#anyhow hope this helps!

[hamletshoeratio]

In season 4, I demand more Benedict and Hyacinth interactions. Gregory's off to school, Anthony and Kate are off to India, Eloise and Francesca are off to Scotland, the other two have married and moved out, so these two are the last ones under Violet's roof, I love what we've gotten of them but I need more bonding scenes. They're both hilarious and completely unhinged at times, I need more of this chaotic sibling duo.

[trashpandacraft]

@mor-and-more, this is for you. tumblr won't let me add video to reblogs and is being highkey uncooperative about this, so it's new post time.

many people who are fairly new to spinning are anxious about dropping their beautiful drop spindles.

first: honestly, you don't have to be. they're called drop spindles for a reason—because you drop them. it's going to drop sometimes; that's just the nature of the craft. it's ok. most of them are pretty sturdy.

second: if this is putting you off starting, try what i only half-jokingly call the no-drop method! it's pretty slow, so you're probably not going to want to do this forever, but you can use it to get to a place where you're comfortable enough that you're willing to try other things.

this is basically park and draft, but not a variation i've seen discussed much, so i made a video, featuring my cat, who really really really wants to help. there's a text version of this method after the video.

this is a no-audio situation (other than random background noise), so quick notes.

first and foremost, i'm holding the spindle between my feet, because that's what's comfortable for me and because i took this video around a tripod. there's no reason that you can't do this sitting on the sofa with the spindle between your knees, or with your legs crossed tailor-style and the spindle tucked into the fold of your knee, or whatever else makes sense for you.

the other thing is that i had to trim the video a little to fit on tumblr, which is why it ends abruptly. there are videos made by much more skilled videographers about how to do things like predraft, find the staple length, and draft while you spin, so i don't show any of that either (except incidentally), but if anyone's like 'no, i feel that having this from you, specifically, will make my life better,' let me know and i'll make another video. maybe without the cat. (maybe with more cat! who can say.)

text version, including some extra notes:

trap the spindle so it can't move, but you have easy access to it. (see list of suggested positions above.)

take your predrafted fibre and hook it onto your spindle. i like to basically fold a staple length in half and use that. once it's hooked, keep your hand there, holding the fibre so it stays folded around the spindle hook.

keeping the spindle trapped, twist it. you're just loosening your feet or knees or whatever enough that you can twist the stick.

twist will move into the fibre around the hook. hooray! your fibre is now attached to the spindle. twist a little more. keep pinching it at the top!

draft out a tiny bit more fibre, move your pinch up to the top of that, and let the twist move into the drafted fibre.

keep twisting, drafting out a little, letting the twist move up, and twisting some more. if the yarn looks like it's getting too loose, let the tension off of the yarn and keep twisting, then reapply the tension. a weird thing about twist is that it doesn't move well unless it's under tension. i really tried to show this in the video, and i failed. i will repeat attempts if anyone desires.

if you're not sure if you have enough twist, just move your fibre hand towards the spindle. if the yarn twists around itself, you're probably good. (i check that a lot in this video, because i never spin in this style recreationally, and i don't have good instincts for it.)

when you have an arm's length of yarn, wrap it onto your spindle. for the first time you do this, you'll want to hold the bottom of the yarn, right where it attaches to the hook, as well as the top of the yarn, right before you get to unspun fibre. just wrap it onto the shaft of the spindle. i sometimes find it useful to lay the first tiny bit of the yarn—again, the bit that was on the hook—parallel to the shaft, and then wrap over that, which helps make sure things are good and tight.

hook back onto the spindle and repeat.

you can do this as long as you want to, up to and including forever. it's sort of a hybrid style of spinning—not quite suspended spinning, not quite supported spinning, and not quite grasped/clasped spinning, but a collection of elements from all of them. you're making yarn! you're spinning!

that said, after you do this a few times, you may feel like it's a little unnecessarily fussy and slow. which is also totally fine. try loosening your grip on the spindle and giving it a little twirl. you don't have to let go entirely if you don't feel ready to, but loosen up enough that it'll spin, then clamp back down. you can see me doing this at the very end of the video. at this point, you're basically doing park and draft, and can go from there.

like i kinda implied at the start of this post, this is very far from the only way to approach learning to spin, but especially if you're anxious about damaging your spindle or (like me) hate unexpected noises, it might be one to consider.

[murdleandmarot]

@pinkieclown HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(This is their oc Oopsadaizee!!!)

There’s a right side up version under the cut :)))

[mechanismslorearchive]

heard some people say jonny is cononicaly omni? do you know where this is from?

