#i really want to be able to work with others bc input is important to me

[wof-reworked]

whats ur opinion on dragons having different houses bc of class or tribe? i love dragon architecture </3

I'm such a fan of dragon architecture oh my god. One of my biggest worldbuilding gripes (besides the lack of clarity around food/cooking) is that the actual housing arrangements of the dragons are so vague????? Like towns are a thing but also Tui seems to imply most dragons sleep in caves even though it makes no sense for any of the other tribes???? like ma'am most of your dragons live in swamps, jungles, or deserts where the hell are they even finding them

Basically, we have functionally no point of reference for anyone who isn't royalty (Winter, Turtle) or grew up in such specific circumstances that don't reflect back onto broader dragon society to the point where their input is rather moot (Moon, the DoD, Peril, Qibli). Qibli is the closest thing we have but the Scorpion Den is a combination of a shanty town and refugee camp that makes it harder to draw conclusions for the rest of the population. (We're also not counting Darkstalker bc. well. 2000 years)

For my writing, my stance is usually that dragons are primarily nomadic. Dragons who live in/around towns stay there primarily for reasons like child-raising, business, injury, apprenticeships, or just laying low/blending into a crowd. Like with how dragons don't need to cook their food to eat it, dragons are not dependent on housing and are able to comfortably sleep and live outside (barring extremes such as the central desert or really the entire Ice Kingdom). So, the exact permanence of a dragon's stay in town is situational and tribe/job-dependent more than anything else.

As far as the tribes go, Icewings and Nightwings are the most home/town oriented tribes- both tribes have the rarest approach to housing in that almost all members of both tribes live and sleep primarily in one home location that they return to for the majority of their life. For Icewings, this usually looks like multi-generational families that split off into new homes/houses only once there's a real need for it. On the other hand, Nightwings living on the volcano lived primarily together in caves/dormitories divided by age- even though this no longer exists, most Nightwing towns and houses involve many shared buildings and resemble something more like tight clumps of houses or caves.

For the majority of the tribes (Skywings, Sandwings, Mudwings, Rainwings), most dragons will have multiple houses that they move between as needed or wanted. While outliers exist, most dragons have at minimum two homes/dens: one in a more populated area that might operate as a job homebase or a place to receive guests, and a more isolated, private home that exists for the dragon in question to stash any items of importance or valuables, as well as eat and sleep. For more nomadic dragons, banks exist in towns to hold treasure, freeing up their secondary/non-work den to be little more than a shack or burrow with sleeping arrangements. More houses usually equals more money/class power, up to a certain point, where you start to see buildings more akin to Vulture's mansion or even the Royal Palaces, where one building or collection of buildings is large/grandiose enough to host other people's jobs and living spaces (on a related note, gardening is a very stereotypical high class hobby to have, as it shows both an abundance of leisure time and of space).

Between these tribes, Skywings are the most town and home oriented- Skywings often live primarily in towns and only leave for what is essentially a nesting den, as without rudimentary flight skills, Skywing towns are borderline unnavigable and occasionally hazardous for dragonets. Even with their relative isolation, nesting dens in the past have often been located near other nesting dens, creating something of a nesting village for Skywings parents to socialize and raise their hatchlings. Queen Scarlet's reign did irreparable damage to this style of collective child-rearing and nesting dens as a whole. With her breeding programs, most Skywings were forced into partnerships for the sole reason of producing more future Skywing soldiers, and the majority of eggs were instead stored in mass hatcheries until their hatching day.

On the other hand, Mudwings are the most isolated and nomadic, in part due to the structure of sib groups creating a situation where most Mudwings hatch into life with a social network already established. The Mud Kingdom is also temperate enough that housing isn't always necessary, and most Mudwings only congregate in towns for business or seeking a mate.

Finally, Seawings are almost entirely nomadic, and will usually move between a territory, with small dens and hoards scattered within. These territories can hold many multiple families, or they can exist for a single dragon- Seawing property laws are almost nonexistent and mostly maintained by honor and frequent patrolling of the territory to maintain order and mark it as lived space. These territories aren't uninhabited land either- Seawings will grow seaweed and herd schools of fish on their territory, and many take a certain landscaper-esque role, shaping the terrain into something aesthetically pleasing or useful to the inhabitant and helping signal to other Seawings that the land is occupied. One of the few times Seawings will settle in one den or space is for a hatching den- this lasts from the laying of the eggs until the hatchlings become able to swim well enough to keep up with their parents.

I've been pretty burnt out on WOF writing for a while, but this was honestly a refreshing change of pace from what I've been working on recently. Thanks for giving me an excuse to ramble about dragon housing !! I'd love to hear what other ppl think, the more headcanons the merrier :>

[yayforocs]

I!!! ok ok these were who i was actually originally going to make helsmets for but then i remembered aron was originally a minecraft oc and she Immediately Took The Spotlight bUT I!!!! made some helsmets of the minecraft crew (even tho their helsmets would certainly not be a crew) to fill @silverskye13's sandbox with!!!!! i will ramble!! under cut!!

SO FIREMITE

He was like the first one (maybe second??) that i came up with an idea for, and it was actually the redesigns that did it! i mentioned that he kept his more sculk-y eye and half of his face hidden bc it could freak ppl out and then also i realized that i'd kinda visualized him as a happy ray of sunshine all the time and it perfectly opened the door to! suppression. like if he's perfect beam of sunshine all the time then he's gotta be suppressing/hiding A Lot Of StuffTM, both physically (hiding as much of his warden influence as possible) and emotionally (only showing others his happiness), so i made his helsmet based off that! :V it's also kinda what firemite is afraid to be seen as i think, bc if he saw his helsmet all he would see is what about himself would scare ppl.

Tyratone was my second!! I'm pretty sure! she might've been first. but Tyr looks around at her friend group and sees that everyone else contributes- fire brings up resources from underground, aqua makes connections to other folks to keep them on good terms, and razor keeps the group protected from physical threats. She just.. has her little indoor farm. Collects crops every so often. Mostly keeps her cats alive. Messes around with firemite n tags along with razor to scout out sometmes. Like what does she even do. (She provides for the group but thinks it a task that any of them could do and that she's not really needed, even tho they do all rely on her to keep them going. Any of them *could* step into that role alongside what they do, it's simple enough, but they all appreciate having her around bc she's fun and enjoys simple things, and keeps the group together.) She thinks it only a matter of time before she's kicked out bc she's not really doing much, and so her helsmet is based around proving her worth through what she can do for other people!

Aqua took me a bit to fully realize; i had a vague idea for a while but it was toeing the line of similarity to tyr's and i didn't want repeats, so i sat and thought for a bit. in his original bio, i'd put that he kinda missed only having two ppl in the group, and that he thinks he's the leader but isn't. ok, so throwing these two things together, i can kinda figure that maybe he missed only having two people bc it meant that his opinions carried more weight, because it was only ever up against one other, instead of three others. he gets ideas of what he thinks is best and what he thinks they should do at any given time and the others tend to go with razor's ideas more than his, and it gets to him. he feels like they don't really listen to him at all, which they do and give consideration to his input, but he gets jealous and upset that razor's ideas are gone with more. so his hels is someone that constantly strives to be heard and to be listened to and to be viewed as important! i'm not actually sure if how i ended up implementing that works or not, but that's what i was able to come up with :V (the cane is just to look neat, and also it's netherite so heavy bonking stick as well should he need it sdklfj)

and then razor! razor. good night he gave me trouble. i wanted to draw him so badly and could not for the life of me figure out what his hels would be of. like i knew he'd be a fighter, but like. why would he exist in the first place?? i kinda thought about how i'd designed him and what personality traits i'd given him- he wears a lot of layers, most of his face is covered, long sleeves, it's a kinda closed-off wardrobe. and he's phlegmatic, so he goes with the flow a lot. maybe his thing is that he's doing what he can to keep the group safe, sure, but he also wants to try to stay a little closed-off, so that if he fails one day to keep them safe, it won't hurt as much and would be easier to move on. tossing around the idea that maybe that had happened with folks he was previously with- before he and fire met aqua and tyr, and maybe even before he met fire. not sure yet, (still not entirely certain on his hels concept at all tbh) but that's the fun of being in the middle of developing characters and their stories!! trying stuff out and seeing if it sticks!!

ANYWAY if u read all of that bLESS YOU ilysm these were really fun to figure out and make!!! also cannot believe i hecking. i did all these today, this afternoon/evening dslkfjsdkl i'm going to bed Extremely LateTM but it is worth it!!! i did it!!!! i'm so happy i love them sm qvq ty silver for writing such a cool hecking story that provides so so much inspiration and such a fun world to play around in, this was a fantastic exercise in character development for these four, who just existed as bullet points prior :V

[mysteriousdoll]

I admit I have been stalking your page for a put 30 minutes AND OMG YOUR WORK IS SO COOL I LOVE IT SO MUCH AND I LOVE ALL YOUR ART AND HEADCANONS OMG-

Anyway, I was reading the HCs you and somebody else came up with and I have one but I'm not 100% sure on it. Like my mind is debating it intensely.

In ishimondo which one can cook?

THIS IS A KIND OF LONG ONE SORRY-

My thought:

. Due to official art they can both cook?

. Or one is teaching the other to cook?

. Mondo seems like the guy who can't cook (just based on appearance tbh) but with his backstory he's had to fend for himself, so can he cook???

. And with Ishimaru, he seems like the person who knows how to cook, and maybe his father is out so often that he's self taught?

. But on the other hand he's spent all his time studying he hasnt taught himself those kind of skills.. sure he can make two minute noodles, or cook an egg or make some toast. But nothing fancy?

. Or maybe breakfast is the most important meal of the day to him?!?!?! Maybe it's in his routine to cook every morning?!?! Maybe he makes food for his father when he comes home from late shifts, or has bacon and egg on Sundays???

. Or he's terrible in the kitchen, and mondo taught him.

Can they both cook? Have you ever thought about this?! Sorry for the long ramble of options but I've thought about this for a week and have no idea.😭

Uhm yeah I'm going to put this on anon in case it's silly or something, but you probably know who I am based on the notes and notifications and stuff👍

Also idk if shadow banning works on tumblr like it does tiktok but if you want me to stop spam liking your posts I will, I just love your content 😭

One: screaming rn I feel so happy I’ve never had my posts stalked /pos (except for my Ben 10 acct which is bad bc I’m making an ishimondo Ben 10 au)

Two: No need to stop!! Idm!! Tbh the thing that makes me happiest is seeing people go wild in the tags, so I’m v honored.

Three: I agree! I think Mondo isn’t the beeest cook, but if it comes to Italian meals (thanks to my own hc’s and my Oowada mom oc), he’s not that bad! Although he has a bad habit of letting things overcook… he’s the type to burn popcorn and insist it’s better that way.

As for Taka, I think he’s actually quite the skilled cook—but only with more basic options. Taka’s very rigid, so if he is able to cook something more extravagant, he’ll follow it by the book, and maybe even as Teruteru for his input. (Ignoring comments Teruteru makes and Gundham glaring Teruteru down)

The only issue with Taka cooking is… he forgets to eat a lot. (And thanks to his grandad, he sometimes chooses not to eat because he dare take one extra minute of free time) That, and his food is either bland, or so spicy no one but him can eat it. A hot while back I saw @mickules mention in a post that Taka would be a spice fiend, and I. Live for that.

Also also—regarding system Taka bc I’m always gonna mention system Taka /j, Akira (aka Ishida) is actually an extremely talented baker! They aren’t super big on sweet food ironically, but they can make really good baked goods even with limited ingredients… though they prefer crunchier foods)

Additionally; Mondo can’t fucking make ramen. He just takes someone else’s. Taka can also make insanely good onigiri. Proof for Taka bc I can’t find the anthology comic with Mondo:

[iraprince]

If you're sorta making this into a vtuber account i might as well ask you, with those pngtuber models, do you have a guide on how to get started with them? Also, do characters need to have humanlike face proportions to be able to like, work correctly? What if you wanted to make a bird, where the mouth is like really long and beak shaped? Would that be a problem for the honk stuff?

