#its the first time ive done any colour as well

[twnj]

Re-draw of my first sketch from this fic. I cannot find the post.

'Elbows on the wooden surface, Shikamaru leaned forward, pathetically gesticulating floppy fingers as he spoke to the barman. His sharp nose jutted out of his profile, reddened with what seemed to be sunburn, and a little ball of hair sat knotted at the base of his neck. Stray hairs, not long enough to reach the hair-tie holding it in place, fell out to frame his face and ears, and below the little silver hoops in them hung a small pair of orange-padded earphones. Their colour was striking against his pale skin and dark hair, and Temari followed their cord down to his jacket pocket, where it disappeared entirely.

[...]

As quickly as it had hit her, the image of the little boy faded, and in its place stood a man: a fully grown man ordering a drink at a bar and plucking a cigarette from the pocket where his headphone cord disappeared. [...]

Shikamaru had grown up. When exactly, she couldn’t pinpoint — maybe when his father had died, maybe during their first night in Rome, or perhaps even before — but the fact remained that he had. There was stubble on his chin, stubble that was neither patchy nor short enough to suggest he’d just forgotten to shave.'

Grandmaster ao3 by @notquitejiraiya

[puckpocketed]

who is #43?

Hello !! First off thank u for visiting. If you clicked read more by accident rip sorry it’s a lot of text. ENJOY!!! <3

1. This was the photo reference I used. I really did mean it when i said he photographs well!! I really like how scrungly he looks at times lol. v paintable

2. here’s a timelapse for your viewing pleasure in video + gif form <3

3. Process breakdown below. I am not formally trained, so don’t take any of this as professional advice!! The way i paint has been compared to channeling some evil contract with a demon also. So um . Im saying that i dont remotely think that this is efficient or correct, its just whats comfortable for me <3

3a) the dreaded lining phase. I have 2 modes of operation when it comes to painting - either i go full-dick with fancy inking/sketching + cel shading (rare, unrefined, haven’t figured out a nice workflow yet) OR i do a very very basic chicken scratch set of lines like so:

It’s less about being realistic here and more about laying down some guide lines for the chaos ahead. If i thought i could get away with it, I would start every rendered painting i do with laying down colours — but unfortchh ive tried that before and it usually ends in really weird proportions. Even with the lines i still need to make adjustments. This is something no people except me would notice but look at the above sketch; the eyes are too big and slightly too far apart, the forehead is too small and thus the hair is also not quite big enough… I have a bad habit of drawing eyes too big on faces, they’re my favourite facial feature to draw.. i barely resisted giving him big cow eyelashes (I love big cow eyelashes… all of my OC’s and most of my more stylised fan art of characters get big cow eyelashes… god…. Big cow eyelashes SAVE ME……….)

Anyway. Structure of the face + hand somewhat established. <3

3b) Underpainting!! Okay stay with me here . Ever since i figured out i dont have to paint in 03925893853 different layers, I’ve joyfully painted on 1 layer as much as possible. I dont have the brain power all the time to be managing layers so I simply dont work with that many layers. For this painting, the skin in its entirety was painted on one layer, the hair on another layer, and the effects on the last layer. There was a placeholder background off-white/grey colour for a while there, and I duplicated the line layer — one for figuring out where to lay colours, and one hidden for later so i could check back to see how accurate to the sketch/proportions were to the actual painting. 6 layers, 2 of which i painted the bulk of the piece on, 1 more at the end.

3c) here’s where I started carving out features. I think about objects in terms of volumes and light rather than lines. i love painting and sculpting because of this!! Here you see where I’ve begun to define his features — his eyelids, his bags, his nostrils. Just refining what was there before. The suggestion of facial hair before i gave it up and left it for later (his face is so naked the WHOLE time)

3d) nose bridge highlight, suggesting his eyebrows, a cheek highlight. A touch more coral red and muted yellow pull away from the grey/blue underpainting. Strategically leaving some of it peeking through.

3e) i truly start messing with the fidelity of his features here. Red lipstick <3 and some violet/blue for shadows on the right side of his face.

3f) the part where it starts looking like q.hughes to me (though, my friend said i got his vibe pretty early on which is such a compliment.. waaaaa…..) I love this part of every painting i do. I know it’s definitely not the Correct order since other parts of the entire painting are simply Not Rendered or Done, but whos gonna stop me?? :3

I love love loveeee painting faces. Adding the little shinies to his eyes + lips + upper lip + nose … you don’t know how much of a difference it makes until you do it. Also i snatched his eyebrows

3g) i really pushed the red/coral/ochre/orange here. Note the yellow highlights on his cheekbones, the forehead, and the thin thin line of pink right between where his bottom lip ends and his chin shadow starts <- very important . To ME!!!!!!! Also highlighting his waterline and adding his lashes was so so fun <3

3h) FACIAL HAIR!!! And I started rendering his hand. Some micro adjustments made to his face for proportion check.

3i) i start painting his hair in earnest and realise his forehead is too small so i make the adjustment. I really love how it falls into his eyes in this photo. <3

3j) i make some final adjustments to his eyes — a bit smaller, closer together. And i refine the outline of his jaw, push the stylisation of it just a little.

3k) Finishing details; his flyaway hairs, his moles, a bit of texture on his face, shadows cast by his hair, his little forehead cut <3

3l) i adjusted his hand here, added more texture to his skin, refined his hair a tiny bit more, and made the decision not to fuck around painting his jersey because i wanted the focus to be his face <3

3m) Canucks blue and green. Captain at 23. His form bleeds into the background. He is the franchise.

theee most fun ive had painting anything. and i finally feel... warmed up? if that makes sense. art for me is like. if i dont do it in a while it feels like nothing goes right when i come back to it. i hate that feeling, and the most difficult hurdle to clear is letting myself feel that until i get back into my Zone. after all this time i feel like im BACK !!!!!!!

i loved painting this fella. hes SO Shaped. <3

Apologies i simply do Not have the energy to write the alt text for all of these so i hope the little blurbs are okay aslkjasdklj. i gotta post and go to bed . if u made it this far, thank you for reading!!

[prof-peach]

Bit ooc but I have a question. How you do go about planing out your PLA comic? Like how do you actually turn your ideas/ storyline into comic form? Is it chapter to chapter or do you have the whole idea already planned out? Trying to find my own way in comic making so I’m just wondering if you could give any advice. Feel free to ignore if you don’t feel comfortable answering

So, at first this was al i could think to send.

because its incredibly accurate to my process.

Jokes aside, a lot of how i work is back and forth chaos, fighting with ideas until im happy with them. I will start with a list (usually not written down because im unhinged and keep a ot of it in my brain) and organise it in a way that makes sense to the situation, in this case workign with a game with an established plot...not that its a very strong one.

with a set of ideas, and a game to work around i will ramble and rant to a few choice people who i bounce well off, and also stare into space for hours on end building the ideas. This process can be days, it can be years. For context, i have some notes from 2019 about things i wanted to include that are still relevant. I have been scheming how to break and rebuild this OC for ages. Theres no correct time frame, so long as you simply do the work.

Once i have a fairly loose plan, i start to solidify the benning and the end. What is required to make a character compelling, what makes them believable, what makes them human in a way that we recognise. this isnt always a positive thing, people like to call characters who do bad things problematic, but its human nature to make mistakes and be damaged or difficult, the process of the story is not always rainbows and sunshine. For me, this hits even harder, as im trying to tell a story from the perspective of someone fundamentally broken, so showing those breaks and cracks has to be done wisely.

