#focus tool

[filehulk]

Luxafor Cube 2 Stop Light for Offices

Imagine a workspace where distractions are minimized and productivity thrives. The Luxafor Cube 2 App-Free Busy Light for Offices brings that vision to life. This innovative tool is designed to improve communication and focus, ensuring you and your team can work without interruptions. Key Features for Streamlined Communication The Luxafor Cube 2 is packed with features that make it an essential…

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[0vergrowngraveyard]

hes a little spooked :(

[short-wooloo]

There are a million and nine reasons why I hate the "anakin has x personality disorder" takes (mostly because people treat it like it's textual fact and not just their fanon interpretations), but by far the thing I hate most about them is like 70-80% of the time the "evidence" for it (no matter the disorder whatever the armchair psychologist pulled out of the hat this week) always seems to be "Anakin gets angry sometimes"

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

I only have 5mins to make this post because LOOK AT THIS

I can MUTE and BLOCK all the fun things so I can make myself do work!?!

[violet-moonstone]

waiting for the day that people in a certain fandom learn that you can express a dislike for a ship without insulting people who ship it.

insinuating that someone is mentally unstable for shipping something you don't like trivializes mental illness, and it's ableist as hell to use that as an insult (funny how people's so-called progressiveness goes out the window in fandom discourse)

anyway I'm talking about some specific posts i just saw but honestly this applies to fandoms in general

the people playing pretend with fictional characters can't hurt you, nor are they trying to. but you going out of your way to make sure that everyone knows you're good person because you play pretend in the correct, good, wholesome way makes being in fandom spaces fucking exhausting

more ranting under the cut

The ship in question isn't even one of those "illegal" ones; it's an age gap between an adult and another adult. Would this gap make me wary IRL? Yeah...but these are not real people. What's more, there are real couples with significant age gaps and you cannot convince me that all of them are inherently toxic.

The fact that the ship is enemies to lovers also made them upset (because of implications of abuse) but people are unfortunately not good at separating what people like to explore in fan works from what people think is healthy in the real world.

I'm always annoyed when I'm just trying to look for my ships in peace and come across those kinds of posts -- not because it annoys me that there are people who don't like it, but because the way they do it is so irritating. There's no real conversation or critique going on. It's just "eww that's so yucky! Anyone who likes this is sick!"

They are absolutely not interested in discussing complex (and sure, even unhealthy) relationships between characters in an in-depth way, because it's icky. And anything icky must be avoided at all costs because if you think about the icky thing for too long that must mean that you are actually bad person.

Anyway, turn your brain off and only consume good, wholesome things. Prove to the fandom gods that you are holy and unproblematic.

[merakisphere]

Holy Woolley Mammoth! 🤩

My handmade fidget toys just hit 1700 five-star shop reviews on Etsy!! I remember three years ago when I was over the moon after my first 5-star review. What a moment, I am just so grateful. 😭

My hand crafted Fidget Blooms are a finalist in my province's "Made in Alberta Awards". Last day to to vote is today!

Did you find the hidden 20% OFF promo code in the video? We will be going on hiatus next month in preparation for some new and exciting things, so please get your orders in before May 1st. Thanks!

[so-very-small]

the inherent g/t between a miner and a canary

[cuties-in-codices]

Where do you find these manuscripts? Is it like a website or do you find it randomly??

hey, thanks for the curiosity! lenghty answer below the cut :)

1)

medieval manuscripts are typically owned by libraries and showcased on the library's websites. so one thing i do is i randomly browse those digitized manuscript collections (like the collections of the bavarian state library or the bodleian libraries, to name just two), which everybody can do for free without any special access. some digital collections provide more useful tools than others (like search functions, filters, annotations on each manuscript). if they don't, the process of wading through numerous non-illustrated manuscripts before i find an illustrated one at all can be quite tedious.

2)

there are databases which help to navigate the vast sea of manuscripts. the one i couldn't live without personally use the most is called KdIH (Katalog der deutschsprachigen illustrierten Handschriften des Mittelalters). it's a project which aims to list all illustrated medieval manuscripts written in german dialects. the KdIH provides descriptions of the contents of each manuscript (with a focus on the illustrations), and if there's a digital reproduction of a manuscript available anywhere, the KdIH usually links to it. the KdIH is an invaluable tool for me because of its focus on illustrated manuscripts, because of the informations it provides for each manuscript, and because of its useful search function (once you've gotten over the initial confusion of how to navigate the website). the downside is that it includes only german manuscripts, which is one of the main reasons for the over-representation of german manuscripts on my blog (sorry about that).