God this looks incomprehensible, sorry

not incomprehensible at all! whenever i get a chance i would definitely love to put together tutorials, both quick step-by-step guides and longer videos (bc idk about you but for me, the ideal is when BOTH types of tutorial exist lmao!!!)

in the meantime, there are tons of tutorials that already exist on youtube for pngtubing, and a few for setting up in honk specifically, but i'm not sure how many exist for best ways to actually draw the model and organize parts (layer organization etc) and stuff like that bc i didn't look for those when i was getting started. when i get around to it any guides i make will probably be more about that than the tech stuff, bc other people already have the tech covered!

honk has documentation/guides of its own, and the community page on itch.io can be really good for troubleshooting specific issues. honk is my primary recommendation if you want to get into pngtubing -- the program is paid ($12 USD) and model setup is a bit more laborious, but only in the beginning, and i think the liveliness of the lip sync and the eye tracking is well worth it! a downside is that honk doesn't currently have gif support, which a lot of other pngtubing programs do have, but there are plans to add it in the future.

this is the method i've used for setting up a discord reactive pngtuber (the second method on the page, "stream kit reactive images" - i know it may seem like a lot of steps, but if you take your time and follow the instructions closely it's not so bad! i am NOT tech savvy and still figured it out, so anyone can.) you only need discord and OBS to run this setup, and you can fiddle with it to do collabs (multiple people's pngtubers all on screen at the same time, lighting up and talking while you're in a discord call! fun for multiplayer games), but of course it can also be your main setup with just you alone in a private voice channel as your mic input.

and a good middle ground between honk and the discord reactive setup would be a program like veadotube mini! it does the same thing as the discord reactive setup (display a talk sprite when you're talking and a silent one when you're not), but in a self-contained program on your computer just like honk. i haven't used veadotube myself, but i see other pngtubers mention it as their program of choice.

i do have one video up of myself rigging my model in honk -- i wouldn't call it a guide or a tutorial though, because it's very informal and we also ran into a pretty annoying bug that made the process go less smoothly than i would have hoped :') (also the first few mins of video are muted bc my music got dmca flagged lmfao but the important stuff is all there!) but anyway if you just want a quick look at how a model looks getting put together in the program you might find that interesting.

you could ABSOLUTELY do something like the bird u described in honk, it's really really flexible. the way honk works is u just have to have different images drawn for different lip synch mouth shapes (try googling "animation lip sync mouth shapes" and check out the image results for an idea of what i mean), assign them to different consonant/vowel sounds in the program, and it automatically matches it up for you with voice recognition. so imo the challenge in that case would be an art challenge (figure out how you want to draw lip sync shapes with a beak), not a technical/program-specific challenge. but if you didn't feel like fucking with all that, you could just repeatedly use the same open beak image for all the sounds, and it would just make the beak open and close when you talk!

i haven't tried making a honk model where the mouth breaks the silhouette, which might be the case with a bird character like that depending on how you have the head angled, but theoretically i don't see why it would be an issue. a regular pngtuber would be really straightforward as well!

[minimoefoe]

on series 14: I kinda lumped it together with the 60th special because I have only been hearing news and am unable to properly place them with one or the other. Here are the things I am mainly concerned about:

RTD bringing back everyone from last time and (apparently?) actively keeping new talent at bay. Moffat and Murray Gold are the biggest names and yes I loved their work and yes I understand they're buddies. But the thing I liked about Chibnall's era was the attempt to let more diverse voices speak as writers and directors. Both rtd1 and Moffat era have flaws (chibnall's too obv, but I don't think he will be involved from now on?) and we should have learnt from them. The biggest takeaway should have been that we need more input from different writers/directors/people in charge of decisions. And so far it seems like series 14/the 60th is actively preventing that. Also, Murray Gold's music is amazing but we've had 10 series of that. We could give someone else a chance! (This rejection of change is my main point of concern tbh but it's a big one)

Conected to that I am concerned about racism. Especially rtd1 is - not great with that. And we'll be having our first full-time black Doctor. Luckily, it sounds like Ncuti was able to add to the role and decide some things. But if everybody writing for him is white? (not saying that they are but I've yet to hear the opposite) I am afraid how that will go down. There's already been that unfortunate (to put it lightly) bit about the announcement in a twitter post and the wrong regeneration plus numbering issue, making Ncuti be overshadowed by both David and Millie. That's not a good start. So, I sincerely hope they will do better from now on but as I said, reason for concern.

Again, connected to that. Rose. Oh God. I hope the name is just a coincidence that will go without further comment. Do not have a second woman of colour be forced into the shadow of Rose Tyler. Please.

Ruby. I actually thought Rose would be travelling with the Doctor, so in the beginning I was just confused. And since then I've been kinda bored? I mean, Millie's sweet. But I was hoping for an alien companion. Or a proper old companion. Or a literal child. Or a single male companion. Or a black companion. Literally anything but yet another young, white woman. We've had that so many times now? But like, honestly, this is a weaker concern. I'm still hoping she might be an alien after all and even if she isn't, it'll be fine. I've loved every single companion until now, I'll love her, too.

The clothes. There's the obvious thing with the regenerating suit but also the other outfits have left me kinda baffled? Since when does the Doctor know how to dress? But I mean, maybe it's an incarnation thing or maybe Ruby is just a really good influence. I'll take it, at least it looks beautiful.

Several of the things happening ( the regenerating suit, the old writers+Gold, the way press has been handling it (!) ) , also feels to me like they're trying very hard to forget about Chibnall Who. To make it seem like it never happened. Maybe that's paranoia but I think there were some really beautiful takeaways from 13 and her run (first and foremost how explicity nonbinary the Doctor is) that I am afraid might get erased/hidden now. I mean, canon is flexible in dw anyway and that's a good thing. But 13 is important to me and I want her to be honoured and remembered suitably.

Now, as I said, these are merely concerns. Not unfounded, I guess, but I am ready for the show to prove me wrong. I hope series 14 will be everything we hope for and that I'll be able to laugh about my ridiculous fears from above once it takes off. But, well, for now I remain only very cautiously optimistic.

Okay yeah, in terms of ppl working on the show, I agree that there's vibes of them making RTD2 have RTD1 vibes. I think the main RTD1 team being back makes some amount of sense bc I guess RTD just likes to work with the same group of ppl and they presumably all work at Bad Wolf together, and Moffat potentially doing an ep or two won't bother me as long as the line up of writers isn't just made up of returning writers (which I'd like to think it won't be). Murray Gold being back is probably the thing I'm most not happy about bc I think it's idk, cowardly? lazy? boring? to decide to bring him back instead of seeking out new talent. I saw some ppl be like 'well we need someone who we know can do good DW music' and I'm like... why are you acting like composers are rare as hell like I'm sure there's plenty out there that would've loved to work on Doctor Who but now they don't have the chance bc RTD brought back the same guy whose already done 10 seasons. I don't think it's the end of the world bc yeah I like Gold's stuff too but there will always be part of me, regardless of how good his new stuff is, that will be a bit bitter than RTD didn't get someone new in for S14 onwards. I think it makes sense for Gold to do the 60th, that's kinda fun, but past that it's like... why.

I defo agree about the racism concern. RTD1 isn't great with it at all. I always think about that bit in The Shakespeare Code where Ten tells Martha to walk around like she owns the place and the fact it's in an era ran by the person who is now in charge of our first main black Doctor. The general treatment of both Martha and Mickey is awful at times as well. I think I'm just kinda assuming/hoping that he's grown/learnt over the last however many years and will take more care with things. Bc I am interested to see how being black effects how the Doctor is able to get by in some situations and if we get some Shakespeare Code bs every time he's in that kind of situation I'll lose my mind a little bit. and yeah if RTD doesn't bring in at least a couple of black writers that will be genuinely weird as hell imo. Like even if the Doctor wasn't black, I think it's important for the show to keep trying to bring in diverse writers, new talent, etc, but especially now that the Doctor is black, a big ass team of white writers would be odd.

Honestly I think no matter why Rose Temple-Noble is called Rose - if it's a coincidence put in there purely for 14 to have a shock reaction or if it has some explanation within the story - I think RTD casting a black trans woman and naming her character Rose is ridiculous and I'll never be fully on board with it. There's literally been articles calling her Rose Tyler and imo it's very possible it has just increased the amount of hate Yasmin Finney has had thrown her way bc ppl don't like the idea of someone else (probably especially a black and/or trans woman) being called Rose or replacing Rose Tyler (even though that isn't what she's doing). I honestly find that interesting bc one of RTD's reasons for not wanting to have DT wear 13's outfit was bc he didn't want tabloids to run with it and stir up more transphobia but he has no issue casting the first trans actor in the show and giving her the name of one of the most beloved characters the show has ever seen??

Yeah I don't really feel much of anything towards Ruby rn. I'll probs like her once we see her in episodes bc I tend to like all companions but rn I'm just in awe at how unoriginal RTD has been in his character creation of a white blonde teenage girl who has a four letter name that means red and is, as far as I know, from London. Feels like 2005 all over again. the main thing that I've heard that I think sounds fun is how they've described 15 and Ruby's relationship as sibling-like.

14 not wearing 13's clothes is something I will be salty about forever and based on RTD's DWM explanation I think some of his reasoning for it was really not great despite what he says about it being out of concern for giving tabloids a reason to be more transphobic than they already are. I'm not about to analyse what he said rn bc this is getting long enough but the vibes are off imo. 15 is definitely way too fashion conscious like yeah the outfits for the most part look great but they don't scream Doctor to me at all. I also don't love that he so far doesn't seem to have a signature outfit, he's always in something different.

Tbh I think chances are the big step away from 13's eras that seems to be happening is probably bc RTD wants his new era to feel like a good stepping in point for the show (which is a thing I can't stand) but it doesn't worry me too much bc the show has obviously done that kinda thing before.

There's a couple things I will always be not too happy about but yeah most stuff atm is very dependant on how things go over the next year-ish. I'm really hoping all of these concerns just get washed away and RTD2 is amazing, and tbh I'm hopeful that it will be amazing and most of this stuff will end up not being an issue, but I don't think that means we're not allowed to have these thoughts rn yknow? Like I'm more than capable of changing mind as more info comes out and I'll gladly do that for these things.

[i-have-bees-in-my-brain]

Personal rant or some shit bc i just wanna get this out rn. yeeeee this will be long

So today i had a vit of a stressful day with uni n all bc ive been sick and admittedly lazy over the last week up til like tuesday and i had to turn in an Interpretation/essay tonight and prepare a group presentation for tmr (saturday seminars should b illegal but ok i literally chose this). N e way so ive been procrastinating like hell up until this morning so i didnt rly eat before showing up to seminar at 12am and afterwards i had to check with my one remaining presentation groupmember and finish the interpretation and tgen i had swordfighting class at 5. I didnt Really gave time for it but its fun and im very behind bc i misses several lessons already and am generally. Not good at it lol. n e way i turn up to swords and we peactice some routines ig and heres where the peoblem rly starts. Basically i am a huge crybaby, always have been (im older than firestar btw for context), esp when i feel criticized or yknow. Make mistakes or anything and since i was a sports h8er with 2 left feet n hands all my life n cried often during school pe bc i kept messing up n git embarrassed, it was an important step for me to sign up for this uni extracurricular swords class bc. Doing sth sporty in front of others tgat. Isnt very easy and i gotta learn from scratch is a bit out of my comfort zone. But normally its all v fun, im not good/easily the worst in class but thats ok i learn and move my body and talk to ppl! Proud of myself! Well today not so kuch, i noticed i was getting tense bc of not understanding how to do a movement and everyone (3 experienced fighters bc the main teacher was sick plus 2 other beginners that r learning faster than me) lookimg at me and trying to give helpful pointers and me still doing it wrong... H8 dis feeling bc i kinda freeze up instead of being able to take the tips n try again. Its hard for me to translate input like verbal instructions and demonstsations into my own movements as is. In this state i cant do anything properly and i feel the cryings abt to start while wanting nothing more than to MOVE ON NORMALLY. Well my eye started to get itxhy n teary so i excused myself to "take care of my contacts" (lie) (why am i even so ashamed that i feel i have to lie/make up excuses?? Bro???? That just made the situation Actually cringe?????? Im normally not an ashamed person and cryings just a state/expression but idk) so it was better for a bit until it wasnt. Then i full on cried in class while 2 ppl were actively showing me things/helping me do em right n everyone else kimda watched, kimda practiced. They did ask if i was ok and i said yes like a liar. So at the end of class i normally take the bus home with one of the other new guys but i today just didnt feel able to keep talking to him. So he also asked if i was ok/why i cried and i said i just do that under stress and why i am stressed (uni) so that was also a bit of a lie but only kinda. I said i was gonna go to the livrary instead (another lie, was gonna call my bf to calm me down abit n then take the next bus) so i did tgat n it kinda worked and this genius asked if i had eaten. Bruhhh of fuckin course im sensitive ive only had 3 baked goods all day and hadnt even noticed!!!!!! So then it all made sense, mans gotta get some freakin noursishment to keep their composure in swords class! So i went to another bus stop than normally bc i needed sth from the store and bruh the guy i normally take a DIFFERENT bus with is there (awkwardly votta tell hik i changed my mimd abt the library) and we talk a bit (i feel like i talk to him wayy too much in comparison to him, like we dont know each other that well at all, idek his real name and yknow. If he actually enjoys talking to me) and yea

So now everyone in the 14th century peasant larp class knows my terrible terrible secret:))):)

[princehoneytea]

I know u don't really draw the bug ocs anymore but I felt like I should say ur design for centipede left a permanent imprint on my brain and is a big inspo for my own personal aesthetic lol I lovelove ur art in general as well tho, plz keep making things they're all wonderful

that means a lot to me, thank you!! T_T<3

hivemind isn't dead, don't worry! it's going to be rebooted, though I can't estimate when rn. i've been slowly redesigning the characters for simplicity and general appeal (tho centipede looks almost exactly the same lol), and i've been working with a friend to solidify the setting, as well as the pacing and story... there are a few hundred pages thumbnailed LOL but they're all under revision at the moment.

i'm hoping i can team up with a webcomic service rather than totally self-publish, but again nothing is set in stone. i really want to make sure i do it right...!