This is the point where i make notes about things that need to change from the start to the end. And ill say one thing, this story in particular, I have not solidly planned the middle. I am allowing space for me to come up with new ideas at points. Being locked into a dead set of ideas can be quite limiting, and as creators we consume and process things constantly to generate new stories. Id be a fool to make a plan and stick to it. everything i do is vague guidelines.

However, I know exactly how the story ends in Hisui, and where it goes to from there. And i think me personally knowing the end goal makes it easier to plot steps towards that, and some of those steps are anything but progressive.

If nothing else, the end was the only thing i saw clearly, and it has only become more complex and loaded and emotional as the rest of this has fallen into place. If you can see the goal, you can work out how to get there with time.

Regarding the chapters, i tend to draft plan up like 3-4 of them at a time, and then go in order to sketch out one after the other, so i have plenty of time to change things while i adjust. its constantly a process of seeing what you make, seeing issues, and scrapping whole parts just to redraw something better or new, unique even. I dont think a single page ive posted has resembled the very VERY first draft thumbnail ive made, and thats just how i do. Every panel, how big they are, the angle you hand the viewer, the way you light things, the expressions, this all dictates SO SO much.

Taking time over it is kind of the job, and let me stress, this is normally a job done by a team, especially the highly popular comics. one inks, one colours, one shades, one handles text, one edits, theres so many people behind it, so dont be bothered by the pace at which things are made if youre working alone like i am. One person means longer production times, if you can, spread the workload out, but its not required. Its why i always say it doesnt matter how long it takes to make, so long as youre still making.

I think its also worth noting, comics are consumed quickly, the bakcgournds and small details can be lost in the ace of the storytelling, pick and choosing your battles is wise, save your time on panels where you want the reader to shift along quicker, keep that pace high, and add in more detail and depth to panels you want to champion or get the viewers to hang around on more. its ok to let go of a "perfect" image in favour of getting content out, if youre being driven nuts by it. Again, time be damned, be happy with it. And if you can let go of petty details, id suggest doing it when possible, so long as it doesnt effect the storytelling.

I mean what else can i even say. This work is a passion project, I love it, more than i can even put into words, and i think you kind of have to, to make comics without monetary motivation. sure you can get lucky and find ways to make it big, but for most of us, its the love of the story. So maybe try not to be your biggest hater, its easy to slip into the behaviour, so try be gentle on yourself and the process. I should take that advice myself haha! but i really do mean it. This is HARD work, so be kind to yourself over it.

anyway, with a rough idea, a bunch of sketches, and time, they get inked and fussed over, i make a billion changes to layout and story, and eventually posting can happen but not after fighting with the monster that is creating. Idk what else i can say. This is not work for the feint of heart, but anyone can learn to do it.

Good luck, comic artists can always use it!

[lucabyte]

ppl saying they look to my comics for inspiration and pointers on how to format things is WILDDDD to me (and delightful don't get me wrong!! i am overjoyed) because like. none of you are privvy to the absolute WAHHH I DONT WANNNAAA bitchfits i was *CONSISTANTLY* throwing every time i forced myself to make a comic before i got into isat. like no joke. i considered comics such a fucking difficult medium they always drained my drawing energy so hard because they always felt like they took sooo long and had so many moving parts and were so much harder than storyboards (WHICH I ALREADY STRUGGLED WITH) because you had to account for panel shape and speech bubbles and-- like you get it. but genuinely for real. the sheer amount that i complained whenever i clawed my way through drawing a comic (which thus! was not very fucking much!!) compounded by the fact that i *genuinely have trouble reading comics*. as in, i really struggle to parse the flow of contiguous movement or action between panels (possibly connected to the fact ive got mad aphantasia?) of even really well done best-of-the-best professional comics...

... BUT. basically. what im trying to get at is. if you wanna learn to draw comics, evidently you super can?! I genuinely *didnt* draw comics before drawing isat fanart! I have no idea what it was about ISAT fanart that made it finally click for me? (I think it was... not having to think about colour? Removing a step from the process really helped. Plus, it being fanwork meant I could just start en-medias-res and not have to think about setup... Trying to cram too much explanation and setup into my oc stuff was always a big hurdle too...)

I find them fast to do now! and damn if i dont value speed in art (<- impatient little fucker). its still going slowly on my oc comics.. mostly due to the colour again, i think. but it's not extremely, ecruciatingly difficult anymore. is what im saying. and im genuinely baffled by it every time i put pen to page. its fucked up. did you guys know that practice makes things easier? . fucking perverted if you ask me.

As for looking at other people's things for inspiration. if you want to know where I was looking when I was piecing together the first couple fancomics I did for ISAT i want to specifically point at . well besides everything rebecca sugar has ever done (for hands and facial expressions *especially*), the main person i really dug into the work of was Leo Fox (Website link). I feel like i wanna point people to the source of a lot of the inspiration for my more off-kilter panel choices so you all can get the full experience rather than through my regurgitated mimesis. I'm now at the point where i can wing panel layout so i wasn't in there for longgg but. everyone go add it to your knowledge banks as for SUBJECT MATTER aka why i am i so deranged. those are squarely the 2019 postcanon homestuck golden era bleeding through my CLENCHED BITTEN DOWN JAW. A BULL TERRIER ON YOUR BRACHIAL ARTERY. namely that @/floralmarsupial and @/tomatograter's works (no i am not tagging them . im shy) are things i go back to frequently and floralmarsupials pure black/white inktober comics were *especially* an inspiration. if you've been following me a few months you may remember me reblogging a bunch of their stuff from 2019~2021 for seemingly no reason. this was why. The narratively divorced reality of jade strider & Liminal Space are big in my mind here. I balk to call myself anywhere near as good as these but these are what i'm aiming for, tonally and quality-ways with it. also detective pony but ive mentioned that already and thats farrrr too inside baseball for this post.

BUT YEAH TL;DR: I DIDNT DRAW LIKE ANY COMICS UNTIL UHHHH LIKE, WHAT, LIKE 8 MONTHS AGO? JESUS. ANYWAY. THIS MEANS YOU 🫵🫵🫵 CAN DO IT TOO. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. DATTEBAYO!!!!

[cass-windfeild]

Star stable Creepypasta: Staring Horse

At last, my sso creepypasta is complete! Sorry it took a while, work and Halloween preparation got in the way. But, as promised, it is ready for Halloween!

As stated before, this isnt going to be anything spectacular. Ive never written anything horror related before, and while I tried to do my own thing, I was mostly inspired by creepypastas like Ben Drowned, Sonic.exe, and lot of WildCraft creepypastas Ive been listening to. Its also mostly just a very edited first draft. This was more or less a test of my skills.

As a warning, there is no gore or blood in this, however there is a description of a pretty messed up horse model that may or may not be considered body horror, as well as mentions of a possible mental break? Not 100% sure, but I want to cover my bases.

Without further adieu, enjoy.

And Happy Halloween!

I've never really been obsessed with video games.

That's not to say I don't like them, or even that I don't play them. I game quite a bit in my free time, from action packed first person shooters, to emotional story driven games, even relaxing farming and life simulators. I've always tried to be open to all kinds of games. However, the issue is I never seem to stay interested. I tend to hyperfocus on specific games for weeks, even months at a time, and then, eventually, I just put it down one day, and don't come back. I just tend to lose interest, be it in the story, the mechanics, the characters. I just get bored and move on to new things.

Except for one game.

