.

Check out the read-more link below for bonus information on easily animating the name being typed out in Photoshop.

ADDENDUM

Typing animation (Photoshop)

Photoshop's frame animation timeline makes doing this a breeze. First, add a layer mask to your text layer. This will add a white box next to the layer's thumbnail.

With that layer mask selected (click on it and it will be highlighted in the layers tab), use the marquee tool to make a rectangle selection around the text, then use the paint bucket tool to fill it in with the color black. This will make the text invisible until the layer mask is moved.

Go to Window>Animation if you do not already have the animation timeline open. Click on the little sticky note icon to duplicate the first frame. In newer versions of Photoshop, you will probably first have to click on a button that reads "Create Frame Animation", and the duplicate frames button icon is the "+" in a little square.

Making sure you still have the layer mask selected and not the entire layer, use the move tool and arrow keys to move it all the way to the right, revealing the text on the second frame you've just made. Don't move it too far off now.

Move the typing cursor layer to the right as well, except you don't have to move it all the way at the end, only where it will be last seen.

Make the typing cursor layer visible on the first frame, and not visible on the second.

Select the first frame the animation and click on the tween button. This will add all of the frames in between the first and the second one for you. Make sure you only have "Position" checked under "Parameters". For the numbers of frames to add, here's a neat trick for finding the right amount: count the amount of letters in the name. "ZOOSMELL POOPLORD" is 16 letters, so add 16 frames.

Most of the work is already done, though there might be a couple frames that will need some minor tweaks. Just use the move tool and arrow keys again to finetune the layers' positioning.

This is why it was important to not move the layer mask too far to the right away from the end of the text. Tweening the position spaces it out linearly, evenly, so the farther away the end goal is, the more space each frame will use. Thankfully the font this panel uses is mostly monospaced, and I got a little lucky with my positioning, so I needed to only adjust three or four frames. Way less tedious than having to create each frame of animation myself, at least.

To change the frame delay (the time duration each frame takes up) of the newly created frames, click on the first frame you want to retime, hold down the Shift key, and then click on the last frame. This will make a selection spanning all frames in between. Click on the little dropdown arrow and select 0.1 seconds (100 milliseconds).

Here's the original panel:

And here's my recreation:

Here's the PSD, too.

[d4isywhims]

hello friends! 🌷

recently i got an ask on how i edit my instagram screenshots and here in gemville, all you have to do is ask and you shall receive my child

fun stuff under the cut!

this guide will be divided into two parts: how i take & edit my gameplay screenshots and how i edit my simstagram posts

before we get into the actual tutorial, here are a list of things that i use to help me take better screenies :)

gshade

i'm using an older version of gshade because - thanks to my procrastination - i never updated the version before everything went to shit.

2. presets!

i switch around between presets a lot lmao but for the most part, i use ellcrze's gshade preset for my family dynamics save, sunset n vinyl for my globetrotter save & sim download pictures and a modified boho dreams for my tjol legacy save (first post coming up soon!) sometimes i use lithium for cas pics too :p click here for a somewhat detailed explanation lol

3. tab mode camera mod

this camera mod is a godsend and makes taking screenshots soooooo much easier! 😌 i highly recommend getting this mod!!!

i think i mentioned this before in an ask - i edit my screenshots in photoshop before posting them on tumblr :D i don't really do much, just running a few actions and cropping my screenies. gshade does most of the work for me lol

this tutorial by @buglaur is insanelyyyy helpful omg i based my entire editing process on her tutorial, except for the colouring part because i'm lazy hehe

here's an example of my screenshots before and after editing (cropping the screenshot and running some actions)! there’s not much difference because as i said earlier, gshade will basically carry your entire editing process 💀

sometimes i put text in my pics like these screenies below :) i mainly use these two fonts - winkle and lemon milk :D

and that's about it for part one! now it's time for

here's what you neeeeeed

1. photoshop

i'm using a 🏴‍☠️ version of photoshop that i got from a somewhat sketchy website but it runs great so i'm not complaining 💀

2. instagram post template and instagram story template

a HUGEEEE thank you to @windslar for sharing the instagram story template link 😭 she is such an inspiration to me 💛

3. the actual instagram app

this is how i add text and emojis to my simstagram posts lol

disclaimer: i am NOT a photoshop expert. there's probably an easier way to do what i'm about to show you, but this works for me and i don't really mind the steps hehe

first things first, you're gonna want to open the psd files on photoshop and it'll look like this, depending on which file you opened

i usually just hide the layers that i don't need so in this case i'll hide the tagged users layer from the story psd and the bg layer from the post psd.

