#just trying a bunch of new stuff for the fun and growth of it

[poolofdevilspit]

letting out my inner middle schooler designing tiny swords today

can i get some feedback??

i got overwhelmed with how many blanks i made at once lol

these are my plans!! i traced their shape in orange and then drew the refinements and ideas in graphite. last picture shows their actual size with my hand for scale. my hand is pretty regular sized.

any comments and ideas very welcome

[sophia-sol]

I've been doing a bunch of cordage making in recent weeks! Using types of fibres that are new to me, and it's been fun to experiment and see what each is like. It's cool how many different things in the natural world you can use for fibres if you go about it the right way!!

(below the cut: descriptions and photos of my efforts with milkweed bast, corn husks, and a mystery garden plant)

First, milkweed bast: Milkweed is the kind of plant that has a whole bunch of long stringy fibres that go up the length of the stalk between the bark and the pith. These are called bast fibres and they can be harvested from a bunch of different plants. Linen and hemp are the most commercially used of these, but you can find useable bast fibres in lots of different plants.

I foraged about 30 dead milkweed stalks from a low-lying area along the side of a road, and took them home to try what I could do.

It was a fair amount of work to separate out the fibres, though I got better at it with a little practice. I also learned that it really does matter if the stalks you harvest have been hanging around dead in all weather for a long time; the fibres start to break down. A lot of what I harvested turned out to be dead stalks from a previous year, not this year's growth! Also, it's quite a few weeks after first frost at this point, so this year's growth has had some weathering effects too. From a bit of research, the best time to harvest is after the milkweed is dead and dry but before frost.

About a week later, I happened to be heading home along a path and found a stand of milkweed that seemed to largely be this year's growth, so I stopped and harvested a bunch of those and took them home. I haven't had time to strip all of them down for fibres, but testing it out with a few of those stalks, it's amazing how much more useable fibre there is, and how much easier it is to separate fibre from pith. Very exciting to be able to learn successfully how to identify the better stalks for harvest, and prove to myself what a difference it makes.

Getting the bast fibres out of dead plants in the way I am doing results in some fairly coarse fibres. This is great for making cordage, which is what I am after, but you can also use milkweed to make much finer thread and weave wearable cloth out of it. On the more degraded of the stalks I had harvested, the fineness of the fibres was really visible since more of the bark etc had worn away from around them, and I could totally see how nice a fabric it could make if you go down that route.

However. Getting the fine long fibres free from all the other plant materials without breaking the fibres involves retting, a days-to-weeks long process that is basically strategically getting everything to rot just enough but not too much. Which is a bit of a smelly process for a person who lives in a city with lots of close neighbours!

But, conveniently, I am obsessed with cordage. So as cool as the other route would be, I am also very satisfied with what I can do! IDK why I'm so drawn to making cordage, but I really really am. I was shown how to make it just a year or two ago, and as soon as I learned I was just like. yes. this is For Me.

I am getting a goodly little pile of milkweed fibres pulled from my harvested plants, and it will make good strong fine cordage, which I am very excited about. I think I may use it to nalbind myself a little basket.

Next, corn husks:

For reasons that don't need explaining at this juncture, my household had need of a couple feet of strong, thick cordage that is safe for a baby to put in their mouth. The milkweed had been harvested from places near highways and train routes, which can lead to higher concentrations of nasty stuff in forageables, so I didn't want to use my milkweed bast. But conveniently, last summer when I bought several dozen corn cobs and froze the corn for use in cooking, I saved and dried all the corn husks. Guaranteed food-safe product!

Corn husks have lots of very strong and flexible fibres in them, with the only downside being how relatively short a husk is. But if you introduce new, narrow strips of husk regularly enough, it can all bind together into a very good cord. So I took a number of husks and soaked them briefly to make them more pliable, and split the husks down into the narrowest strips I could manage. Then I used these to twist a three-strand cord.

Three-strand is less prone to coming apart than two-strand, in contexts where the cord might be bent and kinked a lot. It's also definitely more challenging to make, and it took a fair time for my hands to figure out how to keep track of all three bits while doing my twisting! Especially since I kept having to add new pieces of husk so regularly so there were always a great number of short bits sticking out in all directions to try to keep together. But I did get the hang of it eventually, and three-strand cordage is really a beautiful thing. I also love the pale greenish colour you get from corn husk.

I have definitely confirmed for myself that working with the short lengths of corn husks is a pain, which is too bad because in all other respects corn husk is SO nice to work with! Strong and pliable without being hard on the hands, looks nice, feels nice, even smells nice, and as already stated it's completely food safe.

I definitely will want to use corn husk again in the future, especially since it's so easy to get in large quantity. During corn season I can probably even go to my local market and ask the corn vendor if I can take home some of the large pile of stripped husks they always develop behind their stall over the course of the market day! But corn husk is not a good first choice for something where you really want a very thin cord. Gotta fit the use case to the material.

Most recently, an unknown garden plant:

A friend of mine, a while back, allowed me to forage some random stuff from her decorative front garden. I took home a bunch of tall grass stems, but I also harvested a number of leaves from a succulent plant with very long and narrow leaves that looked like they had dry fibres kind of splitting off the edges of them. I only took some of the bottom leaves that were already wilting or on their way out, since I didn't want to affect the growth or appearance of the decorative plant.

No idea what the plant is since it's not my garden lol. But I let the leaves dry thoroughly, and then I carefully split them up the full length of each leaf into surprisingly thin strands! the individual fibres in the leaves look to be coarser than those of milkweed, so I don't think it could be made into the kind of cloth that a person could make from milkweed, but it's perfectly well suited to cordage. The thin long leaf strands I managed to get from this process are very sturdy for how thin they are, and twist up very nicely into cordage.

I'm a few feet into making a cord out of this material, and even though I didn't have a huge number of leaves, I think I'm going to be able to make quite a length out of it! I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with it but I have a few options I'm considering.

[childotkw]

hi!! i really, really, REALLY love your writing I'm not kidding when I say I'm utterly in love with your style (and your mind because you're brilliant! YOU HAVE GALAXY BRAIN!!) I wouldn't say I'm a picky reader exactly but..well let's just say that I can love a story but it's rare for me to read something and then instead of just loving the story, I fall in love with the writing itself too! I swear when I first discovered you it felt like I found a whole new world! after reading everything you posted on ao3, I camped here for days reading everything else regardless of ships/no ship/plot. It's been years since then haha I still go here XD I was that CAPTIVATED. MESMERIZED. IN AWE. STILL AM.

