#completely unrelated to our usual posts

[the-shape-shifting-system]

French celebratory post

On a eu notre BAC! Vouiiiiiii! Le soulagement du siècle, j'étais convaincu qu'on allait devoir passer au rattrapage, ce que je ne voulais absolument pas car c'est à Montauban (juste à une heure et quelques de chez nous, en plus c'est des oraux :/). On l'a eu mention Bien en plus! Ça par contre c'était pas prévu, vu comment on c'est loupé sur la philo et l'une de nos EDS (enseignement de spécialité) ^^'

Je suis hyper content, c'est franchement génial surtout qu'on va pouvoir faire la formation qu'on voulait dans le supérieur! Yay!

[puppyeared]

who up seeing their disorder in a fictional character but feel like its not their place to put a name on it

[annabelle--cane]

this is a difficult thing to have conversations about because it provokes really strong reactions in people for completely valid and understandable reasons, so please feel free to hit da bricks on this post whenever you want, but I do want to try and analyse the jonmartin slaps. we get three across 160, 169, and 172, and a line addressing it in 173, and then it never happens or comes up again. none of them come out of nowhere, and they mostly fly under the radar until 173 because they all broadly fit the "slapping someone out of a trance in an emergency" trope, but each of them slowly decreases in urgency.

the first time, the apocalypse starts up and martin comes back to find a passed out jon, can't wake him by making noise, and strikes him in a panic. this makes sense, this is a man who has entered a supernatural coma before and martin had no idea what was going on, so of course he'd jump to something desperate.

the second time, they're in a burning building, jude arrives while jon is still mid-statement, and when making noise doesn't work martin slaps him out of it. this makes sense, they were there for jude and if jon didn't come back to himself then she likely would have hurt them, though martin knew that her powers against them were limited.

the third time, jon is getting pulled into into a repeating statement instead of coming out on his own like usual, so martin speaks once or twice to try and get his attention, and then slaps him out of it. this... again, it makes sense, jon was getting trapped, but there was no immediate peril like before, martin just got freaked out and wanted to leave quickly. he seems to get that it was harsh because he apologizes for it, but they don't linger at all, martin just starts in on them having to leave immediately.

the last time it's mentioned is when they're on night street, during what is one of their most intense arguments. jon tries to talk about the suffering of the children there for longer than he needs to in order to make a point, martin cuts him off, and he pointedly says, "thank you for not hitting me this time." it never happens or is brought up again.

to our knowledge, jon doesn't say anything about the slapping until 173. he's not a guy who's known for speaking up when things upset him, he was amiably working with daisy within about a week of her trying to kill him, so it makes sense that he would just sit with this comparatively more minor thing. however, I do think it's relevant to note that, at this point in their relationship, martin will sometimes voice his feelings and boundaries (not listening to statements, not consenting to mind reading, worrying when jon expresses discomfort with his body), while jon doesn't. from the couple of times he does talk about his feelings this season, I think that tendency comes a few places: he has a hard time being aware of his emotions at all, he doesn't know how to evaluate his emotions' importance in comparison to others', he assumes his emotions are obvious and thus people already act with full knowledge of them, and the topic is just hard to make himself talk about. from what he says in 173, I think the slaps bothered him the entire time, but he made himself be fine with it until he was upset with martin for unrelated reasons and finally let it out.

as for martin's side, I do not think the slaps came from any kind of suppressed desire to hurt or wield power over jon. we've seen him when he's angry at jon, this isn't how he acts, he gets shouty and indignant but never violent. I'd even go as far as to say he doesn't do it in 173 because he's genuinely upset at jon and the situation they're in, and it would never occur to him to deliberately inflict pain on someone he cares about to assert control over them. the connecting line between all of them is fear from something that he wants jon to help him handle. the apocalypse starts, he is stuck inside one of his worst nightmares, and he's paranoid that the web took control of him. he's someone who is "always following, never leading" (170), and he gets tunnel vision when something scares him and his "leader" isn't there.

jon did need to be pulled out of all three of those situations, and words proved insufficient, and maybe a quick jolt of pain was the only thing that could have worked, but martin doesn't seem to consider what that would feel like from jon's pov. in my experience of relationships, if there's ever an unavoidable emergency where you do actually need to cross a line that you never would otherwise, you talk about it afterwards. you do a debrief where you say "I'm really sorry about that, I didn't see another way, I'll try and be better prepared next time." they do this for problems they have later on (177, 198), but martin doesn't do that here. jon's point-of-view just doesn't seem to occur to him. when jon expresses discomfort, he drops the tactic without a word; later, when he needs to anchor jon in the panopticon, he talks him through it before it can get too far. so, it's not about a lack of care for jon's feelings.

I think it comes down to a few things: a) his occasional tendency to treat people as a means to an ends and not think about their perspective. he's so glued to putting others first most of the time that when he stops, he can't find a middle ground and forgets that other people can have feelings about his actions. b) his problems with conceiving of himself as a person of any importance who is capable of doing anything, especially of doing harm. as a concept, "hurting jon" is the thing he would least like to do in the whole world, it is his nightmare scenario and literally the culminating moment of his tragedy. he finds it almost unthinkable, so the idea that he does it casually when he's scared doesn't cross his mind. one of his central worries at this point is that jon is now so powerful that he no longer needs martin, how could he hurt someone like that? he's not anywhere near a comparable level of importance, it's not like he has his own domain that he's not aware of because jon told him about it and he immediately rejected the information. he's powerless and could never bring himself to hurt the man he loves.

I just. think it's an interesting microcosm of some of the lows of their relationship. once the problem is discovered martin instantly takes the note and doesn't put it on jon to explain himself further or assuage his guilt, they are willing and able to adapt, but it still comes from some of their bedrock flaws. martin doesn't understand that he can hurt people, and jon has such an inflated understanding of his capacity to hurt people that it sabotages his self-worth and his ability to respond to pain and displeasure.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Aita for venting?

Emojis, so I can find it later 💯⁉️💥 (unrelated, I just use them a lot)

So I(16) have been struggling with depression since I was, like, 10. It's been worse and better over the years, but something that really triggers it is extreme weather. Dunno why, but if its hot as fuck outside I *will* be considering suicide.

I regularly go to sleepaway camp every year. I usually do two weeks and usually go during the summer rainy season. Well, a year or two back (can't remember, got that depression and ADHD memory loss) I went later on in the summer than I usually do, and it was really fucking hot out. The whole time.

I could deal with it for a couple of days, especially because I was having a bit of romantic tension with J(16) (not real name, not even real initial). "I can survive any situation as long as I have a crush on someone there", or whatever that post said. He was really sweet and also suffered from depression. We talked about our struggles together, and he seemed to be responsive and chill about it. He did have trauma from his past with loved ones committing suicide, but he seemed to have worked through his grief and didn't have negative reactions when it was mentioned.

Here's where I might be the asshole. Eventually, the heat got to be too much for me, not to get too graphic but I was making plans, so I sent my parents a letter asking to pick me up. I waited a couple days for them to recieve it, and they did and called and said they would pick me up in the morning.

I delivered the news to everyone by being quite vague about what I had to go home for. When pressed, I said my parents didn't give any details and I was a little worried. That explained my acting weird away to everyone, but not J. He didn't believe me for one minute, and was determined to get to the bottom of it.

He took me outside, asked me what was wrong, and told me it was ok to tell him. It took a little convincing, but I eventually broke down and told him I was having suicidal ideation and that I needed to get the fuck out of dodge or I might do something drastic. I specified that I would be completely fine once I got out of the oppressive heat and humidity, just that I had to go home ASAP. I did ask him not to tell anyone because I didn't want them to worry, which I realize now was unkind. I should have at least told a counselor so that he wasn't alone.

Anyway, he immediately started having full-fledged PTSD flashbacks. I couldn't tell at first, but then I realized what was going on and tried to comfort him. It didn't work. The counselor that came check on us just kicked me out. I went back inside feeling guilty, but I was hoping that I reassured him enough that he would be ok.

He acted normal for the rest of the time I was there (we even kissed! That was my first kiss) and made me promise to text him when I got home. Naturally, I did, reassuring him and telling him I was feeling infinitely better now that I had air conditioning and my phone. When he got home from camp a week later, he seemed a little freaked out but seemed to be mollified by my texts.

However, a couple days after that, he texted me out of nowhere, saying that I shouldn't have told him about what I was going home about because I gave him constant PTSD flashbacks for the rest of camp. He felt sick with worry the whole time. I felt like shit, obviously, so I responded with profuse apologies. He seemed to accept them but still feel a little resentful.

I still feel really fucking bad about it. I actually haven't told anyone I know IRL about. Well. Pretty much anything bothering me since. I know that's a bit of an overreaction, but I don't want to do that to anyone else.

So, am I the asshole?

(By the way, if you were there or know me, I would love it if you could just ignore this. Please and thank you. And also never make me know you read this cause that would be embarrassing as fuck lol)

[fuck-customers]

Maybe I’m overreacting because I hate my manager, but lately he’s been wanting me to take over our company’s audits and his idea of teaching is to just throw me in the deep end and have me just figure it out as I go or to lie to me and see if I figure things out. A few days ago, the TN auditor sent me an email with a spreadsheet detailing the amount of taxes that we didn’t pay over 4 years and needed to. I tried to see where she got the numbers from but with my limited access to things I couldn’t see much so I asked my manager. Unbeknownst to me he lied about what the amounts were and where they came from, and had me schedule a meeting with the auditor to explain to her the mistake she made and how we didn’t have to pay the tax amount. So I did and in less than 5 mins, she explained to me that I misunderstood her because what I was talking about was unrelated to what she was asking for. Upon doing more research, I concluded she was right and I really couldn’t find anything proving otherwise. However my manager usually gives me a hard time when I tell him he’s wrong so I just kept looking just in case he was right. With the way he acts, you’d think he was paying these amounts out of his own pocket. Eventually I just gave up and told him, and that’s when he revealed he lied to me. He claimed he didn’t want to just give me the answer and wanted me to learn by doing research. I understand not wanting to give me the answer because it’s the easy way out and wanting me to genuinely understand what it is I’m doing but there’s a time and place for that and right now getting the task completed correctly and on time is more important, especially since there’s no training period or practice. I can’t go into the real deal making stupid mistakes like this all to learn a lesson. I don’t want to be responsible for providing the wrong information and causing a company to owe more money than they ought to.

Posted by admin Rodney

[interstellarsystem]

Endogenic Systems and Experiences in the Neurodivergent Community

We tend to stay mostly on the fringes of syscourse nowadays without directly interacting with it too often but I'm going to post this more broadly and less focused on our specific instance of this because community-wise I think it's important to talk about.

Endogenic and other non-traumagenic systems are so commonly excluded from so many neurodivergent-safe spaces where they would otherwise be able to gain knowledge about the disorders they might have, share experiences and coping strategies with peers, or at least have a sense of community that is so commonly valuable to disabled and/or neurodivergent people. In a lot of cases, even people who only support non-traumagenic systems get shoved out.

[Continued under the readmore as it's long.]

This obviously harms non-traumagenic systems, but I have to point out that when people sit there and say "we care about REAL disabled people!", I have to say.... Do you? Because if you did care about those with mental illness, physical disability or neurodivergence, you in my mind wouldn't exclude them based on something unrelated to the topic itself which might even be something as small as holding an opinion that other people get to be the judge of their own experiences. You can say that you care about "real" disabled people, but what about when a traumagenic DID system also has a tulpa that they consider just as valid and real as their alters? What about when a system labels themselves as quoigenic because in reality, you owe no one the knowledge that you are vulnerable and traumatised? What about when a system starts out as endogenic but gains so much trauma later on that they develop dissociative symptoms?

We're quoigenic because while yes we are diagnosed with DID:

DID does not have trauma in the diagnostic criteria so our diagnosis doesn't mean anything by way of origin. Nontraumagenic is not the same as nondisordered the same way that traumagenic isn't the same as disordered.

We cannot remember a time before we were plural so we cannot say with accuracy what our actual origin was.

We have headmates we consider to be from both traumagenic and endogenic origins and it feels unfair to pick one.

We don't owe anyone a quick little "hey, we have trauma!" flag on our pinned post which can easily paint us as a target. This is the exact reason we don't share our triggers online--it's not safe.

