#i had a longer version with timestamps but.....tumblr

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

well tweam, i never thought my life would come to this. but i am bringing you a conclusion to today's debacle, so read on if you've been following this.

evan peters, if you're out there reading, just know i really love you and care about your reputation because what i just had to do, as a lesbian, amounts to a hate crime.

with the diligent help of @evanboodaddy we have sourced all three of the explicit photos used in what we now know was a doctored image masquerading as a screenshot of frances' patreon page. i'm sparing you all but just know that i went to the trouble of creating a gif of the photos overlaid on top of each other to confirm this with certainty. hell, they're not even the same wiener in all 3 photos. my google image searches were a nightmare (photoshopper was lazy, if you google d pics and click a few ''related images'' you will immediately find two of them), but anyway, it's sufficiently proven that those images are not of evan.

now, let's get to the source. up to this point, i have not spoken with anyone who has openly claimed to, with their own eyes, have seen frances' posts on patreon and/or tumblr, except this user (24hrcunt) who messaged me this morning. what i have seen is numerous users who have viewed screenshots, which makes sense; we know it's been circulating in group chats because rosa is the one who brought it to light via twitter, and her photos are screenshots of the screenshots posted in a group chat she's in.

this person claims to have taken screenshots which she shared in an ask sent to me. you can see the timestamps on top from when i first viewed them, though they had likely been in my ask box for maybe 15-20 minutes at this point as i was busy. this user did not follow me on here. they wrote a longer message seen in the 2nd photo, claiming that they viewed a message from frances on her patreon accompanying the explicit photos, that they conveniently did not get a screenshot of.

as i started to get suspicious of this story (see time of 5:19pm est) i went back to this page and viewed their tumblr. they had multiple aesthetic type posts such as the one you can partially see in the third screenshot, however, upon checking the timestamps my suspicion was confirmed: all of their posts were from today. the first post on their blog was made at around 10am est and as you can see, these messages followed shortly after. if they had merely created a burner account to share information, they would have had no reason to not say as much, and they wouldn't have quickly reblogged a bunch of random shit to make their page look legitimate. they have since deleted their account. @evanboodaddy also brought to my attention that in the screenshot of the patreon page, the pop-up window showing you must join to unlock posts is rounded on the corners of the actual page. in the edited version showing the explicit photos, you can see that they weren't able to replicate this design.

so, to anyone who was worried, you can rest assured this story is completely falsified. the photos are not of evan, and frances never posted any of this to her patreon nor tumblr.

not the tweam investigative journalism post i wanted to bring to you, but.... it was necessary.

[thefloofartist]

Since when did canonseeker make videos involving the RWBY Fandom? And when did canonseeker have the ability to doctor images? You've always called him creatively and intellectually bankrupt, now suddenly he's able to do this? You know something is off. And its not the first time somebody pretended to be him. Who is Troy?

Canonseeker's actually made it clear for a while now that he had been wanting to make a video. While I'm pretty sure this Ask Me is just Canonseeker himself, in the 1% chance it's not, I'll try giving an answer as to how he made this video based on my experiences with video editing and image manipulation. If you're really not Canonseeker, I'd appreciate being messaged directly in Tumblr's chat instead of an Ask Me, because it makes verifying who is who much easier and differentiating between people who don't know about Canonseeker and people who do know. Again, sorry for the inconvenience. Moving onto the explanation! The quality of the video in question is something I could do in about 10 minutes in Vegas Pro 14. It's got two layers - Video and Audio. Video is where all of the images he used are uploaded to, while Audio is taken up solely by the music he picked. He starts the video with 8 seconds of blank screen (black) before it directly cuts to an edited version of SYTO's artwork. This image is the only one that lasts longer than 4 seconds that isn't the manufactured "conversation".

After this, each image he uses fades into the next one, and it isn't even timed properly to account for the dialogue that Canonseeker himself edited in since each image is on screen for the same amount of time, excluding the first and last one. What I think happened was that Canonseeker just dragged and dropped the images, overlaid them on top of each other in one layer, and called it a day. Their timestamps are too similar for this to not be the case.

After all the stolen art, the video directly cuts to a single, very vertical, image of the "conversation" between Canonseeker and CYTOseeker. This can be done quite easily. In Vegas Pro 14, you can click on an icon that brings up a timeline, set two points, and simply reposition the image so the video box is at different locations on the same image over a period of time. The program does all of the movement in between Point A and Point B for you. This can be done in under 30 seconds.

Once the nonsense passes by, it cuts to black again for about 7 seconds, but there's a flash frame at the end entirely in white. I'm not sure why this is the case, but it might be a piece of something else Canonseeker is working on, or just an image he forgot to slip in that he zoomed in way too far for.

The audio is the laziest bit about this. It's just music. No sound effects, no blending, no nothing. Dragged and dropped and that was that. This takes less than 3 seconds to do.

To answer on this "Troy" person, "Troy" is just a Canonseeker alt, considering the account was made yesterday and the video uploaded shortly after. "Troy" has never been mentioned or name dropped at any other point in the history of Canonseeker's shenanigans, so I really don't see why or how someone who is significant enough in Canonseeker's life would suddenly appear now of all times instead of several months ago when people were still unsure as to who or what Canonseeker was during all the callout posts.

That's all I'll say for now. See ya.

[autumnslance]

Um - hi. We’ve never met before, but Happy New Year! 😅

I came across that Another Thing For New Tumblr Users post you made back in July, and… I’d like to confirm, does the read-more tag really still redirect people to the original post on your blog, no matter how far in the reblog chain? This would be unimaginably handy for a post of mine, which I expect I’ll have to re-edit later on, but another friend told me it’s been patched out…

Happy New Year! And Well. It depends. Especially since things change all the time around here.

In the Legacy editor, the "Keep Reading" will usually force someone on desktop browser to the original blog post (unless one has a particular XKit extension). But with the new editor more prevalent, even in a browser without XKit, if I click on a "Keep Reading" link, it opens the rest of the post directly on my dash.

(I keep a login on MS Edge sans XKit for testing purposes)

In the mobile app however it takes me to the mobile version of my blog post itself, which doesn't use anyone's themes aside from color choices.

Now, this is just how people access the post; on the dash or on the blog directly. You can still edit it! I do all the time! Anything below the "Keep Reading" cut should show updated in reblogs...with caveats. I fixed a format error in a post I put up this morning, "Missing Scars". It was reblogged before that by a guildmate. The format correction does appear on mobile when I click on the "Keep Reading" there, as it takes the reader to my blog. But that same reblog on browser, where it just expands the cut on the dashboard, still shows the old format error.

Which is. Well, Tumblr sure is a Functional Webbed Site.

Might be a cache issue and the dash just has to "catch up", but I had to log in after not using Edge for awhile (cuz why would I normally).

Of course, clicking on the header to go to the post on the fakey dash-like version of my blog, or the timestamp in the meatballs menu to go to the actual blog and post itself (I really hate that non-intuitive change just go to my actual blog, Tumblr!) does show the edited format correction.

So. The "Keep Reading" cut will open the post on the dash, OR take one back to the original (maybe edited) post on one's blog, depending on the text editor used to make the post, whether or not you're on browser or the mobile app, and whether you use the "Keep Reading" link or take extra steps to look at the actual blog post.

And if the original post is gone, or the URL has changed, the "Keep Reading" will not work to take one back to the blog (as there's no longer a valid link), but whether or not it can still show that content on the dash I haven't tested yet, and may depend on the age of the post, which editor was used, etc, but the source is still gone.

[dragon-kazansky]

You may have done this already but there would be no harm in actually blocking the person accusing you of plagiarism. In fact, when you block them they won't be able to see your posts at all so they won't be able to have anything to take from you either since this is the only place that you post them. I think it's absolutely shitty that someone would go through such lengths to discredit your work and take credit for themselves. I think one way that you might be able to prove that your stories are in fact your own is to 1) send screenshots to Tumblr that include timestamps on your posts and 2) explain to them how you came up with the ideas. This way you have established the fact that you have created your characters because then it will be quite obvious that there are two different versions at work here. If you've done this already I apologize. I literally just woke up and thought about this.

I appreciate the help, but when it comes to plagiarism I have to take a different approach. Blocking a person doesn't stop their reports from going through. Some of my fics are under review still.

As someone who gets more than enough hate and I'll mannered people coming at me, I know what to do. If I can't prove she's the one stealing from me, then my fics will be taken down. It's happened to me before, it can happen again.

This isn't my first tumblr I've ever had. Take a guess why I no longer have that one.

I appreciate the help though.

