#and I don't know how to process all this output

[colepaldi-in-the-tardis]

Writer Problems - Too many ideas!!

The fact that I am just finishing posting a 70k plus FF on AO3 of my The Hour OTP Randall Brown/Bel Rowley and plus the fact that I am writing two (!) Richelieu fics in turns, hasn't stopped my brain to plot out another long-fic over the time of last night.

Like, who is going to fucking write all this?

Oh, what do I say? I just began writing the idea down, and I am 3k into one chapter, and can only hope my petition to extend the days' duration from 24h to 36h will go through quickly.

[laesas]

Seeing someone's awful, self-righteous, bad faith, rage bait take and realising that you already have them blocked for their other dogshit opinions 👌👌👌

[astroyongie]

My Opinion On The Moon Signs and Placements 

Note: the venus placements will be next <33 hope you guys like it, also take it lightly its just my opinion on the placements and not necessarily the true

Aries Moon: I often have a hard time reading Aries moons because they have such an intense way of communicating their emotions. they are either all in or all out and there isn't mid terms with them. Aries' moon is fierce, their instinct tingles. Some people see them as selfish people.  

Taurus Moon: they are so much more than what meets the eye. They tend to be pretty rational with what happens around them, yet they can be quite intuitive as well despite not being a water sign. They are the type to hide their emotions so well, but also to run away from them. They are often emotionally stable but their ability to hold grudges is.. scary

Gemini Moon: There’s this stereotype that gemini moods are emotional wrecks because we never know how they are feeling and also because they exhibit huge emotional swings depending on their environment and people they are with. The true is they don't understand what they feel deep down so they are often just as confused  

Cancer Moon: Again they have this stereotype that they are super sensible, emotional and super manipulators. Although in some cases this can be true, cancer moon is also someone that has that protective fire in them, they have such a huge protective instinct. They are super pessimists tho

Leo Moon: They aren’t as egocentric as one can think. Yes, they will put themselves first in certain situations but that’s because people tend to also take their loyalty and their warmth for granted. They are a little dramatic when they are feeling stuff.  

Virgo Moon: Virgo moons often have a sharp instinct, they have a good memory as well and they always try to process their emotions through rationalizing them, which often hurts because they don't allow their emotions to be processed. They fear losing control over what they feel. 

Libra Moon: Their head is a big mess, they never know who to trust, what to feel and how to understand their feelings. often these placement gets co dependent on other people for their emotions because they kind are unable to live by themselves with their own heads 

Scorpio Moon: Of course that they are intense, they feel things deeply and with all its rawness. Their intuition is high, they can read people so well and they do have empathetic feelings toward others. When they are in love, it's so beautiful but the trust issues of this placement is no joke 

Sagittarius Moon: My opinion on them might be a little biased but gosh, they are so intense, in a way that their emotions are so outbrusting. They can be the happiest person and 5 minutes later they are shifting and it's impulsive and reckless and they have no control over what they are feeling. they have short memory too in my opinion. .

Capricorn Moon: Like most earth placements, Capricorn moons are scared to not be in control of what they feel. They are clever, they are intuitive to a certain point but they are way too cautious and don't allow their emotions to be fully processed. Sometimes they like sensitivity or lack understanding toward other people’s feelings because they see it as dramatism. 

Aquarius Moon: Please someone enlighten me about them because I swear I don't understand them. they way of feeling, they way they expose things, they way they remember things. their brain, their emotional output is not conventional and is different from other people,which often makes them misunderstood. but their lack of empathy and their lack of seeing things through other perceptions is also the cause. 

Pisces Moon: Yes, another stereotype that they are overly sensitive and that they are cry babies. but their intuition is huge, their emotional sponge is hard to control.yet they can also be the most cold placements ever. if they don't want to feel, they won’t. their escapism ability is out of this world 

Moon in the 1st House: Usually they are seen as people that are caregivers. They are often leaned on due to their ability to be able to understand others and always find solutions when it comes to solving issues. They have a very soft personality and they are reliable yet people often take advantage of them because they can’t say no. they have that dreamy beauty in them as well  

Moon in the 2nd House: Their whole emotional being depends on how they live their life, on how comfortable they are and how much of the dream life they can live. More often, people with this placement tend to want luxury in their life and they can be an emotional wreck when their values, their possessions or their goals are shattered by life. 

Moon in the 3rd House: these people are super smart, like socially and emotionally smart. They make such good teachers, therapists but also manipulators because they are able to use people’s strengths and weaknesses to their own expenses but also to help others. They overthink a lot though, and they tend to suffer a lot from their own emotional health. 