This is from a twitch clip from Jonny’s streams! I don’t have the link at the moment, but someone asked him quite a while ago about the joke/discourse (brief pause as I am overcome with the specters of discourse past) regarding Jonny d’Ville being homophobic, based on the line in one of the fictions where he asks if Nastya is having one of her “queer orgies.”

Jonny said that he didn’t write that story, so he can’t say for sure what was intended with the line in question, but that d’Ville is, in his mind, omnisexual, and not homophobic. This makes it word-of-god canon, which of course depending on your approach to the text (the text in this case being the albums, fictions, social media posts, and other in-character, official sources) may or may not count as canon in the way that, say, Brookes from Pump Shanty (Bashful) being mlm does. But that’s where it comes from!

[bonefall]

I recognize a lot of ADHD symptoms in Nightheart too.

The thinking everyone hates him is a big thing, taking rejection harder than it should be,

You're right... the Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria... I am Nightheart's therapist and I am slapping him with so many mental illnesses.

[necrotic-nephilim]

any recommendations for where to start reading for jean-paul valley and luke fox? i rlly wanna know more abt them but i have no idea which comics to read first

hello anon! i have a ton of recommendations, i love Jean-Paul and Luke and they're both great characters to get into! Luke is pretty easy to get into, but Jean-Paul can be a little complicated so I'll start with him.

Jean-Paul Valley

so i'm going to start with this: *do not* start with *anything* to do with the New-52 when it comes to Azrael. though there are some plots where he plays a significant role, he's butchered to the point he's just not the character you actually want to read. also don't start with Azrael (2009), that is not Jean-Paul, it's a different guy entirely. the recs i would give are

Batman: Sword of Azrael - this is Jean-Paul's introduction and backstory, i would consider it required reading. it's a great sorry and pretty short!

Batman: Knightfall - so. this is what Jean-Paul is iconically known for, the arc where Bane breaks Bruce's back and Bruce gives the mantle of Jean-Paul for a bit. and because of the nature of Jean-Paul's psyche, he goes off the rails and is a brutally violent Batman who has to be rid of the mantle. this is a *long* event. there's Knightfall, Knightsend, and Knightquest. and tbh this isn't really the baseline for Jean-Paul's personality, this is him at his worst and most fragmented. so, if you *want* to skip it for now and come back to it, you can. while it's important for his development, it's not really his baseline and if the big storyline daunts you, just skip it.

Azrael (1995) - (note: at issue #47, the title changes to Azrael: Agent of the Bat. it is still the same ongoing, just switch over to that title) this is his main comic run that went on for about 100 issues. it's very good. because he's a main Batfamily character, his comic will crossover into any big Batman event like No Man's Land or Contagion. you *can* read those events when you get to them, but they're not required if you'd just like to stick to him for now.

Azrael Plus the Question - this is a one shot and tbh, you don't have to read it, it's really not necessary. but, i'm a fan of the Question so, this is my self-indulgent rec. it's a fun short story and i wish we got more of these two <3

Sword of Azrael (2022) - (note: if you are reading this as single issues, you should read Sword of Azrael: Dark Knight of the Soul, the one shot that leads up to this. if you pick this up as a trade, that one shot will be included) by *far* my favorite Azrael story. this is *such* a good mini-series, i cannot recommend it enough. it's the modern era/timeline, but it very beautiful handles Azrael's history as Batman and all of his guilt and builds the the next steps for his character. i wish i could recommend this as #1, but you should at least read Batman: Sword of Azrael before this. but do read this, it's everything.

Luke Fox

Luke is introduced in the New-52 and is one of the highlights of that era. but it is the New-52, so some of it isn't the greatest. he does go on to feature in a lot of Rebirth stories as well. he does appear here and there in Batman: Eternal, but he tends to be a side character who doesn't get much focus, so you can read that if you'd like, but expect a more ensemble cast.

Batwing (2011) - start from issue #19, that is where Luke picks up the mantle up until the series ends at #34. it's his introduction and a great run for him. (note this series is collected as a trade under the name Batwing: Luke Fox)

Batgirl (2011) - he appears beginning from issue #43 and is mostly present up until the end of the run. i don't really love this run, i hate what it does with Barbara, but it is some essential reading for Luke.

