#heres a free header image to use! works pretty well and was really fun to make

[sometimesanequine]

7.31.2024

[ask-demon-prosciutto]

2 Years of ask-demon-prosciutto

((Well, it’s this blog’s 2 year anniversary. Probably not something to really celebrate considering how little content I’ve made, but that’s not why I’m posting about it. I’m talking about it because I want to make this milestone a comeback after all these months of dicking around. I’ve been planning this for quite a while, actually. I can’t remember how long I have, though maybe it’ll come to me later on (I’ve been up for an unnecessarily long time at the time of writing this). And now, the day that I planned would mark my return has come. And with new-ish beginnings come some pretty hefty changes. I of course didn’t get as much as I wanted to done, but it’s better than me holding onto an ask for several months just to give a shitty text response I suppose!

Okay, actually onto the updates:

General Changes

First off, we have completely new profile picture! I made this back in November, so I can safely say I’ve at least been working on this whole reboot since then! But yeah, I think this blog’s been LONG overdue for some new avatar flesh, especially considering...

Prosciutto Got a Redesign!

I’ve been teasing this for a while now, but now you guys get to see it in full, not only in the pinned post, but also... Here!

...I will admit he hasn’t changed as much as I wanted him to, but I’m still happy with how he turned out. I hope you guys are as well!

And for the record, I’m going to try to make new reference sheets like this for everyone else later on. I wanted to before today, but well... You know me (I was also occupied with other drawings).

New Pinned Post

I got a whole-ass new pinned post now! It features some new artwork, my inbox status, the Carrd, and some other things I’ll bring up down below. If you missed something important, you can probably find it in that post.

Carrd Updates

The Carrd’s gotten a pretty heft update since I last edited it! Changes include:

+Pretty much all of the text got rewritten or edited. Some sections were changed more than others.

+The Carrd overall now has a new aesthetic: The white/purple gradient was replaced with an orange/dark red one, a purple border was added, and the header image was changed to the new pfp + its size has been increased.

+Characters pages got a slight aesthetic overhaul too. Symbols corresponding to each character-minus Microorganism Pros- were added besides their names, and their subtitles/epithets were made bigger. The white dividers that went under each name were also removed because today I discovered that Carrds have a limited number of elements you can use if you don’t have their membership. Fun! I managed to free up some space, though they probably won’t be coming back knowing that there will be more elements needed as I introduce more characters.

+Also regarding characters, Illuso has been added to the roster of characters you can ask! With that, he has his own page now where you can gather come lore crumbs tm.

+Removed the tag guide page because I didn’t think it was necessary. Most of the tags have their meaning in parenthesis and/or are self-explantory. I also needed the element space, as discussed above. If people want it, however, I’ll bring the tag guide back, though it won’t be on the Carrd.

Speaking of that conflict regarding the limited elements, I’m considering moving everything over to a website now that I know of this. The Carrd I currently have is really beefy, and it’s only going to get even more stuffed as time goes on. I don’t think I’ll be able to fit everything I want to put on there, which is why I’m looking to find a good website maker, preferably one that doesn’t limit how much content you can put on one. I’ll be taking any suggestions given for the time being.

Discord

I’m working on setting up a Discord for this blog and as a sort of hub for other JJBA ask blogs out there! It’s mostly complete; I just wanna find a bot that can be used for auto-assigning roles first. It’ll put the invite link in the pinned post + make a separate post once I’m ready to open it up.

Scrapped Art/WIP Showcase

Remember when I promised this last year and then never actually did it? Well, it’s finally here! It’s also in the new pinned post in case you can’t find this post. Do keep in mind that it isn’t complete at the time of writing this though; I still gotta find some old sketchbook sketches that I never took pictures of.

More Activity?

I can’t guarantee this since I’m still the same old same old, but I’ll try my best to become more active! Y’all will also have to keep in mind that I got all sorts of other projects on my mind, and as of writing, something personal will be coming up soon for me, and it may affect my motivation depending on the outcome. Again, I’ll try my best to be more responsive, though it may come at the cost of the art’s quality...

Wow, this has been a long post. Well, it’s great to be on here for real and see you all again. And again, thanks for sticking around despite all my tomfoolery; it really means a lot to me. <3

[bokuroaka]

hi! can i ask how u made ur carrd like what are the settings? ty!

omg YES i love carrd making hi anon. if there’s anything specific u want just lmk!! under the cut bc its long... i make most of my carrds on desktop so this is very desktop based.... to all of u who do ur carrds on mobile honestly kudos i cld never

uhm also when i say long like this is v long bc i added a lot of reasoning to my settings n tips that i’ve picked up on making carrds (plus the screenshots) i hope it helps tho ^_^ apologies if u knew most of this stuff tho bc i explained... everything...

some notes before we get in: for colors i usually just base everything off the sidebar image and use a color picking website (i use this one) to get the the html codes for colors. the site i use also generates a palette which i also use! ur free to use anything tho obv. the font i used is “inter” 

1. ok first here are my page settings! i wont include my animation settings now ill leave that to the end.. these r rlly the only settings that i’ve changed so i’ll just post these.

ok i dont rlly change much except for these two, the position is set to top not center (which is the default) b/c esp w carrds like the one i have now i dont like the header portion moving depending on the height of the container underneath... does that make sense? that’s just super nitpicky of me LOL but if u do end up making the carrd n playing around w the settings u’ll see what i mean

the width is set to 22 bc i like small carrds! play around w this as u see fit, i also change it depending on how it looks like in mobile (im very thorough lol) if ur wondering how u can do that on desktop, its this phone looking icon on this bar on the top right of the screen: (the 6th icon!)

the next pic is also default settings except my spacing is set to 0. i’ll explain why later! the alignment also doesnt really matter w/ this carrd. u can play around with it tho!

2. this is for the home page!

first i’ll explain how this is set up: the title box and the box under it (i’ll call it info box) are both containers! here is why i put set the spacing to 0 earlier: if u put 2 containers theres going to be space btwn them and to achieve this kind of look (ig) i just set the page spacing (in the page settings) to 0. however this means that everything is going to be pressed up against each other so i usually just add dividers (which are transparent [color code is #96969600]) i wont post a screenshot bc the settings r default, except for the margins which u can play around with to see what works for u (it’s set to 0.375 for me rn)

here are my settings for the title box 

most of these r pretty standard except for the padding and border. the reason why i didnt tick the bottom part is bc of the container w all my info underneath. both containers have borders so the bottom & top border of those containers wld just merge n create a thicker border which isnt what i was looking for... anyway.

then i just add a text element & just write my title! idt my settings for that r relevant so i wont add it (the text size is 0.875)

next is the info box! here are my settings: 

btw this is a container with columns!! those can look p wonky on mobile so make sure to have these settings on so that they wont look awful on mobile!!

oh also i wont post a screenshot of my text settings (text size is 0.75 + line spacing is 1.25) if ur wondering how i changed colors for some of the text the format is basically just [text]{#color} 

for the image size i set the width size to full (or full column) that depends on u (and how much text u put in the info part) i just prefer how it looks like when the image width is set to full bc that way no part of the image is cut off... really depends on u and what image ur using though so just play around w/ it!!

and in terms of spacing, i have a divider on top of the title box b/c otherwise the whole thing is just too high up for my taste

ok now to explain the header part and how i got my title/info box to stay “fixed”

so... im ngl. i dont understand how the header function works (help) so uhh i wont go as into detail here. but what worked for me is adding a header marker (the plus thing on the bar > control > change section break to header marker) right after the info container, then adding a section break (this one is called #wala bc wala here means ‘nothing’ in bisaya lol) and a transparent divider right after it. i hope its visible in the pic... anyway this is the only method i found that makes the carrd work lmao. it rlly doesnt matter what u name the #wala section break bc its not gonna show up so u might as well just use a keysmash

3. the extra info!! (extra, interests, byf)

this section will b shorter compared to the first two LOL anyway. first i started off w a section break (#usa which means 1 in bisaya hehe), then a transparent divider for spacing, and then a container! theres nothing fancy abt this container it has the exact same settings as the info box above so u can just duplicate that container and change the container type from columns to default.

then just add ur info and ur done!! repeat w whatever extra info u want to add (i only had 3 to add so it looks like this for me)

4. oh before i forget, these are my animation settings!! (page > the triangle thing)

u can preview the on load animation by clicking the triangle button on the top right bar, but for the on section change animations u have to save then preview it on ur carrd itself :/ kinda annoying but yeah... i usually never set anything above 0.5 seconds for on section change animations bc im impatient LOL 

these r completely optional tho... i just think animations make the carrd look smoother & more fun!

thats it i think! here are some tips i have

1. this tip is abt how carrds can differ when on mobile! i sometimes fiddle around with the mobile settings to make sure my carrd looks the way i want it to on mobile! bc mobile sometimes fucks up the spacing and it annoys me LOL... example here: 

u can find these settings if u scroll down a bit on the page settings and switch mobile from auto to manual (like in the screenshot) most of the settings i dont touch except the size setting, i just fiddle around w it and see how my carrd looks in the mobile view until im satisfied

2. this isnt rlly necessary but its smthn neat i picked up! if u check ur section break settings and check hide footer u can get rid off the “( made with carrd )” text on the bottom! i think it just makes the carrd look a bit neater, esp since the page spacing is set to 0 so it might look a little squished under the container...

3. i like to use all elements of my carrd efficiently (ig? heres the engineering major jumping out) and idk if u noticed, but if u click on the title (”it has always been once for me”) or the image (which is... of tbz..) it actually takes u back to the home page ^^ idk i just think small things like that r neat 

thats it for real!! i hope this wasnt too much of a hassle to read or follow through, and if u have any questions dont hesitate to dm me or send me an ask, even if we arent mutuals!! i hope u have fun making this carrd <3

[vanzhuo]

do you have any tips on how to start a writeblr, specifically how to meet more people and make some cool mutuals? :D i wanna start a writeblr but i don’t know anyone from the community and i feel like it’s not as fun without friends :(

ok so hey, first of all, i’m not good at articulating my thoughts well but here it goes -- there isn’t any one way to start a writeblr. when i’d started mine, i lounged around idly for a couple of months reblogging things from other writeblrs. when i finally mustered up wits to post an intro, some writeblrs reblogged and boosted it so that’s how many people found my blog. but like, at the beginning, i was clueless enough (don’t you dare laugh) to ask @semblanche what a taglist was because i was confused about why everyone was asking to be on it. so yeah. i’m gonna jot down a couple of things you should do if you want to like join the community under the cut since this is getting too long and you should all be saved from making the same mistakes i made at the start. and of course, some tips on networking around the community and finding new mutuals!

1. make an intro post. so the one thing i’ve learnt after changing blogs twice is, make an intro post you are satisfied with. it can be simple one, a text post where you use the header option to announce your writeblr (ex. if i were to make an intro, i’d say kalki’s writeblr) and then i’d put in my name, the kind of stuff i like to read, the kind of stuff i like to write and the wips i am writing. point is, it should be something you like, something that tells something about you. like the first time i did this, my intro said: this girl doesn’t know what she’s doing. the second time: she’s being too pretentious, move on people. so on and so forth. some people prefer using fancy images (i am some people) to introduce their blogs with an image post instead, but you’re fine with or without. one thing you should keep in mind is to like tag a few of your favorite blogs. i didn’t do this the first time round because i wasn’t sure what exactly i was doing but you should all know that if you tag your favorite blogs, then those blogs will (mostly, sometimes mentions mess up like it does with me and tumblr doesn’t notify you about being tagged) definitely reblog and boost it. that way, a lot of people will, if not engage with you, then at least know of your existence. here’s my intro post for this blog, if you want. it’s not very, um, formal because i was sleepy and thought it was funny. 

2. don’t be discouraged by the amount of notes on your intro. listen, i know we’d all feel bad if we had like 7 likes and 2 reblogs alright but don’t be discouraged. i mean now that i go back, my intro post has only about 36 notes. it really just depends on the timing. however, when you start posting content, those 10 people who’ve interacted with your post will like it and will reblog it for everyone to see and when people start seeing your content, they get interested and slowly, you’ll have more people to interact with and more people will discover your content and i think what i’m trying to say is that, the note count does matter but don’t be discouraged if it isn’t enough. it’ll take time but you’ll find a solid footing really soon, writeblr’s a really warm engaging place minus the anon hate people get sometimes. (see: @inheriting. all queen elle did was breathe, guys.) 

3. interact with other people and their content. so yes. it’s not a one side deal. if you want people to find your blog, you’ll have to start looking for more content too. when you see something good, reblog it or comment on it or even send an ask telling them it’s god tier content. that stuff makes up half the amount of serotonin in our brains. seriously. there’s nothing writers like more than people reblogging their posts with incoherent screaming or coming into their asks to tell them something they think is funny. you could even post something like: hey, i’m a new writeblr and i’m looking for content like (enter the genres or tropes you prefer) and if you have wips similar to this, then pls reblog this with their tags. i wanna start engaging more. something like that. yeah.

4. message other writeblrs? ok so this is a thing that i would not recommend doing ONLY because sometimes everything gets lost in my notifs and i don’t see messages for days and i know other writeblrs probably face this too. tumblr automatically reads them and doesn’t lmk and stuff like that. and secondly, most of us don’t really, like, answer dms all the time. sometimes i got something important to say so i’ll go to minnie @medusaswrites or to chel @starshots and scream about it and then when the topic of conversation closes, and it gets awkward (i do this so many times you don’t even know) we go back to ghosting private messages and instead blasting each other’s ask boxes with love. that’s just how this stuff works. but there are plenty of writeblrs who aren’t awkward with private messaging and they will LOVE to talk to you so there’s also that. honestly, i don’t know where i’m going with this so i’ll stop now. 