[singtotheskiies]

“how are you so perfect?!” // karl jacobs fluff alphabet

a/n: the mcyt brainrot continues so i am coping with the fluffiest karl hcs my brain can summon,,,,,,, i am affection-starved send help please

summary: a look into the abcs of dating the one and only sweetheart karl jacobs!!! (fluff alphabet template by @snk-warriors)

activities - what do they like to do with their s/o? how do they spend their free time with them?

karl loves doing literally anything and everything with you; he just loves your presence and company so much!! whether it’s late-night target runs, playing minecraft together, or just collapsing into your arms after a long, late-night stream, being with you instantly lifts his mood.

beauty - what do they admire about their s/o? what do they think is beautiful about them?

while karl appreciates and adores everything about you, i can definitely see him being a sucker for your eyes. he loves how they sparkle in certain lights, how big and happy they are when you’re looking at him, how they crinkle when you laugh, and how your pretty eyelashes flutter against your cheeks when the two of you cuddle. he often finds himself getting all blushy when you guys maintain prolonged eye contact:)))) i think he’d also love your hands and shoulders too!!

comfort - how would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

karl is no stranger to anxiety and is incredibly empathetic. the combination of these two things makes him the BEST person to have around when you’re not feeling good. if you’re sad, he’ll instinctively know just what to do to put a smile on your face again. he’ll crack stupid jokes or put on music and dance with you—anything to make you happy. if you’re anxious, he’ll talk softly to you and, if you’re feeling up to it, will hold you so you can safely come down from your panicking. he’ll definitely cradle the back of your head with his hand as he holds you close, just breathing with you.

dreams - how do they picture their future with their s/o?

karl is definitely the type to fall hard relatively quickly in a relationship. thinking about the future is sometimes scary for him, but with you in the picture, he finds it less threatening—beautiful, even. he doesn’t know exactly how he wants everything to turn out, but he does know that he wants you by his side through all of it.

equal - are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

equality in a relationship is INCREDIBLY important to karl. he respects you so much and wants to make sure that your opinions and ideas are heard. the two of you 100% thrive on mutual communication and input.

fight - would they forgive their s/o easily? how do they fight?

i don’t see karl as the type to get upset easily; he’s pretty chill and is very forgiving since he hates conflict. i can see the odd argument popping up if he’s tired or stressed and accidentally snaps at you, but he’d be clinging to you five minutes later and begging for forgiveness (which, of course, you can’t resist giving him—he has an unfair amount of cute privilege).

gratitude - how grateful are they in general? are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

karl is sweetie #1 and never fails to appreciate the people in his life (or let them know). you could get him a monster from the fridge and he’ll literally pepper your face with kisses while chanting “thank you thank you thank you” like you just saved his life or something. he’s such a cutie and never fails to show you just how much he appreciates everything you do:)))

honesty - do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? or do they share everything?

as i said before, karl thrives on communication. however, he’s often hesitant to tell you when he’s feeling down or upset. even though he knows you probably wouldn’t mind, he doesn’t want to drag you down or burden you with his problems. his tell for feeling down is getting really quiet, so if you notice this, a few gentle questions will get him to open up to you. he’s working on being more open because you always help him feel so much better!!

inspiration - did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? ex: trying out new things or helping them overcome personal problems?

without a doubt, you have both changed each other for the better!! he’s helped you appreciate the little things and the quiet companionship that so many people take for granted. he’s also been a huge constant and has helped you through tough times. you’ve been a huge calming-yet-brilliant force for him and have taught him that good things always come in time. y’all are really an unstoppable pair and mean so much to the other!!

jealousy - do they get jealous easily? how do they deal with it?

karl doesn’t get jealous as much as he gets insecure. if he’s feeling uncomfortable, he’ll just get super quiet. after all, who is he to stop you from having fun?? maybe you’re better off with this person in the moment,,,, anyway, you’ll have to make it up to him with a cuddle session and reassuring him about how much you love him between soft head kisses:)))

kiss - are they a good kisser? what was the first kiss like?

karl’s kisses are LOVELY—soft and sweet with his hands gently cupping your cheek or jaw or even holding your own. he just loves being able to feel you and be close to you. the first kiss probably happened during a cuddle session—he would just be so caught up in your presence and softness and scent that his face would move closer to yours without him even trying. you’d make soft, shy eye contact for a brief moment before his mouth met yours. help he’s so cute ajcividiahhdjfd

love confession - how would they confess to their s/o?

god, he’s SUCH a cheeseball—he’d either do it on your birthday, delivered with a shy smile and giant bouquet, or just blurt it out of nowhere at 2am while the two of you are tired and slap-happy out of your minds. either way, he says it with such hushed reverence that your heart forgets how to work for a few minutes. so many kisses after;))))

marriage - do they want to get married? how would they propose? what would the marriage be like?

like i said earlier, karl can get a bit overwhelmed when thinking about the future. however, he does know that he wants the utter joy you bring him every day to keep going. he likes the idea of a small, pretty wedding with the people you’re closest with, but he’s also fine with just enjoying what you have. as long as he gets to be with you he’s happy:)))

nicknames - what do they call their s/o?

i get the vibe that he’d call you by your first initial or “baby” when he wants to be more casual (but he somehow imbues “baby” with so much meaning,,,,, hhhh). uses “sweetie” sometimes and also “honey” after you’ve been in a relationship for a while. basically just uses the absolute CUTEST names,,, they come naturally to him bc he loves you so much:’))

on cloud nine - what are they like when they are in love? is it obvious to others? how do they express their feelings?

it is PAINFULLY obvious that karl’s in love with you. he’s always gushing about you to his mr. beast and minecraft friends, so full of fond stories that everyone groans at so much of a mention of your name (everyone secretly thinks it’s adorable tho). the two of you have had so many people compliment you on how cute of a couple you are—your joking, fond chemistry is palpable.

pda - are they upfront about their relationship? do they brag about their s/o in front of others? or are they rather shy to kiss, etc. when others are watching?

while it’s common knowledge karl’s love language is physical touch, he’s always considerate of your boundaries while the two of you are around others. he’ll likely keep pda to hand holding and an arm slung comfortably over your shoulder. it’s just enough to let you feel each other without being too clingy.

quirk - a random ability they have that’s beneficial in a relationship.

karl is super unselfish—meaning his closet, nail polish—and yes, even his prized monster energy drinks—are also yours. he truly believes that sharing is caring, and it makes him incredibly happy when you’re wearing one of his iconic sweaters or giving him a grateful smile as he hands you half of his taco bell order.

romance - how romantic are they? what would they do to make their s/o happy? cliché or rather creative?

karl is a complete angel and always puts others first, meaning he’s an absolute GOD when it comes to romance. he’s always laughing and joking with you, and he never runs out of fun things for the two of you to do. at the beginning of your relationship, he’ll stick to the tried-and-true formulas of giant teddy bears, chocolate, and shared sweaters. as he gets to know you better, though, he’ll take pride in giving you super personal gifts and crafting special date nights he knows you’ll love. he’s the absolute sweetest:’’))

support - do they help their s/o achieve their goals? do they believe in them?

karl is your biggest fan first and your boyfriend second. he never fails to cheer you on every step of the way and remind you just how incredible you are when you’re struggling. he truly believes you can do anything—he is an angel. an ANGEL.

thrill - do they need to try out new things to spice out their relationship? or do they prefer a certain routine?

the two of you have a happy, comfortable rhythm in your relationship. however, you guys definitely try things together. watching a new cartoon, trying a quirky restaurant, or doing weird challenges with each other on stream never feels too much like stepping out of your comfort zone since the two of you are so in sync. even if something backfires, you’ve got the safety net of the other person to catch you.

understanding - how well do they know their partner? are they empathetic?

karl has incredible amounts of emotional and interpersonal intelligence. he believes in the innate dignity and beauty of all people, and LOVES getting to know every single bit of who you are. he’s completely committed to you, and is the perfect person to help you with whatever you’re going through.

value - how important is the relationship to them? what is its worth in comparison to other things in their life?

he considers your relationship to be the best part of his life. you’ve been with him through so much, and looking back, it’s incredibly clear just how much your presence in his life has changed him for the better. he loves you so much!!!!!

wild card - a random fluff headcanon.

karl often rants happily on and on about his newest cartoon or gaming obsession while the two of you are cuddling. he’s just so cute, and more often than not you’ll end up kissing all over his freckled cheeks and soft hair. he melts into you like a cat and the two of you just breathe the other in with pure contentment:))))) send help y’all are so cute:))))

xoxo - are they very affectionate? do they love to kiss and cuddle?

this goes without saying, but karl is a cuddlebug supreme. if you’re not super into cuddling, he’ll understand but try and ease you into it so that he can love you the way he really wants to!! copious amounts of cuddles, kisses, and affection are central to his ideal relationship.

yearning - how do they cope when they’re missing their partner?

poor karl gets so lonely without you!! you’ll facetime him when you’re gone for even a night, and he’ll pick up wearing one of your sweatshirts. “miss me that much??” you tease, and he can only nod and pout. expect millions of wish you were heres and miss you babys and can’t wait to hug u agains spam texted to you. lots of snapchats of him giving puppy dog eyes to the camera and cuddling stuffed animals will also be sent. he can’t help it—he just adores you and is constantly pouting until you’re back.

zeal - are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? if so, what will they do?

you’re karl’s everything, and he’ll do anything to make sure that your relationship is happy, healthy, and beneficial for both of you. thankfully, though, he’s such a sweetheart that making sure things are running smoothly isn’t much of a task at all!!

[crispy-ghee]

Hello! Firstly I just wanna say I love your work, both your own personal drawings and stories, as well as the collaboration pieces with Isei. I was just wondering what your process was for your building of your Yautja clans?? I wanted to try my hand at making my own, so I was wondering what pointers you may have.

Hi! Thanks so much for the kind words, it actually makes me really happy that anyone is enjoying the stuff I enjoy making. Worldbuilding can be a lot of fun, and awesome that you're gonna try your hand at it!

I have a lot of thoughts on worldbuilding, and to be honest my approach varies here and there depending on what I'm making or writing, but I'll see if I can't gather my general thoughts into something more succinct instead of going off on a long ramble haha

STARTING INFO

When you're worldbuilding for a pre-existing IP, it's good to keep in mind the stuff you already know about the race/species. This seems really obvious, and imo you can mess around in and out of canon if you want bc it's your clan and you should have fun first and foremost, but it's something to consider.

(But also keep in mind that this isn't something you necessarily have to think about right away, it can come later in your process, but I'm just mentioning it here.)

With Yautja, there's the physical aspects that make them distinct (mandibles, crest, reptilian/mammalian, tendrils, claws, tall on average, tend towards warmer climates, strong, etc) and what we've seen of them culturally (glory/trophy hunters, honor code, matriarchal, etc etc). The cool thing though is that when you're coming up with a hook for your clan, you can either choose to follow these rules, or you could find something interesting in subverting them.

What if it's a clan of smaller yautja? What if these live in the cold? What if their clan doesn't give a shit about hunting? etc etc

Speaking about Hooks...

The Hook is just sort of a jumping off point where you can start building your clan out of. It doesn't necessarily have to be a hook for the audience, and it might even change or be discarded as you go along writing, but it's always good to have a place to start.

Hooks can honestly be anything and inspired from anywhere. I'm going to be honest that most of the time I don't really go searching for hooks, they're moments of inspiration that kickstart stuff. They're usually what causes the worldbuilding.

A lot of that (and a lot of worldbuilding, actually) is actually input. Being curious and learning things, consuming things, etc etc. Expanding your visual/mental library. It's not something that i do purposefully, necessarily. It comes from stuff I've read about, movies and documentaries I've watched, some tweet I saw, a picture on my dashboard, a wikipedia article I stumbled into somehow, a story a friend told, so on and so forth.

That being said, you can totally find a hook if you just ask yourself the right questions.

But the things that can be hooks, like I said, can vary greatly. It could be an idea you had out of nowhere, a novel question, a theme you want to explore, a cool image you saw, a costume you wanna try out, anything! For example:

Maybe you already have a character that you designed that you want to build the clan around. The character can totally be the hook. What are things about the character that might hint at what society they grew up in? Do they have a specific attitude? Quirk? Is there something about their appearance? The clothes they wear, the way their tendrils look, their coloration?

Maybe you saw a location that was really neat! What if Yautja lived in a place like that?

This clan is stealthy!

This clan likes animals!

This clan makes art that looks like _______.

This clan engages in a lot of warfare.

I liked this idea touched upon in a predator comic I read, can i expand on that?

What if a Yautja did Basejumping?

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

Brainstorming! Ask lots of Questions!

I ask a lot of "why" and "how" after I figure out my hook (or hookS). It's an easy way to get stuff kickstarted.

How do they do that? Why do they do that? Is it ritual? Is it something else? Is it based on their history? On their environment? On their Lore? On their social structure?

And then just keep asking why after you answer that question, and then you'll have a pretty good foundation that you can maybe mess with or discard or change completely or use for an even better idea.

Like...lemme use the "Yautja Basejumper" as an example.

Why would this Yautja base-jump? Is it for a practical reason, like it helps them hunt a specific animal? Is it for a ritual reason? Is it for the thrill? Is it to prove themselves?

