#been very into using text in artwork lately

[henreyettah]

Not sure which one of these I like more, so posting both! Thinking it’ll be a sticker

[whencyclopedia]

Book of Kells

The Book of Kells (c. 800) is an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels of the Christian New Testament, currently housed at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. The work is the most famous of the medieval illuminated manuscripts for the intricacy, detail, and majesty of the illustrations. It is thought the book was created as a showpiece for the altar, not for daily use, because more attention was obviously given to the artwork than the text.

The beauty of the lettering, portraits of the evangelists, and other images, often framed by intricate Celtic knotwork motifs, has been praised by writers through the centuries. Scholar Thomas Cahill notes that, “as late as the twelfth century, Geraldus Cambrensis was forced to conclude that the Book of Kells was “the work of an angel, not of a man” owing to its majestic illustrations and that, in the present day, the letters illustrating the Chi-Rho (the monogram of Christ) are regarded as “more presences than letters” on the page for their beauty (165). Unlike other illuminated manuscripts, where text was written and illustration and illumination added afterwards, the creators of the Book of Kells focused on the impression the work would have visually and so the artwork was the focus of the piece.

Origin & Purpose

The Book of Kells was produced by monks of St. Columba's order of Iona, Scotland, but exactly where it was made is disputed. Theories regarding composition range from its creation on the island of Iona to Kells, Ireland, to Lindisfarne, Britain. It was most likely created, at least in part, at Iona and then brought to Kells to keep it safe from Viking raiders who first struck Iona in 795, shortly after their raid on Lindisfarne Priory in Britain.

A Viking raid in 806 killed 68 monks at Iona and led to the survivors abandoning the abbey in favor of another or their order at Kells. It is likely that the Book of Kells traveled with them at this time and may have been completed in Ireland. The oft-repeated claim that it was made or first owned by St. Columba (521-597) is untenable as the book was created no earlier than c. 800, but there is no doubt it was produced by later members of his order.

The work is commonly regarded as the greatest illuminated manuscript of any era owing to the beauty of the artwork and this, no doubt, had to do with the purpose it was made for. Scholars have concluded that the book was created for use during the celebration of the mass but most likely was not read from so much as shown to the congregation.

This theory is supported by the fact that the text is often carelessly written, contains a number of errors, and at points certainly seems an afterthought to the illustrations on the page. The priests who would have used the book most likely already had the biblical passages memorized and so would recite them while holding the book, having no need to read from the text.

Scholar Christopher de Hamel notes how, in the present day, “books are very visible in churches” but that in the Middle Ages this would not have been the case (186). De Hamel describes the rough outline of a medieval church service:

There were no pews (people usually stood or sat on the floor), and there would probably have been no books on view. The priest read the Mass in Latin from a manuscript placed on the altar and the choir chanted their part of the daily office from a volume visible only to them. Members of the congregation were not expected to join in the singing; some might have brought their Books of Hours to help ease themselves into a suitable frame of mind, but the services were conducted by the priests. (186)

The Book of Kells is thought to have been the manuscript on the altar which may have been first used in services on Iona and then certainly was at the abbey of Kells. The brightly-colored illustrations and illumination would have made it an exceptionally impressive piece to a congregation, adding a visual emphasis to the words the priest recited while being shown to the people; much in the way one today would read a picture book to a small child.

Continue reading...

[bladesprettywhore]

「 NAKAHARA CHUUYA 」 — " never seen another girl this perfect " !

⟡ . prompt : brat tamer! chuuya x brat! reader

⟡ . warnings : reader uses she/her pronouns and has a female autonomy, smut, degradation, spitting, gagging, brat taming, dumbification, spanking, hair pulling, reader is a brat and a crybaby, chuuya being mean and cruel, infliction of pain, creampie, mentions of pet names "slut, whore, doll, pretty girl", orgasm denial. ( let me know if i missed something )

⟡ . before you read : minors and ageless blogs dni.

the clock struck 10pm, you were currently laying down on your bed hugging your big plushie desperately waiting for chuuya to get home. he hadn't been able to spend time with you lately due to the amount of missions and work he had to get done but you missed him and couldn't bear to live without the touch of his hands on your pretty skin so what did you resort to? being the brat that lives upto her name, you decided to send chuuya pics of you dressed in a white thin croptop in which everything was visible and white lacy panties while making the prettiest and most innocent face. the nerve of you to do such a thing while he was busy with a mission.

chuuya not being able to spend time with you as he was busy always tried to at the very least respond to your texts and calls and once he was done giving orders, his phone vibrated in his pocket. taking it out and checking that it was a message from you, he felt happy as always to receive a text from his pretty girl until he saw the pictures you sent him.

"you're brave, pretty girl. i think you know whats coming for you tonight. don't even try to escape your way out of this." that was the message you had received chuuya you had received after sending him those pictures. you were waiting impatiently, wanting him to get home as soon as possible, you thought the consequences wouldn't be as bad as they were last time but you were in for a surprise.

you sighed and moved around on your bed not knowing what to do as your impatience started to get the best of you until you heard the sound of the doorknob of your bedroom turning. not even getting a chance to say anything as a red glow highlighted around your body slamming it harshly down against the bed, a small whimper leaving your mouth with your eyes closed.

as you slowly opened your eyes, you found a ginger haired man with blue orbs staring you down like you were the most pathetic thing he had ever seen.

"you really couldn't handle remaining untouched for 2 days huh? is that how big of a whore you are?" the words left his mouth like a dagger , a veiny hand wrapping around your hair as he held a hand full of it before he made you get on all fours, unzipping his pants and not wasting a second as he forced it down your throat causing you to gag, tears forming in your eyes, causing your mascara to run down and stain your cheeks.

"what's wrong, i thought you wanted this, isn't that why you sent me those pictures of you looking all dolled up?" he said as he stared down at you like a sadist.

you put your hands on his thighs before trying your best to take him in your mouth and lick all around him. it's not like you didn't know what was coming for you, you just didn't expect him to be harsher than last time but of course you're the one who was at fault for playing with fire like that.

pushing him in and out of your mouth, as you looked up at him with your mascara stained cheeks and smudged lipstick, as the red covered the tip of his cock.

"being such a good whore for me huh? shit, you must've been really lonely without this cock huh?" that statement made you feel hot in between your legs as you tried to sneak a hand in your panties just for your wrist to harshly get gripped by the stronger man.

"don't you even try to touch yourself, im the only one allowed to touch expensive artwork like this" he said groaning before exploding in your mouth without a warning causing a loud whimper to leave your mouth as you stuck your tongue out with the white liquid dripping down your tongue to show the ginger haired man before swallowing it down leaving a bitter and sweet aftertaste in your mouth.

"now now, how should I make you pay for your impatience?" he said , eyeing you down like you were a common whore before a dark chuckle left his mouth. "so cruel, too...cruel" you mumbled as you tried catching your breath after sucking him off.

"im the cruel one? now now, don't act like you didn't want this" he said pulling you close to his chest by grabbing your hair in his left hand. as he let your hair go, you felt him tie your hands together with a pair of ropes, making you struggle "wait a minute! i haven't even gotten to touch you yet!" you cried out as he pushed your head down suffocating you in the pillows.

you felt his hands teasing your clothed clit making a loud whine leave your mouth, his hand movement was enough to make u cry and beg for more.

"shit, you're already this worked up even though i haven't even properly gotten started yet, do you have no self respect or shame? sending me those slutty pictures while i was busy" he says, before pressing his thumb against your clothed clit. "it's not my fault! you were giving your work more time than me" those words caused a loud slap to strike against your asscheek causing a red bruise to paint on it.

"you have a lot of nerve to talk back in that position. surely you understand the position you're in, doll" he says with malice in his tone before pulling your panties aside and shoving in two fingers without warning and going at a fast and rough pace.

"nghh~ hah!" all kinds of slutty noises left your mouth as you tugged on the ropes around your hands and stuck your tongue out from how good it felt, your head spinning with hearts in your eyes feeling yourself get closer and closer each second until you felt him pull his fingers out.

"w-wait! I was just about to cum!" you desperately cried out as your pussy was throbbing. "shut up you pathetic slut, don't order me around".

he was so cruel. making you go through that for atleast another 2 hours , as tears continuously ran down your cheeks, your head was spinning and your legs felt weak.

"please chuuya! i won't do that next time, I promise!" you plead out in your current position which was your face down while looking up at chuuya and ass up with a vibrator inside it.

"pl...ease....pleasee....let m..e cum.....ill b..e good...i...ahh~...pro..mise..." you said crying out and begging for him to let you cum, you didn't care if he used you like a whore in the object, you just needed him to make you cum.

he put his hands in your hair and held it tightly making you look him in the eyes, "if I catch you being such a whore ever again, I'll make you suffer twice as much, underdtand pretty girl? hopefully youre not dumb enough that you cant even understand what im saying"

"promise! I.... promise, just please, let me..." you say while catching your breath, drool running down your smudged lips. chuuya smirked as he heard how much he weakened you. putting his hands on your hips as he slowly entered you from behind, pumping his cock in and out causing your tight pussy to wrap around it as he pulled you in his chest and started making you ride his cock up and down, groaning in your ear and leaving red marks all over you. cupping your cheeks , forcing you to open your mouth as he spat in it while looking at you with love.