Moon in the 4th House: They put a lot of importance in what they consider to be their roots, their culture and their family. They are often family oriented, they love kids and kids love them. some of them can even have that superpower of knowing when someone is pregnant! Some also have taken since young age the role of parent or responsibility in their household 

Moon in the 5th House: The creativity that they have is unmatched, the talent that they have for arts, for self expression through their body and their hobbies is amazing. definitely a good placement when one wants to pursue a career in the arts related businesses and professions. These people also have a very funny sense of humor, and they are hopeless romantics. 

Moon in the 6th House: This placement can be tricky because it can make someone super emotional, to struggle a lot with their health in general (both emotional and physical). Yet these people also have a good sense in business and they can easily get the career of their dreams just by the power of manifestation. 

Moon in the 7th House: They are hopeless romantics as well, they live for their love life, they live for romance, for relationships. People with these placements often tend to be unable to stay alone for a long time and not having someone to love is something that causes them inner turmoil and pain. they have such a good instinct tho, and their love truly is pure 

Moon in the 8th House: their emotional intuition is no joke, these people are not only gifted when it comes to the occult and the spiritual world, some can also have the power to predict changes, shifts and even physical death due to their strong and sharp sense of intuition. They are super emotional as well and often tend to suffer from that. They can’t let go of past feelings

Moon in the 9th House: They are so smart, a lot of people with this placement have a photographic memory, like they are able to remember every single detail. They are people who often feel either connected with their religion and practice, or they are connected with their education, their traditions and overall values. they can have such impactful, deep conversions as well due to the way they are passionate about these things. 

Moon in the 10th House: Their whole well being is only based on one thing: their status and their career. Nothing much is important to them other than what they are able to bring into life for themselves. some people might think that they are arrogant or lack emotional maturity, but this placement is actually a placement that demands to be stable in their overall life, in order to be able to be healthy emotionally 

Moon in the 11th House: Their friendships are super important to them, but so is their social reputation, their emotional well being is often tied with how well they are perceived by others. They want to be seen as reliable and cool, for some even popular. They easily make friends but they get attached quickly as well. they have a strong manifestation 

Moon in the 12th House: Similarly to the 6th house, people with this placement can have some struggles with their emotions. yet they can also be so damn intuitive and have gifts when it comes to the spiritual world and the sensing of the spiritual world. Yet these people are also seen as weird by others and because of that they can feel lonely all their life. they self sabotage themselves because of that 

[twistedpink]

Hii, i read your childhood friend!Azul thing, and i thought it was adorable! If i can, I'd like to request the same thing but for Idia? I love my guy so much, and I think it'd be cute (you don't have to if you don't want to, obviously.)

Tysm!! This was sooooo nice to write

Childhood crush!Idia is tragic no matter how you spin it. As a kid in the Jupiter conglomerate, there’s a very small pool of people your age and of “appropriate status”. It’s not simple to make friends with Idia, but you learn to understand him well enough to love the company.

So you keep doing it. For all the times in your childhood you can’t remember, there’s NO explanation. Your family and staff can’t fill in the blanks either, apparently you were with foreign friends.. But it’s normal, isn’t it? Doesn’t everyone forget things from time to time? “Anyone who comes in contact with STYX goes into the river lethe. No exceptions.”

Attending NRC is one of the most popular teenage dreams, and you’re killing it! You don’t know the housewarden that well (considering you’re his vice), but it’s whatever- he’s a massive shut in, and you’ve done your part emailing him updates.

Childhood crush!Idia that’s fully marinated in the feeling of you in his life, and it makes it so much worse to tear you out of it. He watches as as you make NPC friends that’ll never compare to the “great anime binge” post middle school grad, or the 100% co-op completion achievement on “biggy littly planet” that you can’t recall. He insists to be the one to put you through the process. Just enough for a full data wipe. It’s a reminder to never get close to you again, but he can’t ever stay away.

Childhood crush!Idia loves you. And it’s not weird to say that because he’s known you for years, I promise!! He’d never get bored of getting to know you, but it’s scary to see you change. One moment he’s totally confident on what to say, but his input ≠ output! Atleast not anymore (what teenager is still into doing wall pushups while your friend ignores you?), sometimes he wishes he could preserve you like Ortho, then you’d never have to leave.

But childhood crush!Idia needs to get used to change- because before he knows it everything is flipped on its head. He overblots, even if nobody thought it’d be possible and you take the effort to nurse him back to health! No matter how much he flinches from your touch, you stay with him. It’s almost impossible to believe you remember,, Not the years you spent together, but he doesn’t have to break the “big news” anymore, and he’s so excited to make new memories together. Just like old times <3

[pyxxiestyxx]

Comforting Honesty

"Do you know what this is, petal?" I frowned at both the affini preforming the Wellness Check, and the soft little thing it held in one massive hand. Well, small for her, anyway. The plushie was sized for someone of my height, a miniaturized version of a Khetari, complete with soft eyes and the expressive smug little face.