You don't owe anyone personal medical information including your diagnostic history, your trauma history or lack thereof, your current medications or how many times you've been in a hospital. That is your business and yours alone to decide who you share it with. It's downright dangerous to share some of it, especially so publically. So who is anyone online that clearly isn't your specific medical practitioner to decide whether your experiences are real enough to allow you into spaces meant for a usually completely unrelated thing? Why would someone holding the opinion that endogenic systems get to decide what labels they use be denied access to spaces just because they support people with differing beliefs and/or experiences?

If we as a system with multiple disabilities want to go into a space for people who are schizoaffective because we need others who won't immediately jump on the ableism train when discussing something we're diagnosed with that has so much stigma, should we be denied that just because we don't label our origin with a clear-cut "we are traumatized!!" label? Should we be denied access to spaces because we don't want to sit around and smile while parts of our system and other members of our community are called fake and evil and whatever else they come up with? It's so common in spaces for people with disabilities to be exclusive to traumagenic systems and people with an anti-endogenic mindset that people don't realise they're not only hurting the endogenic community, but literal chunks of their own community itself.

I can't even begin to understand the reason why.

Endogenic systems by just existing do not cause harm. They're not like a transphobe you would not be safe around by default of having a label. Not every nontraumagenic system is a saint but if you took any communtiy and called everyone in it the equivalent of an unproblematic holy angel, you'd be lying. People are bad in every community, some worse than others, but the nontraumagenic system community literally just wants to exist--and yes, sometimes a nontraumagenic system (or supporter of such) does have dissociative symptoms, or maybe they have autism, or maybe they're physically disabled. Should they be not allowed access just because of the way they chose to label their system, or their opinion of people picking their own labels for their personal identity?

What exactly is the reason they're so excluded everywhere? I'd try to assume that this level of exclusion (to the point of endos being on DNIs next to transphobes and racists) would mean there's some real harm being done on a community-wide scale, but even when looking for it there isn't any explanation we've been able to find. "They're fake" is all we seem to see which has no actual backing whatsoever. "They're harmful" is another but.. How? We might be looking in the wrong places, but we have never seen an actual explanation for how nontraumagenic systems cause harm as a community just by being themselves.

At this point, I have to wonder how many people who say "we care about real disabled people!" are just covering up their "we care about socially acceptable disabled people who I understand and/or do not find cringey" sentiment instead. Being neurodivergent should never be about fitting into tight little boxes--it's part of the whole point of having a community like this. You're not the majority, and that's okay. So why are we dividing the disabled community into boxes too?

Of course, this doesn't only apply to ND spaces. LGBT+ spaces are similar and even more divided from the concept of being a system that it makes even less sense to block nontraumagenic systems from entering the space. How does their system origin relate to their LGBT+ identity? Sometimes it can, but should a trans person be excluded from a trans space because they have a friend who is an endogenic system and they support them fully?

Overall, the main point is that it makes no sense whatsoever to be anti-endo in general, let alone so violently anti-endogenic system to the point where you hurt members of your own community due to it. Sometimes from something as simple as them supporting endogenics alone. Your safe spaces aren't actually safe if you exclude a nonharmful group who also belong in that space due to having a personal identity or opinion different to yours. If you want somewhere to be a safe, inclusive space, it should include everyone as long as letting those people in won't cause harm. People who are seeking to cause harm (racists, transphobes, etc) obviously do not belong in a safe space because they seek to harm others, thus making the space unsafe. But people who just want to be themselves without harming anyone should be included in your space if they fall under whatever it may be topic-wise. Even the "cringey" ones. Even the ones who don't quite make sense to you or have "contradicting" labels. Even the ones who use labels completely differently to the way you do. And even the ones who are uninformed or misinformed but trying their best to learn. Your safe space is not safe if it excludes those who do not follow your every single mindset and thought without any deviation.

[sirfrogsworth]

Hi Froggy,

I hope you've been well! I wanted to reach out and first say that you inspired me many years ago to rescue a corgi! She was a grump, I think she may have taken her name (Elphaba) too literally. She recently crossed the rainbow bridge, but she was such fun and a joy. I hope our pups are playing together, somewhere peaceful.

I have a question unrelated to stumpy Corgis. I'm a veteran birth doula and an aspiring birth photographer! I've been trying to research cameras, lenses, and all sorts of technical stuff. I'm leaving towards purchasing the new Nikon ZF, because of the purported low-light capabilities.

Lenses are throwing me completely.

Do you have any guidance or resources to help a newbie like myself? Not really looking for an in-depth answer (I know how complicated things can get), but maybe a general push in the right direction?

If you don't want or can't answer, no hard feelings! I enjoy just seeing your posts on my dash and I hope the rest of your year is amazing and calm!-Steph

(continued...)

My budget is pretty flexible, since I am an independent contractor the expense would be tallied towards my taxes. But that being said, maybe $1-3k? I know it's important to invest more into lenses!

Usually, I am in a hospital, and lighting is extremely variable. I would be shooting mostly in low-light before baby is born. During delivery and after there is usually a spotlight or fluorescent lighting. The low lighting is exactly why I was looking at the new ZF, but if you have suggestions on that too I'm happy to hear them!

It's very cramped when the baby is born, most medical and support staff are clustered around the laboring person.

Warning! A lot of birth photos will have baby crowning or blood. It's a messy business, so I don't want to trigger you if you're sensitive to those sorts of images.

I will not be able to be directly next to the laboring parent, more than likely I'll be a few feet away, possibly behind the parents or standing on a stool.

After the baby is born, I'll be able to get closer to both parents and baby!

Here's a portfolio that is close to what I would like to provide (once again TW for blood and crowning):

https://www.sarahginderphotography.com/birth-photography-north-new-jersey

I cannot thank you enough for any help or advice, this whole endeavor is like learning a new language!

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

Note from Future Froggie...

I went way overboard on this response, as usual. I have decided I'm going to break it up into 3 parts.

First, an encyclopedia of lens terminology.

Second, a camera and lens buying guide.

Third, practical advice for shooting in cramped rooms with tricky lighting conditions.

While this will be geared towards the original ask, I think this could be helpful to a lot of people. So, let's learn about lenses!

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

Lenses throw everybody, just because there are so many options. It can be overwhelming to look at a picture like this and wonder what will suit you best.

It's a lot of pressure too, because lenses are more important than the camera in a lot of ways. Interchangeable lenses are probably the biggest advantage big cameras have over smartphones these days.

But I think I can help get you up to speed.

The following terms are photospeak you might hear in camera and lens reviews and if you aren't familiar with them, it can make it difficult to figure out what camera and lens to purchase.

I tried to put these in an order that makes sense, but some terms relate to other terms and you may have to read the list twice to make sure you understand how everything mushes together.

Froggie's Encyclopedia of Lens Terms

Lens Mount

Every camera has a specific lens mount. Sony calls theirs the E Mount. Nikon has the F Mount (older) and the Z Mount (mirrorless). So you need to make sure the lens you are looking at is compatible with the mount on your camera.

Mirrorless cameras all upgraded to a mount with a "short flange distance." Going without a mirror allows the lenses to be closer to the sensor.

Long story short... Short flange distance = easier lens design = sharper/lighter lenses.

However, if you want to use older DSLR lenses, there are adapters for Nikon and Canon that allow you to do that.

Aperture

"Aperture" is an opening at the front of the lens. It gets bigger to let in more light or smaller to restrict light.

Wider apertures have a shallower depth of field, causing blurry foregrounds and backgrounds outside the plane of focus. Smaller apertures expand the focus area to keep more stuff from being blurry, but they let in much less light and are difficult to use in dark environments.

Aperture can be a creative decision or it can be a technical decision or it can be a mix of both. If you need a blurry background, use a wider aperture. If you need everything in focus, use a smaller aperture. If you need more light in a dark scene, open it up.

F-stop

"F-stop" is a number representing how big the aperture is. A lower number is a bigger hole. Higher number is a smaller hole. It is helpful to memorize f-stops as they are not easily divisible. Cameras generally allow third stops, half stops, and full stops.

These are all a "full stop" apart.

Stop Down/Open Up

When someone says to "stop down" a lens, they are telling you to make the aperture smaller or use a higher f-stop number.

If they say to "open up" they are saying to make the hole bigger or lower the f-stop number.

Depth of Field (DoF)

Depth of field refers to how much of the photo is in focus. Things in front of the plane of focus will get blurrier and blurrier and things behind the plane of focus will get blurrier and blurrier. A shallow depth of field means only a tiny sliver of your image will be in focus. A deep depth of field means almost everything will be in focus.

The wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field.

The smaller the aperture, the deeper the depth of field.

Focal Plane or Plane of Focus

The focal plane is the sharpest point within the depth of field. You can imagine an imaginary section of 3D space where things within the depth of field are sharp and things outside are blurry. The farther away from the focal plane, the blurrier they will get. But the focal plane is not always dead center of the depth of field.

Typically, at close distances, things will be sharp half in front of where you focused and half behind where you focused. As things get farther away, that changes to more 1/3 in front and 2/3 behind. The ratio changes even more at greater distances, but the 50-50 and 1/3-2/3 ratios are typically what photographers try to remember.

Shallow Depth of Field

The focal plane is something you need to be very aware of at close distances with a wide aperture—as the depth of field can end up as a tiny sliver.

Let's say you are only a few feet away from a baby and you have the aperture set at f/1.2. You focus on the nearest baby eye, and then you notice its ears and nose are out of focus.

The plane of focus and shallow depth of field are causing this issue. This might be a worthy compromise if you are in a dark room and your ISO is very high and you are worried about too much noise.

However, if you can use a flash or some kind of lighting, you can stop down your lens and increase that depth of field around the focal plane.

Bokeh

Bokeh is the quality of the blurriness. Some people are more obsessed with how good the blurry parts of the photo are more so than the in focus parts. Bokeh is typically judged by "bokeh balls" which are just out-of-focus lights in the background. While I like attractive bokeh balls as much as the next photographer, I will admit this is one of the sillier aspects of photography.

Field of View (FoV)/Angle of View

This is how much stuff you can fit in frame at a given distance. Wide angle lenses can fit more stuff in at a shorter distance and telephoto lenses can fill the frame with stuff that is farther away. The focal length of the lens determines the field of view. The focal length is designated by millimeters and the field of view by degrees.

Focal Length

Technically, this is "the distance between the lens's optical center and the camera's sensor."

In simpler terms, this is how you determine the field of view of a given lens.

A short focal length, like 10mm, will have a wider field of view. You have to be very close to your subject to fill the frame with them.

And a longer focal length, like 500mm, will allow you to fill the frame with your subject from farther distances.

Typically all lenses are designated by their focal length. If someone says, "Hand me the 50" they mean a 50mm lens.

35mm Equivalent

Not every camera has the same sized sensor. So when we talk about lenses, we need a reference to help us understand how a given lens will behave. A 50mm f/2.8 lens does not have the same field of view or depth of field when placed on different sensors. So, we need a standard for comparison.

The standard that is used is the "full frame" sensor which is roughly the same size as a 35mm piece of film.

Anything smaller is considered a "cropped sensor."

Those cropped sensor cameras have a "crop factor"—a simple multiplier that helps you understand how lenses compare. And when you use this multiplier it tells you the "35mm equivalent."

Confused yet? Yeah, sorry, it would be easier if camera manufacturers chose metrics that didn't change depending on the sensor, but this allows them to make their cameras and lenses seem more impressive in the marketing.

There are two main cropped sensors for ILCs. (Interchangeable lens cameras.) APS-C and Micro Four Thirds. They have a "crop factor" of 1.5x and 2x respectively. The Micro 4/3 sensor is half the size of Full Frame, therefore it has a 2x crop factor. And when you apply this crop factor to the aperture and focal length you can determine how a lens will behave.

For example, a 50mm f/2.8 lens on a micro 4/3 sensor would behave the same as a 100mm f/5.6 lens on a full frame—as 100mm is 2x 50mm and f/5.6 is 2 stops above f/2.8.

As you can see, the Micro 4/3 lens is not going to do as well in low light. The iPhone boasts an aperture of f/1.8 on its main lens, but when you figure out the 35mm equivalent, it's more like an f/8 lens.

I went to all the effort to explain this because it demonstrates that larger sensors allow you to work in cramped spaces with less light. If you want to use a 50mm in a hospital room, you probably can on a full frame. But on a Micro 4/3 you might need to be out in the hall because your lens is acting like it is 100mm. So the Zf would be a good choice in this regard.