Star Stable Online. An open world MMORPG horse game where you can create a character, buy horses of varying breeds, coat colours, and patterns, train your horses in races or a variety of other disciplines, talk with friends, join clubs, dress up your character and horses, and complete story quests to save the world and learn about the island. Everything an equine crazed individual like myself could ask for in a horse game. Out of all the games I played in my life, Star Stable was the one that seemed to have a constant grip on my psyche.

It started out as just a way to finally unleash my love of horses, an obsession that had started as a child and only increased in my late teens, without shame or judgement. But over time, it became so much more. It became my comfort. My way to cope with all trials and tribulations of everyday life. No matter how mentally straining school was, how exhausting work was, or how bad my mental state was at any given time, so long as I had wifi, my laptop, and the will to stay awake into the dead of night, I had my escape. I could let my mind wander to a world where I wasn't alone or stressed. Where there was no homework that made me feel like I was going insane, no entitled or argumentative customers, no overbearing managers. Just me and my horses exploring the island of Jorvik, saving the world from evil organisations and dark magic, and living peacefully, knowing the real world couldn't hurt us here.

At least, until recently.

In the game, there are certain areas of the game that are closed off, having both invisible and physical walls around them to prevent players from getting in. They're either areas that aren't done yet, or ones that just never ended up opening up. Not that that stopped anyone though. If there's any area people know they're not supposed to go, they're gonna do everything in their power to get there. This is usually done through knowing the layout of the land, knowing what steps to take, and, often, getting a bit creative. There's countless tutorials online of how to get into closed off areas. Some are no longer working due to patches in the game, but finding one that still works is never too difficult. On days when there are no quests or special events, and training starts to feel repetitive, I've taken to testing these glitches and seeing just how efficient they are. I've glitched into Ashland, Devils Gap, Marchengast Castle, Cape Point, the typical areas that seem of interest to players. I even started trying the techniques in other areas to see if I could glitch myself somewhere no one had seen yet, though my efforts have so far seemed to be in vain.

Late one night, I was attempting to glitch into Mystic valley, like I had before, in hopes of getting some nice photos. I jumped out of the Secret Stone Circle and fell into the purple haze as usual, when I heard a familiar whinny, followed by a black screen with the text “Your horse was badly hurt.”. Great. I must've messed something up, I figured.I waited for my screen to return, expecting I'd be transported back to my home stable and have to start the glitch all over again. But to my surprise, when it did, I was in the Mystic Valley, as though I'd successfully made the fall, only, the area was now covered in a thick fog, like when you entered the Mirror Marshes.

I suspected that it was a glitch, or maybe the area had been updated. Hoping to find something new, I rode around a bit, checking all the edges and open space of the area. But after around 15 minutes running around and bumping into invisible walls, I still found that everything seemed normal. Just the same old rolling hills, sparsely placed bushes and trees, and occasional unfinished textures. After a while, I grew bored, and just started looking for some nice photo spots instead. But as I rode past an indented area in the mountain, I saw something I hadn't before. Something white amongst the trees and shrubs that was just barely visible through the fog. A horse. A grey horse with a black mane, standing perfectly still near the base of the mountain.

I had seen plenty of unused or work in progress models hidden in supposedly unreachable areas to keep them out of sight from players, and although I'd never seen one in Mystic Valley before, that's what I suspected it was. Possibly a new NPC horse or even an unreleased breed or colour the developers had been testing. I tried to get closer to see it better, but was blocked by an invisible wall that hadn't been there the last time I visited. Of course, they had to block off the most interesting thing in the area. I tried a few times to pass the wall, but no matter the angle or area, my horse halted and reared in refusal. I was giving up hope of getting any closer, so I resorted to just taking a photo and zooming in as much as possible. I got off my horse in the slim hope that I could get a little closer for a better angle. Only, this time, the wall didn't stop me. My horse couldn't pass, but I could walk on foot as close as I wanted. It was odd, but I wasnt about to question it.

I started approaching, but the closer I got, the more I realised how odd this horse looked. It didn't look like any breed of horse in the game, or like any breed I knew of. Everything looked… wrong. Like a bunch of different horses merged into one. Its legs were thin and long like a saddlebred, but its body was thick and wide like an ardennes or Jorvik wild horse. Its neck looked like that of the friesian, but it was bent down at an odd angle, like its head was being forcefully pulled against its chest. Its long, dark mane looked twisted and tangled, like a longer version of the mustangs. But what was the most disturbing was its face. It looked like it meant to be shaped like an Arabian, but the eyes were all… wrong. They were angled far more forward than they should have been, placing them more on the front of the face than more to the sides. Not only that, but the eyes themselves looked inverted, making it appear as though there were instead two hollowed out sockets in their place. Even the shading made it seem as though that was the original intent. Everything about this horse was downright creepy. Why the hell would SSE make something like this?

I decided to take a picture and see if anyone online knew anything about this eerie horse or if they had any idea why it looked like this. I pressed the photo button, but the second I entered photo mode, the horse vanished as though it wasn't even there. Was SSO so determined to hide this thing that they even hid it from the photo mode?

Not wanting to leave without evidence of this thing, I resorted to screenshots, taking a few photos before clicking out of the game to check the folder. But when I did, what I saw made no sense. In every screenshot I took, I saw my character, the area, the fog, even my own horse in some shots… but not the NPC horse. How was that even possible? The screenshots weren't in game, they should have just captured what was on the screen. I clicked back to the game to try again, but completely froze.

The horse had moved. It's neck twisted at a harsh angle, as though it had been broken in half. Its previously hollow indents of eyes now had two small pinpricks of light at their centre, barely big enough to make out. And with those tiny dots that made up its eyes, it started.

It started at me.

Not my character.

Me.

Have you ever had someone stare at you so intensely that, even if you had your back to them, you could feel it? Like an almost primal instinct kicks in to warn you that there's danger and to prepare to defend yourself. The moment you notice, you get this split second where your body freezes up, and everything around you goes numb except for that feeling of a pair of eyes. That's what I felt when I saw that things eyes staring back into mine through my computer screen. Those hollow eyes felt as though it was staring straight through to my very soul, making my blood run cold. I wanted to move, to scream, to  do anything, but I felt frozen in place, as though that things cold, unblinking stare had me trapped. As I stared, I began to hear the faintest sound in the back of my mind. Almost like a raspy, gargled breathing. The longer it stared, the louder the sound got, slowly becoming the only thing I could hear. As though, even without moving, it was drawing closer.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I managed to snap out of my frozen state, quickly slamming my laptop shut, not even caring in the moment if it broke. The second I did, everything stopped, and I found myself gasping for air despite not even realising I had been holding my breath. My eyes flickered around the room, instinctually looking around the room for danger. After a few minutes, I managed to calm myself down a bit. My body trembled as I became drenched in a cold sweat, and questions ran through my mind faster than I could even process any kind of answer. 

What the fuck was all that? Why did it feel like that thing was actually staring at me? Like it was actually in my room?  What was that messed up breathing sound? Why was that disturbing thing in a game targeted at kids? What the hell was going on? The questions, as well as the lingering adrenaline and paranoia of what just happened, kept me up the rest of the night. My eyes cautiously scanned the darkness, as though that thing would creep around the corner at any moment, until sunlight finally poured in the windows of my room.