"Its a stuffed plush, similar to ones I've seen florets dragging all over the starsdamned place. And if you're trying to be subtle, you're really not hitting that mark. I don't appreciate the- OW!" I yelped and leaped backwards as the affini withdrew a vine, the needle-tipped flower on the end still dripping bright blue with something. Some...some xenodrug, obviously. I rubbed my neck where the injection had occurred, sulking. "That wasn't necessary."

"Oh, my apologies. As you said that you 'didn't appreciate subtlety', I thought it may be better if both of us were upfront and honest about things." The affini's eyes were sparkling in swirls of purple and gold, and I was suddenly reminded of just...just how tall she was compared to me when she rose to her full height. I took a few nervous steps backwards, and she countered by taking a single step to match. One. Step.

She continued in a lower, throaty purr, "Let me be clear then, petal. This is a plushie, yes. It is being given to you for several reasons. Firstly, your brain has been conditioned through your culture to bond with those who give you gifts. You don't even have to accept the gift to have this process happen; the mere offering is enough. But you will accept it, flower." I swallowed nervously at her words, the directness of them.

"Secondly, it is because this will help you get into a headspace much more befitting of a seed like you. Because yes, you will be carrying this around, at all times. Just. Like. A. Floret." With each word, her eyes pulsed brighter, the words branding themselves upon my brain.

"Thirdly, this is a special plushie. In this is a device that will output my biorhythms. Ah, and by the look on your face, you know exactly what those are. What those represent." I took another few steps back, but tripped on a box of something behind me that I had forgotten to clean up. In a flash of movement the affini was upon me, vines curling around and cradling me, pinning my arms to my chest and winding under my chin to tilt my head towards her.

"We prefer not to reveal all this at once, of course. It can be...intimidating to a sophont at first. But don't you worry, my darling floret-to-be. If you ever feel scared over the next...mmm" She tilted her head in thought, then smiled viciously. "About three days, if I were to guess. Three days until you break for me, until you beg for me to hold you in my vines again, to keep you safe forever."

I felt something soft and warm and...and ever so slightly comforting in a way I didn't understand press into my chest as she wrapped my arms around it with a smile. "And in those three days...if you ever get worried, or stressed...all you have to do is cuddle with your new plushie~ Isn't that wonderful?"

[frostyreturns]

A while back I argued tik tok was a hypnosis and brainwashing app because its function hits all the major components of hypnotizing someone: distracting audio/visual, music, repetition, eroticism etc. A lot of people think of being hypnotized only as falling into a deep sleeplike trance but there's also low level hypnotism where you may not even notice a shift in consciousness. The idea is that all of these things in conjunction relax your mind, puts your criticial thinking on pause and increases your susceptibility to accepting a desired message.

Well now I learned that tik tok "sludge" videos are a thing where they play multiple videos all at once, which also demonstrates the hypnosis rule of 7. 7 points of stimulus overloads the brain and reduces focus, because nobody can keep focus on 7 things at once your brain just kind of unfocuses making it more likely that a subliminal suggestion can take root. So if you have 2 or 4 videos playing all at once you have 3 different audio outputs, 5 different visuals it forces your brain to tune some things out and not process it with your higher cognitive functions. Hypnosis is all about making you think that something you think was your own thought when really it was given to you without your knowing. This doesn't mean these videos have to contain some hidden message...the videos themselves are just a way to soften you up mentally for videos and messages that follow...which also get curated to you.

What are the messages people are getting. I've heard for example people who were noticing they were getting fed trans topics on tiktok and were at first like...wtf this isn't for me...who then became trans. I don't use the app so I don't know what kind of propaganda people get served a lot but I'm sure its not good. Makes me wonder how much of a factor it was in peoples behaviour during covid. People were absolutely not in their right minds.

And once again even the name tik tok evokes the concept of a metronome which is a common visual and auditory tool used in hypnosis. Your phones are literally brainwashing you. Do not let your kids use tik tok.

[modmad]

How do you deal with being unable to draw some days? My arms have been injured this past week and I feel like I’m worthless as an artist because I can’t push through the pain. I know resting is important and my injuries won’t last forever but it feels as though a huge part of myself has been taken away from me, how do you do it?

no lie those days/weeks/months/years Suck. it's very hard to disentangle your self worth from your productivity, and I still feel that way even when I can draw, because I have to work slowly and in small amounts so that I don't hurt myself! it's maddening, but I am trying to find solice in the fact that I am not valued by my output. This is a constant process, and sometimes I forget that I am not a machine for making 'content' which will be thrown away if it breaks. I am a person and a piece of the universe, and sitting reading books and watching movies and lying down in a nice patch of sunlight is an excellent use of the precious time that I have, it is not a waste of it.