Camera Shake

This is the bad kind of blurry. Humans are not tripods, so when you are handholding a lens, you need to make sure your shutter speed is fast enough to freeze the action of your image. Camera shake is very easy to control on wide angle lenses and very difficult to manage with telephoto lenses.

Reciprocal Rule

The reciprocal rule states that in order to get sharp photos without blurry camera shake, you must set your shutter speed to 1 over twice the focal length of your lens. So if you have a 100mm lens, you need to set your shutter speed at 1/200 to be safe.

This rule breaks down at a shutter speed of 1/50 if there is anything moving in your image. So if a dog is running or a car is driving by, it will have a motion trail, but at least it won't be due to your shaky hands.

Image Stabilization

This is a feature some lenses have that helps reduce camera shake. Image stabilization can counteract shaky hands and let you get sharp photos with a much slower shutter speed. Newer cameras have sensor stabilization which does the same thing. And if you pair up a stabilized sensor with a stabilized lens, it is almost as effective as using a tripod.

Stabilization is measured in stops. You might hear a lens has 4 stops of stabilization. That means you can handhold the lens and not get camera shake with a shutter speed 4 stops below the reciprocal rule. So for that 100mm lens, that 1/200 becomes roughly 1/12. And if your sensor has 4 stops, you could handhold a shot for nearly a second without any shake.

However, at shutter speeds that slow, if anything in the frame is moving, they will probably have motion blur. But for still life scenes, or maybe a sleeping baby, this can be very handy if you don't have a tripod with you.

If being able to handhold at lower shutter speeds seems important, then you might want to seek out a lens with stabilization and pair it to a camera with sensor stabilization for maximum stable-osity.

Lens Compression

Lens compression is kind of a myth, but I think we still call it compression because it is easier to explain to beginners than optical physics. The lens doesn't really compress anything, it's actually a matter of distance and the aforementioned physics. But I'm going to go with the easy explanation for now.

Lens compression is a phenomenon seen with different focal lengths. If you take a photo with a 500mm lens, the background will seem to compress with the foreground. Thus objects in the background will seem much larger in size.

This also happens with faces.

Wider lenses exaggerate distance. At 10mm, the lens would only be a few inches away from someone's face.

From the lens's point of view, the ears are several times farther away from the lens than the tip of the nose. So the lens is like, "Your ears are really far away! And far away things are really small, right?" So the lens gives us a big nose and small ears and makes us look a bit alien.

But at 100mm, the lens will be several yards away.

From this perspective, the lens feels like your ears and your nose are nearly the same distance away. And the lens is now like, "Things that are the same distance away do not get bigger or smaller." The lens seems to compress or flatten the face, causing a more flattering appearance in the image.

Minimum focus distance

This is sometimes called the working distance. This is how close you can get to your subject while maintaining focus. If you get too close, your camera will just hunt and freak out perpetually until you back up and it can lock on again. This isn't always advertised prominently for lenses, so you need to make sure the lens will be able to focus in the space you plan to use it.

Extension Tubes

Sometimes called "macro extension tubes." These are spacers you put between your camera and lens to decrease the minimum focus distance. In some cases you can even turn a normal lens into a macro lens. These tubes are able to stack and the more you put on, the more into the macro realm you can go. They come in smart and dumb versions. The dumb ones require you to manual focus whereas the smart ones can still use the autofocus system. I highly recommend the smart ones, as they are not too much more expensive.

Lens Imperfections

There are a few imperfections that can plague all lenses and their quality is sometimes judged by how well they mitigate those imperfections. Here are some of those attributes.

Lens Distortion

As lenses get wider, they allow a larger field of view by accepting light rays that are coming from the side of your lens. Let's look at this image again.

Your lens then has to correct those rays and send them to a square, flat sensor. If you look at the 180 degree fisheye, that entire arc has to be flattened and made square. And as good as optical engineering has become, the wider the lens, the harder it is to keep the image from distorting.

This is typically called "barrel distortion." Minor distortion can actually be corrected in editing software. Every lens has correction algorithms. Though sometimes it is best to embrace the distortion, like on a fisheye lens. Make the distortion a feature and not a bug.

Chromatic Aberration

This is the fancy name for color fringing. This is a defect in the lens that cause false colors to contaminate certain objects in a photo. Typically this happens around dark skinny things against a bright background, such as tree branches.

Modern lenses have nearly eliminated this, except for the super cheap models, but if you do end up with fringing, this can be easily corrected in Lightroom or Photoshop. And many lenses even have that correction built in and all you have to do is check a box.

Sharpness

You might not think of sharpness as an optical flaw, but no lens is perfectly sharp. And the quest to make a perfectly sharp lens involves engineering those optical flaws to a minimum.

A "sharp lens" is one with incredible fidelity. Even zoomed in beyond 100%, sharp lenses will show great detail. If you can't get close to the subject and need to crop your photo later, having a sharp lens can make up for the loss in resolution—as you can upscale without much loss in quality. If you plan to make large high quality prints, a sharp lens will help more than tons of megapixels.

That said, if you truly want to get the most out of a high megapixel camera, a sharp lens comes in handy here too. A smartphone may boast in the marketing as having 200 megapixels, but it has a tiny plastic lens. So even though it technically has 200 megapixels on the sensor, the lens will give it the equivalent of maybe 8-10 megapixels worth of detail. People forget, the lens has a resolution as well, and if the lens cannot resolve 200 megapixels, you aren't going to get a 200 megapixel image.

A sharp lens will allow for more detail than higher megapixels. In some cases you need to double or triple the number of pixels to see an increase in detail. Whereas you can put a super sharp lens on a 12 megapixel camera and blow any smartphone out of the water.

And if you put a sharp lens on a 50 megapixel camera, you can almost see into skin pores.

So... sharp = more detail. And more detail gives you greater cropping power for when you can't get close to babies.

Now, I am obligated to say that some photo nerds chase sharpness as if it is some holy grail. They need the sharpest lens so all of their pixels are perfect at 100% zoom even though no one ever looks at an image that close. There are amazing photos that have been blurry. There are amazing photos taken with 50 year old vintage glass. Sharpness is just another tool. If you need to crop. If you need to upscale. If you need to print large... it is a great help. But nearly every lens made for a modern mirrorless camera is "sharp" to some degree.

So, if you need extra sharpness for certain situations, do your research and find a lens that is sharp as can be. But sharpness should be like 8th on the list of priorities.

Soft Lens

A "soft" lens is how a non-sharp lens is referred to. Most modern optics for mirrorless cameras have some degree of sharposity.

Sharpitude.

Sharp...ness.

So you don't need to worry too much about getting a detrimentally soft lens unless you go super duper budget. This is why I usually recommend people skip the "kit lens" unless they absolutely can't afford anything better.

Though sometimes people purposely get vintage lenses because they don't like sharpness and prefer the "character" of older lenses. The imperfections can achieve a different artistic goal. Though this can also be achieved through lens filters... or Vaseline.

I'm looking at you, Barbara Walters.

Sharpness at the Corners

When I read that in my head just now I said it the same way I do "Panic! at the Disco."

Engineers will prioritize sharpness at the center of the lens since that is where most of the interesting stuff tends to be. But also, the light rays at the center tend to be the most parallel as they head to the sensor, so they don't need as much correction. The rays coming from the sides have to be bent and manipulated to correct for distortion, so keeping things sharp at the corners can be a challenge.

Now, knowing that, and knowing how the aperture works, you can infer that when you stop down your lens and make the hole smaller, all of the light rays are constricted to a smaller area. This makes them easier for your lens to deal with, so if a lens has problems with corner sharpness, you can usually stop down to improve this. So if a lens is soft at the corners at f/1.8, you might be able to go to f/2 or f/4 to get better results.

Vignetting

Vignetting is a circular area of darkness at the perimeter of your photo. This is another side effect caused by the same things as soft corners. When correcting those non-parallel light rays, it causes them to travel an ever so slightly farther distance getting to your sensor. And the inverse square law tells us that light becomes dimmer as it travels longer distances.

This is very easy to correct. Usually your camera has a setting to correct vignetting if you are outputting JPEG files. And if you are shooting RAW photos, your editing software should have a check box to fix the vignetting—usually the same one that fixes chromatic aberration. This is usually called "lens correction" in most menus.

Also, same as with corner sharpness, stopping down your lens will usually fix this optically rather than with software algorithms.

Contrast

Contrast is probably the most important attribute to determine lens quality. Good contrast can make a soft lens look good. But lens contrast is not always consistent. It can get better or worse depending on the lighting in your scene.

The best way to test the contrast of a lens is to take a picture of something that is backlit. A person with the sun behind them is a great indicator. If they have no light on them, the person should fall into inky darkness. But if a lens has poor contrast, they will seem like a faded gray.

Focus Breathing

Focus breathing is a phenomenon where your focal length changes depending on how far away your subject is. It's usually not a big deal and most people don't even notice it, but if you ever do video, it can cause a few headaches. Some people can get annoyed because they feel they aren't getting the advertised focal length on the lens they bought. Like, if you get a 300mm lens and it only goes to 250mm for things super far away, that can be annoying.

This video explains it in detail.

Lens Types

Prime Lens

A "prime lens" has a fixed focal length and cannot be zoomed. Typically prime lenses are "faster" (wider max aperture) and sharper. Weirdly they can be very inexpensive or the most expensive. They can be extremely lightweight or weigh a ton. And if you want the sharpest lens possible or the fastest lens possible or both, it will be expensive and heavy.

Having at least one fast prime is usually recommended for any professional photographer.

Zoom Lens

A "zoom lens" allows you to zoom. Obviously. But there are few that go below an aperture of f/2.8, so less light gathering and you sacrifice a bit of sharpness. However, if you don't know how much space you will have to work with, the flexibility of a zoom can be invaluable.

Be warned, while a cheap prime lens can still take fairly good photos, cheap zooms are usually pretty terrible. There are plenty of reasonably priced zoom lenses to choose from, but if the price seems too good to be true, I would trust that intinct.

Wide Angle Lens

A "wide angle lens" is any focal length below 35mm. Wider focal lengths allow you to get more stuff in the photo at shorter distances. A theme you might notice with photography is that every benefit has a compromise or consequence to go with it. Wide angle lenses are wonderful if you are in a cramped space. They also make it easy to keep everything in focus. But as you go wider, distances become exaggerated and barrel distortion becomes more pronounced and harder to correct.

Things that are close to the lens seem huge and things farther away seem tiny. One trick to remember is things in the center of the frame will be less affected by distortion. Something to take into account when taking those smartphone selfies.

If you look, the ball looks huge in frame because it was only a few inches from the lens. Otis was literally smaller in frame than the ball despite only being about 2 feet away. However, he doesn't look all stretchy like the ball because he is centered.

Standard Lens

A "standard" or "normal lens" represents about the same field of view as the human eye. Generally around 40mm to 55mm on a full frame camera (there is some debate on this, but close enough). This is right about where you can take pictures of faces without the unflattering side effects of wide angle.

Telephoto Lens

A "telephoto lens" allows you to stand farther away and still fill the frame with your subject. Usually lenses 200mm and above are considered telephoto. These are often heavy and expensive.

Specialty Lenses

Ultrawide

This is just an extremely wide angle lens. At this point, you just except the massive amounts of distortion and embrace it. These lenses are extremely fun.

Medium Telephoto

These are sometimes called "portrait" lenses as well. They are a little more tele than standard and not quite tele enough for long distance photography. Usually in the 70-200mm range. This is the focal range that allows you to still be close to your subject but you are far enough away to get extra flattering lens compression on faces.

Superzoom Lens

A "superzoom" has an extremely large focal range. It can go from very wide to very telephoto. These are usually not wonderful lenses, although they have improved on mirrorless cameras in recent years. There are a few that could even be used professionally now. But most are just a huge mediocre compromise for vacation pix.

The cheap ones aren't fast, they aren't sharp, and every time you zoom people think your camera is having an erection.

If you are traveling and you have no idea what you might be photographing and carrying around a bunch of lenses is impractical, these have utility. But the larger the focal range, the more mediocre they get. Typically if the zoom range exceeds ~150mm you will start noticing that mediocrity. So a 70-200mm can be fantastic. But an 18-300mm will be very mid.

Macro

A macro lens is any lens that has 1x or more magnification. 1x magnification is a designation that relates the sensor size to how much of the subject fills the frame of your image. For 1x, that ratio should be 1:1.

