#if someone has any tips

[druid-for-hire]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[booksmusicteaandanimals]

How do you hint to a guy you would like to see them again? Why do I not understand how to communicate with people?

[bonefall]

it is healing to come onto this blog and see basic respect for diasbility after being in other corners of the fandom and reading the words “snowkit could never be a warrior because he wouldnt know what anything is. he wouldnt even know what a clan is because nobody could explain it to him” said in full seriousness

Im..... That statement is so ableist I cannot even imagine the worldview you'd need to have in order to come up with that.

They really think the only way anyone learns anything is through verbal-speaking-words-noises? No one has ever observed something before? Not even once?

This is beyond touching grass, this person just fell out of the fucking Jurassic Period when all they had was ferns and stegosaurs.

I just...

OH YES. I remember my first day of Society Lessons as a hearing person, where the everything was explained to me. Via Audiobook. FIRST they spoke and said, "you are standing on the ground." It was a life changing revelation, and the world began to spin.

But it did not stop.

THEN they said, "there are fingers on your hands." The sensation of flesh and bone crackling into existence is indescribable, but I did not yet know pain, until they told me, "that hurts." I began screaming immediately.

And yet... it continued.

They explained so much. Chairs. Tables. Walls. The sky. Frogs. Ionizing radiation. Breathing. I was told all of it, in one sitting, and only then did I understand. Only when my ears were bursting with normal hearing knowledges, did they begin... my final test.

A strange wall-chair-finger emerged from the sky-of-the-wall, stood on the ground several times, until it was in front of me. A second one came behind it, this one slimmer. The audiobook gave these things names;

Human. Father. Mother. Door. Walking. It was completely impossible to know what these things were until that very moment.

I watch a human dip a hook into water and produce a fish, and I recall my Society Lessons where they called that "fishing." I am decked in the face by a nefarious hooligan, and I have only the audiobook to thank when I know I have been "punched" by a "bad guy." It was only the magic of verbal-speaking-words-noise that made me understand that there are "other people" and that they "do stuff."

Sometimes, even, in "groups."

Before the Society Lessons Audiobook, I knew nothing. I was pure, innocent, uncorrupted by concepts such as "parents" and "door." I am grateful every day that there is no such concept as "being shown things" or "simple logical reasoning" or "looking."

Blessed be those amongst us who escape the horrors of the Society Lessons Audiobook. I pray that you never learn what anything is. Be free! Free as a bird, which also knows nothing and famously cannot learn. 🤗

DEAF/HOH FOLLOWERS I'm losing my mind do you want me to bump a 'Hearing Disabilities Herb Guide' to the top of my priorities? Something you can use to bludgeon whackadoodles like that. This is ridiculous

Obviously not a MEDICINE guide but like; common causes of hearing disability in clan cats. Accommodations for hearing loss vs congenital deafness. Actual difficulties of not having that sense Clan-by-Clan. Debunking of misconceptions like... not being able to learn APPARENTLY.

[bobmckenzie]

🌳🔅🍉 picnic study date! 🧺🍀🥪

[clowningaroundmars]

i still cannot get over The Twins like.

imagine.

you have another version of you out there arguably living a life just as difficult as yours, if not more, that you can talk to at literally Any Time! and they're You so you basically already have half a convo down anytime you decide to pop on over via a portal

1610 and 42 stepping out of their respective portals side-by-side just to stroll out of an alleyway like nothin happened just going:

1610: LOUD SIGH

42: rough day too huh?

1610, brushing debris off of his shoulder: yeeep. another run-in with the rhino. again.

42: you didn't lock his dumb ass up like, last month? how'd he get out?

1610: don't know, don't care. so done with this week, i just wanna... i dunno. hibernate til spring 😮‍💨

42: man, what a mood.

1610: what happened to you? you look like you had a rougher day than me!

42, covered in visible bruises and cuts along with his bandages: mannnn... rougher week more like. well... rougher life. but. anyways.

they both nod at each other in Understanding

[corpsecowboy]

what kind of evil world do i live in where i at 19 years old have the same levels of joint pain that my 40 year old father has

[sga-owns-my-soul]

personal rant under the cut

it has been the longest two weeks of my life and i'm SO FUCKING TIRED. i kept having to fight my job about missing pay (which FINALLY got sorted out today thank god) which put me drastically behind on my bills. my relationship is falling apart, although i think there might be a chance to salvage it? we're both hurt and angry and there's a lot of trust issues going on right now but neither of us want to let go of what we have and we actually had a halfway decent conversation today about it and he agreed to go to therapy with me and i almost started sobbing at work out of relief (and also a little bit bc i was Very Overwhelmed)

i didn't realize how badly i was spiralling or how bad the depression fog was until it felt like i was no longer making my own decisions and i was hurting the people i love because of it which is such a fucking horrible thing to realize/go through. my brain doesn't work properly and now the people i love are suffering bc of it and i know suicide isn't the answer but goddamn it sounds easier right now. it's not an option tho so i got back on antidepressants (for the first time in about 7 years) and i'm seeing my therapist again on tuesday (for the first time in about 6 years)

being an adult sucks. it's fucking hard and i'm exhausted and i don't want to have to keep doing it. i will, because i have to and dying would hurt people even more but jesus fucking christ i wish i could catch a break

[theygender]

I love being T4T. My gf has been on estrogen for a couple weeks now and she's been having a rough time with her mood so I'm teaching her about the ancient art of soaking in a bubble bath with a little drink to sip while watching shows on your laptop

[notwritinganyflufftoday]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! What kind of writing goals do you set for yourself? How do you reward yourself when you meet your goals?

Hi Raev!!

I have a very lengthy goal of finishing my draft one at the end of the year, I don't want to force myself to write every day, but I try to do that most days.