"fuuckk...ive never seen another girl this perfect. i really was missing out on some good pussy huh" he says while pushing you up and down on his cock as you cry out and moan his name " chuu! chuu!! im closeee!" you say as your head lays back on his shoulder while arching your back, eyes rolling back.

"oh yeah? make sure to cream all over my cock pretty, need you to cover all of it" he says, fastening his pace until you sprayed all over his cock, creaming it with all your cum then suddenly he threw you down on your back and brought his thighs to your shoulder, pumping his cock inside of you before creaming inside of you, leaving your body and pussy shaking.

"hah..ah...that was so nice...." you mumbled those words in a tired voice as your vision started going blurry from tiredness. chuuya planted a kiss on your forehead , and layed you down in a more comfortable position before whispering a soft "good night" to you in a loving tone.

[comic-art-showcase]

hello fellow comic art fans.

i am the goblin who runs this here blog. otherwise known as @jondoe297

i am extremely bummed that when i do come out and adress the followers of this blog directly it will be with this news. well. here goes:

Comic Art Showcase will indefinitely stop sharing our favorite artists' works until further notice due to the deal tumblr's owner is making with A.I. companies to sell data,enabling the theft of the works of the platform's users to scrape to train their A.I.

and here is a good article about what's going on

while for the over 5 years(!!) now that i have run this page and shared the love of comic art i am so passionate about,through ups and downs,i have kept this page strictly for doing so. not presenting any topics or ideas or even showing my own personality or linking my personal blog(even though i have been flirting with the idea recently. well i guess now is as good a time as any) i feel that if nothing else i have to use this specific platform i have,as it is,to address this topic as it is intrinsic and intertwined with this page's theme or activity. and i will not have it be an open buffet for these greedy corporations to scrape for data to feed the A.I. with which they seek to replace the very artists that i love and admire! even though it may be too late as we don't really know how long they've been doing this. well the inevitable came. and if this page is not deleted it will at least not be posted on for the time being. while we figure out what to do next.

in the meantime we can and have to all do what we can to fight for artists' and creatives' rights. if nothing else by not being a part of the theft and exploitation of them an their work. please do not use any generative A.I. programs for images or text. they work by scraping from databases of artists' and creatives' works without any permission,credit or compensation.

for now we can at least 'opt out' of having our content be shared with the A.I. companies in the settings.

keep in mind this seems to be only available on the web version and not on the app for now!

go to your blog settings from the corner here

ID/image description: a screenshot of the tumblr blog with a red arrow pointed at the options button. end description.

then go to 'blog settings'

ID/image description: a screenshot of tumblr blog settings with a red arrow pointing at the 'blog settings' option. end description.

then go to visibility. and turn ON the 'prevent third-party sharing' option. make sure to turn it ON not off.

ID/image description: screenshot of tumblr's visibility settings with the 'prevent third-party sharing' option turned on. end description.

and you have to do this for each blog and sideblog individually so make sure to do that!

and artists make sure to use Nightshade and Glaze to protect your artwork and images!!!!

here's a link to Nightshade

here's a link to Glaze

the best combination is to use Nightshade first then Glaze on your images.

Glaze creates a protective layer on the image to prevent A.I. from copying it. while Nightshade poisons the A.I. sotfware.

stay safe friends an i will see you around❤

[causenessus]

love notes

part 0.05. intros

EXHIBIT TWO: RIDE OR DIE BROS FOR LIFE

suna rintarou °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

middle blocker for the msby volleyball team and wanted to major in something art related but ended up going into athletic training with sakusa. in high school, atsumu, osamu, and him would very frequently sneak out at night usually to graffiti a wall and atsumu and him have kept up the tradition. whenever they travel to other cities to play an away game, they’ll try and find the time to go out and leave their mark on the city. in college, he started to do things like leave little snippets of lyrics from romantic songs on walls in sharpie or spray paint </3 he first met y/n in high school and they didn't talk much despite being in the same friend group. he a her from afar but never said anything because he didn’t feel like she knew him well enough that she would return his feelings if he told her. as a result, ever since graduation, he’s been finding small ways to be closer to her. although he isn’t majoring in art, he started to hang around the art department more, and would follow her around whenever she came to develop photos. she’d let him come with her into the department’s dark room and explain the process to him. he tries his best to listen but most of the time he get distracted while looking at her <3 eventually he started to invite her to come wander the city with him in search of street art and told her he’d start sending her photos of art that he found in other cities (which he's totally not making and then sending to her as if he's just randomly stumbled upon the most heartwrenching, romantic art ever). as long as he’s with her he couldn't care less what they're doing; to him, the real artwork is right next to him <3 she’s taking photos of something written on a wall while he’s looking at her <3

miya atsumu & miya osamu °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

atsumu

setter for msby <3 made his bio in retaliation to his brother and then got upset when osamu didn’t care. didn’t even want to go to college but really wanted to play for msby and didn’t want to be left out of everyone else going to school so he’s chilling in communications with bokuto. loves to come to onigiri miya on days y/n works because she gives him discounts and he jokes that she’s a better cook than osamu (which psychologically, for him, is probably true. samu cooks for tsumu and curses the food while y/n tries to put at least a little bit of love into what she makes for him). at some point tried to flirt with y/n and then realized she did not love when he visited because of him but bc he would bring suna. often comes by himself to onigiri miya or brings bokuto with him to ask yn how things with suna, completely ignoring the fact that she has a boyfriend (which leaves her confused about every single life choice she's made) and then will immediately text suna being like “y/n and me are talking about u rn LL sucks to suck i bet ur wondering what she thinks of u"

osamu

always gives suna discounts when he comes and will immediately take over whatever order y/n is working on so that she can make suna’s foof <3 he’s like a double agent for both sides but doesn’t get too involved because things with suga are making it difficult. he’s definitely someone suna goes to a lot for advice and although suna tends to only come on days when y/n works, sometimes on late nights after practice when osamu is the only one left working, suna will come in and they’ll share a drink and talk about y/n and more

bokuto koutarou & oikawa tooru °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

bokuto

wing spiker for msby and self proclaims himself as the ace <3 sakusa and him beef a little bit about it but the entire team is made up of doubles anyway so they kind of share the title. he’s matching users with atsumu and oikawa and also asked akaashi if they could have matching headers <3 akaashi sent him his current header which bokuto immediately started using <3 my guy has got so many friends and is loved by everyone so he’s actually having the best time of his life in college!!! besides when exams come around. then he’s hiding under a table and it takes the collective effort of akaashi, atsumu, and oikawa’s to get him out.

oikawa

second setter for msby! atsumu and him actually lowkey connected immediately and the team often uses a 6-2 rotation to utilize two setters and it’s been working out pretty well. other volleyball teams quiver hearing about msby’s lineup LMAO. he’s also a photography major which has led to suna often asking him how y/n is doing <3 does a lot of portraits and posts his works on a separate photography account. has started to join atsumu and suna when they sneak out while on away games to find somewhere to leave a piece of art.

extras <3

suna, atsumu, osamu, bokuto, and oikawa all live together

it is either very peaceful or a living hell

atsumu and bokuto will get riled up about something together and start having an energetic burst while suna isolates in his room (or more often is slipping out to go hang with y/n)

oikawa’s pretty chill and is in his actually-studying-for-exams era

osamu’s usually busy at work

so it’s peaceful (according to their definition) when not everyone is home but sometimes atsumu will start beefing with osamu about something and shit hits the fan

suna is heavily heavily heavily inspired by this guy named @/greg_goya on instagram

when i had this idea for street art i really spent an hour on instagram and google combined looking for this guy bc the art he does is totally what i was going for

and when i say inspired i mean suna is literally greg goya. i will probably use screen shots from my man greg in this smau so ty to him in advance he's a king 👑

both "exhibits" or friend groups are lowkey one big friend group but there's a small natural divide bc most of the ride or die bros are from inarizaki and some of them (cough atsumu cough bokuto cough suna if he didn't want to be around y/n 24/7 cough) said that they NEEDED a bros only gc

taglist: @wyrcan @oyasumeii @froyaoya @gyuijns @nbcvs @milkteade @eggyrocks @0moonii @guitarstringed-scars @makkir0ll @mylahrins @cherrypieyourface @vivian-555 @sharkerino @bluebeanbee @r0seandth0rns @staileykout @lunavixia @thvvluvr @elliott0o0 (form to be added to taglist! <3)

prev. | m.list | next

[dinodanicus]

you can skip this wall of text its just about the scam this illustration was involved in.