these are the layers that i hide but you can also leave them on if you want hehe totally up to you my dude. then you'll end up with something like the pics below

now we move on to the profile pictures! so what i do is i click these layers (shown below) and go 'file > place embedded > selected picture'

once you do that, you'll end up with something like this (below)! use 'ctrl + t' to resize your picture to fit into where the profile picture would go.

right click on the layer of your selected picture and click 'create clipping mask'. then you can hit 'ctrl + d' to adjust the picture to your liking!

now for the actual pictures for the posts. click on these layers (shown below) and go 'file > place embedded > your selected picture'

now all you have to do is 'ctrl + t' to resize your pictures, right click on the layer of the selected picture and click 'create clipping mask' then 'ctrl + t' again to adjust the pics!

after this whole process, i'll export my pics to my family dynamics folder on my desktop and queue it up on tumblr! :D sometimes my simstagram story posts have text and emojis like these ones below

all i did was upload the pics to google drive, download it to my phone, add text/emoji on the actual instagram app then saving the story to my phone... a lot of work but i don't really mind <3

aaannnnddd that's it!!!! i can't believe i made this guide 😭 hopefully this helps :D english isn't my first language so apologies for any grammar/spelling mistakes i've made in this post 🙈 feel free to ask any questions and i'll try my best to reply to you asap!!

[dearweirdme]

Hi, I have a question because I seriously read all you could respond to about the Tae & Jennie situation in Paris and you gave me some peace of mind (after I sort of felt my heart sinking thinking I was a fool to think Tae was in a relationship with Jungkook…)

Anyway, my question is: I saw in a photo from the new Jimin & JK travel show that the VMinKook trio was on the boat and Tae’s leg had that scar that I saw in those photos of him & Jennie from Jeju island or wherever they were taken… and then it hit me that maybe the photos were not fake :( and maybe that’s why Jungkook’s response to Tae’s remarks about humidity were a bit “off”… not sure :( So.. what the heck now?!? Was Tae in a relationship with Jennie and on the trip where their photos were taken?!? Or what the heck is he doing with JK? :( I’m confused again… I feel dumb because one day I feel there is a relationship between the 2 guys more that what would be considered “normal/as expected” between 2 bandmates/“brothers”/great friends and then another day I see those photos of him and the girl or the video and … I feel like I’m just making everything up in my head. So? What is it? :) thanks!

Hi anon!

So basically, I don’t trust anything that came from Gurumi. They admitted themselves that they edit/photoshop pictures. The whole story around that account is shady and weird as shit. Here’s an accounting of the situation from an anon I got last year.

For talented editors it’s pretty easy to make pics look accurate. Tae and Jennie are very public figures, there’s a lot of footage from them around to work with.

[racfoam]

Okay, poll time regarding an important purchase in my day-to-day life.

In short, I am ready to upgrade from my (glances to the Acer laptop that's been dead for a year) laptop...

I now have a very big budget (it's considered big in my country) that I got over the summer to finally spend it on an upgrade.

I need a poll because now I got an idea to buy a PC, which is dangerous territory for me for numerous reasons. Some background: I haven't had a PC since I was 14, I got my laptop (which is dead now) right as I entered high school, and it was a cheap one, it couldn't even run Minecraft without lagging which at the time pissed off my gamer childhood self.

But, as a functioning, employed adult, I finally did it. I finally saved up enough money to buy a new device.

The accesibility & portability of laptops is def what I need overall for my professional life. They're not a MUST at my work place at all, but it would be NICE to be able to access my documents on laptop & edit them there or during the way home rather than go to the office again for the PC.

Here’s the thing. The laptop I can afford is not better by performance against the gaming PC I can afford.

Why a gaming PC?

Because I am a whimsical little shit. I see a program and I want to master it for hobby's sake, or just cus I'm that curious. What if I one day want to pick up Blender or 3D sculpting or some shit just to try it?! It's happened before, and it continues happening. I jump from hyperfixation to hyperfixation like a ping pong ball. A laptop at the price range I want to buy won't be able to run complex games or Blender.

The childhood me, in my soul, wants that freaking PC. But my basic normal thought process is also aware if I get a gaming PC it may distract me from my work bcs... Well the PC will be able to do EVERYTHING. At least I'm self-aware enough of that.

Another thing is...

Durability & longer-life & upgradability

I can always upgrade the PC, I know my way around PC hardware. The PC will last me longer than the laptop probably will, and I can't upgrade the laptop.