With THAT SAID, before I get way too emotional and forget my second reason for this ask hahahshs I'm not sure if someone has already asked this before but do you have something like an outline/thoughts process of any of your published works? or just the general idea of your writing process! I'm genuinely interested in how you plan and sort things out! If that's alright of course >_< I would love to learn a thing or two!

Hello hello!! Thank you so much for your kind words - it's great to hear you've enjoyed my stuff! 🥰

I have a whole bunch of posts in this tag (#writing tips) where I talk about my writing process / plans, if you want to have a look at those as well!

For me, every story honestly has a different approach. Some pop up nearly fully formed (e.g., Consuming Shadows), while others change and morph depending on the day and the phase of the moon (e.g., ybtm(ibty)).

I suppose I'm lucky in that I've never really struggled with coming up with ideas. If anything I have far too much fun letting my imagination get away from me 😅

But I always try and have the overarching plot line mapped out before I commit to writing a story. I always sit down and map out a general storyline (different acts, if you will, or what the main character growth moments will be), so that I have a rough outline to starting working towards.

For example, when I first sat down to start working on all your secrets (all my lies) last week, the first thing I did was establish a timeline.

I mapped out from the day Regulus' consciousness comes back in time (1 August 1976, for those interested), all the way to two years in the future (currently at May 1978), and wrote down, month by month, what events would take place. It's not necessarily set in stone, but by having a timeline written out, it gives me an idea of where the peaks and troughs in my story would be. It gave me a solid understanding of how my pacing might need to change, or how certain events need to be added / rearranged so that there are never any significant months of inaction for the characters.

By having this timeline in hand, I can now start filling in the smaller moments (how I get from Point A to Point B in the story), which gives me a way to start plotting out my chapters and what will happen in individual scenes.

Hope that gives you an idea of how my brain works? If you have any other specific questions, feel free to ask!

[blue-the-octoling]

Stupid HSH (Home Safety Hotline) calls with me and my friend Ocs

-First time you meet her-

Heya! Thea here, I heard you were new! How exciting right? Anyway, just wanted to let you know that any calls concerning Hobbs or any other animals imma need you to direct them to me! Okay? Okay, have a good rest of your shift I’ll be callin’ again soon!

-whistling fungi call-

Hi… Thea here, yawn I need your help… I haven’t been able to sleep lately. Not because of all the baby animals we have taken in, nor Venus screeching at me for cake. No, it is like this melodic whistling sound… it is coming from my walls and it’s pissin’ me off… help me out please?

(Call if you get it wrong)

��.hey… Thea again… I’m going to go fucking crazy you hear me!? CRAZY! BECAUSE OF YOUR INSOLENT ANSWER I HAVE LOST FIVE! FIVE BABIES! Starts sobbing and you hear banging sounds like someone banging their head against a wall

-stair slug-

Um… I don’t know where to start…. It’s Thea again and bean just brought home this big box and put it in our basement… now some of my Hobbs have gone missing and Jerry and Emma are gone too… do you have any idea what’s happening here?

(Call if you get it wrong)

You know what? I’ll do it myself, no thanks to you. Sending me stuff for fuckin’ cellular growths. Do you really think Bean would bring one of those home? You must be thick. Angry walking and mumbling you know what? I will handle this myself. Door creaking open and takes on step before you hear Thea falling down. The stairs because she slipped on some slime. Then there is laughter then beans voice asking her if she’s okay

-trying to recruit you-

Thea again! I’ve talked to you recently about a few things and! And! You have been doing as I’ve asked! You have saved quite a few lives, thanks for that. You know that Hobbs get a bad rep and stuff…. But uh… that’s not why I’m calling. I’ve gotten permission from your supervisor to ask you about coming and working at the sanctuary! You know? Some like being a little more hands on with their work. Though you will have to choose between working with the ones above or beneath the soil…. My Hobbs will have to like you… and are you good with animals? I mean at first you can like… feed and cuddle baby animals but one of the requirements for this job is you have to take calls and adoption applications for our Hobbs. But that’s it! Hope you make up your mind soon. Bye.

-random call- (this one is just for fun)

When you pick up the call instead of Thea you hear a bunch of squeaks but it sounds more like a squeaky toy then a mouse after about ten seconds of this you hear a blender start then a voice getting closer then you finally hear it Venus! You cheeky Hobb get off the phone! Go, go! Come on… no! Don’t you dare. I swear to you! If you don’t put the phone down no more cake for a month! The blender sounds gets really loud and then the audio distorts as you hear Thea yell Gods damn it Venus! Then the call ends

@kiw1-qu33r

[clacing]

Hi, I'm dumb so forgive me if this question has an easy answer; is there a viewing order for Revstar? I'm trying to get into it, but I have been putting it off because I couldn't tell where to start

I assume you just mean the anime, but since there are also a bunch of stage plays and spin-offs and a gacha game, here's an overview and my personal opinion on a good viewing order:

You should definitely watch the anime first. It's only 12 episodes but it spends so much time developing each and every character and making you truly feel for them, plus it's the most experimental piece of media in the franchise and where the Utena influences are the most visible, so it's a treat to watch. I don't know if it's an unpopular opinion or what, but the stage plays didn't do nearly as much to develop the characters or their relationships with each other due to the obvious time constraints, so if that's your first run-in with the franchise you'll probably be disappointed

3 OVAs which take place during the finale and which I didn't know existed for the longest time. They're short and sweet and have some good character interaction, though you don't really have to watch them

I know there's a manga prequel with nine chapters introducing each of the nine girls + a bonus chapter that takes place after the finale. I haven't read it though

Rondo Rondo Rondo: it's a movie recapping the series from a slightly different perspective and including new scenes. You don't have to watch it but I'd still check out the new scenes on Youtube at least, especially the one after the end credits which is a direct lead-in to Gekijouban

Gekijouban Revue Starlight: the sequel movie. Absolute masterpiece, required viewing, budget was off the charts, elevates the series to new levels etc. etc.