So if you imagine a quarter lying on top of an image sensor, that's how big the quarter should be in your photo. 2x magnification would be like if a quarter doubled in size and you laid it on top of the image sensor. And so on.

Beware of lenses claiming to be macro and really only having a short working distance. 0.5x is not macro, but is sometimes advertised as so.

Tilt Shift Lens

This is a very niche lens. Most people know of it from the photos that make everyone look like they are in a miniature land.

For every other lens, the focal plane is perpendicular. If you move the camera at an angle, the focal plane will match that movement. So what the tilt shift lens allows you to do is angle the focal plane so your depth of field goes in bonkers directions.

Product photographers love this because you can take a photo of an array of products from a 45 degree angle and keep everything in focus.

This image would be impossible to maintain complete focus of all the objects without a tilt shift lens.

In this example, without tilting the lens, the tip of the multitool is out of focus.

And now you can see the camera hasn't moved, but the lens is at a steeper angle. And you'll also notice the entire tool is in focus.

But wait, there's more! Did you forget about the shifting? Architectual photographers can use the shift function of the lens to correct perspective distortion and keep buildings looking straight.

Will this lens help in the photographing of infants?

Probably not.

But I bet you thought it was cool and are glad I included it.

Recommended Essential Lenses

I didn't know what to call this section. These are just the collection of lenses most photographers will try to acquire as they build out their kit.

Nifty Fifty

This is probably the first lens everyone should buy. Almost every brand has their own version. It is an inexpensive 50mm lens with a sub f/2 aperture. Canon's Nifty Fifty or "Plastic Fantastic" is probably the most famous example. It is only $125 and has an f/1.8 aperture.

This lens may not be the sharpest and it might have a lot of plastic-y, cheap feeling parts, but it is a wonderful way to get started with photography. You can use the wide aperture to experiment with bokeh and shallow depth of field. And the 50mm focal length is probably one of the most versatile. Not too wide, so people look normal, and not too tele, so you aren't a mile away from your subjects.

The Holy Trinity

The "Holy Trinity" is meant to describe the 3 lenses that can handle nearly every photographic task while maintaining professional quality results. Typically these lenses are all f/2.8 and are high quality zoom lenses. The 16-35mm, the 24-70mm, and the 70-200mm.

Most photographers can accomplish just about any task with these lenses in their bag.

Froggie's Holy Hexagon

That said, if I had an unlimited budget I would actually have 6 lenses to cover everything. Beyond the Holy Trinity, I would get a fast prime, an ultrawide, and a macro lens.

A fast prime can see in the dark and has more background blur. The nifty fifty would work great for this.

An ultrawide is one of the most fun lenses you will ever use, even if it distorts everything to a crazy degree and isn't useful very often. It is great for breaking you out of photographic ruts and can really get the creative juices flowing.

And a macro lens is not just useful for making tiny things big. It also allows you to focus at any distance. Sometimes you just need to get a tad bit closer than your other lenses will allow. Macro lenses are also pretty great portrait lenses and can serve multiple functions.

And if anyone is interested in sports or wildlife photos, a nice telephoto lens might be a seventh lens to consider.

I think that is the end of part 1.

I hope this was helpful. And I look forward to posting part 2 soon.

[preciadosbass]

23/8/24 [draft from friday — key + significant photos at end]

yay i can finally post this!! woke up at 6:30 and said goodmorning to boris. he was inside again, i think because of how cold it is out. i then got dressed as soon as i could so i was completely ready before the time we had to leave to go away. i put on a light gray low cut shirt, but then started freezing alive so i changed into my sleeping with sirens shirt as it was the only shirt out that i hadn’t already packed. i paired it with black ripped skinny jeans, gray + black striped arm warmers, knee high converse, danger days my chemical romance zip up, my kellin quinn necklace, a surfboard shaped wood carved necklace — and no cuffs/bracelets as this outfit is just to be worn for the car ride to the campus and then ill get changed for swimming.

after getting ready, i had a snack and painted my left hand’s nails with black nail polish. i surprisingly did them pretty neatly to how i usually do it and considering how small my nails are. within a few minutes of them being dried, half of my second smallest nail’s polish came off halfway lmao - i was going to put some more on to cover it up, but i was in a rush and i needed to do my teeth, i finished at 7. i then checked on boris again and replaced the pins on my bag. ive needed to ever since i took a ton off to put onto my jacket. all that’s left now is: incubus pin, spider-man pin, the last of us pin, t-rex pin, saliva pin, kittie pin, shark pin, beetle pin, brendon urie pin, chi cheng pin, soulfly pin, collide with the sky [pierce the veil] pin, and a silent hill pin. which sounds like a lot, but because of the way they’re set out, it dosent look like many. at least not compared to what i’m used to.

once i was done [7:18], i packed my bag. i packed: my camera, skeleton gloves, collage scraps, my collage journal, camera charger, headphone charger, extra bracelets, my spiral earrings, battery packs, my hairbrush, my wallet, hand sanitizer, meds, and my phone charger. after doing that and a few other odd bits around the house [turning off switches, making sure i’ve packed everything, etc] i went to see boris properly at 7:40. i told him about everything that’s going to be going on [who’s taking care of him, that she’s not comfortable letting him out, when we’re getting back, things like that] and said goodbye to him. i finished officially at 8:20. i’m gunna miss him so much while we’re away, but i’m excited to see him again afterwards and tell him everything.

everyone [me, my sister, my parents] got in the car at around the same. unrelated, but i also forgot to mention in yesterdays journal, archie was taken over to my sister’s friends house to be looked after. we set off at 2:30 and i looked through soul punk patrick stump videos along with a few pretty odd era panic! tiktoks. also watched my chemical romance’s song 2 [blur] cover, i don’t know why i haven’t seen this before i’m obsessed. i started journaling at 9:16 and wrote all of the paragraphs above. than at 9:30 i took a break and started listening to some music. [just surrender, fall out boy, gerard way + ray toro, frank iero, falling in reverse, blur, my chemical romance, death of a bachelor panic! at the disco, a static lullaby.]

i had a nap somewhere near 11:30 [on my seal plush] and woke up at around 12:40. i continued listening to music [CKY, HIM, frank iero, darling you should be ashamed, linkin park, lovehatehero, before today, a bullet for a pretty boy [[so underrated]], and sleeping with sirens.] i did so until 1:44 when we arrived at the resort. my dad pulled the car into the drive through place where you get your keycard/folder of leaflets and after driving round to our car park, we started unpacking into the room. on our holiday guide, it said that we could only get in our room at 3, so we were lucky to get in early. as soon as i found me & my sisters room and claimed my bed, and hung up my necklaces on the windows’ handle. along with taking a few things out of my bag + putting cuffs/band bracelets on. we did plan on going to swimming as soon as my extended family arrived, but that ended up not working out as they had to leave late.

i then took out my collage journal and started cutting up the leaflets from the folder into separate letters [etc] to make a collage tomorrow. well i say tomorrow, when i started cutting everything up, i intended for me to put everything together today. [photo at end] but i only got round to collecting the bits of paper i need. i used my stamps to print stars onto a yellow sticky note and took a couple pictures of the leaflets incase we needed anything off them after id cut them up [e.g wifi support]. me, my parents and my sister left for a show and arrived at the venue at 3:12. on the way to the venue, we met up with D [one of my cousins, his girlfriend — L, and her son, W.] we got the time wrong so we thought were really short on time, but it started 20 minutes after we found a table.

first up was a beatboxer, except he made more sound affects than sounds to make into some kind of song. he was also really funny with the way he made and timed the sound affects. it’s impossible for me to explain with unless you were there and saw him, but he was really good. next was four breakdancers, ive never really had much interest in breakdancing, but it was quite cool to watch them. one had come all the way down from japan or something.

after was one of those big hoop acts. there’s not much to say as there’s not much to explain — following on from that, a bmX rider came out and started doing all kinds of crazy tricks. i somewhat remember seeing the show itself around a year ago, but this bmX guy was different than last year. its tricky to explain a bmX show generally, but its even trickier for people to read id they don’t know what it is. so i recommend looking up bmX tricks. once he’d done his thing, a basketballer came onto stage. he was manipulating the ball and circling it around him shoulders etc. behind him was a fake button with “do not push” plastered above it. obviously, it’s a show, he ‘pressed’ the button and everytime another ball would roll out from backstage.

in the end, he was working with 5 different basketballs. it was super impressive. before the show finished, everyone came out and did all their tricks side by side. during the entire show, the beatboxer was singing and making even more sound affects. he actually had a pretty decent voice. at 4:30, after we’d all packed up our stuff and gotten ready to leave and do something else, me, my parents and my sister headed back to our room. D, L and W went off to their rooms aswell. upon getting into our chalet, i went to have a nap but ended up putting on my skates. my sister stuck on hers and we circuited a section of the resort, looking for D’s room. it didn’t take us long before we found it. but during skating around and checking door numbers, i stupidly sped round a corner on the second level of chalets and nearly fell headfirst down a huge staircase.

i assumed that it’d turn and go round the other side, so i could look at the numbers on the other rooms, as a few other of the second story ‘balconys’ or whatever you wanna call them - don’t have stairs and just follow on around the other side. but i was wrong. i slightly toppled down the first two stairs and then grabbed onto my sister’s back. luckily i didn’t make her fall over lmao // at 5:30, all of us [all of my family] went round to our restaurant for dinner. it was a little cheeky of us to even eat together as everyone in the family apart from my parents & sister have reservations for another restaurant.

after dinner, i went back to the room and stayed there for 30 minutes alone before me, my sister and my parents made our way to yet another show. we arrived at the venue and i sat near the front on the floor with my sister. my mum sat on some stairs and my dad stayed standing. it was a magic show, which is quite a complicated thing to explain, especially because i actually didn’t understand how any of the tricks were done, but i enjoyed it. also while the backstage staff were sorting out some more props the start of my generation by limp bizkit played!!

the show finished at 8, and me and my immediate family went round to the rest of the family’s chalets to check them out. i went into the more cousin based one first, the people staying in it were: RY and H, and R and E. i sat on R’s bed and just people watched [mostly] until H offered to paint my right hand’s nails dark purple as id forgotten to paint that hand in black when i was at home. then i went to see the rest of my family’s room. the family members in this chalet are my aunt and uncle, and L/W. when i came in my uncle had a jumper over the radiator and it smelt so bad and was clearly just about to light on fire. i went back into the cousin’s room/s and went to see E and see what she was doing.

she was applying gems to her eyelids with some kind of makeup glue. she asked if i wanted some and i agreed so she sat me down and gently glued the gems onto my face. [photo at end] when she was done and if verified i was happy with it, i went back to my room to quickly get something — i’m not sure what it was as im writing this on the 27th. when i got back at 9:10, we had to leave for another show. we walked across the resort and arrived at the venue to get ourselves some seats. me and E tried taking pictures of our gemmed-up eyelids together but wasn’t able to because of bad lighting. the show was advertised as a ‘rock’ festival, however the music that played was things like lizzo and ed sheeran.

i was kind of disappointed because i thought it’d be punk rock or something else i would be able to sing along to, but it was funny that we were catfished so bad. me and R just sat there making faces for eachother, indicating that ‘this isn’t rock, wtf is this’ - the performance ended at 10:20 and we went straight to another venue to join in with a ‘music dance party.’ as you can imagine, the music was dance music, but i like dance music. i somewhat danced with my grandad, E and R. R spun me around and my sister stayed swaying across the dance floor with my dad. [photo at end]

i haven’t really ever seen my dad dance before, but his favourite ‘party’ track came on and he went mad. he was doing all sorts of weird dance moves but it was cracking me up. if only whoever is reading this saw it in the moment. we parted with the rest of the family and went back to the chalet at approximately 11:30. i started to do a bit of my journal, made a picture collage of the day, and had a little nap. after my nap, i asked my parents questions about boris, said goodnight to boris via a picture of him [the picture in question is at the end] and went to sleep at 1:45.

🗝️ — boris/my cat, archie/my immediate family’s dog, questions about boris/i ask my parents questions about my cat to verify he's okay + will be okay in the morning. its a compulsive thing and i'm hopefully going to be tested for OCD in the future.

have a good day/night O_o

[konako]

an alternate universe of an alternate universe? what the fuck is going on in the rlh, bless you and screw canon material ;)

WHAT THE FUCK IS WDC:BB? (it's complicated)

Hohooh, this will be fun. Let me try to explain how this happened in the simplest of ways, without being put in virtual jail. As it's truly this:

It all started back in 2021. When we were still young, naive and pure....