[onyxbird]

10 and 11 for ao3 wrapped :D

…You know, I looked at this ask game and thought "Hey, this one is almost all questions that will be pretty straightforward to answer! Sure, why not?" and naturally y'all immediately starting picking the ones I don't have clear answers to! Writing time isn't something I track, and I often mull over ideas for quite a while before actually putting anything down on the page in a form with a timestamp, so… 🤷

10. What work was the quickest to write?

"Menagerie" or "Sweet Surprises" was likely quickest from concept to execution.

In terms of time spent actually writing it up, "Unspeakable" may be the winner. I know it was written fast (concept to posting within the same day), but it apparently went from file creation to its original posting on Tumblr in… about 30 minutes. 😂 However, the fic idea originated in a Tumblr post from much earlier that day, so it basically percolated around in my brain for hours before being dumped onto the page in near its final form.

11. What work took you the longest to write?

I have even less intuition for this one! It looks like "Build-a-Boyfriend" took the longest calendar time (29 days) from starting to type it up to the final version of my 2022 fics, which surprises me! I would have thought the ones with more plot (specifically "The San Lorenzo Zombie Job" and "Confounding Variables") would have taken longer, so I'm guessing I just had a lot of gaps in the writing process for that one.

[ticktack-imback]

Important things in "Time of our life"

Those crisp vocals

The colors

Back to back Sungbri

Back to back Jaehyungparkian

That one shot of Wonpil towards the end, you know the one

Dowoon

Youngk and Jae's funky feet dance

Sungjin's smirks

Jae and Youngk's running near the book

The book

Dowoon waving

Those crisp keys

Youngk's smiles

Jae's smiles

Dowoon jumping into the group shot with the book at the last second

Everything between like...0:00-3:28

[thatlittledandere]

In like 2014-15 I had this phase where I didn't use fandom tags in shippy reblogs, only the ship tag and maybe other relevant ones I used at the time (such as "comic") and now I'm reaping the consequences by having to go back and add shit manually. If I want to check the amount of Doctor Who posts on my blog now TOUGH SHIT Doctor/Rose posts are not included in the count because I was an inconsistent FUCKING dipshit at 18. And there's a BUNCH of them because it was my absolute number 1 OTP at the time. (rip River Song who I hated for this reason alone you deserved better. Doctor still belongs with Rose tho)

And the xkit tag replacer hasn't worked for me for a couple of years (can't find it at all) so I use another third party tag replacer, which USED to have a feature for appending a tag instead of replacing it which was PERFECT for situations like this. But version 2 doesn't have it and version 1 is no longer supported :/ So yeah if somebody knows a method to mass edit posts with certain tags please let me know, afaik tumblr's own mass post editor can only filter posts based on timestamps and honey I do NOT feel like doing that.

[bakurapika]

i used plume. scam or no?

hey because i saw a post about it recently, i’m going to talk about my experiences with plume. good, bad, ugly. 

long post below and i don’t want to risk using the read-mores on tumblr, sorry.

for context, if you don’t know, plume is a medical group that offers hormone therapy in many states across the US. instead of charging for visits or services, plume charges $99 per month as a membership fee. everything is included in that fee except for the medication itself (which you have to buy from a pharmacy as normal). I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice.

i joined in july 2021 and recently cancelled due to not being able to afford the $99/month price tag. here are some of the ups and downs.

plume is app-only, something I didn’t entirely realize when signing up. It uses “spruce” which is a medical-management app. They have an email support team but... basically, don’t bother. they are not very responsive and may ignore emails. however, they do not ignore messages sent in the app. “doesn’t this make it impossible to save and exchange medical documentation?” you might ask. the answer is yes! the app also doesn’t allow normal screenshots. there is a web version of the app (allowing screenshots, screen readers, etc) but I had to talk to a spruce dev to find out about this. i’m an oldie who can’t type on my phone so i found the app relatively inaccessible.  no idea if it works with screen readers

however, even though I cancelled, I do still have full access to the app for timestamps, etc., so I am referencing that for this post

my first appointment was scheduled when I joined. I agreed to pay $99 upfront for a consultation, which would either pay for my first month of membership (if I joined) or pay for the visit itself only (if I didn’t join). I wasn’t sure whether I wanted hormone therapy at this point or not. I had to do normal new-patient paperwork (consent to telehealth, privacy policy, medical history etc). the app has an automated chat system that will say things like “Great, now please tell me if you agree” and you click yes or no. It’s very user friendly. 

Part of what the Plume membership pays for is a blood test that they are (seemingly legally) required to do every 3 months. They work through Quest laboratories although there may be alternatives if you don’t have a Quest nearby. 

For any new message you send on Plume, the chatbot will ask if your urgent is urgent (needs a response within 2 days) or non-urgent. This seemed to work fine with timely results. 

When I signed up, I told them that my legal name was in the process of changing. Unfortunately, all blood work was ordered under my previous name which no longer matches my ID. This caused a problem the first time I went to get a test because they couldn’t find my information. Quest also does not recognize any gender except male/female. My technician was trans-friendly but the blood test system may not be gender affirming. Plume warns you about some of this ahead of time but again, they didn’t recognize that my legal name did actually change to my preferred name.

When starting Plume, I was required to get a blood pressure test done. At the time, COVID restricted my access and I had to get blood pressure taken at a free machine in a grocery store, which wasn’t very accurate.

My provider (a nurse practitioner) got back to me the day after I signed up and we were able to call for more than an hour, which is an unusually fast turnaround. The NP was polite, explained things well, answered my questions, and in general was a good medical provider. 

When I was prescribed testosterone, we went over my options, including the cost of medications and what coupon sites to use to minimize the expense for any prescriptions. (Doctors/providers sometimes will talk about this to me but Plume was more knowledgable and helpful than most.) In my case, I was able to use androgel instead of testosterone injection because Walgreens has a coupon on GoodRx that lowers the price to around $35/month instead of $300+. The pharmacy kept trying to charge my insurance instead, but I have a lot of prescriptions and can tell you that this is not an unusual problem. You need to talk to a pharmacist and explain that you’re using a coupon and not health insurance. The price will change at the register.

For follow-up billing questions, I tried to email with no luck - as said, they only really respond on the app. Unfortunately, your message will go to whatever random staff is working at the time, so it’s hard to keep a single conversation - you ask A a question, get an answer from B, ask a follow-up question, and now you’re talking to C.

When asking about medical side-effects and medication interaction, I got answers right away and got same-day responses from my provider.

My billing issue, by the way, is that I planned to pay for plume with my fsa account (a medical-only savings account through my employer). I was getting denied. Long story short, my fsa people thought that plume was a subscription service like a gym membership. it’s actually, technically, a form of concierge medicine. When I discovered this and explained it to my fsa company, they asked for screenshots from the app to prove that I had used it for medical services in the last 30 days. not all fsa companies cover concierge medicine and plume did not understand the medical billing jargon. they thought my fsa company was my insurance company and that i’d been denied service despite my explanations to the contrary. they were not able to help except by providing my billing statements (which, side note, most medical providers have easily available, but I couldn’t access them without a staff member directly sending me the file). my fsa reimbursed me for the $99 each month once we figured this out.

otherwise, i had no issues until august, when I again got a same-day response from my provider about my medical questions. I was able to have a 15 minute call with the provider the next day.

when my labs were done in september, i asked a question and got a same-day response with a more in-depth answer from my provider the next day.

In general, things went well. for unrelated reasons, i lost my fsa and i can’t afford plume anymore, and I hadn’t been using my testosterone due to some other unrelated circumstances, so I decided to cancel in december. I noticed that I had put in a refill request in november and it hadn’t ever been filled, meaning that plume dropped the ball. when I requested to cancel plume, I also asked for my december membership fee of $99 to be refunded back to me since I hadn’t gotten any services for more than a month.