As for the stage plays, again, I recommend watching them after the anime if you're interested. Doesn't really matter if you watch them right after the anime or after Gekijouban because the stage plays have their own plot that is only tangentially related to the anime, but they do have to be watched in a specific order:

The LIVE #1

The LIVE #2 - Transition

The LIVE Online (prequel to #3, not really required but a fun time)

The LIVE #3 - Growth

The LIVE Seiran - Blue Glitter (spin-off about characters introduced in #2 and #3, though I believe because of COVID it ended up coming out before #3 - personally I haven't watched it 'cause I don't really care, but I've heard good things)

The LIVE Edel Delight (I'll be real I know this ties in to the gacha game somehow which I don't play, so I haven't seen this either and don't really know how this fits into the timeline)

The STAGE Junior High Regalia (prequel about characters introduced in Edel Delight)

The LIVE #4 - Climax (this only came out in Japan this year so I don't think there are subtitles yet, but I'll be watching when they come out)

As for the gacha game, I don't play it but there's a lot of content which cross-references either the anime or the stage plays so I'll just direct you to this post (meant to just share the original one but Tumblr won't let me click on the original post to get the link) which also includes a guide about the viewing/playing order. Overall I think you could start playing after watching like, the anime + Gekijouban + possibly the first two stage plays?

PLEASE don't feel threatened by all of this btw. You can just watch the 12-episode anime and Gekijouban and be perfectly fine 'cause everything else is just extra. I've only watched the anime stuff and the first four stage plays I mentioned 'cause the gacha game and later stage plays add too many characters for me to keep up with

[i-am-snowils-admiral]

I need you to know I absolutely love your tags on the webtoon poll you reblogged from me I 100% agree with your reasoning on all of them

also also!! you’ve read all the same webtoons!!! I only just read s-rank hunters and real estate like a few weeks ago!!! hahaha I’m just excited to find out someone else I know has read them

gotta ask then - what should be my next obsession? I’m currently binging doctor stone (mostly anime but I’m trying to catch up on the manga but it’s hard when I get close to the episode I’m on and then binge an entire season in a day (extra side note I just graduated last week and am spending my newly found free time poorly)) but I am always open to new recommendations, even if it means they just get dropped into my queue of things to read!!

this turned out to be much more stream of consciousness than I originally intended. oops.

This is so wild because I just picked up Dr. Stone about a week ago. I've mostly stopped reading around ch 78 but it's still open in a tab somewhere so I could always go back to it.

I'm so excited we've read the same stuff!! Post-graduation is the perfect time to get into a bunch of random webtoons. Literally what else are you doing. You are free.

In terms of recommendations...hmmmm I actually have a few. Hopefully at least one of these you haven't read yet. Actually I'm going to rate these ones as well for how much I'd like to be a side character.

Often included with the ones we were talking about would be SSS-Class Suicide Hunter, which is pretty good. I'm not caught up but it's super fun and every once in a while will hurt your heart in a good way. (Rating: I'd be happy to be a side character here. Things would go miraculously and somewhat suspiciously well)

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint is a classic as well. (Rating: You couldn't pay me 10 billion dollars to be a side character in this thing)

I've been really enjoying Pick Me Up, Infinite Gacha - it's an interesting take on the "trapped in a video game" plot that actually manages to be semi-unique (I think, at least) in a genre that is not unique in the slightest. (Rating: Also wouldn't want to be a side character. Han Yslat is only interested in like 10 incredibly powerful people and I would be synthesized for someone else's growth for sure)

Dungeon Reset is just. They gave this man Minecraft powers. Good for him. (Rating: I'd be a side character but only if I got to also have Minecraft powers and hang out in all the cool secret bases)

The Newbie is Too Strong is pretty fun as well, I think they just started a new season so chapters are coming out again. (Rating: I would want the NPCs to like me so much. Not sure if I'd survive this one but I'd be making friends)

Eleceed. The plot of this one is: Cats! Also unimaginable violence against children. Interspersed with more cats. It's incredible. (Rating: Depends heavily on what KIND of side character I was. I am not kidding about the incredible violence but I think if I was a normal person I'd be ok)

Happy reading! Congrats on graduation! I've definitely started reading things because you were putting them on your blog, so I'm happy to throw recommendations at you as well!

[andymakesgames]

Andy's 2024 Year in Review

I tend to work on a lot of small projects with a smattering of larger ones mixed in. Often I end the year thinking I didn't do all that much, but then I start going through my posts and realize that I did more than I thought! Hard to believe that stuff I did last January was this year!

I've fallen out of the habit of doing these year-in-review posts, which is a shame, but I'm turning that around right now! Here's a quick look at all the things I made last year.

EMMA

Probably the biggest thing for me is another successful year of the coop I'm a part of, EMMA Technology Cooperative. After a somewhat tough 2023, we bounced back this year. Seeing us survive a lean time and watching the coffers refill in the past year really drove home the value of organizing around cooperation as opposed to infinite growth. And if you're reading this and in need of a creative technologist, please drop us a line!

Taper - January

A the start of this year I was on the editorial board of Taper, online literary journal for computational poetry. I only assisted with one issue (which I also contributed to!) but it was a very new experience for me and I'm happy I could be a part of it!

A few years ago I kind of stumbled into the occasional piece of digital poetry without ever realizing. I was doing a literal poetry reading when I realized that I write poems from time to time. It's very fun that my practice occasionally pulls me in unexpected directions.

MAGFest - January

Every year, we bring all of the games in the Arcade Commons collection to the Music and Games Festival just outside of Washington DC. It is our biggest show of the year by a mile and I love it every time. There is a DIY spirit to MAGFest that really sets it apart from any other con I've been to. We're well underway for 2025 as I write this. As I frequently do, I emceed a bunch of our tournaments.

The Algorithm - February

What a fun project this was! Alia ElKattan and Lujain Ibrahim contacted me about their Mozilla Foundation-funded project to explain how algorithmic feeds work. I created modular P5JS animations to serve as the "content" for their app.

They found me via the P5 tweetcarts I had been posting during the pandemic. I got to explore some of those same ideas without the super tight character restrictions.

Check it out here.

EMMA Skillshare - March

I did a small workshop on getting PICO-8 to communicate with Javascript. This was the basis for my project Pico Pond which I wrote about on the EMMA Blog.

This skillshare took those ideas and presented them in a livestream, which you can watch here.

Our Generation - May

I was contacted by Nick Montfort to submit a piece of computer generated poetry for a small-run book called Our Generation: Programs + Computer-Generated Texts. I channeled my inner Jenny Holzer for this and really enjoyed it. The full src appears at the top of the page and it was interesting to factor that in to make sure the output exactly filled the page. I keep thinking it would be fun to do a series using this size restriction but I haven't done it yet.