5. graphics and other things. ok so the main part, and the most important part, about a writeblr blog is the writing. so you’re a good writer, you’re a great writer. that’s not all though. sometimes you need to organize your blog. you use coded tags like tags for a particular character (say, my character tag for katya is oc: katya) and tags for a particular wip and inspo tags, resources tags, aesthetic tags, etc. this helps you organize your blog better. and finally, look, i know most people can’t do photoshop, either because it’s too expensive or too complicated and i get it. photoshop isn’t required honestly, there are tons of other things you can use. what mostly attracts attention is how attractive a blog can be. the layout for your blog for one. the picspam for your wip intro. that sort of thing. they are a couple of apps on phone that are free to use like picsart and canva (it’s on web too and honestly, the one thing you should use. it’s not like photoshop but it does the job and it does the job really well. if you want to ask someone about canva, you should go to raye @vigilantscar. she isn’t a writeblr but she’s good in that department.) also, if you’ve got something to ask about layouts or simple intro post demos and arrangement or the kind of pictures you should choose for them then slide into my dms, i’ll be happy to help.

i think that’s all? like true, writeblr isn’t fun without friends but this community is so nice and open that anyone can join anytime and you’d feel welcome. i also feel like i’ve not been able to get a few points across without sounding ignorant/awkward? or like i might have forgotten a few things? but honestly, i just woke up. also, i’m gonna tag a few blogs here that you should check out for good content in no particular order: @starshots @medusaswrites @carumens @vandorens @liarede @aelenko @inesnenci @kiesinger @medeaes @noloumna @emdrabbles and @inheriting. there are tons of other writeblrs with good content that i’m pretty sure i, with the memory of a goldfish, forgot to mention but. yeah. if you ever get round to posting an intro, tag me! i’ll be happy to interact! 

[elysiumwaits]

[Image Description: It’s a square image of music notes across a blue background in retro pink, purple, and yellow. The text says “Let’s Get Distracted! Part One,” and it’s obvious that Ely made it themselves in like five minutes.]

Let’s Get Distracted! 

Part One

When it comes to dealing with things that we can’t actually change or improve, distraction is key. Going over things again and again is distressing, because there’s no actual problem to solve, no solution that’s going to appear the more that we think about it.

Distraction doesn’t mean that we’re ignoring things, or that we’re choosing to be uninformed. Distraction is a good way to stay sane in the middle of devastating anxiety, because panic isn’t going to help anyone at all. It is perfectly fine to find something to get obsessed with, to use this time to learn a new skill, or even just work on getting through the day without losing your mind in the barrage of awful news that keeps happening.

So here are some fun things to do that are free (at least for a little bit) to hopefully help you kill some time and try not to get bogged down with anxiety. For this first list, I tried to grab a variety of things that people may not have known about. Later, I’ll be putting together lists that might require supplies (for crafts), or may lead you to links to cheap entertainment. This one, though, I’ve tried to keep free for you - or at least stuff with a good free trial!

Most of these are for use in the browser or on your laptop. A couple of things also have phone apps (but I’ll be doing a list of games/apps later specifically for phones). I personally have a Chromebook, so I’m not the person to talk to about software for games and such, but if anyone wants a list of fun free/cheap games on the Switch or PS4 or Steam, let me know and I’m happy to make recommendations!

Some Things to Get Distracted By

Neopets - Yes, they still exist! They’re still pretty fun, too. Plenty of flash games, plenty of light-hearted stuff. Clearly aimed for children, but just as enjoyable for adults too, especially if you’re looking to kill some time and bask in some nostalgia.

Flight Rising - Pet site where you breed dragons! Older audience than Neopets, with a heavy creative side.

HexRPG - Incredibly in-depth Harry Potter fan-roleplay site. Attend classes, roleplay on the frankly insane amount of forums, enjoy the events and contests. Great for writers and artists, honestly just plain fun.

4theWords - A browser-based game for writers! It’s the one that I use, and I really enjoy it. Defeat monsters with your word count, participate in events, post on forums, and play through the game. First month is a free trial, and after that it’s around $4 a month! (My referral code is: MVLRL19774)

Duolingo - Okay, everyone knows about the app, yes. Free language-learning. But the browser site is also amazing, and this is an excellent time to dig into learning that language you’ve always wanted to know. I’m using it to brush up on my Japanese so I can talk to my extended family without as much of a language barrier.

CrunchyRoll - A lot of the anime is actually free-to-watch with ads, and they have a mobile app! You can sign up for free, make your watchlist, get really into a great anime (the new Fruits Basket is pretty good), or even take a trip down memory lane and watch something like Rurouni Kenshin or Cardcaptor Sakura!

Good Mythical Morning - A YouTube series by a couple of best friends that is, frankly, utterly hilarious. If you’re looking for hilarity that isn’t completely wrapped up in video game streams or a specific niche, GMM is a great place to find some laughs. I highly recommend the Post Malone nursery rhyme video!

Libby - This one is US-centered, I believe - sorry! Libby is a free ebook/audiobook library operated by Overdrive that works with your library. You can loan out ebooks and audiobooks based on what your library has available, and a library card is required. You can hook the app to your Kindle and send books to read from your phone, or read them directly in your Libby app. A lot of the most recent, popular books have holds that can last a while, but there are plenty of things to read all the same. Right now, I have Gideon the Ninth and The Babysitters Coven checked out! *this is an app, I’m not sure about a browser edition

Pixlr - Free image editing! I lost Photoshop CS5 when my last laptop bit the dust, but I love using Pixlr to make graphics like phone wallpapers, icons, tumblr headers, and more. Pick a classic book and a color palette, or some stills from your favorite Disney movie, and get creative. Also great for moodboards.

NotAlwaysRight - This website is all about dumb customers. I think it’s pretty safe to assume that if you’ve worked with people at all, there’s something here to laugh about. On top of that, they’ve been operating for years, so there’s a bunch of material, as well as sister sites like NotAlwaysWorking, NotAlwaysRomantic, and NotAlwaysLearning, among others.

Alrighty! That’s all for this one, but I have a few more planned over the next few days.

If there’s a specific recommendation for distraction that you’re looking for, or you just need someone to talk to about all of the anxiety and everything happening so much everywhere, my inbox is open and I’m here for you!

[calamariimpossible]

Magicians on the internet, crypto, and the email that broke me.

This is a continuation of a twitter thread that Muz (@mzkrx) started to write out in his car but then when he plotted out his thoughts, it made more sense to him to put it down in a blog format rather than a thread. You'll find out why as you read through.

Stuck in the car for half an hour so I'm gonna do a thread (Editor's note: Now a whole-ass blog post) about a strange email I got recently.

So I was casually watching magic tricks on YouTube. the funnest part of which to me is reading the comments. YouTube commenters love explaining how they think the trick is done and it's fun to read through their theories and connect dots between similar tricks, etc.

And then one time as I was scrolling I noticed a comment that didn't make sense. It was a string of an almost sentence. Intelligible enough to not be random words but odd enough to read like a trigger phrase for something.

The closest I can describe it as is like the string Zemo used to wake up the Winter Soldier, but with some syntax to it. Like "many thermos wiggle throughout exotic harbinger of circle ascending fuchsia entrapment".

Initially I thought nothing of it, but then I kept seeing them in these magic trick video comment sections. They're never the same string, and it's always under magic trick videos. from different channels even.

Hmmm.

The profiles that posted these comments are also always blank accounts with zero videos and no profile pic. Just their name. I felt like it was too much of a coincidence for these comments to only be under magic trick videos.

I also knew that the world of performance magic is thick with secrets. That is to say, there is deliberate obfuscation of information whenever you try to go online to find out how a trick works.

Magicians get together online and share information with each other just like performers of every other sort as well but the amount of code and doublespeak they use is an order of magnitude more annoying to decipher compared to say, an engineering message board or a gamedev forum.

Knowing that, I thought maybe this almost parsable gibberish I keep seeing everywhere was also some kind of code these people were using to talk to each other.

So I started investigating.

First things first, let's just Google one of the phrases. Maybe that's enough?

And it sorta was.

Pasting them onto the search bar lent me to only 1 result (wild!) and it was a website that looked really dank. Like geocities dank. Annoying neon colours and badly margined jpegs of tarot card images everywhere and a big bold header text that said something to the effect of:

"Congratulations, you've found our hidden message. This portal is only for those seeking knowledge beyond what is on the surface. Continue below."

* * *

I haven't been doing well. I feel like I say that too much. I say it on Patreon, on my personal podcast, whenever any of my friends ask me how I'm doing, pretty much everywhere. I feel very heavy. I understand I'm not the only one feeling like this during a pandemic.

Duh.

But I have this other version of worry that I can't quite articulate until right now: I'm scared I won't be funny anymore. Anwar and Farid can attest that even during our recordings I don't feel up to being funny. I question my jokes a lot. I barely enjoy telling them. I'm worried I'm letting everyone down.

To me, silliness and absurdism as virtues only make sense when the world has trace amounts of injustice and wrongness that training ourselves to see it in our everyday helps us remind ourselves of what is just and fair. The more we consume silliness, the more we are able to recognize silly and point it out. So we don't ignore it when things go wrong, so we talk about it, manage it. So we can take care of each other.

Maybe I can't be sure if we're all up for taking care of each other right now.

* * *

"Continue below" seems instructive, but it wasn't. Like I mentioned, the margins were haphazard and the CSS was all over the place. Some jpegs were straight up cropped off.

Meaning I can't be sure what "below" meant. But there were clickable images and text so I was readily intrigued.

It was tantalizing. Did I stumble into some secret order of Extremely Online Magicians? Maybe I'll finally find out why there aren't many female magicians out there. Maybe it's some sort of secret initiation to a secret message board full of secrety secrets. Secretly.

Y'all.

I didn't click on any of the linked images or anything. I closed the tab. That was the end of that.

An earlier version of myself would gladly run headlong into this rabbit hole to find out more and sink hours into some goddessforsaken labyrinth of links. But the current version of me recognizes this for what it almost certainly is: an abandoned roleplaying game.

Back in the early 00s when the internet was the realm of nerds and nerds only, it was full of people who loved sharing things for sharing's sake. It used to be punk rock to maintain a blog that only talked about snails or have a lo-fi YouTube channel that uploads biweekly 3-minute news about your house, or manage a little message board where people roleplay as wizards who rummage around the net looking for clues.

That last part was a thing I remember being actively involved in. In '03, a group of online friends and I wrote up a scavenger hunt of sorts where we sent people through various blog pages that we have where the goal is to just dick around and have fun. We wasted each other's time for sure. Hundreds of hours of it for literally no gain at all but for some laughs and fun memories.

The internet isn't like that anymore. People don't share something online for sharing anymore. Not really. There's this idea that if you put stuff out there, you want people's attention because numbers are good. You get a lotta reblogs and RTs and Likes which means people Like you.

If you don't have a lotta numbers, you don't matter. If you do, everyone has to talk about what you said or did because it's 'News' now.

Isn't that kinda gross, you think? That we need people to interact through an app to be sure that we're Liked? I say "we" but I mean me. I've successfully poisoned my brain to believe this to a certain extent too and it's not good.

I felt myself physically react when I closed that geocities magician website tab. I shuddered because my brain went from "this is cool" to "I gotta let people know I found this" to "this'll get me hella RTs" to "ew Muz why did you think that" within 3 seconds and I was disgusted with myself.

As a dude who started my online presence on YouTube and parlayed it into my real life comedy/writing career, I've believed for a long time that doing good work and putting it out there is what it takes for a working creative to make it because that's what I did. So there's this idea that making stuff and having it be seen is some kind of virtuous.

But it's not anymore. People pick fights with children for clout. Newspapers post about people's tweets as if its important. People are investing in crypto, a thing that literally only exists as electrical waste on a grand scale. We're boiling the oceans to yell at each other over nothing and exchange bits of code everyone agrees has ever-rising value but doesn't. Everyone is making and eating junk, it feels like.

So am I making junk? Have I just been making useless junk for literally over a decade now? Is that what I've been good for this entire time?

* * *

So the email.

It was a response from a company I applied to for a job. I applied as a creative writer and they're an advertising agency.

Receiving emails from a prospective employer when you're in need of a job is exciting! So soon after I applied, too. Wonderful. Here's what it said:

We just received your application today but would love to extend the opportunity for you to participate in the Case Competition as a prerequisite of your job application for Creative Writer position with [REDACTED] and stand a chance to be a winner for cash awards up to a total worth of RM1,800.

Yea.

They want me to enter a competition where I compete with other candidates to get a chance of being hired.

This company saw how many people applied for a job with them, and decided to dangle some cash and throw it over the fence to see which candidate will fight for it the most.

I didn't expect to feel vomitous after reading an email but that did it. I almost dry heaved. That's where we are now.

Recruiters see a glut of applicants and decided to play Fall Guys. These people watch Istana Takeshi and think Takeshi is the good guy. It hurts. It hurt me. That email caused me pain.

I can't at all empathise with recruiters who think this was okay to do. They really believed that creative writers will do a little dance for them just for money.

Look, I know we all need to eat. But I can also hate that people undervalue the work of creatives to this painful extent.

I don't give a shit about earning a lot of dough. I just wanna make things that tickle people. I want you to smile more.

That's the whole point of that weird little YouTube comment that led to the quirky website. That's the whole idea of making silly videos and dumb tweets and memes. We just want you to laugh.

But it seems people think so little of joy that they'll do whatever they can to avoid legitimately supporting and paying for stuff that gets them through the day. So much so that they want free work from us for the potential of maybe being able to get paid for more work. It breaks me, man.

I hate that I cannot make a living just trying my best to make people happy.

That's the best way I know to take care of you.

I know I don't just 'make junk' for a living. People have messaged me personally that my work has helped them get through tough times in school, in their relationships, at the office and I am eternally grateful that they took the time to tell me that.

