#also how do you properly format links | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

olderthannetfic · 6 months ago

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hi, as someone who is tragically gen Z and only ever read AO3, can I ask: what was so great about LiveJournal? Like, I know that there were fics posted there (and I've even read about the "purge", so I get why it isn't used anymore) and that it was sort of a forum-type thing. But what I don't understand, wouldn't Tumblr fill in the latter function? How was that site any different? I see a lot of people reminiscing about it and I'm confused

A big factor in LJ's greatness is timing and nostalgia.

It was genuinely great, but it wasn't quite as great as all of the Lo, shall the Golden Age ne'er come again? posts suggest.

LJ arrived at a pivotal time in the development of the internet both in terms of technical stuff and how many people had access. Many fans who are now in their thirties to fifties first discovered fandom through LJ and many were at a time in their lives when they were feeling energetic and up to making lots of new friends—and to figuring out how to make a site work for them.

I got on LJ in 2002 when it required invites. Fandom arrived in droves in 2003, first via coordinated campaigns to get invites to key people and then when LJ opened up free account creation to everyone. Back then, LJ's features sucked. It was impossible to search properly, among other things. At its height (2005-7, let's say), there was a reasonable site search, and fans had developed all sorts of community resources for finding each other.

People often remember this phase but not the early days of suckitude.

This development parallels how Tumblr used to not have that private chat feature and how a lot of fuckyeah[whatever] type tumblrs have helped curate the site and make it much more usable for fans. Fandom draining away from LJ after strikethrough also parallels people draining away from Tumblr after the purge.

There are people who talk about Tumblr the way my cohort talks about LJ...

And to the shock of no one, they are people who came of age on Tumblr, who found fandom via Tumblr, who were on Tumblr during pivotal times in their lives and ones when they had energy to make friends and figure out how a site worked.

Those same Tumblrites are now making all the same geriatric-sounding posts we LJers do about how other sites lack the required features to be good for fandom while missing that 90% of tumblr's "features" at its height (2012-2016, let's say) were actually fan-created and were basically the same as any fandom newsletter or links page or all the versions of this kind of personal curation stretching back to long before the internet existed.

What life phase you hit a site at matters.

With all of that said, no, LJ was not a forum. It was a blogging site with threaded comments.

The key point to understand is that conversation was always happening in a specific person's space. Unlike on a true forum, people were in the comments on a particular post in a journal owned by another fan. (On a forum, there's the first post in a thread, but it's still more of a communal space with less of a hierarchy.)

Overall, the LJ format can have a feeling a bit like you're over at someone's house for tea. There's more of a sense of intimacy and also behaving yourself in front of community members.

Tumblr being obscure and impossible to find anything in does give it some of the same vibe relative to Twitter, but it's still part of modern social media that tries to shove every rando into the face of every other rando.

But it wasn't just vibes: LJ also had robust privacy features where you could lock a post to this or that group of friends. You could moderate your comments section properly. Tumblr has far fewer controls to force people to behave or leave on a technical level.

The biggest thing many people miss about LJ is the threaded comments. At least by late LJ and on Dreamwidth, you can expand and collapse threads, making it far easier to deal with a massive comments section. But more than that, things are properly threaded with multiple levels of hierarchy that are all easily visible in the same place.

On Tumblr, it used to be extremely difficult to find all of the actual commentary on a post. Nowadays, it's far easier, but you still have to scroll chronologically, and multiple versions of a post with a long chain of commentary may be much more divorced from each other than what would happen in a LJ comments section.

But could we use Tumblr pretty much how we used LJ?

We could.

I do.

The key things that people tend to miss about LJ, aside from the younger and more excited version of themselves or the friends they've lost since then, are:

Heavily text-based

It may sound odd on the modern internet, but there are a lot of people whose brains don't like or handle an image-heavy site well. They were everywhere in SF book fandom. They were everywhere on the early internet. Today, they're hanging out on Dreamwidth and still going to their SF cons. They're usually not on Tumblr.

You could follow the discussion

Threaded comments help, but a lot of it is about having some place you can check for updates. It wasn't actually that easy to follow big LJ discussions unless you were subscribed to comments and reading along as things were happening instead of coming along after the entire mass of comments had been left.

The tone of the discussion is intellectual and one's enemies are "idiots", not "problematic"

All this requires is a penchant for longwindedness and an itchy blocking finger to remove anyone slinging ad hominems from the comments section.

On tumblr, it's as simple as conversations happening in the replies on a popular account and that person not tolerating suibaiting and threats.

(And make no mistake, a lot of LJ discussion was in the comments on popular accounts, not spread equally between everyone's.)

It does require that multiple people like that tone and want to engage in that way, but lots of people do want to.

These days, I interact with tumblr by checking my askbox and reading my activity page. The vast, vast majority of my posts are ones where I'm the OP, so if I block someone, they're booted from the discussion entirely.

For me... yeah, Tumblr functions almost exactly like LJ.

Also like LJ, while I'm hosting the conversation, if you hang around, you'll see the same people again and again in the comments. They may or may not also host that kind of conversation in their space, and there's a larger pool of lurkers who have some notion of which people count as regulars. Other people are watching from the shadows, enjoying or deriding the takes of the usual crowd.

People presumably do like reading my lengthy commentary or they wouldn't be here, but my tumblr wouldn't be popular like this without a healthy pool of other people who chime in regularly. It's not just that there are more people: it's that you see the same people over time. There's a bit more sense of place and community than on some parts of the internet.

So, in my opinion, the failure to just recreate LJ fandom on Tumblr was a skill issue.

Threaded comments were great, but LJ culture came from mailing lists, and mailing lists had the same issue as tumblr with the diverging threads.

We solved that back then by clipping out only the parts we wanted to respond to (you'd write "snip" around the quotation to show it was incomplete). We solved the smaller LJ issue by linking to other posts we were referencing and doing discussion link roundups. We solve it on tumblr by, again, linking to what we're talking about and even quoting multiple reblog chains in our own reblog of just one chain.

Tumblr's technical features and even general crap-ness aren't really the problem. 90s and early 00s sites regularly went down for periods of time unthinkable today.

The missing piece is people.

When one is in an active fandom with others who curate or with friends who let one know what's up, a site with imperfect features is easy to figure out and retrofit for fandom's needs. When one already feels out of touch and is between fannish passions—or at least fannish passions anyone else cares about—seeing the potential in a new site is hard.

Threaded comments are different and better.

LJ's built-in way to see everyone's blog in your own style was better. The automatic timestamps and the ease of seeing a paginated archive of an entire blog was better than tumblr's endless scroll and lack of clear date labeling. But some of that can be fixed with xkit or knowing your way around tumblr well.

A lot of it is nostalgia for the lj era and a refusal to take the time to figure out how to use tumblr in an oldschool internet way.

So by all means, people, weigh in about what made LJ great or how the culture felt at the time...

