#and every other recommended post is a screenshot from twitter lol

[baseddoc]

logging back in after such a long time and wooooahh... what is going on?

[holdthelina]

gen question but isnt dedegoon or dedesuka or whatevr a proship? ive seen some ppl calling it a proship cuz its abusive but your bio says proship dni so idk if its ok to ship or what (sorry im new to this)

hiya! thank you for your ask! it isnt and heres why

first of all i am /Not/ proship. i am not anti-anti or whatever either. what drives me to ship them is the fact theyre friends who like to be in each other's company. i like their sweet moments together. they bond over scamming an innocent population and bullying children. they're partners in crime. theyre besties who talk shit about others as a hobby.

i also don't think theyre already dating. i look at their relationship and im like. you guys have some kind of weird crush on each other and you're also selfish assholes. they're in the world's worst situationship.

"but dedede whacks escargoon a lot!" not only does escargoon get physical towards him too (the dynamic starts shifting in the dentist episode) but his "punishments" are often for a reason. escargoon is often very mean to dedede. in almost every episode he calls him hopeless or stupid or ugly or anything like that. and that gets him a whack. if i were dedede i'd do that too! it'd piss me off! having my lackey who i pay and who i consider my best friend insult me so overtly over and over LOL. but does escargoon ever try and stop him his evil doing? hell no! the guy helps him and gives him advice and ideas! he is NOT a good guy either. he loves being mean! he literally says it!

of course escargoon cares a loy about him. pretty sure everyone is aware. i don't even need to compile all the times he runs after him or worries about his well being. one time he "left" after he realised he'd have to do all the waddle dee's chores and didn't want to do his job. guess who's shown tearing up when seeing what poor state dedede is in after being left all on his own. he's always protecting him and defending him (sometimes backhandedly) from other people. he holds dedede dear. it's obvious he does. he's an old man, he's not being manipulated into liking dedede. he genuinely cares about the guy.

there are episodes where they bicker a lot but end up getting along, episodes where they're the best of friends and episodes focused on their resentment against one another. the show kind of yoyos with their relationship. it's not really anything to take seriously. if you get offended from their interactions you'd get a heart attack from watching looney tunes. the back and forth of their dynamic is part of the fun!

I *highly* recommend watching the original version of the show as the dub often replaces sweet lines they share with jokes that don't really hit the mark. it's a shame. (however i will give the dub some credit on occasion)

Actually, i have a [post] that compiles a lot of sweet screenshots of them together. it doesnt include the times where they hold on to each other in the cannons or in the whispy woods episode or when esxargoon said "isnt this strange? can't you feel we're striving apart?" and dedede says "what! that's ridiculous!" in a lighthearted voice. or when escargoon makes a joke about a late night drive being romantic and dedede just? laughs in agreement? there's a scene where they call each other stupid in the most friendly way ever. i actually have a handy twitter of fun scenes where escargoon gets away with some things (doesn't include when escargoon yells at him in the fireworks episode or orders him in episode 69), like saying *he's* actually the one in power because dedede isn't competent enough to reign. or dedede understanding escargoon's concerns of him becoming dumber than he is already.

they're just villains who are attached to each other and are a team no matter what.

escargoon protects dedede a lot, and he cares about him more than what his job entails, but people tend to forget he's got a special place in dedede's heart too.

dedede keeps an album of pictures they took together. he never threatens to fire him and, as far as i know, never even cuts his salary and is the only one in the castle to even have a bonus. he shares the food he keeps from the waddle dees with him in episode 93. he clarifies he doesnt want knuckle joe's monsters to attack either of them. he's fine spending large amounts of money on him. twice? he never calls him ugly somehow. he even thanks him for having put up with him for so long and serving him well when the world is about to end. and then he clings unto him because he's scared of dying alone. his way of showing affection is not the "im crying because i think you're in danger" type of way that escargoon shows a lot but it's there.

Of course i don't think they're perfect gay rep. that's literally so stupid. you think im gonna look at two dumbasses who are bitter towards one another from what, a parodic, satirical children's anime from the early 2000s, and go "hmm yes this is what every queer couple should aspire to be this is peak lgbt rep"

If we're gonna talk about them how about we talk about some issues this show has that no one ever addresses. the colorism of the uv episode that is not put into question, not even by tiff, the moral compass. the rising sun imagery that is very much intentional as dedede is a caricature. the fatphobia? the fact kirby calls kawasaki and nagoya homos??? straight up???

people often blame episode 88, and yeah, it's not my favorite episode either. everyone's weird in that episode, not just dedede! yabui is far from empathetic, even the ebrums are disrespectful, and escargoon taunts dedede into chasing him for laughs and teases him about his old age. even at the end he teases him. i think it's one of those episodes that you just have to blame on the writers kinda like 89 (for example this one has got the right message but the execution is painful to watch. poor tiff.)

now, if 88 had changed their relationship it'd be a different matter. there are some sweet moments they share outside of their general "partners in crime" dynamic past episode 88 in my post actually! my favorite is the one where dedede has his arm around escargoon who's curled up like a cat while they're sleeping and the waddle dees are tucking them in from episode 91. it makes me so happy.

i could probably talk so, so much more about them. they're a huge comfort to me. however i don't trust just anyone with them. i am very much aware some people like them for the wrong reasons. but if you have a brain you can see where i'm coming from.

the show makes fun of them because they're evil, self-centered cowards. not because they're "gay" or anything like that. i saw someone call them queerbait one time and i had to log off for a minute.

anyway, to answer your question, people who do not recognize their genuine attachment to one another are bound to have a twisted view of them. i don't like dedegoon because they're "toxic" or awful to each other. but because they're each other's best friends. that's all. it's fine if you don't ship them, too. i just hope i can prove to people that they do matter to each other and that they're friends :)

[corvophobia]

Hi!! I hope this isn't weird - I'm obsessed with your TLT art and it makes me want to draw my own. However, ya girl has no idea how to draw. I was wondering if you knew of any good resources that helped you get started? Thank you :)))

AWW this is so sweet thank you!! when i started out i didn't really have any good resources i just kind of copied anime screenshots lol, but i can recommend the etherington brothers for their free online tutorials, and if you follow them on twitter they also post tutorials from other artists every day!! i would also say with painting specifically that sinix design's quick tips on youtube were incredibly helpful!! <33333333

[wildlyminiaturesandwich]

it’s been a minute...

but almost five months into 2021 and this year has already been way better in some aspects (for me personally) than last year. i don’t know if it’s because i’ve taken a bit of a step back from the sims community and most social media (i still go on twitter occasionally), or because i’m doing a lot of new things that make me happy, or both; but 2021 has been pretty alright so far.

tl:dr is i’m learning a bunch of new things, re-learning some things i used to know, continuing some of my favourite things, my hair is blue now, and I’m just generally doing things that make me happy instead of forcing myself to do things others want/expect me to do. If you wanna know what those things are I’ve put some info under a cut 😊

buying a house — mr sandwich and i have been looking at buying a house since last year but this year, hopefully that will become a reality... if covid would feck off and and even bigger IF i can ever stop procrastinating and get together all the documents we need for the home loan hehe 

continuing learning chinese — been at it for 160+ days now (the screenshot is from about a week ago) and still really enjoying it. i’ve reached the point where when i’m watching anything in chinese and i’m not looking at the screen or don’t have the subtitles on i can work out the generally gist of what’s being said by catching words i know. it was weirdly exciting (and made me kind of proud) the first time i understood a full sentence that was more than a few words long without there being any subtitles!