I just also wish my feelings about my work aren't easily brought down by the majority of people who insist its worthless. Even if sometimes those people is me.

So forgive me if I won't be funny for a while. I'm gonna need some time to process this. Thank you for reading. I love you.

[bangtansmutcentral]

[Please Read]

We would like to start off by apologising to our members and followers for making you have to witness this. It is in our opinion totally unnecessary, but since we’re getting these asks we need to address them.

We would like to say that whoever is sending these could have acted like an adult and contacted us privately and expressed their concerns. We were never hostile or unapproachable so we don’t understand why hide behind an anonymous ask. Either way, it is done.  

Since I (admin sue) started working on the network alone, before inviting my friends to join, I’ll be speaking for the 3 of us. 

After getting theses asks we didn’t know what to make of them, because we literally didn’t know what they were talking about, but after going to said network to see if something was going on, we saw a post, that didn’t mention any networks, talking about stealing content, not having their own ideas, taking advantage of what they’ve worked so hard to accomplish and we did NOT think it was about us, since we NEVER stole anything. But it is obvious, after getting these asks, that they are talking about us.

For what I understand, ---net, is a writers network that work and share smut content. Our network was made to gather and share ALL KINDS of posts. You can see that if you go on our application form and find the following: 

We never intended to be a writers only net. We have writers of course and it is a big part of what we share but we are definitely not a writers network and as we grow, we hope to make the net even more diverse. 

I’m from the side of tumblr that is more visual, and I saw most pages I followed close due to the policy changes on tumblr and because of that, what is left in smut is mostly writing. That is why we have more writers than other creators, but we are not a writers club or writers network. We will hopefully encourage people to get out of their comfort zone and try new things and express themselves in different ways, other than writing, while of course keeping and giving the deserved space writing has.

I’ve been blogging for 2 years now and my personal blog has over 26k followers. I’m not saying this to brag, that is definitely the last thing I want to do, but I want to show you that I’m not after a following or attention at any cost. Of course we want to see whatever we create succeeding, but we’re not in this to steal anything from anyone, generate hate or compete.

The network was made because I wanted a new project that would bring all smut content to one place. I miss having this diversity of content on my feed and wanted to create something I would enjoy as well as help other people come together since nowadays it’s harder to do that here. Plus, having my friends join me on this made it a very special and fun idea. 

We never owned any networks, or were a part of them in any way. My page for example is more visual contente than written, so I didn’t even know of these writers networks. To see how this is true, I went on my blog and asked smut creators to get in touch with me for a new project, then searched for some smut blogs and messaged them one by one asking if they would be up for a net because I didn’t even know if anyone would be interested, let alone, think that there was already one! Even though we know all the networks for sharing pics and gifs, smut networks were something we never knew existed (and now, seeing that they do exist, I think that there is space for all of us, in our own way). Here is how I went about it:

I even messaged one of the ----net admins, as a creator (without knowing that she had a net), asking if she wanted to join us, and that’s when we found out they existed! She even told us that they already used ‘---’ and I apologised and changed our visual identity completely so there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings. I changed our #, header, icon, everything. I just didn’t change the name because we would have to create a blog from scratch and we already had started promoting the page everywhere. The name was created randomly, if we knew there was a net with a similar name of course we would want something completely different because we don’t need to feed off of other blogs success or image. We are just not that kind of people. We want to start small and slowly learn about our members, our followers and what content is best and how to navigate the net. At the time I didn’t even give it much importance since it was just a name… for me personally it wasn’t something worthy of a fight. But apologised and changed everything else as soon as I could. Is that me being unfriendly and rude? Is that the behaviour of someone that wants to steal something from anyone? ‘

When I started setting up the blog (after changing the items), I din’t know the first thing about a net, or anyone that I could ask about it, so I just went around all networks I could find (---net included) to see how a network works basically. I found out that the rules are basically the same, the application forms as well and the aim of all of them is to share creators content. We didn’t think we were stealing anything by making similar rules to everyone. I personally wouldn’t mind if someone took inspiration from my page or even copy-pasted word by word of my rules pages for ex. For me, it is not stealing content, it’s just rules... I wouldn’t mind at all, but of course that is personal. 

The 3 of us are finishing our masters degree, so we see tumblr as a hobby. We have the utmost respect for everyone and everyone’s work but it is just our hobby. One of us is in her exam period, the other finishing her thesis, I’m having my mom over for summer so we wouldn’t have time to keep the blog running if we didn’t queue posts, and since we’re 3 admins, 3 posts are ideal (one for each) and of course alphabetically through our members because that’s common sense.

This was mostly so in this busy month the blog wouldn’t die. We didn’t think that that would cause such a problem.  If this net is really talking about us, they could have reached us and talked to us in private without causing such a commotion. We were never hostile to anyone, never offended anyone in anyway so we don’t understand why they did things the way they did, but then again we are all different people. If what bothers you anon, (and assuming you’re associated with the net some way) is that our acceptance post has similar rules (because that’s the only thing we’ve put out so far, so you must be talking about that… we’re a few days old… we literally have done nothing yet), you could have reached us and said so and we would have gladly changed it. It would however remain very similar, since we share mostly the same kind of content and every network has pretty much the same acceptance rules. Also a members page, a navi page, a tag system.. how did we copy you on that? That’s how all the networks I saw work! And how did all nets start? Didn’t they start by looking at other nets to see how this ’network thing’ works and basically start the same as them, since the rules are all the same, and then find their own place and change things over time? Someone said that it is disheartening to see others gain from what they’ve worked hard to create. What have we gained? How have we used their creations to gain anything? Because we’re queuing posts? We can change the way we worded that, but we will keep queuing from our members because we don’t have time at the moment to keep the blog going otherwise.

The disclaimers are similar? But of course they are! We hope people have common sense but some things are triggering and must be advised against. I myself for example, have some triggers that I don’t want in my net!

We really don’t believe that this is aimed at us, it really can’t be, because we have an acceptance post out so far and nothing else. The rest is just the normal things every net has as I said before, so if this is all a misunderstanding and since no one from the net reached us, we would like to apologise if their post was directed at someone else.

Lastly I’d like to say a few things:

We wanted a page with a variety of content, a variety of individuals, have thought of ways to encourage visual creativity and fun stuff to do in the future. We wanted to create a feed that we missed having. We just wanted to have fun and meet new people. 

We find this absolutely unnecessary. People have better things to do than to be reading these long arguments. We are a small page that wanted to do something for us and for the people that choose to follow us. Most importantly, we didn’t mean any harm. We can see that ---net has a very beautiful page and I’m sure full of talented people and it was NEVER out intention to copy or disrespect anyone. As I said before we are not a writers club so we won’t be as similar as it might seem. We are as similar as all networks within the same genre are. 

We think that if this was aimed at us, it could have been dealt with privately. We are not animals that can’t be talked to, we were and always will be open to learn and grow with everyone and apologise if we hurt anyone even if not intentionally. But since it started publicly and without us even knowing, and now getting all this hate, it’s only fitting that it ends publicly as well. We will not be addressing this anymore. We are only a few days old but already cherish our members and followers very much. With that being said, if you are a member of ---net and feel like you shouldn’t follow us or be a member, for believing that we did something we didn’t do, you are free to leave us. Though it pains us, we understand that trust is earned and being with a net for so long and then seeing these accusations, you can only think the worst of us, so we won’t make it hard or awkward for you if you want to leave. I actually considered deleting the network because this is causing way too much anxiety that I personally don’t need in my life right now, but my dear friends and admins here talked me out of it because we didn’t do anything wrong. Through all theses years here, I NEVER disrespected anyone, my page was NEVER involved in anything bad and we only spread love, positivity and have fun, so thinking that someone can think such bad things of me is almost unbearable. 

ps. English is only my 3rd language so please excuse any mistakes such a long post might contain.

Admin sue

In name of Bangtan Smut Central Netwok.

[servinglemonade]

My first reaction to Disney +

Hello... It’s been a while since I have posted here. I had exams, then summer vacation and then I finally started college! So now that I’ve settled in I thought it would be fun to give you my thoughts on Disney+! Yes, you read that right! Disney+ is here... in the Netherlands. Exclusively. Disney is having a free trial here which started on September 12th and goes on until launch day on November 12th!

So let’s dive into Disney+ 

Interface & Features

The interface is pretty standard. It looks like Netflix, but obviously with a nice Disney touch! The home page looks really great in my opinion. On top, there is a header that showcases one movie per category (Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic). You can browse per category as well. When you hover over the brand you get a little animation. Disney has a castle with fireworks, Pixar has the clouds, Marvel has their intro, Star Wars has stars and National Geographic a scenic mountain view. On the search page, you also have several collections like the Princess Collection (all princess movies and series) or Disneynature (all Disneynature movies). Hopefully, they’ll add some more soon. It’s a handy feature in my opinion. You can also create a watchlist. 

I find the movie-watching experience great as well. It’s simple and sleek. You can choose from multiple languages for both audio and subtitles. It’s also really nice to have all the movies in HD. Some of them are even in 4K/HDR! These are mostly Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Live-Action movies and 2 animations (Ralph Breaks The Internet and Aladdin!). 

There is an awesome feature that I stumbled upon while I was doing my research for this post. You can change the way the subtitles, from the color to the font. Even the opacity of the background and the font size! I did see some people complaining about subtitles. I didn’t mind them, however, the fact that Disney is truly listening to the users and trying to fix all these issues is great! Two thumbs up for ya Disney! The last thing I want to touch on here is the extras for the movies. These extras mostly include deleted scenes and trailers. However, some of them have some really cool behind the scenes stuff. The making of Beauty and The Beast, Staging The Ball from the Cinderella Live-action and the making of Sleeping Beauty just to name a few! Really great that all of those are on Disney+ as well.

Profiles

Just a quick little thing I wanted to touch on before I go to the content. You can choose from a significant number of Disney characters for your profile picture. Ranging from Disney Classics to Marvel & Star Wars to villains and princesses and even Disney Channel!

There are so many to choose from! It’s overwhelming. Here are just a few

Now it’s time for the most fun part: the content. All of the originals are not on the service yet, those will come out when Disney+ officially launches on November 12th.

Disney

What isn’t on this page?! The amount of content is so incredible. And not even everything is on it yet! Here you can find your classic Disney animations from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Ralph Breaks The Internet. All in glorious HD or even 4K sometimes. They also have some true Mickey Mouse classics like Steamboat Willie. All the Live-action movies are included here as well. From the more recent remakes (even Dumbo is on here already! If you haven’t seen it yet, please do) to absolute classics like The Princess Diaries, Mary Poppins and all the Pirates of The Caribbean movies. If you grew up with Disney Channel, all your favorite movies and shows can be found on Disney+ now! Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, Camp Rock, The Cheetah Girls, That’s so Raven, Halloweentown, Descendants and so many more (all the seasons and sequels for everything). For the little ones, there’s some Disney Junior content, like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Pixar

All the Pixar animated classics are here. From Toy Story to The Incredibles 2. Hopefully Toy Story will be streaming soon too. If you love the Pixar shorts, you’ll be happy to hear that these are all on Disney+! Like Piper, Bao, Knick Knack, For The Birds and more. There are even shorts with characters from some of your favorite Pixar movies like Monsters Inc, Ratatouille, Cars and Toy Story.

Marvel

I just want to thank Disney and Marvel for basically having all the MCU movies here on Disney+! From Iron Man to Captain Marvel. Most of them in 4K as well. And a surprise… Avengers Endgame will hit the service tomorrow!! I’m already preparing to cry my eyes out again. The only movies that are not on the service yet are The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man Homecoming. I really hope Spidey will be on Disney+ as well. I need Far From Home in 4K. Besides MCU related content, you can also watch multiple Marvel animation shows. Like a lot of Spider-Man shows, Rocket and Groot, X-Men, Fantastic Four and many more. Some of the newer live-action Marvel shows are also on the service, like Agent Carter and Agents of SHIELD.

Star Wars

Now for Star Wars. I started watching the movies back in the summer. Disney+ was not being tested yet. So I was excited that all of the entire Star Wars saga can be found here! From Episode I The Phantom Menace all the way to Episode VIII The Last Jedi. It’s been really great to have 1 place to watch these movies.  You can find the spin-off movies Rogue One and Solo here too! You can also watch some animated shows like Star Wars The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels and lots of Lego Star Wars shorts.

National Geographic

To be honest, I haven’t anything from Nat Geo yet. However, they do have a very exciting original coming tomorrow! However, they have Brain Games! I used to love that show, so I’ll definitely watch that. They have some amazing documentaries. Drain The Ocean, Titanic 20 years later and Free Solo just to name a few.

Disney+ originals at launch

Here is a list + some thoughts:

Star Wars: The Mandalorian (series) (trailers looked very good, so I’m excited for this) Lady and The Tramp (movie) (again trailers looked amazing, great cast as well! Really excited for this!) High School Musical The Musical The Series (series) (yes, that is the actual title, not sure about this one as a massive HSM fan, however, I will check it out) Encore! (series) (not really interested in this one, might watch it one day) The World According to Jeff Goldblum (series) (this is the nat geo original I was telling you about. Such a great idea, who doesn’t love Jeff?! Will watch this 100%) Noelle (movie) (a Christmas movie?! Yes please, I’m in full Christmas mode already so bring it on) Marvel Hero Project (series) (might watch at some point after I have watched all the other things I want to see first) The Imagineering Story (series) (as a huge Disney Parks fan, I might be most excited about this, so that will be the first thing I will watch tomorrow) Pixar In Real Life (series) (I didn’t even know about this until a week ago, looks like a lot of fun, so I will watch this for sure)

The Disney+ app

The app has been pretty solid. It basically works the same as the web version, it’s just on your phone or tablet. The app also has a download feature. Which means you can download anything on the service and watch it offline. How handy is that!  If you have a chrome cast, the app is a must. You can cast all of the movies and shows on your TV, which is great because you won’t have to look on your small screen.