The best piece of advice I have is look at animals! Look to your pets! I adore my lovely cute lil scrungly snootle dog so so so much and she doesn't work at all! I am so happy she is in this world! I love her when she is running around, I love her when she is eating, and I love her when she is sleeping. Same for plants. You don't walk up to a tree and be like 'hey, why aren't you doing anything? meet your damn quota.' The next time your brain is bullying you for existing, turn around and repeat whatever it said to a squirrel or a bug or a cloud or a table. It helps you to see how silly it is to say it to yourself.

Still. Not being able to draw does suck. I generally watch movies and read books and do gentle exercise. Go for walks, listen to music, talk to friends about how you feel. They will care, and the time will pass. Eventually.

[soulmatesinc-if]

If you still accept RO reactions: let's say each of the ROs is a soul-link, how would the ROs feel if they were tasked with matching the MC with another soul ;w; ?? (Like, they're in the Chamber and suddenly see visions of the MC) Would this change depending on crush or deep relationship?

Setting aside that it would contradict the first rule of the soul-links (especially if MC is their partner) and that it is tough to imagine Romero accepting the job in the first place, it is a fun scenario to entertain!

Sam would refuse to give in to despair. They would pull a few all-nighters to prepare and then go straight to Eugene with a well-structured, eloquent speech, politician style. "As you well know, soul-links are not to interact with the souls, and it follows that their assignments cannot be their acquaintances, otherwise the memories are so much harder to alter. However, in my most recent assignment, exactly that was the case, making me suspect a mistake in one of the steps. I don't think it's dire though. You see, sir, no system is infallible, however, a faulty output is often merely a sign of a hole in the processes that only needs a few steps to fix." Insisting hard that this must be a mistake and not at all because it is MC (of course not!), but because it is someone they know closely. They'd be confident in a relationship and low-key stressed if all they have on their side is (to the best of their knowledge, still) one-sided.

Depending on how far along their relationship with MC is, Wyatt would either take the L, sulk about it with MC being none the wiser, and resign to doing their absolute best because they deserve Wyatt's finest work; OR they fly off the handle, barge into Eugene's office and explode in something along the lines of "Wow, if you wanted me gone, you didn't have to go this far. Could have just fired me like a normal person, but you wanted to put me through this, huh? I'm a crafty little bug, I'll find a different job so you don't have to feel sorry for my mom or whatever shit made you approach me in the first place"

(mind you, for Sam and Wyatt going to Eugene comes from very different reasoning)

Romero would go, "oh, so doubting is not tolerated at all, hilarious!" but without actually laughing. With a crush, they would try and drop hints to MC about their assignment to find out how they feel about it. In a relationship, they just consciously turbofail the job, straight up not doing it, but it would be a discussion between them at home.

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Ok. It's pretty clear you are more welcoming of AI, and it does have enough merits to not be given a knee jerk reaction outright.

And how the current anti-ai stealing programs could be misused.

But isn't so much of the models built on stolen art? That is one of the big thing keeping me from freely enjoying it.

The stolen art is a thing that needs to be addressed.

Though i agree that the ways that such addressing are being done in are not ideal. Counterproductive even.

I could make a quip here and be like "stolen art??? But the art is all still there, and it looks fine to me!" And that would be a salient point about the silliness of digital theft as a concept, but I know that wouldn't actually address your point because what you're actually talking about is art appropriation by generative AI models.

But the thing is that generative AI models don't really do that, either. They train on publicly posted images and derive a sort of metadata - more specifically, they build a feature space mapping out different visual concepts together with text that refers to them. This is then used at the generative stage in order to produce new images based on the denoising predictions of that abstract feature model. No output is created that hasn't gone through that multi-stage level of abstraction from the training data, and none of the original training images are directly used at all.

Due to various flaws in the process, you can sometimes get a model to output images extremely similar to particular training images, and it is also possible to get a model to pastiche a particular artist's work or style, but this is something that humans can also do and is a problem with the individual image that has been created, rather than the process in general.

Training an AI model is pretty clearly fair use, because you're not even really re-using the training images - you're deriving metadata that describes them, and using them to build new images. This is far more comparable to the process by which human artists learn concepts than the weird sort of "theft collage" that people seem to be convinced is going on. In many cases, the much larger training corpus of generative AI models means that an output will be far more abstracted from any identifiable source data (source data in fact is usually not identifiable) than a human being drawing from a reference, something we all agree is perfectly fine!