This fairly ordinary illustration of two hands holding was involved in a very weird and convoluted scam. Last month I was commission to illustrate this image for invitations meant to go out for a supposed wedding anniversary coming up in March. The whole commission seemed odd to me I mainly draw dinosaurs and aliens. Not many people know I also draw people but the buyer who called himself Petterson Reid was offering to pay 300 up front and 200 after the work was finished. A nice offer for what was a very simple illustration. I took the job and sent him a very rough sketch of the hands to show him what the final image might look like. He liked the sketch and told me to finish the image after he sent the first payment I went ahead and finished the image that night. I held onto the picture to see if he would really send the 300 dollars first. The buyer wanted to send a check by mail which is weird but I thought he might have been a boomer who didn't understand how to use PayPal. His emails and text seemed like something my grandmother would write very proper and overly polite. I was fairly suspicious of him and waited to see if a check would actually be delivered. To my surprise a check did arrive a week later from Petterson Reid except it was for 2,790 dollars. knowing this was far too much money I asked him if it was a mistake. He said the extra money was for a PayPal invoice to the printers involved in the invitations. He wanted me to use the extra money on the check to pay the printers on his behalf. Again very weird but I chalked it up to an old person who didn't know how to pay online. I cashed the check the next day, since it was from an out of state bank they were putting it on hold for 3 days to see if the funds would clear. I told the buyer about the three day waiting period and asked for the invoice I was suppose to be paying and he went absolutely ape shit. He claimed I was trying to steal his money and was threatening to pursue legal action I was completely shocked by the change in attitude. I had to mute my phone because he kept sending wave after wave of threatening texts. At this point I was 90% sure this was some sort of scam but when I called the bank they said there was nothing to do until the hold expired. I was confident it wouldn't then to my surprise the check cleared and the money was in my account. At this point I had the finished artwork and the money so I wanted to get this crazy asshole on his way so I wouldn't have to deal with him anymore. I told him to send the invoice for the printer and I would pay it with the money on the check then I would send the picture and our business would be done. This prick sends some half assed looking invoice with a payable link on PayPal. When I try to pay, it says payment will be held till Feb 7th. Apparently this date is too late for the printers so now that processing payment has been canceled by the printer in favor of a new payment process through Zelle. I was trying to figure out what was going on, if its a scam what is the take the entirety of the check was still in my account it didn't even say it was pending. I go to pay on Zelle and discover the 2,790 dollars has been rescinded by the bank. I call and learn this ass hair had sent a forged check to the bank in an effort to have me pay these fake invoices with my own money. He guessed the bank would deposit the check without fully vetting it for the standard 10 days since I'm a long time member. He knew he had until about five a clock that day before the bank would catch the discrepancy. He was posing as the printer in order to scam 4,740 dollars from me through both attempted payment methods. luckily for me I'm broke as hell right now and didn't have the money in my own account to cover either payment with out the check. everything has been taken care of now I just thought I better share this story since I've never seen a scam like this before. It took an entire month for him to essentially get nothing I really don't know what to think of any of this its such a weird scheme.

[mspaesthetic]

Tidbit: The “Posterization” Effect of Panels Due to the Consequences of GIF Color Quantization (and Increased Contrast (And Also The Tangential Matter of Dithering))

There’s this misconception that the color banding and patterned dithering found in panels is an entirely deliberate, calculated effect Hussie manipulated the image into looking with some specific filter, but this isn’t the case, exactly. It wasn’t so much a conscious decision he took but rather an unavoidable consequence of the medium he partook in: digital art in an age where bandwidth and storage was at a premium.

Not to delve too deeply into the history and technicalities of it, but the long and the short of it is back in the early nineties to late aughts (and even a bit further into the 10s), transferring and storing data over the web was not as fast, plentiful, and affordable as it is now. Filesize was a much more important consideration than the fidelity of an image when displaying it on the web. Especially so when you’re a hobbyist on a budget and paying for your own webhosting, or using a free service with a modest upload limit (even per file!). Besides, what good would it be to post your images online if it takes ages to load them over people's dial-up Internet? Don't even get me STARTED on the meager memory and power the average iGPU had to work with, too.

The original comic strip's resolution was a little more than halved and saved as a GIF rather than a large PNG. That's about an 82.13% reduction in filesize!

So in the early days it was very common for people to take their scans, photographs, and digital drawings and scale them down and publish them as smaller lossily compressed JPEGs or lossless GIFs, the latter of which came at the cost of color range. But it had a wider range of browser support and the feature to be used for animations compared to its successor format, PNG ("PNG's not GIF").

You'd've been hard-pressed to find Hussie use any PNGs himself then. In fact, I think literally the only times he's ever personally employed them and not delegate the artwork to a member of the art team were some of the tiny shrunken down text of a character talking far in the distance and a few select little icons.

PNGs support semi-transparency unlike GIFs, which is why Hussie used them to preserve the anti-aliasing on the text without having to add an opaque background color.

While PNGs can utilize over 16 million colors in a single image, GIFs have a hard limit of 256 colors per frame. For reference, this small image alone has 604 colors:

For those who can't do the math, 256 is a pretty damn small number.

Smaller still were the palettes in a great deal of MSPA's panels early on in its run. Amazingly, a GIF such as this only uses 7 colors (8 if you count the alpha (which it is)).

Not that they were always strictly so low; occasionally some in the later acts of Homestuck had pretty high counts. This panel uses all 256 spots available, in fact.

If he had lowered the number any smaller, the quality would have been god-awful.

To the untrained eye, these bands of color below may seem to be the result of a posterization filter (an effect that reduces smooth areas of color into fewer harsh solid regions), but it's really because the image was exported as a GIF with no dithering applied.

Dithering, to the uninitiated, is how these colors are arranged together to compensate for the paltry palette, producing illusory additional colors. There are three algorithms in Photoshop for this: Diffusion, Pattern, and Noise.

Above is the original image and below is the image reduced to a completely binary 1-bit black and white color palette, to make the effect of each dithering algorithm more obvious.

Diffusion seemingly displaces the pixels around randomly, but it uses error diffusion to calculate what color each pixel should be. In other words, math bullshit. The Floyd-Steinberg algorithm is one such implementation of it, and is usually what this type of error diffusion dithering is called in other software, or some misnomer-ed variation thereof.

The usage of Pattern may hearken back to retro video game graphics for you, as older consoles also suffered from color palette limitations. Sometimes called Ordered dithering because of the orderly patterns it produces. At least, I assumed so. Its etymological roots probably stem from more math bullshit again.

True to its name, Noise is noisy. It’s visually similar to Diffusion dithering, except much more random looking. At least, when binarized like this. Truth be told, I can’t tell the difference between the two at all when using a fuller color table on an image with a lot of detail. It was mainly intended to be used when exporting individual slices of an image that was to be “stitched” back together on a webpage, to mitigate visible seams in the dithering around the edges.

To sate your curiosity, here's how the image looks with no dithering at all:

People easily confuse an undithered gif as being the result of posterization, and you couldn't fault them for thinking so. They look almost entirely the same!

Although I was already aware of this fact when I was much younger, I'm guilty of posterizing myself while editing images back then. Figured I may as well reduce the color count beforehand to help keep the exported GIF looking as intended. I view this as a complete waste of time now, though, and amateurish. Takes away a bit of the authenticity of MSPA art, how the colors and details are so variable between panels. As for WHY they were so variable to begin with, choosing the settings to save the image as requires a judicious examination on a case-by-case basis. In other words, just playing around with the settings until it looks decent.

It's the process of striking a fine balance between an acceptable file size and a "meh, good enough" visual quality that I mentioned earlier. How many colors can you take away until it starts to look shit? Which dithering algorithm helps make it look not as shit while not totally ruining the compression efficacy?

Take, for example, this panel from Problem Sleuth. It has 16 colors, an average amount for the comic, and uses Diffusion dithering. Filesize: 34.5 KB.

Then there's this panel right afterwards. It has 8 colors (again, technically 7 + alpha channel since it's an animated gif), and uses Noise dithering this time. Filesize: 34.0 KB.

The more colors and animation frames there are, and the more complicated dithering there is, the bigger the file size is going to be. Despite the second panel having half the color count of the first, the heavily noisy dithering alone was enough to inflate the file size back up. On top of that, there's extra image information layered in for the animation, leaving only a mere 0.5 kilobyte difference between the two panels.

So why would Hussie pick the algorithm that compresses worse than the other? The answer: diffusion causes the dithering to jitter around between frames of animation. Recall its description from before, how it functions on nerd shit like math calculations. The way it calculates what each pixel's color will be is decided by the pixels' colors surrounding it, to put it simply. Any difference in the placement of pixels will cause these cascading changes in the dithering like the butterfly effect.

Diffusion dithering, 16 colors. Filesize: 25.2 KB

This isn't the case with Noise or Pattern dithering, since their algorithms use either a texture or a definite array of numbers (more boring nerd shit).

Noise dithering, 16 colors. Filesize: 31.9 KB

Pattern dithering, 16 colors. Filesize: 23.1 KB

There's a lot more I'd like to talk about, like the different color reduction algorithms, which dither algorithms generally compress better in what cases, and the upward and downward trends of each one’s use over the course of a comic, but since this isn’t a deep dive on GIF optimization, I might save that for another time. This post is already reaching further past the original scope it was meant to cover, and less than 10 images can be uploaded before hitting the limit, which is NOWHERE near enough for me. I should really reevaluate my definition of the word “tidbit”… Anyway, just know that this post suffers from sample selection bias, so while the panels above came from an early section of Problem Sleuth that generally had static panels with diffusion dithering and animated panels with noise dithering, there certainly were animated panels with diffusion later on despite the dither-jittering.