But if I see one more god damn response going "You can't have a conversation on tumblr!" in reply to my tumblr, which contains nothing but conversation, I am coming for you.

#fandom history #fandom meta

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thetoyboxs · 2 months ago

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hi! Will you continue the tiny links drawings one day?

(Also. Love the art style BTW)

To properly answer this: I am actually actively drawing them! It's just I took a step back and decided to give them an active story. And I am just very bad at writing an actual story (And doing comics, I really really don't know how to format a comic)

I wish I could post some of these sketches I have of these tiny guys, but they're mostly just a growing doodle page

#anyways #overall I'm trying my best!#although to others that may not be a lot #I have other LU stuff I'm doing as well as personal projects #But Tiny Links is something I have fun doing #So I don't see myself stopping anytime soon #I hope you don't mind! :D #tiny answers

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saturnianoracle · 8 months ago

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How to learn real astrology: what it is and is not

As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul.

It is VITAL that if you want to understand astrology properly, you come in with an open mind and forget everything you think you know. Especially, remove yoruself from the belief that astrology is some occultic mystical spiritual practice, and/or that it is solely some psychological tool.

I used to be quite the hater of astrology. None of it 'resonated', and it seemed like wishy washy hippie shit. In lockdown, astrology stuff kept coming onto my feed, and some of it made sense, but most still did not. I then initially wanted to debunk astrology. But when I properly stated looking into it, the deeper I went the more accurate it started to become. Equally, parts still remained highly inaccurate. But this was due to a mismatch of how 'influencers' out there synthesised and understood the traditional foundations of astrology and modern information. Thus, I committed myself to truly understanding astrology, and my life has significantly improved for it and I've only just started.

As an introductory post to what astrology really is, I have formatted it into the following sections: i. the problem with pop culture astrology, ii, the history of astrology, iii. how astrology works, and iv. where meaning in astrology comes from.

The problem with pop culture astrology

This is the type of astrology we see in newspaper horoscopes, online articles, tiktok viral posts, instagram horoscopes, etc.

This is borne out of the allure astrology holds for desperate individuals seeking an easy and quick answer to their life problems, and using it as a form of confirmation bias for hating their ex (for example). But this misuse of astrology will undoubtedly hit for most people, due to the barnum effect, but is ultimately inaccurate and those who think it true have now misleadingly correlated the pop culture reasons for why X happened to what astrology is.

The new moon in your 7th house is not a sign that your crush will leave his partner for you. Being a gemini sun does not mean you are a two faced, loyal-less individual. Having your sun sign the same as their venus sign does not mean you two are compatible. And so on and so forth.

Here are some key things to understand about astrology:

✎ Stop using co-star, and those websites which give you your astrology information like this:

-> This does not tell you anything remotely significant aside from standard archetypal and superifical meanings of having a sun in Sagittarius or whatever (which you might not even 'relate' to, because of a multitude of other factors this does not show). Your chart instead, should, at the very least look like this:

-> Even better, make a chart and add in decans, asteroids, and considers more aspects. Viewing your birth chart like this is essential for gaining a better understanding. Aspects are what brings everything in your chart together to give it more significant and individualised meaning, the houses and the angles are also explicitly identifiable this way. Also, always make sure your chart is in whole sign houses, I will make a post on this later on why, but you will have to go to settings for this as popculture astrology has made placidus the default (as well as other inaccurate takes).

✎ Sun sign is astrology is fake, no matter how much you think it resonates with you it is the wrong footing to base your understanding of astrology off of. Astrology is extremely complex, one thing might resonate for one person and not for another, because of house placements, condition of the planet, aspects to the planet, etc. Consequently, all basic and simplified delineations of a chart are unhelpful and will put you on the wrong footing for future proper readings you might wish to do. This is how astrology can be so inaccurate.

✎ Astrology is not about resonating. Although, this is a part of how we can test astrology, it is linked far too much with resonating with personality. Your birth chart is not a map of who you are specifically, we evolve all the time (as the universe, so the soul), it is a map of your entire life. It is a map of the sky and its energies the minute you were born. Some things you think you do not resonate with is because those energies have not yet played out in your life.

✎ Astrology is not a psychological tool, although it can give us insight into psychology when used and understood properly. Again, it is the blueprint of our life.

✎ Astrology is not spiritual. It is not a belief system, either. Although, one can use astrology to advance their spiritual practices.

✎ Free will exists. I will likely go into this in another post but the energies of our bith chart, solar return chart, profection year, progressed charts, transits etc, are merely indications of how things are likely to unfold. The energies are malleable within their themes' ambit, and it is up to us to decide how we choose to interpret what is/will happen and what to do with that information. A transit might indicate difficulty in a law suit, ok, how can I mitigate that then? What other charts, energies, and transits can I use? If I did not know of this then I would not know how to alter my behaviour to yield a better results, even if it might not mean a completely opposite result.

✎ Your natal chart will not show you everything. There are relocated charts, progressed charts, solar return charts, profection years, etc. All this goes into a holistic assessment. Your natal chart, however, will always remain the anchor of it all.

A brief history

Astrology is not some woo-woo, spiritual, new age, belief system. Astrology's history and use goes back to the Babylonians. It used to be intertwined with astronomy; Galielo and Kepler, for example, were simultaneously astrologers and practised it widely (even as court astrologers). People in positions of power have always consulted astrologers to time events, in the modern era many Royal families, celebrities, and politicans still consult astrologers. Carl Jung, JP Morgan, Nancy Reagan, and Roosevelt are examples of this. Of course, it might be argued that just because famous people have used/use astrology does not give it any more credit to which I say: ok please read my post below pls and ty xo.

Astrology's history has been relatively tumultuous, however. I have condensed this timeline from an article I found below:

- Astrology was a widely accepted practice but, in Europe, after the fall of the Roman empire and much of Europe, it fell into decline along with other disicplines. - The middle ages saw a renaissance of intellectualism with a particular focus on science and thus the astronomy part of it. This was largely due to the Church who viewed astrology as divination and going against free will. - However, in other parts of the world astrology was still a crucial element of daily life, and those in power would use astrologers to time events. - Astrology did re-enter the curriculum, though, in the 14th century, with a focus on being used for medical astrology in part due to the recently available Hippocratic Corpus. These texts were crucial to advancing our understanding of medicine, but Hippocrates emphasised that "a physician without knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician". Astrologer still had a healthy dose of criticism back then, though. - Astrology was a major field of study in universities in Europe, well ingrained in daily life. - It died out in the 17th century, mostly due to the increasing emphasis on science being increasingly and misleadingly viewed as separate from astrology, the church, and astrologers falling into disrepute due to political involvement. - Its resurgence in the 19th century saw an oversimplified, and largely 'spiritualised' version of astrologer. This is because this period also saw an increased interest in the occult and mystic. - Since becoming conflated, astrology has become even further diluted, but this is not to say that every new discovery has been wrong; modern interpretation is crucial to informing the bigger picture of astrology and how we can utilise it. But it is vital to be critical and separate it from pop culture nonsense, aimed at lost and desperate people looking for quick answers and confirmation bias, and have some media literacy.