The only difference is that the AI process is happening in a computer with tangible data, and is therefore quantifiable. This seems to convince people that it is in some way more ontologically derivative than any other artistic process, because computers are assumed to be copying whereas the human brain can impart its own mystical juju of originality.

I'm a materialist and think this is very silly. The valid concerns around AI are to do with how society is unprepared for increased automation, but that's an entirely different conversation from the art theft one, and the latter actively distracts from the former. The complete refusal from some people to even engage with AI's existence out of disgust also makes it harder to solve the real problem around its implementation.

This sucks, because for a lot of people it's not really about copyright or intellectual property anyway. It's about that automation threat, and a sort of human condition anxiety about being supplanted and replaced by automation. That's a whole mess of emotions and genuine labour concerns that we need to work through and break down and resolve, but reactionary egg-throwing at all things related to machine learning is counterproductive to that, as is reading out legal mantras paraphrasing megacorps looking to expand copyright law to over shit like "art style".

I've spoken about this more elsewhere if you look at my blog's AI tag.

[sapphic-agent]

You wanna know who the #1 beneficiary of the tech power creep is in this series? Momo. One thing this mech suit shows is that Momo totally wasted her time trying to beat people with sticks. The idea of trying to create items in a battle as a form of problem solving is stupid, or at best, should be done as a last resort. Her power was always meant for technology. That's the true power in this world. She should have been trying to be Ironman. You know how All Might spent his fortune on the suit, and that was meant to be a limiting factor as to why this tech can't be widely used? Well, guess who has the ability to generate materials with no cost. Even the idea of her inventions requiring studying to make things more complex stops holding water when you look at the torture device she tried to strap Midoriya into during Class A vs Deku. She made that in an instant and it posed an immediate threat. What could she make if she wasn't trying to do it during stressful battles with enemies right in front of her? So, her limiting factor really is her ability to study advanced concepts and have people explain them to her, and most importantly, what an author is willing to let her do. The path forward for her was always to pay people smarter and more educated than her to invent things and then she can have them explain it to her so she can recreate it. If her family had paid the cost to design that Iron Might suit, then she'd pay it. Once. And then be able to use the schematics to create as many of them as she wants. Or better yet, make killer robots except use the tech inside of the suit. Create an entire army of them so she never has to be in any sort of danger at all. Control them remotely. UA has been shown to have advanced AI robots who have personalities. Said bots have enough restraint to never kill any of the kids in the sports festival or entrance exam. This could be used for hero work. This also gets into what a valuable resource Mei Hatsume is and how if you wanted Momo to be a god, you could just have them meet in middle school. Mei just has to design a working device, once, and then Momo can study it and forever use it. What could she come up with, if the idea was that Momo would hide somewhere, perhaps in an APC, while she uses drones and robots to fight at a distance? Energy/food costs for her also aren't a concern. She's clearly able to output more energy than she takes in, given she can create cannons and things that weigh more than her. So she could use up all of her lipids creating a dead meat cube that contains as many calories as she's capable of packing into an object, then eat it. And repeat this process as needed.

This is definitely interesting.

Momo absolutely has the potential to be the most OP in the series. Horikoshi originally wanted to give her quirk to a pro but recognized that someone experienced would nerf the entire story.

I don't necessarily think that making things for problem-solving is the issue; I think it's way more that Horikoshi just didn't have the creativity for it. Like you said the entrapment device she made during 1A vs Izuku was maybe her most effective creation. Instead of disinfectant, imagine she made poison gas and simply knocked Kendo and the other 1B students out (not sure if she can create chemical reactions, but she could theoretically cause one by using components right).

I doubt she would be comfortable doing next to nothing as a hero. I do wish we knew her motivations, but relying purely on her money while doing minimal work doesn't paint a great picture for her. I like that in canon she doesn't rely on her status or wealth for hero work, she relies on her intelligence.

Momo should be an underground hero. She could be the equivalent of Batman (no this isn't my love for Batman over Iron-Man talking), strategizing and having any gadget she needs at her disposal. I would love to see more tech incorporated into her work as a hero. I also wouldn't mind the bo staff if she was allowed to actually use it like a bo staff (seriously she barely does anything with it what's the point of giving it to her. Nah give my girl a sword and let her cut people)

[apas-95]

"Heya."

"Hey."

"Ready to clock out?"

"God, you know it. Alright, handover - everything normal, system 7 is still down for work so make sure that whole section isn't energised."

"Wasn't it supposed to be back up already?"

"Eeyup. Other than that... uh, a node in block 12 started reporting processing mode 1."

"What?"

"Yeah, 12F3, if you remember it. It was running pretty poorly, we lost connection with it for a moment, and when it was back online it was reporting processing mode 1."

"But it's a mode 2 node, right?"