But then I have no portability & always-accessibility the laptop offers, and if I get the laptop it will be for work, Photoshop & fic writing if I get used to it (I won't, I hate writing on laptops). Which is perfect, I'll be able to do my work even on the go, I can carry it with me, etc etc and I WON'T BE DISTRACTED.

So! I guess, vote bcs at this point I'll toss a goddamn coin! And before anyone asks, no I won't put the Macbook on the list, I like having my liver, thank you.

My biggest fear is that I've grown so used to the laptop interface if I buy a PC I'll just take time re-configuring my brain to use it, so what if I hate it? I have so many fears, and I don't want to waste my money and then go like "ugh, I'm disappointed". I'm used to reading on the laptop, typing on the laptop, working on the laptop, etc. I have all PC peripherals except a monitor but the IT stores are having huge discounts & sales now I can grab one from anywhere at this point so that doesn't concern me a lot.

This is a purchase I'll treat myself with for my birthday. I've spoken to friends, some say laptop, some say PC. Anyway, here is the poll. I'll put it for today.

I just love both but I have to pick, but I can't. Laptop is more familiar to me now than a PC 🤣 a PC would be dangerous cus I will def get the urge to play games instead of WORKING, but on the off hours it'd be a party 🤣

For info, the

PC would be

Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600

GPU: RX 6600

RAM: 16GB

That is the overall idea and I even found a custom pc builder in my country, too, if the prebuilt ones are too expensive, haha.

Laptop Models:

Lenovo Ideapad 3 with Ryzen 5, 16Gb RAM, Integrated Intel GPU

Lenovo V15 G5, also Ryzen 5, 16gb ram, integrated Intel GPU

[rebouks]

hi! do you have any tips for making good quality screenshots in ts4?

Hi! Let's see what I can come up with..

LIGHTING/GRAPHICS MODS Easy to use/install, lighting mods can change the look of your game drastically with little effort! I use a few:

no-glo

no-blu

graphicsrules override

I use this camera mod too, much less drifty...

Softerhaze makes some bomb ass lighting mods too.. I just switched from twinkle toes to sunblind and I am in LOVE - gamechanger lemme tell you.. so pretty! LOOKIT!!

RESHADE I'm still using g-shade at the moment but after recent events, I'll probably end up switching back again when I can be arsed. The effects you can achieve with reshade presets are amazing tbh.. and it's real fun to mess around with and create your own! Tho lots of people have made awesome ones if that's a bit much for you. If your PC can't handle it all too well you can always just switch it off until it's time to take screenies as well.

COMPOSITION Kinda hard to explain but basically, composition is what's in your frame and how you line it all up. I'd recommend reading some photography guides to get the gist of the concept.. but honestly, the more you mess around the more you'll get the hang of it. I've always loved photography and sims screenies really aren't so different. If you use reshade there's even some templates for thirds/the golden ratio etc you can slap on top for practice. Personally I don't use 'em cos I prefer my own judgement (that sounds rlly obnoxious but we're rolling with it). I found a template to show you what I mean! (ngl I was stoked that the first screenie I thought of for being a good eg. almost perfectly fit into this golden ratio shit LOL) but let's keep in mind how long I scooted around to get a good shot of this.. pretty sure I deleted about 10 other failed shots of this but shhhh, it's trial and error!

ANGLES/FOCUS The way you take a shot and how you angle it can change the whole feel of the image. For example.. in this image I tilted down and bit and filled over two thirds of the shot with the man, he's a big character and quite an intimidating guy so I think it helps get the idea across without pointing it out (at least I think so but idk I could also be talking outta my ass)

Similarly in these two shots below.. the first with the guy on the left gives the feel that he's in control here. The "camera" is tilted above him slightly and he's all up in your face, making the woman look much smaller in comparison. BUT! If you flip around to the second image, tilt down a bit and switch the focus to her, it makes him look more insignificant and less in control. I hope this makes sense??

EDITING/PHOTOSHOP ACTIONS ETC Personally I don't use photoshop actions but there's plenty out there to do the work for you! I think Intramoon? maybe.. has made a few but idk, you guys feel free to jump in with any suggestions! You can also smooth, fix stuff, change the mood/lighting, all sorts.. my advice on this is patchy at best tbh cos I just faff around until I see what I like lmao.. which leads me on tooooooo...

FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT Lol.. but seriously! I don't know what I'm doing. I've never taken any classes or read up on much, I always just jump in and see what happens. Fuck around with reshade, fuck around with camera mods, fuck around with composition/focus, fuck around with photoshop or gimp or w/e.. just mess about for a while and have fun! I promise you'll get better.