So, how does astrology work?

: ̗̀➛ Astrology has NOTHING to do with the physical constellations. Astrology is based on the signs on the ecliptic (the path of the sun amongst the constellations, which is the plane of the earth's orbit).

: ̗̀➛ The equator has 15 constellations, and the ecliptic has 13. So why do we have 12 zodiac signs? This is because babylonians divided the ecliptic into 12 equal segments of 30 degrees each thousands of years ago. The ecliptic was divided into SIGNS. 12 constellations were just used to identify where in the sky each sign would be, at the time for ease of astronomical mapping/calculation - it is merely symbolic. This is why Opphiuchus is not the 13th Zodiac SIGN, although it is a constellation (and has always been known).

: ̗̀➛ Another reason why they are not based off the physical constellations is because the actual size of the constellations vary massively in size. Below is a representation of this:

: ̗̀➛ As you can see, Virgo, for instance is huge, and on a literal view overlaps into the next segment because the constellations do not all equally fit a 30 degree division. Yet, we do not give scorpio like 5 days for its season, because the physical constellation does not dictate anything meaningful.

This gives us the tropical zodiac, which is to do with the earth's seasons:

: ̗̀➛ The solstices are therefore reference points for Capricorn and Cancer (tropic of capricorn and tropic of cancer), not the constellations themselves. Accordingly, the spring equinox is marked by Aries (with the sun entering the segment of Aries at 0 degrees until 29), and the autumn equinox by Libra.

: ̗̀➛ The precession of the equinoxes, are therefore irrelevant to astrology (and this is why vedic/sidereal is, in my opinion inaccurate). The slow change of the direction of the earth's axial tilt, over around 26000 years, cause a precession of the equinoxes. This means, the segment of the sky that used to be identified by the Aries constellation from the earth's position at the time, is now looking at Pisces. But as we know, astrology has nothing to do with the physical location of the constellations. Vedic astrologers use sidereal positioning, aka taking into account the precession of the equinoxes, yet they still divide the ecliptic in the same way. This causes problems, leading to many branches in vedic because few agree on where aries actually even starts. But, I will write an extension of this segment in a future post on tropical vs vedic/sidereal astrology.

Where does astrological meaning come from?

As explained above, constellations do not give us meaning, the planets in the signs do (of which the signs' names just derive from where the constellations were at the time, i.e. are merely symbolic).

Astrology operates in a heliocentric context, in that its setting is derived from the solstices (as the sun is what gives us life) and the ecliptic etc, but is geocentric in function in that the meaning comes from how the celestial bodies going through the signs affect us on earth; it is all about OUR relation to the planets, not constellations.

Returning to the quote above (as above so below...), what happens up up there reflects its energies down on us below. For thousands of millenia, astrologers have developed an accurate pattern recognition framework which aligns with the maths and astronomy. This was done using the ephemeris, which tracked the trajectory of celestial bodies against the context of worldly (mundane), or natal events. Eventually, this knowledge could be used for predictions, (to understand transits, or for electional and horary astrology), by utilising the knowledge of how the trajectories of the planets and their interactions with eachother in what sign and house affected what.

Why does it affect us? Well, all the things that happen above us radiate energies. But when I talk about energies, I do not mean it in some spiritual sense, it is quite literal. Everything has frequencies. As mentioned above, astrologers, since the Bablyonian times, have studied these patterns and created an objective framework to align with it. Physical energies or not there is direct causation. The moon for instance, affects the tides on the planet because of its gravitational pull. We are 70% water, there is little reason to deny that the moon cannot affect us either (it does). Perhaps you might understand your broken leg as because of being hit by a car. But astrology can assess the chart of the event, and transits to your own chart to provide further explanation of why you got hit by a car in the first place, and why it caused a broken leg etc. Subsequently, the energies of what happens above relate to the themes found in planets, signs, houses, aspects, asteroids etc - but these energies are not set in stone as explained above.

Ultimately, it is disappointingly small-minded to think that there is nothing 'greater' than the physical reality we tether ourselves to. We are in fact part of something bigger; and again I do not mean this in some culty spiritual hippy sense. It is literally a fact, the world and cosmos at large is so vast, mysterious, and beautiful, how could anyone deny the interconnected web we are all collectively a part of. We might never fully understand the mechanisms of the universe, but what we can do is use the information we do have to make use of it and help inform us on how to live better lives. The fact there is something 'greater' inherent in our lives, connecting everything, which is objectively difficult to truly grasp, is not a reason to reject it. A lot of people who are averse to astrology (which used to be me) are those who pride themselves on rationality and objectivity, yet are restricting themselves to a very particular interpretation of what rationality and objectivity means.

With all this said, I hope it has helped someone understand and appreciate astrology better. There is such a fascinating rich and deep history to it, spanning various cultures and eras, making it difficult to at least not enjoy learning about even if one still chooses to not practise it. I would like to reiterate, however, that to truly embrace astrology and its millenia of knowledge, evidence, and practice behind it, one must divorce its concept from pop culture astrology.

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canon-in-too-deep · 6 months ago

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Free Pride and Prejudice Typeset (Illustrated)

*Collapses.* It is done. I present to you, Pride and Prejudice! By Jane Austen, and Illustrated by Hugh Thomson! Use it for reading, bookbinding, or whathaveyou, the unimposed pdf is sized for half letter (letter folio). And oh god this one was tedious uh, fun to do! All the illustrations are included in this typeset, PLUS all the dropcaps! See below the break for more interior shots, and details about making it. Edit: I FORGOT THE LINK! Here it is: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1S2wl_PuxCupofnDpqGuk7VjMHYFMWC6g?usp=sharing Also, as always, please leave credit if you use this typeset! It is free for personal use, just consider leaving a like/reblog if you can, and follow this blog for more free typesets!

So I kept the title page simple for this typeset, since there's so many beautiful illustrations going on by Hugh Thomson. Just look at this! There's even an illustration for List of Illustrations!

...the list was it's own pain, and a lot of the illustrations had to be manually added in 😅 Twas a fun morning of cross referencing pictures and page numbers. I really loved the drop caps in this book, so I had to make sure to include them all! Each one was unique, and there's a ton of fun detail in these drawings, but the pic quality in the scans was a little rough. Here's hoping they translate okay in the pdf.

I just really love how this one turned out overall. I tried to have most of the illustrations at the largest size I could fit within my margins so that they could be properly admired. The original peacock version is so gorgeous, and of course Austen's writing is always an absolute joy to read. Anyway, here's hoping this typeset was helpful for folks!

Any errors, feel free to let me know! There was a lot of lines and files that needed to be manually placed and formatted, so some stuff might have gotten bumped around as I adjusted. If you've made it this far, thanks for stopping by!

#Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen #pride and prejudice #jane austen #Hugh Thomson #typesets #typesetting #book design #bookbinding #book #free to use

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blamseastore · 2 years ago

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All in one download + discord link

Hey guys!

So, there are lot of different places you can download EA’s store content. The purpose of how I do it was to give you the option to pick and choose the items you want. Everything is individualized, but since I’ve finished the majority of the work, there’s been a lot of asks for an easy way to download everything in one go. I’ve slowly been uploading bulk versions of each set, but that’s not exactly what you’re all asking for right?

This is the best compromise I found. My store content folder looks like this:

(FORGOTTEN is what I call the limited sets that you can’t find on the store anymore. ie: Dr Pepper sets)

I have merged every piece of store content I’ve uploaded in these 6 huge files (the biggest is 2GB) with the separated folder for content that also needs to standalone to work properly.

THIS works for me. BUT

It doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. I’ve decided to share these, but I cannot guarantee this format will work for you and I will not be uploading a different set up. I will not be helping you troubleshoot problems associated to this - you download and use at your own risk.

Here is the google drive folder containing the files: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SuQohFbSvOPXEFVzGRbmr7UwlEVlgIYj?usp=sharing

You’ll find the 6 files and folder to put in your Mods/Packages.

ADDITIONALLY, you’ll find a folder containing all the store content lots that you have to place in your Library folder.

FINALLY, you’ll find a folder containing all my .world files with a ReadMe.txt explaining where they go depending on where you got the game.

Everything has been compressed using https://www.7-zip.org/ because I have limited google drive storage.

ENJOY

I have been uploading everything on discord, if you have it, come say hi! It’s easier to help you troubleshoot any issues you have and others might have experienced the same thing. There are no broken links on discord either because unlike tumblr and blogger, it doesn’t have it out for me.

https://discord.gg/fTFw9xVj2d

#blams #ask

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allthingswhumpyandangsty · 8 months ago

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I read your post about not letting kudos and hits upset us. I try to think this way but I'm curious about something else. I've written many fanfics for my fandom and they're all "flop". I don't mind that honestly. But then some writers have written only one fic about the ship I do and and it gets hundreds of kudos. How do some writers achieve that when I'm doing the same and it doesn't get the same response. What else can I do?

I’m afraid I can’t give you a definite answer about what you should do or why this person’s work is more popular, but what I can give you are some advice and, from my experience, some reasons that might explain why other’s works receive more hits and kudos.

start with why other writers’ works are more popular when it’s the same characters, same ship, same fandom. there are various factors at play that might be it;

maybe the person already has large audience base prior to their posting about the fandom you’re in, I know a few authors who already have these sorts of loyal readers that would read any work the authors posted even if they (the readers) were not in that fandom.

maybe someone, anyone, decided share the link to this person’s work on Tumblr or Twitter (X) or any social media platform, and it kind of became viral, thus it drew in lots and lots of readers. it could take just one person, didn’t necessarily have to be the author themself, to share the link among the fandom as a recommendation, or maybe a screenshot of one sentence from the fic that they liked, what happened next is that the replies were filled with people asking for the link.

tags and summary are important factors when people are looking for a fic to read. so maybe this person’s work is tagged with the content people were looking for? maybe their summary grabbed people’s attention or curiosity?

these are just what I can think of over the top of my head.

as for what you can do to gain more readers, I’ve never seen your work so the advice I can give will be a general one; I believe the trick lies in summary, tags as well as the format of one’s work.

when it comes to AO3 (I assume it’s your platform?), tags and summary are the main things people use to determine whether or not they want to click on the fic.

tag your content properly, what characters or pairings it’s about, as well as what the readers will find upon reading your work (you don’t have to spoil it, only the general tags that will give your readers an idea of what they’re in for).

summaries are just as important. there are no “rules�� obviously, and I’m not telling you or any writers what to do. though a little advice that I personally take is that you use this little summary section AO3 gives you to do anything to make sure it stands out and that people will see it and want to click on it. that means leave “author’s note” out of the summary section. folks, AO3 summary is the first glimpse into the fic itself that people will see prior to clicking on it, most of the time, people look at the summary to see the author’s writing style and if what’s written, plotwise, grabs their interest. personally, when I see an author use “summary” as a place to write “author’s note”, chances are, I will scroll past that fic as I am interested in what the fic is about, not what the author has to say about their opinion on said fic or their personal life or anything (there’s an author’s note section for that) and if I can’t get a glimpse of what the plot is about or what the author’s writing style is from the summary section, then I won’t click on it, and will look for other fic that can get me interested instead.

moving on to fic format, again, I am not telling anyone what to do here. this is only a suggestion, an advice I’ve learned and want to share: when you write your fic, make sure to use line and paragraph spacing. if your 10k word long fic is one long block of text with no paragraph break, chances are, people will back away from it entirely. also, if it’s two different characters talking with dialogues, don’t put all of their dialogues in one paragraph. for instance, a paragraph for character A’s dialogue, then another separate paragraph for character B’s dialogue and so on.

and I think that’s it for my advice? however, I’ll say this again that the secret to truly enjoying your role as a fanfic writer is that you only focus on yourself. write whatever you want for yourself. it doesn’t matter if this person’s work is more popular, because fanfics and fandoms aren’t a competition. you are your main audience. just have fun creating the stories you want to create for you.

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imbecominggayer · 2 months ago

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How To Write Time Skips

From @ravennova7: How to you handle time skips in stories? I can write out scenes happening in real time, but narrative summarising isn’t something I’m good at. I just can’t seem to write exposition properly. "

And so, this post will be dedicated to how to write time skips!

A) Introduction

It's important to properly weave time skips into the story. Without the proper set-up for time progression, the audience can quickly loose their footing. Even if you are trying to write a story where the audience gets thrown of their feet, the readers need some type of directioning.

In order to incorperate time skips into the story, you need to soften the edges between here and now.

If you are writing a time skip in one chapter, you could use an expository phrase such as "three months passed...", "one day morphed into the next and suddenly...", "by the time...", and all those other types of phrases.

When you are writing the time skip across different chapters, in my opinion, it's easier to write a skip in time due to the fact that's more weaved into the formatting of the story.

You could change the perspective to a new character or return the perspective to the original holder.

One example of a time skip I really liked was when a character was trapped in time. From their perspective, we see them walking up to and shattering a hourglass. When we meet up with another character, we learn that some time has passed.

It felt jarring but not as jarring as it could have been if that scene wasn't in there.

Overall use section breaks to establish that the flow of the narrative has changed. I also try to use running themes throughout the time skip as a way of linking these two scenes together. It could be through the same character being the focus of the scene. It could be a "before vs after" type of comparison in which a character tries to do something two different times to show change. Basically, a training montage.