re-learning korean — because apparently i’m not enough of a masochist to just stick to take on one of the most difficult languages to learn (chinese), i also decided to start re-learning korean as well. i took korean classes all through primary school and high school but never kept up with it after i left and i’ve forgotten most of what i learned since then. it’s something i’ve always regretted (especially since i left school the year before my korean class went on a trip to seoul!), so i figured why not start from the beginning and re-learn it this year? it’ll help a lot now that i’m watching k-dramas and listening to a lot more k-pop lol

maybe thai as well — yup, thai dramas are fun to watch too so why not throw that in the mix as well. although, it might be a little harder to do because duolingo is frustratingly unhelpful in this area. apparently they’d rather people learn klingon and high valyrian than an actual useful language like thai, i guess? so if you know of any apps or sites that have good thai lessons let me know! i’d also like to learn japanese one day too but i think 2-3 languages is enough for now lol

re-learning keyboard/piano — my nan taught me to play when i was younger but, like korean (and a bunch of other things), i didn’t keep up with it after i left high school. so since 2021 is apparently a year of learning for me, and since electronic keyboards are less expensive than cellos (something else i never kept up with after high school), i figured i’d buy a cheap one and teach myself how to play again! there are a bunch of other instruments i’d also like to learn (kalimba, xiao, guqin, theremin, violin) and re-learn (cello, guitar, drums) as well but for now i’ll just stick with one lol 

listening to k-pop — listen, i know i’m late to the k-pop train but i’m here now and i’m enjoying the ride. i’ve listened to it casually in the past but never really considered myself a “fan” until recently. i’m slowly working my way through different groups (mostly boy groups because i just can’t seem to get into the girl groups) listening to their music and getting to know the members, it’s a lot like learning a new language because a lot of the groups have so many members LOL i’m currently listening to and loving ATEEZ! if you have any recommendations, feel free to fire them at my inbox! 

still diamond painting — it’s been almost exactly a year since i first started diamond painting and i’m still just as obsessed with it as i was back then. it’s weirdly satisfying placing each drill one at a time (i never use multi-placers, masochist remember? LOL) and seeing the picture slowly come together.

still journaling — sometimes i find it really hard to focus on and remember what i need to do each day and i quickly become overwhelmed and annoyed with myself when i can’t do even the most simple tasks that other people have no problems with. i’d honestly be completely lost without my journal, not to mention it’s just fun to plan out, draw, and colour a different theme every month! also, that pic is from my march pages, look at my crazy sleep tracker! normal sleep schedule who?

anyway, so that’s what i’ve been up to. nothing terribly exciting and not at all sims-related (i rarely open my game at all these days) but i figured since it’s been quite a while since i posted anything here i should probably let people know i’m not dead; i’m just enjoying other hobbies/activities. I may come back to posting regularly on tumblr and making cc at some point but i’m not in a rush because honestly, i’m the happiest i’ve been in a long time and that’s all that really matters 😊

[mariaiscrafting]

You know, what think I like when you are critical of a content creator is that you know how to separate a fact from especulation, unlike a blog out there that took especulation as facts.

Example, that night when we were critical of Karl, or any instance you have discussed about him, a lot of anons were saying that he gave them clout chaser vibes to them, and despite your opinion, you expressed that those were only especulation and not the truth, and to keep that in mind. That's good critical thinking.

But this blog had some similar anons, saying that he only is friends with the Feral Boys gro clout- In fact, they said the Feral Boys were only in it to benefit from clout and money. And they took it as a truth. I know you instance on them is neutral, but come one, they are friends. All of them. Karl isn't friends with them for clout. Like today Karl was playing golf with salad gang plus Sapnap and George at first and then Quackity and Dream joined bc they had spared time and it all devolved into typical chaos (Poor Corpse and Tina and Brook, had to endure those children lol/lh /j). Like, the stream wasn't planned with the 5/5 yet they joined, missing Karl and just having fun.

Idk, I guess that blog's superiority (They were a SBI focused blog) just irritated me. It's as if they were putting both groups at each other as if those streamers aren't friends or close. They were singing prayers of one while shunning the other based from especulation. Criticissism is fine, in fact recommended to be critical of your interests, but taking rumors as facts to base your crit is yikes. It's as if I wanted to crit SBI and base it only of "Philza hanging only with people younger than him is kinda weird ngl.." or "Sbi doesn't care about Tommy cuz he joined late" like that dumb Tumblr post did or some fuckers in Twitter imply.

The main reason I take so much care to separate speculation from evidence-backed theories and confirmed truths is because I feel like that separation is what distinguishes us from mcyttwt the most. One of the main reasons for mcyttwt's toxicity, imo - for its relentless cancelling of everyone, for its bandwagon campaigns - is that people oftentimes criticize and defend based on their personal feelings rather than rationale or evidence.

For example, I complain a lot about Dream stans on here, but you know the reason I didn't stop watching Dream directly after the cheating scandal broke loose, even though I thought he cheated? Because of mcytblr Dream stans. Mcytblr Dream stans engaged with me in discussion, both publicly and in DMs, about the cheating scandal, and even those who eventually came to the conclusion that Dream didn't cheat accepted the facts and statistics they were given and kept a healthy skepticism throughout the process. On Twitter, Dream stans were defending him before he even made a video following up to the mods' initial accusations because they felt that Dream wasn't the kind of guy to lie or cheat. They were replying to screenshots of statistical analyses from subreddits and to articles from mathematicians and staticians with extremely reactionary responses because of that feeling, which they believed in so adamantly, they had accepted it as fact. The thing is, to believe that Dream didn't cheat in the face of all the statistical and rhetorical evidence to the contrary is, in itself, speculative. Usually we think of speculation as a baseless theory that something is a positive truth- that is to say, that something did happen. But speculation also applies to those theories of someone not having done something, when the opposite has been nearly proven to be true.

For this same reason, I chose not to ignore the anti-technotwt threads with screenshots of Techno's old tweets in them. For me to have simply ignored these screenshots and continued supposing that Techno never expressed bigoted beliefs and/or currently doesn't would have been speculative on my part, and to boot, blatantly wrong, given the evidence to the contrary.

People in this fandom, and in all RPF/RPF-adjacent fandoms need to understand that almost everything they believe about the CCs they watch is speculative, at least to some extent, because of the nature of the content they make. Even if someone, in your opinion, displays evidence of some aspect of their personality - whether that be some form of bigoted, sweet, rude, clout-chasing, or anything else - because of the extremely one-sided nature of sharing one's life through a screen, that theory of ours will almost alwyas only ever be speculation, not a solid conclusion that can be drawn. We will never know these people's true intentions behind something shared to us via the Internet.

That vagueness leads to virtually every viewer creating a different theory in our heads about the CCs we watch, and we can't treat those theories as facts, especially not when sharing them with the rest of a fandom. I'm not a very big blog, but I consider even over 50 followers to be way too many people to spread a theory too, without at least clarifying that what I'm posting is speculation. If I have evidence, I like to list it or, if I can, provide sources; but otherwise, I take care to qualify most things with phrases or disclaimers that will clue followers into the speculative nature of whatever it is I'm saying. This is because theories and "feelings" can blaze through a fandom like wildfire, especially somewhere like Twitter, where so many things are word-of-mouth or based on summary due to character limitation.

You know why mcyttwt was cancelling Andi? Only a handful of original Tweeters under the cancel Andi hashtags actually knew what clips or tweets to criticize her for, or tried to elaborate on that criticism. But because every other mcyttwt user was getting bombarded by their mutuals hate-posting about Andi on their TLs, the "negative feeling" towards Andi grew and grew, even if most people didn't even know what they were supposed to feel negative about, exactly. Our judgement works on a quick trigger on the Internet because of the amount of information we're receiving, and so, even a single bad word against someone you don't have too strong of an opinion on can fundamentally alter your perception of them, usually subconsciously. If the first thing you see about Andi, who you've only seen on a couple LOH's or a couple Punz streams before then, is a tweet along the lines of, "disappointed in Andi for her homophobia and joking about suicide," despite you having no context, you will most likely be pushed to the negative side of her. Thus begins the cycle of hatred, building up and up, leading to you searching for more and more criticism about Andi, whether speculative or not, until you solidly and genuinely believe she is a Horrible Person. It all starts with the vaguest fucking feeling, because that's all speculation has to go off of, and it snowballs into a fucking wildfire across an entire fandom. I'm not about to be another person to let feelings snowball and spread like that.