Alright, time to shotgun through the rest of this post, screw segueing. Increasing the contrast almost entirely with “Use Legacy” enabled spreads the tones of the image out evenly, causing the shadows and highlights to clip into pure black and white. The midtones become purely saturated colors. Using the Levels adjustment filter instead, moving both shadow and highlight input level sliders towards the middle also accomplishes the same thing, because, you know, linear readjustment. I'm really resisting the urge to go off on another tangent about color channels and the RGB additive color model.

Anyway, there aren't any examples in MSPA that are quite this extreme (at least in color, but I'll save that for a later post), but an image sufficiently high in contrast can be mistaken for being posterized at a glance. Hence the Guy Fieri banner. In preparation for this post, I was attempting to make a pixel-perfect recreation of that panel but hit a wall trying to figure out which and how many filters were used and what each one's settings were, so I sought the wisdom of those in the official Photoshop Discord server. The very first suggestion I got was a posterization filter, by someone who was a supposed senior professional and server moderator, no less. Fucking dipshit, there's too much detail preserved for it to be posterization. Dude totally dissed me and my efforts too, so fuck that moron. I spit on his name and curse his children, and his children's children. The philistines I have to put up with...

In the end, the bloody Guy Fieri recreation proved to be too much for me to get right. I got sort of close at times, but no cigar. These were some of the closest I could manage:

You might be left befuddled after all this, struggling to remember what the point of the blogpost even was. I had meant for it to be a clarification of GIFs and an argument against using the posterization filter, thinking it was never used in MSPA, but while gathering reference images, I found a panel from the Felt intermission that actually WAS posterized! So I’ll eat crow on this one... Whatever, it’s literally the ONE TIME ever.

I can tell it's posterization and not gif color quantization because of the pattern dithering and decently preserved details on the bomb and bull penis cane. There would have had to have been no dithering and way fewer colors than the 32, most of which were allotted to the bomb and cane. You can't really selectively choose what gets dithered or more colors like this otherwise.

Thank you for reading if you've gotten this far. That all might have been a lot to take in at once, so if you're still unclear about something, please don't hesitate to leave a question! And as always, here are the PSDs used in this post that are free to peruse.

[postwarlevi]

Firefighter

Content: HC format of volunteer firefighter Jean and reader meeting and becoming a couple! 2.1k words oops that was a lot please enjoy!

a/n- Inspired by a self ship idea and heeeere's the amazing artwork by @charlotteplsdosth that also helped inspired this story by the amazing thank you so much!

--------------

Jean has been doing odd jobs while getting his associate degree in business. He isn't sure exactly what he wants to pursue after that. His best friend and classmate Marco talks about volunteering and they both take a day to go to the local fire department.

They talk to the captain of the station and are given instructions and a massive packet of papers to go through of all the requirements.

Jean looks it over for a few days, seeing there's written and physical exams, courses that equal over 400 hours total that include things like basic knowledge of health and safety, search and rescue, water and hoses, being CPR trained, and things he never thought of like understanding building construction for getting people out, and also being a trained paramedic and learning to use SCUBA gear, among other things.

After a week of thinking it over both he and Marco put in their applications and get started, and they are busier then ever.

Jean is exhausted and determined and somehow finds time to fit everything in and in a couple months he and Marco join the station and continue the last bit of their training on the job, both passing with flying colors and in six months total join the team.

They don't get paid much as it's volunteer work but they find they love it. Most days are quiet or it's non emergency calls that can easily be handled.

Jean quietly has a mini breakdown one day though after the team is unable to salvage a family home that went up in flames. The people are okay but they lost all their things.

The station holds a town fundraiser to help them get on their feet again, and Jean and Marco are leading the way, wanting to continue their work.

After a year, they both sign up for another year and Jean is entering the the second year of his degree.

It's a quiet day at the station when Marco on dispatch gets a call from a frantic woman about a cat stuck in a tree.

He goes to say this isn't something they can really send someone out for but since it's a slow day, Jean motions to him it's okay, and Marco finds out the address while Jean listens in then takes a car and ladder and heads out.

That's the first time he meets you, crying at the mewing cat far up in a tree on your front lawn.

He almost laughs at the sight but contains himself for your sake. The cat will be fine.

You rush over to him and he pats your back and introduces himself and starts up to retrieve your cat.

You watch in both awe and distress as he takes this seriously and handles it much better than you have.

45 minutes later he finally gets the very uncooperative animal down and hands it back to you, almost breaking a sweat on that warm day.

You thank him and insist he come inside and get him a drink and a light meal and tell him you'll keep a better eye on your cat.

Soon Jean has to be getting back and you find after getting to know him maybe you don't want him to leave.

You ask more questions and he tells you of a food drive they are holding this Saturday and you ask if you can come and help.

Jean was secretly hoping that's where this was leading.

So it begins, first with the food drive, then with an open station tour, where Jean greets you and introduces you to Marco.

The event is for families and kids and you've borrowed your little cousin as an excuse to come. While Marco entertains her, Jean entertains you.

Soon you are going to events outside the station. Walks in the park, dinner, movies, late night texting sessions when you should both be asleep, getting to know each other more.

As much as Jean works, volunteers and studies, he makes time for you as an important part of his life.

He knows your work schedule by heart and soon you are getting little presents of flowers and other sweet things delivered both to your work and to your house.

Before his next year of volunteering is up you've moved to a deeper relationship, exchanging I love you's.

One day he tells you he doesn't know what he wants to do with his life and you spend the night talking again.

Though you worry about him when he's at the station, because while most calls are minor, some are very much not, you see he loves being a firefighter.

With you being a big supporting factor, he makes the decision to finish his degree, knowing it will be there for future use, cut down on the odd jobs, and become a full time firefighter.

A few months later, the week before he is set to have his induction ceremony, he asks if you want to look for a place together, knowing he wants to be with you.

Turns out you've been thinking of it too, and you start looking right away.

At his ceremony with the other inductees, including Marco and some friends they've made at the station along the way, you are there cheering Jean on with his mom and dad, your mom, dad and little cousin, and some other friends.

Jean has asked to go last and with his comrades help he sets his plan in motion, gets you on stage with him, and in his best suit in tie, hair slicked back, gets down on one knee and presents you with an engagement ring, if you'll have him.

You are sobbing and enthusiastically agree. You hug and kiss and the crew and people in attendance cheer you so loudly that the surrounding neighborhood hears it.

Within a month Jean now has his degree and you've found a place you both love and have moved in with your cat and a stray dog that someone found hanging around the station that Jean has been taking care of.

It's not long before you have a wedding, two in fact, both in one day. One early at the station with his team and friends where they wear their uniforms, except Marco, who has a tux on like Jean, being the best man. The captain of the station gives you away, and your dog is the ring bearer.

Jean then drives you to the second event in one of the fire engines that's decorated for the occasion. It's not a far drive but people honk and cheer and you both wave out the window.

Everyone is already present, both sets of parents front and center, and the rest of your family and friends, for a sweet, somewhat small barnyard wedding, that's perfect for the event and a reception.

Jean takes his place at the front with his best man Marco and his groomsmen who have walked in just before with the maid of honor and bridesmaids.

You come in, same dress as before, still leaving Jean with tears in his eyes as your father meets you and walks you down the aisle to Jean.

You both get time off for your honeymoon and after that settle into a routine you both adore as husband and wife.

You love being able to be home when Jean gets off and having things ready for him to take it easy, especially if he's had a trying day. He appreciates it and there's days where he does the same for you.

Life continues, you worry about Jean still, especially when his team is called to drive north and help other firefighters battle a wildfire.

You know he has to go and hug and squeeze him and cry a little bit. He promises to check in and you and his mom will keep in contact.

You don't see him for five days. You watch the news that talks about the men and women suffering from smoke inhalation and exhaustion and are beside yourself and your boss grants you a leave for a few days at seeing your grief.

Jean checks in just a couple times a day, telling you to stop watching the news, and that he's okay.

Some days you drive to his parents house and spend time with his mom as you both try to not watch the news, waiting for updates.

You break down and watch the devastation happening not very far from you and cry when Marco texts you and says everyone is fine and coming home but Jean suffered from heat exhaustion from being on the front lines while giving other out of commission firefighters a break.

While you wait for them to drive back the news declares there's finally an end in sight to the fires and all the people that came to help made all the difference.

You are glad of course, but can't wait to see your husband.

Jean's parents give you space and will call tomorrow to check in, and you just sit and wait for another hour. Your dog is right by your side, feeling how tense you are.

You jump up when you hear a car door and bolt outside where Marco is helping Jean out of the car. He's had medical treatment but still needs a little recovery time.

You cry and rush to them and hug him as gently as you can while really wanting to squeeze him. Jean tears up too and strokes your hair and you and Marco help him inside.