How do they do it? Do they use high tech to do it, or is it low tech? If it's low tech, what materials do they make their parachutes or gliders out of? In human base-jumping, what tools do they use, and how can I translate that into Yautja maybe? Or is it a completely different approach?

Do they basejump off of mountains? Is it something they do because they live in the mountains? Or is it maybe something they have to travel to a specific place to go do? What is this place? Why do they go there? Is it for a spiritual reason? Coming of age? Is the place itself significant? Does this have something to do with their history, or a legend that they have?

If base jumping is important, how does this affect what they find attractive or cool? Do they like really tenacious yautja? Is being more aerodynamic a boon? Would the wear anything specific for the act, bits of decoration? Is there an animal they want to look like?

So let's say just going through those questions, and asking myself why and how and other questions from that intial hook and then the answers I gave. Here's a (very very very rough) potential initial thought:

This Yautja clan base-jumps as a coming-of-age ritual. They live at the foot of a tall mountain, and young hunters climb to the top to prove their courage and tenacity. Part of the ritual is making your own glider--and if your glider doesn't hold up because you rushed it, then you get really hurt or die, and that's your own fucking fault. They're doing it to mimic large flying animals that once-upon-a-time roosted on that mountain but don't exist anymore, which had cultural/mythical significance to them. Maybe their ancestors used to ride them. This clan are able to fight in flight, unlike many other Yautja.

And then you can build off of that or change it, do research and look stuff up related to it to see if you can add more stuff, keep asking more questions about the things you decided on, etc.

Forever and ever and ever.............

Anyway, that's my worldbuilding approach, haha. It's basically "learn a lot of stuff, ask a lot of questions."

I don't know if that was helpful at all, but there ya go!

[sunandmoongobrrr]

Korra and her Brutalization: A Legend of Korra Meta

In honor of International Womens’ Day, I want to talk a little bit about Legend of Korra and the treatment of Korra (and to a small extent other women) throughout the show. Content warning: there's some disturbing scenes that I show here, but if you've watched all of LoK, you should be fine.

Korra starts off confident; she is a young avatar who is eager to learn and feels suffocated from the isolation she is kept in from a very young age. But that doesn’t stop her, and like the headstrong girl she is, she moves to Republic City to make a difference and step into her role as the avatar.

Korra immediately starts to doubt herself; she becomes unsure of her abilities and frustrated with herself, and through that she learns to become emotionally vulnerable with Tenzin. To me, this was really great. It showed that you can be confident and vulnerable, and that the two aren’t necessarily independent of each other.

(I’m going to be honest, the 2nd season I didn’t really remember much of, so I’m just going to skip over that. Because what I really want to talk about is season 3.)

In season three, Korra faces the Red Lotus, an “anarchist” group that essentially wants to kill her. And they get pretty close. First, I want to talk about how Tenzin is beaten by the Red Lotus. This has been brought up in Lily Orchard’s (in?)famous LOK video, and while I disagree with her on many many topics of the show, I really think she has a point here. When Tenzin is being brutalized by the Red Lotus, the camera pans away. It is SO painful to see him like this, and the directors know it. It’s TOO painful to see it, so they don’t show you it, and the episode ends before we can see him be defeated.

Contrast that with Korra. They show you every detail of this. And I mean every detail.

It’s disgusting, and they refuse to treat her with any sort of decency or respect like they do Tenzin. It’s almost like they want us to enjoy her torturing. It’s genuinely gross.

People will often refute this by saying “LoK is just a darker show! Look at what they did to the Earth Queen!” And while yes, it is marketed towards an older audience, there’s still no point in brutalizing Korra this way. The main difference between Korra and the Earth Queen is that… well, Korra’s the protagonist. We’re supposed to be rooting for her, and while the Earth Queen being suffocated was definitely dark, it wasn’t unprecedented. The audience was never supposed to like the Earth Queen—she exploited and kidnapped her own people, so of course we wouldn’t care THAT much if she died. But we’ve been with Korra since the beginning. We’re supposed to want her to be happy, and why on earth would we want her to be tortured brutally in such a disgusting way that gives her absolutely no dignity? If we want her to succeed?

(here Zaheer uses the same technique used on the Earth Queen to suffocate here on Korra. for some reason)

In Season 4, the main focus is on Korra and her healing from the brutal things the Red Lotus did to her. She is clearly still struggling, and it could have been another great way to show how being physically strong and confident doesn’t mean you can’t be vulnerable. But they make a lot of bad choices in this season.

One of my main gripes is that in order to heal, she has to return to her abuser, Zaheer, and HE has to teach her how to feel better.

I don’t want to compare LoK to ATLA, although it’s very important to mention that a show that’s a direct sequel, uses its old characters, and banks off of references, should be able to be compared to its predecessor. But I think it’s important to compare Korra’s arc here to Zuko. This doesn’t come out of nowhere; Korra has a lot of similarities to Zuko. The chopping of her hair is a significant turning point in her arc, and there’s an episode called “Korra Alone” (which is clearly a direct callback; shown below).

The difference between Zuko and Katara is that, a. Zuko never had to accept his abuser, and b. Zuko started off as a villain.

One of Zuko’s major points is when he confronts his father—his abuser. He does not bow to him and give in, saying that maybe he had a few good points or his heart was in the right place, but he directly says that Ozai was wrong for what he did. This isn’t the case with Korra. For some reason, Korra has to learn to trust her abuser. The person who did this to her:

And she has to hear him out.

This leads me to my second point, and what’s basically the complaint I have; despite being a protagonist, the show treats Korra like a villain. It frames her torture scenes as if we’re supposed to be excited that she’s being brutalized, as if we’re supposed to think she deserves it. And it’s not even handled properly as one of the villains we know so well—Zuko, who was able to overcome his abuse and become a protagonist who we root for. Again, Zuko and Korra aren’t directly the same characters, but there are parallels between the two and the show encourages their comparison. When it comes to Korra, however, we’re supposed to believe that she deserves everything that comes to her; the brutal scenes and the lack of dignity, even if she is a protagonist.

And in the end, that’s what we’re meant to believe; that Korra deserved what happened to her. In the finale, Korra says, “I finally understand why I had to go through all that. I needed to understand what true suffering was, so I could become more compassionate to others.”

This is, to put it short, ridiculous. I hate this so much I can’t even begin to say how much I hate it. No, Korra did not have to go through the torture she went through. She did not have to go through the mercury poisoning. She did not have to go through every hardship she did. This “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is so harmful because Korra’s healing revolved around accepting her abuser and thanking him for the awful things he did to her. Korra wasn’t even that cocky by the end of the first season, so what it’s essentially indirectly teaching girls is that if you’re confident, you’ll pay. It’s disgusting.

Zuko got a banishment to the Earth Kingdom, got to have his ideas and practices challenged, but he never got physically tortured. I truly, truly believe that one of the main reasons why Korra is quite literally villainized by the show is because she was a confident, brown teenage girl. None of the male characters are treated with such disrespect and we never get told that they need to be “humbled” by abuse.

This is not completely resolved to LoK; there are some aspects in ATLA that I think could’ve been fixed had there been more women in the room. I tag her a lot (bc her metas are awesome), but I really recommend you read @araeph 's Katara: Consumed by Destiny series. I also have a meta here about how Katara is treated in ATLA, specifically in “The Fortuneteller.” (I want to emphasize that while I am anti-Kataang, I don’t believe that Katara’s treatment had to do with the ship itself or that kataang is inherently anti-Katara. It’s just a note about how her character is treated in this episode and beyond.)

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they’re ‘glad’ that LoK didn’t feature Suki or Mai or Ty Lee, because they can’t imagine how poorly they’d be represented. And honestly, I can’t blame them.

This isn’t to say that we need to stop watching LOK or even ATLA. I think the internet has this weird problem where we’ve been told that the way to get rid of problematic media is to just stop consuming anything even remotely problematic altogether. But certain aspects of media will always be relatively problematic, since as content creators we sometimes input our biases into the things we create. The solution, then, is not to banish anyone who puts any harmful stereotypes into their content from society, but to actively and healthily criticize it. Bryke are not God, but they’re also not demons put on the earth to suppress woc. They’re white guys that have implicit biases that have worked their way into the content they produce. I think the lesson learned here, is to have women, especially BIWOC, in writing rooms, to prevent atrocious acts from happening to future Korra's.

Happy International Women’s Day, y’all.

[systematic-advice]

Hi there ! You seem to be very well informed on DID and I was wondering if I could request some advice, if you're willing and able to give it. My cousin is claiming to have DID, I don't like to fake claim people however she has no history of trauma at all and switched through about 12 doctors to get the diagnosis and no ones really sure if she's actually diagnosed or not. I really want to help her get better but I'm not sure how to bc I don't want to just go up to her and tell her I think she's faking, she needs help with something obviously and I know this would be a sensitive topic to bring up however I do have trauma and mental illnesses (not DID tho) and I find the whole thing she's doing a little offensive and I believe it's doing a lot of harm to her instead of anything good. Would you happen to have any advice on how I can approach the convo ? Or how to sorta steer her towards being open with her therapist and doctors instead of hopping to a new one when she doesn't get the answer she's looking for ? I understand this situation can seem a lil confusing I would just appreciate any input, I'm at a loss for how to help her and I can see her heading down a dark path with no actual help for it. If you feel uncomfortable answering please dont push yourself to :)

Hi there Anon.

I think the best advice I can give you is to leave her be. I understand wanting to help and to steer her in the right direction, but this is not the way to do it. It's always important to remember you are not your cousin, and therefore can't know what's happening in her mind.

It rubs me the wrong way, your statement of 'she has no history of trauma'. That's not a statement you could accurately make as someone outside their body. Consider that what you consider traumatic and what she considered traumatic may be very different and that you have likely not been present for every day of her young life. No matter what you think you know about your cousin, there is always a chance she is hiding things from you or herself. The nature of DID/OSDD is to hide trauma from ourselves so we can better cope with living passed the things that have occurred.

There are many reasons why someone might bounce between therapists, and many of them are not related to not getting the diagnosis you want. Every therapist has a different approach and finding what works for you can take a long time. Not to mention that if your cousin DOES have DID/OSDD, she might have been referred to several specialists to confirm it. Moving between care providers is not in and of itself a sign of faking.

If your cousin is young, you're welcomed to direct them to resources concerning DID/OSDD, or even to have a conversation with her parents to better understand the situation. If you are offended, that later option might be the better one. But either way it is not your place to tell her she doesn't have DID/OSDD and it is even less so anyone's place to tell someone they don't have trauma.

Fake Claiming doesn't help anyone and DID/OSDD are not as rare as people like to claim, so it's not farfetched to assume they 'could' be a System. I don't know the full context of the situation so I'll say that there might be other things playing in that I don't know about, but in general it is just a better idea to keep to your own mental growth.

Additional Words from Another System ( @goldenspirits) 

[kittybellestark]

Heyyyy I just read ur drunk tony fic and I thought you were great at it, so I was wondering if you could write something like Peter and Ned are playing with peter’s suit and accidentally turn something off and tony gets a notification that peter’s dying or something and tony is like crazy overprotective irondad? If not it’s ok! Hope you have a wonderful day!

omg yes I can absolutely do this it sounds so good ???

I know you requested this in like November and I’m actually the worst for only finishing it now

I’m so sorry this has taken so long to get out but I didn’t forget about it !! Anyways I hope you considered it worth the wait I really struggled with it haha

Gonna be honest with you I’ve re-written this about 6 times now bc every time i finish it I just was not happy with it 

-

Being in the suit’s hardware was a no-no. 

Big, Big no-no. 

The only time Peter is allowed to work on the hardware in Peter’s suit is when Tony is right there beside him to teach him the intricate ways of a multi-million dollar not-so-much-spandex suit. 

“Dude, I really don’t think we should be doing. Don’t you remember what Mr. Stark did to you last time we hacked into the suit?” Ned whispered despite the fact that they were alone in the library’s study room. 

“Ned, seriously, he didn’t take the suit away because we hacked into it. We’re going to be fine.” 

Well, maybe not. When Tony had heard that Peter and Ned had successfully hacked into the suit to take out the tracker, he was impressed... for about five minutes. Then came the lecture of irresponsible actions, and how they could have blown themselves up. So they most definitely shouldn’t be doing this. 

But, Tony is out of country, which means Peter can’t fix the malfunctioning HUD. So things needed to be taken into his own hands. It’s not like he could really do his patrols without this suit, another rule. And Tony won’t be back for a few months and this is an emergency. 

“Peter.”

“I don’t know what Tony expects me to do, Ned. The HUD is only really important and it needs to be fixed c’mon man, are we doing this or what?”

Ned hesitated his head moving from side to side before agreeing. He started hooking up a few wires from his laptop to the suit and Peter cheered, moving around the room. Once Ned was successfully connected to the mainframe Peter sat down right beside him. 

Lines of code started to write themselves on the laptop screen, baring everything out in Tony’s made language. This was definitely more complex than the last time the two hacked in. He was always good at trying to fix previous mistakes, or now known as making sure two teens wouldn’t be able to hack into the suit a second time. Lucky for Peter, Tony had just started to teach him how to understand his personal language.