I went about my day in an exhausted haze, still mulling over what happened as I tried to find a logical answer. I just couldn't stop thinking about it. Was it a glitched horse model? Or a new scare tactic to keep people from glitching into areas they weren't supposed to, like the old anti-pirating screens of old video games? Maybe even an early model of a new Halloween horse? But why was I so freaked out by it? It was just a pixelated horse in a video game, but when it stared at me, it felt so terrifyingly real, like it would crawl out of the screen or even like it was already in the room with me. Maybe I was just tired from staying up late so often, and I was starting to become paranoid because of it?

The more I thought it over, the more I managed to convince myself. Of course it wasn't staring at me. It was probably just a glitch. Just a bunch of pixels on a screen. It wasn't real. Hell, maybe it wasn't even as scary looking as I thought. My brain was probably just experiencing hallucinations from lack of sleep. That had to be it, right?

Besides, even if that thing was real and as scary as I thought, I wasn't going to let it stop me from playing my favourite game.

That night, after I had dinner and finished my homework, I turned on my computer (which, thankfully, was not broken from the rough treatment last night), and logged on to Star stable again. As I waited for the site to load, I couldn't help but wonder. What if it was real? What if I loaded into Mystic Valley again, and that thing was still there? What if I froze up again? I pushed the feeling away. I had already left the lights on to ease this ridiculous fear, I wasn't backing down. It was just a stupid creepy horse in a video game. It was fake. I was safe. The game opened with the familiar welcoming ring, and I was thankful to see I was back in front of my home stable, and there was no glitched NPC horse anywhere to be seen. I sighed in relief. It was all just in my mind.

I spent the next few hours training my lower level horse, completing race after race as I made my way across the map like always. I even competed in a few championships, despite being one of the only people online at that time of night. However, I couldn't shake this eerie feeling. Everything was normal, but I kept feeling as though I wasn't alone. Like there was always someone or something watching me from just out of my line of sight, and whenever I looked around, it would disappear. I tried to ignore it, telling myself it was my imagination or that I was still just anxious from everything.

At around 4 am, I had finished all the races and decided to call it a night. I called for pickup, and went to enter my stable. But after a few seconds of loading, I noticed something. There was no image of Maya walking through the stable to take care of the horses. Just a pitch black screen with no text. At first, I thought my computer had frozen, and I begrudgingly waited for the “Star Stable.EXE has stopped working” pop up. But, after a minute or so, the loading finished, and I was standing inside the stable. Only, my horse was gone. All of my horses were gone. Was my game crashing? I looked around briefly before clicking the stable button to see where my horse went. 

What I saw made my breath catch in my throat. In place of every icon that was meant to be one of my horses was instead replaced by that same, deformed face of that horse, staring back at me with those dark, soulless eyes. And where my horses names should have been, was instead my name. My real name.

How was that even possible? I never used my real name anywhere on star stable, or anywhere online for that matter. I exited the stable menu, and there it was. That mangled, horrifying thing standing in the stable aisle staring at me. I felt my body tense, but I refused to let that thing trap me again. It's not real, I told myself. It's a glitch. That's all.

I pressed the exit button to quit the game, but nothing happened. I kept pressing, but no menu appeared. I started to panic as I heard the distorted breathing begin again, and as it did, I watched in horror as the horse's jaw slowly unhinged, stretching down towards the ground, revealing a set of sharp, fang-like teeth that lined its jaw. I felt its eyes burn into me, like a predator sizing up its prey before going for its throat. This wasn't in my head. This wasn't just a glitch. Whatever this thing was, it was real, it was sentient, and it wanted me. I kept clicking every button I could think of to get the game to close, but still, nothing worked. Even when I finally had enough and slammed my laptop closed again, I could still hear those tortured breaths getting louder and louder in my head. I covered my ears and closed my eyes, begging it to stop, to just go away, but still it persisted till I couldn't even hear my own panicked heartbeat over it.

I was about to scream out of pure fear and desperation when all of a sudden, it stopped. Just as quickly as the breathing had begun, it stopped, leaving me in the silence of my room. I sat motionless for a few moments before slowly opened my eyes, tears threatening to fall as I looked frantically around the room for any sign of danger, but all I saw was my lit bedroom and my computer all but tossed off my lap, teetering near the edge of the bed.

Was it over? Was that thing gone? I sat as still as possible for the longest time, as though waiting for something, anything to happen, but still, nothing. After what felt like hours, I mustered up the courage to reach for my computer. I had to know. Just a quick peak to make sure it was off and that that thing wouldn't come for me. Slowly, I lifted the screen, just enough that I could see the light of the screen.

Nothing.

Inch by inch, I opened the laptop fully, only to be met with a black screen. A sigh escaped me as I confirmed the computer had powered itself off after being closed. So long as I didn't log on to the game, that thing couldn't possibly get me.

But as moved to close it, my eyes caught sight of my reflection in the darkness of the screen.

And I saw it.

In the reflection was that long, grey, mangled face with its dead, hollow eyes staring motionless at me from the shadows, its jaw still unhinged like a snake.

The next thing I remember was my parents rushing into my room as I screamed bloody murder, thrashing violently as I tried to get away from that thing. They practically had to restrain me to get me to finally calm down. I cried in their arms as they frantically pushed for answere to figure out what had happened. When I tried to explain, they chalked it up to a night terror brought on by stress. The more I tried to insist it was real, the more they assured me it wasn't. I only stopped insisting when they started suggesting getting me psychological help and the idea that I was having a mental breakdown. I knew no one would believe me. Even if I got proof, what could they really do about any of this anyway?

It's been months since I last played Star Stable Online. Even the thought of logging on makes me feel anxiety build up in my chest. I want so desperately to have things back to the way they were. To just log on and forget the world again. And yet, I know that I never will. That thing didn't just  traumatize me. It stole a part of me. It stole my comfort. My escape from the world. It stole that sense of peace and safety, a part of me I will never get back.

What's worse, it stole my sense of reasoning. I tried researching what I saw and asking around the community. I even emailed Star Stable Entertainment themselves, just hoping for any kind of answer, and still got nothing. I dont have an explanation for what happened or why it affected me so much. 

I can't explain why it chose me, or how it was able to do what it did. 

I can't explain why I still see it, or why it almost appears to be getting a bit closer everytime I see it in the corner of my eye. 

I can't explain why every night since, the moment I start to fall asleep, I hear those same, horrid, gasping breaths in my ears, getting louder and louder. 

And, no matter how hard I try, I can never explain why Ive started feeling a cold rush of air run down my neck in time with each breath.

[starii-lins]

IM OPENING COMMISSIONS!!

this is purely to fund my dca addiction, its not a problem i swear /hj

There will be 7 requests at once (so i dont overwhelm myself) Payment/commission details below :] Info here may change, this is my first time so pls be nice-

Slots open: 7

If interested, DM me about the details of your commission here (pls feel free to be as detailed as you want, infodump even, it helps! /gen) and if you have any questions or special requests, don't be afraid to ask! Drawings will hopefully be done in 2-3 weeks, and if not feel free to yell at me

Payment: Touch N Go (MYR/RM (i will DM)), Ko-fi (USD)

Doodles & Sketches: Full price upfront, send proof

Coloured & Comics: I will send a concept sketch, and once agreed on, send proof of payment

Edit:

Ive also decided to accept commissions for donations to Palestine as well. Any donation (worth the same prices as the usual commissions) can be used to request something drawn according to the price given for the normal commissions! Screenshots of proof must be given, and donations must be to a credible charity or family in need etc.