I had to explain this situation several times with no answer but was eventually given the refund despite plume saying they had no record of me asking for the refill request. this was not legally required and was a gesture of goodwill. 

after cancelling, I was told that I would be given a one-time extension for two months’ worth of HRT refills. this is obviously a system to prevent people from joining plume for a month, quitting, and joining again when they run out of meds. any other active refills would be cancelled after two months, and if I re-joined and canceled again, they would immediately cancel any remaining refills. this is not standard practice and i consider it unethical. 

to be fair, testosterone is a controlled substance (schedule 3). but for comparison’s sake, I used to live in Illinois and was prescribed ambien, a highly controlled substance (schedule 4, which is much more abusable and regulated than schedule 3). After moving out of state, my psychiatrist kept sending refills for me to my new state until I could afford to find a new provider. Sometimes providers will ask for a visit (phone visit is usually ok depending on circumstances) to meet with me and show that I’m not abusing the medication, but doctors do not usually try to “cut off” your meds to demand more money from you. again, i assume that’s because of plume’s business model, but that doesn’t make it right. 

plume has a program for people who can’t afford it to get free/discounted care, but my understanding is that the program is in high demand and without many sponsors. when I quit for financial reasons, they didn’t even bother telling me to apply for it lol

so, summary. 

good stuff: user friendly app, very responsive, good provider, very quick access to quality medical care, understands resources for prescriptions, gave me a refund as a goodwill gesture, may be paid for 100% by fsa

bad stuff: no support outside of app, app introduces communication and accessibility problems, blood tests aren’t gender-affirming care, staff uneducated on medical billing issues, refill system is bad when you quit

my opinion of plume is that, if you have an in-person provider who can be covered under insurance, avoid plume. but if you don’t and you’re willing to deal with some bumps in the road, or if you have an fsa who will work with you on payment, plume may be a great option. at the end of the day, it all comes down to the $99/month price tag and how you can justify it. 

plume isn’t a scam but it isn’t quite as easy-to-use and professional as it presents itself

[mittensmorgul]

The Tumblr Beta Version: an objective analysis

I was tempted to just type “it sucks.” And while that is an objective analysis, it’s not exactly helpful. I’ve sent several requests to @staff and @support to restore my account to the old tumblr dashboard format, and received the same automated reply twice now. I’ll copy/paste it here so everyone is on the same page:

(lol, I had to go back and edit this, because apparently the beta version doesn’t display block quotes on the dash. So I’ve also put the block quotes in italics... hopefully it’ll display properly... note after editing: nope, it doesn’t display italics either... how the heck am I supposed to differentiate quoted text? I’ll start each quoted bit with an asterisk, I guess...)

*Thanks for reaching out about the beta dashboard.

*We're currently testing it out, and your account seems to have been selected to take part in the test. Thanks for your patience while we work on it! At this time there is not a way to opt out of testing. You may see your Tumblr experience return to normal as we continue testing.

WE CAN ONLY HOPE.

*In the meantime, check out some of the new features available only in the beta dashboard:

OKAY TUMBLR, IF YOU INSIST, though I would MUCH rather have back all the functionality I personally invested into this website through xkit... you know... making the site ACTUALLY FUNCTIONAL. Let’s see what this beta version has given me instead of functionality:

*Change Palettes: Go to the person icon, then click "Change Palette." You'll find the classic Tumblr blue, dark mode, and a few other color palettes for your dash.

So I tried out all the color palettes. In addition to the ones mentioned here, there’s one that’s trying to look like a green screen terminal that gives me flashbacks to the early 80′s. There’s a reason we stopped using green screen terminals... Another one is “canary yellow.” It’s very yellow. The “classic tumblr” isn’t actually classic tumblr... all the post boxes are dark blue with grey type, not white with black type. And all the other colors are the insanely bright fluorescent of the new Dark Blue standard tumblr scheme. Which means links are practically invisible unless I highlight them. It’s migraine inducing. The one theme with a light colored background is called “Concrete” or “Cement” or something like that and even that only works for about half an hour before the migraine aura really kicks in. I just want my Old Blue via xkit back. You know, what tumblr actually used to look like. I don’t want any of these horrible color palettes. None of them work for me.

*The new "meatballs" menu: This is where you can copy the post link, unfollow the Tumblr who made or reblogged the post, or report a violation to our Community Guidelines.

I could do all of this from the user menus with xkit, too. I don’t regularly report violations or have the urge to block people I have chosen to follow. Why on earth would I want to do any of this? And why would I want these features located directly beside the post link copy feature? 

You know what I do miss? I miss the xkit timestamps feature. I didn’t have to hover dangerously close to the KILL IT WITH FIRE meatballs menu in order to see when a post was made, and in this era of disinformation and misinformation spreading around this site faster than Covid-19, being able to see when a post was ORIGINALLY created is a far more useful feature than an easier way to block people. For reference: I currently have three blogs blocked. Two of them are pornbots. One is a nazi. If I don’t want someone’s content on my dash, I don’t follow them. This “feature” is entirely useless to me.

*A quick note: Pagination is not supported in this beta test, but we're collecting feedback to send to our engineers.

THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST. This beta test might actually be tolerable if I wasn’t trapped into endless scrolling. If I could page through my dash, refreshing it every ten posts or so. You know why? Because once I scroll about 30 posts down my dash, tumblr starts overheating my laptop under the load of ALL THOSE POSTS. Things start malfunctioning-- it takes longer and longer to load new posts the farther I scroll. And the keyboard navigation (both page down and hitting J to advance to the next post, and even just using the down arrow to scroll as I read a long post) freeze and stop functioning. One of my laptop fans has actually begun to malfunction.

You know why this wasn’t a problem on the old version? If the data load got to heavy, I could open a post in a new tab, click view on dash with xkit, and voila! Brand new tab! I could close the malfunctioning tab and everything would be refreshed to normal! But without pagination, THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Also, after reblogging a few posts, the beta version of this site breaks, and doesn’t open a post tab to add commentary or even tags. It just... reblogs the untagged post with no warning whatsoever. You know... that’s really really not cool. I tag EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. The tags are the only way to keep track of the 40k+ posts on my blog. And warn people that I am posting potential spoilers, or other specific content. It’s REALLY inconvenient to have to either immediately go to my blog to edit the post and add tags, or even comments. The alternative is to scroll up to open individual posts I want to reblog in a new tab, and then reblog directly there. Ironically enough, THOSE pages actually open with xkit installed, and everything (surprise!) functions perfectly there.

It’s perfectly reasonable to understand why this specific issue has limited the number of posts I reblog. Reblogging content should not be this much of a hassle. Creators have been complaining for a while that reblogs have drastically slowed down, and I think making it even more annoying and difficult to reblog posts will not help this problem.

Also, with xkit enabled, there’s a function that auto-loads images as you scroll, so the images are always visible BEFORE they appear on screen. I don’t have to look at the colored boxes and wonder if this is a post I’ve already seen or something I should sit and wait for. Don’t even think about watching tumblr videos. Loading priority is given to the ads that you cannot pause or dismiss, so that video loads and plays in choppy two second bursts instead of being given priority. Since that’s the content I am actually here to consume, it kinda makes me want to do the opposite of patronizing anyone who advertises here with graphically intense ads. And then when you scroll away, with xkit, gifs and videos you’ve scrolled past STOP loading and playing, which I think might be contributing to the intensity of the resource hogging that’s literally melting down my laptop.

And for reference, I have a pretty decent little gaming laptop. A blogging platform shouldn’t be driving it to the brink of frying itself. I didn’t realize just how much xkit worked to streamline this and provide basic functionality to this site.

*And lastly, if you're an XKit user, know that the XKit team is working hard to update things on their end to make it compatible with the beta dashboard.

And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I’ve lost without xkit. And this is a really REALLY garbage response to user complaints. “Oh, yeah, sorry we made our site suck even worse, but those nice people who do our jobs for free will surely fix our garbage soon!”

Dear wonderful people at @new-xkit-extension, I love you, and I miss you, and while I wish xkit worked with this beta version I’ve been forced into living with, I truly feel for y’all who are trying to deal with this nonsense on behalf of all of us.

And to the folks at Tumblr... maybe try to just... make your site actually more like xkit. You know, actually functional. None of these special new features are useful or functional to me. I respectfully request for a fourth time to be removed from this inane beta test.

Give us OPTIONS. Let us display ALL THE TAGS without having to click a button. Let me have back my Activity+ that actually allowed me to interact with people from my dash! That showed me real-time inline notifications in a way that I could reply to with a single click! Bring me back to my column of open messaging conversation icons so I have easy access to the people I talk with throughout the day instead of closing them all every time I refresh the page. I already feel socially isolated in freaking quarantine, please stop shutting off all my avenues of communication!

Let us have pagination! I mean, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to force heavy users of this site into a beta version that doesn’t allow us to opt out until your engineers had actually figured out how to make it work in a very basic way.

*Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with!

YES. PLEASE REMOVE ME FROM THIS BETA TEST NOW. I have let you know exactly what I want from this site. I just want it to ACTUALLY WORK. For someone who spends 12+ hours a day on this site, this beta test version is NONFUNCTIONAL. PLEASE ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT. I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU. I WILL ACTUALLY PAY YOU CASH MONEY TO ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT OF THIS AND GO BACK TO HAVING A FUNCTIONAL BLOG AGAIN. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!

PLEASE! 

I AM OFFICIALLY AT THE END OF MY PATIENCE FOR ENDURING THIS NIGHTMARE.