You can see my full page here.

Tastebud Tapdancer - May

You've been swallowed by a giant serpent but you're trying to make the best of it.

A little video game with a source code of just 500 characters! Made for TweetTweetJam 9 You can play it here.

The Indomitable Rocket Dog - June

Around this point in the year is where I started working on my current project, The Indomitable Rocket Dog. I'm enjoying this game so much. I haven't made a real twitchy arcade game since PARTICLE MACE, which just celebrated its 10th birthday. It is still very early but I feel really good about this one!

After MAGFest 2024 I was percolating on physics-y arcade games mostly because I am so deeply in love with Hoverburger by Nick Santaniello. Before I knew it my love of N++ was mixed in there as well.

I'm writing all of my own physics in C++ because I had a vague sense of how I want it to feel and it's a hobby project so I can do what I want.

I've been documenting my development on it in a mastodon thread.

Isabelle Poppy And Bling - August

OK, this one isn't new at all! This is a flash game I made in 2009 for musician Justin Braun. But this year I got it playable on the web again!

Like so many game developers my age, I got my start with Macromedia Flash. This game felt like the culmination of my style at the time, which was heavily influenced by Animutation. I was starting to be more deliberate with my collage style as opposed to aiming for totally random elements. I think I got paid $600 for it, which felt huge at the time.

1K Pac-Man - September

Another size coded game. This time it's as faithful a recreation of Pac-Man as I could muster in 1024 bytes of source code. All of the ghost logic is accurate to the original!

You can play it here. I'm very pleased with the mouth animation.

I made it for PICK-1K Jam 2024. I do wish I had read the page a little more carefully though. The jam required compressed source to be 1024 bytes and I did raw source. The game is only 723 compressed bytes so I had a lot of room to expand, but by the time I realized that I had painstakingly trimmed and optimized my code and I couldn't imagine untangling it. Oops.

Cloud Gobblers - November

Arcade Commons received a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council to create an arcade machine showing a collection of games that incorporate weather data into the gameplay. EMMA was commissioned to make one of the games. Cloud Gobblers is a snake-style game where the playfield is a video satellite field of global cloud coverage over a period of 48 hours.

This was the first time all of the members of EMMA worked together on one project!

Three Tapestries - October

I didn't make many pen plotter drawings this year, but I really liked this one. You can see the full thing here.

It's currently still available in my shop! Until somebody buys it it will be hanging on the wall in my office.

Lever Up Jam - December

Back in 2021, I worked with Matt Lepage on an alt-control game jam called Jam Jam Revolution. We prepped a parts list so all participants could build the same controller and make games for it. This year we decided to dust off that idea with the Lever Up Jam. This time there will be a full-sized cabinet at MAGFest that the games can be played on!

My favorite TweetCarts / Postcarts This Year

I no longer use Twitter, but I have been making the occasional tweetcart (a PICO-8 sketch with source code 280 bytes or less) and posting them on tumblr and mastodon. But there was an exciting development towards the end of the year! Lexaloffle, the creator of Pico-8 created a section on the BBS for 300 char or less "Postcarts", so we now have a centralized home for these little byte-sized demos.

Here are three of my favorite postcarts that I made this year:

Spinning Cube v3 - April

p=pset::_::cls()for i=0,99do u=0s=i/4+t()/5x=64+sin(s)*39a=64+sin(s+.25)*39y=39+cos(s)*9b=39+cos(s+.25)*9line(x,y,a,b,6)for k=0,99do if x>a and i<4and k<50then line(x,y+k,a,b+k,k>48and 7or 9+i)p(x,y+k,7)p(a,b+k)end v=pget(i,k)u+=v if(v>6)break if(u>0)p(i,k,8)end end flip()goto _

Big year for making things spin. You can check out my tumblr post to see all my attempts at perfecting this spinning cube. The outlines were the real cherry on top for me.

Balatro Spinning Card - May

a=abs::_::cls()e=t()for r=0,46do for p=0,1,.025do j=sin(e)*20k=cos(e)*5f=1-p h=a(17-p*34)v=a(23-r)c=1+min(23-v,17-h)%5/3\1*6u=(r-1)/80z=a(p-.2)if(e%1<.5)c=a(r-5)<5and z<u+.03and(r==5or z>u)and 8or 8-sgn(h+v-9)/2 g=r+39pset((64+j)*p+(64-j)*f,(g+k)*p+(g-k)*f,c)end end flip()goto _

This was so hard to make! I can't believe I did it. I wrote a giant writeup breaking down the 279 byte source code on the EMMA blog.

Fuji - October

pal({7,12,140,13,129,1,5,8,8,14,142,143,7},1)r=rnd::_::x=r(128)y=r(128)c=9+y/26-2+r(1.5) if(y<((x+40)/6)^1.6and y<((178-x)/6)^1.6and y<79+r(2))c=2.5-sgn(y-45-sin(x/21)*r(4))*1.5+r(2.5-sgn(x-69-r(8)-y/3+25)*.7) pset(x,128-y,c)a=r(1)d=r(25)pset(28+sin(a)*d,30+cos(a)*d,9)goto _

I made this during some downtime on a vacation to Japan. I was hoping to see Fuji the next day and the clouds wound up being kind to us, giving an amazing view.

I almost never make representational art and I was really happy with how this turned out.

That's it! I hope you all have a great 2025!

[leidensygdom]

How is the life of a aasimar/warforged? Do they have something like a childhood where they need to learn (I guess calibrate would be a kore fitting term?)? Based on that, how is Argyros origin?

It depends a lot! People build (sentient) warforged in that setting with the intention to create new life, akin to having a child. In these cases, they often follow a similarish learning cycle (even if stuff like growth and movement is usually not something they need to learn). Other machines are made with a lot of knowledge beforehand, and their growing process can be different (specially, when it comes to learning being a bit more emotional-like.) For example we got to know Pathos, who despite having access to a vast amount of knowledge, has only been sentient for 12 years and almost completely detached from emotional beings, so they're slowly learning how to act like a person of sorts. Yxala taught him how to lie-

Argyros' origin is a bit more unclear and will be probably one of the topics for the campaign. She found herself being suddenly sentient but with no idea of who she was, just a bunch of knowledge that was placed in her mind. They spent several years trying to find out about their origins, trying to understand why or what created them. She made a bunch of friends on the way and got taken under someone's wing, who cared for her like their own child, so she hasn't been completely alone!