Here are some links to info and the donations I will be accepting:

I will be open to discussion/negotiation if you can't donate the exact amount, just lmk beforehand :] (only for donations)

[bismuthburnsblue]

sooo. im thinking a bit about what cosplay im gonna make next, and i think ive narrowed it down to a couple options, but i want you to have all the options!

other options on the list include: Sailor Neptune (school uniform) - Sailor Moon (i think ive got a group for this!), Janet - The Good Place, Loki - Avengers Academy (the one i started last year), or Female Stede - Our Flag Means Death. a lot of these projects i have some level of plan for & wanna do some day, i just have stronger opinions on Kyoko/Toph. but if any of those sound more interesting to you! i am down. i wouldnt list options i didnt want

propaganda + images below

Kyoko is a costume that i have been planning for SO long, and finally feel like my skills are somewhere where ill be able to do her justice. i have a lot of the materials for this costume, including the wig, and even have a pattern plan for the main part of the garment. HOWEVER. my main material is velvet. and none of my other materials are any nicer to work with. i want to make the boots from scratch, i want to learn new wig making techniques, i want to make the spear to its full potential. this is going to be a big, complicated, time consuming project, and ill probably put it down at least once for my own mental wellness. its a dream costume of mine and i want to do it justice. its going to be a challenge, super technical and precise, but i think itll be worth it. its also going to be less comfortable, corset & velvet are not... the best con combo (also its a shorter skirt than i usually like, so ill be emotionally uncomfortable)

(also the more i think about it the more im... eh about the colour of my main velvet so um. might end up rebuying that)

Toph on the other hand, i have none of the materials for. i do have a source idea for the cream fabrics but nothing else at all. my design plan is sorta NATLA inspired- still the animated Toph costume, just drawing on the fabric and textures the netflix show used (especially with the Kyoshi warriors), which means some Sourcing will have to be done to find fabrics with the right weight & drape for my plans. this style of looser patterning is also new to me, not to mention pants.... though i think Toph would be a good project to avenge myself there honestly.

in general, this is gonna be a much easier make, and a nice comfy costume for cons, but at the same time, its a lot of expense out the gate, fabric shopping i dont neeeeed to do, and definitely still has some areas that test my skills (wig in Particular). i havent put as much time and energy into thinking about this build, but it has been on my list for some time and i wont regret making it.

(pictures of the others i mentioned. obviously no picture for my stede design but i was thinking of drawing inspo from the historical dresses in the show- some of marys, and evelyns, and the crowd scenes- and obviously stede himself, and then also reference real history. i dont own anything suitable for this time period so the first project would be stays i suspect!)

[karoochui]

hello again! got randomly concerned about the possibility of accidentally sending you a half ask and leaving you to deal with a broken text. i'll send it again, this time from my laptop to be sure no inadvertent tapping was done. just ignore this ask if the previous one doesn't look cut off. i'm deeply sorry for spamming your ask box! Q^Q

"Hello karoochui! I just wanted to tell you that your art for the profile picture is magnificent. It draws my attention whenever I read your blog. The mixture of tasty shading and colours (gotta say this is an excellent colour palette here. especially looking at the full size picture) and the rough bits like Moon's shoes and the scribbles of celestial bodies on his clothes and the background make him look somewhat fairytale-ish to me. Also, the torn edges of his clothes go well with the scribbles I mentioned before. 

Side question: if not a secret, does your nickname have a meaning or did you choose it because it sounds nice?

Side note: like the detail in your works that dca's fans kick in whenever they're flustered, I think it adds a realism touch. I always mentally insert the sound of my mom's ancient computer, wich sounds like an airplane engine, that makes it 10 times funnier 

Side note 2: your y/n is very expressive! And so light-hearted in saying what they think. Love them <3 You always draw their expressions that way so they seem to be shining, and, in that context, I think the star earrings compliment them very nicely."

AHHH THIS ASK IS SO NICE no worries at all for sending in any asks im not bothered!

Firstly! AHHH TYSM its one of my fav drawings of Moon ever i think

Secondly! If you mean my username it doesnt really have much meaning behind it. Its just kinda two words i jammed together when i was like 12 and it stuck. If you mean "mika" then thats just the first four letters of my actual name (which lots of people mispell so i just use the nickname)

Thirdly! ARAGAHHH THANK YOU i love the headcannon of their fans getting louder when they fluster uhghh.... So nice to me i love it

Fourthly! THANK YOU AGAIIINNNN im really glad to hear that! Making a yn insert is probably the most fun thing ive done in a fandom in a long time and its nice to hear other people enjoy seeing the stuff i do for fun lol

[lesbianwithchainsaws]

What's your thoughts/opinions on each saw movie?

Oh no, this is a dangerous question to ask me because I cant shut up about Saw. If this ends up super long, I am so so sorry.

So the first one - amazing, fantastic, one of the best ever. I absolutely love this movie. I've seen it a bunch of times, can probably quote a good amount of it and it's easily one of my favourite movies. Leigh Whannel (screenwriter) and James Wan (director) really do a great job of showing characters that are well written and intriguing to watch. Same with the story itself. Also Adam makes me absolutely insane in this movie. Not only does he have hilarious lines, but also if I think too much about the tragedy that is him, I will scream. I absolutely love this movie so damn much!

The second one - imo also pretty good. It's not as great as the first one, but the story is still interesting to watch and I like the traps. Especially the needle pit! (Fun fact: they had to use over 100k needles for it to make it look full and I saw this behind the scenes video where it turned out that still wasn't enough and they added extra padding to make it look fuller). I like the return of Amanda and the twist. Though John saying "Your son's in a safe place" and him being in a safe makes me laugh. It's so silly.

The third one is like simultaneously great and not great. I love the Amanda/Lynn/John stuff but Jeff is a frustrating character to watch. Though Saw III does have some great traps too. The freezer one and especially the rack (the one where the character gets his limbs twisted one by one). It's not my favourite Saw but I do quite like it. Also Lynn and Amanda would've hate fucked if they had survived. Also also the third one has several deleted scenes and, if you haven't checked them out, I highly recommend it. They're all on youtube and they're so good. I wish they didn't cut all of them out. The one with Amanda and Adam makes me scream!

Saw IV honestly kind of makes me laugh. Mainly some of the transitions. I've watched it twice with a friend and we laugh so much at the mirror transition from the trap to the police station. It looks so ridiculous. Saw IV overall is not that great imo, but I still enjoy it. Character-wise and story-wise it's a bit more forgettable though. It's not the worst Saw, but it's kind of in the middle for me.

Saw V is uh, not very good. I love the concept of it and the idea that they all could've escaped (it was quite predictable and not a good twist but whatever). I do think it wasn't executed that well though. I think if the characters were better and maybe the link between them was better, it could've worked. But imo Saw V is one of the weakest of the franchise. Also the first time I watched Strahm and Hoffman do anything, I straight up couldn't tell them apart. I wish they would've done at least something to make them look different because following that plot wasn't easy. But the ending is still pretty cool, I'll give it that.

Saw VI my beloved. I love this movie. I'd say it's more or less on the same level as Saw II. I love the traps and the idea of the whole thing being commentary about American health care. The shotgun carousel? One of the best traps in the franchise. At this point the non-trap plot is a bit ridiculous and Hoffman is like the most obvious jigsaw ever and it's kinda baffling how no one seems to know its him despite how obvious he makes it. But still, overall a great movie and I love it so much!