You thank Marco and hug him as well before he leaves. Then it's time to pamper your husband. Anything he wants.

You praise him and tell him how proud you are, make him his favorite meals, set up baths for him, cuddle him at night, wait on him for two whole days.

Jean adores you and tells you he thought of you all the time and is sorry he didn't check in more and tells you after a couple days he's feeling pretty good now, but he doesn't mind if you still want to spoil him.

After another week off he's back on the job, again, mostly minor calls with his station.

Your anxiety calms down now that he's home, always there though. You make sure to kiss him and tell him you love him every morning before and after he leaves.

One day you are off and cooking at home and are chatting with a friend who has called and don't notice that maybe the stove burner is on too high.

Your fire alarm notices though and it starts blaring. You get the dog and cat away from the kitchen and after a minute are able to relatively safely remove the source of the problem, but it's smoky enough the alarm doesn't stop.

The fire station is alerted thanks to a town wide system of alarms being connected to the station in case people aren't able to call.

Marco realizes it's your address and notifies Jean who doesn't hesitate to get in a car and rush home.

You really have it under control but are a mess from the situation and cry from embarrassment when Marco brings out a fire engine with a couple other members of the team just in case.

Jean takes the rest of the day off and gets the house back in order and makes sure you're okay. He knows this isn't like you.

It turns out, you tell him that night, that you've been preoccupied, from your recent doctor visit results, because next year you will be having a baby.

Jean is ecstatic and dotes on you and accidently slips earlier then intended to the crew when he asks about taking a leave at some point for, reasons. They all want to take the new dad to be out to celebrate and he let's them but insists on shutting down early to go be with you at home.

Before the year ends you get together with other station members and their wives and you ladies come up with the idea of a sexy fireman calendar, for charity, of course, supporting the local animal shelter.

Some of the men take real convincing of this. Jean is confused too that you won't mind his picture being gawked at, but you tell him no one else can touch and it's for charity, so it's okay with you.

The day they take the pictures the wives show up and it's clear you are all having way to much fun with this.

Some of you even adopt some of the animals that are included that day, and the calendar becomes such a success that it's clear another edition will be coming out next year.

In the meantime you and Jean continue to get ready for the new little life you will soon bring into the world.

---------------

a/n - follow up part of the calendar for charity coming up soon!! Picking months and poses and participants. There's more guys then months, I'm so sorry I can't please everyone! LOL

[loemius]

So I’m not really big on poetry and classics, and I love this religion and really want to continue learning and practicing it. But its just so hard for me to read these kinds of things to learn about the myths and the hymns and Ive been struggling with this a lot . Do you have any advice or recommendations? Thank you sm 😭

hi!!! sorry it took me some time to get back you, ive been incredibly busy lately. thank you for your question!! i do have some advice for you that helps me:

-don’t be afraid to use wikipedia or other similar resources. what i do is i’ll open the wikipedia page for whatever piece im reading and read the summary of it first so i have a general idea of what’s happening, then ill read the actual source text. this helps me understand the actual plot better so when I read the source, i don’t have to work so hard to figure out what’s happening and i can focus more on the details.

-look up study guides! it’ll help you know what to look for as you read and help break things down in more digestible ways. -try different translations. i love theoi.com but the versions of the texts they have available can be challenging to understand. i've heard very good things of emily wilson's translations of the epics in terms of readability. i have a pdf of apostolos n. athanassakis' translations of the orphic hymns and find them very readable as well. i haven't read his translation of the homeric hymns but he does have one! -youtube videos. do not be afraid of a youtube video. i suggest staying away from ones that are made more for entertainment's sake (channels like overly sarcastic productions and jake doubleyoo for instance) and instead veering towards ones that are more video essays/lectures (such as TEDed, religion for breakfast, pagan creators like fel the blithe, etc). no shade to the former content creators i mentioned, they make great videos with fantastic animations/art (and i enjoy watching them for their artwork and entertaining narration) but they're not something i would look to as a source for religious knowledge. i'm sure there's lots of good podcasts out there too, although i'm not a podcast listener. same kind of thing applies; try to listen to ones that are more for informative purposes, literary analysis, classical studies, instead of ones that are meant more for entertainment value. bonus points if they list their sources somewhere. -the literary tradition is very important, but secondary sources will also help fill out your knowledge on how to actually practice. books like labrys' household worship guide, burkert's greek religion, larson's understanding greek religion, and the vast amount of resources on hellenion.org, will also help you develop your practice (although there's plenty more than just those! those are just a good starting point). the myths are one piece of a puzzle; it's also important to consider how ancient greeks would have interpreted these myths and the cult around them, and that's not always evident in the myths themselves. sometimes there's veiled symbolism that needs explained. sometimes there's cult practices behind specific aspects of a myth. practices vary from region and time period, and the myths can also reflect this. different areas will have different regional myths and practices around the theoi. so it's not just reading the myths, it's also understanding the context around them, and a lot of times you have to go outside the primary texts to do that. i hope some of this advice helps you! kudos to you for putting in the effort to research. thank you again for your question. i wish you the absolute best of luck and may the gods be with you on your journey <3

[dilemmaontwolegs]

Running from the Flames {23}

Pairing: Pierre Gasly x OFC Warnings: 18+ only, information dump and time jump - this is a work of fiction and the events are not based on reality. Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

The final qualifier of the season had come to an end in Abu Dhabi. 

With only one race to go for 2023 the championship points were so close between the fourth and ninth positions that Pierre could finish anywhere among them. His third row starting position on the grid had put him in a good spot to get some last minute points and move up, but we would have to wait and see what tomorrow would bring.

The last six months had been a whirlwind and our passports were full of stamps from travelling wherever Pierre’s races took us. Whenever there were a few weeks between races we would either head to the family home we had purchased in Rouen or visit my parents in Manchester. 

We still kept the house in London but it was rarely used, in fact, Charles had stayed in it more nights than we had since moving to France.

Addie loved our home in Rouen and it was only a few minutes drive down the road to Pierre’s parents. Moving there had been one of the best decisions, giving me a fresh start and even more family for Addie who had instantly been adopted into Pierre’s family. She loved having cousins her age to play with whenever we visited and no one would have guessed they weren’t related by blood with the bond they shared. 

“Daddy!” Addie squealed as she saw Pierre’s car pull up into the box. 

“Patience,” I reminded her as she tugged on my hand and tried to pull me across the garage towards him. “They need to put the car away first.”

She shifted on her feet impatiently as it was wheeled inside but the moment she saw his steering console placed on the hood she tore her hand free and darted through the pitcrew. She was pretty much a part of the car’s cool down routine now and the crew all knew to watch out for her as they removed the wheels and she jumped up and down at the front wing waiting for Pierre. 

Her arms were already reaching for him before his feet touched the ground and she didn’t care that he was hot and sweaty in his race suit, she still flung her arms around his neck. “Did you go fast, daddy?”

“Very fast, ma fille.” He put her down when he reached me and unzipped the race suit with a relieved breath as cool air rushed in before giving me a quick kiss. “Have you seen my parents yet?”

“No but mum texted me an hour ago when they touched down so they can’t be too far away.” I shook my head and looked at my watch. “I could do with them hurrying up since Granny has my dress and your suit. At this rate we will have nothing to wear.”

“She’d probably prefer that, for me,” Pierre joked and I wrinkled my nose in distaste. 

“You can’t even joke about that because it’s true.”

Since it was the end of the season all of our family was coming to the race in support of Pierre but before all that could take place we would be going to the driver’s dinner. It was an event that brought all the drivers and principles together to mingle with the rich and potential sponsors to ensure more cash flow for the following year. 

Essentially, the guys were artwork put on display. And since it would be in the presence of the uber rich, I wasn’t going to be arriving in an off-the-rack dress. Unless Granny was running fashionably late.

“You should go shower,” I said as I nudged Pierre towards the hallway. “I need to quickly finish this report without you distracting me.”

“I haven’t even done anything,” he objected. 

My eyes trailed over his body from head to toe then slowly back up his body. The skin tight fireproof shirt showed every dip and crevice of his toned muscles and I bit my lip. “You don’t have to, I just look at you and forget what I was doing. It’s very inconvenient.”

His smirk grew and he stretched his arms high, looking just like a normal driver doing some warm down exercises but he knew what he was doing as it pulled his shirt up and bared his abs. The peek of golden hairs trailing down his navel caught my attention and I had to tear my eyes away from where they led before slapping his arm lightly.

“I could penalise you for that, Gasly.” I flicked my FIA badge pinned to my chest. “Coercion of an official is a serious offence.”

“Coercion?”

“Mhmm.” I stepped closer and rose on my tiptoes. “You threaten my sanity when you do that. You know it drives me wild.”

He grinned wickedly at my confession and winked. “As an official, you really should have a little more self control, madame.” He ruffled Addie’s hair and waved as he went to his changing room, whistling a cocky tune as he did and I narrowed my eyes at his back as he retreated. 

“Is daddy in trouble?”

“No, mija, quite the opposite,” I replied as I turned my attention to Addie. “Want to finish your picture?”