Now, I don't know what exact blog you're referring to, but as an adamant SBI enthusiast, let me flip the argument many SBI stans have for their speculation upon the genuity of Karl's friendship with the Feral Bois, onto SBI. What do we have to go off of for the genuity of SBI's friendship, anyways? Our perceived brother dynamic between Tommy and Wilbur could very well just be Tommy capitalizing on Wilbur's brand and continuing the charade until now because it's been profitable. Maybe Techno only continues to associate with SBI because he knows how much his fanbase likes headcanon'ing about SBI, so he puts up with streams with them so he can continue to feed his fanbase with dynamics he knows they're obsessed with. Maybe Phil would rather play MC with people his age, and actually dislikes that he's friends with a teenager, but sticks around because he profitted so much off of Dream SMP and SBI-related content. And what could any SBI stan have to argue with me on any of these theories? Just because SBI laughs around each other and seems fond of each other doesn't mean they're actually like that behind the cameras. They so seldomly stream or make videos together anymore, anyways, so maybe they've grown tired of keeping up the dynamic.

Everything I said could be interpreted as utter bullshit, and that's because it fucking is. I don't actually know what Techno wants to do with his life, or how Wilbur and Tommy actually feel about each other, or who Phil wants to fucking befriend. The same goes for Feral Boys. There's nothing wrong with stating your theories or speculation, but to treat them as fact or not at least qualify such posts with the fact that this is all based on your bias and opinion, and no substantive evidence, is irresponsible. Just because you feel like one or more of the Feral Boys is "clout-chasing" doesn't mean you have the right to tout that feeling as truth. I feel a lot of things about a lot of CCs, both negative and positive, but no matter how strong my feelings, unless they have substantive evidence backing them up, I have no right to treat them as facts with my followers.

[daeyeolss]

how I make my gifs: a tutorial

Hi everyone! Just in case someone asks in the future + for those curious, I'm here with a tutorial on how I make gifs! If you have any questions whatsoever, please do send me an ask! I’ll be glad to help! The gif I made with this tutorial is the one right here! 

So... let’s start this tutorial with the programs I use.

Adobe Photoshop 2020 - To make the gifs, majority of the work is done in this program.

TopazLabs (Topaz DeNoise 6 and Topaz Clean 3) - To "denoise" and "clean" the gifs, as the names would suggest. Links for download: Topaz DeNoise 6 & Topaz Clean 3

KMPlayer (an alternative would be PotPlayer, or any other video playing program that allows you to capture the frames) - To capture the frames. - I use an older version of KMPlayer, though I don't know which exact version that is.

Now let’s continue onto how I use these programs to create gifs!

Step 1: After you’ve downloaded the necessary programs, download your video. The way to get the best gifs? Quality videos. That’s the first step. For K-pop performances, I recommend this website (the hq files are in .ts form, KMPlayer should be able to open these). Bookmark it! It’s really handy :) Get the video you want to make a gif from and open it in KMPlayer (or PotPlayer or any other program, but for this tutorial I’ll use KMPlayer). Open your video in said program and look for the part you want to make a gif of. Then press CTRL+G (I apologize because I cannot for the life of me remember if this was a standard shortcut or not)

Step 2: After pressing CTRL+G, you’ll be met with this screen:

I’ll briefly explain the numbered parts, but before that, these are my standard settings and just make sure you have them all the same and it should be good!

1: This is where your captured frames will be extracted to. I have them extracted to the standard folder, but you can change this if you want to. You’ll need this folder later when opening the frames!

2: Like it says, this is the image format. I use PNG in the highest quality, as the name would suggest, for the quality.

3: These are the amount of frames the program captures. Say you put in every 2 or 4 frames, you’ll get more choppy gifs. To get the smoothest gifs, put “every frame” (this in turn will increase the gif size as the amount of frames will obviously be bigger).

Once you’ve put in the correct settings and you’ve put the slider where you want the capturing process to start, press “start” (now, before you do this I recommend putting the video on mute as the audio will start to get kinda demon-y the longer you record lol save your ears pls). Then, when you’ve captured all the frames you need, pause the video, press CTRL+G again and click “stop” and close the pop-up/program.

Step 3: It’s time to open up Photoshop! Then go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack... (for older versions/another version I used in the past this one didn’t work and I had to use the “Load Multiple DICOM Files...” instead. It should work similarly though, if I remember correctly).

You then get a little pop-up that looks like this:

All you have to do here is click “browse” and navigate to the folder where your captured frames have been saved in. Select all the frames you need, wait for them to load in and then click “OK”!

Step 4: Depending on the amount of frames you’ve selected to load in, as well as the beefiness of your PC/laptop, the frames loading part might take a little while. Photoshop is importing every frame as a separate layer into one file, so just... grab a drink or something and wait a bit! When you’re done waiting, if you haven’t already, go to Window > Timeline. This will show you the animation timeline. For older Photoshop versions this is slightly different (I believe it’s called animation). Then click “Create Video Timeline” and click the 3 squares on the left bottom side (in older versions it’s on the right bottom side, not sure). 

Step 5: After you’ve done all that, you’ll want to select all your layers. You can do this by pressing ALT+CTRL+A or going to Select > All Layers. With all the layers selected, you have to go to Layer > Arrange > Reverse. You only have to do this if you used the “Load Files into Stack” option!

Step 6: After reversing all your layers, you’ll want to go to the three lines you see in the following screenshot, and click “Make Frames From Layers”.

As the name suggests, this turns all the layers into frames. I don’t know why but the first frame will always be 5 seconds long, so to make it easy on yourself when you want to check your gif while editing, just put that on 0 for now. You can do that by clicking the seconds under the frame and clicking “No delay”. After this, check to see if you have the right frames and if you need to delete some (you can do this at any point in the process but I didn’t know where to put it in the tutorial oops).

Step 7: Time to crop the gif to the correct size! For this gif I’m using as an example, I’m making it specifically for Twitter, so the sizes aren’t that obvious (for Twitter I usually use a width of 850 px to keep it sharp, for long size gifs (more height than width for example), I add a background so that it eventually still becomes 850x850 pixels). There’s many posts on Tumblr about the correct sizes for gif/photosets, but a brief rundown of my most used sizes: one gif spanning the entire width of the post has to be 540 px in width. Two gifs next to one another need to have a width of 268 px. I use these dimensions the most! For others, you can Google! 

Step 8: After you’ve cropped the gif, you can do either of two things: either you first add the coloring of your choice and then sharpen the gif OR you do it the other way around. I usually switch these two around depending on how sharp the gif already looks before sharpening because I can’t stand looking at 2 pixels while coloring (lmao). For this one I’ll do the sharpening first.

The whole sharpening process is actually quite simple but you need to make sure that you do the following little steps in the right order or else it won’t work! Select all the layers (CTRL+ALT+A or Select > All Layers) and then click this little thingy:

Then you’re going to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters

If you don’t do it in this order, your gif will end up... well, not being a gif and not moving. If that happens, track back in your history to see if you did it in the correct order! :)

Step 9: The actual sharpening process! After clicking the “Convert for Smart Filters”, you’ll want to go to Filter again and find the Topaz Labs tabs. Personally, I usually do it in the order of DeNoise first and then Clean, but this is a personal thing, really.

I recommend playing around with the settings to see what fits the gif but here are my go-to DeNoise settings (tip: save these as a preset so you only have to click that for faster giffing!):

And my Clean settings:

Press OK when you’re done with these and then go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. These are my SS settings (just copy these, and again, save as a preset!):

Depending on how sharp you want the gif to be, you can input the same settings or go to this in the layers and change the percentage.

Now that we’re done with these... it’s time to flatten it! Just follow these little steps:

And then you wait. Again. I know.

Step 10: After playing the waiting game, you’ll click the three little squares again and do the same thing you did earlier: “Make Frames Into Layers”. Delete the first frame. Add a coloring of your choice (can be a PSD, can be your own coloring, etc. this is honestly just... playing around with things and see what it can do). After you’ve done coloring, select all your frames (same lines as previous screenshot except now you’ll see a “Select All Frames” option, click it!) and change the time to whatever you like (I usually go for 0.05, 0.06, or 0.07. Again, just play around with this!! Try different things!) 

Step 11: Final step! Saving :) I use shortcuts a lot to make things faster so either press ALT+SHIFT+CTRL+S or go to File > Export > Save For Web. Not much to do here, just copy the following settings and save the file!

!!! NOTE: After making a new gif today I realized there’s a weird dotted border on the top of my gifs, it’s a bit difficult to explain but I had no idea what it was. Turns out that the reason why this showed up was because, as shown in the screenshot below, I had “Transparency” selected. If you’re experiencing this too, UNSELECT the transparency and it should be all good!