Saw VII/Saw 3D on the other hand is bad. Originally the idea of Saw 3D was supposed to be split into two different movies. But Saw VI didn't do as well as the studio wanted so they made the filmmakers put it into one movie instead of two. And I feel like it kinda shows. The plot is a bit all over the place at times and I also don't like the way this movie looks. Something about the colours look so off. The traps are okay. There's some cool ones, though why did the dudes wife had to die? She was innocent in the whole thing.

Anyway, it's cool to have Lawrence back but Saw 3D is not great. Also the therapy group plot is kinda funny to me.

Jigsaw... hate this movie. Worst movie in the franchise to me. It sucks so much. The traps are, as always, fine. But the plot? The twist that it's all before the first one? Stupid. Bullshit. I hate it. I also am an avid Logan hater. I'm an even bigger hater for whoever wrote "John didn't think I should die because of an honest mistake". Putting that person in a Saw trap. Because like what franchise did they watch? When has John Kramer ever done anything like that? Logan should be dead.

Even besides my Logan hate, this movie just isn't good. The characters aren't particularly memorable. I don't think the look of it works at all. It's all so yellow. None of it really works in my opinion. I don't like this movie at all. Fuck Jigsaw (2017), all my homies hate Jigsaw (2017).

Now Spiral I think is better than Jigsaw and is okay in general. I'd put it in the middle when it comes to all the movies. I know some people dislike it, but I think it's fine overall. The traps are pretty cool and I dont mind the change in voice/design of the copycat killer. The twist was very predictable honestly and I can't say the characters were like super well written. But the movie was alright imo. Love that they said acab as they should.

Saw X isn't out yet, but I'm so excited for it! The trailer came out really recently and augh I can't wait. It looks really cool!!!!! I already want to talk about it for hours

[aro-ortega]

Top 9 People You Want to Get to Know Better

i was tagged by @glitchy-npc and also @autumnfangirler on my main (@/arcane-lock) thank yall for thinking of me !

i will tag ! @villainsidestep @swordsandspectacles @disastersteps and @groan-taire ! (sorry if any of yall have done this already, ive been mostly offline today)

favourite colour: yellow !

currently reading: just started reading harrow the ninth with my partner in our book club ! i really liked gideon, i have no idea what to expect from this book (its my partners 5th time rereading it) but im looking forward to reading more

last song: i've been mostly listening to my sidestep playlist recently, including as i type this so last song is - EDIT. I FORGOT TO ADD THE SONG. IT'S 'BABY NO MORE' BY ANJIMILE

last series: does series mean show ? i have been watching house and big brother with my maman ! this is my first time watching house but she's seen it all before, i like it but it can be too gory/graphic for me

sweet, savory, or spicy?: sweet ! i love sweets i have a big sweet tooth

currently working on: so many things ! im working on three fhr art pieces rn and also need to start a ref/sketch of heartbreaks armour from the front, and ive also been working on outlining a couple fics and i started writing a small thing just for fun and to explore writing in second person. ill put the things i worked on today under the read more

vanya + ric making out at rangers hq

"hi! what are you doing here?" 

"i came to see you," you say honestly. you don't have much free time these days, but when you have a spare handful of hours between one task and the next, and there's nothing pressing or immediate, or nothing else that can really be done in that time -- ocassionally, you indulge. and these days, more often than not, you want to spend that time with ricardo.

the very least you can do for him is be honest with your feelings for him - you want to see him, no ulterior motives.

he smiles and you try to return it - it feels off, and by the expression on ortega's face it looks it too.

but ricardo doesn't ask if you're okay. he's been doing that less and less altely. probably just as tired of hearing your lies as you are of telling them.

"not just to see me, i hope," he says with a flirty wink.

"well," you say, drawing closer to him. you put your hands on his shoulders; his come to your hips. "that tends to lead to the rest."

deja vu?

ortega blinks.

then, he smirks and grips just a little harder, pulling you closer to him.

"i have to say, i'm surprised," he says. "i didn't think you would be so comfortable with public displays of affection."

you shrug. your hands move from his shoulders to his neck, his jaw, his cheeks.

"i want to kiss you," you say. it's easy to be honest with this - why does the rest feel impossible? "if someone see's, i'm willing to pay that price."

[flingza-roller]

Hi hi wow your cosplay looks so cool, do you have any tips or advice on making a splatoon cosplay? And happy birthday for last week, that pinata video lives in my head rent free

OUGH THANK U!! it makes me rly happy that so many people like my cosplay.... i appreciate all the stuff yall have said so much!

gonna put this under the cut cuz i typed a lot lmao

if u can find patterns online to use they will be ur best friend, winging it CAN work but. not always DSGKJ

so there would be a lot to cover but im just gonna gonna start with the tentacles- mine are made from minky but i know ppl who've used like, a more vinyl-ish material? do NOT fucking use satin, i made that mistake with my original agent 3 cosplay and i nearly smashed my sewing machine out of pure rage. satin + minky is SO slippery and no matter what u do the pattern will just, Fuck Up. its why the tentacles were shaped so weirdly :/ so this time i stuck to ONLY minky and the result was way better. i had a friend help with hand sewing em and it meant more control over how the shape turns out so it was way better than my first attempt. (i then used plushie stuffing to give em shape and it makes em sooo fucking squishy n soft)

I FORGOT TO MENTION. the tentacles are safety pinned to the inside of the hat for stability, im not wearing a wig or anything.

eye mask? use eyeliner or body paint! ive done both and they both work well, id recommend using a setting spray tho. and if ur gonna wear contacts like i did, ALWAYS put contacts in before any makeup. this avoids the risk of getting shit in ur eye while putting em in (also my eyes always water a fucktonne lmao) oh and if u use a blind contact, be prepared to have fucky vision whenever ur in cosplay. agent 3 cosplayers stay suffering 💔

if ur gonna hand sew anything, definitely try to use proper techniques. luckily my gf is very good at that kinda stuff and they helped me through sewing the poncho/cape/idk fuckin old rags, i used a whip stitch so the threading isnt visible (im thinking of modifying it to add big thick cosmetic stitches so it looks more game-accurate, same with the patch on the hat)

craft stores are ur best friend for supplies! if ur australian, i highly recommend spotlight and lincraft for pretty much everything. spotlight usually has the most variety in fabric, but i always need to order my minky online. if ur not an aussie, prolly just google which places to go to DSGJ idk what yall have.

but heres my number 1 tip for cosplay- HAVE FUN! i know this sounds cliche but seriously. i sometimes to caught up in my head over little things, like "this isnt game accurate enough" "the colours are off" "people are gonna notice (X)" but cosplay is supposed to be fun, silly, crafting experience, a hobby, but most of all ur just dressing up as a fictional character and what could possibly be dorkier than that? feel free to do things differently, u never need to adhere to canon (i literally did the hijack scar AND i have a face full of metal), being accurate is NOT the most important thing, and of course- body type, gender, skin colour, NONE of these things should stop u from doing whatever the hell u want. the naysayers can go fuck themselves <3

and if u dont have the budget to buy good supplies, theres nothing wrong with a closet cosplay! work with whatever ya got!

imma finish here but if theres a specific cosplay thing u wanna know more about please ask and ill help as much as i can :]

[asterssunzephyr]

Any fluffy stories of the Coffee Shop AU? uwu

Now that I finished my first semester uwu

WOOOOO WELCOME BACK<3!! Glas you finished your semester!

The day Kat & Shelby get together is filled with SOO many mess ups. First the coffee machine wouldnt work, then some flowers had to be reordered, then Katherine wasnt off in time to go see Shelby before the flower shop closed, then Gem pulled Shelby to a party(XorXor pulled Kat to the same party its fine).