(one final quick note... I’ve only been back on my dash long enough to make the parenthetical edits-- i.e. adding italics that don’t display and then adding the asterisks at the beginning of each section of quoted text, and already my laptop is overheating again. For reference, I originally typed this entire post from within my tumblr inbox page-- which still functions normally with xkit-- and spent over an hour on it. My laptop was fine the entire time. Clearly the issue is this beta version of the website. I will never forgive tumblr if y’all fry my literal only portal to the outside world at this time. PUT ME BACK TO NORMAL NOW. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING AND ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE. Thanks)

(oops apparently i lied... when the asterisks and the previous final note failed to display, I thought that seemed suspicious, and realized that I literally needed to refresh my entire dash in order to see edited changes. Funny how xkit enabled me to do that in real time, which is just another bit of functionality I’ve lost with this beta program. Please guys, this is really, really not working for me at all, just put it back.)

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a question. It's time to talk UNDERTALE.

Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many requests to cover a theory, (no requests times no requests is still no requests.) Anyway, across my tumblr dashboard, NO ONE has asked for this. And honestly, I'm disappointed. True loyal theorists will know that Undertale is my favorite game of all time.

Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, Comic Sans. ANYWAYS, Sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, pause your reading of this and come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright, so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of Sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, Sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is Papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of Undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given to us by a shopkeeper in Snowdin, who explains that Sans and Papyrus, quote, “just showed up one day and asserted themselves.” Weird, right? What's more is that, well, Papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. Sans is much more complex.

He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly powerful and deadly serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts around the world through ridiculous routes. Even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines that you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements on the player's actions in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE, just to clarify. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, the idea that he doesn't belong in the underworld seems to be correct.

The evidence seems to point to the fact that he WAS, in fact, formerly a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, Papyrus asks Sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, “we call that the sun.” This is important because A, the usage of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun shows that Sans has a kinship or knowledge with other humans, and B, that despite he and Papyrus both being skeletons, or, supposedly, brothers, and apparently appeared in underworld at the same time, they CLEARLY have two very different histories. Why would Papyrus not know the name of the sun but Sans would?

We get further clues to Sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the Mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say he means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is, "and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here is “EITHER.” Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on his dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, as though he's from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface, but from a different time period, who seemingly has the power to teleport. That's a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.

But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg Sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After some searching you find the workshop which contains items that leave even more questions. A photo album featuring Sans and a bunch of smiling people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A hand-drawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.”

So, what does it all mean? Well a lot of Undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named W.D Gaster. A ghostly character who never truly appears in the game. Honestly, covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably one best saved for another day. Even still, none of the Gaster theories I've seen have been able to explain all the details. In particular, the photo album, and the badge. And that's what kept nagging me as I researched Undertale. A badge? That one in particular really stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of a room? Something that supposedly reveals the truth about Sans? Badges just aren't important in Undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from Undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different series? And was, in fact, the most important badge in the history of gaming? One of the Iskall patreon badges.

Now, for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a pivotal item from Iskall’s patreon. You know, the one on Hermitcraft. Anyway, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a really important part of Iskall’s character. So I asked myself; what if the badge in Sans' drawer was ONE OF THOSE EXACT badges? Well first off, it made Undertale connected to my favorite youtuber, thereby making it even COOLER, but that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as I started looking, more and more pieces started to fit into place.

In Hermitcraft Season 6, there are three Architechs. (This was before Stress joined in season 7.) These 3 were Iskall, Grian and MumboJumbo. And what does Sans happen to have in his other drawer? A photo album with pictures of Sans with people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not characters present in Undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the Hermitcraft series.

But then, how do the blueprints and broken machine fit in? Well, in the final stretch of Hermitcraft, Iskall is the only one who hasn’t died since the Demise game, so he sells his own body to the highest bidder. Except, it comes with a cost. Everyone is poor. As a result, and with the help of ImpulseSV, the Architechs (minus Mumbo,) are forced to finally kill Iskall, ending his streak since the beginning of demise. I watched this episode in 2020 and I'm not ashamed to admit that when I first saw this scene, I cried. It's DEVASTATING.

Iskall says goodbye to his friends, his co-workers, this character you've grown to love and care about is suddenly promising to sacrifice his life. For all he knows, there is no possibility of him being able to come back after his Demise. It's this incredibly dark departure in the final moments of what was otherwise a fun, quirky, and colorful Season 6.

So what does all of this have to do with Undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that the hermits are known for their, let's say, unique written linguistic style.

That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken infinity portal is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch, but it actually explains a lot.

If Sans wound up in Undertale via whacky infinity portal hyjinx, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences. Not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why Sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the infinity portal is a time machine. By being in the underworld, he's not only in a different place, but based on how he talks, he's also in a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. This could theoretically happen. It turned Scar into a wizard and completely disintegrated Welsknight, so the rules are… Flimsy at best.

But the crossovers between Hermitcraft and Undertale continue. In Grian’s episode, (EDIT IN TIMESTAMP) he mentions he’s amazed that Iskall only escaped his demise with a lost arm. He says Iskall had “a lot of determination to not die for real,” and that he’s going to continue to study this. Seems awfully similar to the same experiments happening in Undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that Sans was a key player in those experiments.

But I'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, because I have plenty. Take a look at Iskall and Sans side by side. Iskall’s left eye is replaced with a diamond loupe. Sans’ left eye glows blue when he’s mad. Both have extremely chill yet are known for their jokes and, dare I say, laugh.

In short, we have some incredibly strong proof that the Hermitcraft Cinematic Universe, (HCU) is somehow connected to the Undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS?

Well, what if we took it one final step and said that Sans happened to be Iskall from Hermitcraft? Sent through the Infinity Portal at the end of season 6 to go to Season 7, carrying an Iskall Patreon Badge and his photo album. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does Sans’ behavior.

Remember, Sans can seemingly travel extremely quickly. And Iskall just happens to have an elytra, a device that allows people to travel hundreds of metres extremely quickly. This even explains why Sans bleeds when you finally hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human.

Oh and finally, Sans shares two out of five letters with the name Iskall. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning.

But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creator's previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind Undertale is actually DocM77, the creator of every hermit (besides Scar.) Now, if Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale, is also DocM77, creator of Iskall, we know they will most definitely share a universe. Which brings us back to Undertale. 2 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? It's Iskall, trying to remember his 2 friends. In short, Undertale is a continuation of Toby’s version of Hermitcraft Season 6, with Iskall never being able to get home, adopting the name Sans. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Ethoslab and we’ve got ourselves a true sequel.

But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!

[realstraykids]

One of the most frequent asks I get is “how do you make your gifs?” Previously I had just linked my FAQ where I have some resources on how to gif listed, but I figured to (hopefully) stop receiving the same ask over and over, I’d just make a tutorial on how I personally gif!

* Please note that everyone has different giffing styles and settings preferences, so the following is just how I make my gifs. Other people are likely to do things differently!

This post will be a comprehensive guide that includes details about DOWNLOADING VIDEOS, USING VAPOURSYNTH TO MAKE GIFS, USING PHOTOSHOP TO MAKE GIFS (+ a blurb on TOPAZ), and COLORING.

This post was last updated on July 30, 2020. Keep reading to get started!

DOWNLOADING VIDEOS

I use a number of sources to download videos/get video clips, depending on the origin of the video.  In general, I try to gif from videos that are at least 1080p - the higher, the better.  It’s almost impossible to make gifs look high quality if they don’t originate from a high quality video! Below are the sources I use:

TS files: kpop24hrs (you need an account), kpopexciting, occasionally torrent links from Google or download links from Twitter (search the group name + date in YYMMDD format + .ts)

Youtube videos: 4K Video Downloader

Vlive videos: Soshistagram

Twitter videos: Twitter Video Downloader

Instagram videos: Dredown

Long videos: If I don’t have the space (or patience) to download a certain video, or if it’s not a downloadable video (e.g. Fanship, paid online concert, etc.) then I screen record with Quicktime Player

(Side question: what’s a TS file? A TS file is essentially a very high quality video that you can find for live show performances and aired music show interviews! TS files are generally 60fps, so they’re how gifmakers can make those super clear and smooth live performance gifs. If a TS file is available for what you want to gif, use it.) 

USING VAPOURSYNTH TO MAKE GIFS - OLD AND NEW VERSION

05/2020 update: I have re-installed Vapoursynth to its latest version, so I am including updated instructions/screenshots for both the old version (that I downloaded ~mid-2018) and the latest version.

After I’ve downloaded my video, I use Vapoursynth to crop, resize, sharpen, and denoise gifs.  Vapoursynth is like Avisynth in that both programs can be used to crop and resize gifs without losing video quality, but VS has the added capabilities of sharpening and denoise.  VS is the reason I don’t need to use Topaz on any of my gifs! You can install Vapoursynth here.