Also make sure that the “Looping Options” is set to Forever, or else your gif will play only once and then stop!

Tip: While making gifs for Twitter I at one point noticed that if I added in a white background, no matter what I’d do, it’d show up as yellow-y in the preview box. After googling I found that going to the options (1 in the screenshot) and then clicking “Sort by Luminance”, then double-clicking the lightest color (not the transparent one, 2 in the screenshot) and selecting white (or FFF) will get rid of this! This likely won’t be that useful for Tumblr gifs but just in case you ever want to have a white background...!

Then just... save, and upload to Tumblr! :)

Final note: Tumblr has a mix gif size of 3MB. If you have a gifset of 4 gifs you want to upload, all 4 gifs can be max 3MB each. Keep this in mind! If you’re over 3MB, delete a few frames and try again, or resize/crop your gif!

As it turns out, Tumblr has increased their gif size to 8MB, however, the quality tends to get compressed with larger gifs like that so per recommendation: keep them below 5MB! (thank you @yeoli​ for letting me know!)

I hope this helped! If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message and I’ll try my best to answer them.

[theultravioletalliance]

A Closeted Bi's Guide to Being Out Online

When I was just coming out, I did so in a very isolated space. I was living away from home for the first time, my only roommate for the semester had her own bedroom and didn’t really talk much to me, and I was pulling away from my closest friends because of my depression. I knew I didn’t have a community of people around me who were ready to welcome me, but I knew I needed one and I knew I could find one online.

The only problem was that I wasn’t ready yet to be visible yet and the last time I had tried to make a secret account online, I was discovered almost immediately. I had to make sure this time would be different, or I wouldn’t be able to feel safe. Below are the steps I took to make sure my IRL acquaintances wouldn’t be able to find me.

(Obviously you can pick and choose which of these steps will work for you and which ones might be overkill for your particular situation, but this is what I did to keep my overbearing, super-strict parents from discovering my sexuality without my consent.)

Open a new email account (I use gmail, more on that later). Make sure the email doesn’t have your name, birth year, nickname, or anything else in it that people you know IRL could connect to you. Don’t connect it to your current email or phone number. No photos of you. (This is important because you don’t want anyone with your old contact info to see your new account as someone in their contact list. Why every app seems to think you’d automatically want people with your email address to follow your twitter is beyond me.)

Get a second number through an app. I use my new gmail account and just add a google voice number, thus why I suggested it. Only use that number for the email and social media accounts you want to make for your “queer accounts”. ((If you want to use twitter, this step is important because they make you add a phone number shortly after you start tweeting to verify your identity as a non-robot human.)) Turn off notifications for this app to avoid anyone seeing anything!

Use your new contact info to make your queer accounts! Use your preferred name (preferably something new to you), add your pronouns (yes, even if you’re cis! support your trans fam!), and your sexual orientation in your bio. Get used to the idea of owning and loving your identity, but keep in mind that you can change it as you see fit. Just do what feels right now and don’t worry about having to stick to it later if you don’t want to.

Remember, steer clear of info your IRL people might know. Use a fake birthday (I usually pick halloween lol) if you add one at all and don’t use pictures of yourself, your room, your house, your car, your pets, your friends, or anything else that might give it away until you’re ready for the possibility of being outed.

Make sure you don’t tell detailed stories of your life in case you’re spotted. Change everyone’s names if you tell a story about your real life, don’t talk about which city or town you live in, don’t add pictures of your house/car/etc., just keep everything extremely vague for your own protection. Your online friends will most likely not question it, but they will understand if you ever explain.

DON’T FOLLOW YOUR FRIENDS. I did this once and instagram suggested my queer account to my friends because I used it to follow my main account and my IRL acquaintances! One of my closest friends checked out my queer account and asked if it was mine because of the accounts I followed, my speech patterns, and my posting habits. It isn’t worth it! Also try not to follow all the same verified accounts as your main. Pick the accounts with a more universal appeal and a wider audience than your favorite op-ed writer, then leave out the rest.

Follow new topics and people you think are funny and aspirational and cool. Find people who discuss topics you like and get that content on your tl so you can learn more about it! Then find the people your new people follow and check those people out too.

Don’t be afraid to occasionally comment on people’s posts. Leaving comments as your truest self is liberating, and being seen doesn’t hurt either. (The feeling I got the first time I started a thought with the words “as a bisexual” was euphoric. Highly recommend it.) Cultivate a rapport with people you like who care about people and think critically--maybe you’ll even become internet friends! Don’t harass them, though. The line between friendship and harassment is easy to miss when you’re not looking for it.

Listen, listen, listen! Learn everything you can. Try to find multiple perspectives on a topic before you jump in with your opinion. The issue might be deeper than you know. Utilize google to help you define terms you don’t know or find news stories people are discussing rather than asking for second or third-hand takes on a given issue.

Engage, engage, engage! If google doesn’t or can’t help, ask questions. People like to engage with one another, so as long as you’re as informed and polite as possible, you don’t need to worry about hurting someone’s feelings! And if you do, they can easily let you know so you don’t make the same mistake later. (Pro-tip: always assume the people you’re engaging with are smart until they prove you wrong, but also don’t believe everything you read because the internet.)

Turn off all notifications for your queer accounts. It only takes one glance at your screen to find something that could out you. Don’t let this simple slip-up hurt you if you think you might be at risk for snooping.

Lock your phone! If you have family and friends who don’t understand boundaries, this could save your tail. Make the passcode as weird as you want or whatever, just also maybe memorize it as number too if you ever need to tell someone you trust what the code is. (Sometimes you want to let your brother change the song while you’re driving, but can’t figure out how to tell him your passcode spells out the name of Lesbian Jesus--which is valid.)

Don’t let people use your phone without your permission and supervision. All it takes is a few seconds to open an app and find something incriminating.

If the app you’re using has a way for you to save posts without downloading them, do that! Bookmark, pin, send the post to your main as a DM, whatever you have to do, just don’t download them if you share a cloud with someone or have nosy friends. Screenshots are not safe from snoops (and they’ll be the first to tell you that).

That’s basically it. Do you have any suggestions of your own that might be helpful to other queer people looking to stay safe online? Share them below!

Stay safe and have a Happy Pride!

-Rev Gaia

[nibscribs]

So uhhhh I drew a lot of RWBY this year... only two of these are non RWBY and tbh I could have just as easily put something RWBY for June Template