We went back to the table we had commandeered and Addie returned to colouring in the car I had drawn for her while I opened my laptop. 

When I had imagined working in Formula One I thought it would be in one of the teams but half way through the season FIA announced there would be new regulations for the cars in 2024. To ensure the cars met the regulations the FIA needed more mechanical engineers familiar with the technology and I decided to apply. 

There were half a dozen of us in my team so it wasn’t a problem that I couldn’t work with Alpine since it would be a conflict of interest. I rarely worked with Ferrari too, for the same reason, since Charles had become Addie’s godfather at her christening over the summer break.

I still had ambitions of getting a more hands-on role but for now I kept myself busy and it was flexible for childcare and fit into Pierre’s schedule, plus we still got to go home together each night to whatever hotel we found ourselves in. My life was balanced and complete. 

I would almost say it was perfect but there was one bump in the road that was currently being fixed, if mum’s vague messages were correct. I would have to ask her about them when she arrived. 

I finished my report on McLaren’s plans for their new suspension and sent it through to the head engineer before closing my laptop lid and sliding it into my bag. Water droplets trickled down my neck and I gasped at the cold sensation before looking up to see Pierre’s cheeky smile beneath his damp hair. 

“You look hot, I thought you might want to cool off.”

I smiled back sweetly. “I’ll remember how considerate you are when my feet are cold.”

My phone vibrated on the table and Pierre grinned as he saw the text from my mum saying they were right outside. He scooped Addie up from her chair and took my hand, his energy infectious as he rushed to get out of the garage.

Granny’s plane must have been full since there were both mine and Pierre’s parents, his four brothers, their wives and children, plus Matthew. The moment Addie saw her cousins she squirmed to get down and ran the rest of the way, barrelling into them with a fit of giggles. 

After a quick round of hugs I finally made it to mum and she pulled me aside so we could talk somewhere quieter. My heart thrashed in my chest as she reached into her handbag and produced a brown envelope made from that godforsaken recycled paper and sustainable sources.

“This is the last brown envelope I ever want to see,” I muttered as I ran my fingernail along the seal, breaking it open with a deep breath. The papers slipped out with little resistance and my hands shook as I saw the signatures on the bottom. “So this is it?”

“That’s it,” mum confirmed with a grin.

I shoved the papers back in the envelope and buried it under the FIA forms in my bag. “I have one more favour to ask.”

“No you don’t, mija.” She pulled another document from her bag and placed it in my hands before patting my cheek. “I’ve been waiting for this day.”

Granny had outdone herself with the masterpiece I wore. It was tailored to my every curve and the design could not have been more perfect. 

Social media was no longer my enemy and with Pierre’s support I had used the platforms to share my story and raise awareness around domestic violence as well as fundraise for charities such as Women’s Refuge. While there would always be those who felt the need to leave nasty comments, the good far outweighed the bad and I no longer dwelled on the bad.

The dress Granny made was a celebration of how far I had come and a statement piece for the fact it was White Ribbon Day, the International Day for the Eradication of Violence against Women. If wearing it encouraged even one person to engage in a conversation then it was worth it, because to say I was uncomfortable wearing it was an understatement. 

“Wow,” Pierre gushed as I stepped out of the bedroom and Granny watched on proudly from the doorway. “You look absolutely stunning. Tu es la plus belle femme que j'aie jamais rencontrée.” (French: You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met.)

I blushed at the compliment and looked down at the sleek black dress again. The slit in the skirt reached all the way to my hip and was deliberately on the left side to contrast the scars that ran down my thigh. Pierre loved me, imperfections and all, and he was proud that I didn’t try to hide them anymore.

“I think you knocked the English out of him, honey,” Granny commented as Pierre continued to murmur affirmations in the language she did not understand.

“It happens now and again, when he’s frazzled.”

“I’m not frazzled,” Pierre corrected. “English just doesn’t do justice to how beautiful you look.”

He reached for the neckline, running his fingers along the white silk crossed neck halter to where they joined over my heart and then curved under my bust. Against the midnight black fabric it was impossible to miss the symbol of the white ribbon. It matched the small white ribbon pinned to Pierre’s breast pocket and when his suit jacket was unbuttoned it revealed the silk lining was a repeating pattern of the white ribbon on black.

“Do we have to go?” I asked as I flattened his lapels and ran my palms over his broad chest. “Addie’s with your parents and we could have the whole place to ourselves.”

Granny cleared her throat. “Stop your romantic whispering and get moving. I didn’t come out of retirement so my work of art can end up crumpled on your bedroom floor.”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t stop the amused smile from growing on my face before I swiped the matching clutch from the coffee table and made my way to the door. “Let’s go, handsome.”

“I’m coming,” Pierre said after a moment. “Just admiring the view.”

“You’re welcome,” Granny chuffed before grabbing her own clutch. “Now, where’s that husband of mine? I need my arm-candy before I step out on the red carpet.”

Click here for chapter twenty four.

Tagging: @alwaysclassyeagle @my-only-way-tocooperatewithlife @prrttysposts

[dearest-painter]

A vampire’s true love PT.1

Summary:A widow and a father is the life of Spider-Vamp or Y/N O’Hara. When going to earth-1610 by pure accident and meeting his brand new lover he goes home happy, finally done grieving his late husband. When he and Gabriella meet old friends again and someone who looks like his late husband chaos ensues

TW/CW:Yandere behavior, unhealthy behavior, unhealthy relationship,abusive behavior,abusive relationship,Reader has vampiric traits,Reader is Miguel O’Hara’s husband in his earth,Gabriella aka Miguel and Reader’s kid is alive,very out of character characters,this is a series,Reader is dating Spider-Noir, Spanish will be used but I’m a no sabo kid so I’ll use Google translate so if I did something wrong tell me and please suggest me websites to use for proper translation,Reader was with the og spider crew during into the spider verse,people might be out of character,tell me if I need to add more

Word bank: Amor = Love, hijo = son

You and Gabriella were here at HQ with your lover Noir, you three were sitting down talking. “Dad! Papa look!” You and Noir looked at Gabriella’s artwork which made you both smile as it was you all as a family. “Aw thank you amor.” “Oh my Gaby, it looks amazing” “Thank you papa!” You smiled, Gabriella has started to call calling Noir papa which is very cute. You’ve seen 2099 Miguel…he looks to much like your Miguel and Gabriella doesn’t like it as well..

Soon both of your watches showed Miguel in his suit, he wanted you to chase Miles down. “What’s Miles doing here!? I’m not doing shit for that man” “Same here sweetheart” “Hi bubba!” You were confused until you saw Miles being chased down. “OH FUCK!” “Language dad!” “Sorry hun but why are they chasing him down!!” You texted Miles through your technology telling him where to go and how to lose them.

“LETS GO NOW!” You picked up Gabriella as you and noir went to the area you told him to go. Miles was basically Gabriella’s brother so him being harmed is something you don’t want to happen at all. “Bubba?” “Heya Gaby” You smiled as you handed Gabriella to Miles, he was so tired. You and Noir made sure your watches were off so no one could find your area.

“How’ve you been hijo? Other then being chased down for no reason” “I’ve been good, I feel so fucking scared and wanna go home” “listen we’ll get you home okay” Miles smiled, Gabriella fell asleep on him so you all sat down. You and Noir were calming him down, he’s your son and it’s your job to make sure he’s safe.

Even if you have to kill or fucking die for him, he’s your responsibility. You must make sure he’s safe and if anyone harms him they’ll have to get through you.

[vandijkwrites]

Of Art & Augury: An Interactive Fiction WIP

Genre: Historical Fantasy Format: Text-based interactive fiction Tags: Text-based, historical fiction, romance, fantasy/magic, art and artists, late 19th century Paris Current Status: Drafting (NaNoWriMo 2023 Project)

Synopsis

As a writer for one of the top Parisian society gazettes, you've advised many readers about the up-and-coming artists of the Paris Salon. The best painters there know how to weave subtle enchantments into the likeness of their subject to make the image come to life but, recently, something had been going wrong with the magic. It's up to you to head to the academy and figure out to truth for yourself.

Setting

Set in Paris at the end of the 19th century, you will explore the city and the art exhibitions of the academy. This version of Paris has an undercurrent of magical power which artists use to create enchanted artwork for society.

ROs

Odette [F]

Occupation: Commercial Lithographer Artistic Inspiration: Alphonse Mucha Odette is an Austrian artist who moved to Paris to start her career as an artist. She has little formal training and started her career by taking any artistic work she could get her hands on. Now she does mostly lithography for product advertisements and theater posters.

Sainte [M]

Occupation: Journalist Artistic Inspiration: Édouard Manet Sainte was born in Paris and studied under a successful portrait artist from a young age, but left his studies to pursue journalism for reasons he doesn't like to talk about. Now, he works as an art critic for a Parisian newspaper, covering the Salon and other exhibitions.

Armand [M]

Occupation: Portrait Artist Artistic Inspiration: John Singer Sargent Armand has been passionate about art for most of his life and moved to Paris from New Orleans to start his studies when he was still young. He has been studying portraiture ever since and has already painted portraits for some very influential young socialites.