“This is not the same coding as last time. We really shouldn’t be in your suit, I can’t understand what any of this says.” 

“Ned, we’re fine. Mr. Stark taught me how to read this. As long as we put what we need in the right spots it doesn’t need to be in his language, Karen will translate our part for us.”

Ned seemed to consider this for a moment. Trying to figure out if Peter was lying or not, which he mostly was. But he should know just enough for everything to be fine. Once you understand the basics the rest comes easy. 

“Are you sure you know what this says?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know enough.” 

“Alright.” Ned smiled. “Where do we start?”

The two started to work together, Peter pointing to different parts of the code, instructing Ned on where to put new codes in and what needed to be inputted and what was corrupted to get the HUD working again. Over an hour of making corrections to the code with minimal guessing on Peter’s part they had finally wrapped up what they were doing. Just as Ned went disconnected his laptop from the suit, the eye pieces started to flash red. 

“No, no, no, no no! This isn’t good.”  Peter mumbled, taking over the computer to try and fix whatever they did wrong.

“What did we do?”

Peter scanned over the coding trying to translate the little bit of coding he actually understood go figure out the problem. The code wrote itself too fast for Peter to stay caught up, with too many warnings riddled into it.

“We messed up, badly. Oh my god Mr. Stark is going to kill us.” 

“And here I thought you were already dead, Roo. Want to explain to me why you’re suit alerted FRIDAY that you died? Or better yet why you are in the spidey suit despite that being on the No-No List.”

That was the not impressed voice. The ‘you’re in trouble’ voice. It was the ‘Peter Parker you’re in some deep shit and if you try bullshitting me you won’t like what happens next’ voice. Basically, it was a ‘I’m talking to May and you’ll be grounded’ voice and Peter knows he won’t be able to get out of this one.

Ned muttered out some swear words before recognizing that Tony Stark- Iron Man is leaning against the doorframe one ankle crossed over the other, one hand on his hip the other on his face. Tony was wearing a suit and had a deep set frown set across his face. This wasn’t good.

“I made it from China, Peter, in 20 minutes. China to New York in 20 minutes. I thought you were dead.” Tony’s voice was cold and business-like, it gave Peter chills. “I broke multiple laws, and records. I thought you were bleeding out on the street because you ran out of web fluid and couldn’t catch yourself. I was worried that someone took you and tortured you until your body just gave up. I have told you time and time again to not go into the suits mainframe without me present, and this is why, Peter.”

Tony’s hands were shaking, despite his best effort to conceal it, nearly impossible to notice if you weren’t well acquainted with him. One arm raised to tap a pattern where the arc reactor used to rest- a nervous tick that never died with removal of the machine. He chewed on his cheek and that’s when Peter realized Tony wasn’t angry.

Tony was worried, scared even but he showing it as anger. It was easier for him this way, they were in public and anger is better to show when there may be someone watching.

“Close the door Mr.Stark?” Peter asked, voice a few octaves too high. Ned kicked Peter’s leg, and Peter shoo’d Ned out of the room for the moment.

Tony raised his eyebrows stepping further into the room, as Ned stepped out, the door shutting behind them. As soon as it clicked, Tony took in a huge gulp of air.

“What in the ever-loving fuck, Parker? I thought you were dead. I pictured your dead body and tried to figure out what I’d tell your aunt. You can’t- don’t ever do that again. Jesus Christ, kid, you cannot do that, I don’t want to think you’re dead when you are fine again.”

The way Tony dropped into a squat was unsettling, his breathing uneven. His hands went straight into his hair, and after a few minutes Tony stood back up as if nothing anything happened.

“Right, I’m fine, more importantly you are alive. Don’t do that to me again, yeah?”

Peter couldn’t help but nod. “Yeah, of course. I’ll add it to the No-No List.” 

Taglist: DM/ask if you’d like to be added to the permanent taglist

@peter-is-a-bean @jean-and-diet-coke @dead-inside-pt2 @they-were-cloudsinmycoffee @parkersjiggle @7peternotparker7 @thatonecrackheadshipper @kevinthewoman @faline4you @lynxshinon @narutoyaoifan @pastelwheeler

[cillianmurphy]

GIFFING 101 - YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE ON HOW TO GIF

I have gotten many, many asks before about how I gif and I finally decided to make a tutorial. This is going to be very long, very image heavy and with a lot of details and examples. I mean it, I’m going through every, single aspect of giffing that I can possibly think of. From start to finish. And please read the disclaimer at the very start.

* I use a macbook pro but this should probably work on windows too!

I hate doing this but if this helped and you want to, please consider donating to my ko-fi or if you want, commission a theme or page from me at @amaanat <3

tutorial under cut, I hope it helps!

★★★★★

- CONTENTS 

disclaimer

what will you need to create gifs?

how to download videos?

extracting your scene from handbrake using VLC / built in video player

opening in photoshop

trimming, cropping and resizing videos

sharpening

colouring and psds

masks 

adding subtitles

editing frames / timeline speed

multiple gifs in one grid. 

actions

exporting the gif

last minute tips and extra links. 

★★★★★

- DISCLAIMER

First off, this is not meant as a post where I am saying look here, this is the only and perfect way of giffing. Not at all. When I started out, there were many tutorials available that helped me figure out how to gif, and I slowly developed my own style and I would like to create an in depth tutorial that helps you grasp the basics. Heck, make your gifs whatever way you want, go absolutely crazy on colours or whatever, this tutorial is just here to guide you through the process of gifmaking, because I know it can be very intimidating to people who are just getting into it. That is why I made this and why I spent 8 hours writing this, because I want others to know too and this is the kind of in depth tutorial I needed when I was starting out 4 years ago. Thanks for reading, hope it helps and go crazy ahhh go stupid. 

★★★★★

- what will you need to create gifs?

photoshop. I use photoshop CC 2020 on a mac and I pay monthly bc of student discount. There are many, many links you can find on @completeresources for downloads. You can use any photoshop you like, as long as you have the timeline option. 

Handbrake. This nifty program is used mostly to convert MKV files to MP4, but I also use it to quickly extract the part of the video I want, because opening an entire movie in photoshop can quickly clog up space bc of cache and it’s a pain to find that one second scene you want with that tiny scrollbar. Download it from here.

your video (downloading explained down below)

extras: VLC, just to find how many seconds the scene is at, so we can input the time in Handbrake. You can use any other player though for that step, I use VLC or Quicktime. Download VLC from here.

★★★★★

- how to download videos

Ok so I will quickly go through a few methods here for getting your clips. 

1. t*rrenting.

This is the most popular method for getting your film or tv episode. I personally get my t/rrents from rarbg dot to or if I am having trouble finding one, I go to 1337x dot to, because they compile them from different sites. I copy the magnet link and go to the qbittorrent application, import magnet link, choose the files I want and it downloads. Remember, the higher the seeder leecher ratio, the quicker it will download. 

But which file should I choose?? there’s so many? Well yes there are many many files for different movies. On RAR, I found more than 40 t/rrent files for Endgame. I think that generally, the 4/5 GB 1080p copies are just fine. I have compared giffing with a 60GB Interstellar Remux (which is directly ripped from bluray) file to giffing from a 4GB 1080 file, it literally gave me the same quality and the 1080 looked crisper. So yeah don’t kill your computers space, just go for those 3/4/5GB files. 

hot tip - don’t download from yify, the quality is way worse.

2. movies from twitter accounts such as logolessHD.

these accounts post MEGA links to movies and shows, but you will have to request to follow them to be able to get the links. Then you can download the movie from there. The accounts you can get these links from are here: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. The quality can be a bit less though compared to t/rrents. Here is a link to a tumblr blog with these kinds of downloads too. 

3. downloading from youtube.

ok, use 4kvideodownloader for this. It is incredibly easy to use, you just need the youtube link. Always Always go for 1080p, if you can’t then 720 at the most because otherwise quality gets really bad really fast. 

4. netflix / screenrecording

If you don’t want to download / can’t find something, try using netflix and screen recording. In my experience, SC only works on google chrome and not safari so jsyk!! Here is a tutorial on how to screen record on mac (or for quick access, click command+shift+5) and windows. 

NOTE: quicktime screen records at 60fps, which is nearly thrice the frame rate of movies and shows, so at the end you may end up with duplicate frames in the timeline of photoshop, so you will have to delete those frames one by one sorry. 

★★★★★

- extracting your scene from handbrake using VLC / built in video player

muahaha here’s where the magic starts to happen. Open handbrake and import your video. For this part I am going to use a scene of Keanu Reeves from the 2019 movie Always be my Maybe. I will demonstrate with that scene up until colouring, because then I will show how I colour different scenes!

So when you have opened the image in HB, you get this layout. (link to imgur)

it is a bit intimidating, I know. So basically, first, click on where it says chapters near the top right and click seconds. then, input the time you want to extract from the entire video. For the Keanu scene, that scene starts at 00:57:18 and ends at 00:57:21. These are not exact timings, I usually add an extra second so the entire scene is captured and I heavily recommend you do the same. 

Now down below, you can click browse and edit where your new video will be saved and you can also change the name of the new clip. Always ALWAYS remember to keep the .mp4 ending do not cut that part out!!! If the ending says .m4v change it to mp4!!

Ok then I undertake the following steps to ensure the video that will be exported is of the highest quality possible: 

Firstly, I uncheck all these three boxes: 

Then you see this bar here right? Well I will edit the dimensions, filters and video now. You don’t have to do anything for audio, subtitles or chapters so leaving that alone is best. Lets go to dimensions first.

Here are my settings for dimensions:

The storage size depends on if your file is 1080p or 720p. Most movies are shot in a ratio of 2.35:1, so if it does not say 1920x1080 like a 1080 file should be, don’t fret. The cut off parts are just the black bars you see when watching the movie. Handbrake doesn’t recognise nor convert them so that’s one less thing we have to worry about. 

Now onto filters. Literally do NOT change anything there. Leave the settings as they are, which is like this:

Finally, go to video. You will see this kind of window and these are my settings (imgur)

Firstly, leave video encoder at H264 or 265 depending on how your video is encoded. For the FPS, choose same as source for the framerate and click constant instead of variable!!! This will ensure your video is smooth. For quality, bring the slider all the way to the right. RF0 means it will be at the best quality possible. I didn’t edit the settings at the bottom at all so just leave them be.

Now click this green icon (imgur) at the top and your video will start encoding! It does not take long at all and then your video is ready to made into a nice lil gif!

★★★★★

- opening in photoshop

woohooo we got our video!! Ok now open photoshop. Click on file -> open:

now search for the file you extracted from VLC and import it! Now your screen will look like this (imgur). With a different video, of course lol. 

★★★★★

- trimming, cropping and resizing videos

ok so firstly, we will trim the video. As you can see in the image I linked in the step before, the screencap you see is of someone else in ABMM, not Keanu, like I want. So use this slider:

and click and drag it to where your scene begins and shows up in the window. Then, click the following button to split at playhead. 

This will split the clip and so the timeline and layers section will look like this (imgur) (mine has three sections because there was space before and after the keanu scene so I cut two parts which made three clips)

so now all there is left in trimming is delete the layers of the video you do not need! For me in that image it was layer 1 and 3!

cropping and resizing

This depends on the kind of gifset you want to make. This picture is a handy guide for resizing:

This post is also very very useful for resizing info

Ok now I will crop my gif. Click on this tool:

and now my interface looks like this. I am using the ratio 6 by 4 but you can use whatever you want. 

Ok now you may need to crop some black bars but since I don’t have to, I just moved the crop area around a bit and clicked enter to crop it. Just play around with sizes and whatnot, and get a feel of what you like!!

cropping tip: crop as close as you can to the edges. The more you zoom in, the more pixels that will be visible and it will make your gif extremely grainy!!

So now for resizing, go to image -> image size or click command-shift-i

and you will get this window. 

A LITTLE NOTE - I personally do not use automatic but a friend who shared her sharpening psd would prefer if I kept it secret, but automatic is what most people use and it is what I used up until november 2019 and it worked just fine.

Ok anyway now I want to make my gif 268px wide so I will input that as width and make sure you click this!! It makes sure your height and width are proportional!

ok now we have this. After you’ve done that, click ok!

congrats, you just resized a gif!! Your gif probably looks smaller now in the main window once you click ok, just zoom in to it! don’t worry about it looking bad quality, sharpening is next!

This is how my gif looks with trimming, cropping and resizing (with 0.05 speed)

★★★★★

- sharpening

Now we sharpen! Make sure your layer is selected Go to filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen and this window will pop up:

These are my settings which most people use. Just remove gaussian blur

I have more accurate and use legacy checked too!

click ok! Now ... your gif might look a bit oversharpened. That’s why we use a bit of gaussian blur. Go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur.

now I think most people also use a 1.0 radius so set that and click ok.

But now your gif looks too blurry. Lets fix that. Double click the icon below in the layers panel

and adjust the opacity! My go to is between 25 to 35, just so the gif looks smooth!

Now we’re done with sharpening! This is how our gif looks with sharpening with 0.05 speed:

sweet right? Now .... the best and hardest part ... colouring!!!!