Another example of a time skip that was used effectively was "What Remains Of Edith Finch". Specifically, the ending monologues. The protagonist's ever-present narration guided the audience through the many years that passed. The story keeps the same emotional through line as everything feeds into one another. It feels like a conversation.

B) Limitation And Usage

Time skips are used to skip over detail that isn't providing necessary information. Movies often use montages to communicate that time is passing.

Time skips and montages are necessary tools because readers don't want to sit through weeks of the same character going to the gym.

Time skips, in my opinion, should be used sparingly and only when necessary. It's exceedingly jarring. It can smack down on the emotional threwline. It's messy.

REMEMBER: Don't use time skips to skip out on character growth.

I remember this one f*cking time when the protagonist got injured. Then a second later. He's healed. This would be fine. UNTIL

They had this protagonist undergo MASSIVE character growth WITHOUT ME! This guy wasn't my protagonist. He was suddenly nice! He was confident. He was best friends with everyone now!!?! He was suddenly besties with this guy who was his enemy just two seconds ago!!!!?!

I had to drop the story.

Try to keep character relationships the same through the time skips if you are "going to black". If you are pulling a montage move where you pass through the events of their friendship building then it's fine. If you have a character think about why their relationship changed, fine.

BUT NEVER just randomly have your protagonist suddenly change! Explain the change. I'm in your character's head to see their progression. To be there on their journey, dont make me skip the big action sequence!

Use time skips to skip over the in-between steps. Skip over the characters buying a ticket. Skip over the character's walk up the stairs. Skip over the fight sequence.

But don't skip over important and potentially engaging character development!!!!

C) Selective Conclusion

Remember, narrative isn't real time. Our experience of time isn't real time. Five minutes could be too soon to say everything you need to say or it could be the most agonizing amount of time to hold your breathe.

You probably skip over time naturally. You don't write a character's every errand nor their every thought. The only time the camera touches down on a character is when it's narratively relevant.

To decide when a scene is important, establish what information you need to know in order to fulfill the plot.

If you have a character you want to show as both in love with Girl and bad at school. You can have a character walking out the school, textbooks heavy in hand, who suddenly bumps into Girl.

Then use a transitional sentence to show the audience that we are done. "Well, at least there's one good thing about school".

#writeblr #writing #on writing #creative writing #writing advice #writers #writer #writers block #writers on tumblr #writers and poets #writerscommunity #time skip

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dqmeron · 2 years ago

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「 Gradient Text Tutorial for Captions 」

i'm sure there's several of these already out there, but here's a rundown of how i make the gradient text for my gifset captions! (example)

𖥻 tutorial below cut <3 | screenshots + bold/italic/small/color text included for my fellow adhders who can't sit through long blocks of text

websites used: color picker, text colorizer, text replacement

step #1: pick your colors (optional) when making gradient text for a caption, i usually use an image color picker to get exact hex codes! this just helps me match everything even better than i could when manually inputting colors! (this is completely optional, but i like doing it, so i thought i'd include it here!)

step #2: making your gradient now the fun begins! open the text colorizer linked above, and enter the text you want to be a gradient into the text box:

(all caps is by no means necessary! i'm just doing it to make the gradient stand out even more, since i'm going to have a decent amount of text in my caption.) after entering your text, choose the type of color effect you want using this drop-down menu! color effect is essentially the type of gradient/how many colors it uses, etc. play around with this to find the one you like best!

i'm sticking with horizontal gradient, but you can choose whichever one you like! (there's also a solid color option if you want to just use a color that isn't available in the tumblr text options.) after color effect, you can choose your colors using this section - if you did use the color picker from step one, you can just paste the hex codes into the boxes.

if not, click on the colored bars, and this hue picker will pop up:

drag your mouse around in the left box to choose your color. the bar on the right can be used to modify shade.

(these are the colors i'm using)

skip over the "additional text settings" section (these options mess with the html code and cause issues when you try to use it on tumblr) and check the preview to make sure you like how your gradient looks.

if you're having a bit of trouble seeing the gradient properly, you can scroll back up to "additional text settings" and turn on bold to see it better. just make sure you turn it back off before copying your code.

now you're ready to copy your code!

after making sure any additional text settings are returned to their default/unchecked states, scroll down and copy the HTML code (NOT the BBcode). select the text and copy it using command/ctrl + C or right click and click "copy".

step #3: replacing

the text colorizer used here is great, but it does add unneeded semicolons to the html code that mess with tumblr's settings and cause formatting problems.

open the text replacement site (linked at top), and paste the code you copied into the text box:

in the "replace this:" box, type ; (leave the "with this:" box blank)

click "replace text". skim over the new code to make sure the semicolons are gone (sometimes you've got to click "replace text" a couple of times for it to work), and then either click "copy to clipboard" or select and copy the text manually.

step #4: writing your caption now that you've got your code, open tumblr and make a new photo post. look in the top right-hand corner of your screen, and make sure "legacy editor" is turned on. if it isn't, click the toggle to turn it on.

next, you need to make sure your text editor is set to html. to do this, click the little gear in the top right corner of the new post. select "html" from the drop-down menu next to "text editor", and then close the settings. [07.27.23 update: if, like me, you're stuck using the new editor, you can still set your post type to html, and gradient text will still work. the post editor will just turn your files into code when you're editing, and you'll have to fix the spacing in between your gifs (if you're using this for a gifset caption) in the preview tab. it looks super weird and alarming at first, but it does still work with the new post editor.]

upload your gifs and then move down to the caption. open the html tab and then paste your code! once you've done that, click on the preview tab to check how it looks.

my gradient looks pretty good, but i'm going to bold the text to make it more visible. here's how to use html to do that:

code goes here

here is a list of other html codes you can use to stylize your text! (they use <;b> for bold text, this is another way to do it, either method works fine!)

if you want to have another line of text under/above your code you need to add at the end of the top line to create a line break (just pressing enter won't work). here's an example of how to format that:

text text text text text text text text text

write the rest of your caption, and then you're done! here's my end result and my final code:

i hope this was helpful! feel free to send me an ask if you have any questions! happy giffing <3

#gradient text #tutorials #gradient text tutorial #userzesty #uservivaldi #userkraina #usermorgan #tuserheidi #usersahyoz #userzaynab #userauden #userdean #rogerhealey

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transformers-nerd-13 · 2 days ago

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Alrighty, you asked for it, so you got it! Here's my analysis of Transformers G1; More than Meets the Eye: Part Two. I did an analysis of Part one yesterday so go read that if you are so inclined (you can find it on my page; I'm still learning Tumblr so I'm not sure how to link posts lol). Fair warning this is pretty long. Without further ado, let's get into it!

We open with a recap of what happened in the previous episode to remind the viewer of what happened last time. It's pretty rapid fire so I assume some of it had to be cut or it had to be pretty short for episode time.