Helene [F]

Occupation: Socialite Artistic Inspiration: Berthe Morisot Helene is a Parisian socialite who fell in love with painting during her private art education growing up. Although her family encouraged her to keep painting, they refused to let her receive any education in enchantment, a requirement for being taken seriously in artistic society. Ever since, she has been trying to teach herself magic in secret.

[solradguy]

Hey Sol! I remember quite a while ago, someone asked you about how to get into archiving stuff and you answered with a little guide of sorts of useful programs/websites/etc.

Do you still have that guide up? Is there somewhere I can learn more in-depth about how to begin archiving too?

Tumblr search is failing me and I can't find that post now... So! I'll type it again. Lately I've been thinking about writing some kind of "archivist's manifesto" type thing for my Neocities in an effort to hype people up about archiving and to guide them on how to do it. When I write that up I'll post it here too.

Here's a big post I wrote on how to scan books and where to upload them (this is also linked in the big GG masterpost that's in my pinned): https://solradguy.tumblr.com/post/722512206034501632/sol-radguy-scanning-guide

That guide also has some tips on photo editing that may be useful for non-book scanning stuff, like some free program alternatives.

I've tried finding professional guides on how to archive media but most of them are written for people looking to archive family photos/things and not web media or physical books. None of them have been very helpful, honestly. One thing they recommend doing that I think IS helpful though is the rule of 3: Keep 3 copies of an archive somewhere. A physical hard drive, cloud storage, a second hard drive stored separately from the first (in case of accidents/hardware failure), uploaded to separate file hosts, and printing new physical copies are some. Doing any 3 of those is highly recommended. I do the two hard drives and cloud storage/file hosts ones. My hosts are generally Archive.org, Neocities, and Google Drive.

Be very careful about trusting image hosting sites with valuable scan data because they come and go like the wind. Photobucket, Tinypic, Imageshack... They're either dead or require a premium to host files now, which doesn't help hobby archivists at all. Imgur's demise is on the horizon. It's just the way it goes with these due to how expensive and space-consuming image hosting is.

Absolutely 1000% do not ever use just Discord for archiving/hosting things. Nothing on that platform can be backed up easily or with automation, and the guys that run it have already made weird choices the community didn't want while also putting more and more things behind the Nitro paywall. I suspect they're going to kneecap image and file hosting some day soon, too.

For archiving someone else's files, something that helps greatly (if it can be done) is either including the source of the file in the file's name or writing a separate document with the sources and whatever other additional information there is.

Here's a basic example of some Sol images from my Sol folder:

The first two are from the Counterside collab event and then the second two are official art but the file names are descriptive and it saves time sourcing them for things later. For archiving fan art/fiction, the filename is a good place to put the artist credit. Something like [Artwork Title]-[Artist Name]-[Original File Creation Date].format ("Sol Badguy Missing Link - Daisuke Ishiwatari - May 14 1998.jpg," or however you wanna organize the folder) works good.

Windows 11 didn't like working with Japanese text in file names for some of the Vastedge stuff I archived and I had to translate/romanize them. If you can't read Japanese/source's language, just do your best (number them instead?) and include the native language text in a .TXT file if possible.

A more complex example from the Vastedge .TXT doc:

The Vastedge materials archive is pretty dense and had a lot of contributors so the first half of the .TXT document's just credits for who did what. This is useful for if something gets lost because we'll know who to go bother about it. Among other things.

The next section is a long stack of details about the files themselves. I won't paste the whole thing here, it's pretty long. It covers how the archive came to be, issues with some of the files, how the files were obtained, and some other stuff:

The last half of the .TXT doc is a listing of the folder contents. I included this for quick reference and because sometimes archives get fractured by people only reuploading certain parts of it. Future archivists or anyone else going through this archive now have a list of what should be in there and will know if something is missing.

Archive.org/Wayback Machine has a browser extension for quickly archiving webpages. I have that and WebP / Avif Image Converter by Nullbrains (Chrome, might be on Firefox?) installed to quickly archive pages and convert image files as I save them.

In summary:

Upload/store things in multiple places

Include credits wherever you can, however is easiest for you

Try to keep files in the most widely compatible formats (jpg, gif, bmp, png, tiff, mp3, mp4, txt, pdf, flac, etc). Google's .DOC, Clip Studio Paint's .CLIP, and similar file formats meant for a specific piece of software may not be supported in the future.

A bad/incomplete archive is better than no archive at all. Consider how exciting Sappho poetry fragments are compared to what it would be like if we didn't have anything. Don't worry about making it "perfect."

Hope that helps some!! I'll try to write the manifesto for my NC soon

[riaaanna]

Queen at British Music Experience Liverpool - 12 May 2023

So in May I went to Liverpool to watch Eurovision live and had the time of my life?? ICYMI Roger suddenly appeared on stage and I was there in the first audience rehearsal which was like?? That was way more than what I paid tickets for lmfaooo absolutely amazing

But you're not here for that, SO! I finally got time to visit British Music Experience in Liverpool where they have these Queen memorabilia!

The first and most noticeable Queen memorabilia here is Roger's drum kit. I took some pictures from several angles so you can hopefully see the setup clearly.

I couldn't find a description plate for it so I emailed the BME to ask them about it, and this was their reply!

The Queen Drum kit has been on display since 2009 at the 02 Arena, later transferred to Liverpool’s Cunard Building in 2017. The Roger Taylor (Queen) Ludwig drum kit has been used in the late 1970s for their News Of The World & Jazz tour. You may notice that he changes his resonant kick drumhead with either the Queen symbol or the album artwork. This was common for drummers to change resonant drumheads frequently at the time during the 1970s.

The other Queen things are inside this glass display, and their descriptions are pretty much self-explanatory as above (let me know if I need to add alt text). The drum kit used to be inside the glass display but they've taken it out for some reason.

The first set of lyrics is from Machines, look at that "parahumanoidarianised" bit which either was previously "parahumanitarianised" or he just struggled with that made-up word lol. Still for me it's a very underrated song, I love that they brought it for half of the Rhapsody Tour in 2019 and I hope they bring it back sometime!

The next set is the lyrics to White Man, which you can see is written not only in pen but also red crayon (? marker?). I'm not sure what the extra bits in red are, next to the lyrics - looks like random notes about something and also a random doodle of something on the top left...

This set is the lyrics for Teo Torriatte, and if you look carefully at the bottom of the paper there are smaller additional handwriting for a different verse, not sure if it's Freddie's as well...?

This one wasn't listed on the description of the display but it's the handwritten lyrics to I Want to Break Free. It looks like John's handwriting rather than Freddie's, and a previous version of the description plate in 2017 (attached above) from Jim Jenkins on this website seems to confirm it.

(The website also showed that there used to be a set of lyrics for Hammer to Fall, but it wasn't there when I visited, so I wonder if it was moved somewhere...)

This is the best piece on display - one of Freddie's kimonos that he wore for the ADATR tour in 1977. I know he probably had a lot of kimonos, maybe even multiple ones of the same pattern, but this is the picture attached above is the closest one I can find online. So it does not mean it's necessarily the same one, I really don't know!

Note that even that auction website didn't even find a picture of him in it, just him wearing a "similar" one... although I haven't actually asked around as I usually would and I haven't had time to look it up myself, maybe someone can find it!

And last but not least, the main reason I went here tbh... Brian's John Birch guitar! Everything about its unique history is described on the plate in the previous picture. In this audio you can hear the moment that guitar started acting up in the middle of Brian's solo and hear the loud crash when he decided he's had enough of it lol, iconic.

And a bonus Freddie popping up on one of the screens!

That's all the Queen-related memorabilia at BME in Liverpool, but the rest of the place is pretty amazing in itself, lots of historical pieces from the music industry throughout the years, so it's definitely worth a visit if you're around!

[bumblebi713]

I just need you to know, that Hux art with him biting into the starry blood is my FAVORITE piece of yours. There's so much to it that I love about it. If I could I would commission you a tattoo piece 🥹 You're seriously the BEST Singularity artist 🩷💞💖💗💕

Thank you, wow, you're too kind! It always makes me very happy to hear that other Singularity fans are as excited about my work as you are! There are so many beautiful, detailed artworks of more popular characters... it is my desire to create art like that of Hux.

And I'm glad you like that piece in specific! I'm quite fond of it myself.

Some interesting information about the piece-- Originally, the concept for bloody stars was something that I thought of for art of Lucy, as their wish has always been to achieve stardom. I never finished that piece, but I held onto the idea and ended up using it in art of both Hux and Astarion.

I also had a piece of the Unknown that I drew in a similar art style to Hux's. At one point, both pieces incorporated text!

For Hux's I wrote:

"Within each body, a galaxy of dying stars"

The Unknown's piece did not feature bloody stars, but rather bloody rain. For theirs I wrote:

"It bathes in the fountain of stolen youth"

I was not happy with how the Unknown piece turned out, though, which is why it's never been publicly shared.

--

On the subject of commissions-- I definitely would like to take some! It's just that lately I have been spread thin between illness, bad mental health, legal document nonsense, AND working. I have very big plans for the new year, though, plans that would render my many dedications to Hux...material. This is something I've wanted to do for years, but finally, it looks like that dream will become a reality.