Some issues

This was obviously a test version of the final product so it wasn’t perfect from the get-go. The app struggled in the beginning with the continue watching feature. When you were watching a show, it didn’t let you watch the next episode from your continue watching. However, this has been fixed and now works like you would expect.  The other big issue was the chrome cast compatibility. When I had just subscribed for the trial it would start normal, however, after a while, it would freeze and the image would get all distorted. So that was pretty annoying. Lots of people were having this issue and by magic, it was fixed a couple weeks later and now works as expected!

Is it worth it?

Now if you either love Disney, Pixar, Marvel or Star Wars or you love everything, yes it is worth it. Even if you just love Marvel and/or Star Wars, I feel like it’s worth it. You have The Mandalorian coming at launch and so many more in the years to come. Like Falcon and The Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, an Obi-Wan show, and so much more. So maybe if you’re waiting for that, you can get it when those shows will be on Disney+. Plus for the price, it’s a pretty sweet deal. Just €6.99 per month or €69.99 per year (which if you calculate it, can save you €13.89 per year). I love everything so for me it can’t get any better than this. Lots of the movies I watched on Netflix were mostly Disney or Marvel movies, so for me, this service is perfect.

Wow, this was a long one. If you have read it all the way through, thank you so much! I hope it was informative.

So how excited are you for Disney+? Will you be getting it at launch or will you wait? Plus if you are getting it, what will you watch first?

Have a magical day!

XO 

Yenai

[imma-lil-teapot]

Each TMNT Incarnation and Where They Stand With Me :)

(Nervous chuckle) ... Yeah no, I suck at titles. Moving on! 

Y’all can go ahead and skip this part if you’re not interested in senseless rambling and just wanna get to the TMNT fun~ ;) 

Soooooo, I’ve recently updated my Tumblr page to a blog dedicated to all my fandoms (musing, headcanons, writing, gifs, pics, the works, basically anything and everything in relation to them) since I wasn’t really ever doing anything with it other than using it to share pics mostly. But ever since I stumbled back into the TMNT fandom, I’ve been searching Tumblr for fan content and OMGOSH, did I hit the jackpot! Headcanons, fanfics, Turtle x reader stories, so much juicy stuff! Am hooked! Dunno why I never tried searching for similar stuff in the past for my other fandoms! I guess I just... didn’t realize there was so much content here. :O But anyway, I always wanted a place to share ideas and thoughts regarding my fandoms outside of sites like Deviantart and Fanfiction.net, and heck, it’s been here under my nose all this time... Y’all gonna have to forgive me; I’m an old fart. ;P (Insert image of Slowpoke for reference) So without further ado... 

LET’S GET THIS PIZZA PARTY STARTED! 

Imma start this blog off really simple and, as the title states, just give you all a small-ish idea of where each TMNT universe stands (or ranks?) with me, personally... Note the ‘personally’ part so please don’t feel offended if I don’t share the same opinion as you on a particular verse. ^^; I have my own tastes and will respect the next person’s when it comes to them. ;) Also, please beware the typos (which there most definitely will be)...

IN RELEASE DATE ORDER: (Hopefully they’re right)

MIRAGE COMICS~

Imma just say it: I haven’t read any of them yet. :/ There probably are sites out there that would allow you to view them online for free, but in truth, I’ve been a little slack about trying to find any... That may however change someday as I always tell myself I should really seek out the source material so it’s only a matter of time. What I do know, however, is that they’re of course a lot darker than most incarnations (which I don’t have a problem with personally) and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious as to exactly how much darker. X’D The closest I’ve come to ‘knowing’ these Turts comes from watching the Turtles Forever movie and they weren’t in it for a long time so it’s very difficult to say what they actually mean to me, so we’ll just put these guys down in the ‘not sure’ column for now. ;)

1987 CARTOON~

HAHA~ I think any fan of the franchise as a whole knows this little gem! The series that really hit it off and spawned over a 190 eps! Quite an impressive feat for a Saturday morning cartoon! It made its way to TVs the year before I was born, but it would take another few before it would reach our tubes (we’re always a few years behind the rest of the world :/ ) so I was around four when I was first introduced to it and needless to say, I loved it back then! Michelangelo was initially my fav due to him being my older brothers’ fav and the one they mainly spoke of, but it didn’t take long before my favering gravitated towards Leonardo (even at such a young age) and has been that way ever since. ;) But where exactly does the series stand with me as an adult nowadays with so many other verses we’ve been exposed to? I do hold a lot of nostalgia (as many older do) for it, and I mean, come on, that theme song is ageless, and I even started watching a lot of vids involving the original VAs and the shenanigans they get up to and seriously, it’s so heartwarming and fun to see them! But I have to be honest...

It’s not my fav verse, honestly. I will always adore them, of course, because of the nostalgia and the goofiness... But it’s the latter that’s mostly the reason for it being placed a bit lower on the favoritism ladder. While its a fun watch if you want something lighthearted, I still prefer the idea of the darker undertones that comes with being associated with ninjas. It’s just a preference. Plus, the Turtles designs are big one for me, and I’m sorry to say, but I keep seeing these fellas as more frog-like than turtle, despite the shells. X’D So yeah, no big reasoning for it, and even if someone were to ask me if I like these guys, I’ll still say yes, just that they’re not my ultimate fav is all. ;)

Also, we won’t talk about the Japanese Anime Ninja Turtles: Superman Legend or something to that extent... We’ll just let that one be gently swept under the carpet. ;) Only ever saw the trailer for it and that’s all I’ll ever need to see in my lifetime.

1990 MOVIES TRILOGY~

Now funny enough, I really don’t remember ever seeing these movies as a kid, though it’s possible I did and just maybe blocked the memory, but I highly doubt it... So yeah, I saw these movies as an adult already. The first is praised by most fans, and honestly, I can see why: it’s pretty good! :D The acting is very decent and the humour’s brilliant! The two sequels... not so much but still okay. ;) Where they sit with me... Not too far on the ladder again I’m afraid. :/ While I do really enjoy and appreciate the acting and that humour (”I made a funny.” X’D) it mostly comes down to the Turtles designs again... I really can’t see past them being actors in costumes rather than characters. :’( Granted, good actors. ;) And heck, Jim Henson did a phenomenal job! They’re just not really the movies for me is all, even if I do go back and watch ‘em every now and then. X’D I do however melt every time at the scene in the first movie where Raph wakes up in the bath and Leo’s there and apologizing and all... Makes me all gooey inside! X’D The feels are real! Speaking of Leo, though, he sounds even younger than Mikey. Small nitpick, that, but... why? X’D

But yeah, let’s just say, they’re good movies, just, not my favs.

Also, Coming Out Of Their Shells tour... Yeah, I’m gonna just... pretend that doesn’t exist for a minute. 

THE NEXT MUTATION~

Nope.

Saw one ep as a kid and am not interested in seeing anymore.

Although, VA Matt Hill voices Raph. That’s one good thing.

2003/2k3~

Well it wasn’t already apparent by my avatar... Ladies and gents, I present to you... My fav TMNT verse to date! Oh my goodness, where do I even begin with this delicious series?! :D Firstly, animation: so appealing, comic book-y style! Their designs: without sounding pervy, veeeeeeeery appealing (hehehehehe), no seriously, they sometimes have a bitta bulk to them but it honestly works, and dem muscles, and the cool eyes! The VAs: spot on! Perfect! Wouldn’t have ‘em any other way! Make me melt, Mr. Michael Sinterniklaas~ (cough) Their personalities: Omgosh, just yes! So perfect! They’re easily differentiated and yet still work together so well. Leo’s mature and level-headed (well, most of the time ;P ) yet still gets tested a lot and even has a fun side that’s shown on occasion. Raph’s grouchy and violent but is shown on more than one occasion that’s he’s total softie and really does care. Don’s just a sweetheart and freakishly smart and even has slips ups from time to time. Mikey... omgosh, best Mikey ever! So much fun! So hilarious! And just a bundle of energy, but not at all an idiot like he’s sometimes portrayed in other verses. He’s witty, mischievous and just so adorable! Heck, even Master Splinter, April, Casey, the lot of them are just awesome in this series! And wow, they really do lean more towards the source material (or so I’m told) when it comes to the plots! It’s darker than the other previous verses yet still remaining kid-friendly (although I question it at times XD) and omgosh, it’s just everything I want in a TMNT universe! Granted, it’s not perfect perfect, but it nailed it for me. ;) It really showed so lovely character developments, alsortsa different genres, the humour will leave you in stitches, the Turts are all just so lovable, I can’t get enough of them! This series was really my high point and I’ve yet to find one that tops it~

Btw, this even includes Fast Forward and Back to the Sewer (BTTS). The former being my least fav of the series simply due to the setting and again, it’s just preference. I even liked BTTS, even though I’m not overly fond of a cyberspace setting, but I found myself really liking the art style and the general plot. :D 

2007/2k7~

As with the last, if you’ve picked up on the page’s header/banner, you’d have probably guessed that the 2007 movie is also a good candidate for one my favs... And you’d be correct. ;) I’m actually very fond of this movie, and it’s largely due to the Turtles designs. I love how they were done! They just look so cool! <3 Subtle differences tell the viewer who’s who even if they didn’t have a mask or weapons. The VAs were also pretty good~ Now, the story isn’t the greatest, I’ll admit. Personally I thought it was okay, but know many fans think otherwise. But I did like the confrontation between Leo and Raph! It got real there, peeps! :O Now here’s also where it falls a little on its face for me: I didn’t really like how they handled Leo’s personality (if you haven’t already picked up on it, yes, I’m a Leo fangirl and I’m picky when it comes to how they handle his personality) but it’s a nitpick again, yet, I still feel compelled to state my opinion: the whole “I’m better than you.” comment really took me back and made me think they pushed it. I honestly like to believe he’d never actually say something like that... at least, 2003!Leo wouldn’t. X’D But that’s just my problem: I’m comparing a different verse’s Leo to this one and whether I like it or not, he said it. :/ Oh well, it still made for some fun action scenes and I’ll still always like the movie.

Bit of a goof on my side: I honestly thought that this movie was made to tie in with the 2003!verse due to the timeline in which it was produced, but turns out, it’s actually closer to the 1990′s timeline although still considered it’s own verse.

2012/2k12~

Oooh boy, lemme prepare for the backlash real quick... I’m uhhhh... not a fan of these boys. :/ I don’t mind them, but I’m honestly never gonna watch the series again. It’s hard to top your fav when you’ve kinda already hit your high point, ya know. Now before you light your torches and sharpen your pitchforks, hear me out: I will never bash the series, or make fun of anyone who likes it! Or anything to that extent! It’s just wasn’t for me, plain and simple, and it’s got nothing to do with it being ‘new’ or I’m just an old fart stuck in my ways. Heck, If you’re still reading, you would’ve found out that even nostalgia couldn’t beat the series that grasped me in my teens! So no, it has nothing to do with age. But if you do need a reason: I wasn’t overly fond of how they handle the characters. For one, they look and act a bit too young, Mikey is just... wow, something else. Donnie’s... sheesh, pretty snappy and antagonising. Raph’s well... okay, he’s meant to be angry half the time, and they did give him some more layers with Spike and Mona Lisa and whatnot, but he still kinda never learns his lesson if I can say that? He’ll learn that he shouldn’t cause issues with others, yet next episode he’s back at it again. :/ Leo’s... wow, just not like other Leos. X’D Best way I can describe him is... young? Very childlike. And even when he was progressing to becoming this better leader, I honestly couldn’t even see the change. My mind was just stuck on this “He’s a babeh.” notion. Also, I’m not even gonna start on this April and Casey. Just. No. Most of the characters were annoying and I just kept seeing recycled plot after plot. What I did like was the romance that blossomed between Raph and Mona (albeit far too rushed) and even Donnie liking April was adorable (but seriously Donnie, you can do so much better), and there were some really heartfelt moments, like Splinter telling Leo to leo his brothers with his heart and not his head, and the scenes when they were Tots will always make me squeal... But yeah... without leaving any spoilers.... about Splinter... just... thanks, Nickelodeon. Y’all know what I mean. Not once... But twice.... Really? So yeah, look, I realized some of those reasons might even be petty, but again, it’s just not the series for me, but anyone who’s a fan... You keep being a fan! ;) I’m glad you can enjoy something I can’t. ;)

2014/2k14/2016/2k16 AKA BAYVERSE~

HAHA~ Every fan’s favorite... If only. X’D Jokes aside, despite many fans claiming the Bay movies ruined the franchise, these two films gathered a small following... And I’m apart of it. :) Funny enough, I honestly didn’t know what to think of them when the movie first came out. I think I was just taken aback by the sheer amount of detail and all that went into their designs. I didn’t not like them, but again, their designs were a lot to take in. :O Even now after seeing the movies quite a few times over, I find myself constantly discovering something I didn’t notice on them before, be it a strap or a scar etc. And it honestly took some getting use to their sizes, I mean, sheesh! :O Not to mention the different background story, and Megan Fox’s wooden, expressionless acting, but despite all that... I found myself actually growing attached to these hulks of Turtles. They still have a lot of that heart in them and plus they’re just so much fun, I mean, can we say ‘Elevator scene’? X’D Now again, not perfect by anys mean, but still fun and pretty decent incarnations to add to the franchise. Again, Leo’s been given this ‘Better than you’ a bit which irked me to be frank. Not always but it’s there sometimes, but otherwise alright. Raph’s a decent Raph. Even had some tender moments. Donnie’s adorable! X’D This slightly potty mouthed geek that you just gotta love. And Mikey... although given that bitta ‘idiot’ feel, is also just as lovable and you want to hug him every time he’s onscreen! 