We're then introduced to Huffer (unfortunate name sir) who has his arm stuck in some debris. He calls for help and Brawn comes to his aid. Brawn uses a...well, it looks like a welder or a blowtorch but functions more like a laser so I'm not sure what to call this--to free Huffer. As soon as Huffer is free, both Huffer and Brawn fly off because at this point, all the Autobots could fly, ditching the other Autobots. Thanks for your help guys.

We cut over to Prime who's still trying to free Spike and Sparkplug. Optimus tells Trailbreaker--who's currently helping the oil rig workers escape--to use his force field to suppress the flames. Not sure how effective this would really be, I mean if you trap the flames in a closed space, it'd eventually burn up all the oxygen and burn out, but this is an oil fire so it also has to run out of fuel--maybe I'm overthinking this; this is an 80's cartoon, they didn't care about physics. Wheeljack offers Trailbreaker a hand in suppressing the flames and the two take off. Trailbreaker uses his forcefield, but Wheelack proves that force field immediately redundant by using his built in fire extinguishers on the fire. Why didn't Prime just ask Wheeljack to use his fire extinguishers in the first place?? Why does Wheeljack never have these extinguishers again?? They would've really helped when the Dinobots or Autobot Spike started wrecking the Ark/Teletraan One. Just sayin.

Optimus gets Spike and Sparkplug free and Jazz uses his built-in grappling hook sort of like a fishing line to reel Optimus in, getting them to safety on a somehow steady piece of debris.

Sparkplug doesn't exactly thank Optimus? He says "I don't know who you are, but you saved our lives." Seeming completely unbothered that he's talking to a giant robot. He should've at least properly thanked Optimus. Manners Sparkplug. Optimus tells them that they're Autobots from the planet Cybertron and that the ones who attacked the oil rig were called Decepticons. Robots in disguise my side function! Spike asks if there's anything he and Sparkplug can do to help the bots. Optimus tells them that the Autobots are the only ones who can stop the Decepticons, but Sparkplug points out that he and Spike know more about earth than the bots do.

Cut to later where the Autobots have apparently taken the two humans back to the ruins of the Ark where Spike is sitting on a nearby rock formation and writing in his diary or notebook about the Autobots. He says that he doesn't know if they're from the past or the future, but they're highly advanced robots who can think and have "real" feelings.

Spike. They literally told you they're from another planet. They are an alien species. You're talking about them like they're a human creation.

We pan over to see Soundwave spying on Spike not very discreetly from behind a rock. That's gotta be a fragging tall rock. When did Soundwave get here and why is he here?? How did Teletraan not pick him up on the scanners???

Spike puts his notebook in his backpack and starts back toward the Ark, walking towards Soundwave, who transforms into his cassette player mode.

Spike spots his cassette player mode and picks it up, and even though it clearly has the Decepticon symbol on it he picks it up and takes it with him because he’s apparently blind. Spike enters the Ark, his backpack has apparently vanished into the void, and he puts Soundwave near Teletraan. This totally won't bite him in the ass later.

Spike asks Trailbreaker about Cybertron, but asks him why the Autobots transform--it's not a question about Cybertron, it's a question about CybertronIANS. He could've asked about Cybertronians and the question about why they transform wouldn't seem so out of place. Trailbreaker answers that they transform for disguise, and that it beats walking.

Sir, since you've gotten to earth, every single Cybertronian has had all the stealth of an elephant in a room with a floor covered in bubble wrap. Disguise my boron compressor.

Spike asks how they transform. We cut over to Ratchet's medbay where Ratchet is currently fixing Huffer's arm (I guess it got damaged from the debris??), Sunstreaker and Cliffjumper are also there in their alt modes for some reason. Mirage and Hound are also there for some reason. Trailbreaker and Spike have materialized in the medbay and Trailbreaker tells Mirage and Hound that Spike wants to know how they transform. Hound transforms, and that's apparently a good enough answer for Spike. T-cogs hadn't been invented yet, so I guess a demonstration of a transformation was the best answer they had at the time.

Hound makes a hologram of a man in his driver's seat, and Spike asks "What other tricks can you do?" I don't really like the phrasing of that question; I'm not really sure why, but it just rubs me the wrong way. It would've been better if Spike had asked "What else can you do?" Idk that might just be a personal preference.

Mirage shows off his invisibility powers before Hound offers Spike a ride and Spike accepts.

Cut over to Soundwave who transforms into his bot mode (seriously Teletraan how are you not seeing this-) and ejects Ravage so that Ravage can enter Teletraan in his (G1 Ravage was a he because literally everyone was a he in Season 1 of G1) cassette mode to gather information on Earth's resources before Soundwave turns back into his cassette player mode and starts recording again for some reason. There's nobody else in the room, Soundwave. What are you recording?? Also why does Teletraan have a cassette port?? And why does Teletraan already have recorded information of Earth's resources?? When did it have time?? Who gave it that command?? Or did it just do that on its own?? So many questions lol.

Cut over to Hound and Spike who are taking a drive through the desert where the Ark crashed (side note, are there any deserts with volcanoes??). Hound says that Earth must be a nice place to live. Spike replies that it's okay, but he wants to know more about Cybertron. Spike doesn't realize is that Hound is just as curious about Earth as he is about Cybertron, and while it may have been boring for the kids watching to have them exchange information about their respective home worlds, it would've been a nice bonding moment between the two. Hound tells Spike that before the war, Cybertron was quiet and peaceful. Spike asks if he misses it, and Hound replies "Sometimes" and they move on from this really quickly. Maybe because it’s painful for Hound to talk about. Of course Hound misses it; it was his home. But he can't afford to stay in a state of grief over the loss of his home because there's a war going on; he needs to push through and help the Autobots win the war so that they have a chance of seeing their home world again, even if it'll never be the same as it was. It hurts to think about what his home once was. Or maybe I'm reading too far into this again.

Spike and Hound make it back to the Ark, and Spike finally notices something fishy about that cassette player he brought back since it's recording data from Teletraan. Soundwave decides that the jig is up and transforms into his bot mode, trying to grab Spike, missing horribly as the human ducks to avoid him. Spike hits an alarm that he could somehow reach and Soundwave and Ravage (who ejected from Teletraan at Soundwave's command) make a run for it. Optimus (who appeared from the void) sees them running out of the Ark and says "A Decepticon! Get him!"

One, do you not know who Soundwave is?? Two, “Get him”. That was your whole plan. Get him (If anyone gets the reference put it in the comments). Good plan Optimus.

The Autobots however do not go after Soundwave and he gets away. Bumblebee and Brawn manage to catch Ravage but that lasts for all of two seconds before Ravage gets out of their grasp. Sideswipe and Jazz fire on Ravage but since they have the aim of Stormtroopers, they miss horribly.

I am now half convinced that the only reason the war has gone on so long is because nobody on either side can aim for shit.