"Yep. I don't know how it happened."

"Whatever the problem with it is, it must've somehow confused it, I guess. You report it?"

"Yeah, technical says they'll have someone down. Weird thing is... hm."

"What?"

"Well, I mean, it kinda fixed the problem. The node efficiency went from around 70% of nominal before the switch, to just under 102% after the switch."

"...That can't be right. It's gotta be running hot or something, this could be dangerous."

"See, I thought the same thing, and I had a good while at the station, so I got the idea to check through the logs. Input/output for 12F3 hasn't actually changed all that much, it's just that the processing it's been doing fits mode 1 a good bit better than mode 2."

"Wait, and the rest of the block is just running as if it were an extra mode 1 node? That's..."

"Weird as fuck, yeah. Anyway, technical should be down during your shift to set it back to mode 2, or disconnect it, or whatever, so keep an eye on that."

[13mo]

ive been following u for years, u havent been posting for so long, so i wanted to ask if u will ever be back nd posting again? love ur art nd i was just curious whats happening nd what to expect. don't plan on unfollowing regardless tho love u hope ur ok

I have quite a few asks to this degree so I feel it's important to answer than mentally avoid them for the rest of my blogging career.

I have really lost my drive for digital art and drawing all together. Basically, the last time staff tried to delete my blog, it forced me to realize that if this one ever disappeared, it would end every thing. The only remnants I would have would be from random reblogs, stolen reposts, or the random things on the wayback machine and pinterest. If years of my art & my progress would mean nothing & be gone in an instant, posting here at all began to mean nothing.

I don't appreciate how tumblr treats it's marginalized users and I know this is a rising concern with plenty of other users.

I also stopped drawing consistently around the time I graduated and moved across the county. Where some people flourish from such big changes, I did not. I lost all creative drive from the struggles of adult life, finances, time management, and so on. It happens! LOL

Genuinely, the lack of creative output in my life was depressing. Making art depresses me, not making art depresses me. It's an ongoing process to convince myself it is still worth the time and effort. I hope to someday get back in to the flow of creativity that use to encompass my (entire) life. I actually plan on it. However, I don't know if I'll ever feel up to start posting here consistently again. If I do, it might be a while.

I appreciate all of your concern and support. The years we've put in to this blog, the friends I've met, and the memories I've made have been wonderful. With that being said, I really wouldn't be so hurt if you unfollowed me:-)

[cripplecharacters]

I've been working on a world since 2019 and a few characters have had disability aides that are, like, full arms (haven't done legs yet for some reason, maybe because i drew a Lot of halfbody things for a while) but i have a dilemma that I'd like some advice on

so when a character is amputated/born missing a limb in my world they can choose to keep the amputation as is, or choose to get a 'robot arm' for lack of a better term. they aren't very advanced in technology in the usual way, but everything is kind of shifted to the left. it's been thousands of years and VHS players survived, but the video output hasn't, so now they have reprogrammed them to connect to lazers that show on the top of the box. they also tried cars (a very safe model that ran on water) but stopped once a couple died in a crash. they like pick and choose what they work on i guess

but! the disability part of this is: would it be alright if i have them create a synthetic limb that connects to their nerves (a VERY careful process) so it can still act like an abled limb, or would this just br a cop-out 'magic robot arm that is just like the flesh arm'? there are also alternatives to the ability aides as well; someone can get extremely tall mantis-like legs or get special made claws or whatever makes the person happy. i have a character i always think about with this since she's a tattoo artist that was born with her left arm amputated from the shoulder. so she could use the 'robot arm' to do the tattooing and use her other hand to hold the client still and move them around, but i don't want it to be the 'magic limb' thing again

if this is way too wordy you are more than welcome to tell me to try again, i am sorry, i just want to make sure everything is on the table and makes sense. hope you're having a lovely day/night!

Hello, thank you for your ask!

Note while we don’t have any amputee mods, I live with metal implants and will draw from that lived experience.

If you were to have a prosthetic limb be able to act just like a natural limb, it would fall into the ‘perfect prosthetic’ trope. This kind of character design isn’t disability representation, it’s just for the sake of aesthetic. Here are posts we’ve reblogged on the subject by amputees, I’d recommend looking at them [link] [same post but video format] [link]. These posts go much more into living with prosthetics, what to think about when making an amputee character and tropes to avoid that I ever could. If you really want the cool aesthetic of having a human with awesome robot parts, make an android/robot instead! You get all the cool visuals without peddling myths about disabled people that a surprising amount of people really believe.

As for having a character with an arm prosthetic that’s a tattoo machine, I think it’s fine! I’ve seen real world examples of that exact thing [link]. Just know it won’t act as a hand holding a tattoo machine, it’ll be stiff and to adjust the angle your character will either move their arm or manually adjust with their hand.