First you drag your video file to the Vapoursynth app installed on your computer. You’ll be prompted to enter a start timestamp in HH:MM:SS format (so if you want the video to start 5 seconds in, you would enter 00:00:05). Then you put the encoding duration also in HH:MM:SS format (if you want the video to be 8 seconds long, you would enter 00:00:08).  Generally I’ll look for the exact moment I want to gif and enter the start timestamp 1 second earlier and have the encoding duration be between 3-5 seconds.

After you’ve entered this, a resizer.html window will automatically pop up. Below are screenshots of examples of my normal settings for my performance gif 4sets (ex. here or here) for both the old and new versions of Vapoursynth.

Old version:

New version:

Below is an explanation of the parts:

GIF Size | The gif widths (the first number) recommended for Tumblr:

1 gif per row: 540px

2 gifs per row: 268px

3 gifs per row: 177px

You can use any height, but these are the ones that I tend to use:

1 gif per row: 243px or 300px most frequently, but sometimes I’ll do 220px/201px/400px/450px/540px depending on how large or small I want them

2 gifs per row: 350px

3 gifs per row: 300px, occasionally I’ll do 375px or 400px if it’s a very long video (e.g. some fancams)

Opacity | Don’t worry about this; it just changes how you view the video in the window.

Preprocessor | This refers to how the video will render! Super important because you’ll be given the option of 60 vs. 30 - these numbers refer to frames per second.  For live performance gifs, I always use qtgmc 60 fast (slow in theory gives you better quality gifs but I’m far too impatient for that). For all other gifs, I do not use any preprocessing method. A basic rule is that if you’re using a TS file, you should preprocess it because it’ll de-interlace the file. If you’re using an mp4 or mkv or any other file, you don’t need to preprocess.

Extra Sharpening/Sharpening | Pretty self-explanatory.  You can move the slider up or down depending on personal preference! I try to keep the sharpening low unless the video quality is especially bad. In the new version, I use FineSharp over VCFreq because I find the latter a little harsh for my tastes.

Denoise/Denoise Filters | Will help remove noise from gifs. In the old version, I almost always used the Light setting unless the video is super grainy, and then I might have chosen Medium instead. In the new version, I use KNLM at its lowest setting. I’ll only bump it up if the original video is quite grainy.

Once you’ve configured all your desired settings, you can copy & paste the output in the resizer.html window to your Vapoursynth editor file and enter the beginning and end frames.

The editor file for the old version:

The editor file for the new version:

To make the gifs in the old version, just save the file and then wait until everything finishes processing! In the new version, you have to go to Script > Encode video, and then under the gif preset click ‘start.’ Wait until it finishes encoding. On my laptop, this takes anywhere from 20 seconds to 3-4 minutes, so sometimes you have to be patient. This is the end of the Vapoursynth portion of gifmaking.

USING PHOTOSHOP TO MAKE GIFS

To create gifs in Photoshop, go to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers and then select your video file/output file from Vapoursynth (output.mov). These are my settings to create the frame animation:

Once your frames have been imported, you can delete frames and add a coloring psd on top of all your layers. 

Photoshop is also where you adjust the timing of your gif. In general, these are my settings:

30fps: 0.04/0.05

60fps: 0.02/0.03/occasionally 0.04 if I want it to be super slo-mo

Honestly, just use whatever timing setting that looks good to you! Some prefer faster gifs, others prefer slower, so just do what you like and things will be okay.

Save through File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy) with these settings (you can play around with selective vs. adaptive or diffusion vs. pattern; they all have slightly different looks, but 256 colors is a must):

Make sure your gif is under 8mb - to decrease a gif’s size, I usually delete frames and/or use selective color to increase the black percentage for whites, neutrals, and blacks.

After you save, you’ll have your gif! Below is the same moment giffed in different ways to illustrate how much a difference that file type + giffing style can make. You can tell that the TS file is higher quality and less grainy than the mp4 file, but it really isn’t unless you use Vapoursynth that the gif becomes super sharp and smooth. This is because if you import a TS file straight into Photoshop, it will only import at 30fps because the video itself is interlaced. You have to run it through a de-interlacer (like VS) to actually get a 60fps clip.

With regard to TOPAZ*, I mentioned above that because Vapoursynth has sharpening and denoise functionalities built into the program, I no longer use Topaz.  However, if you do not have access to Vapoursynth, then I highly recommend downloading Topaz (download links can be found through quick searches on Tumblr) and using Denoise and Clean to adjust your gifs. A warning: Topaz can take a long time to process and many gifmakers have a love/hate relationship with it, so be prepared for that. The way you apply Topaz is to select all your frames and layers, then do Filter > Convert to Smart Filters. Add the Topaz/smart sharpen adjustments, then Flatten Frames Into Layers. Once that has happened, hit Convert Frames > Flatten Frames to Clips and then Convert Frames > Make Frames from Clips.

COLORING

I get questions a lot on coloring and the truth is that coloring is an art - I by no means consider myself an expert, but I do experiment a fair amount with different settings and layers so I at least have a decent understand of what’s possible when it comes to coloring.

A few tips I’ll give:

Everyone has different coloring preferences! Whatever coloring you like may not be what others like, and that’s okay. Don’t be afraid to experiment!

PSDs are good for learning how to color - download premade ones and look at how other people made them: what layers did they use? in what order did they put them? what blending mode? at what opacity? These are all questions you’ll need to ask yourself when you create your own PSDs. (Remember not to edit others’ PSDs if they do not allow it, and given them due credit when necessary. Also don’t claim as your own!)

Tips to bring out idols’ natural tan/unwhitewash: increase vibrance, decrease brightness + increase contrast, use selective color and decrease cyan and increase black on the reds channel, use a gradient map that goes from a black/dark red to light pink/coral and change the blending mode to soft light or decrease opacity of the layer to 20-40%.

Below are some examples to show how much a difference coloring can make. I’d consider a basic PSD one that has less than 10 coloring layers/doesn’t make much change to the actual coloring of the gif besides lighting adjustments.  More complex PSDs generally have 15 or more layers (the ones I used below in have 16-25+) and drastically change the colors in the original gif. You can also mix PSDs too - for a lot of my performance gifs, I’ll first add a basic PSD that increases the contrast of a gif to make the skin glow, and then I’ll add an additional PSD that adjusts colors and other various lighting aspects.

You can see just how much of a difference coloring makes:

Don’t be afraid to experiment with different layers/styles! Everyone has individual preferences for how they like their gifs to look, and in a sense, coloring is the main way you can make gifs “yours.”

FINAL NOTES

Giffing is hard and requires a lot of patience - you definitely won’t be able to make amazing gifs right when you start! Even though I’ve been giffing for close to a year now, I still dislike many of the gifs I make and think that I can definitely improve. Don’t be afraid to reach out to other gifmakers for advice and help - 99% of the time, they’ll be happy to answer your questions!

I have posted a sped-up version of my gifmaking process here that you can also use as a resource!

Please let me know if I’ve missed something, and feel free to reach out if you still have questions. Good luck!

[tmae3114]

Diath & the Waterdeep Underground

Okay!! So!! It’s high time that I actually got around to cross-posting this over here!! I can’t believe it’s taken me so long!!

This is a theory that I’d been working on since *wobbly hand motion* mid- to late Season Three? I polished it up enough to post about two months ago but only ever got around to doing so on the DCA subreddit (bc that’s where there was more activity at the time) and always intended to get it over here as well and then just. never did.

So! Here’s the theory, as originally presented two months ago. I intend to add an edit/update at some point with all the new evidence from Episodes 116 and 117 but I haven’t had the time or energy to do so yet.

So! Without further ado! My “Diath’s got a history with Waterdeep’s criminal underground” theory!

(Note: due to the recent complications re: Tumblr And Links and the fact that I want this post to show up in the tag, all the timestamps which were linked in the subreddit version have been changed to URLs in this one. It’s a bit clunky to read but it’s the best I can do rn *shrug*)

I think Diath has a history with some part of the criminal underground in Waterdeep. Specifically, that he was part of it.

Diath’s past is something about which we know very, very little. He very rarely talks about it and usually in the broadest possible terms when he does; Episode 73 is the exception to this, with the stories he shares there being the most detail he has shared about events in his past. There is, however, one consistency which can be identified on the occasions when he does talk about it – he only ever talks about his time on the streets as a part of his childhood. This is not a solely in-universe thing either – Jared and Chris both do the same. (I believe so, at least. If I’m incorrect, please let me know and maybe provide me a timestamp/link to when whatever they say is said, if you can! It’d be useful information to have on hand for future theorising in this regard) Diath very much seems to be a precision oriented person by nature. His wording of things is often very deliberate. Therefore, with his time begging on the streets being specifically referred to as a part of his childhood, along with the meta-aspect of this additionally being consistent out of universe, we can surmise that he was no longer in the position of begging on the streets after his childhood.