[multimuseticles]

You know... I've been drawing ever since I was like 5 years old. It's something I've spent pretty much my entire life doing. The longest I'd ever really go without drawing is like a couple of months maybe, and lately I've been drawing on an almost near daily basis. But if I'm being honest, I'm fairly close to actually quitting.

I still love to draw and I don't really want to stop, but it's getting to a point where AI slop is just entirely taking over the internet. Finding even reference images these days is so difficult because google is filled with AI crap and a lot of actual art sites allow AI art(looking at you Pixiv and DeviantArt).

I used to get a couple of commissions a month just a few years ago. Then covid hit and I got a little less work because people didn't exactly have the same amount of money to spend, which makes perfect sense. But getting closer to the end of covid when people could actually go back to work etc, AI decided to creep its head up and now I'm lucky to get one commission every few months. Originally, AI art was laughable and it was only able to make really stupid shit that was basically illegible. Like that Dall-e thing.

Putting the rest under a read more because it's somewhat long.

But nowadays, a lot of people prefer to use AI than give actual artists attention. Especially now that a lot of big companies are pushing their own AI crap(looking at you Adobe and Meta). Instagram used to be a great place for artists, now its filled with AI crap that Instagram seems to fucking love and is basically training their AI on your own posts. They say you can opt out, but if you live in the USA? You seemingly can't. In the EU you can because of laws, so I was able to opt out. However. I don't trust Meta not to train off my shit anyway.

Then you've got Adobe, which y'know, was a thing for artists to create stuff, be that through Photoshop, Illustrator or even their video editors. But now they're just pushing their lame AI crap to do everything for you, and still charge a ridiculous amount for their service.

Now I'm not just complaining because I'm getting less work. It's just depressing that creativity is dying. Generative AI is being used in video games, movies, tv shows, music, youtube videos, voiceovers and pretty much EVERYTHING else. It's impossible to avoid these days. Sites that allow AI but ask you to tag it so people can hide it doesn't work either, because people just don't tag that shit.

Due to all this AI crap, artists are being accused of using AI to create their art, regardless of if they show proof or not. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I feel it's inevitable simply because I absolutely suck at drawing hands and I can just barely get the hang of them most of the time. A ton of actual artists have been essentially bullied to the point where they don't post their art online anymore, or are forced to change their art style.

It's so much harder for artists to get their work out there anymore because AI is taking over all of these sites so the majority of the stuff you see is generated bullshit. It has led to people being like "Why would I pay someone to do this when I can just write a prompt and get what I want in seconds?" and no matter what you say to people with this line of thought, they just do not give a single shit.

I'm fine with AI to an extent. I think it's fine to just use it for dumb shit between friends, or helping to get a design idea for an OC or something. But the moment you start making money from AI or posting it online and claiming it as your own(and saying that people should credit you if you used it???) is the moment I think it's not okay. Have you seen Facebook or Twitter lately? Filled with really messed up AI images and AI responses. Facebook is rampant with weird and disturbing looking AI generated images and Twitter is 90% bots these days.

This whole post was spurred on by a conversation I saw between two of my friends. One of my friends wanted to get into graphic design, and being the artist of the group and having experience in graphic design, he came to me for advice. He got some very basic stuff done and he was really proud of it. He was showing some of the stuff he made to our other friend who simply responded with an AI generation of the same thing saying "Just use AI man, it's quicker and looks better." It was super depressing to see, especially since I've had conversations about how much I hate generative AI with these same friends.

So at this point I'm on the edge of just stopping. I probably won't, but I'm starting to lose motivation because I feel like there is no safe place to upload my art anymore. Will I stop? Probably not, but the temptation is there. I dunno, fuck generative AI man.

Sorry for the long ass rant, but I'm just getting so fed up with this crap.

[window-to-the-void]

Hey so what's Linux and what's it do

It’s an operating system like macOS or Windows. It runs on like 90% of servers but very few people use it on desktop. I do because I’m extra like that I guess.

It’s better than Windows in some ways since it doesn’t have a bunch of ads and shit baked into it. Plus it’s free (both in the sense of not paying and the sense of freedom [like all the code is public so you know what’s running on your system, can change whatever you want if you have the skills to, etc]). Also it’s more customizable.

The downside is a lot of apps don’t run on it (games that have really invasive anti-cheat [cough Valorent cough], Adobe products, Microsoft office — although a shit ton of Windows-only games do run totally fine). There’s some alternatives, like libreoffice instead of MS office (also anything in a browser runs fine, so Google docs too). GIMP as a photoshop replacement does exist, it’s fine for basic stuff but I’ve heard it’s not great for advanced stuff.