Retrospective under the cut bc it’s LONG 

RETROSPECTIVE January: First piece of the year! I still like this piece and I think it shows how much I improved from the original version of it. Also I just like looking at it bc it's soft content of my rare pair. I do think I made the rose look photorealistic which looks... bad esp with all the other more stylized flowers, and I got lazy with the bleeding hearts by just drawing one set and flipping them. Emerald's hair also could look better. February:  I made this around GNG week, which was a fun, good time, long before the server imploded on itself. I got really lazy with the backgrounds, obviously, but I do like the poses in this one, tho it helped that I based it off of screenshots from Young Justice. I also just really like how Merc looks in this one. March: March wasn't a very prolific month for art, I don't think I produced much besides this and one comic piece for GNG week. I'm not sure why exactly, I can't find any specific reason why I would be unproductive that month. I'm gonna just assume I was drained from work all the time and didn't have the energy to put out good art, and also I was getting into a slump bc all my art was starting to look same-y. This piece isn't very good, but I chose it because I did it without a reference, and at this point that was going out of my comfort zone. It's obviously not super dynamic, but at the very least you can tell I intended there to be motion to it. April: This also wasn't a very prolific month for art, not as bad as March, but for the same reasons. I was also really starting to feel burnout from the RWBY fandom, specifically wasps and conflict within the GNG server. This was also when the Art vs the Artist meme was popular, and I realized I didn't want to do that meme because my art was too similar and boring, which also brought me down a peg. Though I put out a few good chibis in April, I chose my Mercury redesign bc I was really proud of it. I could never get the Emerald redesign to mesh quite right, but I can say I'm really proud of how Mercury's came out. May: May had me bounce out of my art slump and in full force trying to expand my skills! Specifically exploring painting. Although May was about as prolific as April, what I did create I put a lot into. It was difficult to pick between this and my app of Edison, because I'm really proud of both, but in the end I went with this commission of Mercury because I pushed myself to try and use an interesting perspective for the piece instead of my usual stand still and face the camera pose. Because I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, this was one of the best things I made all year, and may be my favorite piece of the year. June: TIME TO STRESS OUT ABOUT CONNECTICON! So if you follow me on twitter, you might have noticed I made a lot of posts at the beginning of the year low key throwing shade at myself for drawing my oc's instead of more "important" art. Well, that important art that I was procrastinating was con merch, and con was the second week of July, so I really had to get my ass in gear to finish merch on time (spoiler, I didn't finish a lot of it on time). This piece and July's piece are both posters I made for Connecticon, and while I like July's much better, that doesn't mean I find this piece bad. I really should have known that no one at con would realize it was a goonies reference tho -_-; I also lost a lot of love for this piece after season 6 of Voltron, which I watched while I was about 60% of the way through this piece, so I had to force myself to finish it. July: I love this piece!!!! Don't get me wrong, I know it has flaws, but look at it! The lines are so crisp, the colors look good, Roman and Merc's expressions are mwuah chefs kiss, and I just love all of them!!! ... except for Neo. I really didn't do her justice in this piece, her hair is too fluffy, her head is way to oversized to the point that she looks like a bobblehead, and her eyes are too close together. Really if you take out Neo's head that whole problem goes away. I also love all the tiny details I put in this one, from emerald's chaps to roman's rose to Neo's lace parasol. You can tell I was way more passionate about this piece than I was about the Voltron piece.  August:  pretty sure this is when I quit my job cashiering, and thank god bc customers suck. If I was going off of sheer popularity, Chibi Pyrrha would have taken this slot no contest, and while I love chibi Pyrrha, I don't think it was the best of the month. I chose this little princess and the pauper au doodle because I tried a year ago to draw these two dancing, and it looked like dog shit. It was flat and ugly. But this has motion to it, and even looking at it now makes me feel warm and happy inside. It's just a good cute drawing of my otp. September: My piece for the RWBY tarot project! I have a lot of mixed emotions about this one. on the one hand, I love how mercury looks, his expression, the lighting, the visceral gore from his legs (ESPECIALLY THE VISCERAL GORE ON HIS LEGS) and the hands of the undead, all look stunning and I don't think I could be more happy with how they turned out. And then we get to the background. The caduceus isn't the worst thing ever, but it's severely lacking in quality compared to the rendering on mercury in front of it, and a lot of it is clearly pixellated from me trying to stretch and squash it just right. And the fire is a hot (no pun intended) mess. It's flat, incoherent, and doesn't lead the eye anywhere. It's a shame too because I wanted to do more with it, but I a) didn't have enough time or patience to figure out what I needed to do to fix it and b) didn't want to go outside of my comfort level, so I gave up and decided to be satisfied with what I had. October: October was another good month for art, I made a turnaround sheet for Moss, painted a full body (and slightly lewd) Rudy, and made a decent attempt at inktober. Ok, so I got like 2 days in, but I improved a lot on inking from last year! Fun fact! this piece was originally going to be fan art of Lindsay Jones, but after I did some thumbnails to figure out a pose, I thought it would suit White Diamond better, and I could also sell it as merch. I love this piece. I think I captured the sinister mood well, and conveyed the story I wanted to without any dialogue (at least the notes on Tumblr make me assume I did a decent job, lotta people really wigged out lol) I really worked hard to get the lighting right on this one, and I think it shows. My absolutely favorite thing about this piece funnily enough, is Amethyst. I think I just did a great job drawing her and I'm proud of myself ok. Stevens bubble and my trouble figuring out how to get WD's leg just right are the only things that I dislike about this piece, but I might go back and fix those. November: IM SO PROUD OF THIS COMMISSION!!!!!! I worked so god damn hard on this chef's kiss poifect,  and it really shows. I started using a new brush at this point, the Ojing series on Clip Studio Paint, which I recommend and have been using a lot since. I've also been using this shading technique since drawing this. I love how it sort of fades out but it's still really crisp. I also love all the little details that give this piece character, like her shoes and the stripes on her jacket. This piece really takes a lot of the stuff I learned over the year and combines it into one piece, and I could not be prouder of it. I have absolutely no problems with this one, though I do find the weapon a bit plain, but it's what the client described. December: AND NOW IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!! I had been working on this piece since August, going back to it every now and then and getting frustrated. I'm really glad I came back to it and finally finished it, since I love this pair and I put a lot of effort into it back in August. However, I'm also really glad I completely overhauled a lot of it, specifically the flowers. Though I'm not 100% happy with the mums in this one, they look a thousand times better than the mums I had originally sketched back in August, and were part of the reason I had such a hard time finishing this for months. I also thought it would be nice to end the year on the same note it started; with a flower couple. I've definitely learned a lot since January, and I hope to continue growing in 2019! 2019 GOALS!

Work on backgrounds for the love of god

Draw more stuff that isn't RWBY

Perspective

Make more speed paints and post more to youtube in general

[moonanagames]

(sorry if this was answered before) As someone who managed to (very succesfully) go through a crowdfunding campaign, do you have any tips for other indie game devs who would also need to fund their game this way?

This will be gigantic, I am sorry =|

Tips for a successful Crowdfunding Campaign ahead:

For a crowdfunding campaign the game has to initially have this good proposal/be good looking or interesting in the first glance. That will make the difference between people getting interested by your thumbnail or not (and even make the difference on #screenshotsaturdays and such). I know it is a bit disheartening to hear this, but crowdfunding campaigns are basically a very hardcore marketing mode (and honestly, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who want to keep their sanity, I think it is a very desperate measure for desperate times, I had a REALLY hard time doing it, but it was really fun and challenging and I grew up a lot out of this experience). Basically it has a lot of downsides, and its brightsides! :3

If you do have an interesting game, it will be probably easy to gather the people interested in it! Some people take up to 1 year to gather a fandom before the crowdfunding campaign. I took about, uh… 6 months! At first I wasn’t thinking about this at all, so I was just randomly posting. Since the game got a good fanbase at start I thought it should be a good idea (also the pressure of bills, lol)

So basically, for starters:

Have an interesting concept and good looking game who works well with gifs/screenshots, have good promotional art.

Build a fanbase, some people take a year at that before the campaign.

Building the Fanbase:

Create a twitter, tumblr, instagram, facebook, IndieDb, Tigsource, accounts in specific forums for your engine, reddit. Whatever suits your game, go there. But focus on the social media your game gathers more fanbase on. For VvtZ that should be Tumblr! For a lot of games it’s twitter or even Instagram. Respect the way each media works also, there’s different mindset for each media, since they gather different kinds of people. Instagram is still a mystery for me, for example. Facebook, pffft… I don’t even know. So don’t get desperate if you have no followers in one of those.

Cultivating the Fanbase:

The Fanbase is the most important aspect of something like this, because you are essentially asking for people’s moneys and they should trust your work for that. You do that by having a demo of your game, by building a good relationship with them (that can be really hard if you don’t feel comfortable around people, and can be really nerve wrecking, so don’t push yourself too much, you can always trust a publisher for that as well!). The good relationship basically comes from you considering people as friends and treating them as, oh well… People? I see a lot of articles on those, and they basically teach you to treat people in this strategical way, like they are robots and stuff, but it’s just easier to treat everyone as people xD In that way, you can really engage with everyone and respect their space, without being annoying. I also try to remember everyone who follows by their avatars (when people change avatars is hell), and I always get excited when someone who likes a lot of posts reblogs and stuff. I also try to welcome them to the blog, sometimes I forget, but when I remember I show them the discord server etc, where we can talk more easily.

It’s basically like how in the first day of school, or work, you don’t know anyone and you try to engage. It’s hard, but once you mingle with people you’ll see they’re not that frightening. (and if you really feel anxious around them, I recommend getting a publisher to handle this job! They like people and a good publisher can really help a game out :0)

(the discord server should be created after you have some fanbase on social medias)

Contacting media:

It’s important to contact media, but you can do that directly on Indiedb. Every time you have news on your game, you go on Indiedb and upload your game page. Media check IndieDb all the time, so that’s great! If you can attend events, go on those. It’s the easiest way to be covered. Try posting on IndieDb on the week days, because that’s when journalists work. The crowdfunding campaign date should start in a weekday and end in a weekday also due to that.