(however, none of this explains where does her aasimar stuff come from >:) that one is more unexpected in warforged)

also here's an extra doodle, for fun!

[ener-chi]

Feeling pushed to make a life update so here we go! TL;DR my Path, and fun school stuff - Taiji, Tuina, etc.

Hmm where to start. This program has changed me so much. Due to everything I have to deal with and go through, I feel like all of my unhealthy coping mechanisms and behaviors came to the surface and ended up being changed into something different and healthier. I mean, they kind of had to be - otherwise I wouldn't be able to handle the program.

But... this is kind of what I've been working on lately, and is pretty recent. I've realized that... I have been running. From myself, and also my Path.

I was running from my Trauma, but also parts of myself that I didn't like. But also... I was running from my Spiritual Path. My Path started to change about 2 years ago. It began to get... bigger, broader scope, more responsibility... I realized recently that I got scared, because I knew that following it would result in me changing big time, and I don't think I was ready for that at that time.

But. You can't run forever lol. I've been doing a lot of work, and I think I am finally ready to accept my Path and get back into my Practice. I've been getting a bunch of upgrades, been working with Reiki ALOT. Also... my gifts have been coming back (I've been kind of suppressing them) and that's been super interesting. I feel like I have soo much to learn, and I get to relearn how to do things, too.

In other news - cool school stuff!!

First, Taiji. The teacher I have is INCREDIBLE. He's an older Chinese man, and he is legitimately like a master you would see in movies. I have learned a form of Taiji before, but what he teaches is WILD.

Like we haventeven learned any form or anything - all we've really been doing is learning how to stand properly in two different stances and shift our weight around. But the Qi fucking MOVES. Sooo much. Like during it my whole body shakes as it's releasing blockages, and throughout the week I like have had a ton of emotional stuff come up. I definitely think that it's been contributing to the change I've been going through, for sure.

I mean we get energy blockages in our channels, and we can have big emotions and stress stored there or in our muscles. When you break up those blockages, those things get released. It's very cool to see it happen in myself.

HmmMMM I've been learning some Tuina - which translates to basically Chinese Medical Massage. It's a massage modality, but it serves a medical purpose, and can be used to treat most things, even like cold or flu. BUT where it excels is in orthopedic problems and pain.

Like our teacher - who is incredible, btw, and got his degree in China, and was the first person to have a doctor's degree in TCM in the USA - he has been showing us so many stories and case studies of people that have had near debilitating pain for years, sometimes 10 or 20, and no surgery or anything can make it better, but after about 10 sessions of Tuina, they walk away pain-free.

Absolutely mind-bending stuff. I honestly genuinely am going to recommend anyone in my life to try Tuina before considering getting big orthopedic surgeries. It's crazy.

Hmm what else. I mean I have just been learning so much stuff lol. Like Chinese Medicine can help accelerate the growth and healing of bones after a break, and can also help treat it even years after it happened. Or like how most heart attacks take place around noon and in the summer, and why that is. Just so much cool stuff!

Anywho. That's probably it for now. Gotta rest up and get back to my studies 😵

Hope everyone has a good day!

Blessings!

[sanchoyo]

okay, ONE more tmm post. MEW AQUA. It's WEIRD. (moreso in the 2000s anime than tmmn. hear me out and go on a lore trip with me. I have Screenshots and Thoughts.)

The mew aqua rod:

weird that it was found on a dig, a relic from the ancient aliens. who also were stated to have MADE mew aqua (or, at least, that's the THEORY ryou & keiichiro have. considering we never hear an alternative, I'm assuming we should take this as Fact)

Later of course we find out the 'big mew aqua/true mew aqua' is within deep blue/masaya's body, not a Giant Crystal. But it begs the question: what were the alien's doing with it so long ago? The answer given by canon is this:

NO, ICHIGO, WE SHOULD TALK ABOUT IT. Because Despite it outright being stated... if the mew aqua rod if ANCIENT, as old as when the aliens were on earth? (either 300 million~600 million years?) they would've had NO WAY TO PREDICT HUMANS POLLUTING EARTH, LET ALONE EXISTING! And I say mew aqua has to be as old as the mew aqua rod because the rod's main (and ONLY) function we see is to channel and use mew aqua. (well. okay, it glows, too, and makes mew aqua into bubbles. this thing would be great at parties)

At the time of the aliens leaving Earth, it was a MESS, mass extinctions due to natural disasters... mew aqua could have been a way to try and fix those, but it was so extreme that it couldn't, I guess? Or maybe it needed time to sort of...ferment to grow stronger? (genuinely cannot think of a better way to put this but I think yall get the idea) I think this idea is backed up by how LONG it took Deep Blue to form after the aliens left their world. if he could have fixed stuff, why not make him a vessel sooner? why wait until modern day when the earth is already messed up? why spend SO long in space/on another planet if you got a Guy Who Can Fix That Pretty Easily? did it need time to Cook? like, he supposedly is either the source of it somehow, or created BY it and gets his powers from it (he...does seem surprised the mew aqua is within him, too, by the way. which is Strange and will always be weird to me)

WHY DIDN'T HE?

WHY DIDN'T YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT??

he then proceeds to open a portal to a planet that is likely lightyears away with mew aqua (fun new ability for mew aqua from tmmn) and say he is going to use his power (which comes from mew aqua) to REARRANGE THE CONTINENTS. we also know mew aqua was strong enough to 1. bring people back from the dead 2. accelerate plant growth 3. turn Retatsu into a MERMAID 4. defeat basically any chimera anima in an instant 5. transform ringo into a mew mew with no previous dna injection/pendant 6. showed Retatsu a glimpse of the ancient world, and probably several other things I'm forgetting??

mew aqua is incredibly OP. like. if the ancient aliens did make it, and have the mew aqua rod to use it, I do NOT think they were using it ~just in case a species evolves here on this planet and pollutes it!~ I think that is 100% Retatsu feeling guilty in the moment for human pollution (same, girl, I get it) I think it's more likely they were trying to fix the disasters already happening. (and it needed more time to get strong enough to actually do that I guess? Clearly it didn't work back then to fix the disasters, or worked verrrry slowly. a few thousand to a few million years slowly) I appreciate ryou and keiichiro also using terms like 'this is our hypothesis/theory!' because they DON'T know for sure.

it also begs the question of how there's a BUNCH of FRAGMENTS OF IT if masaya's body currently holds the majority/big piece right before the finale when he uses it (if we're imagining it was once one BIG thing/collective power source) and how they got scattered into SO many pieces before that?? what...HAPPENED, way back in ancient times? 👀

also, I've said it before, but it could imply an ancient alien magical girl. I mean, someone's gotta swing the mew aqua rod around 👀 (or it could've just been a tool back then, and adapted to Ichigo's powers by turning bright pink and sparkly, but that is a considerably more boring answer)

These things will Keep Me Up At Night

[burnwater13]

Grogu wondered how the New Republic managed to get anything done. They had a few people scattered around the Outer Rim and a bunch in the Core worlds, but its not like they acted very different from the Empire and the Old Republic. 