There is real world work on making prosthetics that connect to nerves, so I’ll talk about that as well. In previous posts we’ve talked about how most arm amputees don’t like wearing prosthetics since they tend to be heavy, uncomfortable and difficult to use, and that’s especially true for mechanical prosthetics. This article on the subject [link] [video that goes a bit more into it] shows a real world example of exactly the kind of prosthetic you’re talking about, though notably with zero feedback from the people who have one. It briefly touches on how the weight may be uncomfortable, how it needs frequent readjustments and practice from both the technicians and amputee to do things like pick up a block, and how the nerve sensors in it are dull, but I imagine that’s only a small bit of the real story. From personal experience, once a nerve is severed it is extremely difficult to ‘wake it up,’ and in some cases may be impossible. It took months of physical and occupational therapy for me to get back small motions and any physical sensation, and for a long time after that what I could feel changed from nothing to either dull, buzzy discomfort or electrical pain. Not to mention the metal implanted in the person for it to work would hurt [plus these kinds of prosthetic implants that go into the bone have a high failure rate due to the very increased risk of getting an infection, as the implant is both inside and outside the body]. If it gets too cold, if the air pressure changes, and just sometimes randomly metal implants become painful, and I’ve yet to meet anyone with implants with a different experience.

Essentially, using this kind of prosthetic would be extremely difficult and would also be painful and uncomfortable, and any character with one would need to be very dedicated, not to mention have a lot of spare time to dedicate to learning to use it and money to afford it, it’s surgeries and the frequent appointments to get it to work.

I hope this helps!

Mod Rot

[august--and-everything-after]

So there have been a lot of times in my life (anywhere from a few days to months at a time) where I've felt too tired and unenergized to do anything. We could discuss this with respect to my depression but that's not what this post is about.

I tend to ramble, so the tl'dr is this: doing nothing often makes you more tired. The more you do in a day*, the more you are telling your body "hey we need energy to do this" and the more your body responds by providing that energy.

(*obviously up to a point, this whole post is meant only in relation to typical day-to-day life and YMMV with how much activity is a good amount for you – but I promise you it's not "no activity")

My rambling is under the cut tho for people who want to read more.

On some level it makes me mad that it works this way, but in my experience doing nothing generally makes me more tired, or at least keeps me in the cycle of apathy and inactivity. I might think of it as "resting" to have a day where I sleep in and loaf around and play video games the whole time, but at the end of the day I feel just as lethargic and unmotivated as I did before because this isn't resting, it's rotting.

What actually helps me is doing stuff. I tend to have more energy when I've done different things throughout the day, moved around, had different kinds of inputs and outputs. If I'm exhausted when I wake up and I spend the day doing nothing, I'll stay that way. But by and large, if I wake up exhausted and, for instance, drag myself thru the process of making a slightly more complicated breakfast (I'm talking just like an omelet or scrambled eggs vs crackers and cream cheese level of effort), and I maybe tackle some small chores, and do a bit of light stretching, and do a crossword puzzle or a craft, and play video games, and spend some time just chilling, and I mix these activities up so I'm not doing the same thing for hours and hours at a time then I feel way better by the end of the day.

Psychologically, we know that lack of stimulation is bad for your brain – it slows everything down, makes you feel depressed, etc. – and an adequate level of stimulation is necessary to feel good and energized and happy. (I mean good stimulation, not scrolling instagram all day type stimulation, but that's another post by itself).

My best guess as to what's happening physiologically is that your body adjusts how much energy it makes based on how much demand there is. We all know that you eat food and your body uses it for energy, but here's what's happening at the cellular level (highly simplified, the details are completely irrelevant here): your body breaks the food down into different molecules of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, etc., and then uses those molecules to make a different molecule called ATP. This molecule is vitally important to how your body functions because it's what makes so many different cellular processes work, including things like muscle contractions and nerve impulses. You can probably see how not having enough of that molecule going around can really slow you down and make you feel fatigued and foggy-headed.

Generally, biological organisms don't like wasting energy for no reason, and it takes energy to make energy. When your body "makes" energy, it's making the energy stored in different molecules into a form that is usable by your body. If there's a low demand for energy, your body won't waste the energy that it already has making more, since it's not being used. The stored energy can stay in storage. When you get more active tho, that activity signals to your body that there IS a need for energy, so it gets to work making more of that stored energy available, and then you're off to the races.

Huge caveat that I've not done additional research for this post, this is based on my education and personal knowledge, I'm not a doctor and this shouldn't be taken as medical advice, etc.