3)

another important database for german manuscripts in general (i.e. not just illustrated ones) is the handschriftencensus, which catalogues information regarding the entirety of german language manuscripts of the middle ages, and also links to the digital reproductions of each manuscript.

4)

then there are simply considerable snowball effects. if you do even just superficial research on any medieval topic at all (say, if you open the wikipedia article on alchemy), you will inevitably stumble upon mentions of specific illustrated manuscripts. the next step is to simply search for a digital copy of the manuscript in question (this part can sometimes be easier said than done, especially when you're coming from wikipedia). one thing to keep in mind is that a manuscript illustration seldom comes alone - so every hint to any illustration at all is a greatly valuable one (if you do what i do lol). there's always gonna be something interesting in any given illustrated manuscript. (sidenote: one very effective 'cheat code' would be to simply go through all manuscripts that other online hobbyist archivers of manuscript illustrations have gone through before - like @discardingimages on tumblr - but some kind of 'professional pride' detains me from doing so. that's just a kind of stubbornness though. like, i want to find my material more or less on my own, not just the images but also the manuscripts, and i apply arbitrary rules to my search as to what exactly that means.)

5)

whatever tool or strategy i use to find specific illustrated manuscripts-- in the end, one unavoidable step is to actually manually skim through the (digitized) manuscript. i usually have at least a quick look at every single illustrated page, and i download or screenshot everything that is interesting to me. this process can take up to an hour per manuscript.

---

in conclusion, i'd say that finding cool illuminated manuscripts is much simpler than i would have thought before i started this blog. there are so many of them out there and they're basically just 'hidden in plain side', it's really astounding. finding the manuscripts doesn't require special skills, just some basic experience with/knowledge of the tools available. the reason i'm able to post interesting images almost daily is just that i spend a lot of time doing all of this, going through manuscripts, curating this blog, etc. i find a lot of comfort in it, i learn a lot along the way, and i immensely enjoy people's engagement with my posts. so that's that :)

[eliserzilber]

Deep Breathing GIFs

Thought I’d share some Deep Breathing gifs that I’ve found helpful to focus on when I need something tangible to calm myself. Just found these in a Google search, there’s so many others but these were the ones I’ve used in the last year.

*DBT Skill Guides Here*

[landoffreaksandfrogs]

POV: you are eridan

[jackoftradesmakescontent]

What I should have been doing tonight: Sleeping What I did instead: Using the ISAT dialogue maker to introduce my SI OC when I haven't even thought of anything else related to them.

Under the cut because it's a lot of gifs

[wifiwuxians]

Can we get a Xiao Xingchen of Xiao Xingchen and the Urchins please..

[katyahina]

Rare

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

thinking about 4halo again and dying

they just. they used to be so sweet together. and then the election arc managed to genuinely turn them against each other (and bad is still affected by being caged in the museum) and i would NOT have been surprised if a rebellion had started within the next few weeks after their last fight and. they used to be friends and then they almost destroyed each other

and then the eggs went missing

and there are so many parallels between them, but one of the biggest parallels is how they're both protectors. they both protected the eggs (and, when he became president, forever extended that protection to the other islanders) but the eggs went missing and they had to put all of that aside. Forever was quicker to put it down than Bad was (it felt like only a very temporary truce, from Bad's end), but they put their problems on hold, because their eggs. were gone.

and another parallel. the destruction. both of them with their plans to cause ruin because then, maybe, theyll get their kids back. bad caused most of the grieving arc damage directly, and got aypierre and antoine to help him. he dug holes in the ground. he placed mines everywhere and leapt into them. he started the lavacasting process of the fed building (and was interrupted by admins, so he stopped, but philza and fit were still right to laugh at him lmaoo). he drilled a hole through the side of the federation office from a huge distance away. he has chosen to hurt his friends and himself to get the eggs back. whatever the cost.

forever destroyed the island. or he planned to destroy the island. or he was interrupted just before he destroyed the island or or or. I don't know. but it was big, and it was bad. bad enough that the feds had to step in and forcefully drug him, and kickstart the happy pills arc.