Detective Comics by James Tynion IV - this is where we cross over into Rebirth territory, Luke is an important player during Vol 2: the Victim Syndicate, Vol 3: The League of Shadows, Vol 4: Deus Ex Machina, and Vol 7: Batmen Eternal. and!! during Tynion's run, Luke and Jean-Paul have *significant* interactions because both appear heavily. they end up pretty close to the point in the Rebirth era, Luke is one of the people Jean-Paul is closest to in the Batfam. Tynion's run is pretty good so i would honestly recommend reading the whole thing, but you can skip around to just the issues where Jean-Paul and/or Luke are important players.

there is obviously more for both of these characters if you want to do a completionist run and read *everything*, but these are the places that are either most important or easiest to start with. happy reading anon, i hope this helped!

[heretodefyfate]

could i ask for Ace for sketch requests if that’s ok? if im not too late,,

"don't worry, little hero, i will always make times for you~"

[balmungkriemhild]

Everyone, please give a warm welcome to Yae Kiku! she's a Yae expy i designed for my friend @fnafvr :-] i based her off the white hare from Alice in Wonderland! you all better cheer and clap for her...

... or else.

(consider reblogging & donating to my Ko-fi, thank you!)

[mad-hunts]

i was joking about this with ramone, but honestly... i think there may be some validity to the idea of barton smoking weed only one time in his life and never doing it again because it made him feel so chill, that he freaked out ☠️ like 'is this what 'normal' people feel like? because i don't know how to feel about this, or if i like it' LMAO

[goldentigerfestival]

My preview for @livingwithsinzine, a zine to celebrate Crestoria's 4th anniversary! The zine will be free and available for download on July 16!

[jichanxo]

hobbs and joiner, who are @four-white-trees' ocs! these sure are some guys...

less clothed version under the cut (because i didn't go to all the effort of making all these layers to not show em)

[enigma-absolute]

-looking into the 39 Clues series via tvtropes and general browser searching-

it's beginning to look like LOST MEDIAAAAAAAA

[trashpandacraft]

ok, @craftychahuhu, this one's for you! but also for anyone else who might find it interesting. so we were talking about drafting fibre, and how to tell if it's hard to draft, and what it looks like when it's drafting well, and i was like, well, i have fibre and a camera, i can make this everyone's problem!

so: some fibre.

from the top left and going clockwise (ish):, the blue and yellow is rambouillet, the green is lonk, the dark blue is polwarth, the circle sort of in the middle is a merino/bond cross, the sausage is a rolag that i ended up not using in this but i'll talk about a little anyhow, and the dense white guy at the bottom left is corriedale.

let's talk about these fibres! i picked them for a couple reasons, but if i'm honest, the most pressing ones were that i had easy access to them and with the exception of the lonk, they're all fibres that i'd more or less group together into the 'very fine' category. no, they're not all identical, but for our purposes here, they're close enough. the lonk is a much coarser fibre, and it's here mostly to serve as a counterpoint to the rest—beginners are often pointed towards coarser fibres, and the lonk will make clear why that's the case!

(sidebar: if you have ideas about what i should do with the lonk, please feel free; i think i have about 300g and no specific plans.)

onward! let's talk about each of these individually.

blue and yellow rambouillet: this is commercial top that i dyed. i like rambouillet! it looks pretty ok! this fibre sucks.

green lonk: again, commercial top that i dyed. looks good. is actually good.

blue polwarth: wow, again, commercial top that i dyed. shocker. i love this and it's also actually good.

merino/bond circle: this is top that i processed from raw fleece and hand combed probably five minutes before i took this photo. again, it's good.

rolag: most people on tumblr are making rolags with blending boards and/or drum carders, and those are a very different beast to ones made on hand cards! handcarded ones are fluffy little sausages. i was going to show you this drafted out like i do the others, but honestly, rolags don't really draft like that. if there's a part two of this, i'll spin one to show the difference.

corrie: back to commercially processed top. it's also good.

because i wanted to show the difference between good fibre and bad fibre, i'm not actually spinning these, though i can do that if someone wants. instead, i'm predrafting them so that you can see how good fibre vs bad fibre looks.

i have to stress that this is a little subjective, but...uh, but it's my blog and i can talk about my opinions if i want.

more seriously, i've been spinning for over twenty years, and dyeing for probably ten of them, and i have a pretty good idea of what's reasonable to expect from fibre. that said, two things. first, i rarely predraft things, so what i'm doing in these videos isn't really part of my usual workflow. second, because of the limitations of my little tripod stand and the need for my hands to be in frame, i'm doing this in a very weird direction, so it's a little jerkier and less even than it would be under normal circumstances. i think it still conveys the point, though.

spare yourself the headphones—none of these videos have sound, because my neighbours who i hate are still doing fucking construction and the soundtrack to these is just like. clunking and whirring.