If we’re to assume that childhood is including his teenage years (which seems a reasonable assumption, with how often Diath is teased about being a child post-Youth Potion) then Diath was, presumably, off the streets either at or around the age of eighteen/nineteen.

In Episode 73, when telling the story of how he met Strix, Diath states that he “was just trying [his] hand at being an adventurer” (https://youtu.be/6SuM1qebiXM?t=19m29s), indicating that they met relatively early into his adventuring career, which we can use to make a rough estimate of what age he began adventuring, admittedly with a lot of guesstimating.

We know that he was twenty eight at the beginning of the show. As of Episode 1, the Wafflecrew had been together for a “short while”, which we know was long enough to have been on a few adventures together but short enough that they were still figuring out group dynamics and the like – I would place this period of time as somewhere between two months and a year. We also know that he and Strix had known each other for “a few years” before they met Evelyn and Paultin – a period of time which I would place as being roughly three or four years, as five or more feels too many to be accurately described as “a few”.

Therefore, working with the largest numbers estimated above, it’s possible that Diath began adventuring somewhere in the range of five years prior to Episode 1, at age twenty three.

With the previous conclusion of Diath having no longer been begging at eighteen/nineteen and this new conclusion of him having not started adventuring until twenty three, this gives us a four/five year window in which to wonder ‘what exactly was he doing?’

But why think that he may have been involved in crime during that potential period? I have a few reasons, which are as follows:

Firstly, it has been alluded to on multiple occasions throughout the show that Diath has been in trouble with the law in Waterdeep either a significant number of times or one very memorable and impactful time. While I haven’t gone through the whole show to track down every reference to this, mostly because I don’t remember which episodes they’re all in and I don’t have the time (or, admittedly, patience) to go searching for them, I have got a very early one – in Episode 7, when he’s being arrested by the guards in Vallaki, Jared remarks that this is “not [Diath’s] first time [being arrested]” (https://youtu.be/STnBV8C61vM?t=19m52s).  Additionally, Jared mentioned in an Idle Champions interview that Diath “technically […] has a criminal record.” (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/292683322?t=38m03s) While that could be a reference to the times that Diath (and the rest of the Wafflecrew) have got into trouble over the course of the show, the use of the phrase “criminal record” implies, to me, that that is a circumstance that is rather more official than most of the trouble the ‘crew have been in. Additionally, when he triggers the trap door in Castle Ravenloft and gets dropped into a dungeon cell in Episode 30, Diath’s response of being sad is explicitly noted to be because “[he] never wanted to be behind bars again.” (https://youtu.be/Y03julVmXNE?t=40m27s) This could quite likely be linked to Diath’s issues with cages (as displayed in Ironslag (https://youtu.be/dS_QMZOO5Og?t=1h4m33s)) but, again, the wording leads me to think there’s other possible connections – that phrase is usually used to refer to being in a jail cell or in prison, after all. Diath’s response to being in the cell is also quite markedly different to his reaction to being in the cage – frustration and sadness, as opposed to a borderline panic attack. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, though; Diath’s dislike of ending up in that cell could be related both to past trouble with the law and to whatever his trauma regarding cages is.

Secondly, in Episode 53, it’s revealed that Diath was sold by his family when he was young enough that he barely remembers them (https://youtu.be/jZrd26ImgyU?t=56m49s). A human brain generally starts laying down retrievable memories at roughly the age of three, so the presence of any memories of them at all means that Diath must have been at least that old when those events transpired. We also know from later reveals that he remembers at least enough to know his father’s name – Ashton – though this was clearly a later recollection as he did not recognise the name at all when first confronted with it when given Gutter by the dworc in Citadel Adbar. With that information, I would estimate that Diath was between the ages of three and six when he was sold. Additionally, as far as we know, he came from a working class family with an adventurer father.

Why is this significant information to this theory in particular? Simple.

Diath can read and write.

There is no point in his backstory that we currently know of where he could’ve learned or been taught those skills. Even had his birth family had access to the skills or resources to teach him, he wasn’t with them, and spent a large portion of his childhood begging on the streets. Diath having either of those skills, let alone both, is odd. And in addition to reading and writing, he’s also got a fairly refined speech pattern and even knows some words that Evelyn, a noble-born child primarily raised in a temple, doesn’t (see: the stationary exchange in episode 94) which is, again, pretty unusual for someone who seemingly went straight from beggar to adventurer. It’s possible that Diath is self-taught but it’s just as possible, if not more likely, that there’s some unknown period in his past where there was someone who taught him. The questions left to us in that scenario, then, are who and why? Knowing Diath and how things generally go for him, it’s unlikely it was someone performing an act of altruism. In concert with the other possible pieces of evidence for this theory, it doesn’t seem too out there to speculate that he was, perhaps, taught because it could be a useful skill for him to have for whoever he was working for. This could also explain his speech pattern, as it could account for him being around a person, or people, who spoke like that enough to start doing it himself, something which would be much more unlikely on the streets.

Thirdly, it seems to have been implied that, in certain parts of Waterdeep at least, Diath has a reputation that paints him as a thief, or someone with the potential to be one. In Episode 73, when talking about how he and Strix met the rest of the Wafflecrew, Diath is very, very certain that the hostility and accusation from the innkeeper was because of and directed at him (https://youtu.be/6SuM1qebiXM?t=25m16s). The only elaboration that he gives on being so sure that the innkeeper was accusing him specifically and not targeting him and Strix because of Strix being a tiefling is stating that "when you stay in Waterdeep long enough, doing the things you do, you do develop a sort of... reputation, either by- either through truth or not.” (https://youtu.be/6SuM1qebiXM?t=23m59s). He doesn’t actually tell us what that reputation is or give any hints as to how it may have come about. While stereotypes could arguably be at play, given that the Rusty Pommel was apparently fairly seedy and in a seedy part of town, it seems unlikely that Diath was the only former street kid or the only rogue in the establishment. His certainty implies it was something about him specifically that caused that incident, especially with the comment about reputations. In Episode 90, Evelyn of Shar’s use of the fear spell reveals to us that one of Diath’s worst fears is Awful!Diath, his mirrored self. Specifically "He hates seeing that that is what everyone else sees him as, and that's what he could have been, that he tries to fight every day to not be." (https://youtu.be/PDG4KidCIXU?t=1h28m48s) This fear is likely linked to the aforementioned implied reputation. What is of particular interest to this theory, however, is the latter part of that sentence – “that’s what he could have been, that he tries to fight every day not to be.” While this could simply refer to how Diath could have taken a different path growing up, it could also mean that it was a path he had already started down, and turned back from. With that possibility in mind, it’s also entirely possible that the reputation he seemingly has that caused the conflict in the Rusty Pommel is not, as would seem the first interpretation of his statement from what we know of Diath, an untruthful reputation of being a thief, but rather a truthfully earned one of being a criminal – after all, everyday people who don’t know Diath would have no way of knowing about his personal moral code against stealing. If he had a reputation as a criminal, there would be no reason for people not to assume that this would include thievery. The ambiguity of his wording, “doing the things you do”, could also lend credence to this possibility. Diath is very good at keeping secrets and using an ambiguous phrase to not technically lie is something he could very easily have been doing with that statement.

My final reasoning is that, since the return to Waterdeep but particularly in Episode 102, we have been shown that Diath has a pretty wide network of contacts – referred to by Chris as his “society of confederates” – to the point that with their help he was able to rally the city guard to catch the Xanathar Guild members who stole Waffles within hours of returning to Waterdeep. Combined with the potential evidence for this theory, this is interesting, since it could point to what degree he was involved, but it isn’t strictly evidence for this theory on its own.

None of these things alone necessarily point to Diath having been involved with some aspect of the criminal underworld in Waterdeep but I feel like they make for a compelling case when looked at together. What do you think?

[hydrus]

Version 316

windows

zip

exe

os x

app

tar.gz

linux

tar.gz

source

tar.gz

I had an excellent week. I was able to cleanly 'do' the big gallery overhaul, resulting in many changes. This is an important release for anyone who does a lot of downloading.

gallery update

So, the meat of the gallery overhaul is complete! Where available, subscriptions, the gallery downloader, and the url downloader will now use the new parsing system to parse 'thumbnail pages'. The new pipeline has numerous improvements behind-the-scenes and is another important step in allowing users to create and share their own downloaders for new sites.

I won't go into all the details here, but anyone who has poked around the new parsing system's advanced dialogs will now see that gallery pages are now featured.