The Ruby Lucas Appreciation life was seeing a resurgence thanks to some maniacs out there somewhere. Gifsets were flowing, asks were coming in, ideas were brewing.

The domino pieces were being placed...

Anon sends me a message about a trope they like. I agree. I imagine Red Queen in that trope. Kat (@lovecanbesostrange) sees the vision.

A writing demon takes over Kat's body. She writes a fic.

Safe Cage is born.

Unrelated to that (somehow)

Anon sends me a message to share a fun fact about a college football team with an interesting name. I reply with a silly idea for a story. As you can see in the replies under the post, Kat and I went mad again.

The Ruby Lucas Harem Server is created.

RRCAU is born.

It doesn't stop there...

RRCAU is developed over three years of collaboration and compatible unhinged behaviour. The story grows, we uncover the backstory, the supporting characters, the dynamics, the many different developments... It's a complete story.

But see. Kat has been cursed with a fantastic, fruitful imagination...

We had a habit of taking stories and imagining "What-Ifs" to some scenarios (because we struggle with definite decisions when it comes to plot, and we like to experiment! who doesn't?). It was fun to think of what could have been different and how that change would affect the larger story.

Soon enough, Kat had a thought: What if, instead of changing an event in the later parts of the story, we changed it in the very beginning?

What if Ruby's miserable up-bringing in a trailer park with a passively neglectful mother... was WORSE?

What If: Ruby was raised in troubling poverty by a physically, verbally and mentally abusive, constantly intoxicated mother?

Worse!RRCAU is born.

Still not connected to that (Palpatine has returned)

Anon sends me a message about Regina wanting people to kneel. I reply with a joke about Ruby being eager to kneel, so they work as a couple.

Kat sees that. She adds to that. She chooses violence. And she writes about it.

DRK AU is born.

These three AUs lived together in harmony. (Ruby disagrees. She keeps getting fucked over).

Until a 4am thought attacked.

Narrator: she did think mean things.

We.... thouroughly fucked Red over this time. Meticulously. We thought nothing of it. Torturing Red was routine. It was for fun! A 4am angsty brain fart!

But then the scary thing happened: it started to make sense.

There was no coming back from there. The story took over. We had no power over it. It had power over us.

WDC combined the three big stories that contributed the least with the rent in our heads:

Worse (Worse!RRCAU) brought the world without magic and the usual translations that came with it. Along with the setting, it brought the feeling of Red's early life and how it shaped her to be accostumed to abuse. Dark (DRK AU) brought the torture, the body mods, the calculated disfiguration of Red and the need for a domestic life that would attempt to heal it. Cage (Safe Cage) brought the most important: Corrupted Red Snow. Red as Snow's weapon. The manipulation, the abuse, the years and years of conditioning, lying, training, until Red was no longer a person, but a monster to serve Snow's needs. Originally, it also brought Regina, as the opposition to Snow's force, and the person that stepped in at the right time to rescue Red.

It was clear. It was obvious. It was meant to exist.

Art was made.

And something that's important to note: in WDC, Red is kind of the bad guy. She's Snow's Bodyguard, Guard Dog, Pet. She has no agency, and she does whatever Snow orders her to do.

Including severely hurting Belle.

The way that Red hurt Belle is critical to WDC. (Don't worry, I won't go there). It's a major part of Red's story, and a defining moment in Belle's development. The trauma was even responsible for the unearthing of a new ship: Kansas Beauty. A relationship that began in, of all places, a mental health facility.

It was a fascinating story. A vessel to some dark, dark thoughts. It was to be kept in a secret alley, to never see the light of day (much like WDC!RED—). I failed at that one job, but... whatever. Anyway!!

We explored other stories, parallel to that. We have the range. (While confined to the Red Snow spectrum...) We thought of different things...

Then. Kat thought more thoughts.

And I indulged her with a list of possibilities to fit that desire. Among which there was:

Kat had even more thoughts.

This change took us to a similar place, with a similar brain wave. (It happens often)

And.... yeah..... This had some... unforseen consequences.....

↓

This is where we are.

[gatheringfiki]

Coming soon: Kink Bingo and H/C Bingo 2024!

Something kinky this way comes... (and it's probably limping).

Yes, very soon we will be back with our most daring events of the season: the Kink Bingo and the H/C (Hurt/Comfort) Bingo! With the Valentines Day just around the corner, it's time to charge up your toys, prep your bandages and generally brace yourselves for a delicious avalanche of guilt-free indulgence!

As usual, we will be running those 2 events in paraller, so you can take part in both, switch between the two, or take part in just one, and totally ignore the other. They are unrelated to each other.

Basics:

We have 2 Collections: Kink Bingo and H/C Bingo

In each of those, on the 17th of Feb, the prompts are going to be revealed, on a 7x7 card.

We are playing between 17th of February and 17th of March.

Your task is to create something for 7 consecutive fields (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) to achieve a bingo line. 

... Or not. We really have no way of checking who’s completing which line, so you can use it as a free-for-all, pick and choose prompt board, if you prefer. But it’s good to challenge yourself and attempt prompts you wouldn’t normally pick - you may be surprised to find you like it!

Both Collections are fully Anonymous and will remain that way forever. However, you may choose to ‘reveal’ yourself as the author and ‘claim’ your work, if you wish at the end of this event. You don’t have to. More about this below. 

Usual pairings apply: FiKi or any fictional pairing portrayed by Dean or Aidan.

Tag your warnings and kinks R E L I G I O U S L Y.

No kink-shaming or judgement, please. We are all grown-ups: don’t like, don’t read.

There are no word limits

Play as little or as much as you like; you can even attempt all 49 fields, if you wish.

This event is mostly aimed at Writers, but Artists can also take part. More about this below.

Gatheringfiki will be doing our best to post links to all new responses during this event here on Tumblr (for exposure and promotion), but your freshest stuff is always in the Collections.

Q&A section under the cut:

Q: But why run those two bingos together?

A: The common theme for these events is that they cover subjects that could be considered ‘guilty pleasures’ or ‘taboo’. We wanted to create a safe environment where these themes can be explored and shared. Plus, they will have identical rules, so it didn’t make sense to run another Bingo event, with a different theme, later in the year.

Q: Do I need to post each response in a separate work or can I have a single work with chapters?

A: We would suggest separate works, because it will make it easier for you to tag it appropriately, and for the readers to search for, or avoid.

Q: Can I create one thing (story or art) for multiple fields in a single bingo card?

A: You can, but we would encourage you not to. The aim of this event is to create as much new content as we can and that doesn’t help it. Having said that, we understand that sometimes brain just connects things and it wants a combo.

Q: Can I create one thing (story or art) that covers both a Kink and H/C scenario?

A: You can, but we would encourage you not to. See: above.

Q: Can I mix and match pairings, e.g. within a single line have 4 FiKi and 3 Britchell?

A: Yes.

Q: Can I create more than one response to a single prompt field, for example for different pairings?

A: Yes, just post them as separate works.

Q: Can I use a prompt that someone else has already used before me?

A: Absolutely.

Q: Can I somehow visualise which line I’m working on, or which prompts I managed to fill?

A: Sure. Feel free to copy the Bingo Card image and start marking off the ones you’ve done. You can then post your updated Bingo Card picture with each response.

Q: Can I comment on the works posted in the Collections?

A: Yes, please do! If you wish to comment anonymously though, you’ll need to log out of your account first and comment as Anon, or open the story in a private tab. The Collection won’t anonymise the commenter’s identity automatically.

Q: How does the ‘Anon’ thing work?

A: The author is displayed as ‘Anonymous’ to everyone, except you. Yes, this includes the mods - we don’t know either. If you wish to respond to your comments, it will automatically show as ‘Anonymous Creator’.

Q: When can I ‘claim’ my works and ‘de-anon’?

A: Please only do this after the event has ended, i.e. after the summary post has gone up. The guessing is part of the fun!

Q: How can I ‘claim’ my works and ‘de-anon’?

A: Simply message @linane-art with the works that are yours and you wish to 'reveal' now. As a mod, I have a way of removing the anon status, while keeping the work in the Collection. It will automatically become your own work, like anything else, and you will not lose any kudos or comments. You may then choose to make an accompanying Tumblr post, if you wish to promote it.

Q: Do I have to ‘de-anon’ at the end of the event?

A: No. You can leave your works as anonymous forever, if you wish.

Q: I am an Artist and I would also like to take part.

A: Great! Fantastic! We’re all dying here to see it! However, because we all have our distinctive art styles, we can’t think of any way to keep you anonymous. If this doesn’t bother you, just play like everyone else, using artwork inspired by the prompts for your responses.

Q: But how to post artwork as a part of event response?

A: Post your artwork on Tumblr or host it elsewhere (Tumblr doesn’t like sexytimes, so it might try to block you). That will give you a hyperlink to the picture itself. Then create a new AO3 work within Kink or H/C Collection, and add a picture (using hyperlink) into the body of the work. If in doubt, message @linane-art for help.

Any further questions? Please give us a shout!

Good luck!

~gatheringfiki

[cyeli-no]

4ggravate Pre-Proposal (Pt. 1)

—where it's just three Dendro fools simping over Cyno and wanting to have a perfect proposal for him

Linked Posts:

Part 2: 4ggravate Pre-Marriage: Doubts post

─── ⋅ ⋅ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

Dehya and Candace are some of the first to hear about the decision because Al-Haitham, who became close to the duo throughout his time in the desert and with Cyno, wants to respect his culture in the proposal. It seems disrespectful to forego his background and his family when asking for Cyno's life and dedication.

Dehya is unrelenting with her teasing, offering help disguised as friendly banter. He nearly regrets telling her when it turns out Candace is the one to offer the most help. She gives him a few traditions common throughout the desert, but the Temple of Silence does not share the same customs as she does.

She tells him how Cyno once mentioned how suitors will gift jewelry made of gold and gems during the engagement. The proposee's family usually receives a dowry of some type, too. Between giving the dowry and presenting the gifts, a marriage contract is written. Typically, it is between the father and the suitor, but the individual is often included.

"It is not for permission, necessarily." She clarifies when she watches the frown begin to form on his expression, eyebrows tightening. The memory of Cyno's reaction when he realized how deeply the former sages mistreated and used him rests heavy in their minds. At least she can verify how much Al-Haitham truly cares. "In the end, it is up to the individual to accept the proposal and make adjustments to the contract. Simply, it is acknowledging the important of our families."

Al-Haitham does pause for a moment in deep contemplation. "Yes, that makes sense." He ends up deciding on, though Candace offers him a small smile.

She shakes her head, "You may not understand them completely, but I'm glad you care to know about our traditions." He takes it as the sign of approval that it actually is.

He leaves with Dehya, who smiles contently throughout the entire walk back. She tells him a bit about their traditional wedding rings and wedding celebration customs before admitting, "Knowing Tighnari, I suspected it wouldn't be a desert wedding. At least now, it'll be like bringing the desert to him."

Al-Haitham rejects that notion instantly. "We cannot bring the desert to him. I know nothing of the desert and all I have come to learn was brought by Cyno himself. It would be a mockery to do anything besides welcome what he brings." Dehya's eyes blink shut as they pause in their journey. She can feel the familiar heat against her skin and the smell of the desert winds.

"You've thought about this a lot, hm?" She teases lightly, his completely honest affirmation making her grin, "Good." She says something in a dialect Al-Haitham does not quite understand. He can understand a few vague phrases, but she explains it to him without being asked once she finishes, "It is an old prayer. May your future together be filled with happiness and love that even when you reach the afterlife, you will traverse those unknown lands together."

─── ⋅ ⋅ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

Tighnari and Kaveh are quick to agree to the idea. Truth be told, they both wanted to do something for Cyno and were debating something similar. Luckily, it truly felt as if everything was perfect for them. Al-Haitham and his endless pockets could definitely afford the dowry (though Cyrus' actual acceptance might be a bit more difficult to get with his outright disdain for his darshan), Kaveh works on designing the jewelry himself, and Tighnari works on creating simple (maybe a bit more detailed than the ones Dehya described) rings for all four of them.

When they go to discuss their plans to propose with Cyrus, Al-Haitham is prepared to give an entire presentation. Tighnari takes over before Kaveh's stressed rants can start and before Al-Haitham says something that might make them lose Cyrus' good graces.