[mrs-monaghan]

Shaz i Just realized something today. Pple really need to start taking you more seriously when u say certain things. I remember months ago, you mentioned a few times that you know Jk would very much like to go Live with Jimin but maybe Jimin is the one who doesn’t want to. I remember saying to myself “nah Shaz is probably talking outta her ass and being very taekookerish rn” lol. But u were vindicated cuz we came to find out that Jk does indeed want to do a live with Jimin but Jimin is playing hard to get. I also remember you talking about how Jk hates the vermin but I personally had not seen any reason to believe he hated them cuz he still hung out with Tae and stuff but i guess these last few months or weeks have proved you right again because the whole world can clearly see that Jk has a problem with those pple. Let’s start with him looking almost disgusted at the mere thought of living with Tae, or how visibly uncomfortable he looked when he kept getting questioned about Tae on that Live, and also how everytime he does stuff for Jimin, the cult start manifesting he does the same for Tae and he just doesn’t. And now after liking that Jin video from a tk page, he went ahead to (probably) delete the comment prolly cus his algorithm got messed up with tk stuff. My point is, I won’t be completely closed minded to certain theories u come up with cuz u’ve actually been proven right quite a few times. Cuz who would hv thought we would see an almost desperate Jk insisting for Jimin to let him come over and do a live? I never thought i’d live to see a day like that lol.

Let’s be honest, pple wanna be like shippers this shippers that, but the truth is, Jk has never shown any discomfort at pple thinking he is fucking Jimin. Not even once, hell he is the only one feeding us jokers now cuz Jimin aint giving us shit to eat. Without Jk alot of us might have thought they broke up and gone about our lives but everyone can see clearly that Jk is the one still keeping us grounded in our Jikook belief. He does all these but doesn’t care to feed tkkrs at all. The only thing he does which feeds them is basically hanging out with his friend Tae. That’s literally it! He doesn’t go out of his way to do anything that might feed the vermin and that is why now, they are claiming Jk is Tae’s washing machine and Tae is Jk’s refrigerator lmaoo. That is why now they are getting hit tweets by claiming that old sounding hacking and coughing we heard from Tae’s live was Jk lmaoo. That is why now they are photoshopping blurry af pic to claim that tk went on a restaurant date and a beach date😂😂😂😂. Tae used to feed them alot b4 but for some reason he stopped so they basically hv nothing these days. Plus taennie gets one step closer to getting properly confirmed everyday and they are losing it. Now they are planning to hit us with “Jikook is fake love” everytime we have something to celebrate lmaooo.

Anyways, i respect you my dear. I’ve learned my lesson. From today i’ll be more open minded even when some of ur theories sound a lil taekookerish lol.

How I'm I supposed to take this ask?

I have said this a milli times; i go by history. My theories and conclusions depend on history. Has JK done this before? Have Jikook behaved like this before? The number one reason why Jikook stand out to alot of people is CONSISTENCY. This is why people like me who are convinced they're together believe this to be the truth. Because they are sooooo fucking consistent. Yeah after year after year they act the same, they are the same. Their behaviour towards eo has remained the same.

So no, I'm not all knowing or a Jikook professional but I am quite good at remembering useless things that will not help me IRL in any way shape or form. I will have dated my fiance for 4 years in October and I still mistake his year of birth. Thats right, I keep forgetting my fiancé's year of birth. But I know that when Jimin had his foot on JK's crotch, that took place in Bon Voyage season 1 episode 6, but we only see it in episode 8 the finale at 38 minutes in.

That's my mind ladies and gentlemen. 🤦🏽‍♀️

JK has been debunking tkkrs for years. Its not new. He genuinely does not like them. We know this because he goes above and beyond to correct anything that may be construed as him and V being a couple. But u will never catch him doing this for Jimin/ to Jikookers. And yes, this is fact.

We don't get debunked, we get fed.

I've consumed enough BTS content to see it happen so me drawing to this conclusion stems from HISTORY. (And talking with a bunch of great friends who love to analyse) All year we had seen JK be defiant and go against the company and be unapologetic about it. While we had Jimin telling him to stop drinking on live, making fun of JK for singing unholy (a sexual song) on live. So it only made sense to conclude Jimin was the hesitant one. Not JK. Jungkook aint scared to blow shit up but his boyfriend sure is.

If you work with the belief that Jimin and JK are a couple, all that's left is to observe. And u will come to the same conclusions that i (and my pals) do.

When Jikookers make delulu theories I believe we are allowed to. Because Jikook is real and because of this, we are most likely correct. Jikook have done some crazy shit over the years, u can't blame us for coming up with some crazy theories.

Thanks anon, I guess? 😳😳