The important change for most users is that the main gallery downloader page is now a 'multi-gallery' page. It looks much like the multi-watcher for thread-watching, where the one page manages multiple queues simultaneously. Gallery download pages now list every query you enter separately and work on them simultaneously, reducing overall ui load significantly and making it much easier to pause one query without affecting others, spot queries that return 0 results, avoid big chokes and delays caused by larger queues, and manage the results you finally get as different pools. The old single-download page can no longer be created--your existing gallery pages will be updated to multi-pages on update (your existing queues will survive as generic 'updated from' entries, but everything will start paused, so you'll want to go through them, verify it all looks good, and then unpause when you are ready).

And like the multi-watcher, gallery pages can have a 'highlighted query'. Double-clicking on a list entry will show its current thumbnails in the media panel and show its full details in a panel below the main list. This new panel is very similar to the old gallery page's ui and lets you see downloads as they happen and inspect the file import queue and gallery log and so on in more detail.

Gallery download pages are now also downloader-agnostic. You open them just as 'gallery' from the F9 new page popup (there's also a new shortcut for them, under the 'main_gui' set), and they have a new 'gallery selector' button that lets you change the source for the next queries you enter. The gallery selector means that one gallery page can handle queries for multiple sites simultaneously! This new button will always default as 'deviant art' for now, but when I do the last stage of this downloader overhaul--the 'searcher' step--I will be able to add some reasonable 'favourite' options here.

Subscriptions can also use the new gallery parser, and they have the neater 'gallery selector' as well. You shouldn't notice any difference with how they operate--they should just run as before. But after some thought, I have reduced subscriptions' maximum 'first time' and 'regular' file limits to 1000 and written some help on the edit panel to explain this change. tl;dr is: use download pages to do big one-time syncs, use subs to keep up with new stuff. If this 1000 change affects you, please check out the help and feel free to ask me about it.

URL downloader pages also support parsable gallery urls. They only do the single page you add (i.e. they don't start a whole new multi-page search, but this capability will come), but they'll suck up any drag and drop for any working parser. For this week, I've written gallery parsers for danbooru, gelbooru (0.2.0 and 0.2.5), and e621 to get us started. Like with 'file pages', I will roll out more gallery parsers over the coming weeks until all default downloaders are using the new system.

A lot has changed. I have done a whole bunch of testing here and I am overall happy with it, but if you encounter problems with an unusual query or site or anything else, please let me know. If you are the sort of user with 200k items waiting to download in your current session, I strongly recommend you ensure you have a good backup before you update. This multi-gallery page also makes it easier than ever to create a session with lots and lots of files, but I will reiterate that the client tends to get laggy at 50k+ items, so take it easy and make a schedule for big stuff if you can!

There is a little more work to do here to support some unusual situations like tumblr, but the big hump of the downloader overhaul is now done. The 'searcher' change will be much simpler (it is basically just converting samus_aran -> http://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=samus_aran and some ui to manage it) and then it'll just be ui cleanup and figuring out an easy-mode share object, and redoing some help, and then we can talk about what we want out of a login manager (including whether it should be put off for something else).

multi-watcher

The multi-watcher also has a new 'highlight' panel just below its list. In a similar way, it has similar ui to the old single-page watcher and lets you inspect the file list and gallery (thread) log. Single watcher pages are removed this week, so all existing single watchers will be updated to multi-watchers. A variety of related single-watcher 'page naming' options and so on are also removed. Rather than be redundantly complicated, hydrus now just has 'url downloader', 'watcher', 'gallery', and 'simple downloader'.

full list

gallery:

gallery url classes can now be linked to parsers!

if parsers are linked, gallery pagewalk can now work on the new parsing system. gallery import pipeline has been significantly updated to reflect this

gallery import objects are now 'multiple' gallery imports, much like the multi-watcher, with each separate query having its own entry in a list (they also run in parallel!)

the multi-gallery list will show file/gallery pause status in slender columns, and will show a 'stop' character when gallery parsing is done

wrote a 'gallery selector' button and added it to the new multi-gallery page, so you can spawn queries for ~different sites~ on the same import page! it always defaults to 'deviant art' for now, but when the next 'searcher' overhaul step is done, this will be customisable

the new page selector and related 'pages' menu is now simpler--with the new selector, you just select 'gallery'

added 'new_gallery_downloader_page' shortcut action to the 'main gui' set to allow quick opening of this new page type

wrote a 'gallery import panel', which reviews a single gallery import stream, and added it to the multi-gallery page to show the current highlighted query

as all gallery imports now run in parallel and work on the new system, the now almost-useless 'cancel' gallery pagewalk button is now removed

with the wider availability of the new gallery log for file count and error reports, shifted around and smoothed out some gallery status text presentation

improved the auto url_class->parser linking 'try to fill in gaps' logic to work with gallery urls (this was surprisingly complicated)

fixed a misc stupid waste of time in auto url_class->parser linking

many misc updates to gallery pipeline

.

subscriptions:

wrote a new gallery pagewalk pipeline for subscriptions, which still does oldest-to-newest url addition and obeys file limits and so on

numerous subscription pipeline and error handling tweaks and improvements, particularly in regards to the new code

subscriptions now have max initial and periodic file limits of 1000. existing subs with >1000 or infinite will be cut to 1000. there is a help button on the edit sub panel to explain why you should do large syncs with the manual downloader and not subs

the ugly and dangerous-if-you-scroll-in-the-wrong-place gallery selector mismash control in the edit subscription panel is now replaced with the new gallery selector button

fixed an issue where the edit subs panels could sometimes say '48 years ago' (i.e. displaying a literal time delta since 0, 1970) on initial timestamps

juggled some 'periodic limit' reporting logic to skip an unusual false positive that affect hentai foundry subs for now and more in future

.

urls:

the url downloader now accepts gallery urls and will receive drag-and-dropped gallery urls. at the moment, it only parses the one page (i.e. it doesn't start a new 'searching' pagewalk) and sends the parsed links to its file queue

.

watcher:

finished 'watcher panel', which reviews a watcher, and added it to the multi-watcher page to show the current highlighted watcher

the single watcher page is completely removed--it is only the multiple watcher now. all singles will be converted to multiples on update

some single-watcher options (like watchers naming their own page tabs and the [404]-style page name prefixes) are removed

multiple watcher panel now lists file/checking pause status and has separate buttons to control these paused statuses

fixed some misc watcher highlight code--highlighted watchers should correctly publish to the page from the start of session load now

improved some 'repage' logic in how highlighted threads get removed

.

misc:

discovered a scroll-setup parameter that stops janky scroll-to-click-focus behaviour on all the new scrolling panels, thank the LORD

improved some 'can't parse' error handling for post url parsing

reworked how all importers present their network jobs to the ui, including fast response if the switch happens during a job

in prep for searcher switchover where all downloader sources will be harmonised into one system, booru identifiers now present in several ui locations as 'name', not 'booru: name'

updated the danbooru parser to deal with the new 'next page' markup they use

wrote a gelbooru gallery parser that works with 0.2.0 and 0.2.5 gelb sites--an ancillary issue where gelb-related downloaders could sometimes not accurately figure out the magic '42' next-page offset is hence now fixed

wrote an e621 gallery page parser

these sites hence now support single-page gallery drag-and-drop

added url classes for artstation gallery url and its api counterpart, but didn't go further yet--we aren't quite there with api pagewalking just yet

updated deviant art gallery url classes

added an e621 'search initialisation' gallery url class to improve some future drag-and-drop stuff

url normalisation no longer cuts off 'www.'-style prefixes

url comparison is more careful to test 'www.'-style prefixes, so a file import cache should recognise that 'http://www.blah.com/blah' is the same as 'https://blah.com/blah'

did a bunch of refactoring to further split up the bloated ClientImporting.py

fixed some misc downloader layout that may have been hiding some texts previously

some multi-watcher and multi-gallery events like add/pause query should be a bit snappier

in the parsing ui, url and title priorities are now 50 by default

prepped a little subscription unit test code for when searcher object is done

misc downloader layout improvements

misc listctrl refactoring

next week

A lot of stuff I overconfidently said "I will check this this week" about has been left in the dust of this unexpectedly large job. I want to spend a week focusing on this smaller stuff and catch up back to regular schedule.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Really important to remember the let people grow thing.

I'm 20 now. I've been on Tumblr since I was 16, I've been using this specific username on various sites since I was fucking ten years old. There's… there's definitely been some growth in the past decade (apart from anything else, I'm about a foot taller).