and the happy pills arc..... oughghghgh as fucking awful as it was for their characters to experience i genuinely truly think that it saved them from each other. when he was first told about forever being fucked up bad was still in the "i need to kick his butt" mindset, and was all ready for an excuse to kill forever. and then he saw forever. and the first proposal happened. and bad was angry and he was sad and upset and he was careful. forever tried to kill him. bad decided to save him. forever kept trying to marry him. forever kept taking the pills. forever was so scared of his own anger and all of the damage he could and would have caused to his family that he kept taking drugs that kept him so out of his mind he hallucinated his son was just sleeping safely at his house.

and they both tried to kill each other. and they both failed.

and bad showed phil and cellbit (and tubbo) the item scanner that dapper discovered, which could destroy him, because nothing else was working. because they needed to save forever. because bad was reminded by then that forever was a victim of the federation instead of just a mouthpiece for it. and then when forever woke up he saw bad, suffering, and so excited to see him awake.

and now they're here on opposite sides again with forever projecting his protection urges onto the fed worker in bad's basement and bad frustrated that he isn't being believed and his evil plans of giving ron lemons apology brownies is being interrupted and. look at them. soft "i hate you" and the appreciation room and bad's quiet heartbreak when he learned about forever being missing and the "i miss you" book bad got mad at because it asked him not to torture fed workers. does anyone hear me im so ill about them. do you understand they care about each other so much and the happy pills arc reminded them of that. forever realized bad is colourblind and bad assumed forever was poisoning him and then forever helped bad cheat on another colourblindness test and forever was giving bad flowers and bad was accepting them and accepted that he was colourblind despite his previously constant denial and! i don't know if im being comprehensible and i dont really care i will be honest i just need you to know i am frothing at the mouth like a rabid little beast. they are a TRAGEDY of miscommunication and external pressure but they love so so much. platonic or romantic or qpp they CARE and it tears me to shreds

[not-poignant]

Do you have any advice for writers looking to work on their sentence structure? I find myself repeating the same kind of sentence over and over, finding it challenging to diversify and keep flow. No worries if you don't feel like answering.

Hi anon!

So I would say the main thing is to find examples of how you want to be doing your sentences. Like, writers who use varying sentence lengths in their writing.

Then, look at one of your own paragraphs where everything is the same length, and practice shortening or lengthening some of those sentences. If you're already writing, you have examples of your own you can practice rewriting.

You can start experiencing firsthand that longer sentences can feel like a run-on thought, or someone spiralling out of control, or feel like infodumping etc. Short sentences can feel like a hard stop, making a point, increasing pacing.

Not all paragraphs call for highly variable sentences. But it does help to have variety!

Recognising that you are writing the same kind of sentence is honestly a huge part of the battle, and the fact that you're noticing means you're already probably trying to think of ways to solve it. From there, it's finding the examples that you most want to emulate.

Practice reading those sentences aloud. How does it feel to read different sentence structures / lengths? And don't forget to look at music, which is a good example of changing things up.

The thing to keep in mind as well is that if your writing disrupts flow, sometimes that's deliberate! A one word sentence to make a reader pay attention at that sudden 'O.O' moment, or a really long sentence to make a reader feel overwhelmed and like they're spiralling down with a character, etc. means you can vary your flow. Things shouldn't feel 'constant and the same.'

Sometimes it can help to think about what you're wanting your readers to be feeling in the moment. If it's intense and choppy, you probably want faster sentences and less attention to specific detail, like a character who can't take everything in, you might focus more on physical sensations, like a heart thundering, etc. If it's languid and relaxed, you might have longer sentences, and more descriptive prose.

A lot of the time the sentences and structures we use play into how we want a reader to feel, and how the experience of reading achieves that.

You can get on the ground experience with that by going back over your favourite things that you've read by other authors - whether that's fanfiction, or webtoons, or novels etc. Think about how the scene is being delivered to you. Sit down with the source text and think 'well this made me feel really excited, what sentences / what was happening here to cause that?' or 'this section felt really slow, why did this feel really slow?' Sometimes you might not know at first, other times you'll know straight away!

Sometimes you'll also see places like 'I'm pretty sure the author wanted me to feel this way during this scene, but instead I felt like *this* - I wonder why it was different and what created that in the writing.'

Also, consider exploring the wonderful world of good poetry. Poets are the masters of sentence structures and fragments, and using very few to create very big feelings and images. It doesn't hurt to start exploring some poetry basics to see the masters at work, and I really do feel like studying and writing poetry myself really helped my prose a ton.