Some tips on media:

Gather emails of journalists who talk about the genre of your game or similar games. Don’t contact just any journalist around, they’ll ignore you. Try to focus on the ones that are interested in your genre.

Siliconera, Alpha Beta Gamer and One Angry Gamer are the sites that were more indie friendly in my experience.

Post on IndieDb at every new big announcement. (I didn’t do this, but it’s extremely recommended)

Don’t harass journalists. Send emails only when you have big announcements. The subject should be the name of the news, like “Name of the game is getting a new boss mode inspired by Popular game”. This is the kinda thing that interests journalists, because they want to awe the reader. The content should be the text you would like on the news, with some introductions for your game! You should have a nice pitch for that. Just search on google stuff like “How to make a good pitch for my game” that you’ll find a large number of useful articles! (To be honest, I never sent an email to journalists and was answered, but a lot of people do it and they get news on their games!)

Pc gamer holds something called “Indie Gif Showcase”, it’s worth to give it a try.

Kickstarter, Indiegogo or Fig.co?

Kickstarter: Excelent outreach, people visit kickstarter every day, more chances of being covered by journalists, the most known platform, they use Stripe Atlas which is a extremely secure form of payment online for the developer and the users. They only accept some countries tho, there’s a list on their website. You can still use the website even out of those accepted countries if you have a stripe account and a US company. You can check that on Stripe Atlas website! (it is really complicated, tho, you should be way more experienced to do this kinda stuff)

Indiegogo: Less outreach, people see it as a scammers platform because of some problems they had with some campaigns in the past (it is not, it’s just a normal crowdfunding site). Used to accept paypal, but not anymore. Accept all the countries Kickstarter doesn’t.

Fig.co: The newest platform and the less known of the 3. It is curated, meaning they chose their games. You can send a pitch to them through their site. They act as publishers and help you out throughout all the process of developing your campaign content and marketing strategies. They work personally with each developer and campaign. They also offer PR services, like contacting journalists for you. They also have a double mode campaign, you can have a normal rewards campaign and also a investments one, where investors invest on your game and get a portion of it upon release.

Last tips:

Post a lot on your social medias;

Connect with your fandom also through discord;

Be honest with them in all of the development process;

Have a demo up on first week of the campaign;

Have a nice looking campaign page explaining everything that is interesting and unique about your game; search for successful campaigns of the same genre as yours to get to know what kind of information they put up there, it’s really helpful;

Also don’t disconsider unsuccessful campaigns and try to find out WHY they failed in the first place. Often it has to do with how their page was presented.

Care about people’s times and mind that when writing on your Campaign Page. Don’t give useless information there;

Weekly updates during campaign’s period. One time a month when campaign is over (or two max);

[zzpopzz]

Really long rant about how I made Vanilla Twilight, I typed it at 2am so it’s kinda crappy and boring, just skip through this post.

So I'd been thinking about it for a long time now, even before finishing Vanilla Twilight that I'd talk about it if someone asked, well that never happened so I was just thinking that I'd let it go but that post is so important to me so well fuck it I'll just talk about it anyway. I did it completely on a wimp like how cool would it be if I make a lyricstuck for Toumaki like I'd be the first (if anyone did this before me im sorry). The first song I intended to do wasn't VT, it was a much shorter and easier song. I saw the music video first time after a while and the lyrics gave me some scenes to draw right away, like the tones, the atmosphere, the lyrics all fit them very well, made me wanted to draw something happy but sad. The ending for it was a happy one instead of a sad one like other songs I did (I didn't post the ending for any of them, just let the viewers decide what it's gonna be) I was very scared like what if it won't turn out ok and people gonna hate me for it or no one even gonna look at it. Also what I visualized are mostly illustrations with backgrounds, what I never done before so high chance it won't go anywhere. I thought well let's just see how far will I get and won't talk about it at all until I post it so at least I won't be all barks no bite. I was very traumatized that someone might know about what I did so I locked all the files when I shut down my PC in case someone hack into it lmao. I started with making a storyboard(kinda) for it, this is where I first got trouble because there was some part I didn't think of when I visualized what I'd draw at first ( 'I don't feel so alone' part mostly and some in between) and it's only at this point that I realized how many I'd have to draw (over 40 images total) and it's mind blowing for someone who rarely finish a painting like me at that time, that number is more than what I'd draw in a year. VT doesn't have choruses that meant I can't do tricks like repeat some panels (I don't like this anyway). I usually painted on small canvas before that but I wanna make sure I can fix things later and some idea I had was pretty big so I used 3000x5000px canvas then trimmed them down ( I didn't know how big it was and it's huge). The idea was to make a tumblr scroll-post like a lyricstuck (my favorites are by paperseverywhere and toastyhat/emptyfeet , they made really cool tutorials about these) so I tried to drew out compositions that would look good scrolling down panel by panel and have some connections between them (this didn't turn out so good in the end because I wasn't good lol) Since I was scared that people might point out that I draw something wrong, it took me almost a week or something searching for references (check my pinterest board) like the streets, sky, houses, roads, outfits, poses,... I was going to draw. I got some knowledge about bikes by this too, like I can tell the differences between road bike, mtb, touring bikes,... I also see and captured bunches of screenshots and reread ywpd trivia countless time to make sure I won't get anything wrong. If you take notice, every outfit Toumaki wear in there are all canon, from anime or promos. The first few panels was really exciting because I had never painted so many with backgrounds before, I was really happy when I almost finished the first verse even compared to the full 3:50 of the song it was only 20 seconds and I thought maybe I can pull this after all. The last panel was intended to be Makichan standing infront of his house looking at the sky but I wanted to show the sky at the end of the panel and that wouldn't work on scroll-down post so I had to leave it for later, I repainted this panel for about 3 times and finished it just 30' before posting. The first panel of the second verse wasn't turning out alright too because that was my first time doing a 3 points perspective drawing and the colors didn't turn out as I wanted either (my intention was a green/gold dawn scene). Things kinda worked well despite that until the scene when Toudou sits in his ink, gdi I didn't know why I was so caught up in that and painted every piece of that wooden floor, it took me almost a week but turned out better than I expected so I was ok with it. I was going to make sketchy paintings for all of the panel but I did too much details on that one so it gave me the impression that I'll have to do just as much for every others. Now I still had school to go and that semester my uni got me pretty crappy schedule that made me have to wait for classes at school frequently, I was frustrated because I didn't get to paint during that time and I might finish it too late (even though I didn't set a deadline) and when I got home I just spent so much time checking twitter and just can't pick myself up to draw and ended up feeling shitty about it. *Side story*  I was so mad because I didn't get anything done and there's still more than half of the whole thing to do and the worst part is that I had no one that I can talk to because I didn't have any friend who ship Toumaki and I also don't want to publicly talk about what I was doing, I wanted to surprise people when I'm done, I didn't wanna give people the expectation then screw it up (I literally thought I'd drop a bomb not a grenade lmao) I can't remember how long was that shitty phase but I felt like it was so long, I barely finished verse 2 at that point. I was so mad at myself and my progress so I spent a few days to look at time management threads and this helped a lot, I changed my habits completely  by this and I still apply those methods now, like I used to stay up til 3am to read fics (bless you writers you fueled me with your writings bless you all) then I switch to bed before 12 and get up early for a good start or reduce working time while increasing quality* After that I kinda got things together,I just went ahead with painting tho it's still kinda tiring, I had to work on 5 essays during this time too. At this point I was like screw all, I give no shit about what everyone thinks I'm just gonna finish this and get some good nap (I practiced power nap to get more focus time for painting but dude everyone wants a good long nap) 10 days before uploading I found out that there's a Toumaki day (I'm so sorry), I was going to posted on the first sunday of June (I did researched on which was the best time to post on social medias so I randomly picked a sunday) and Toumaki day is the last sunday of May, that meant I had 10 days left and 15 panels to paint! I was going to ignore that but I already made it big I should make it right too so I shit my pants going through those last panels. I purposely hiding Toudou's face till the last verse to emphasize the feelz and got so relieved that I finally got to paint him (I read some tags that some viewers got emotional at this part so I'm so glad it worked). The whole things was put under Makichan's perspective so I was so sick of painting him at that point, he showed up in every panel and I can't paint him ugly because he's beautiful (especially his hair, I spent shitload of time painting them). I can talk lots about why I picked to do so but that's headcanon shit and it's embarrassing so let's just skip that. The last day I had only 3 panels left and I was hell confident that I've got this and somehow spent the whole evening rewatch Toumaki pingpong ep (end me). Of course that didn't end well, I managed to finish those by midnight but I still had like 3 panels that needed  repaint completely and all 43 needed retouch and edits. My plan was to post at 9am sunday (thats 9pm saturday est) so I had to get up at 5am and finish all that, I ended up cutting down 2 panels and simplified the instrumental panel (some tags said that was nice so I was at least relieved). Unlike other songs I did, the length of every line's quite different and the original sizes I did would make viewers have to scroll slower or faster at different parts. I didn't plan this beforehand and had to trim down some panels even the parts that I really liked and spent lots of time on. I also found out that people outside the homestuck fandom might not familiar with this type of post so I made a video too (I’m sorry I have zero skill in editing). After posting I was terrified of people's reactions or worse, there won't be any reaction so I turned everything off and went to sleep and woke up with an unimaginable number of notes I'd got, I set the target of 500 notes and I really didn't think that I'd get past that number like maybe 2-300 (well my other songs didnt even get 200), at the end I got 5000. I spent the next week reading and screencap tags given in reblogs, I put them on desktop and they're still my motivation til now. Vanilla Twilight is the thing I'm proud of the most even until now, when I've done other songs and projects that look somewhat better. If I have to recommend one thing on my blog I'd recommend it despite its' unskilled paneling, poor composition and muddy colors. It was the first time in my life that I'd put so much effort into something and went through such emotional roller coaster, the feelings I put into it was raw and the idea was very original compared to other songs, I improved and changed a lot during the 2 months I spent on it and never once regret doing it. ***Anyway, you sure have much free time to read it this far, here's a little game for you: I put random things in VT and HF like some characters/stuff from other series, my ocs,... (there wasn't anything purposeless in there even the logo on their cups or the bags they wear) just send me anything you find and I'll draw you something in return**