So many little things that stacked ontop of each other, neither of them were sure they'd be able to see each other before Katherine left for a month(Shes going to see her brothers over in hermit city for the month!); when Shelby sees Kat at the party she knows she has to take the chance before she loses it(and she doesnt know if she'll ever get it back).

Kat is bored at this party. She doesn't want to be there, and Scott isnt making it any better while talking about his boy issues('Jimmys with Tango but Im in love with Jimmy! What do I do?!').. Katherine doesnt know how to help!

When she sees Shelby walking over and almost falling she has to stifle a laugh to go and help her stand on her own feet rather than leaning on a wall.

"Having fun, tripping over your own feet and all?" "Ha ha, very funny Kat." "You know Im messing with you. Cmon, lets go dance!" "Kat I just got done dancing with Pearl please-" "Well I havent had the chance to dance with you!"

The only reply she got was a sigh and the shake of a head from Shelby, yet they still danced together. Shelby wasnt about to pass the moment up(especially since "the moment" is dancing to a slow song with Katherine. even if the song is country, its good!)

Xor & Gem are watching across the room(theyre also dancing but no ones paying attention to them) & are lowkey fangirling over this moment.

"Ohmygod." "They're actually dancing together." "and so we succeed??" "Not yet, they havent talked since they started dancing" "ughhh"

When Kat & Shelby do start talking they fuck up & talk over each other

"So, I have-" "Can we-" Cue Kat giggling over this. "Go on, Shelby." "Ah uh.. I wanna tell you something, before you leave." "Mhm?" "...I like you. Like a lot, and Ive wanted to tell you for weeks now and I havent had the chance to."

Shelby braces for rejection but is instead greeted by a kiss, a chaste kiss but nonetheless!

"Wh huh wha-" "I like you too, Shelby." "You do?" "Would I have kissed you if I didnt?" "Good point."

A few days later, Katherine texts her brothers and tells them she has someone thats coming with her for the month.

Cub, Impulse & Scar get along great with Shelby.

(I am on mobile btw so colours are limited</3)

[bye-bye-firefly]

I’ve heard of Colleen Hoover books. I like listening to book reviews on youtube while doing other stuff (I’ll listen to reviews for books I haven’t read along with books I have read, sometimes I’ll find something that sounds good enough that I’d want to read it and then I’ll add it to my list. Though, most of the time the reviews are just entertaining) and I’ve heard reviews for Colleen Hoover books soooooo often. They’ve all sounded like such fever dreams. Like very huh?????? Vibes. Haven’t actually read any of them though.

Books are indeed very expensive. I’m very happy things like libraries and second hand bookstores exist. They are a wonderful magic. I would like to bake them all a cake and give them a cup of hot cocoa

I haven’t heard of Jungi Ito before or Meg Mason or Mark Danielewski. I shall google them after I’m done writing this! I have heard of Steven King, which probably isn’t surprising considering how popular some of his stuff is. In like 4th or 5th grade it was like I could not walk into a room at school without seeing It on someone’s desk. That book was everywhere.

Do you have a favorite genre to look for stuff in or a favorite method of finding books? Also, thoughts on flowery writing?

NEVER HEARD OF JUNJI ITO........You will learn

my favourite genre of all time ever since i was like really little has been horror. like when i was little i would read goosebumps and then when my dad heard that i could actually read well above my grade, she was like Oh fuck yes I am indoctrinating you so now i have read a lot of stephen king and i read stephen king books when she tells me to. there are things that i dont like about stephen king but for the most part? a lot of his books are worth reading. but yeah i always look in horror sometimes i pick up slice of life shit but only if its batshit okay like if i engage with ANYTHING slice of life it has to be the most batshit flavour and that means i am going to go for nichijous of the world OR drama. if its dramatic i always consider it. i dont like things to be boring or dragging on for too long it has to be a wild ride.

other than genres, finding books themselves...i mostly wander around bookstores or libraries and pick up whatever interests me OR i wait for someone online to talk about some obscure book and then i go Oh that sounds sick as fuck and then i go and read it and sometimes i like it sometimes i dont. i REFUSE to go to tiktok for books. i dont really use tiktok or like tiktok but those girlies are going fucking crazy over there for REAL!!! theyre the girlies who are making book tropes a thing that you can use in advertising and i hate it ive never seen so many new books lack a description in my whole fucking life THIS IS NOT A SUMMARY I DONT KNOW WHAT IM MEANT TO DERIVE FROM THIS LIST OF WORDS!!! like the whole point of tags on ao3 is yes to search but also to warn others of what is INSIDE the book and if you dont have a good summary or an interesting summary no one is going to read that fucking fic. like. look at nameless right. my summary is GREAT on there. THATS THE STORY. people who READ the fic know like THAT is the story. AND you get a taste of my writing. now, another fic i wrote, o green world. THAT'S NOTHING. THAT'S NOT A SUMMARY. i was OBSESSED with one to two-sentence summaries back when i was first starting out and it SHOWS you do not get SHIT from my summaries. no WONDER that hit count is so low god damn

and flowery writing..........i. i dont really like it that much. but most of the time it doesnt bother me until it gets to a point where im like this is a BREAKFAST TABLE. okay. i take flowery writing as a hint that i should be paying attention to everything the position of everything the colours i should be deriving some kind of meaning and i WILL take note of it because i am the kind of motherfucker that i will take notes on a book either in a journal or in the margins (BOOOOO TOMATO TOMATO TOMATO im so sorry i only do it with books i own) but like a lot of the books ive read where theres flowery writing used for specific scenes or in bursts like theres no REASON for them to be flowery in that moment theyre just BEING FLOWERY and i suppose theyre trying to make it more impactful but if you want an impactful moment i personally always stick with making impactful moments feel kind of FAST. like we dont dwell on it too long we have to keep moving i dont want to prove that it is impactful by being like And with a caress like a flower petal on the wind, Kokichi placed his warm hand against Shuichi's cold skin, breaking the frost and turning ice to water, water to vapour WE DONT NEED ALL THAT so sometimes yes it does annoy me but its like . there are times for it. you know? and a lot of old books use flowery language because that is the time that is the style there is probably a purpose for it. dorian gray has a lot of flowery language in it and it serves a PURPOSE. dorian gray is just a giant gay horror book like there is NO heterosexual explanation for the things that are said in that book for the things that are done like. the flowery language plays a huge part in a lot of it because a lot of the time oscar wilde is using it to put emphasis on something in a scene or describing a POWERFUL emotion. there are places for it but i have read a lot of books (AND fics) where its just. unnecessary. use your tools properly forever

[0zzysaurus]

how does one go about making gifs? ive always wanted to try but i have no idea where to start.

Well the way I do them is super basic. I make no-nonsense gifs with minimal to no editing - but I suppose that’s helpful if you just want to get into making simple ones!

I do all of it on iPhone, so it’s gonna be iOS specific, but as long as you have a decent screen recorder on whatever device you’re using, you shouldn’t need to download any videos.

Downloading videos is mostly done to avoid quality drops if your wifi isn’t very good. I personally screen record all my clips because cannot tell the difference between gifs made from screen recorded videos versus downloaded videos, and I just don’t have the time/space to be downloading full videos that can be potentially two hours or more. Screen recording also helps you get around copyright problems if you’re trying to download videos from YouTube. It’s a personal preference thing and if people shit on you for screen recording then they need to get a life.