In short, I like ‘em. :) They’re actually closer to the top of the ladder than some others.

RISE OF THE TMNT/ROTTMNT/2018/2K18~

Yeeeeeeeeuuuuuuh... no. Sorry. Not for me. :/ Again, gonna remind y’all, nothing to do with age. Nothing to do with change. I will say that the fluid animation is nice, and the fact that they chose 2D animation. :) Buuuuuut, wow, they were certainly a lot to take in. Almost as much as Bay’s Turtles. After watching a few eps, I will conclude that they really just aren’t what I’m looking for. I found that the constant joking, while sometimes funny, got a little bit much, plus such short eps. Raph being leader was a switch and one that took awhile to get use to and honestly, I’m just not for it, I don’t even know where to begin with Donnie, Mikey’s okay, Leo... (deep breath) I don’t know what they were thinking... Let’s not even go to Master Splinter. But anyways, I get that change was what they were going for and that it was more so based on the 1987 toon with the silliness so that’s fine. I’m glad it’s got so many fans. :) And honestly, I wanna end off just by saying...

That no matter what your thoughts on what I’ve said, I hope you can respect my opinions and choices cause at the end of the day, they’re just my own, and I will always respect yours! :D If you adore the verses I’m not too crazy about, that’s great! :D I want you all to love the heck out of them! And honestly, this is what’s so great about this franchise: there are so many verses to choose from! So many options and tastes to suit any and all! You don’t have to follow the masses! You go enjoy whichever incarnation(s) you want to! ;) 

And there we have it, my first fandom bloggy thingy~ Hope there’ll be many more where that came from! :D

This is Drag0n-Mistr3ss signing off~

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Rated: G Word count: 1745 Summary: And thus was born yet another tradition for ringing in the new year.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI in the blog header!

Midnight Glistening

Not generally the sort of person given to finding special meaning in everyday mundane things, Tobirama still couldn’t help but to wonder if there was something special after all in the way snow began to fall precisely in time with the first tolling of the joya no kane. A reluctant smile was already sneaking its way on to his face as he tilted his chin up to look at the sky. It grew ever so slightly wider when he heard the screen open behind him and Madara’s chakra spilled out on to the back deck along with the heat from inside.

“Your brother is drunk,” came the blithe announcement, words ironically unsteady to match. “He insisted on growing more kadomatsu. I left his wife to chase him around the front yard and make him put some shoes on.”

“He does it every year.” Right on cue muffled sounds drifted back to him from the front yard. Mito sounded just as tired as he usually was around this time of the year and he hoped, with some amusement, that she was ready to do it all again next winter. This was one familial duty he was happy to hand over: chasing Hashirama through the snow on New Year’s Eve so he wouldn’t get frostbite on his toes. Some traditions were born of nothing but stupidity but they were still traditions.

Madara shuffled across the deck to stand next to him, pressing up on to his toes and peeking out in to the darkness. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing. I’m listening to the bells.”

“Oh. Are you going to stand out here the whole time? They’ll be going for hours.” Madara wrinkled his nose and bundled deeper in to his wide collar, shivering at just the prospect.

“Feel free to go back inside,” Tobirama said. “It’s been more than a decade since I had a chance to sit still and listen to all hundred and eight tolls. I just thought it might be nice to hear them again.”

“But it’s cold,” Madara protested.

Looking over at his unsolicited company, Tobirama lifted one eyebrow. “Then go back inside where it’s warm.”

Instead of answering Madara grumbled under his breath and looked back up at the sky, glaring at the snow like it had done him a personal wrong. Possibly Tobirama had suffered one too many head injuries in his time because he found himself thinking much too often lately that it was actually sort of cute the way Madara took offense to the very world around him. When he snarled at the birds or lectured a tree root that dared to be in his way it was distractingly adorable in a way it should not have been.

Doing his best to ignore the shouting – it sounded as though Mito had caught her man surprisingly quickly – Tobirama tilted his chin a little farther up and parted his lips, leaning just slightly out from underneath the cover of the veranda.

“What…are you doing?”

“Catching snowflakes.” Flushing with embarrassment, Tobirama snapped his jaw shut and lowered his face. He’d given absolutely no thought to the action before doing it. It had only been an errant thought, a memory from one of the rare flashes of childhood when he had actually acted like a child. Hashirama had been the one to drag them all outside back then and bid them to stick out their tongues to catch the snow as it fell.

The realization that he’d done something so immature while standing next to Madara, of all people, had him turning his face away with shame. If ever there had been someone upon whom he wished to make a good impression it of course had to be the one man who was so often witness to his worst moments. Just his luck, really.

“Are they supposed to taste good?” Madara’s words were infused with enough genuine curiosity that Tobirama looked back in time to see him leaning far out over the railing with his mouth wide open, snapping as the flakes with his teeth when they fell. Helplessly, Tobirama began to laugh.

“You’re not supposed to bite them like a shark,” he said. “You’re just supposed to…catch them.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. For fun.” More for nostalgia on his part. Fun was for children who had nothing better to do.

Humming thoughtfully, Madara stuck his tongue out in front of him and crossed his eyes to watch a particularly fat snowflake drift down on to the tip. It melted instantly on contact. “I didn’t taste anything,” he protested.

“Probably not. It’s only frozen water.” Tobirama went still when Madara turned to him, mesmerized suddenly by the image he made

Light from the full moon above them cast a silver halo around his head and lit up the snow that had fallen in his hair, a perfect crown of dusted white, turning him from the bloodthirsty Head of the Uchiha clan in to some lonely snow prince with glittering eyes. Never had Tobirama been more tempted to reach out and bury his fingers in those wild dark locks. All around him the night felt still, almost seeming to hold its breath but for the occasional tolling of the joya no kane he had come out here to enjoy.

Swallowing against a sudden lump in his throat, Tobirama folded both hands in to his sleeves in case the temptation grew too much. He had worked hard to build a friendship of sorts between them and the last thing he wanted to do was ruin all of that effort by pushing for too much.

“Did you come out here for something?” he asked. “Or were you just avoiding Izuna?” Except for Mito, he was pretty sure he was the only sober body left at their little gathering. Izuna had spent the last hour begging hugs from anyone who drifted too close to where he had collapsed half underneath the kotatsu. Madara’s own cheeks were pinked with sake as he tucked himself back under the veranda and leaned in closer.

“I had, er, certain plans for tonight,” he began. Tobirama hummed encouragingly and then spoke up when he hesitated still.

“Plans for what?”

“Well. In my clan it is tradition to make a promise to oneself to do something in the next year. We call it a new year’s resolution and it’s supposed to be something personal we would like to accomplish, something important to ourselves. It’s the one time of year when we are allowed selfish desires.” Madara smiled as though in memory of years passed.

Intrigued, Tobirama angled himself more towards the other man. “And your resolution had something to do with me? Precocious of you, looking to accomplish things just after midnight has brought us the new year.”

“Hmph. Yes, well. I have always been precocious.”

“Am I allowed to ask?” Tobirama wondered. He was doubly curious to see Madara’s cheeks gain several shades of color.

For a few moments the man hesitated again, peering up through his messy fringe as though he were looking for something specific in Tobirama’s face. Whatever it was, he did seem to find it after a few moments, smiling in an oddly nervous sort of way and shuffling closer once more.

“My promise to myself,” he said quietly, “was that I would kiss you before the bells stopped tolling.”

Unable to speak, Tobirama could only nod faintly when Madara leaned in with a questioning tilt to his head. His eyes fell shut when their lips pressed together but every nerve ending in his body sang with fire and joy the likes of which he had only seen in fireworks. He was very nearly panting at the end, letting out the breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding, unwilling to disturb this precious moment in any way.

“Oh,” he whispered. There were no other words in his head that he would not be mortified to blurt out.

“Yeah,” Madara mumbled back. The two of them stood and gazed at each other awkwardly for a minute, wondering where to go from here. Tobirama felt a little off-balance to realize that he had been pining in silence for nothing. Apparently they had both been wanting this. Eventually he figured that one of them had to say something, anything, and it might as well be him. If Madara could step out on a limb like that then so could he.

“Would you like to stay and listen to the bells with me?”

As shaky as his words had been in the offer, Madara’s were that steady in his acceptance. “Yes. I would enjoy that.”

Both of them wore shy smiles as Madara tucked himself up against Tobirama’s side, winding an arm around his waist and laying a head against his shoulder. Tobirama buried his nose in the dark hair assaulting him. He couldn’t think of a word to properly describe the way it smelled but it was a good scent, at least, and it gave him an impression of homecoming. Something warm and soft inside his chest thumped enthusiastically against his ribs. It might have been his heart and the softness may have been a sensation of happiness. Tobirama chose not to think on it too much.

He focused instead on placing his arm just so around Madara’s shoulders in a way that could almost have been a hug if he brought his other arm in to play, closing his eyes and listening to the sound of the new year ringing brassy and proud through the otherwise calm night air. From inside the house he could hear Hashirama recounting his adventures in the front yard, Izuna interrupting with the occasional hiccup, and Mito softly singing to herself from somewhere a little closer, traditional songs her mother used to sing to her on this night before she left the Whirlpool islands. Outside the veranda the snow continued falling in soft waves to blanket the earth in pure unsullied white.

Warm and content with Madara held close, Tobirama considered making a resolution of his own until he realized with a wry smile that he already had everything he needed. His brother a happily married man, his clan at peace, a village built to keep them safe, and the man he loved tucked under his chin. There was nothing more that he could possibly think to ask for – except perhaps the chance to do this all again the next year.

[aldmerii-blog]

hey it’s a tutorial on how i make gifs

its a long one

carly, what programs do i need? 

what a good question! basically, you need a program to record video (if you’re making gifs of video games), a program to take frames of the video you recorded (or the movie or show you’re giffing because you can do that too, obviously), and a graphic processing program (it’s photoshop, you need photoshop)

also if you’re recording your own game footage you need a computer capable of running that game well. ideally you want medium to high settings at 60fps (this varies; like you want to record, say, skyrim at high settings and probably modded, but newer games like mass effect andromeda, just medium-high settings should be fine!)

for video recording, i strongly recommend: 

nvidia shadowplay

i think you can only use this if you have an nvidia graphics card. it’s very good because it automatically records at 60fps and at up to 4k (so like it’s good for taking regular video for video purposes also) and it starts up very quickly (so when you hit record, it’s only a few seconds before it starts recording). in-game, you hit alt+f9 to start recording. 

xbox game dvr

i used this for a long time and it’s perfectly satisfactory, and great if you don’t have an nvidia graphics card. it comes with windows 10. you need to go into windows settings and set the quality to High and the framerate to 60fps. the only drawback is that it takes a hot minute to start up the first time you use it in a gaming session (like 10-30 seconds) and there are some games it won’t open over (i had issues with both assassin’s creed odyssey and far cry 5). in-game, you hit ctrl+alt+r to start recording. 

for frame-taking:

gomplayer

has a slightly imprecise method of screenshotting, that is you have to time your “burst capture” while the video is playing - you can’t find the spot you want, pause it, start your capturing, and then play the video to have it start at an exact moment. however it really captures every frame and i’ve never had any issues with it. best advice is to record more frames than you need to and delete the ones you don’t need in windows explorer or photoshop. to open the screen-capture window, you hit ctrl+g

potplayer

i used this one for a long time, too! it does what i said gomplayer doesn’t do, which means you can pause it and start screencapturing and it’ll start from where you paused it when you hit play. i’ve had a few issues with it not actually capturing every frame even when i have it set to do so. but that might be just me. to open the screen capture window, you hit ctrl+g

for graphic handing:

photoshop. specifically cs5 -- that’s what i’ve used for about half a decade. i’m sure a lot of the steps are similar in cs6 and cc but i’ve never used either of them and i can’t help you learn those. 

that’s it. no other options.

okay great!!!!!!! you got ur software set up. now what???

if you want to make gifs of video games where you use your own footage, read this bit. if not skip down to the next header. 

at the most basic level, with creative cropping, you don’t really have to do anything more than record the screen of the game you’re playing. for a lot of games, this is what you have to do (dragon age origins and 2, stardew valley, etc). HOWEVER. there are ways to get different shots in some games and i’ll take you through skyrim/fallout 4 and dragon age inquisition (and i think other frostbite engine games?) if you have questions about other games you’re welcome to ask!

bethesda products (skyrim and fallout 4 mainly)

bethesda is very nice and includes console commands that let you get some good cinematic shots in their base games. these are the same for both skyrim and fallout 4 because they’re the same engine. 

tfc

your bread and butter, baby. this is “toggle free camera” or “toggle fly camera” -- it detaches you from your character basically, and you can fly around. if you are in third person when you enter the console command, your character will remain visible and you can take pictures of them. in first person, theyre not. (also, drawn weapons will disappear in first person). note that in fallout 4 third person, your character will continue to rotate/strafe as you move the camera. 

you can add a 1 to the end of the command (tfc 1) and it will also freeze time. this is good for taking screenshots, not gifs

entering tfc again will turn it off

tm

‘toggle menu’ -- this turns off the hud, including the crosshair. this is. very important. you don’t want the menu in ur gifs ok. 

it also hides the console window! so it may be a little confusing. but generally if the grass/water/dust is moving, the console window isn’t open.

typing tm again will reenable the menus

sucsm #

the default free cam is very fast and imprecise. i usually use sucsm 1 to slow down the speed at which the camera moves. 

sgtm #

set global time multiplier. this one isn’t hugely necessary but i still find myself using it sometimes. default is 1. you can set it to, like sgtm .01 to basically freeze the game while you get the camera into position if you’re trying to capture an action. also sometimes if i think things are moving too fast or too slow i’ll change the timescale. MAKE SURE you set it back to 1 when you’re done!

i Heavily suggest, especially for skyrim, that you use an ENB if your computer can handle it. it makes the game look nice, but it also usually includes depth of field which i am an absolute slut for. if not, use the mod dynavision for a DoF effect (available for both skyrim and fo4!)

and then you just have fun with it. getting good shots takes some practice. play with it. i tend to record long sessions (~5-10 minutes) with a LOT of different shots to pick from when i watch it back. 

frostbite engine (dragon age inquisition and mass effect andromeda, notably)

here’s where we use the Cinematic Tools, lads! these are a little more difficult. note that there are ct for a lot of games that i don’t play but i’m assuming they work the same. i’ve also never used CT in andromeda but it’s the same engine so they also probably work the same. so i’m mainly talking about DA:Inquisition.