Okay. As far as he knew they didn’t just arrest people and force them to build things like parts to the Second Sun, but he really wondered what they were doing. Filling out reports? He’d overheard Carson Teva commenting on that once and wondered how many reports it would take to stop the people who fought so hard against the Empire to be doing something that sounded so boring just on the face of it. 

Were they just so tired from fighting that they welcomed the boredom? Maybe. He used to think he’d like a little boredom. Then he’d ended up on Arvala-7 and had plenty of it. Boredom was not all it was cracked up to be. 

You weren’t just resting. You weren’t just healing. You weren’t just be lazy. Nope. Nope. Nope. You were stuck. In a rut. In a dead end. In a … well you get the drift. Boredom wasn’t fun. It was the opposite of fun. Time on your hands and unable to do anything. Uff.

Grogu liked a little action. A little fun. A little intrigue. Stuff like bounty hunting, even if the bounty was just getting your parts back from the Jawas so you could rebuild your ship. Or floating down a river of lava and fighting off the Imp Remnants and escaping in the Razor Crest because that had been anything but boring. 

He could understand not everyone liking that sort of thing. Maybe they were more like Peli and they liked the challenge of building and fixing starships and speeders. And cheating at Sabacc. He knew she cheated but he couldn’t exactly explain how she managed it. That was totally not boring. Whenever he played the card game with her he had to keep a shriek hawk’s eye on her and still he didn’t know how she did it. That kept his mind engaged and he had observed that it kept her mouth engaged in trying to convince him that it was highly likely that a good player such as herself could draw three idiot’s arrays in a row. Whatever. Still not boring.

He supposed that the Marshal from Mos Pelgo would have liked some boredom once in a while, but Grogu seriously doubted that anyone who had the title ‘Marshal’ ever really liked boredom. Sure they might want a breather or a break or even a nap once in a while, but if you were taking on peace keeping anywhere in the Outer Rim worlds you knew you’d have more excitement than boredom. Between spice runners, gangs, pirates, and people hiding out from the authorities, which ever authorities they were, there was always some drama being stirred up. 

Even without the people based drama, you still ended up with critter based drama. The Krayt dragon hunt had been anything but boring. It may have been a bit too exciting, but once Grogu’s dad had gotten away from the dragon everything was at the right level of exciting again. Of course he’d told Din Djarin to never do it again. Getting swallowed by a critter like that was no joking matter even if you gave it the worst case of indigestion ever. 

After that they had the excitement of the ice spiders, the mamacore, and the other Mandalorians. Grogu giggled at that. No, they were critters. And they weren’t boring. Not even a tiny bit. They were the walking embodiment of drama as far as Grogu could tell and he didn’t find that boring, yet.  And even though he wasn’t allowed to go on the big adventure, staying behind and spending a ‘quiet afternoon’ with the Frog Lady and her partner and their offspring hadn’t been boring at all. No reports involved. They just watched the eggs transform into tadpoles and that was just straight up fascinating. They grew so fast. It was like watching a magic trick. Other people might not notice, but Grogu measured growth in centimeters per decade, not centimeters per minute! It was like watching the pod races on Tatooine. 

Grogu hoped that Carson Teva didn’t spend  all his time doing reports and found some time for fun and adventure. He got to fly around in his own X-Wing and check up on people and what they were doing and had folks he could rely on to help him with all that. 

It sounded like the kind of job Grogu would like to have one day. Especially the flying the X-Wing part. Then he and the Mandalorian could race around the galaxy and see if they could get to Kessel faster than anyone else. As long as the droid teacher didn’t ask him to provide a trip report, that sure wasn’t going to be boring.

[sunshades]

🤥✏️ and 🌪️ for tirare!

[oc asks] + 👑

TIARE SO POPULAR IN MY ASKBOX. HAPPY FOR THEM

🤥 are they good liars? do they have tells to show they're lying?

mechanically: nooooo NEGATIVE CHARISMA LOOKING ASS. doesn't mean it's not worth trying. has semi-successfully hidden they're half eladrin to the party for 2 months i think, through sheer Focus (very funny, we've been rolling con saves for it). i will count being from elven bloodlines of seasonal mood-ring eyes and markings as "having a tell" and count "covering that shit up with makeup" as a point toward being kind of a good liar. more in general: they're a mediocre actor with a lot of heart, so they're amazing at things they've practiced a lot, like assuming a new identity and being super mean (they're currently here in camp). kind of a tell: hair flip when nervous. it's an elle woods kind of move.

✏️ is there a particular quote / lyric that you associate with them?

SHOUT TO THAT VON RADICS POEM "I WAS WRONG BEFORE WHEN I SAID MEAN THINGS ABOUT LOVE SONGS. I'M SORRY LOVE SONGS" it's just sooo it. beside the whole romantic love thing of the poem it's very much also about forgiveness towards urself which is very sweet. lyrics... they have a big ol playlist out of which boys don't cry might be one of Thee songs, but i've had the vaccines on loop for a couple days so 👍 i always knew "let's go to bed before u say something real let's go to bed before u say how u feel" kind of hilarious. their ladyprince girl best friend at them for years.

🌪️ what is the biggest change you've ever made to them? how have they changed from their original version?