Cyrus frowns when they ask if they are allowed to propose to and to marry Cyno. "Asking me to give him over is quite the archaic request." He muses.

It is Kaveh who answers this. Tighnari and Al-Haitham may be more logical, but Kaveh is intently attuned to his emotions and the emotions of others. He knows Cyno and his desires well, "Cyno respects your opinion and would be hurt if we did not try to include his family." He pauses for just a second to gather his bearings. He doesn't want to bare his entire heart to his soon-to-be father-in-law (hopefully), but he knows the man respects honestly as much as his son. "Cyno always makes sure the memories of our families are a priority. As one of the only living relatives he has, your blessing will mean a lot to him... and to us as well."

Cyrus is not a man of few words. He has spoken at length about jokes, the main reason Cyno tries them to lighten the mood. Still, the air constricts Kaveh as he simply stares at the architect with a frown. Cyno might be scary to some, but his body becomes rigid under the intense staring of the General's father. However, he will not avert his eyes. He knows discomfort well and knows, as his throat tightens and nearly chokes the air out of his lungs, that the comfort and love of Cyno is worth every second.

"You are good kids." Cyrus finally nods at Kaveh and Tighnari. Kaveh's entire body eases at the affirmation, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth in relief. He nearly misses how the man warily eyes Al-Haitham for a moment before he shakes his head with a low chuckle. "As long as Cyno is happy, my blessing is yours." It's a needless threat, Cyrus knows, but he feels better nonetheless.

("Do they make you happy?" He asked his son when the eventual topic of his partners came up.

In hindsight, it was quite a strange question to ask because the answer was so obvious. "Do I seem unhappy?" The younger man asked, the confusion answered by a fond smile.

Cyrus has always been better at expressing his love compared to his two top students. He ruffled Cyno's hair lightly, "No. I just want to know how they treat you."

Cyno nodded, accepting the explanation completely. "They love me," those three words were enough to ease Cyrus' heart, "more than anyone else can.

"And I love them the same.")

"Another word of warning." Cyrus mentions as they are leaving his house, "Lisa Minci will not allow you to marry him if you do not invite her to the engagement."

─── ⋅ ⋅ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

They, heeding Cyrus' advice, tell Lisa, Collei, Nahida, and Nilou. At one point, Tighnari gets worried they are telling too many people before even asking Cyno to marry them.

Al-Haitham just says, "They're family," and that's that.

Family, Tighnari echoes, when Collei runs up to hug him in her excitement. Family, he smiles, as Lisa smacks Kaveh lightly for waiting so long to ask the question. Family, he accepts, as Nilou and Nahida offer their help with wedding planning or support if they ever need it.

Family, he wishes for, when Cyno meets them for dinner with a bright smile, "I'm home." He glows despite the days of work coating his skin in dirt.

"Welcome home, love." Tighnari welcomes him closer and showers him with all the adoration he has been holding onto in the pits of his heart in anticipation of tonight. Tonight, to the world, they will become a family in every sense of the word.

Family, Tighnari learns, comes with the heat of the desert without any of the burning discomfort.

He cannot completely understand the clear discomfort and stress showing on the faces of the other two. They all know Cyno; he who is more devoted than anyone else will definitely say yes. And if he doesn't, he is nothing but kind. There is no world where they will be rejected cruelly.

The question hangs in the air, Cyno's eyes wide in surprise as he scans the three as if checking them for honesty. "Really?" It is a crime how soft his voice is. It is uncommon for him to be uncertain and it aches Tighnari's heart.

"We wouldn't ask if we weren't serious." It is a bit sassier than it needs to be, but his voice is firm to scare away his doubts.

It must do the trick because a breathless huff escapes him. Kaveh worriedly steps closer as garnet eyes glisten under the flickering candlelights, "Cyno—?"

"Yes." He answers them, and the gentle laugh that is slightly clogged by the tears welling in his eyes is the loveliest sound. "Yes..."

The second time is enough to rip Al-Haitham out of his stupor to reach out and catch Cyno's face in his hands. He presses a kiss to the top of the General's head, sighing away his stress, "Good."

Kaveh nearly shoves the man aside in his haste to hug Cyno. The latter's laughter fills the air as Kaveh falls onto his lap, "Sevens above, I adore you." He says, planting kisses on his cheeks.

Cyno can't get a word in as Tighnari's tail curls around his arm, dragging his attention to the side. Whispering against his ear and affectionately nuzzling him, "We're yours forever."

Forever... Forever sounds lovely.

[unfortunate--moth]

Master Detectives: Milgram AU (part 1???)

So I made a post about this earlier but here I am putting my two interests together in a blender.

for milgram fans that don't know what rain code is, brief explanation: Rain Code is a mystery solving video game where you play as an amnesiac detective who has made a contract with a death god to solve mysteries. He's part of the World Detective Organization and many others that are part of it become Master Detectives by having these powers called Fortes that are very useful for mystery solving.

With that out of the way, I shall now begin rambling.

So obviously Es is the protagonist and Jackalope is our fucked up little death god. Es doesn't know why they're a detective and sure as hell doesn't know why the fuck they made a contract with an annoying little rabbit thing. So they also don't know their forte- if they even have one. but they meet the other master detectives and begrudgingly have to work with them even though they seriously don't want to.

Yuno | Forte: Glamour With her ability, anyone who looks at her will see their ideal partner. Romantic, platonic, or otherwise. She can only use it for a short period of time, but she uses it to draw information out of suspects. She doesn't take her job too seriously, and she rarely ever takes on jobs that could be dangerous. She excels with interrogation and information gathering, but when it comes to investigating, she isn't the best at it. Still, she's very observant.

Fuuta | Forte: Technology Manipulation He can manipulate technology. To be specific, he can take control over other devices, transfer data from one device to another, see things a person has deleted or hidden, and things of that nature. It comes with limitations, of course. There's a range limit to his ability, not being able to take control of other devices outside of it. A bit of a loose cannon as a detective. While is ability is useful, he tends to jump to conclusions and usually has to pair up with someone so he doesn't convict the wrong person. He is smart, and has solved many cases before, but he tends to work by his own rules rather than the WDO's.

Shidou | Forte: Instant Examination With his forte, Shidou is able to see the state of any living or dead body. He'll be able to see the state any body is in, what injuries there could be, if anything is in their system, and so on. He can't use it on bodies that are already decomposed. With his ability, he's most useful in murder cases. As a doctor, he's also helpful if anyone has been injured. However, his ability doesn't include healing. He can see everything, but he would have to fix things in the traditional way. So even with this ability, he's still managed to lose some people.

Amane | Forte: Divination With her ability, she can gain insight on the future of things. However, her forte is a bit fickle, and she can't control what she'll see. Sometimes it's incredibly useful, but other times it may show her completely unrelated things. Using it too much at once has negative consequences, often leading to her fainting or hallucinating. She didn't join of her own volition. Rather, she was scouted for it. She doesn't really have a interest in mysteries or solving them, but she's come to see them more as a test rather than anything else.

Thats it for now. As you can see, I only wrote down 4 characters mainly because I'm having a very hard time coming up with abilities for everyone else. It's a bit harder than I thought to come up with mystery solving abilities. but yeah anyways!! i may make another post about this if I come up with more, or I might just ramble about other ideas I may have in the future. if you have any ideas you'd like to share I'd love to hear :]

[talesofsonicasura]

Weretoons

I couldn't help but think of this concept after seeing this post. *Check out @horologiiiumart to see their Pizza Tower AU* Cartoons! We know them from age to style, whether it be classics or modern day. The most unique of them being particular movies like Who Framed Rodger Rabbit, Space Jam and Looney Tunes Back In Action.

What makes these quite special, especially the forner, are the interactions between our world with the cartoon side. Toons live on completely different rules unlike normal people. Any natural laws of the world being replaced with their cartoon version.

Jumping ridiculous heights outta sheer fright, bodies mold and stretch when interacting with certain things or storing objects much stronger than the average pocket easily. It is an easy thing for a toon to understand and do. But what if there's an exception to this rule.

Weretoons are a very unique entity amongst were-beings. A non-toon being who becomes a fully functional Toon under various conditions. The basic being a full or crescent moon on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights. (Days where new episodes for cartoons usually air on said night or incoming morning.)

*Caution must be heeded around Weretoons during the Blood Moon! Their antics have a high probability of not only becoming malicious but can potentially maim normal people! Lunar Eclipses will increase their aggression too.

Solar Eclipses and Blue Moons are the only safest shift alternatives for normal folk. Although it is best to keep an eye on inexperienced Weretoons with the latter. Blue Moons can cause uncontrollable sadness or unhealthy actions related to it.*

Transformations can also be triggered by excessive laughter, vengeful rage, or exposure to certain quantity of ink. Essentially the building blocks for cartoons in simpler terms. (Their purpose, the rules and creation of the popular Rubberhose.)

There is no clue if they occur naturally but these can be created through artificial means. Like any epidemic, it involved a Patient 0 and enough people to get infected for it to be impossible to eradicate. A Weretoon can spread their influence through biting, organ/blood transfusion, or their descendants.

*The percentage of those who become Weretoons through heritage start at 80% before dwindling down to the average 20% further down the bloodline.*

Weretoons don't always share the same species between non-toon and toon forms. A large chunk of individuals gain unrelated features or can become a completely different species upon a shift. EX: One human can become a Cartoon Dragon while another turns into a cartoon version of themselves.

In toon form, the Weretoon doesn't follow all natural laws. A good chunk are instead replaced with the Cartoon Laws of Physics. These new rules mainly focus on motion, objects, matter and gravity. Non-toons can be subjected to them by a Toon in the right moment.

Weretoons are born with a unique type called Tropes. These often determine their abilities and what kind of cartoon shenanigans they can do. Here's a simple list involving the more known ones. Link to a character archetypes for those who want to delve further.

Strongman- A trope that embodies incredible physical prowess such as strength or speed unmatched by many.

Eldritch Horror- A trope which manifests in transformations which range from varying degrees of body horror for intimidation and frights.

Jester- A trope that focuses on crafting mischief onto others on usually dangerous or potentially lethal levels.

Chaos Agent- A trope which embodies sheer mayhem with no care for the immense destruction wrought and anything caught up in the antics. *Most dangerous*

Loser- A trope that manifests as various degrees of misfortune or lackluster skill which can affect more than just the possessor.

Mad Scientist- A trope where anything can be made possible through science but will go wrong at some point and be possibly inhumane.

Magician- A trope which can turn the simplest sleight of hand into actual magic as long as the trick isn't fully interrupted.

Defense against Weretoons often varies upon the respective form. They can be killed like any non-toon equivalent if unable to or haven't shifted. It is highly important to not cause an blood drawing injury when a Weretoon is in mid-shift.

*This video is pretty good at explaining further depths on the concept of dealing with a toon.*

This often leads to a creation of a Clone. Clones are Toons born from this process and can create Weretoons just like their predecessors. The only differences between them being their tropes, appearance but also nature. Most clones tend to be very off-point or malformed versions of their Weretoon creators.

Their intelligence and copied memories usually varies between how close they are in resemblance to the original. All Clones are very clingy which often leads to stalking until taught not to. They tend to be very hostile with those deemed a threat to their Weretoon or said creator if mistreated enough.

It is near impossible to kill/injure a Clone and Weretoon in toon form except for one thing: The Dip. A lethal concoction of turpentine, acetone and benzene that became a real threat upon the popular staple status attained by Who Framed Rodger Rabbit. Weretoons can get hurt by it even if they aren't in toon form. Ink is the only thing that can treat Dip injuries. A fully submerged Weretoon will be severely burned in non-toon form and death can follow if they shift before removing the solution.

The Dip is a popular tool almost a particular group of people known as Cartoon Hunters. A common fear amongst Weretoons and Clones since these individuals will go to any length to kill a confirmed person. Most Cartoon Hunters won't let any moral boundaries like innocence or victims get in their way. Only the death of the Weretoons matter to them.

Dangers such as these led to most living in hiding or secret communities. Weretoons can be considered tall tales and crazy stories due to how elusive their nature has become. That doesn't mean there isn't a chance someone in your neighborhood can be one.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

so i (14 F? currently going through an unrelated gender crisis) have been regularly horseback riding since i was 9 and have a regular instructor i really like we'll call R (30s or 40s, F). Today, however, R was out sick and so i was with the barn owner, who we'll call L (60s, F).

i was originally really excited about this, as L is a very good rider. however, i quickly realized that she almost exclusively taught beginner riders under the age of 8. as previously stated, i have been riding for 5 years and would consider myself a pretty good rider.