OKAY SO. start the game. load ‘er up. you want to run origin and DAI as admin, and then once you’re in game, start the CT as admin, too. the controls window will open, and then another command prompt type window will open and hack into the matrix. you don’t have to do anything with it, but note that if you close the command prompt window, it will close the game. 

okay! party time. there are lots of other tutorials on using the CT, btw, so if i don’t explain it sufficiently you can either ask me or look up other tutorials. 

first, i usually take gifs of characters in DAI, which means i wait until cutscenes so we can see them talking or making faces or whatever. you can also do scenery gifs or whatever! 

so we’re in a cutscene. first and foremost check “freeze time” and then “enable”. set up your shots. start recording. THEN uncheck “freeze time”. that’s all in the “free camera” tab of the CT and technically all you need. But wait, there’s more. we’ve got two other tabs!

in this tab, I most often use “depth of field” because we’ve already established that i love a strong DoF. all these things are a little hard to understand and mostly require a lot of messing around.

focus distance

pretty self explanatory -- it’s the distance from the camera that objects will be in focus. for portraits, i usually have it at 1.125.

blur factor

how blurry the stuff that’s out of focus will be. i usually set it somewhere between 4 and 7, though you can go higher or lower. dealer’s choice. 

blur add

makes everything blurry regardless of focus. don’t use it. 

blur filter

i almost always set it to gaussian 9 but it doesn’t make that much of a difference. 

dof type

always set it to sprite

max blur

i absolutely do not know what this does and don’t use it. 

near start/end

with this you can kind of expand “focus distance” to include more varied distances. i usually don’t mess with this and i suggest you don’t. 

far start/end

most useful in outdoor scenes. usually it’ll be set to like 100, meaning that there’s a gradient way out to the most blurred parts. if you bring it lower, the gradient distance gets shorter, so the background gets blurrier closer to your focus. what i set it to depends entirely on the scene. just try messing with it and see what it does for you. 

make sure you hit the green enable button on the left and Also tick “enable” on the DOF screen to use it. 

this tab is a little more useful for screenshotting but i’ll include it since i’m going over the CT anyway. i have never messed with global fov or timescale BUT

shadowmap resolution

i usually set it down to 512 for smooth, soft, realistic shadows. otherwise they look kinda stripey. 

resolution scale

NOT FOR GIFS. do not use this for gifs. but DEFINITELY do use it for screencaps. set it to two (i’ve had my computer freeze from trying to set it to 4, so like, be careful). it basically doubles the resolution of everything on screen and makes it very pretty but it’ll ruin your framerate so don’t try to record with it. 

okay, I’ve got my footage, now what!

now we’re gonna open it in whichever player you picked. 

GOMPLAYER:

for gomplayer, you’re going to press ctrl + g to bring up the screencapture window. i Don’t remember what the original settings are, but you wanna make sure your quality is set to 255 (highest) and that it’s set to original resolution. 

now the slightly hard part. you gotta hit “burst capture” while the video is playing, so it’s slightly imprecise. for that reason i have the number (burst capture images) set much higher than i’ll use, so that i make up for the imprecision. after you capture, go in and delete the frames you don’t need, either in windows explorer or after you’ve loaded them into photoshop.

POTPLAYER:

just pause your video, hit ctrl+g, copy my settings, click start, and then play your video. potplayer will capture every frame. 

i should have mentioned this earlier but you have to have a folder to save your screencaps in. i usually organize by GIFS>game name># what its a gif of>a numbered folder for each gif in the set. but it’s up to you. just probably don’t save to your desktop or wherever the default location is. 

AND NOW THE FUN PART!!

open photoshop!!! if it’s your first time here, go to window>animation so that you’ll. have the animation window open. 

now go file > load files into stack > browse, and find the frames we just took. select em all. click ok. 

you’re probably going to start off in timeline view. we don’t want that yet. click the box in the bottom right corner that looks like multiple little boxes to switch to frame view. 

in frame view, click the menu box thing. and click “make frames from layers” and then “reverse frames”

now select all your frames, and on any one of them, select the arrow next to “0.0 sec” (this is the frame delay). select “other”

what you set the frame delay to depends on what your footage frame delay originally was. if you’re using game footage, it was probably 60fps, in which case you should set the delay to 0.04 sec. if it was 30 fps, I usually go 0.06 to 0.08. play around with it and decide which you like best. there’s a play button so you can see how the delay looks before you continue.

now we switch back over to timeline view. so click the same button as we used to get to frame view. 

now select all your layers, in the layer panel. right click on them and click “convert to smart object” 

here is usually where I do my scaling/cropping. tumblr photoset sizes are 540px for full width, 268 for 2 wide, and 177 for 3 wide. KEEP IN MIND when making especially 540px gifs that the size limit is 3mb. so you can’t make them super tall or super long (time-wise). 

the gif of calcifer i’m making is going to be 540x250. make use of set image size (ctrl + alt + i) and canvas size (ctrl + alt +c). set the width of 540 with image size and then crop the canvas to your desired height with canvas size.

okay! technically we can be done. this is what my gif looks like right now:

however i like to color and edit mine. yknow. here are my sharpening settings. I cannot help you with coloring because i’m bad at it. at best i will suggest you look at and download resource colorings from blogs like itsphotoshop

anyway, to sharpen: filter>sharpen>smart sharpen

and then apply your coloring. and save with ctrl + alt + shift + s, or just file > save for web and devices. set your file type to GIF. two things to look at:

1) MAKE SURE YOU SET THE LOOPING OPTIONS TO “FOREVER”. i put this in caps because I am an idiot who messed this up all the time when i first started. 

2) keep an eye on your file size!! if it’s over 3mb (mine, down in the left corner, says it’s 2.697, so it’s fine) then you can try to reduce the number of colors. but don’t go below 128 colors, because then it starts to look bad. instead you can try reducing the height or going back and cutting down the number of frames (so basically remaking the gif again :( ). 

okay great, click save. save it. you’re done. here’s our calcifer. 

and that’s it! i hope this made sense and like. absolutely ask if you have questions. 

[mgarakawa]

To One and All

It has been quite a while since I used this little blog, and I recently decided to make better use of it.  There are going to be some adjustments and changes, but the history will remain.

What am I doing?  I am getting organized.

As an aspiring artist, my lifelong dream has been to sell my artwork.  I can remember trading crummy little doodles for a dollar in Junior High school, doing simple requests.  Back then, I didn't understand anything--I just wanted to sell my work.  I wanted to connect with people, bring to life their imaginations and dreams in ways that they couldn't.  To me, that was part of being artist.  That, and communicating your own dreams as well.  Even then, I did understand that my time was valuable, and that doing things for free--while noble--are not realistic.  I need to eat, to have water and warmth and shelter, too, right?  Still,I was a kid and I felt like a dollar was still a lot of money at the time (I was barely thirteen!)

This has been a dream that has stuck to me all these years.  Every time I started, I faltered.  It wasn't the right time.  I wasn't good enough.  Other things needed doing.  Even now, it isn't quite the right time.  But there is a small difference: it is time to get ready.  To seriously and honestly get ready.  That means doing a clean up throughout my various platforms, organizing the images, deciding what goes where, how I will use each platforms, how I will interconnect them, my headers and themes, my mission.  Well my mission is obvious:

To bring the dreams and imaginations of others to life.

We all have something in our imaginations, some idea, some hope, some image.  But let's face it, not all of us can bring it out.  We go to singers and musicians to bring out the songs in our hearts.  We go to artists to bring out the color.  That is what I want to be for the world.

This particular blog will not change much.  I will still show my artworks and some WIPS and such, but I will also start using it to express my ideas, thoughts, experiences, and other things that are primarily (and sometimes loosely) connected to art.  I will be honest--everything connects to my art.  From music, to walks in the woods--it all acts as a springboard for my creativity, so I can quite literally connect any topic I want to art.  But I promise I will try to be selective and professional. ^_^

At this point I will have three primary art galleries.  Two will be for selling art prints in the future:

https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/michelle-arakawa.html

https://www.deviantart.com/mgarakawa

And the other is for all my studies, fan art, experiments and explorations:

https://www.deviantart.com/anjyil

The reason for this separation is simple: I want it to be easy to find purchasable art.  I do a lot of works for various reasons, and the clutter I feel can get frustrating to my audience when they want to look at pieces for purchasing.  I will NOT be selling Fan Art unless I can get permission for it, but I do a lot of it, so I felt it wise to separate the two.  Also, it is just a part of my personality.

I also have a Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/mgarakawa/

And a twitter:

https://twitter.com/mgarakawa

It's a pretty good reach.  I want to get Instagram and am considering integrating PInterest, as I already have it--but I am still thinking about that one.  Instagram requires a cell phone... I... don't have one ^_^;  I've never really needed one as I do all my work on a computer and I don't travel far.  My day job is teaching English at home, so that makes a Cell Phone kind of superfluous.  I may talk my husband into using his cell, though.  He is wonderfully supportive.

Anyway, the only thing I really need to clean up is my twitter.  It was started eons ago for fun, but I want to make it more accessible toward my profession.  Other than that, not much will change.

I love interacting with people, talking about art and sometimes other topics.  So don't be shy--ask questions, send me a message, interact on my Facebook page.  Share!  I may not be be selling---YET-- but I will.  That is a promise.  And commissions will not be far behind.

In the meantime, I will be preparing topics for this blogs.  Some ideas include Artist Spotlights, Artwork spot lights, philosophical discussions (yes this ties in to art!) and theories/exercises on art, art and creative book reviews.  If there is anything else you would like to see, drop me a line and let me know.

Just to sum up, here I am around the web:

https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/michelle-arakawa.html

https://www.deviantart.com/mgarakawa

https://www.deviantart.com/anjyil

https://www.facebook.com/mgarakawa/

https://twitter.com/mgarakawa

ETA:  I almost forgot, Youtube!  I use that to upload video WIPS.  I may use it for other stuff, too.  Here’s a WIP to get you started:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZAeN7Aiuvs

And Google Plus:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MichelleArakawa

Take care and best wishes.

Michelle

[savethemangrove]

CAS and officially starting IB

Strengths and areas for growth - New challenges and new skills - Commitment and perseverance - Global Importance // Reflective - Balanced - Open-minded

Creativity

“Being creative” means something different to everyone and is displayed in everything we do; from the way we choose to look and dress, to the activities we choose to do and things we choose to make. I consider myself a creative person because I am artistic and enjoy painting, coloring, crafting, taking pictures and making everything I do unique and original. Over break I took many pictures of my daily adventures and sometimes I would edit some of them just for fun and post them on social media. One day someone told me that they really liked my pictures and I should really consider focusing on photography and creating a portfolio with all my pieces, which was something I had never thought about because I considered my pictures just to be something silly to capture the memories, nothing so serious like that. Here are a few of them:

When preparing for the new school year and officially starting IB, I made 2 pencil cases. I watched a YouTube video and got inspired but as usual, I didn’t have all the materials so I changed it up a bit and made it my way. I’ve always loved “DIYing” things because for some reason I really enjoy making everything myself, even when I have little patience and nothing turns out well, I’ll still try again until I’m satisfied. Since it was still summer, I got inspired to paint tropical fruits for the pencil cases. I followed the measurements from the video, cut the fabric, painted it, glued the pieces together and finally added the zipper. It ended up being a little odd because my zipper fit a little big for the fabric measurements I used from the video but it worked anyways. I was happy with my pouch until I realized it was way too small and a full pencil didn’t even fit in it. I was so disappointed but I could still use it for something else. I had more fabric, glue sticks and one zipper left, just enough to make another one. This next try, I made sure to make the pouch bigger (and ended up making it way too big this time) so I cut the fabric, painted once again and then glued it all together. Since I made this pouch way bigger, I decided to add another fruit to the pattern. When I was finally done, I was so happy because I was able to fit so many things in it and after hours of work I treated myself to some Swiss chocolate. Here is how the pencil cases turned out:

Something I personally regret not doing over break is making more art. For Christmas almost 2 years ago, my parents gave me a set of 150 Prismacolor colored pencils and I have a lot of mandala coloring books that I should have worked on more during this vacation. I also have a few small canvases that I have been wanting to paint to decorate my room with but I also procrastinated that. Part of the reason I didn’t do everything I wanted to was because I would surf so much that once I was back home, I was too tired and I’d probably be napping anyways to go surf again later. Now that I am starting IB I will be busier but I still want to find time to work on this maybe in the afternoons with my mom because she enjoy coloring too. Here is an elephant I had colored a long time ago:

Part of creativity in my opinion is organization and the way you lay things out. Recently, I decided to work a little extra on my Tumblr so I added a profile picture and header image. I also changed the layout of my posts, because I felt like they were lacking a good title. I now have the CAS learning outcomes and IB learner profiles under the title because they are still important but a real title keeps things neat and organized. I went back and edited that on my previous posts so everything was the same and it was easier to “identify” all of my posts. I am so glad I did this now because it is so much neater and I don’t have as many posts yet so it wasn’t too big of a hassle.