KIND OF LITTLE I FEEL. WEEEE as the whole party. figured out we were having a cross-campaign family tree of elves with red-adjacent hair and an m- initial like midway thru, which made me go from "uhh UHH theyre a sun elf or something?" to having a Big Ol Family, and esp the eladrin stuff which is preddy important to their character now. ended up making me lean more on the vibe of hm... duality i guess. Thee standing between but not rly feeling like u fit in any part of the world + learning how to make ur way to where u wanna go anyway. this also means they have like, a bunch of hairstyle changes and i'm DREADING making an artfight sheet and having to explain the visual journey without sounding crazy (#swag) then u__u made em as a character w a big theme of Grief since the start which has always been very fun to explore. especially after last year that has been Something to me it's very cathartic as well to write silly little character who go thru The Shit and Have Been Hamlet Many Times, Inside Their Head, and then get their silly little happy ending ☀💖

actually wait i have real answer. they weren't gonna actually be a theater kid, it was gonna be just metaphorical. now they like directing and set design and doing makeup. #growth (the crowd boos)

[runekeepershymnal]

"The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform."

(Emphasis mine.)

@staff Y'all. Kindly look at the stats of how many people have "In your orbit" or "Good stuff first" turned off. This would be right up there with Twitter rate-limiting how many tweets you can see in a day in terms of shooting a platform in the foot.

I don't go on facebook other than to provide occasional proof of life to family members / long distance friends who don't use anything else because 50% of what I see is ads, and because random posts I want to read get buried / don't show up on my feed for whatever godsforsaken reason.

I don't go on twitter because I can no longer block all the accounts posting crap I don't wanna see, which is what I'm concerned you're effectively proposing here.

I don't go on TikTok because of the algorithm obsession of its users. I don't want to watch a bunch of ill-informed, clickbaity, "tiktok trend" videos, but, since this is the kind of content it takes to game an algorithm, that's a hell of a lot of what's there.

I'm sorry that new users have difficulty building engagement right off the bat. I follow new accounts all the time because I pop into the tags of things I am interested in when I am inclined to look at them. I am far, far less likely to follow someone whose work was plopped in front of me by an algorithm, just as I'm much less likely to read a book if someone chases me down the street trying to get me to read it.

If this is a profits thing, there is already a way for a creator to get their post to more people- Blaze. If you want to make Blaze more effective, hell, add a higher price tier to Blaze a post specifically to people who follow certain tags, with the understanding that tag spam is tag spam, and if someone Blazes their post to an inappropriate tag, we'll report as we've always done with the standard consequences. You'll have the money already.

You wanna get more engagement and people on here? Let people post smutty art again. That policy change drove a lot of creators to Twitter, and since Twitter's imploding, you might regain a goodly chunk of the userbase you lost by making that change now, because you know Threads ain't gonna allow anything that fun.

Leaning into algorithms and turning this into an "influencer" platform is going to drastically alter the personality of the platform. A huge part of what makes Tumblr more appealing to its userbase is what it DOESN'T do as much as what it does.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[nfumbewalk]

Thoughts These Days

My Biffy altar! The green and yellow necklace is sacred in Muerteria. It symbolizes life and death. Green for growth and fertility of the Earth, the new green leaves. The yellow signifies Death, the harvest, and the changing of the leaves on the trees, going yellow - symbolizing Death. This is an African concept but holds true for any path. I also have a cool handmade black candle on the left. So awesome! Want her Biffy candle!

Things are well. Just working. Making discoveries about death and its nature. Not being philosophical here. More like, what did I notice in both of my parents doing when I saw each one pass on?! All the stuff that anyone else does. Like lack of hunger. Dying ppl don't eat much. I know that there's a chemical or reaction that happens when you are dying and appetite, but I cannot recall what its called. Its kinda disturbing when someone you love just gives up eating. You know then, that they are done here on Earth.

Anyway, my thoughts turn to my book. My "Manual of Death" is progressing slowly, but it is going quite well. A lot of things I need to elaborate on, but it can be done. The only problem I have is my attention span. It has shortened but Ritalin does help, some. I'm trying to make this book better than my other one. The spelling and grammar will be as spotless, guaranteed. I read my book many times before I'd even dare to submit it to anyone.

It became obvious to me that someone I knew wasn't as serious about necromancy/necrosophy as I was. I find that rather funny, actually! I hate when occult people pretend to be interested in things that are complicated. They even have some of the tools needed, and then they pretend to know everything about it. After a while, they falter and leave that path altogether as soon as the excitement wears off. LOL! That's the case with a lot of people getting into necromancy. Ppl love it, but they step away quickly when shit gets real. Seriously, most ppl are a bunch of pansies when it comes to actual muertos talking to them, & actually getting real fucking knowledge from them. Like my grandpa Ben giving me real information about Machining that I had no clue about. Now, he's always willing to talk to me. It's so freaking nice. He's lead me around to do some more family research. But I'm scared. He said my aunt Jane has passed on. I'm too afraid to call and find out. My aunt has been living with MS for many years, can't walk. My dad was close to her.

The rest of my family living elsewhere doesn't know my dad is gone. I don't know them. My family isn't close. Nor do they care to be. I'd rather be close. Oh well. I can't change them. And I'm not an intrusive person, so I'm not one to call everyone up.

Sooo, yeah. I'll likely be writing ferociously for a few days. That will be fun.

L8R!

M.M. <3<3<3 (Don't have emoji's on here)

[lagomorphics]

hi majora! your art is really cute, and I hope you don't mind if I ask about your process? I'm new to art and yours is an inspiration! I wanted to ask how you learned? and your process, because you seem to draw near daily! also any tips you might have for me? thank you!

HI ANON!!! ur very sweet thank u so much WAHH <33!!! idm being asked abt that at all!!

in terms of how i learnt; i've kinda always been drawing for as long as i can remember? been posting art online since around 2013-ish so i got a big big catalogue of stuff to look back on

but learning in specifics of like, how i learned to shade n draw bodies etc etc. i studied! theres a lot of resources out there that'll break down a lot of the 'basics', i dont have any i can name off the top of my head except for morpho; whole bunch of books about body types and anatomy.

im not really good at providing tips for how to learn (bad memory </3) but studying, drawing things over and over (i do with reference and then without, and try to draw in different angles/perspectives) is very useful!

ALSO VERY IMPORTANT: literally do not worry at all if what you draw the first time around looks wonky or "ugly". being negative towards yourself about your art only serves to stunt ur growth!! shakes you (and anyone reading this) by the shoulders. it can be very easy to slip into hating your art and not enjoying anything ur drawing. this is me telling u to try and draw something youve never drawn before. experiment. it may not look perfect or even "good" but it will refresh ur brain!!!!!