[adurnah]

Two days in Numazu (Love Live Sunshine real life setting): a report

Heya! I know I haven’t used my Tumblr in ages, but I didn’t know where else to put this so here I am.

So, I’ve been to Japan for two weeks in late February and I managed to spent two days (Sun 19th and Mon 20th) in Numazu and Uchiura, the places where all of Love Live Sunshine is set. It was an incredible experience, so I’ve wanted to write a report both for me to remember it but also to show other people the place. I can’t believe I procrastinated two months in this

From Kyoto (where we were before this) we arrived at Numazu on Sunday morning at around 8am, by night bus. This is Numazu Station, featured a lot of times in the anime. We’ve been really lucky and had a wonderful weather! at least for one day

After going to check-in to our hotel (if you’re interested in going, I really recommend you Sanco Inn Numazu Ekimae, it’s super close to the station and the staff knows English pretty well), we came back to catch the bus for Uchiura.

Right in front of the station there’s a collaboration cafè, Yudai Festa Sun! Sun! Sunshine Cafè. We went there later for dinner.

This is the bus stop to Uchiura. You’ll see Love Live is literally everywhere here. Unfortunately I already knew we had no chance to catch the LLSS collaboration bus if we didn’t want to waste time (the first was at around 11am iirc)

While we were waiting there for the bus, another bus arrived and a girl next to us asked us “Where are you going?” so I said “Izu Mito Sea Paradise” (since it’s the most known attraction from Uchiura and it was actually our first stop), and she said that that other bus that arrived was going there too. So we took that bus.

Random photo of the scenery from the bus.

Comes out, that bus wasn’t going to Izu Mito. I don’t know what happened, if she didn’t understood what I said or she was just wrong, but at some point on the road to Uchiura the bus changed direction. I kept looking where the f- we were going on my phone, and comes out we were going to the near city of Izu-Nagaoka. I tried asking to the driver if the bus was going to Izu Mito Sea Paradise (maybe taking a longer route) but he said “No, *something else I didn’t caught* Sea Paradise”. IDK. In the end I found with Google Maps that there was another bus going to Izu Mito from that area, so we dropped off the bus and waited for the other bus. 

The funny thing to all of this is that at that bus station in the middle of nowhere and far away from every LLSS location there was this:

No matter where you go, Love Live is there.

An old woman also asked us (in Japanese this time) where we were going and she confirmed that this bus was actually for Izu Mito and she was right this time. I got pleasantly surprised that people are so friendly there, even with weird gaijins like us.

This detour unfortunately cost us a lot of time, but in the end we managed to arrive to Izu Mito Sea Paradise! If you don’t know, this aquarium is the setting for the Koi ni Naritai AQUARIUM PV.

I forgot to take a photo outside This is the Show Stadium of the Aquarium, where most of the scenes in the KoiAQUA PV happen.

I loved this tank with sakura flowers inside.

I haven’t took a photo of the whole coloured jellyfish pool (where You is being emo in the PV) but I had a bit of fun photographing the single jellyfishes.

Shukas Otteeeeers so cute. I went to see them hundreds of time.

A dolphin came to say hi to us! o/

A nice view of Awashima Island and... Fuji-san being shy and hiding behind clouds.

Aqours images signed by the seiyuus. In front of this place is where you can see half of the aquarium’s audience are Love Livers, a lot of people came here to take photos of the posters. I loved the guy that posed next to Mari doing her “Lock on!” pose lol

Best grills and best seiyuus signatures

The aquarium shop has a literal aquarium with Aqours acrylic standees inside

YouChika under the sea and a fish staring at me

Aqours standees inside the aquarium shop.

The visit to the aquarium took us until midday, since we also saw the shows. After lunch, we went out and headed to our next stops.

First of all we stopped at the close Sannoura Tourist Center, aka the tourist center of the town. I tried periscoping inside of it so here’s a video: https://streamable.com/d5n33 (I can’t find a way to embed it sorry)

As you can see the place is FILLED with Love Live, it really is the main attraction there.

If I recall correctly this page in their signature book was signed by the seiyuus when they first came here in February 2016. I witnessed one of Rikyako’s best masterpieces with my own eyes I feel blessed.

After we looked around a bit the two staff members showed us a map of Japan where people put a round sticker for the place where they were from, and they also had spaces of overseas. For Europe iirc they had a space for UK, Germany and then “Other Europe” lel, so we put our sticker there. There were only 2 sticker on “Other Europe”, and I wondered who they were... comes out it was my friend and her boyfriend who come here in December :’D Not a lot of people are as crazy as us uh better for them

After this the staff girl asked us if the wanted to write a post-it with cheers for the seiyuus for their First Live. After I wrote mine, she took it, looked at it and asked “Yousoro?” (since I wrote it in blue and added an anchor), I said yes and then she disappeared for a bit and came back with two You keychains as a present for me WTF I was almost crying as I thanked her, so kind!! They also gave some Chika goods to my friend, I was speechless. As if it wasn’t enough, while we were going out the staff guy stopped us and gave us one of their big posters??

Like seriously WTF. Are they really so happy to see tourists?

I feel sorry that they also tried to make some conversation with me but unfortunately I’m still a beginner in Japanese and they didn’t know a lot of English ;; They managed to ask me if we were going to see some locations and I said that in fact we’ve already been to Izu Mito. They were so happy ;;

Another nice thing I didn’t expected is that outside of the Tourist Center we found a few itashas. Not comparable to the one you can see in UDX in Akiba but they were nice!

This one was very well made, except for the fact that one side was wrongly mirrored lol

This guy has good tastes.

We left the Tourist Center in the direction of the school. This is the place where Mari falls while running, in fact, to the school to meet Kanan.

A bit ahead we found this groceries shop called “Oh! Mos” that sells mikans and specifically the Jyutaro x LLSS mikans, and also has this big Aqours shrine. I told ya LL there is really everywhere.