The first thing I do is find a movie/show that I want to select clips from. I’ll do a quick example with a shot from The Matchmaker (1958) because I could do with some gifs of that movie.

First thing I do is find it in the highest quality I can, put my phone on horizontal & full screen (so you can get the biggest resolution you possibly can) and record a reasonable sized segment I want to make gifs of. Have some buffer space so you’re not fiddling with pauses, and record long enough to maybe get one or two good gifs out of a few minutes of recording.

Once I’ve done that, I trim the video to just be the parts I want to make into a gif. Usually something between 2 and 7 seconds helps to keep the upload size for Tumblr below 10MB, but the more colours/higher the definition the bigger the file will be regardless of runtime, so be aware. Always save as a new clip so you can keep reusing your initial screen recording.

I’ve got three clips here I wanna make into gifs.

Now I go to the best website ever, ezgif to actually rotate (crop sometimes) and convert video into gifs. It’s 100% safe and a shit load better than the native iOS gif making tools.

I’m sure there are better ways of doing this with editing software on your computer, but a) I’m too lazy for that and this works just fine for making gifs for your blog, and b) you wanted a beginner tutorial and this is something fun you can play around with if shit like Adobe AE is too daunting/expensive.

You wanna click this option:

And then use the following settings (the seconds are just the maximum length of the clip I chose, feel free to play around with those to shorten your clip more if you didn’t quite get it accurate the first time.)

The size and frame rate options here WILL make the largest file option available, but it will look the best. Lower them if you are okay compromising quality for file size, or shorten your gif if you are okay compromising length for quality.

The fire size here is JUST under Tumblr’s file limit. 10.00MiB will always be too big for Tumblr. I find optimising a gif often makes the file size BIGGER 🙄 but try it if you want. There are a lot of decent options here for a simple gif tool :]] I’m just gonna quickly crop the black bars out.

To download it, I always hit the save button and open it in View so it’s in its own tab. Then I just save it from there.

And that’s how I do it :]]

[aidanh]

Oh boy! We're doin a sequel🤣 im gonna start this off with the "heavy" stuff plaguing my mind and then get into the school update. Well first and foremost i deleted that awful bird app, or as elon muskrat wants it to be called "X" its genuinly one of the most hateful and toxic things. I dont for the life of me understand how someone can be so horrid over screens as if there isnt a person on the other end, we are always taught to "treat someone how you wanna be treated" but a screen changes that? A screen makes you feel like you should hurt others? For what? Does it make them feel good? Being mean? I dont understand why just because someone is different, someone likes something you dont, why someone who loves someone of the same gender, why does any of that matter? Why do people care so much about something that physically doesnt affect them? And why do people activly try to prevent it? I know so many incredible people who are different to me in so many ways but isnt the beauty of life finding those people? You get to see their experiences, how they see the world and how theyve lived, if theyre artists you physically get to see these things, to hear those things through song or books, through drawings and paintings, photography. We are all different, we all see everything different, we all experience things different, how is that not so cool? Why in this day in age are we still so closed minded to people being different from us, if we all were the same life would be so boring and dull, its all the unique people that make this world give colour and life, why are we discouraging that? If ypu cant tell, it bothers me alot. I will always stand with the LGBTQ+ community, trans rights will always be human rights. Being true to who you are shouldnt make you any less human just because some closed minded people say so, i refuse to be part of the group moving backwards in that direction.

Anyways. School update, ive gotten to try out a bunch of new mediums! Ive done some stuff with acrylics, inks, watercolour markers, coloured pencil, pen, carving with lino and making prints with it, clay, sewing (actually learned how to sow and its so relaxing??) and fabrics so much cool stuff, ive been drawing basically daily this whole time which is so nice! After not having time or being able to i feel like im falling in love with art again and I'm finding myself wanting to draw more and more each day, i feel like im improving abit too! Which is the first time in a while🤣 im enjoying it! I know im not even close to being the best but im getting somewhere! I know comparison is the thief of joy and i need to get better at actually understanding that but we will get there!! I will leave this post here, if you someone read this entire thing, thank you for listening to my ramblings🤣 hopefully the next update wont be in another 40 days🤣

[dumbbitchfrommars]

im uninspired and feeling like my head is empty, because ive spent a longgg time hibernating in the safety and comfort of my own bedroom.

well a small lie - i did go out to buy groceries today. it seems were all in the same boat. its cold out! no one wants to go outside. but connection and social interaction is what brings us confidence and joy and comfort in the discomfort.

but yet somehow despite that discomfort (my anxiety about returning to the real world) i was completely fine. i was okay. because i think ive finally figured it out. i know how to take care of myself. i know how to make space in the world without feeling ashamed or guilty for it. or im learning. but im so so so much better than i was. a year ago, two years ago... etc.

ive been wondering why i thoughtlessly let myself fall into the trap of nostalgia and request an old friend that i cut off on instagram. hes probably wondering why now? and avoiding it. fair enough. im not going to rescind that decision - its done now. but still i question my logic in that moment. but thats the thing, i wasnt thinking. i was being hopeful. but either way - he doesnt owe me anything, even if we were to become reconnected i wouldnt want to reach out or make any plans together. which again begs the question of why i would even try get into contact again in the first place.

i guess i have just been feeling tired of wondering how everyone from my past is doing, and that things could and would be so chill and relaxed if id never jumped to blocking but actually calmly and slowly distanced myself. which is what i am capable of doing now - after a few years of practice.

but coming back full circle - this friend was not a true friend. my nostalgia is a rose coloured pair of glasses because i remember our friendship and bond and the fun we had and the mischief we got up to. but this person - was not a friend. he was ill intentioned and selfish, and didnt truly care for me. he disrespected me and hurt me time and time again. so no, he is not worth my energy anymore. once upon a time we were soulmates. but i changed. i grew up. we grew apart. it was natural. and for some reason... of all the people from my past i could have done it to... it was him?

to be fair i already did reach out to my ex in march. and then i changed my mind within a week or two. and then he reached out to me... isnt that crazy? the timing? the fact that god had us pass eachother by like doves in the wind or ships in the night... because despite our bond still being there - the memories, the connection, the impact we had on eachother - its not enough. it was never enough. again, i grew up, we grew apart, and it was natural.

so what does this all mean for me? my usual logic is to cut the cord and say goodbye. but my subconscious desire to love, be connected, and honour the relationships that made me the person i am today is becoming stronger and stronger. i can put aside my ego and hurt, because i healed. i let it go. it is in the past. the past stays in the past and all that matters is now. and right now - i am not the kind of person who just deletes a person from her life and calls it a day. people are not disposable. and while i respect that we are completely different people now, and our paths have diverged and we will never replace the connection we once had, it doesn't mean i want to let you go entirely. i remember you. i respect how much of an impact you had in creating the person i am today.

i also respect that i probably hurt you just as bad when i walked away. so while i am ready to let go and forgive and reach out, i dont expect you to feel the same. to receive that energy and respond to it. its in YOUR prerogative to simply ignore and delete that request in the same exact way i did.

but... i probably wont reach out to the other friend. some people stay in the past. idk. im lost now. my point is ive let go and forgiven. but nothing really has to change, only my behaviour moving forward. no mistake is worth my walking away. distance is my friend but i dont need to cut people off anymore. thats the easy way out. life isnt meant to be easy. i want to learn to do the hard thing... i am learning to do the hard thing.

this has been a healing experience. thank you, C <3