let's start with the corrie, which is pretty easy to find.

it takes me a minute to get started, but once i do, see how it pulls apart mostly smoothly? (the lack of smoothness in this and several of the other videos is the weird angle that i was talking about earlier.)

look at my wrists and hands. i have ehlers-danlos syndrome, so i'm more likely to use the middle joint of my thumb to pull, but other than potentially the weird thumb position, things are pretty loose. i'm not jerking on the top, my back hand is pretty loose, and all up, things move pretty smoothly.

this is what top should do. if you're having to really yank on it, if you have to dig your fingers into it, etc, it's not great top. it might still be usable, but you definitely shouldn't be using it as a starter fibre.

ok, so let's look at the polwarth, which for the purposes of this post we'll say is indie dyed. close enough.

as before, the weird angle isn't doing us any favours, but all things considered, this drafts out pretty easily. dyed fibre is almost always at least a little harder to draft than undyed is, but it shouldn't be that much harder.

again, you can look at my hands and fingers. the hand holding most of the fibre is still fairly loose—the thumb on that hand is doing most of the actual holding. it's more work than the undyed commercial stuff, but it's not difficult by any stretch of the imagination.

i also want to point out that i'm not a professional dyer! i'm just some guy who sometimes dyes things in their kitchen. if you're buying from indie dyers, it shouldn't be much harder to draft out than this is. (if you're buying from commercial places—ashford's dyed top, for example—it should draft more or less like the commercial corrie did.)

ok so next up, let's look at the handcombed top.

this drafts out so easy! handcombed top isn't as dense or as tightly packed as commercial top, plus all the fibres are going in the same direction, so it drafts out really smoothly.

last two. i think it's time to look at...the bad fibre.

fuckin yikes, hey. the weird thing about this one is that it basically looks ok—right until you get your hands on it. look how tight the hand holding the braid is. look how i'm trying so hard to get a grip on the part that i'm pulling out that my whole thumb flattens out, hoping to get more weight on it. look how my knuckles and my fingernails turn white!

the fibre doesn't want to move, and when it does, it's usually in a big clump that moves very fast, then immediately stops moving again.

fibre shouldn't be like this. this fibre is super compacted, and also a little bit felted. imo, if you buy from a dyer and get fibre like this—not just for the first few centimetres, but all the way through—you shouldn't buy from them again. this fibre is not being buddies.

but can you make it work? i wouldn't recommend it when you're learning to spin, but yeah, you probably can. i've used about half of this braid on various junk projects.

to make this more usable, you can split the braid in two (or more) pieces, unfold it as much as possible, and fluff it out. i've wondered if this would be a good application for steaming roving, but this is the only really compacted piece i have, so i haven't tried it.

it's still probably not going to be a joy to spin, but it can be usable, if you really want it to be. if you have the interest and tools, you might have better luck reprocessing it—i've used some of that braid practicing making rolags, for example, and it's been solidly fine for that, since i'm pulling it all apart anyhow.

if you're learning, though, and your fibre's behaving like this, please put that fibre down and try something else.

finally, let's look at the lonk!

again, nice loose grip, and despite being dyed, those fibres are totally happy to pull out pretty evenly. it drafts smoothly, and it requires very little effort on my part to do so. which is, i think, the big advantage to using coarser wools as a beginner, even if you don't love the texture of them. it's a lot easier to learn the movements on something that's not actively fighting you, and once you've got the movements down, it's a lot easier to do them on something that resists a little bit more.

i'm not saying you can't (or shouldn't) learn on the ultrafine merino of your heart or whatever, but if you're new to spinning and you're finding it a struggle, it's maybe worth trying some coarser fibres and seeing if that helps.

anyhow, hopefully that's an ok overview of how to tell if your fibre is actually doing what it's meant to do or not. if you think it'd help you to have a video of any of this being drafted while spinning, let me know—it turns out it's pretty easy to throw my phone in the little tripod thing and then clip out the bits that are useful.

[illprotectyou-hearteyes]

To be clear this is not a prediction of a queer romance in the show because I'd never put my hope in a Disney/Marvel production like that but.

I don't know whether to side-eye Loki S2 or myself for the fact that my genuine read on it four episodes in is that the natural culmination is Loki having to choose between Mobius and Sylvie. And choosing Mobius

[minophus]

that time i wrote a fic and someone commented Malnourished character so cute

[winepresswrath]

on this, my second attempt at diving deeper into the iwtv series i've conclude that armand and bianca need to take a lesson from pandora, who has at least some of it figured out.