Fun fact: Suwawa, Rikyako and Anchan went in this shop a few weeks later, when they were there for their DIVER photoshoot, and left a signature (that’s the shop twitter account).

We took a bag of mikans and when we went to the counter to pay, the old woman pointed at Chika’s image in the bag and said “anime?” to us, lol. When we said yes (?) she showed us that they even have the cardboard box of mikan, the megaphone and the sign that Chika uses in episode 1 to gather people for her school idol club, lol. SUKURU AIDORU BU DEEESU. My friend took a pic with them

Btw, mikans are really good.

Moving on, we went to the place where the girls (try to) shoot a PV in episode 6. The place is called “Nagahama Castle Ruins” but there really isn’t much except for a really nice view.

Actually, I had printed a lot of these postcards with anime screenshots to take this kind of photos, but unfortunately I realized taking a good shot takes a lot of time and effort, plus the wind was not helping me. In the end I gave up and took really a few of these. I still have all of them so maybe I’ll try again if I manage to go back in August.

If you turn back you can already see the school!

My friend took a panorama of the bay.

Moving on to the next stop: the little shrine where Kanan ends her morning run and dances under the stalkers other girls’ eyes.

I saw a lot of people thinking that the shrine where Kanan dances is the same as the one in episode 4 to where Ruby and the seconds year run, but it’s not: that one is in Awashima Island and it would have required Kanan to take the boat from where she starts her run. In fact it’s this one, a bit before the school. There were two other Love Livers there taking photos.

After this we finally got to the school bus stop! Featured in the ending, as well as in episode 1 when You joins the school idol club.

I failed this photo on so many levels.

Going up the hill to the school, such a nice scenery.

And here it is! Uranohoshi Girls Highschool is in real life a middle school called Nagaisaki. It was Sunday afternoon so no one was around, except for the gym where we could hear some people inside.

After this we walked all the way back to Izu Mito and beyond to see the other locations, like...

Yasudaya ryokan, aka Chika’s house!

And right in front of it, the beach featured in the very first LLSS image, as well as the scene in episode 1 where Chika and Riko talk. Someone already wrote Aqours on the sand.

And the pier when Riko tries to kill herself jump in the water.

Early blooming sakura.

Last one I tried to take. Kimi no kokoro wa kagayaiterukai?

Shougetsu Cafè! aka the place were a CYaRon radio drama is set, and also were the 2nd years seiyuus went during their Teku Teku. Of course we went to grab some mikan dorayaki! They are super good. I even bought mikan jam, but I still have to open it.

Photos and signatures of the seiyuus.

We were so lucky we even found the LLSS kitchen car! I bought the You Noppo keychain.

Unfortunately, at this point my organization failed me. We wanted to go to Awashima Island, but I got wrong the place where the boat docks. I thought it was in front of Shougetsu, where there actually is some kind of port, but it wasn’t. We lost time looking around and on the web (how come that the Awashima Marine Park website doesn’t say where the boat docks?!), then tried to ask to the girls in the kitchen car who managed to explain to me it was 20 minutes by feet to get there. Unfortunately it was already kinda late, and since we didn’t want to rush it we decided to go back to Numazu. While riding the bus I saw the bus stop “Awashima” and the docks. If only we had take the right bus in the morning I would’ve know. Too bad.

Even if we didn’t rode the LLSS collaboration bus there was still some Love Live on board. Someone likes OmoiNare ships here.

At Numazu station we finally grabbed some Noppo Pan! I bought the LLSS (caramel) flavoured one this time, and later I tried the strawberry chocolate too. In the same shop in the station I also bought some really good mikan cookies.

Going around Numazu by night. This shopping district appears in episode 6, and it also contains Maru-san (Maru’s favorite bookstore) and the cafè used as a background for Guilty Kiss first illustration

Obligatory visit to Numazu Gamers, or Numazu’s Little Demon shop.

Inside the shop.

Going to the collabo cafè for dinner! They have this fake UraGirls bus stop sign which actually resembles the real one (including the timetable)

I got the full You menu: Youkisoba (I even got the appropriate coaster), You’s drink and You’s Magic Tea (it’s a butterfly pea tea, it’s blue but when you put lemon in it it becomes purple). I really liked it tbh to be just a collabo cafè (not famous for the quality of their meals...)

And this concludes our first day in Numazu.

The next day we decided to do just a short visit to Numazu, since going back to Uchiura just to go to Awashima Island was too expensive.

Nakamise again.

We went to see Yoshiko’s house, a building called Natty Numazu. At the first floor of the building, on the other side, there’s a watch shop that even has some LLSS merch, and when the shopkeeper saw us looking at it they made us enter and sign their Yoshiko signature book lol

This tiny temple is right next to the alley where Yoshiko is seen in the last scene of episode 5 (before starting running away from the others).

Of course since You is best grill I couldn’t miss this place: You’s house! Which is not a house but a Western-style cafè called Orandakan.

Just from outside you can’t be wrong this is the place.

Their You shrine from inside.

When we entered an old lady came to us and made us seat. She tried failed a bit to talk in English and brought us their signature book (I swear every single place has signature books there). My friends told me she also said “Welcome to You’s house” but unfortunately I didn’t catch it.

Their menu is only in Japanese but luckily since the teas are all in katakana and the cakes had pictures we managed to order something.

Not bad but tbh kinda pricey, I paid 1010 yen for a tea and a piece of cake... but it was at You’s house! So it’s ok.

Our message in the signature book, I did the writing and my friend did the drawing.

Moving along Yoshiko’s escape route, we passed next to Numazu Deep Sea Aquarium (where the first years go in their KoiAQUA radio drama, aka the shiirakansu aquarium) and Numazu Hamburger & Cafè, where the first years also came for their Teku Teku.

I took a photo of this sign and not of the place, how fail I am.

We finally arrived at Byou (which I discovered actually means View-O), the water gate/observatory where Yoshiko finally stops running and also where You and Mari go talk in episode 11. Going up only costs 100 yen but due to some circumstances we decided not to go. The weather got bad in any case so we wouldn’t have seen anything anyway.

And this concludes our trip around Numazu, and is also where we suddenly started having incredible bad luck.

The weather was getting worse and worse, with strong wind and rain. On our travel back to Tokyo we wanted to make some stops: at Atami to visit the Plum Garden since the plums were in full blooms, at Nebukawa station (the station of feels in the anime), and Kozu station (the beach of feels- yes, they’re in different places). After riding the train we already decided that we would miss Atami, the weather was too bad to enjoy a garden. We could still stop at Nebukawa and Kozu, I mean, we just have to stop and take some photos, it can’t be that bad, right?

Wrong. The wind was so strong we were basically flying away, I’ve never seen something like this. We run inside the station and I only managed to take these photos.

Being the wind so strong we decided not to stop in Kozu, since it would’ve been a pain with our luggages and everything. But, after arriving at that exact station, the train stopped. We heard a lot of messages but we couldn’t understand them. We checked online and discovered that all trains in the Tokaido line were suppressed due to strong winds. And we were in Kozu. But we couldn’t go down. I couldn’t believe our bad luck, lol. The train stayed there for three (THREE) hours before leaving, and even then it was going slow and occasionally stopping, making our travel from Numazu to Tokyo 6 hours long instead of 2. But in the end we managed to arrive in Tokyo safe and sound.

Anyway, except for this last part, I really loved going to Numazu. It’s a bit of a struggle if you don’t know Japanese and it’s kinda expensive, but if you’re a Love Live fan it’s really really worthy. It’s not just “seeing” those places in real life, you can do that from photos... but being there, living like them, taking the same bus they take to school, eating mikans and Noppo pan... it’s an incredible experience. It makes it feels like everything is more real, even if it’s just an anime. I really hope I’ll be able to go back in August!

I want to give many many thanks to LuciaHunter for the LLSS Locations Google Map (link: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.3623197,139.0468361,10z/data=!4m2!6m1!1s1cL4tMTO0iVaz69hqK88wyetWkR8 )

and also u/MasterMirage and u/FliryVorru for their reddit posts, they all were a huge help in planning this!

This concludes my report of these two days in Numazu. If you really read this till the end thank you, hope you like it! And if anyone has any question feel free to ask!