Feel free to hit me up with questions or comments about anything I said here, or general observations about my rambling wordiness and lack of flow lol

[comicaurora]

Hi! I'm a big fan of your work. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

 I'm an artist who's been working on a story with a close writer friend of mine since the pandemic. Together we've outlined a webcomic that we're both very excited and passionate about, and it's been a great experience. Late last year we started actually making the comic itself, and a little less than a year later we're 37 pages in. 

I wanted to ask you how you're able to somehow push out three high-quality pages every week? I work full time, and most days I'm too drained when I get home to immediately start working on the comic. Plus all the other stuff I have to take care of to be a functional adult. I'm not even that slow of an artist, but it just doesn't feel like there's enough hours in the day. At my current rate, I get about one page done per week. I'm 24 now, I don't want to be in my 50s still working on this story. Do you have any advice for increasing your output as an artist without completely overwhelming yourself?

Sorry for the wordy question. There's a reason I'm the artist and not the writer.

Oof, that's a tough one!

I mean, to start with, a fundamental difference in our schedules is I don't work full time. Everything I do for a living is very self-scheduled, and I can work far in advance to meet the deadlines I set and take entire days or even weeks off when I need them. Back when I was in college, dealing with outside schedule requirements, I definitely wouldn't have been able to keep up everything I do now.

That said, there are still methods to streamline and speed up the artistic process. I don't know the details of your methods, but I'd recommend sketching and storyboarding larger numbers of pages at a time and finalizing them at a more leisurely pace, rather than taking one page of comic at a time from a total blank to a finalized, polished version. The storyboard can be very basic; many of mine are little more than color-coded scribbles showing the characters and text boxes showing their dialogue. It's just enough to be readable to me so I can go in and edit it for pacing and timing, but it looks like absolute chickenscratch to anyone else. On the production side, that makes it much more feasible for me to work on multiple pages at a time, since I don't need to finish polishing one page before I can start boarding another.

This method can be expanded into a bit of a factory production line, allowing for a two-pronged approach of progress - one for finalizing older pages, the other farther along for storyboarding new ones. And once you have multiple pages done at a time, you can schedule them well in advance, which takes a lot of deadline pressure off and can make it less mentally daunting to work on. This also diversifies the space of things you can work on, depending on your headspace and energy levels - which is a useful option to have when you're wiped from outside responsibilities.

[daddldee]

　　➲　how to make a gif tut !　✼

♡　hii this is a tutorial on how to make two types of flash gifs! the first gif will be a flash gif with a png overlay and video effects. the second flash gif is a sort of stop-motion-like gif made from multiple images.

this was for an ask in my inbox, but i accidently deleted it cuz tumblr was being weird.. anyways hope this helps anyone who's curious!

　　⤷　flash gif w/ png overlay + video effects

　⋯　to make this type of gif i use capcut and a website called ezgif.com.

first, start a new project on capcut and select all the pictures you want to use in the gif (except the png) and click add.

　⋯　once the pics are loaded in, adjust the duration of the photos to your liking (i do 0.6 but you can adjust to your preference). changing the duration of the pictures will determine how fast the pictures in the gif will pop up and how long the gif is.

i screenrecorded my process in capcut since it's kinda hard to explain with screenshots so feel free to replay certain parts you were stuck on!

　⋯　after changing the duration of pics, overlay the png and then apply an animation to the png overlay (not required!). i like to apply a fade in and fade out animation on the png so it can appear and disappear in the gif smoother. then add video effects and adjust the settings to your preference. i mostly use video effect called iridescent for sparkles (you can use whichever effects u prefer tho!)

once you're satisfied with how it looks, export the gif to save it on your device. then go to ezgif.com and the tab that says video to gif.

　⋯　upload the video you just saved from capcut onto ezgif then scroll down and convert to gif. you should then get your outputted gif and save to your device!

　⋯　one of the cons i don't like about ezgif tho is that it greys out the colors of video to gifs.. if you know how to recolorize gifs or a different gif convertor website you can use that instead (pls tell me).

　　⤷　regular stop-motion flash gif

⋯　for this gif you only need to use ezgif.com. this is mainly for gifs where the images are moving without transitions and no effects. (png overlays are made beforehand and saved in different photos) luckily the colors don't change for this type of gif!

first you want to go to the gif maker tab then click switch to manually ordered upload. after that, upload all the images you want in your gif.

　⋯　then change the delay time for all images to adjust how fast the gif will play. the larger the number, the slower the gif. i personally like to make the delay time 35 but it's not necessary for you to change the auto delay time of 20.

　⋯　after changing the delay time, click make a gif! your outputted gif should load below and then save to device.

hopefully this was easy to understand 😓 comment or feel free to dm any questions if you're confused or need help! this is just a base tut for making gifs in mbs, you can change anything to your own preferences !