Ravage disappears into the shadows and suddenly nobody can see him anymore. Gears and Hound have suddenly replaced Sideswipe and Jazz. Optimus tells Gears to use his infrared (I guess Cybertronians show up in infrared light??) which just looks like a red flashlight (mhm yep that's definitely infrared) that allows them to spot Ravage. Jazz and Prowl fire a net and capture Ravage (pictured above with Gears’ “infrared” light).

Cut over to the cons where Soundwave is somehow playing back the information Ravage gathered from Teletraan about Sherman (Sherma maybe? If so then Senator Sherma’s—MTMTE—name is a very obscure reference.) Dam without actually having Ravage (no idea how that worked), presenting the dam as a potential power source to gather more Energon. Megatron commends Soundwave for a job well done, while Starscream says that the dam doesn't possess enough electrical power to make the Energon cubes. Megatron tells Starscream that "Your knowledge is only overshadowed by your stupidity" (one of my favorite lines), and that they're going to create a tidal wave big enough to send enough power surging through the dam to make all the Energon cubes they need. At least they're using clean energy I guess?

Cut to the next day at sunrise when the Decepticons arrive at the dam. Soundwave ejects Rumble who goes to the bottom of the river and uses his pile-drivers to create the tidal wave (I don't think this would actually work but I could be entirely wrong) while the other cons take off and head for the power plant (aka the dam).

The employees inside the dam notice that the gauges are going crazy and say something must be wrong while one guy smacks the gauges to try and fix them (solid plan sir that'll definitely work). One of the other employees tells them that the river's rising and tells the others to man their emergency stations.

Cut over to the Ark where Teletraan tells Jazz and Spike in complete gibberish writing about the tidal wave at the dam and that the power output is ten times what it is normally. Jazz says that it could be the cons (it couldn't possibly be a natural disaster, it must be the Decepticons!)

Cut over to the cons who have arrived at the dam and Megatron starts making demands, telling the employees who have not manned their emergency stations to do exactly as he says.

Quick cut over to the Autobots who are now on their way to the dam, Optimus telling the others: "Autobots, accelerate!" and they all keep going at the exact same speed they were going at before.

Back with the Decepticons in the dam, the employees say that the dam is gonna blow and that they've gotta get outta there. The Decepticons don't care though and start making their Energon cubes anyway. The Autobots arrive on the scene and Prowl briefly gets Optimus' voice before regaining his own voice again and asks if he really thinks the cons are behind this. Before Optimus can answer, he's cut off by Megatron firing a warning shot at them, telling them that they're too late. The bots take to the air while Hound and Spike find the heart of the tidal wave. Hound goes into the river to investigate and finds Rumble.

Cut over to Ironhide and Bumblebee who are diverting the water of the river so that it doesn't cause too much flooding (yeah, that's how that works. Also how the heck does Bumblebee fit in the back of Ironhide's Alt Mode???) which they succeed in.

The other Autobots arrive at the power plant where they all shoot at the plant and finally manage to hit something--that something being Starscream, as well as a tiny Starscream with no wings who never gets addressed--before entering the plant. The bots and cons duke it out while Sparkplug gets the employees out of the power plant. Mirage saves Cliffjumper from Thundercracker and Skywarp and Cliffjumper compliments Mirage’s combat skills.

Megatron and Optimus go one on one with each other and it looks like Megatron has the upper hand until Starscream uses a slingshot and whatever he fires from the slingshot hits the computers in the dam and explodes. The explosion causes Megatron to lose his upper hand. He and Optimus begin duking it out once again while the other cons make their getaway with the Energon cubes.

Meanwhile, Spike is getting worried about Hound, who is still fighting Rumble underwater. Rumble traps Hound under some rocks and makes his way back up to the surface. For some reason Spike asks Rumble where Hound is, and Rumble just shoves Spike away as he walks off.

Rude.

Spike picks a fight with Rumble and loses in under five seconds. Spike calls for help which distracts Optimus from the fight, allowing Megatron the opportunity to knock Optimus off the dam they were fighting on seconds before and into the river below. Megatron mocks him and makes his escape with the other Decepticons as Optimus is sent down river. Jazz appears from the void and once again uses his grappling hook to get Optimus to shore for the second time this episode.

Cut over to Spike who seems to have been knocked unconscious by Rumble before he left with the other cons off screen and is now waking up. He calls out for Hound, but there's no reply, so he dives into the river to find him. He finds Hound remarkably quickly and manages to gain temporary super strength as he un-buries Hound enough so that Hound can get them both back up to the surface.

Apparently the short time Spike was underwater was long enough for him to almost drown (I guess he didn't take a deep enough breath before going under??) and Hound helps Spike recover from this but....it...it just looks wrong. So we're going to move swiftly onward.

Cut to the other Autobots. Mirage suggests that they repair the Ark and go back to Cybertron and forget about the Decepticons. Optimus tells him that they can't do that; if Megatron succeeds here on Earth (presumably succeeding in gathering energy), he'll be impossible to beat on Cybertron. Huffer says that the bots aren't fighters like the cons are (haven't y'all been fighting a war for millions of years?? I'd assume you'd at least pick up some fighting skills in that amount of time). Optimus tells Huffer that "We must have courage. We can't ignore the danger; we must conquer it." A very good line.

Cut to a quick montage of the cons getting more Energon cubes from various sources. Soundwave reports to Megatron that the new space cruiser is almost complete, but they still need 3,000 astroliters of energy (however much that is). They need one more source of energy to get this amount and the cons choose the Ruby Crystals of Burma as their energy source since they're apparently the richest source of energy on the face of the earth.

Starscream tests their Energon using a giant blaster hooked up to some of Energon cubes and firing on a mountain to ensure that the cubes actually work. Megatron calls him a fool for wasting the energy, but Starscream tells him that he didn't know for sure that they worked because they never tested them. In Starscream's defense, it was a good idea to make sure they actually worked to make sure that their hard work and plundering of resources wasn't for nothing, but it probably should've been done earlier and now they need even more energy to replace the amount that Starscream used by firing that blaster, which, needless to say, annoys Megatron since he's now set them back and they don't have the time to replace it. Except they do because Soundwave informs them of the existence of rocket fuel which they could plunder to make more energon cubes.

Cut over to a lake not too far away from the cons where Trailbreaker is listening in on the cons plans using his satellite dish and Spike and Sparkplug are calmly drinking tea. They hear the con's plan and go to radio Prime.

Cut back to the cons where Starscream (unprompted) is telling Megatron not to test him and that his desire for power is as great as Megatron's. Megatron tells him that "Power flows to the one who knows how; desire is not enough." How what?? How to use it??? Probably what they meant. Starscream tells him that time makes all things possible, and that he can wait. A strike force of cons (aka every con who we've seen thus far) is assembled and they take off for the crystal mines. This interaction would've been better if it'd been before Soundwave telling them about the rocket fuel because it would give Starscream just cause to be annoyed because Megatron is yelling at him for performing a necessary experiment to ensure that what they'd been doing was actually working. Soundwave could've interjected after Starscream had said that he could wait, telling them about the rocket fuel and thus diffusing the situation.