Activity

From some of my previous posts, you probably already know surfing is my favorite sport at the moment. During break I set a goal to surf minimum 3 hours every day. I went to Switzerland for almost a month and before that I had stayed in San José a few days to visit family and once I arrived back in Costa Rica my parents wanted to stay in the city a few more days once again. When I was finally home, I really kept up with the minimum 3 hours per day of surfing; even if the waves weren’t the best, I made myself stay out for that long. Some days the waves were incredibly amazing that I’d surf for 5 or 6 hours, my record one day was 7 hours! It’s not like I had anything better to do at home anyways and if the waves were that great there was no way I wasn’t going to take advantage of it! Since I am officially starting IB soon and I won’t have as much free time, I really wanted to enjoy and surf as much as I could these vacations. Also, after being one month out of the water due to traveling, I wanted to get back at it and also keep improving. When I wasn’t in the water, I was at home relaxing and usually I would workout for about half an hour every day. When I was on my trip in Switzerland, since I couldn’t surf, I still stayed pretty active doing certain different activities and I will get more into detail about my trip on the next post, so stay tuned!

Service

When I hear the word “service” relating to CAS, I think about giving back. I personally think that we have so much to give back to the planet more than anyone else, which is kind of why I am really passionate about my project and the environment. For service this break I kept working on my project in hopes to restore the mangrove and help the environment because they are nurseries for many species and process tons of carbon dioxide! Mangroves are such an important ecosystem and I have also noticed in several different ones around Costa Rica that some parts are dying (not as severe as the Avellanas mangrove) so I want to be able to help preserve such an important part of nature.

Planning for the new school year

Officially starting IB has been something haunting me all along this past year, even if it’s just at the back of my head, it’s still there. I am obviously nervous for starting the program because it is a lot of work to be done in a short period of time. I am definitely motivated because I want to succeed and make myself proud, I also know it will be great preparation for the future. Besides sorting out my materials and packing my school bag, I haven’t done much physical planning for the new school year; it’s mostly been mental where I am just preparing myself to get back to the school routine and motivate myself to do the best I can. I’ve been telling myself I won’t procrastinate and I will try to enjoy this instead of stressing out so much because it truly is an amazing opportunity to be able to take the IB Diploma Program and I want to make the best of it. I’ve been surfing as much as I can to prepare for the hard times coming up ahead where I’ll have too much to be able to surf this much. It’s not a goodbye to surfing, I will definitely keep doing it because keeping balance is super important to stay healthy (mentally and physically) but I know I won’t be able to go minimum 3 hours a day anymore. This vacation definitely helped me clear my mind from many things I had been holding on to and it helped me open up to new ideas which I am excited about for the future, but for now I am ready to get focused and take on the new challenges IB has for me!

[practicerecuni]

what is linen and why is it so expensive?

Linen is a fabric made from the stalk of the linseed/flax seed plant, and is some of the oldest known man-made fabric.

Linen can last 20-30 years with proper care, it becomes softer with every wash and doesn’t break down as fast, because the rate of moisture absorbance is higher in linen fibres.

Linen naturally hypoallergenic which means sweat is less likely to break down the linen fibres, as it would in cotton.

While linen is a natural insulator, but due to its breathability, it must be paired with other fabrics or layers to retain heat in the winter.

a quick history of linen

Use of flax seeds for fabric can be found as far back as 36,000 years ago and was produced in many parts of the world, mostly around the Mediterranean Sea  (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece etc)

The name linen comes from some of the first written evidence of linen on the Linear B tablets of Pylos, Greece, where linen was written as "li-no" in Greek (fun fact: we get the English word “line” from linen)

Linen was the pretty much the major fabric used throughout Europe because it’s easier to grow in colder climates (cotton was very much around, but could only really be grown in warmer climates).

According to reddit user Cl0cktower, who wrote a 10,000 word essay on the subject, cotton moved to Europe in the 1600s due to lucrative trading in Asia, mainly by the Dutch, French and English, thus making cotton fashionable and exotic.

In the 1700s, England banned imports of cotton products, but not raw cotton, so imported cotton was in high demand. But you can’t grow cotton in England guys…

Across the Atlantic, an established slave trade and slave labour were in operation, mainly for tobacco. Tobacco was dropping in value, so plantation owners changed tack and moved into cotton because of the aforementioned British sanctions.

Free slave labour and the invention of the cotton gin made cotton easier and cheaper to produce, so bye bye ages-to-even-separate-the-fibres-front-the-actual-plant linen

how is linen made?

Linen is expensive, partly, because it takes ages to make an actual thread.

To harvest linen from the flax plants, the plants have to be pulled from the ground rather than being cut in order to keep the full length of the fibre.

After being harvested the plants are left in the field to soften to the point where bacteria and fungi become present.

There’s some more decomposing, then the fibre is collected from the plants, rolled and stored for 2-3 months...for more softening.

I’m guessing you’re understanding more about why linen is so spenny now...

If you actually care how the linen moves from crop to crop top, LinenMe has a neat infographic here.

how do I take care of linen?

Linen can be washed at 40C and ironed at up to 110C (the three dots on your iron). 

I always suggest washing with similar colours and 30C to cold water is best for the environment.

In terms of colour bleed, linen doesn’t take colour super well, meaning if you try to dye linen, it will come out much lighter than anticipated. This means you’re probably ok to wash with different colours and it will most likely not turn the colour of the wayward sock (we’ve all been there).

should I buy linen?

As outlined by Dennis Green at Business Insider, the breathability of linen is a double-edged sword.

“Sure, they work while you're outside. But you better hope you brought a jacket once you enter any place with air conditioning, as you will quickly start shivering.”

Green then complains that you always look unkempt, it’s impossible to iron, and his three linen shirts (bought new, I presume) have not gotten softer.

Fair enough, mate, but what better excuse to buy second hand? As I said earlier, linen can last up to 30 years, meaning if someone else has worn it for a bit, it is unlikely to be compromised.

Linen also has a high resale value, so if you think the £7 for a linen shirt at the charity shop is a bit steep, keep in mind you could easily sell it on eBay for £10 if you ever want to get rid of it.

I personally love the “unkempt” look of linen and it’s breathability, especially on humid London days, so I always buy linen that looks good on me at op shops.

P.S. 

“a brief history of linen” mentions slave labour, but I want to be clear I’m not “skimming” over the harrowing history of the use of slaves to effectively create the world we live in today.

Part of my mission with practice recuni is to be more aware of who is making the stuff you buy, and, let’s be real, there are still people being used as slaves today.

I do not mean to trivialise slavery by adding a line about using humans for free labour in a larger context. The history of slavery, particularly in America, is a larger issue which I could not do justice here.

If you want to know more about slavery and the ascension of cotton, there’s a great piece about it by Henry Louis Gates Jr. at The Root here.

Header image: Luca Laurence

[buckybabybaby]

Everything Backwards (Chapter 8/12)

Summary: When you make-out with a ‘James’ on a night out, you don’t expect to see him again, so imagine your surprise the next day when it turns out he’ll be your new sort-off-flat-mate. As Nanny for Peggy & Steve’s three children, you’ve lucked out, but now the guy across the corridor is threatening to ruin it. 

This is the story of how it all works out.

Chapter 8 summary: Who the hell was Bucky?

A/n: this has been the hardest part to write so far, there’s a couple of questions finally answered here, and I hope I did it justice. About ten minutes has past since the end of chapter 7.

Also, look! I made a pointless moodboard/header thingy! I used instagram and ms paint, because I am a graphic design expert… It took way longer than it looks like it did, but I think it’s cute <3

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Reader (gender neutral) Slow Burn.

Word count: 2658

Warnings: Ooh, this ones not that fun. Mentions of suicidal thoughts (once, very brief), abduction and torture, violence, so tread carefully if that’s likely to affect you. Also some crying and bad language.

Catch up: Chapter 7

Everything Backwards Masterlist | Masterlist

“You scared me, you know? Calling so many times and not even leaving a message to let me know what’s going on.”

Bucky is sat on a bench on the far side of the lake. He had been short on the phone, vague about his location, only naming the park and it is lucky that you’ve spotted him at all; he is so far away from the other families that the sound of children playing is drowned out by the ducks quacking around his feet. The kiosk near the entrance sells bird food and he’s slowly emptying a bag for them, face emotionless and posture rigid.

You’re hesitant to approach. “You alright?”

He finally looks up at you and shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Can I sit? Or do you want me to go?”

Quickly he moves his jacket from beside him and motions for you to take a seat. “I’m sorry for being so rude, on the phone, I, um,” he slouches back and closes his eyes, “I’m not very good at things like that, or communicating in general, so I tend to be snappy.”

“It’s okay, I understand.”

“That’s the whole problem though, you don’t. Nobody does.” He’s sat back up to face you directly.

“You’re right, I don’t. But if you want you could help me, to understand?”

He stands and walks away, scattering ducks as he goes, only stopping when he reaches the edge of the water and you’re scared that you’ve pushed too far.

He turns back to you, jaw set. “I’d like that, but only if you’re sure.”

You’re taken aback that he’s willing. “I am if you are.”

He nods. “But not here.”

“Of course. Whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now.” He gestures at a group of people with a dog walking towards you. “I just mean is there somewhere more private?”

You know this park quite well so you stand up and brush down your jeans as you think. “There’s a bird hide further along, up the hill. It’s a bit of a trek but it’s normally empty because it’s so out of the way.”

You instinctively hold your hand out to him again, but this time you don’t drop it when you realise. Bucky takes it after a moments pause. 

Even through the gloves you’re wearing against the cool wind you can feel the warmth of his skin, and you force yourself to focus on not tripping over the tree roots to distract from the need to hold onto him forever.

When you eventually make it to the shelter, you’re out of breath and grateful it’s empty so you didn’t walk all that way for nothing. Falling onto a seat, you finally let go of Bucky’s hand and he moves to study the charts on the wall.

“I think I saw one of these earlier.” He points to a picture and you smile.

“Yeah? They’re pretty uncommon but it’s not impossible.”

“Oh. Do you know much about wildlife, then?”

“No need to sound so shocked! I’m no expert, but the family I temporarily worked for before lived near here so I came quite a few times with those children. It’s amazing how quickly you can start to identify species.”

He comes and sits next to you. “That’s cool. When we were children Steve made me go bird watching with him. He was always quite sickly so it was one of the few things we could do that was relatively safe.” Opening the window he peers out. “Although,” he laughs, “I do remember one time he thought he’d spotted something really rare and broke his arm falling out of a tree.” He glances at you, smirking slightly. “Don’t let him convince you he was anything other than a little punk growing up.”

You giggle in surprise. He sobers up a bit, taking a shaky breath before closing the shutter and turning to you.

“But we didn’t come here to talk about that.”

“We don’t have to talk about anything if you don’t want to.”

He shakes his head. “I know. I want to though.”

There’s a long gap of silence as he works out what to say, and you feel your heart speed up in anticipation.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“How about the beginning?”

“Alright smart-arse.” There’s no heat behind his words, and he takes another deep breath. “The beginning? Fuck, that was along time ago.” Avoiding eye contact he begins his tale.

“When we left school I had no idea what I wanted to do, whereas Steve was pretty set on college, so he applied and then he was gone. I was at a loose end without him so when I saw a recruitment video for the army I signed up right away. I thought it’d give me a meaning to my life, a way to make a positive difference, and friendships like the one I had with Steve, and it did. At least I had that.”

“I did four tours with that regiment. They were actually quite successful. We only lost three men in six years, and made a lot of progress in eliminating the enemy and improving life for those who had been oppressed. It was almost fun at times. I still remember the taste of the sweets the children from the local villages would leave outside the barracks. All in all, it was probably the best time of my life and I was about two weeks from coming home when it all went wrong.”

He pauses briefly to collect his thoughts.

“It was supposed to just be a routine mission. There had been sightings in the local area of the militant group that used to hold the region west of us, but we weren’t worried because there were hardly any of them left and they normally surrendered straight away. So, we weren’t ready for there to be over twenty of them, all fully armed, not afraid to shoot and desperate to impress their leaders. It’s a bit of a blur but I remember the pain and then waking up days, maybe a week later, to a living hell.”

“It was horrible Y/N.” He snickers once, bitterly. “No, horrible is not the right word. Horrible is missing your flight or losing your phone. This was months of daily torture. Constantly wishing to die so it’d be over but not having the strength to do it myself.” He breaks himself off to wipe angrily at his eyes. “After a while I stopped feeling anything. I was numb to the pain. Numb to their words. And then they started on the drugs.”

“The doctors don’t know what they gave me, couldn’t work out what precisely they did to my mind either, some kind of brainwashing that meant I-I-” Bucky’s voice trembles and you pass him a tissue. 

Then your brain processes everything and you gasp. “I remember you on the news!” You wince at the volume of your statement.

Bucky’s eyes snap up to yours. “You do?”

“Yeah, I think. About two years ago? There was a story about a soldier being rescued, one who had been abducted and used by the terrorists as a sort of-”

“Assassin.”

You are both breathing heavily as you stare at each other, him tearful and you shocked. “So that was you?”

He looks away as he hums in confirmation. Images from that report play through your mind and you feel faint as you realise just how horrific his past has been. The terrorists called him the Winter Soldier, didn’t they? Nowhere in these stories was his real name, and there were no photos, but there was a court case to determine if he had committed a crime. You remember thinking the whole process was ridiculous because the guy had no free will, so surely he was just as much a victim as the ones he hurt? The jury had agreed with your view and he was let off without charge. And now here he was, sitting in front of you, looking nothing like you’d imagined.

“But you never, you know, they stopped you before you could didn’t they?”

“Still hurt a lot of people.”

“Not permanently though,” you try to argue, “you came out of this much worse than anyone else.”

He lets out a slow sigh. “I suppose I did. And it’s made me suspicious of anyone new. I don’t like them getting too close in an environment I can’t walk away from, so when I saw you the next day I sort of panicked, it felt like something else someone could use against me. And I didn’t want anyone else to judge me for my past so I determined to make it so you wouldn’t want anything to do with me. I thought it’d be easier if you just hated me.”