L proceeded to get my name wrong (i have a fairly common white name starting with s, which she was confusing for fucking Sarah, despite the names looking and sounding nothing alike), though in fairness i was too scared to correct her. she completely undermined my experience and knowledge of the subject, and there were a good twenty minutes when i thought we were just gonna be doing 20 meter trot circles the whole time. thank god for the last half of the lesson L would occasionally let me canter a few circles. even the small form reminders that are to be expected were annoying. where R and other previous instructors had said them almost as background noise, L said it like it was a revelation i'd never heard of before.

do you know the shit socrates said about like giving a student the knowledge to reach the conclusion rather than just the conclusion? what he overlooked is that you can absolutely overuse it. it's hard to explain through the medium of an aita post how frustrating it feels to have someone look at you and see you how they did 5 years ago, look at you and not see the sweat and tears and hours of perfecting your form. and i know that my emotional regulation isn't very well developed, and i know i'm 14 and my hormones are out of wack and i know she doesn't mean anything by it and i know it's not her fault but it's just so fucking aggravating.

almost the entire lesson i was very curt and rude with L, despite the fact that im usually a very cheerful person. she definitely noticed, but didn't bring it up. i tend to freeze up at confrontation, so im not sure what i would've done if she did. i was also much harsher than i needed to be on my horse, which isn't fair because she didn't do anything wrong. i kicked her harder than necessary, jerked her reins, leaned to the inside, and was all around not a very good rider. when my mom picked me up (i am, again, 14 and do not have a driver's license) i slammed to door to the car. when i started crying and she asked me what was wrong, i told her multiple times to "shut the fuck up" and "every word that comes put of your mouth makes me want to punch you in the face", which i now feel awful about. i kept bursting into the tears in the shower so it took me an hour and a half to wash myself, putting our water bill through the roof.

tldr: an instructor treated me as though i was a child, i overreacted and was very rude to everyone around me, i feel utterly horrible about it now. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[incorrectshantaequotes]

REVERSAL AU - A Hesitant Alliance

...so, I might not be planning on doing any headcanon posts about the Reversal AU anytime soon, but I never said anything about transcripts! And more to the point, I got ideas after finally writing out that headcanon post yesterday, so here's a transcript of how Risky and the Chimera Pirates end up teaming up in Pirate's Curse!

(Here are the earlier transcripts I've written for the Reversal AU if you haven't seen those or need a refresher)

[RISKY stomps into her lighthouse and slams the door. Notably, in contrast to her usual appearance, Risky now has a few black streaks going through her hair and looks notably disheveled...not that this is particularly new to her here]

RISKY: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

RISKY: Curse that swashbuckling captain, curse her rag-tag mishmash of a crew, and curse that THRICE-DAMNED, MAGIC-STEALING, GILDED PAPERWEIGHT OF A LAMP!

RISKY: Ever since Captain Shantae used that Magic Lamp on me, my magic's gone completely haywire! That accursed lamp did something to me, I know it!

RISKY: It's the only explanation! It can't-it CAN'T be-...!

RISKY: ...

RISKY: ...well, even if she never got the minion she wanted, I suppose Captain Shantae did end up getting the last laugh after all. My days as a GUARDIAN GENIE are done.

RISKY: SIGH...I can't even be mad about it; I'm sure this would've happened even WITHOUT Wrecker Baron taking over the town.

RISKY: I've never been one for bubble baths, but I might as well get one now. Who knows how long I'll have even that luxury?

[After a quick fade to black, the scene changes to the BATHTUB being full of water and bubbles while RISKY stands next to it]

RISKY: Oh, that looks good...I have to admit, I'm actually looking forward to this. I've had to deal with so much STRESS and TENSION lately! Let me just get these-!

RISKY: ...Wait a minute.

RISKY: When on earth did my bathtub get moved to the first floor!?

[It's at that exact moment that all the water drains from the tub at a rapid pace, and before RISKY can react, a bear trap on a spring lunges out from the BATHTUB and clamps around RISKY's torso]

RISKY: Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!

[The bear trap then pulls RISKY into the BATHTUB by force, and a HARPY and SCORPGAL then drop from the ceiling]

HARPY: HA! And you guys thought the booby-trapped bathtub wouldn't work!

RISKY: YOU...! The Chimera Pirates!

SCORPGAL: In the flesh.

HARPY: And the best of the best!

HARPY: You must be shaking in your boots, having to deal with us top officers of the crew!

RISKY: Hmph! Top GOONS is more like it.

HARPY: HEY!

RISKY: ...and, unrelated, aren't there usually THREE of you?

SCORPGAL: He's currently outside to keep anyone from interfering with our interrogation.

HARPY: Or, to be more accurate, he's currently outside because he's a total WEENIE.

[The camera shifts slightly over to the door]

WETMAN: Am not!

HARPY: Mhm? You want to come in here to prove it then? Come in here and face the...

HARPY: ...SOAP BUBBLES?

WETMAN: ...no...

RISKY: For the love of-the tub's not even FULL, you idiot!

WETMAN: Oh.

[The WETMAN promptly enters the room through RISKY'S door, jumps up to the ceiling, and then drops down next to the HARPY and SCORPGAL]

WETMAN: Yeah, I'm fine with this.

RISKY: What do you numbskulls want, anyway? Haven't you and your captain ruined my life enough?

HARPY: Ruined YOUR life? YOU'RE the one who's been ruining OUR lives!

WETMAN: What she said!

RISKY: What are you TALKING about!?

HARPY: Don't play dumb, you HALF-WIT BLUNDER!

SCORPGAL: Yesterday, our captain was attacked by a STRANGE, BAT-LIKE CREATURE.

WETMAN: 'Course, captain being the captain, she fought it off, no sweat, but...she was really freaked by that. I've never seen her SCARED before...

HARPY: Before we could even figure out what THAT was about, the captain blew through the water like Davy Jones was behind us to get to shore, and then...and then...!

HARPY: She told us s-she was...she was...DISBANDING THE CHIMERA PIRATES!

RISKY: ...

RISKY: Wow. How terrible. Let me out and I'll play you the violin.

HARPY: Don't try and fake sympathy, you HEARTLESS MONSTER! I don't know what that thing was, but it was nowhere NEAR natural!

HARPY: The only ones who could've made such a thing...are YOU and your FREAKY MENTOR! YOU TWO are the ones who TOOK AWAY MY LIFE!

WETMAN: You mean OUR lives.

HARPY: ...yeah, that. That's what I meant.

RISKY: Really? That's the route you want to take? You want to blame me, the "half-wit blunder," in your own words, who currently can't so much as throw a fireball without it exploding in my face...

RISKY: ...and Mimic, who only works with TECHNOLOGY, and, need I remind you, is YOUR CAPTAIN'S UNCLE?

HARPY: Yooooooou-!

SCORPGAL: I'll admit, I'm skeptical myself, but it's not IMPOSSIBLE. The only way you can prove your innocence to us...

SCORPGAL: ...is to let us into Mimic's LAB.

HARPY: I, uh-YEAH! Let us in there or ELSE!

HARPY: (That wasn't part of the plan, bug-brain; what do you think you're doing!?)

SCORPGAL: (If anyone can tell us what frightened the captain so badly, it would be her FAMILY, you airhead.)

RISKY: ...on the one hand, I don't want to let any of you within an INCH of Mimic's workshop...

RISKY: On the other, I highly doubt any of you will actually be able to USE anything in there, and it'll get you out of my hair so I can focus on my REAL problems...

RISKY: Fine! I'll tell you where he hid the key.

WETMAN: Heheh, pleasure doing business with you!

RISKY: Right, right...now, if you'd let me-?

HARPY: Not a chance, you yellow-bellied menace!

~~~~

[After a fade to black, the scene cuts to the three CHIMERA PIRATES in MIMIC's lab, with RISKY still trapped in the BATHTUB, which is being held by the WETMAN. A TINKERBAT is in the glass container in the center of the room]

RISKY: What on earth...!?

SCORPGAL: ...!

HARPY: Oh, come ON! Where's the incriminating stuff!?

RISKY: Are you SERIOUSLY ignoring the strange creature that Mimic has, apparently, been holding without my knowledge!?

HARPY: Eh, it's not that BAT-THING, so I don't care. Don't even know what that is.

HARPY: ...which is weird, now that I think about it, because the captain's brought in practically every sapient species under the sun, but I've never seen anything like THAT in the captain's crew.

HARPY: Either of you know what that thing is?

WETMAN: Not a clue.

SCORPGAL: ...TINKERBAT...

HARPY: Uh, Tinker-what now?

[It's at that moment that a cloud of DARK MAGIC is pumped into the glass chamber via pipe, causing the TINKERBAT to rapidly mutate into a CACKLEBAT]

RISKY: WHAT IN BLAZES!?

HARPY: I KNEW IT! THAT THING'S WHAT ATTACKED THE CAPTAIN!

[The CACKLEBAT then begins to throw itself against the glass in an effort to escape]

RISKY: Putting THAT aside for later - that thing looks like it's going to attack US if we don't do something!

RISKY: Since you seem so insistent on keeping me locked up in here, YOU fight it!

HARPY: U-us!? It took the captain to fight that thing off last time! if I tried, it'd bite my tail feathers off, and who knows what'd happen to these two losers!

WETMAN: I resent that!

HARPY: Can't you just, I don't know, whip up a big stone guy to punch it into a wall!?

RISKY: Thanks to your CAPTAIN, it'd be just as likely to do that to US as it'd be to do it to that thing! Got any other bright ideas!?

HARPY: GRRRRRRRR...!

SCORPGAL: If we grab your weapons, do you think you could fight the CACKLEBAT?

HARPY: Wha-!?

RISKY: Well...I suppose I managed to fight myself just fine without magic. Can't be much harder than that...

SCORPGAL: Don't hold your breath. Get ready for the fight of your life, half-genie...

~~~~

[After the CACKLEBAT fight...]

[The CACKLEBAT explodes violently, leaving behind a cloud of dark magic]

RISKY: ...what IS that...?

SCORPGAL: Danger. Use this, half-genie!

[The SCORPGAL tosses RISKY the MAGIC LAMP, which she holds aloft in the typical item get animation. After sucking up the DARK MAGIC, she turns to the CHIMERA PIRATES]

SCORPGAL: Come on, we're leaving.

HARPY: Are you nuts!? That twit still has the-

SCORPGAL: She can keep it.

RISKY: What?

HARPY: WHAT!?

SCORPGAL: We have more important things to worry about...especially if the PIRATE MASTER has returned.