★★★★★

- colouring and psds

First I will shortly talk about psds. They are photoshop files, that save the entire document which means you can share it with someone after uploading it and when they download and open it, they can edit the layers, tweak things just like they made the file in the first place. Many people upload psds of gifs with colouring so others can use that colouring. You can find so many psds on completeresources (I only linked gif psds but they have psds for icons and headers too) or allresources. I do not use psds but colour from scratch every time so I will not be explaining them further, sorry. 

So for colouring, I will go very in depth into different styles. Here are the main types of colouring I have noticed people use on here:

simple - I normally use this for scenes with people in it

vibrant, bright - I use this for scenes with lots of colours in them

pale

black and white

gradients - I use this to spice scenes up a bit

colour palette 

I only go for simple, vibrant and gradients and never do cp, pale or black and white, but I will link a few tutorials by talented creators who do and after that I will explain the three ways I colour by showing you three different examples :)

Some useful tutorials I have found for pale/bw/cp colouring are:

this pale tutorial by @samecoin​. Especially useful read because Tippy explains how to avoid whitewashing in pale edits.

this pale tutorial by @kateausten​. Very easy to read and to follow.

this colour palette tutorial by @freddyfreemen​. They explain the basics and provide a psd too.

this colour palette tutorial by @stenbranlons​. Very image heavy which guides you through every step of the way.

A blog dedicated to pale resources is @finesources​ and is definitely worth checking out!

this tutorials page by completeresources has many many tutorials on how to do different kinds of styles

Btw, this is a useful website that explains all the different adjustment layers in photoshop if you’re still getting the hang of them

ok now onto my examples for the colouring. I will first do simple colouring for which I will use the keanu gif. For vibrant and gradient I will use two different gifs. I usually put my colouring into a group so first, close the video group layer and click this to make a new group which will contain the adjustment layers for our colouring:

SIMPLE COLOURING

First I will brighten the gif up with some curves. That is this tool:

Then you get this window:

As you see, I have selected that white eyedropper tool. Using that I will brighten the image. Basically, you want to click on the whitest part of the gif using that tool. This is because wherever you click, the eyedropper will turn that part into white and adjust the entire gif that way so if you click somewhere dark, you’ll get this white bright fuzzy mess. So I clicked on the lightest place which imo is the white specks near the glass in front of his hand and now my gif looks like this:

Ok now if you look at the above image, there is a black eyedropper two steps above the white one. You want to use that to click on the darkest place of the gif bc it’ll turn that to pure black. Here is my gif when I did that:

not a massive difference but it balances things out. Now I will add some saturation. Click this icon:

which brings up this window. I have already set saturation to around 15 to make it a bit warmer:

and the gif looks like this now:

I think it looks nice, but I would like to add something extra. That is why I am going to play around with selective colour to make the background pop a bit and make the black colour more dark. So click this icon:

and you get this window and these colours (imgur). You can play around a lot with selective colour and manipulate colours! So if I turned the black dial on reds to +100, they would become wayyyy darker. However because I want the background to pop, I would use the colours magenta and blue (and black for the final touch). For those my settings are this: 1 - 2 - 3 (imgur). So now my gif looks like this:

And now i think we are done! For comparison, this is what the gif looked like with absolutely no colouring or sharpening:

And that was all for simple colouring!! Lets move on to vibrant colours!!

VIBRANT COLOURING

For this I will use an example from Thor: Ragnarok bc thor is my soft bb. I did not do much for this first example except play around a lot with selective colour and I used the exact way of adding saturation and curves as shown before. Honestly just playing around with selective is the best bet to get vibrant colouring. The gif without sharpening etc was this:

the gif after colouring and sharpening is this:

pretty sweet huh? Just play a lot with saturation, hue and selective colour and channel mixer and you can create a lot of styles that way!

GRADIENT

for this I will use another clip from Thor, but from The Dark World. It is a bare clip where it is raining and I will add a gradient on it. This is the gif without colouring nor sharpening:

now we will do the sharpening and colouring. I already applied a basic curves and saturation layer so now it looks like this:

It looks a bit better right? Ok lets get that gradient applied. Click here:

and click on gradient, NOT gradient maps bc those are different things and I honestly dont know how maps work. 

now this is what will appear, I haven’t changed anything to this yet:

What style, colours, angle you choose is up to you. I personally am going for 0 angle because I want it going right. Now, to choose colours, double click on the colour shown next to the word gradient. This window will show up:

The fun part is you can do what you want here. Just experiment, click the buttons, adjust opacity etc. When you click at the bottom of the bar somewhere another stop marker appears meaning you can have even more colours! Just click on the bottom markers and edit to your hearts content! Use the top button to adjust opacities. Personally I went for this gradient:

Ok but now we have a problem because our gradient is fully covering the image and you can’t see anything. That is where blending modes come in. Right click on the gradient layer and click blending options. This window will pop up (ingur). When you click blending mode, these options appear (imgur). 

Here is a good guide explaining the blending modes

I just recommend playing around seeing which one suits you. I went for overlay, which makes my final gif look like this:

and that was that on colouring!! Let me know if u have questions about it! Onto the next part, masks!

★★★★★

- masks

I will not go in depth here, but instead I will link some tutorials but the amazing @thepunisher​ who has explained it much better than I ever will be able to. The tutorials are all in this link. If you have any questions do lmk but idk how I could explain it. 

★★★★★

- adding subtitles

although we wish we could, we can’t all lip read so we need subtitles also I’m hard of hearing and need them anyway but yeah, I will quickly highlight how I add subs! I use the font Arial Rounded MT Bold Regular.

I will first link to this post because it helped me a lot and may explain stuff better than I do. 

Lets take the keanu gif we had earlier. In it, he says ‘fish flakes’. Now what I do is this. Click on this icon:

and drag a box around the gif fully. Add your text. Mine looks like this now:

Well that ... does not look like a subtitle. BTW my settings are:

*when there are two people speaking I change the colour of the second person to #ffff00 - also for 540px gifs I usually use 12/13px text.

Ok now I will add the stroke and drop shadow. Right click on the layer of text, click blending options and change your stroke and drop shadow settings to this and this (imgur). Now just click the move tool or hit V on keyboard to select it and drag the gif down wherever you want. Now my final gif looks like this:

Ok, now if you have two gifs and you want them to be the same distance from the bottom, right click the text layer of the first gif document, click duplicate layer and you will get this window:

now click on destination and depending on what files you have open in PS, you will get this window:

now just choose where you want the text to go and if the gifs are the same sizes itll appear exactly where it did in the first one and you can edit the text for the second. You can do this with adjustment layers, groups etc too!!

Now text is done! Off to the next part!

★★★★★

- editing frames / timeline speed

We are done editing, now time to convert to frame animation and edit the speed! 

Ok click on the four bars on the right side of the video timeline. It will bring up a menu. From there, select this:

This will make individual layers of every frame into clips. Now, click this at the bottom left side of the video timeline:

This will convert your video timeline to a frame animation timeline. Now it looks like this (imgur). you’re probably wondering wait where the heck did my layers go well don’t fret, lets click the four bars on the right side again and click this:

now look! We have got all our frames into the timeline! Just delete the excessive frames at the front. Now click the four bars again, select all frames and then click the number at the bottom and change it to 0.05 or 0.06 or whatever speed you want:

Now we are done with this step!

★★★★★

- multiple gifs in one grid

I myself am not going to explain this, instead here are links to a few amazing tutorials that will help you further

this tut by @brolinjosh​

this tut by @futurist​

★★★★★

- actions

Now actions ... man they make everything so much easier. Basically actions are a sequence of steps you undertake in photoshop that are recorded which you can then save and use on multiple files. This makes the giffing process much much faster!!! For instance, these are the actions I have saved (mind the doubles lol I am experimenting a bit!)

As you can see, I have one for undertaking the entire video timeline to frame animation process and one for sharpening and the subtitles. It has saved me around 75% of the original time I put into creating sets before which is a lifesaver. 

I cannot explain how to make actions bc I am really bad at explaining stuff, but here are some tutorials:

- https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/creating-actions.html

- https://completeresources.tumblr.com/post/66560261468/how-make-action-%D0%B7 

- https://completeresources.tumblr.com/post/50583786863/how-to-use-an-action

- https://completeresources.tumblr.com/post/50362731526/how-to-use-actions-on-gifs

https://www.creativebloq.com/adobe/create-own-photoshop-actions-61411918

★★★★★

- exporting the gif

now we’re at the final stage! When you have your gif ready, go to file -> export -> save for web legacy

ok now the next window is this which looks intimidating I know

Well basically, those are my settings above. Make sure the looping option is set at forever. Also on the left size you see how big your gif is, make sure it is under 8mb but tumblr is unstable so keep it under 5MB and it should be fine. 

I use different exporting types at times. Sometimes I use selective and pattern, sometimes diffusion or adaptive+dif. Just remember that the gif size depends on which you choose so keep that in mind. Here’s the difference (if u can even spot it). 

selective + pattern

selective + diffusion 

adaptive + diffusion

Personally I mostly only use selective + pattern!

btw make sure your matte is at NONE!!! This is because otherwise you have those whitish transparent borders on your gif, esp noticable on dark gifs, like shown in this tutorial by the talented @joewright​ !

And congrats, you have officially made a gif! Now go experiment, have the time of your life and do whatever the heck u want with your gifs. And if you want me to see them, tag me!! I track #usernums !!!

★★★★★

- last minute tips and extra links

man idk what to say here really but here goes:

@completeresources​ and @allresources​ are amazing places to learn more about gifmaking, pls take advantage of the opportunity

reminder: quicktime records at 60FPS, so unless you want a laggy gif delete the extra duplicate frames in the frame animation timeline!!

When opening import video frames to layers, do not click skip every second frame!! do not!!!!

Do not steal gifs. Try making them. I know it takes time and it can get frustrating but don’t post someone elses gifs as your own. Even the ugliest gifset in existence made originally by someone is better than a stunning set put together full of stolen gifs from various users. Don’t be that person

Don’t be afraid to ask for help pls just go on anon if u want!!

use the tumblr dimensions!!! I cannot stress enough how important this is because if you don’t, your gifs will look stretched af and lose quality so like .. don’t do that

[thedreadvampy]

Hey Ruth! I noticed you've talked in the past about asexuality in quite a negative manner. As an ace-person (who has received backlash for it) I was wondering: do you still uphold these opinions?

Hey! I have in the past said I don’t really...like people popping up in my ask box asking me My Opinion On Asexuality, but I do appreciate you asking me as someone I kinda know and with your face turned on, so I’m gonna aim to answer in the macro. Though I mean it depends on what the opinions...are? I have had a lot of opinions over the time I’ve had this blog and I don’t necessarily know what all of them were or which ones have concerned you. I can give you a top-level view of how I see my views, though (however, since I have been largely holding off on answering this kind of ask for Literally A Year Now this is less an answer to your specific question and more an answer to the last year of asks)

(also if I get dogpiled in my inbox for Having Bad Asexuality Opinions which I do every time I talk about asexuality regardless of what I actually say then. my phone is broken I won’t know about it :) so I feel untouchable)

I don’t think I hold a negative opinion of asexuality as an identity (I say I don’t think bc we all have blind spots)? I have a lot of very important people in my life who are asexual, aromantic or aroace and. I mean it feels pretty condescending to say ~uwu it’s valid~ bc like. ace and aro people don’t really need my input to validate their identity. but a) it seems like a pretty accurate way to describe their experience and b) I know a lot of them have had a really huge boost from finding a name and community to fit their experience and have found that really helpful, and I’ve seen that make a huge difference in people’s lives and I’m really happy to watch my friends come to understand themselves and feel comfortable and accepted in a part of themselves they had felt really alienated or stigmatised by. In a broader sense, I think there’s huge value in decentralising romance and sex in our assumptions of What Human Happiness Means and for some people that’s not the most important thing, and for some it’s just not interesting. 