MY PROCESS...... oh man i really have been drawing pretty much daily huh? i do draw every day but its been a hot minute since ive been doing finished pieces haha

but basically what i do is; start with a few warm-up doodles! just anything to get me in the groove

then over the course of the day i slowly chip away at whatever pieces im working on (lined stuff will usually take me a few hours, rendered stuff takes a day or a few....)

i cannot really assist in like "so how do you draw?" because i honestly just go Lights Off Its Drawin Time! but i always do a rough sketch of an idea i have, refine the sketch, refine that sketch, and then if its rendered i'll make a palette for myself somewhere, but if its lined i'll start on the lineart and then fiddle around with colours.

i draw for fun, so if i dont like how somethings turning out, i'll stop drawing it. no use frustrating myself over a piece to the point of hating it!!

(this ones just forfun and just for me) i keep a small little doc full of notes about my own pieces! i like analysing stuff, and also enjoy talking about why i draw something in a specific way, so this is just a nice little thing for me to have fun with. also helps me avoid potentially slipping into "hate this. bad" mindset bc im specifically noting things that i Liked (i do obviously have a bit of chatter like "hmm i think i couldve drawn this better, i should keep that in mind" but its only when its helping myself. the jora does not talk bad about its art)

aaand then i do some cool-downs to get any last little doodles outta my head so i can relax in bed

in terms of tips? do stretches, walk around, TAKE BREAKS! draw at your own pace, and also Have Fun With It. experiment with different colours, limited palettes, different styles!

seriously though do make sure you take breaks and stretch im lookin you in the eye okay?

I HOPE THIS MADE SENSE AND IS HELPFUL IN A WAY i ramble. far too much. and im not the best at articulating my thoughts!! but i hope u have lots of fun drawing very cool stuff <333

[lonespektr]

SEPTEMBER 19TH HORROR WATCH

Influencer (2022)

Voice over in her influencer toxic positivity platitudes shit about growth or whatever while she is just doing the opposite of what she is saying

Occasionally spliced with her taking photogenic shots

Just noticed the poster might already be a spoiler

And YUP the first time we see her is in water

This is Thailand

The girl approaches protag and "scares off" a creepy guy and "opens up" to imply she was dater*ped by a guy like that

Now the girl had her on her bike

Supposedly this was a trip with bf but he bailed

But he did pay for it

Girl hides from a live stream shot

Girl is making fun of her for being terminally online but that is her job??? Like irl

She sells products and travel stuff

She doesn't have another job??

We don't actually see girl go inside the suite

Protag sweet wide open upon return

Her stuff got tossed and jacked

Passport gone, she's technically stranded

Called bf he blamed her for her stuff getting stolen

Very controlling

She said they should break up and he just ignored her and said call me in the AM when you aren't upset

Girl is taking a bunch of pictures of her with hey phone

Prevented her from shooting at their original location and no service once they got there (Island) one way off her boat

Sees tally's on a log eight days

This is literally her hunting ground

OMG she's telling her her WHOLE plan

Fucking savage

She said i'll give you four days

Ofc the girl laughs like it was a joke

Girl seems to be anti influencer specifically??

Says they are self centered

Protag finally admits lonely

Then to give us a "maybe she deserves it feeling"

The girl confirms sarcastically she is the center of the universe

WHOA title comes in late

Using the same voiceover i think

Now that girl stranded the protag

Did we literally get her name ever???

Girl took over her social media - not only do they look nothing alike the girl has a MASSIVE birthmark on half her face

Literally just went through all her old shit photoshopped her face onto old posts clearly an expert at Photoshop

5th victim real serial killer wall

Already hunting for accurate victim

Solo white girl influencer

Stalking

In a way we actually haven't left the main character cleverly - because the villain stole the protag's life

Kinda wild the protag slept on the beach and after she revealed her master plan

New victim knows she has a tail

She didn't really do a lot of research on new vic

Old vic was desperately lonely

New vic is a low key cultist??

She's tries a new approach after trying to lead

She backtracks as a submissive

Offering bait of a fancy place

Success

Problem

Girl didn't account for controlling bf

He did the rose petals thing

So now it's new vic and old vic bf n her in old vic's place (that's paid by bf)

Lolz how she going to get them not to talk to each other

The new vic clocked the girl (again) as they both obviously got their rooms broken into

The thing with all these is the first vic clocked all these things too, she just brushed it off as non sensical

"you're fucking creepy"

That's the trigger

Vic no 2 RIP just had the courage to stick to her instincts

We don't have clear motivations on why she's doing this

And unfortunately it comes off as bitches be crazy

Like everyone is just clocking an inherent wrongness to her but we don't know why she is doing it so it's just boadering on crazy people are dangerous

She still has to deal with the guy

There's activity on vic no 1's account..but she has the phone??

She's working several angles

He can tell from the posts she made it's not vic #1 clearly illustrating that she can't see things about people others can and probably doesn't bother to anti-social tendencies and that's why she didn't consider s bf would come after her (also she's cocky and doesn't do enough research)

It also very clear he just uses that line on women but that doesn't mean he can't recognize fundamental things she probably can't

*SA !!!

Well an aporoximation

This sets up a strong juxtaposition that the girl just mimics life but doesn't actually know what it is or how to connect with people

Okay flash back

Vic no 1 + bf

Lol not this same guy chattin up

I'm not saying this guy wouldn't be able to point out the weather phenomenon he's obviously a busy body but they could have had him talk longer ro make it seem realistic

Wow vic no 1 bestie said bf can do better but like??? He's shitty, they are both shitty???

Bf found the trail of bredcimbs of doctored posts because he is also a media guy and can tell

Looks like she cleared out but she is still there

He got the drop on her

The writers are dragging both characters

They are both shitty

She's making a play

It must have been difficult to get that underwater shot

She got the drop on him

She's a bit like villanelle without the explanation

Ok the bestie is just the embodiment of fake ass fakers

She's keeping the vic 1 identity but trashing the bf identity

Back on the island

Surprised vic no 1 isn't dead

We got one big hint she was hiding some..talents but that's it

Found and buried the other two girls

Still got her shoes

Got a mean sunburn

Found her bf

Didn't kill her, left her, not surprising bro does she know how to get back?

We didn't need to know how exactly she survived but it wasn't a big pay off because honestly the only character we got a read on was the bf and he didn't matter

It's a month, the weather is good generally except rainy season (there's wayer), no predators, if you can fish you can figure it out for a month

But she was.. Emotionally in a shit place and isolation should have exacerbated that..