I regularly have the experience, particularly on Youtube (since that's the platform I've used the longest) of clicking on a video I haven't watched in years, reading a particularly stupid comment, thinking "what idiot wrote that?" and then reading the username and timestamp and realising "oh, right. Me, aged fourteen." And I do have moments of paranoia in which I imagine people coming for me about stuff I posted years ago and no longer believe. Because that is a plausible thing that I have seen happen to other people online.

And I do think that one of the reasons this is so common on Tumblr in particular— aside from the general culture— is that the format of the site means that posts don't tend to show up in chronological order, and timestamps often aren't visible.

Early last month, people were reblogging a post calling for a boycott of Youtube for a few days in December. The original post was from 2019— the boycott had already happened, and Youtube had apparently since responded and fixed the issue being protested— but there were tons of people in the notes posting in 2020 promising to take part. If you get a message about a post you wrote years ago, then maybe it's because somebody was scrolling through your blog looking for dirt, but equally likely it just showed up on somebody's dash today and they assumed it was recent.

This is to say, ideally don't post call out posts, but also if you feel obliged to do so then do your fucking research. Check the timestamps on the posts that you're using as 'evidence', and check the offending blog to see whether this person still has this opinion. If the post is years old, then please take the time to think about what you were like years ago, whether you still have all the opinions and beliefs you had then, and how you'd feel if somebody came up with you now and started having a conversation with a version of you that may no longer exist.

i need some of you to realize that call out culture, by design, rewards people who make the most outrageous & aggressive accusations, without regards to truth or context. it encourages people to misconstrue, to erase context, to outright lie. it feeds the instinct to attack, with or without cause. 

and that naturally enables certain types of people (terfs, exclusionists, bigots) who already have a vitriolic bandwagon behind them, to target & harass minority bloggers whose inclusive platforms they do not like to see becoming popular.

this has happened time and again, it has driven good people off this site, it is traumatic and unhealthy to everyone involved. purity culture creates an atmosphere of fear & paranoia, i am begging you to reexamine this attitude of mob violence in online spaces

[the-keionbu]

YEAH SO no to be melodramatic but i like, never really wanted to make this post

like, in the past when i kinda just... disappear from here for a few weeks, to months, i never give any warning and that kinda sucks cause you’re (probably not) left wondering “what happened to keionbu/kim???”

basically, I’m gonna go on like, temporary/semi hiatus

a few months ago i announced I had gotten a job with a pretyt dang well known company and it has been beyond my wildest dreams that i didnt even realize i had. and F IN ALLY, i’ll be starting right after this weekend after i make the trek to move to my job

now, this is only gonna last a few months, but i know my social media patterns on here: if i’m busy with life, tumblr is the first social media i kinda stop with.

and it pains me to say this, but especially this blog in particular

I enjoy hopping on here every once in a while to see my gaming or anime trash, or see some good ol memes, but my relationship with this blog has just been... not great lately

if it isnt already so blatantly obvious, I find posting Good Content for this blog not as much fun anymore.

I STILL LOVE K-ON, dont mistake that. This series always and will forever hold a special place in my heart, and I will still fight and stand by that I honestly think this is legitimately a masterpiece of an anime.

HOWEVER, the “standard” that i hold myself here, and a sort of nonexistent or maybe it is kinda exsistent pressure to serve up “quality content” and posts of analysis, headcanons, fics, or even general yelling has made this blog feel more like a chore than a hobby

which, kinda of sucks

And you might say “What pressure???” 

I mean, I basically just yell about fictional lesbians, and lately I post about how hot I think I am, but I suppose like Ritsu, I don’t like “letting people down” or failing. And not thaat numbers really like, matter, on this site, or at least they shouldn’t, but trust me, when that number gets pretty hefty into the couple thousands, the perspective of that to please these people that deem me worthy of a follow can be kinda daunting.

Yes, blogging should be fun, and yes, I love talking about these girls, but it sucks that I feel like my motivation for making posts this past year has been “make something good” rather than “make something you love.”

which, conceptually, sounds easy.

But when I boot up Google Docs and try to put one sentence down, or even get whole paragraphs, only to reread it and not be satisfied, the concept is much harder to practice.

AND TYING IT INTO WORK, I HAVE A POINT FOR TTHIS HIATUS

I know when I get home from work, I’m going to want to do stuff that is relaxing to me, that helps me recharge for the next day. And that could be a range of things: talking with friends, playing games, eating, running, destressing on tumblr, whatever.

The last thing I would want to do when I come home from work, is to do more ‘work.’

I say is jokingly, but I hate this site. 

Not because of the people, not because of staff, not because of how toxic this site is. Those are all factors that contribute bits and pieces into it, but what it comes down to it is that I at one point started associating this site, and this blog, to just producing content. 

My relationship with this site wasn’t to have some good laughs and reblog stuff and have fun indulging in my trash animes here with friends. It had turned into: what content do I need to produce today? It turned into my own version of ‘work.’ whether it be reblogging stuff for the girls, replying to messages, starting conversations, pulling trash headcanons out of my BUTT. my motivation was very forced, and it was not fun.

like, i even downloaded the xkit thing to change your dashboard backgroud bc the tumblr blue honestly felt suffocating like look????

(its disneyland bc im a nerd)

And my prideful self just... neveer wanted to make a post about how honestly burnt out I am in blogging.

I say numbers never matter but I crap you not, when you get that count up, it feels GOOD. And I know announcing a hiatus and basically saying I’m not sure what I’m doing on here anymore is a Big Risk of losing some of you guys

Not because of that number, but because im a dang people pleaser I feel like I failed that person?? YEAH I KNOW IRRATIONAL BUT WHATRE YOU GONNA DO

This is much longer and less structred than I hoped, but whatever. It needed to get off my chest and be said, whoever ineloquently it came out.

I WILL BE BACK. I want to come back.

I want to fall back in love with K-ON

I love K-ON, I will always love K-ON, but I have come to the harsh realization that I’m not IN LOVE with it anymore. My passion for it has deflated, and thats sad.

These girls mean so much to me, but I want to come back naturally, after falling back in love with each of them, and I can’t put a timestamp on it, but I know it will happen.

I may pop in here and there, but for now, See Ya’ll Later !

** also ps: i love talking to people on here, any above I say replying to messages is ‘work,’ but things that have geuninely helped me stay here is the people. Those that have encouraged me, that check up on me, that just want to be friends. And I whole heartedly appreciate and love each and every one of you, and lowkey sorry for letting yal down, BUT I WILL BE BACKKK (still, hit me up tho lol)

[supgina]

here’s Tumblr not doing their research AGAIN.

in september 2014, the LAPD were called on this woman because she was reportedly having sex with her boyfriend in a car, with the door open, in broad fucking daylight. whether or not actual intercourse took place still remains to be seen, though the photos obtained by TMZ look questionable at best.

in the audio recording from the police officer, you can hear the cop ask for her ID and she says, pretty much with zero prompting “do you know how many times the cops have been called on me for being black and he’s white?” yes, the officer was snarky as fuck but sit there and tell me she wasn’t acting like an entitled princess because she got fucking caught.

here’s an even longer version of the audio, plus a CNN interview she and the boyfriend gave.

scroll down to the bottom of this news article and watch that interview shortly after the detainment took place. tell me that’s someone traumatized by what they went through. because to me, that looks like someone reveling in the spotlight garnered by the incident.

Watts and her boyfriend ended up pleading “no contest” to a charge of disturbing the peace and were told to write an apology letter for wasting the LAPD’s time and smearing them in the press. 

Watts THEN had to do community service because her apology letter was deemed insincere.

this is just another example of something being blown way out of proportion because 1) any press is good press and 2) it’s easier to play the victim card rather than take responsibility for fuckups.

you know that quote you all are using as an example of why ‘herpderp every single cop is terrible” ? here’s the verbate from the audio (timestamp here to listen for yourselves)

Sergeant: We were going to have coffee [and got pulled to deal with this call].

Watts: Yeah, it would have been a nice afternoon but instead you’ve got to deal with me. 

Sergeant: It would have been five minutes.

Watts: Yeah, and I’m enjoying this because instead of fucking around in a coffee shop, you get to fuck around with me. Public service, you guys work for us, don’t you?

Sergeant: I don’t work for you.

Watts: Isn’t that what your oath is? To protect and serve? Serve the people?

Sergeant: I work for anyone who calls for police service. 

all of this research took me no more than 20 minutes to do. but i guess it’s far easier to make a connection to something over a perceived slight instead of looking into more than one source and drawing your own conclusions.

think for yourselves and draw your own conclusions or you will get trapped in a vortex of woke bullshit and further division.

okay, i’m done.

Daniele Watts, an African-American actress who has starred in Hollywood films such as Django Unchained, was “handcuffed and detained” by Los Angeles police officers after being mistaken for a prostitute for kissing her white husband in public.