I have done highly limited availability commissions in the past, however, so that is something I could likely find time to do again. The only thing is I'd have to sit down and determine fair, consistent pricing for this. My previous commission batches were done so far apart from one another that no one set of prices accurately reflects the quality of work I am capable of now.

This is not yet listed on my carrd, but anyone interested in negotiating a one-off commission is always welcome to message me @ bumblebiz713@gmail.com (please note the z). You can also privately message me on here for my discord, but only if you're someone who I am somewhat familiar with. I easily recognise your name, so you're totally fine to ask for it!

[ditzydreamsss]

incorrect quotes: council edition

just a warning this includes grizzly/charlie/bizly and even more of gribzly. if you don't ship em then skip over this :D (NOT the ccs to be clear. the scu!them :)

oh and this is the generator i used: https://perchance.org/incorrect-quote-generator

line break go brr (theres quite a bit)

GRIBZLY (ft. Charlie & Condi)

.🟢🥀🟦💧.

Grizzly: Someone take me to art museums and make out with me. Bizly: But they said not to touch the masterpieces. Grizzly: Well somebody's got to pin the artwork to the wall. Charlie, on a walkie talkie: This is Charlie, those idiots are fucking around in the East wing again.

.🟢🥀🟦.

Charlie: seductively takes off glasses Charlie: Wow… Grizzly: blushes Haha… what? Charlie: You're really fucking blurry.

.🟢🥀.

Bizly: There's no way they like me back. Grizzly: Charlie would throw themself in front of a moving car for you. Bizly: Charlie would throw themself in front of a moving car for fun.

.🟢🥀🟦.

Charlie: Smart is attractive. Educate me on something I don't know! Condi: The mouth of a jellyfish is also an anus. Charlie: Stop.

.🟢💧.

Charlie, texting Grizzly: Hey do you like anyone? Grizzly: Yeah you Charlie: Oh, I'm sorry we're just friends Grizzly: *Yeah, you? Grizzly: Oh haha sorry lol Charlie: dies inside

.🟢🥀.

Charlie: Hey, random question, what are your favorite flowers? Bizly: Peonies, why? Charlie: Bizly: Were you going to get me flowers? Charlie: Bizly: Charlie: ᶦᵗ’ˢ ᵃ ᵖᵒˢˢᶦᵇᶦˡᶦᵗʸ

.🟢🟦.

playing twister Condi: Right hand red. Grizzly: ends up on top of Bizly Bizly: You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? Condi: I stopped spinning like 15 minutes ago. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't notice.

.🥀🟦💧.

Bizly, looking through their clothes: Has anyone seen my top? Grizzly: Charlie's in the kitchen.

.🟢🥀🟦.

Charlie: Can I have 2 straws with that milkshake? Bizly: Aww- Charlie: With 2 straws, I can drink it double as fast!

.🟢🟦.

Grizzly: Hi. Charlie: Hey, did you do what I said? Did you tell them? Grizzly: I did. Charlie: And what did they say? Grizzly: “Thank you.” Charlie: You’re totally welcome. What’d they say? Grizzly: They said, “Thank you.” I said “I love you” and Bizly said, “Thank you.”

.🟢🥀🟦.

Grizzly: I didn't drink that much last night. Charlie: You were flirting with Bizly. Grizzly: So what? They're my partner. Charlie: You asked if they were single. Charlie: And then you cried when they said they weren't.

.🟢🥀🟦.

Bizly: Ooh, somebody has a crush Charlie: Pfft, I don’t have a crush on Grizzly I just think they’re cool, it’s not like I stay up at night thinking about them. Later that night Charlie, very much awake: Uh oh.

.🟢🥀🟦.

Bizly: Hi, sorry I’m late. I was doing a couple of things and got distracted. Grizzly: I’m “a couple of things”. Charlie: I’m “got distracted”.

.🟢🥀🟦.

Bizly: How do you tell someone that you wanna have sex with them in a polite way? Charlie: Excuse me Mx. Would you give me the honors of indulging in sexual activities with you? Grizzly: What the fuck is wrong with you two?

.🟢🥀🟦.

Charlie: I like your top, Bizly! Grizzly: I have a name, you know. Bizly: sighs Why. Why are you like this.

.🟢🥀🟦.

Charlie: Sorry, I'm late to the party. I've been doing things. Grizzly, entering in an unbuttoned shirt: I got caught up doing things too. Condi: Wow, Charlie was late too! What a coincidence!

.🟢🥀💧.

Bizly: sucking on a popsicle Grizzly: Pfft, you practicing for when Charlie gets here? Bizly: takes a huge ass bite out of the popsicle Grizzly: Concern

.🟢🥀🟦.

Charlie: As top in this relationship, I think we should- Grizzly: I can't believe you're pulling rank on me.

.🟢🥀.

Grizzly: Hey, wanna take a shower with me? Charlie: I have a gun in that nightstand beside the bed. If I ever say no to that question, I want you to take it out and shot me because I’ve obviously gone crazy.

.🟢🥀.

Grizzly: When you said 'Magic in Bed', I wasn't expecting this… Charlie: pulls out card from deck Now, was this your card? Grizzly: Holy shit-

.🟢🥀.

Grizzly: On the count of three, what's your favorite cake? One, two, three- Grizzly and Bizly, in unison: Chocolate cake peanut butter frosting with chocolate chunks! Charlie: Our turn, Condi! One, two, three- vanilla! Condi, deadpan: I've never had cake, what is cake.

.🟢🥀🟦💧.

Charlie: Why are Grizzly and Bizly sitting with their backs to each other? Condi: They had a fight. Charlie: Then why are they holding hands? Condi: They get sad when they fight.

.🟢🥀🟦💧.

GRIBZLY (Grizzly/Bizly)

.🥀🟦.

Grizzly: I don't need to go to bed. I'm not tired, I'll be fine. (*and i need to watch anime) Bizly: But, darling, I'll be so lonely without you. Come curl up in my arms so I can feel whole again. Grizzly: O-oh. Well. Are you trying to seduce me into healthy sleeping patterns?? Bizly: Is it working?

.🥀🟦.

Bizly: I’ve been dropping them the most insanely obvious hints for like a year now. No response. Grizzly: Wow. They sound stupid. Bizly: But they’re not. They’re really smart actually. Just dense. Grizzly: Maybe you need to be more obvious? Like, I don’t know… “Hey! I love you!” Bizly: I guess you’re right. Hey Grizzly, I love you. Grizzly: See! Just say that! Bizly: Holy fucking shit. Grizzly: If that flies over their head then, sorry Bizly, but they're too dumb for you. Bizly: Grizzly.

.🥀🟦.

Bizly: I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Grizzly: Damn, that sounds like a marriage proposal. Bizly, getting down on one knee: That's 'cause it is.

in that one fallen bizly au

.🥀🟦.

Grizzly: I am so cool. I am an absolute Chad. I am the epitome of coolness and awesomeness— Bizly: Hi. Grizzly: melts down in a flustered heap of softness

.🥀🟦.

Bizly: Bro- Grizzly: No, no, hold up, rewind. Grizzly: My tongue was down in your throat just a second ago and now you're calling me bro??

.🥀🟦.

Bizly: Bro, I had a dream we fucked. Grizzly: Bro, relax it was just a dream. Bizly: Huh, gay, I wouldn’t fuck you. Grizzly: You wouldn’t? Bizly: I mean, unless you want to-

.🥀🟦.

Grizzly: Wait, what's going on? Are we all talking about how hot Bizly is? Because Bizly is a straight up sexual fox riding a red-hot nuclear bombshell right toward the yowza plaza in the heart of Babe City, Assachusetts, U S A. The last A just stands for more ass.

.🥀🟦.

Bizly: Wow, Grizzly, you want to hold my hand before marriage? How awfully lewd of you. Grizzly: We literally slept together yesterday. Bizly: That's NOTHING compared to the lewdness of holding hands.

.🥀🟦.

Grizzly: Know why I called you in here? Bizly: Because I accidentally sent you a dick pic. Grizzly: Stops pouring two glasses of wine. Accidentally?

.🥀🟦.

Bizly: Sorry I’m late, I was doing things. Grizzly: Hi, I’m ‘things’.

.🥀🟦.

Bizly: What are you in the mood for? Grizzly: World domination. Bizly: That's a bit ambitious. Grizzly: You are my world. Bizly: Aww… Grizzly: Bizly: Grizzly: Bizly: OH.

.🥀🟦.

Grizzly: We should get you to a doctor for a check up immediately. What if it happens again, and there isn’t anyone around to help you? What if it’s congenital? Oh my God! Was it me? Did I hurt you? Bizly: …You realize any other person that made their partner pass out on bed would simply feel really proud of themselves, right?

.🥀🟦.

Bizly: Well, Grizzly and I finally did it! The rest of the squad: gasps, shocked expressions, etc. Bizly: That's right… We kissed!

.🥀🟦.

aaand that's it (for now???) :D