[The SCORPGAL forcibly escorts the HARPY and WETMAN out, leaving RISKY alone]

RISKY: The PIRATE MASTER?

~~~~

[Upon following the trio outside, the camera shifts to the CHIMERA PIRATES as RISKY runs up to them]

RISKY: HOLD IT, you! You have a lot of explaining to do!

WETMAN: I hate to agree with the eternal thorn in our side, but she has a point.

HARPY: Yeah, what gives!? What's the big deal with this PIRATE MASTER anyway?

SCORPGAL: I'm not surprised none of you know; it was before your time. The PIRATE MASTER was the greatest scourge Sequin Land has ever known.

SCORPGAL: He plundered and pillaged, leaving a wide trail of destruction wherever his accursed flag went, and scarring nearly all of Sequin Land as a whole...

SCORPGAL: ...including CAPTAIN SHANTAE.

HARPY: What do you-!?

SCORPGAL: I'm not confirming or denying anything. That's the captain's story to tell. The point is, he was the worst thing to sail the seven seas, and it took every Guardian Genie to take him down.

SCORPGAL: And from the looks of it, not even death has been enough to stop him permanently. He must be using DARK MAGIC to facilitate his resurrection...

RISKY: DARK MAGIC?

SCORPGAL: It's what TINKERBATS are made up of, and what turned the one we saw before into their evolved state, the CACKLEBAT.

SCORPGAL: Whereas you genies and other magical species work together WITH magic, DARK MAGIC is the result of forcing magic to do as you will. The PIRATE MASTER is a master of the art.

RISKY: ...forcing magic to do as you will...

RISKY: SON OF A SEA DOG, THAT'S WHY MY MAGIC HASN'T BEEN WORKING RIGHT! When it was taken by that LAMP, it must have been converted to DARK MAGIC!

SCORPGAL: That would be the most logical explanation. While DARK MAGIC isn't inherently evil, Genies have no defenses against its corruptive properties. It's why the PIRATE MASTER uses it as one of his most effective tools.

SCORPGAL: Your human half is likely protecting you from it having a major effect on your mind, but since your magic is actively at war with you now...

RISKY: ...trying to use it results in utter disaster.

HARPY: Okay, that's cool and all, but what does ANY of that have to do with the captain!?

SCORPGAL: I suspect she plans to deal with the Pirate Master herself...and she disbanded the Chimera Pirates so she wouldn't risk losing one of us.

HARPY: C-Captain...she...she really...?

RISKY: Oh, PLEASE. Do you honestly expect me to believe that pirate would do anything for the greater good?

SCORPGAL: I EXPECT that you'd recognize the greater threat here, half-genie! If the PIRATE MASTER manages to return, I don't doubt he'll raze Sequin Land to the ground out of pure spite!

WETMAN: Yeah, and you can't exactly work in a sea of ashes...if nothing else, I think you can say the boss wouldn't want the kingdom she's worked so hard to build herself up in to burn.

RISKY: ...THAT'S...actually a fair point. I can believe in her self-interest as a motive, if nothing else.

HARPY: Oh, CRAM IT, you-!

SCORPGAL: We don't have time to argue here. Half-Genie, unless you have anything else you want from us, we're going to start looking for our captain now.

WETMAN: But, uh, didn't you say...

SCORPGAL: HMPH! Just because I understand WHAT the captain did and WHY doesn't mean I agree with her decision. Trust me, I intend to tear her a new one when I get a chance.

RISKY: HA! Now that I'd like to see!

RISKY: But, in all seriousness, I do have one request for you three.

SCORPGAL: And that is?

RISKY: Let me join you.

SCORPGAL: ...

SCORPGAL: I beg your pardon?

RISKY: You heard me! I have no intention of twiddling my thumbs and doing nothing while I know someone like the PIRATE MASTER is trying to wreak havoc!

RISKY: And while I'd rather drown than work with that overdramatic blowhard of a pirate you call a captain, it DOES sound like CAPTAIN SHANTAE has a lead, so I'll suck it up just this once.

RISKY: Any objections?

HARPY: ...I'll get back to you when I clean the wax out of my ears, because I'm pretty sure I heard everything you said wrong.

WETMAN: I'd probably be doing the same if I could build up wax in my ears, but as it is, uh...I guess I don't have anything against you personally?

WETMAN: Aside from you ruining the captain's plans, I mean.

SCORPGAL: ...

SCORPGAL: Are you sure you're up for this? Even with your magic currently being unreliable?

RISKY: I got along just fine for YEARS without relying on my magic, and I can get along without it just fine now!

RISKY: Besides, who's to say I won't find a way to get my magic back to normal along the way? It's certainly not impossible.

SCORPGAL: I...

SCORPGAL: Fine. I'll allow it for now, but one step, ONE STEP out of line and you walk the plank. Understood?

RISKY: Crystal.

SCORPGAL: Good. Now, in order to start our search, we're going to need a map to the Forbidden Isles. The captain has one of her own, but there weren't any spares for me to grab.

RISKY: Hmmm...there should be one in the Sequin Land Public Library. The issue is getting in without them trying to arrest me on sight...

HARPY: I can blow it up for you!

RISKY: NO.

HARPY: ...the captain would've let me blow it up...

SCORPGAL: However you get it, just make sure you that map back to us. We can't go anywhere without it.

~~~~

[Several items traded and retrieved later...]

[RISKY is walking along the dock of Scuttle Town when there's a sudden rumble]

???: WAIT A MINUTE!

RISKY: What the-!? Who just said that?

[Immediately after she asks that question, a boat with the figurehead of a screaming skull pulls up alongside RISKY, and steering the ship is CAPTAIN SHANTAE]

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: How did you manage to get that map before me!?

RISKY: CAPTAIN SHANTAE!?

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: Yes, me, and normally I'd LOVE to engage you in banter and wind you up, little miss firecracker, but I am REALLY not in the mood right now.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: Seriously, why do you have that!? I was JUST about to try and steal it from the Sequin Land Public Library, and there's no way you could've heard about that beforehand!

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: Look, whatever reason you have that map, I need it more, and for once, I'm NOT trying to trick you. So tell me what you need it for and I'll handle it myself!

RISKY: ...Funny you should mention that, actually, because to my understanding, there's a few objections to that.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: What do you-?

CHIMERA PIRATES: CAPTAIN!

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: ...Don't tell me...!

[CAPTAIN SHANTAE turns around, and the camera shifts so that the CHIMERA PIRATES can fit into the frame as they run over]

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: CANNONBALL?

HARPY: Oh captain, my captain!

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: BILGE?

WETMAN: That's my name, don't wear it out.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: SCURVY!?

SCORPGAL: ...

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: What are you DOING here!? I told you, the Chimera Pirates are-

[CANNONBALL, as the HARPY has now been properly identified, throws herself at CAPTAIN SHANTAE's feet and throws her wings around her ankles]

CANNONBALL: CAPTAIN, DON'T LEAVE MEEE-EE-EE-EE-EE-E!

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: ...um.

[CAPTAIN SHANTAE awkwardly pats CANNONBALL on the head as RISKY looks to BILGE and SCURVY with a raised eyebrow]

RISKY: Well, I suppose it's nice to have a name for you sea dogs.

BILGE: Oh yeah, we never introduced ourselves, did we? Heh, our mistake.

BILGE: Say, did you name us in your head or something? And, related, were those names cool?

RISKY: I called you Goons 1 through 3.

BILGE: ...fair enough.

CANNONBALL: -AND I KNOW THE PIRATE MASTER IS BIG AND SCARY BUT I CAN BLOW UP HIS FACE SO PLEASE LET US BACK I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITHOUT YOU-OU-OU!

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: ...You know, I know you all adore me as your wonderful captain, but somehow I didn't expect that to translate into being clingy.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: So, ignoring that for now...SCURVY. You figured it out, then?

SCURVY: Yes, captain. If I may ask a question of my own, why do YOU need a map to the Forbidden Isles when you already have one?

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: I-Well...!

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: ...it got torn up by a CACKLEBAT before I could stop it. The PIRATE MASTER may be tar-dipped scum who deserves to ROT where he belongs, but he's smart tar-dipped scum, I'll give him that.

SCURVY: Mhm. And THAT, right there, is why disbanding us was an absolutely boneheaded move, you sea-legged, seaweed-addled MORON!

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: HEY, that is no way to speak to your-!

SCURVY: You disbanded the Chimera Pirates, so technically, you're not my captain.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: -GRRK!

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: I...owe you all an apology, don't I?

SCURVY: More than that. Captain, I don't care WHAT you think, this isn't something you can do alone. You ARE taking us with you...and that includes RISKY.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: RISKY!?

RISKY: Yes, me.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: Oh, PLEASE. Do you honestly expect me to believe that miss goody two-shoes over here would ever willingly work together with me on anything?

RISKY: Well, believe me, I'm not HAPPY about it, but considering the alternative is letting the Pirate Master run roughshod over Sequin Land, I can put my grudges aside for this.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: Really? You sure about-?

SCURVY: CAPTAIN. Don't you start. She won't leave well enough alone, you and I both know that by know. If we don't help her, she'll go off on her own...

SCURVY: And personally, I'd prefer having the half-wit up close so she doesn't run over our plans with the grace of a steamroller.

RISKY: And personally, I'D prefer being able to watch you all up close, because even if you ARE fighting the Pirate Master, I still suspect you're going to try something.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: ...yeesh, you're not giving me an inch, are you?

SCURVY: With all due respect, captain, which is NONE at the moment, we're not budging on this.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: Fine, fine...I can admit when I was wrong! I'll accept my defeat with grace and dignity.

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: Ahem...

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: It looks like the CHIMERA PIRATES are back in business!

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: Now with a half-genie shaped parrot.

RISKY: PARROT!?

CAPTAIN SHANTAE: It's either that or swabbing the deck as a cabin girl. Which would you prefer, firecracker?

RISKY: ...I am already regretting this...

[anincompletelist]

2023 year in review :D

THANK YOU @kiwiana-writes for always including me <3 I adore you and it was so much fun to see all that you've accomplished this year!

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. There are no rules!

233, 369 words published to ao3 (+ like another 80k depending on when bridesmaids is posted hehe)

2 published fandoms: Red White & Royal Blue (book), One Direction (soldouthaz)

most recent work: this guy, the prequel to this dude <3

longest published fic: (for rwrb) praying our bridges don't make waves (82k)

longest published oneshot: Sure As the Stars in the Sky (20k)

bridesmaids is currently at 75k

hitman au is currently at 15k

speak easy / poet henry is currently at 20k

diabetic alex au is currently at 7k

part two of this fic (dom!alex) is currently at 5k

+ about another 60k of random drabbles and unfinished snippets

but if you could see us from a distance, you'd know I've always been so close to you (E, 10k, 743 kudos)

Objectively, standing half-soaked from rainwater with a stitch in his side and an uncomfortable, raging hard-on outside his worst enemy’s door is not Henry’s finest moment. It’s not even on the list. [or, henry is afflicted with a curse-gone-wrong that stipulates that only his sworn enemy, alex claremont-diaz, can touch him.]

praying our bridges don't make waves (E, 82k, 642 kudos)

When June gets sick, Alex knows he'll do whatever it takes to make sure she gets the care that she needs. Even if that means convincing his nemesis/sexuality-crisis-inducing/clandestine hook-up partner/somewhat of an actual friend to pretend to be his soulmate in order to pull it off. It's both more and less complicated than it sounds.

I'll bet it all on me and you, I'll bet it all you're bulletproof (M, 11k, 527 kudos)

“Let’s do this,” he says. “Let’s,” Alex agrees, pushing down on the handle until the door swings open. “After you, boyfriend.” This is most definitely not his finest idea. Henry usually practices much better self preservation skills. Much better common senseskills. He steps over the threshold of Alex’s room and it feels like sealing his fate. They’re doing this for Alex to win over their bosses in a lighthearted game with a harmless lie, but Henry can’t fight off the bitter knowledge that, regardless of how tonight goes, Alex will be fine, but Henry has so much to lose.

total kudos: 4,495

total comment threads: 449

total bookmarks: 1,922

total subscriptions: 292

total word count: 223, 369.

total hits: 53, 676

firstprince first kisses (6 works, 57k, incomplete/ongoing)

the place lightning hits ground (1 work, 12k, incomplete)

everybody needs someone (2 works, 24k, completed)

current wips that have word counts:

bridesmaids au

hitman alex

poet henry

diabetic alex au

truman show au

boxer alex au

soft dom henry for this series

part 2 of soft dom alex for this series too

current wips that are on the to-do list:

happiest season au

rival wineries au

alex is medusa, henry is midas

museum guide henry / substitute teacher alex

+ sooooo many little unrelated one shot and drabble ideas and more for this series

I just posted this fic earlier today:

take my hand if you can take me as i am (E, 14k)

It would hurt less, Alex guesses, if he wasn’t head over heels for the guy he’s supposed to be fucking through an ancient one-sided sex curse with that was partially — a lot, actually — his own fault. But. It’s not like there’s a fucking handbook. Alex has looked.

and bridesmaids is in the final stretch and will most likely begin posting early january, if not the end of this month!

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tags:

general fic recs + reblogs

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fic rec fridays

my wips + updates/snippets

my edits

oh boy okay first off PLEASE DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED TO DO THIS but also I would LOVE to give all of ya'll a chance to brag on yourselves if you're up for it!

so consider this an OPEN TAG but also @affectionatelyrs @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @inexplicablymine @daisymae-12 @read-and-write- @happiness-of-the-pursuit @raysletters @heybuddy-drabbles @rockyroadkylers @sparklepocalypse @zwiazdziarka @littlemisskittentoes @getmehighonmagic @magicandarchery and anyone else who would like to do this! pls tag me so I can come scream at you (affectionately!)

I'm so ridiculously grateful for you guys and for this space to create and connect in, and I can't wait to take all of this lovely energy into next year as well. I'm so excited for everything we all have coming! :D

I hope you guys are all doing well!

-sarah / anincompletelist

xx