So like. I find it difficult to really express these opinions in any meaningful way because my opinion on asexuals and aromantics is much like my opinion on trans people or idk like people of colour. like very obviously those people exist and very obviously those people don’t deserve to be marginalised or stigmatised but it would feel. weird and performative to just make a post saying like “Asexuality Is Good And Valid, I Am Pro It” bc again like. who needs my permission or cares about my opinion. it’s not a Good Thing To Do it’s just. a thing you are that shouldn’t be treated as a bad thing.

however. and I suspect that this is what you’re referring to. while I love and appreciate ace and aro people, I think building communities and active support for ace and aro people is valuable and needed and, as above, I think Asexuality Is Good And Valid I Am Pro It, I do take some issue with elements of how discussions around asexuality are framed online (pretty much only online, I really haven’t run into the kind of black-and-white thinking in in-person queer spaces) 

and I also. think there are some issues with people extrapolating their experience of their own sexuality onto the world in a way which. I’m just going to say a lot of the time when I talk about The Ace Discourse in a negative way it’s around people assuming that the world is split into a binary between ace and allo people, or assuming that only aspec people experience a nuanced or complex or fluid relationship to their sexuality while pigeonholing allosexuality into a pretty flat image of sex and romance focus. and I have always felt like this does a massive disservice not just to people who don’t identify with aspec labels, but also to the general hope that we could work against the expectation that there’s a Standard Amount To Value Sex/Romance - I think that the assumption that there are aspec people and then Everyone Else Has The Normal Type and Level of Attraction just. reinforces the idea that there’s a “Normal” type and level of attraction. which is ultimately pretty self-defeating and also just. observably untrue. 

and this division of the world into Aspec People and Allo People also has some other weird knockon effects - I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with identities like gray ace or demi or other aspec labels beyond asexual and aromantic, but I do think that the way those labels are used is often. unhelpful. and they’re defined in such personal, subjective ways that you get weirdnesses sometimes like people Diagnosing Each Other With Demisexual or people saying ‘you can’t talk about this experience you share because it’s an Aspec Experience’ and again. there isn’t a concrete material experience there because the whole experience of romantic and sexual attraction, what that feels like and how sharply divisible it is is very, very personal and subjective. and everyone has different experiences of those and will name those experiences differently.

there’s also. historically a minority of Big Ace Blogs that kind of sneer at allosexuality or who would hijack posts about other issues to derail them to asexuality. but I don’t think they were ever representative of the community as a whole and I certainly think that inasmuch as those blogs remain around they’re a legacy of the Long-Ago (and a lot of them are trolls imo)

but there is. an issue I take that does seem to be more currently live which is the question of allo privilege. I think personally that framing all allosexuals/alloromantics as privileged over all aspec people on the basis of feeling sexual/romantic attraction is provably untrue in a world where people, particularly queer people, are actively oppressed and marginalised for expressing non-normative sexuality. it isn’t that I don’t think asexuality and aromanticism isn’t marginalised and stigmatised, because it visibly is, but it seems pretty reductive to boil it down to a binary yes/no privilege when both sexualisation and desexualisation are so actively tied into other forms of marginalisation (this is what I was trying to express in the argument about Martin a while ago - sex and sexuality are so often disincentivised for fat, queer, disabled and neuroatypical people that it doesn’t...feel like a reclamation that those tend to be the characters that get fanonised as ace where slim, straight, able-bodied and neurotypical characters aren’t. like it’s more complex than a binary privilege equation; sex and romance are incentivised and stigmatised differently at the intersection of oppressions and. for example. in a world where gay conversion therapy and religious oppression of gay and SGA people is so often focused specifically on celibacy and on punishing the act of sexual attraction, I don’t think it’s a reasonable framing to say that a gay allosexual man has privilege over an aroace man on the basis of his attraction) 

so those are like. things I would consider myself to feel actively negative about in online discourse (and again. in online discourse. not in how I relate to asexuality or aromanticism or aspec identities in general but in the framing and approaches people take towards discussing it in a very specific bubble).

but also. um. the main criticism I have of the online discourse culture of asexuality is that there are things I don’t have experience of that I have mentioned, when asked, that I don’t personally understand the meaning of but I don’t need to understand them to appreciate that they’re useful/meaningful to others. things like 

the difference between QPRs, asexual romantic relationships and close friendships

how you know the difference between romantic attraction and friendship

the distinction between sexual attraction and a desire to have sex with someone for another reason

and I hope I’ve generally been clear that this is. honest lack of understanding and not condemnation. I personally have a very muddled sense of attraction and often have difficulty identifying the specifics of any of my own emotional needs so like. it’s a closed book for me at the moment, how you would identify the fine distinctions between types of want when I’m still at step 1: identify That You Want Something Of Some Sort, Eventually, Through Trial And Error. but I think I’ve always been explicit that this isn’t a value judgement it’s just a gap in my own knowledge and yet. every single time I’ve said anything other than enthusiastic “yes I understand this and I love it and it’s good and valid” (and again. I have not gone out of my way to talk about it I have mostly only mentioned it because people keep asking me to talk about it) I have got a massive rush of anger and accusations of aphobia and “just shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about but also answer my 30 questions to prove you think Correct Things about asexuality” and. I understand that this comes from a place of really unpleasant and aggressive backlash towards the ace community so it’s a sensitivity with a lot of people but like. it doesn’t seem proportional.

also I feel like ever since I hit like 700 followers my Tumblr life has been a constant cycle of people asking me Are You An Ace Inclusionist Are You An Exclus Are You An Aphobe Justify Your Opinion On Asexuality which. eventually yeah I’ve got pretty snippy about the whole thing. but you know. fuck it I’m just gonna lay it out and if you or anyone else is uncomfortable following me based on those opinions then I’m sorry to hear that and I will be sad to see you not want to engage with me any more but I also think that’s absolutely your prerogative. however I will not be taking questions at this time (and not just bc my phone’s broken) - demands for an argument about this Are Going To Be Ignored so if you want to go then go.

so like the big question I reckon is Do You Think Asexuality Is Queer and

yes. no. maybe. I don’t understand the question what does it mean for an identity to be queer? 

there are spaces and conversations where any form of aromanticism or asexuality makes sense as a relevant identity. talking about hegemonic expectations of normative romance. building community. combatting the idea that heterosexual missionary married sex between a man and a woman is the only rewarding or valuable form of relationship or intimacy.

there are spaces where I think heterosexual aros/heteromantic cis aces don’t. have a more meaningful or direct experience of the issues than allo cishets. because while being aro or ace or aspec has a direct impact on those people on a personal and relational level, disclosure is largely a choice, and the world at large sees them as straight. they don’t have the lived experience of being visibly nonconforming that SGA people and aroace people do. they may still be queer but there’s a lot of conversations where they bring a lot of the baggage of being Straight People (because. even if you’re ace or aro you can still be straight in your romantic or sexual attraction and if your relationships are all outwardly straight then you don’t necessarily have an intimate personal understanding of being marginalised from mainstream society by dint of your sexuality). this doesn’t make you Not Queer in the same way that being a bi person who’s only ever been in m/f relationships is still queer, but in both cases a) you don’t magically have a personal experience of societal oppression through the transitive properties of Being Queer and b) it’s really obnoxious to talk as if you’re The Most Oppressed when other people are trying to have a conversation about their lived experience of societal oppression. and they’re within their rights to say ‘we’re talking about the experience of being marginalised for same gender/non-heterosexual attraction and you’re straight, could you butt out?’)

(I very much object to the assumption coming from a lot of exclus that “cishet ace” is a term that can reasonably be applied to non-orientated aroace people though. het is not a default it really extremely doesn’t make sense to treat people who feel no attraction as Straight By Default. when I were a lad I feel like we mostly understood “asexual” to mean that identity - non-orientated aroace - and while I think it’s obvious that a lot of people do find value in using a more split-model because. well. some people are both gay/straight/bi and aro/ace, and it’s good that language reflects that. but I do think it’s left a gap in the language to simply refer to non-attracted people. this isn’t a criticism of anything in particular - there’s a constant balancing act in language between specificity and adaptability and sometimes a gain for one is a loss for the other)

some queer conversations and spaces just. aren’t built with aces in mind. and that isn’t a flaw. some spaces aren’t built with men in mind, but that doesn’t mean men can’t be queer. some conversations are about Black experiences of queerness but that doesn’t mean non-Black people can’t be queer. not all queer spaces will focus on ace needs but that doesn’t mean asexuality isn’t queer, or that queerness is opposed to aceness - sex, sexuality, romance and dating are all really important things to a lot of queer people, especially those whose sexuality and romantic relationships are often stigmatised or violently suppressed in wider society. there should be gay bars, hookup apps, gay and trans friendly sex education, making out at Pride, leather parades and topless dyke marches and porn made by and for queer people, romantic representation in media of young and old gay, bi and trans couples kissing and snuggling and getting married and saying sloppy romantic things. and there should be non-sexual queer spaces, there should be discussions around queerness that don’t suppose that a monogamous romantic relationship is what everyone’s fighting for, sex ed should be ace inclusive, etc. 

I think the whole question of inclusionism vs exclusionism is based on a weird underlying assumption that If An Identity Is Queer All Queer Spaces Should Directly Cater To That. like. aspec identities can be queer and it can be totally reasonable for there to be queer spaces that revolve around being sexual and romantic and there can be conversations it’s not appropriate or productive to centre asexuality and aspec experiences in and we can recognise that not all queer people do prioritise or have any interest in sex or romance. in the same way that there’s value in centring binary trans experiences sometimes and nonbinary experiences at other times but both of those conversations should recognise that neither binary or nonbinary gender identity is a Universal Queer Experience.

anyway that one probably isn’t one of the opinions you were asking about but I have been wanting to find a way to express it for a while so you’re getting it: the Ruth Thedreadvampy Inclusionism Take.

uh. it’s 1:30 on a work night so I have been typing too long. if there was an opinion you were specifically thinking of that I haven’t mentioned, chuck me another ask specifically pointing to what you want me to clarify my thinking on. sometimes I gotta be honest I’ve just been kind of careless in my framing (thinking of the Martin Fucks debacle where I spent ages insisting I didn’t say Martin couldn’t be aroace then read back like two days later and realised that I had said “he’s not aroace” bc I had written the post at 2am without proofreading and had meant to say “unless you think he’s aroace”) so I May Well Not Stand By Some Posts or might Stand By Them With Clarification

[sinkix]

☆ Haikyuu!! │ Boys as your roommate HC’S │ Ft Nishinoya, Akaashi, Oikawa & Hinata ☆

Okay this is a small little shit post idea that I had and it’s 2am SO it’s high-key messy and chaotic but HEY when am I not? I swear I’ll sleep after this I promise.

E N J O Y ~ <3

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Nishinoya: 

SO!!!! FUCKING!!!1 LOUD!!!11!!

AT ALL HOURS OF THE DAY.

definitely blasts music first thing in the morning to get hype so be prepared for that.

y’all definitely have a designated day for movie nights and just overall vibing.

Often drags you to volleyball practise with him bc why not

both of y’all hate cleaning so it’s usually just a chaotic mess

but you both know where everything is so like whats the point in cleaning up???

can and will wake you up at random hours in the night

literally it will be 3am and he will come into your room and ask you the meaning of life or a cheesy pick up line he read on ifunny.

not even kidding.

sometimes you both end up crashing together bc you spend nearly all night playing video games and talking.

so again, expect random poking and prodding in the middle of the night for more nonsensical questions

when he sleeps though, he’s out like a LIGHT

homeboy fucking SNORES

SO. DAMN. LOUD

it’s actually really cute

rolling slumber

you get to see hair-down noya a lot and its *chef kiss*

will always cheer you up after a bad day and sometimes leaves little notes lying on the kitchen counter as motivation.

is your hype man for when your picking out outfits for the day or an important event/party. 

actually has really good taste in fashion??? so you know you can always trust his input.

you mostly eat out or order in because neither of you can cook for shit.

the last time you both attempted the kitchen nearly went up in flames.

just kidding, it did.

 never have you been so grateful for the invention of fire extinguishers. 

some got in noya’s hair and it looked so scuffed lol.

Akaashi:

such a chill rooomate, my god.

you spend most evenings on the couch just watching shows or talking about your day, akaashi is a straight up vibe machine and his presence is v soothing.

a really good cook?? so it’s always a nice surprise when you come home and dinner is already made

remembers all your favourite foods and meals so if he senses you’re down he will make them for you.

fuckin angel bro I swear.

most of the time you just eat in comfortable silence or you’ll listen to akaashi talk about the team.

he’s usually your alarm clock since he wakes up around the same time as you and being the responsible boi he is always makes sure to wake you up too.

bless his soul

sometimes you’ll have little jam out sessions if one or both of you are feeling sad

instantly 1000x better

aside from being the occasional goof he’s honestly pretty quiet for the most part

sometimes you’ll forget he’s at home and just bust out the weirdest moves or start talking to yourself and he’ll walk in the room like ????? you good ?????

he’s caught you several times just narrating your inner monologue 

definitely teases you about it

like he’ll just quote a random thing you had mumbled to yourself before just to see you squirm

low-key a little shit lmao

he is pretty tidy and has no problems cleaning up so the house is usually orderly and clean, you both take turns doing chores and pitch in to do your part

sometimes he’ll tease you if you forgot to do the dishes but then go and do them himself

so cute man ihefjwjkfkjef

sometimes y’all will clean together and just dance to music around the house while doing so

sometimes bokuto drops by and all calm atmosphere is instantly shattered but it’s okay bc he’s babi and you appreciate the hype atmosphere he brings.

well, maybe not akaashi bc he has to deal with it 24/7 but still 

you and bokuto get on v well so he makes more frequent visits now and you three will go out to eat or just sit and watch volleyball tournaments on TV. 

sometimes bokuto will make you both re watch their old matches, screaming “YOU SEE THAT AKAASHIIIIIII??!!11″ 

“yes bokuto-san.”  

aside from that just an overall very chill household.