Cut to Trailbreaker, Spike and Sparkplug who've decided to drive back to the Ark and report back to Prime in person instead of radioing him off screen for some reason--maybe Trailbreaker's radio wasn't working? Thundercracker and Skywarp attack them on their way back (for some reason--how did they find them??) and since Trailbreaker isn't built for speed, they radio the Ark for backup.

So Trailbreaker's radio was working?? Why didn't you just radio Prime earlier???

Their backup arrives literally five seconds later in the form of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker who either drove at the speed of ZOOM to get there that fast or they weren't too far from the Ark, but if it was the latter, they really didn't need the backup because they would've arrived not long after, so I'm going to assume it was the former. Sunstreaker gets hit but it's only enough to damage his new paint job. He shoots Thundercracker in response (the autobots have good aim this episode) and apparently this is enough to send Thundercracker back for repairs. Skywarp accompanies him back to Decepticon HQ, but it never gets brought up again so we're going to ignore it. Trailbreaker thanks the twins for their help. Sunstreaker complains about his damaged paint job but Sideswipe tells him that nobody will notice if Sunstreaker only makes left turns.

I don't think that's how that works, but okay.

Cut to the Decepticons who are currently in the crystal mines making Energon cubes. Somehow Skywarp and Thundercracker have already made it here and both are completely fine. Soundwave says that there's enough crystals in the mine to power the whole planet of Cybertron. So you guys don't need the rocket fuel after all??

Cut to the Autobots who've made it to just outside of the mines. Wheeljack suggests using a bomb of his to bury the Decepticons forever. They know the cons are in the mines, they just don't know where. Bumblebee and Sparkplug (who apparently used to work in these mines??) volunteer to go into the mine, find the cons, and plant the bomb. Wheeljack warns them that once they push the button to detonate the explosive, they have exactly one minute to get out of there. Prime tells the two that if there's any problems to get out of there. Sparkplug assures Prime that there won't be any problems.

Foreshadowing.

Bee and Sparkplug make it into the mines without much issue and place the bomb, but when they try to get out, they're caught by Thundercracker and Skywarp who start beating them up.

Back outside, Jazz comments that the two should be out of there by now and Prime is getting worried. Ironhide volunteers to go check it out but Optimus says he'll go. Backup is offered but he refuses, telling the other bots that if he's not back in five minutes to come get him.

Optimus sends his drone Roller who sounds like R2D2 and will only appear in a handful of other episodes to go investigate just before the bomb detonates.

The bomb goes off and everyone inside of the mine is buried and Optimus is sent barrel-rolling dramatically in slow motion down the cliff side, leaving us with a cliffhanger.

And that was the second episode of the Transformers. It crams a lot into one episode, but somehow when you watch it, it doesn't feel too rushed. I do wish they'd taken some more time for the humans and the Autobots to learn about and understand each other, but I understand that there was a time limit on the episode and these interactions may have been considered boring by the kids watching at home. Overall it's a very fun watch though.

I hope this was enjoyable! I'll probably be putting out my analysis of Part 3 within the next few days. Hope to see you there!

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crunchycrystals · 3 months ago

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still thinking about That Scene in chris grace as scarlett johansson and i want as many people to watch this as possible so under the cut it goes. watch this if you've ever been interested in representation in media and how it affects the way you perceive yourself

anyways so ive talked briefly about how i love a good full utilization of a format (link here) but now i wanna go more in depth on it bc i love it a lot

make some noise

jesus christ the first time i saw this i paused and started jumping up and down on my couch. let me start with basics !!! i love that the video of the show appears on the make some noise tv. its so unnerving to see something completely detached from make some noise now on the tv after watching dozens of episodes. and sam just saying the normal spiel he does every time leaves you wondering for a few extremely disorienting seconds if they just edited the video onto a normal episode until he starts to introduce chris and you see his nameplate is erased. another extremely disorienting thing because we NEVER see the nameplates empty and it ties in so well with the identity crisis currently happening in the show. he has no idea who he is as a performer like is the performer part of him the real part?? how much has been played up for entertainment??? and then after the horror has been slammed into you by the prompt and seeing chris as confused by all of this as we are, he runs off which leads to the thing that kept me standing on my couch for the next 10 minutes

very important people

first off. i absolutely love the coincidence (or intentional detail???? who knows but either way) of chris's first line on the make some noise set being "my name is..." because that's the thing that started vip !!!!!!! and throughout the rest of the existential crisis dropout trip he constantly says "hello my name is" too ough i love that so much thats why i started writing this whole post. very important people is the perfect show to add to this segment it makes me feel a little feral thinking about it. coming out on stage without any alterations to his appearance, again back to the idea of is the chris grace on stage the real chris grace?? can he ever be??? and again his name is gone like in the scene before. vic says "you can be anything you want" like the thing scarjo said to justify playing an asian character and he still can't come up with anything. then the card transition oh my godddddddd

dirty laundry

(side note i did say before that the cards on the vip set were dirty laundry cards. i was wrong they are vip card the designs just look very similar esp compared to s1 of vip)

this is gonna be way shorter than the two rambles above i just think it's really cool to use the dirty laundry question format for some identity crisis stuff. i don't know how to properly express how cool i think it is i don't think i can do it justice. the "who..." format for the cards is a great way of expressing how he is losing grip of his identity

this section of the post is also to point out that i am only noticing now that the "dropout presents" version of chris is seen on the couch at some point also heckling stage chris which is a nice detail especially since part of the card was "who is generally a hypocrite"

gastronauts

gastronauts hasn't come out yet so i can't analyze this as much as i'd like but to me it just seems like an extension of the thing started in dirty laundry of everyone confusing him for scarlett johansson. i initially see this as a reference to the fact that throughout the whole show it's been going deeper than him playing scarlett as she plays him and then her playing him plays her again, etc, but thinking about it more for this post makes me think it's like the line between the real person and character they play blurring. i think everyone in the dropout audience is pretty familiar with this like we know brennan pissed on game changer isn't actually how he is in real life, but it's extremely easy to fall into that parasocial trap. when you put so much of your actual self in a character or performance it's hard to find the line between, even for the performer. chris keeps saying that he's not scarlett but everyone insists it's who he is

#crunchyposts #chris grace #dropout #chris grace as scarlett johansson #sorry if this doesnt make sense this special makes me absolutely unhinged insane im gnawing at my enclosure etc you know #or if its just very surface level i am trying to get past the oh my god surprise factor i had and analyze it in terms of the Themes #i cannot phrase myself well rn. i need to eat this special #just like i resonate so deeply w this in my gut its beyond words #my fellow underrepresented queer people of color out there get me #i need to keep the tags short thats for its Own Post which i will write after a rewatch #that ones gonna be More Personal be prepared #im just gonna post this i dont care anymore look at my analysis this is my blog

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