You really want to give him a hug. “I didn’t quite hate you, but I did think you were a bit of a dick.”

“I was. Sorry.” He fiddles with the strap of his watch for a second. “Telling you this here probably wasn’t the best idea.”

“Why?”

“If you saw the news then you know what I’m capable of. If you want to leave I get it.”

“I’m not scared of you Bucky.”

He scoffs. You reach a hand out in an attempt to comfort him, stopping short of touching him in case it makes him uncomfortable. “None of what you did was your fault. You know that right?”

He catches your hand so he can play with your fingers. “Do you really believe that?”

“Yes! Don’t you?”

“It’s difficult. I remember all of it, if blurry, how I hurt those people. That’s hard to forgive myself for.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, you’re not to blame.”

He squeezes his eyes shut to stop fresh tears from falling. Five minutes pass in silence, bar the bird song, but it’s a comfortable sort of quiet and as it seems like Bucky has said all he wants you let him sit there studying your nails.

You startle when he speaks again. “What you said about remembering me, that’s what I was worried about earlier. Why I was upset.”

“What?”

“The possibility people could recognise me. I don’t really go on the internet much but I bet someone on there has an idea of who I am. I can see the way people look at me.”

“I really don’t think they do.”

“The waitress in the café kept staring at me. She paid special attention to me, like what, I need to be appeased or something?”

You laugh abruptly, covering your mouth but not being able to hide the sound. The look he gave you when you first knew him is back and when he drops your hand you feel cold, so you hurry to explain.

“I didn’t mean to laugh at you, I promise! But I can guarantee she was only flirting with you.”

“Flirting?”

“You’re very attractive Bucky.”

His face goes blank and you wonder if you’ve crossed a line. But it’s the truth. You’d seen the way people watched him in the park that Tuesday weeks ago, especially when he’d volunteered to push all the children on the roundabout and everyone had noticed just how strong he is. It’s not just you and you’re friends who think he’s pretty. You’re wondering if you should say you’re sorry when he relaxes, stops tearing as his tissue, and smiles tentatively at you for the first time today.

“You think so?”

“Definitely. I mean, I don’t know who else you were with but its easy to spot Sam’s married so people tend to leave him-”

“No, I mean, you think I’m attractive?”

You’re mouth hangs open as you stare at him. This really has been a whirlwind of a conversation, but as he’s been very open with you then you should return the favour.

“Of course I do.”

“That’s good.” 

Good? What does that mean? Before you can question it he rises from his seat and moves as far away from you as he can in the small building. He’s wide eyed when he turns back.

“Fuck. I just realised I told you everything.”

“Did you not want to?”

“No, I did. It’s just….” He runs a hand through his hair, tugging on it in what looks like a painful way. “I’ve not told many people, none, actually, apart from Sam and Steve. Peggy too, it wouldn’t be fair to make Steve keep a secret like that when I’m living in their home. Some others know a bit of what happened, but not all of it.” He comes back to sit next to you. “I know it’s a lot to dump on someone, but I needed you to know.” The hand is back in his hair as he watches you.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like keeping secrets from my friends.” You melt at his confession. “And I was thinking-”

Whatever he was will have to wait as a group of walkers enter the hide. They don’t pay attention to you, moving to sit on the bench at the other end, and when you turn back to Bucky he’s gone. Re-buttoning your coat and collecting your gloves from the shelf, you hurry out after him and spot his figure waiting a little down the hill.

“Hey,” you pant when you catch up.

Shoving his hands into his pockets he scowls, kicking at the ground “I’m sorry. I had to get-”

“It’s fine, no need to explain.” Staring down the track again, you beckon at him to follow and start the walk back in silence. 

He trails behind you for a few minutes and you give him his space. It also gives you time to go over everything that was said, and you try to commit to memory every detail he told you as if he thought it was important then it must be. Thinking back over it proves to be a little too much.

“Please don’t cry.” You only realise Bucky has caught up when he stops beside you. 

All your tissues have been used so you wipe your eyes on your gloves and make a note to put them in the wash when you get home.

Sniffing, you mumble, “I’m sorry, it’s just, life’s been unfair to you, hasn’t it? Why do these things happen?”

He shrugs. “I dunno. I’m getting by, though.”

“Are you?” You did not mean to say that. 

He looks as shocked at your words as you feel at saying them but then he smiles slightly. “Well, slowly. And I’m getting better with your help.”

This feels like the hundredth time you’ve been thrown by something he said today and it’s beginning to make you dizzy.

“How do I help?”

“Well, last night, that would have been horrendous if you weren’t there. And like just now. Sam says it’s important to talk.”

That makes sense. “Whenever you want to talk, I’m here, okay? Any time.”

The smile you’re given in response is lovely. “Thank you. Truly.”

You could have stared at him for hours, but then he’s grabbing your hand again to pull you down towards the bottom of the path and you laugh with him as you run, finding it hard to keep up. When you reach level ground he slows and allows you to catch your breath. 

Strolling along the edge of the lake, the relative peace of the children playing in the park is broken by a tinny rendition of Greensleeves as a colourful Disney character-covered van pulls up in the car park, and Bucky turns to you, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“How about one last ice cream of the season?”

You squint at the sky, the sun filtering through the first changing leaves now the clouds have cleared. “It is beginning to feel like Autumn, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” he grins down at you. “Autumn, and the start of something beautiful.”

Chapter 9

A/n 2: Basically, this is Bucky as the Winter Soldier if he’d been rescued very early. So no one died, which, whilst I don’t think it makes _any difference to how guilty Bucky is (the Winter Soldier was a puppet) I do think it makes a difference to how guilty _he feels :( also I don’t know which way a trial would go if he had killed anyone, so I think in this AU it’s more realistic he wouldn’t be convicted. Sorry for the essay! But just in case it wasn’t clear…

Also, on a much lighter note, I think the last very scene is my favourite I written so far. Not necessary the best, I just really like the idea of parks and sunshine and ice cream with Bucky.

And finally, the kiosk Bucky got the duck food from would have had an honesty box or something, I don’t think he would have been up to talking to someone :( so an unmanned hut thing.

All right, I’m done now… Thank you for reading!

Tagging: @tieddown-withbattleshipchains @i-had-a-life-once

@superwholockian5ever @attorneyl @scamandaaaamn

@bohemianrhapsodaisychains @the-renaissance @davros2004@sergeant-james-bbarnes @sebastianst-n @marvel-trash07 @summerbummer2001 @ginger-wayward-assbutt @sadanddeadsoul​ @satans-knitting-club 

If I’ve forgotten you, or you want to be tagged/untagged, please just ask! Tumblr tagging sucks, so if anyone wants me to send it as a private message, I’d be more than happy to do that!

[mbaljeetsingh]

How to build and deploy your own personal portfolio site

Hello! My name is Kevin Powell. I love to teach people how to build the web and how to make it look good while they’re at it.

I’m excited to announce that I’ve just launched a free course that teaches you to create your very own fully responsive portfolio website.

After you’ve finished this course you will have a neat-looking portfolio site that will help you land job interviews and freelance gigs. It’s also a cool thing to show to your friends and family.

We’re going to build the portfolio using Scrimba’s interactive code-learning platform, and then deploy it using DigitalOcean’s cloud services.

Also, DigitalOcean has been generous to give everyone who enrolls a free credit, so it won’t cost you anything to get it up and running.

This post is a breakdown of the course itself, giving you an idea of what's included in all the lessons. If you like what you see, make sure to check it out over on Scrimba!

Lesson 1: Introduction

In the first lesson, you’ll get an overview of the course so that you know what to expect, what you should know before taking it, and what you’ll end up with once you're finished. I also give you a quick intro to myself.

Lesson 2: Setting things up - HTML

In part two, I’m going to show you around in the Scrimba environment and we’ll also set up the project.

All the images are supplied, so you won’t need to worry about looking for the perfect photo just yet. We can focus on building the portfolio!

Don’t forget that you can access everything you need from text and colors to fonts and much more at our dedicated design page.

Lesson 3: The header area - HTML

It’s finally time to start building out the portfolio. In this lecture, we will create the header section. We will brush up on the BEM methodology for setting class names in CSS, and I think you’ll find that this makes the navigation simple and straightforward to create.

Lesson 4: Intro section

Next up is the Intro section of the portfolio. This is where we will introduce ourselves and put a picture of ourselves.

In the end, we add a section about the main skills/services we can do. For the moment we can just fill it all in with “Lorem ipsum” text as a placeholder, until you're ready to fill it in with your own text.

In this chapter, we’re finishing off the rest of our HTML with the last 3 sections: About me, where we’re going to introduce ourselves in greater detail; Work, where we’re going to add some of our portfolio examples, and our footer.

Footers are ideal for linking to email addresses and I will show you how to do that with an <a> tag. We can also add our social media links there too.

For now, it all looks a bit raw and all the CSS fun is ahead of us.

Lesson 6: Setting up the custom properties and general styles

Alright, time to get make that page look amazing!

In this part, we’re going to learn how to add custom properties.

While setting up CSS variables can take some time, it really pays off as the site comes together. They're also perfect for allowing you to customize the site's colors and fonts in just a few seconds, which I take a look at how to do once we wrap up the site.

Lesson 7: Styling the titles and subtitles

Having set all the needed typography, I will walk you through the subtitles of designing and styling the titles and subtitles in our sections.

Lesson 8: Setting up the intro section

Over the next few chapters it’s going to be quite hands-on, so no worries if you feel like rewatching the screencasts a couple of times.

We're keeping everything responsive, using CSS Grid and taking a little dive into using em units as well.

This is the perfect example where CSS Grid shines through and we’re going to learn how to use properties like grid-column-gap, grid-template-areas and grid-template-columns.

Lesson 9: Styling the services section

To add a little bit of interest, I look at how we can add a background-image to this section of the site. It's a nice way to break up the second and avoid just having solid color backgrounds everywhere, and I also look at how you could use background-blend-mode to change the color of the image to help keep the look of your site consistent.

As a bonus, we’re also going to learn how to style out buttons when they are hovered over or selected when we tab through the page.

Lesson 10: The About me section

Great progress! So this is the all-important About me section. This one is pretty similar to the Intro because we’re going to use CSS Grid, but move the picture to the right side and find a useful example for CSS fr unit.

Lesson 11: The portfolio

In this screencast, I will show how to build our portfolio section to display some of our great work. And we’re even going to learn how to use cubic-bezier() to a great and impressive effect with some hover styling!

Lesson 12: Adding the social icons with Font Awesome

This cast will be sweet and short, so you can rest a bit and learn some quick tips and tricks.

Adding social media links with Font Awesome icons is a breeze. We can do it with an <i> tag and then adding a class name of an icon you wish to add.

As an example, here’s how to add an icon for GitHub once you have Font Awesome linked in your markup.

<i class="fab fa-github"></i>

While the icons are in place, we do need at add more styling here to get them to be set up the way we need them to be.

With a little use of flexbox and removing the styling from the list with list-style: none it's relatively straight forward.

Lesson 14: Setting up the navigation styles

We have left the navigation to the last because very often it’s one of those simple things that can take the longest to set up and do correctly.

Once completed, the navigation will be off-screen, but slide in when a user clicks on the hamburger icon. The first step though, is to get it styled the way we want it to look, then we can worry about actually making it work!

Lesson 14: Creating the hamburger

In this screencast, you’ll learn how to add a hamburger menu to transition to the navigation view. It’s not an icon or an svg, but pure CSS.

We’re going to have a chance practice ::before and ::after pseudo-selectors, transition, and, since it's not a link but a button, we also need to define the different cursor when we hover over the hamburger icon to indicate that it can be clicked with cursor: pointer.

Lesson 15: Adding the JS

With a little bit of JavaScript, I will walk you through the implementation of a really nice and smooth transition from our main screen to the navigation window on click of the hamburger menu.

I also take a look at how we can add in smooth-scrolling with CSS only by using scroll-behavior: smooth. Yes, it really is that simple! It also makes a great tweet for Today I Learned (TIL). Feel free to send you TILs to @scrimba and I’m sure they will be really happy to retweet them!

Lesson 16: Creating the portfolio item page

With the homepage wrapped up, it's time to work on a template portfolio page that can be used to give more details on each of the projects that you are putting in your portfolio.

We're also going to learn how to link it seamlessly with our main page for a nice user experience.

Lesson 17: Customizing your page

This is where the magic of CSS custom properties comes in!

In this video I look at how we can customize the custom properties that we set up to change the color scheme of your site within seconds, and how we can update the fonts quickly and easily as well in order to make the site your own!

Lesson 18: DigitalOcean Droplets - What they are and how to set one up

In this screencast, we're going to explore DigitalOcean droplets. They are Linux-based virtual machines and that each droplet is a new server you can use.

It can seem daunting, but they are super easy to set up, very customizable and come with a lot of useful features, like a firewall automatically.

I'll talk you through every single step of the way so that you know exactly how to set a droplet up.

Lesson 19: DigitalOcean Droplets - Uploading files via FTP

To finish the whole process off, let me show you how we can upload our portfolio to the droplet we've created in the previous chapter and now it's online for others to see!

Lesson 20: Wrap up

And that's it! Your next step can be to make this page all about you, add all the relevant examples, tell us about you and make it live in a DigitalOcean droplet.

Once you've put yours together and got it online, please share your portfolio with Me and the team at Scrimba! You can find us at @KevinJPowell and @scrimba on Twitter, and we would be really happy to share what you're up to!

Check out the full course

Remember, this course is completely free. Head on over to Scrimba now and you can follow along with it and build out a fantastic looking site!

via freeCodeCamp.org https://ift.tt/2QwcP6z