Oikawa:

such a little shit lmao

will wake you up by throwing a pillow at your head screaming “WAKE UP (Y/N)-CHAN!!!!!” at the top of his lungs

like tooru sis it’s 7am

Sometimes you’ll drop by practise in the evening to bring snacks and walk him home

he goes all soft and makes sure to be extra nice that night

y’all are hella close and tell each other EVERYTHING

Iwazumi appreciates you SO much bc ur able to tame Oikawa’s occasionally bratty and snarky attitude so it’s less work for him.

there’s a rumour you’re dating but neither of you have addressed it bc you both find it funny.

and idk maybe you are ??? not even you two know at this point

his fangirls get hella jealous whenever you show up lolololol.

oikawa can KIND of cook

and by kind of i mean just throw shit in the oven for like 30 min and bone apple teeth.

so you usually just go to restaurants or do basic cooking

it’s always hella fun cooking with oikawa 

sometimes you’ll buy those ready-made kid baking sets to make some brownies with minimal effort

this bitch will always flick the fucking spoon at you

then SWIPE IT OFF UR CHEEK AND EAT IT

he always flashes his signature wink, sticking out his tongue.

you just sigh and hope he gets salmonella.

speaking of sickness, once oikawa got a cold

you stayed off the day to look after him and he was SO. FUCKIN. DEMANDING.

“(Y/N)-chaannn!!! make me porridge!” 

“(y/N)-ChAAAaNn! can i have some medicine.”

“(YYYy/nNnNn)-ChAAAaaANNNn give me attention.”

ofc u gave it to him bc how can u say no

 was actually very grateful and kind to you with zero bratty behaviour so u like sick oikawa.

his normal self too, but you’ll never tell him that.

Hinata: 

LOUD????

not as bad as nishinoya, like he’ll have his quiet moments but still

VERY?? LOUD??? 

it’s hard to be in a bad mood around him honestly so you always look forward to going home and seeing his smiling face

sunshine™ here to brighten ur day

you’re usually the one that has to wake him up bc let’s face it he’s hopeless at being organised and getting up on time.

he was always used to Natsu waking him up so now you’re basically Natsu 2.0 in this regard.

you usually have to resort to shaking him vigorously for like 2 mins until he actually gets up.

once you deadass poured the water over his head that was sitting on his nightstand bc he refused to get up

needless to say he was far more willing after that

you 100% have karaoke sessions together in the morning  and belt the lyrics out, attempting to sync but failing miserably.

maybe you’ll get a record deal one day who knows

Hinata can and will give you a hug and motivational speech before you walk out the door

you often have to fix his appearance before he leaves

his shirt is usually tucked in at a weird angle or hella crumpled

his hair too, like you’ll have to flatten down extra wild strands since he usually forgets to brush it before heading out the door

bitch gets toothpaste marks EVERYWHERE 

like pretty much every place except his fuckin mouth lmao

you sometimes show up to practise to surprise him and he always gets extra hype after that since you offer to pay for food afterward.

y’all like taking late night walks in the park

boy gets scared easily though so prepare for him to leap in your arms like a scene from scooby-doo

definitely have a lot of late night convos, some really stupid and some surprisingly deep.

he’s actually a very thoughtful and layered person?? like under that chaotic and disorganised persona 

don’t even get me started on cooking.

you REFUSE to let him anywhere near the kitchen 

so you usually end up doing the food prep or again y’all just eat out

You both watch volleyball games on TV often and get HYPE AS HELL and yell at the TV vvv loud

once you actually received a noise complaint.

sometimes Kags will drop by because he left something at practise that Hinata had picked up for him.

you and Kags get on pretty well tbh like you both respect each other

he has no idea how you can live with Hinata and often refers to you as a saint

but who wouldn’t want to live with this bby ball of sunshine?

[zhuhongs]

なんか私の想いが溢れ出した. i went out with some friends last night and every time i go out i always realize just how bad i am at communicating and how bad I am with people. (long meandering post under the cut. feel free to ignore its unfocused and long.. like 2k words under there)

I’ve mentioned this before but I don’t really talk much irl. I don’t talk, I can’t connect properly. Every time I’m out with people I just feel fundamentally, like… different. So a group of my irls friends plus me were going to the movie theatre and I personally really hate movie theatres. I knew we were going to one and prepared myself thinking “oh it’ll be fine bc you'll be with friends, just enjoy their company '' But god I really hate movie theaters. It’s been so long, i forgot how much I really really hated them. They’re so loud and bright. I’d much rather watch a movie at home but tbh I also just don’t like movies bc I can’t sit through them and I can’t focus and I don’t get invested easily and I need to be doing something with my hands at all times. To make matters worse, my friend's friend that I really don’t like came along. I just, I don’t like her. She’s just too loud and attention seeking and childish. Like she says things for a reaction, like rlly not okay things sometimes and I just can’t stand her. like we went to see godzilla vs king kong and then entire movie she kept YELLING "IF THEY DONT KISS I WANT MY MONEY BACK" and i was like... you are 21 yrs old oh my god.. this isnt ur tumblr blog in middle school. shut up. But here’s the thing, I don’t know how to tell her or anyone that. Like I just can’t figure out a good way to say it, so I put up with it. Things like this just make me feel incredibly annoyed. I always talk on here about how if I have an issue with anyone, I’ll just say it like an adult. But in face to face situations I just don’t know how to say things. Well I do know how to say it - it’d be easy.  I just hate having to do it. Like I don't have to say the whole thing about how I don’t like her but when she says like “simp” when she’s nonblack I could just be like. “Hey don’t say that, here’s why” and I’m sure she’d stop. Yet I can’t bring myself to have that one moment of discomfort to tell her to stop yelling in my ear or stop saying things that make me annoyed. I feel useless in a way. ちゃんとできない。 ちゃんと伝えない。During the entire movie I was thinking to myself that I’d rather be home watching a drama by myself and doing hw. I also hate going out for other reasons. I hate being seen. I hate my appearance. I know I don’t have to be pretty, I only need to exist for me. Like wow, I just have so many body image issues, and they all manifest heavily as soon as I go out in public. 

But afterwards I changed my mind a bit. There was a moment where we were outside running around in the street and it reminded me of that one scene in AIB episode one with Chota, Karube, and Arisu in the street and I was rlly like… wow… maybe human connection really is good. It doesn’t matter if I’m pretty or good at talking, sometimes, to laugh and be silly wth others is all you need to make your night. Just one moment, just one person really is all it takes. We all went out for dinner afterwards and it was really really fun. I enjoyed it, there really is something about eating with someone that brings you closer to them.  

The entire time though, I didn’t talk much. I don’t really know when to cut in in a conversation to a point where it feels right. I feel like by saying my piece I’m interrupting others just to say something that wasn’t really of any use. Really, I prefer silence with others. I’m bad at talking in social situations but I’m great at talking in classes and at work because of the context. Because I’m expected to engage there. The pretense is different. Like you’re supposed to contribute in those places. It’s acceptable to talk there. But for me, it doesn’t really feel acceptable to just share about myself like that in a social group setting. I wish I could always communicate like how I am doing here. It’s so much nicer online. I get to post my full complete thoughts without bothering any of you. My words can easily be disregarded and just flipped through. It’s passive. Posting is passive, talking is active. And sometimes, people don't really want to talk to others, they just want to say their piece. Like when talking about their problems, often we just want to say it and the act of saying those words is all we need. We don’t want input, it annoys us. I don’t like to cut in, and I can never find the right words to say. Even right now, none of this feels like it’s coming out correctly. None of my words feel like they’re coming out correctly nowadays, but this is the only way I know how to be. If I can’t post my thoughts on here, even if they come out crooked and ugly, I may never speak again. I have to keep talking, and typing, and trying otherwise I’ll never get any better. And I know it’s okay to do things wrong, but still, I can’t let myself do that. Again, I do fine when I’m at work and school. I’m functional, normal, you would never be able to tell how much is going on in my head. But in private, I may never speak again if I wasn’t spoken to. 

When I was younger, around 12 or 13, I remember something a friend posted on my first online community. They posted, quite honestly, that they never wanted to meet anyone on there irl. No matter how close we are, it would never be the same IRL. I didn’t get that sentiment at the time. To me, why wouldn’t you want to see your friends everyday in person? That would be great. But I think I get it now. I’m afraid that if I ever met any of you someday it wouldn’t be the same. I’m not really the same in person. I’m bad at talking, bad at connecting. I’m not a proper person. But I feel like that’s okay. It’s okay to just exist on here as I am. While my friend was talking to me on our drive back to her place (we carpooled) she was telling me about her life. And she was apologizing like “oh I’m sorry I keep talking about myself” but quite honestly I was glad to just be able to listen. At some point my friend kept asking me what was up so I decided maybe I’ll tell them the arcane secrets of how I’ve been into guardian and how all the characters rlly hit for me for personal reasons. That was really the only thing I thought that was of note to tell her about. Really I don’t think I’ve done or felt much new since I last talked to her. But as I was trying to explain I just wasn’t doing it right. She just didn’t get it and trying to talk about something like that just made me embarrassed to the point where I just dropped it and tried to just say, “oh yea, you got it, that’s it.” and move along bc I didn’t think she’d get it. She’s the type that doesn’t really get how you can make meaningful connections online. So whenever I try to talk to her about certain things, it just doesn’t register. I’ve learned to choose my battles. I didn’t really think she wanted to get it. So I didn’t tell her. I tried telling her about stuff I liked in the past and I just always stop halfway through. I can’t communicate properly. I can’t speak in a way that I think is worthy of being heard. So I don’t talk. It frustrates me to no end. It feels like everyone else can do it so easily, that I’m the wrong one. 

I had another friend from Uni message me about something and she was like “so what’s new with you, twin” (we have similar bdays and get along well so we call each other that) and tbh I just, didn’t know what to tell her. I had talked to her in a long time, so things had happened but nothing so easily said that I could just tell her over text. SO I just was like “work, school, yk how it is” and yea. I really am the one choosing not to let people in. It frustrates me to no end but I don’t know what a good starting point is ever. I feel like I should just send all my IRLS my long reflection essays next time they wanna know what's up. All the secrets to why I am the way I am are in there.

I’m scared of telling people how I feel about anything. IRL when I say something I often speak quietly, moreso like I’m only talking to myself. People often don’t hear what I had to say. And I don’t repeat myself. If it was something someone didn’t hear, in my head, that means that it wasn’t important enough to repeat. I’m afraid of talking and being misunderstood and never being able to be interpreted the way I mean. I want to convey all my thoughts correctly the first time. So i don’t repeat myself, not bc I’m mad at the person who didn’t hear me. It’s not about them, it’s about me. I don’t believe my words to be worth repeating. I don’t want anyone to stop the conversation for me. Just keep going, it won’t come out the right way anyways. I was taking a uquiz a week or so ago and one question was “what power do you want” and one option was smth like the power of comprehension. Which would make it so every time you spoke, that person would understand you the way you intended. That is the most ideal power for me to ever possess like it was unreal. I’m still thinking about that quiz. It was good.

I know that I’m worth being listened to and that my words are valuable enough to be heard but I don’t want to do that. I’d rather listen. I only like talking when it’s safe like it is here. I’m trying my best to get better though. I keep saying that I want to be a proper adult. I want to live right and without regrets and i really think communication is key to that. I’m trying. It’s hard but I’m trying. But still, I can only talk here a lot.  I can’t talk any other way. I don’t tell my friends about my interests, it embarasses me to no end. 

Being on here is comforting though. When I talk about stuff like this, I always see a lot more people than usual like my post. I feel like you can all relate. Really, people are more similar than not. We all have very similar burdens and pains and baggage. It’s comforting, I'm not alone. My words might be able to help someone. Because when all of you talk about the same things, i also feel seen and comforted and since we are so similar, then the same is true for the things I say.

But anyways, I did a lot of listening tonight, and it reflects the sentiment above. People are the same. I was listening to my friend’s friend talking about her mom earlier and the entire time, I really resonated with what she was saying. I got it. Her mom’s situation was really similar to my own mom’s situation in the past. And I was just amazed at how I barely knew this girl but I felt really similar to her. I saw her differently after learning all that. It was really a great thing. ANd on the way home, my friend was telling me about her life recently and some things andi really understand what she was going through. I didn’t say anything, because again, I don't like to interrupt. And when I try and be like ‘oh me too, it's the same for me too” I feel like I’m derailing. I know I’m not but I really think she needed to say her piece. So I let her. But the entire time, I thought about the things in my life that were the same as what she was feeling and it was beautiful. Life and human bonds are beautiful. Even when they are hard and messy and annoying, people all want the same things. They want to be loved and seen and understood. And in those moments when we feel seen, it’s worth more than any of those complicated feelings that come along with it. Not to be cheesy but wow… in order to reap the rewards of being loved, you really do need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known. I was glad I didn’t stay home watching a drama. I was glad that I went out. No matter how alienated I feel from others, there’s still merit in being around other people. No matter how much others may misunderstand you and annoy you, they are almost always worth more than being alone. That;s because deep down, we’re all the same.

I’m not good at reminding myself that. As I said here, I don’t let people see me. I don’t let people in, I’d rather keep them out. I’m a picky, boring person. I don’t like people easily and I don’t tell them much. I stay inside my own head and I don’t like to come out. I was raised that way. But people are worth it. Communication is worth it, no matter how hard. It’s all worth it. I need to try harder so I can be a person who is able to see and enjoy more beauty in this world. I spent my hr long drive home listening to music and ruminating on these thoughts, trying to plan out all the words I wanted to say here. I don’t think I said any of it right. I’m not satisfied with how I write nowadays. But writing, talking, conveying emotions, all of these things are worth doing. So no matter how crooked and awkward it comes out, I will keep doing it. It is my goal.