I usually aim for about 400-500 words a day.

It seems like I only reward myself by upping my goals 😬 I think I've gone from a 70k goal to now 85k and it's still going fine.

I find it difficult to reward myself because I don't get a big sense of accomplishment (part of being a perfectionist). Finishing a first draft would only mean that I now have to do the same 2-3 more times.

I don't want to give myself time to celebrate anything, because that only gives me time to anxiously worry about all the work I still have in front of me.

I was maybe thinking of commissioning someone to make art for my characters after my first draft is done, but it's gonna depend on how confident I feel at that moment.

[minhosblr]

hello! i hope ur day is going well! im not really sure how to word this but ur one of my favorite gifmakers on this site!! and i was wondering if u have any tutorial or would be willing to tell how!! do u make ur gifs so sharp! along w being so smooth and gorgeous im foremost always just stumped at how beautifully sharp ur gifs r!! not to mention the coloring!! regardless of if u get to answer any part of ur process or not, i just wanted to tell you ur gifs r very very beautiful. im always so awed and admiring wnv i see them! so warm and prettily colored yet so sharp!! apologies for gushing here, pls have a good day!!!

AHHH THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY, ANON! It always makes me so happy, when I get any kind of compliments on my gifs, so this really really really warms my heart!! ♥

I did a gif tutorial like 1,5 years ago which you can find here! My sharpening has changed slightly from back then, so I'll just tell you what I do now.

Much more detail under the cut (this got way longer and detailed than I had expected)!

This is a walk through of my sharpening/effect process, so if you want any tricks about colouring or anything let me know!

The first important step to sharp gifs is the video quality! The higher the video quality is, the prettier and sharper your gifs will be. TS files are the highest quality (most of the time, sometimes they kind of scam you ngl) files you can get. Else 4k videos are great too! For me I usually don't go under 1080p (with few 720p exceptions). Sometimes I don't really like TS files, because they're a bit too sharp for me. This is mostly if it's a variety show. Concerts tend to be not as sharp in my experience.

I use vapoursynth to resize my gifs before putting them in photoshop. I usually don't do any sharpening or denoise in vapoursynth. This site has everything you need for vapoursynth!

For sharpening and stuff in photoshop, I usually do camera raw + topaz denoise + sharpening + 1% blur at 30% oppacity.

A bonus tip is, if you've done everything and tried soooo hard to make it non-grainy, but you just can't get it to do whatever you want it to... embrace the grain and add a noise layer! I do this with big gifs (540x540) usually.

To go more in depth, my settings for those are as following...

Camera raw

Texture (tekstur) I usually go between 20 and 30, depending on the thing I'm giffing. For Clarity (klarhed) I do the same number as texture, but minus 10. Idk why, it's just how I usually roll!

For Topaz denoise I usually only use a little bit. Like 0.04-0.06 overall strength. I don't really have any "this is what I always do" settings, but usually my shadow is at 0.90 and my highlight is 0.48 (because I liked it one time and then just kept it). You can also use the denoise option in vapoursynth, I just prefer photoshop, because it feels like I have more control over it. I know a lot of people don't use denoise at all, but I usually do with files less than 4k quality!

OBS! Using topaz denoise on smart objects in photoshop is a bit tricky, but I made a video about it once, so here you go! (the video is kind of outdated for me, so ignore the sharpening part and focus on the "how to do after you've put denoise on your gif" part. Also ignore my voice, thank you).

Sharpening:

These are my settings for sharpening. If I think the gif is a bit too sharp after I've added a blur filter, I change the amount (mængde, sorry my ps is in Danish) to 80% and that usually does the trick!

If you use all of these, this is how the smart object will look, before you convert it into frames

Let me know if you have any other questions or anything at all!! ♥

[cultoftheswag]

The fucking lineart tricked me bro it looks way worse with color ajadlsjlkasdjadsjkjalkfjkasdkjadljk

[felloweeper]

"what did i do to deserve this?"

something i want to pay attention to is this section from the book where i feel like the dichotomy of love is perfectly expressed (this is when skippy first distances himself from hawk and hawk later goes to him so they can go on their road trip together):

the frustration and anger and guilt and solitude he feels because of hawk -- for hawk -- is constantly confused with the longing and love and neediness he has for him as well. this yearning that he holds within himself is just too powerful and painful.

tim is an incredibly loyal character, and to a fault. he's incredibly devoted to his religion, to republicanism, and to hawk. (he even equates them to his personal holy trinity at some point.) for this reason, i have trouble thinking of tim as a perfect angel like others do. by no means do i think he deserves the things that happen to him, but what happens to him leaves him so fractured. he gets left with such a confused and broken heart, all i can really feel is pity.

here, tim is clearly aware of how skewed the situation is. he understands he feels pain over this man, yet he chooses to love and be betrayed and disregarded. he treasures moments like going to a restaurant and a store -- "visible together".

his greatest joys are this man's simple gifts. the greatest loves of his life (god, republicanism, hawk) are the things that are built to push him away. why? (feel free to share your answers/opinions on this! would love to hear what others have to say, as i'm still trying to come up with an answer myself. but then again, maybe there isn't one!)

[lokh]

does anyone actually build a detailed linkedin profile. you've got to be fucking with me

[whotookmysenbon]

so… do you always take care of kakashi when he’s feeling a bit.. not well? I want some examples of what you do for him since you’re such a mother hen

Sweet Sage! I’ve told you little cretins before: mother henning doesn’t just apply to Hatake. I do it to everyone. Hatake just tends to be the one who needs it the most at any given time.

[togansweep]

I would literally pay someone to write a conclusion to this fucking essay for me

[chewwytwee]

people conflate being nice with not being critical. Being nice to people doesnt mean never presenting them with any kind of negative information or feedback it means don't be a prick while doing it