#or is it a skill issue on my behalf

[servegrilledcheese]

not so berry challenge 2: generation 4 (quartz)

luna araújo - cat lover, creative, bookworm

the spice festival came around again! and so did rafa, which was the perfect opportunity for an impromptu date - free food & drinks, live music by a local uglie townie, and the prospect of burning your entire fucking mouth on bhel puri with a pretty girl - a night a single man can't turn down. they concluded the night on a cozy rooftop of a werewolf-run moroccan restaurant where someone caught some feelings.

[icewindandboringhorror]

"We can get through this by working together, reach out to your friends, community is all we have, a social network will be your security in the world, now is the time to lean on others!"

I do agree, and it's scientifically sound (pretty sure there is data about how people with better social networks live longer and etc) but also....augh..... what about the severe social issues, difficulty to leave the house, physical issues which lead to like zero socialization energy a majority of the time, etc. etc. Social support can be a replacement for structural support, but.. I guess I just wish it didn't have to be. Community is extremely difficult to build, even moreso if you're someone who has issues with social cues or group conversations or even just being around others in the first place. And blah, nuance, of course I'm just complaining or maybe being too negative or maybe misunderstanding, but, I hardly have the energy to brush my hair once every 2 months.. how am I supposed to maintain a wide social network and be active in a Community and Join Groups lol... sometimes it kind of feels like "er.. well if thats my only option then...... ruh roh". It's overwhelming

[starrr-cringee]

NOOOOO I TILTED MY COLT😭😭😭😭 he's at 639 or something WHEN HE WAS THIS CLOSE TO RANK 25!! I TILTED LIKE 55 TROPHIES

[scalproie]

unpopular opinion I think the koroks are really cute and I would never wish them ill

[datastate]

nankidai contact me we could fix the rankings of asunaro agents, training regimes, and also make sei a much better character without ridding what i know your intentions were.

[astramachina]

the people bitching about Saul and not Will in 3BP really need to say the quiet part out loud.

[tiredmaster]

Jigsaw is a fucking cunt those gay assholes clearly won the game

[takes1]

bratty tsukishima x manager!reader enemies to lovers

warnings. none for this part. stay for steamy stuff in later parts ;) content. tsukki not knowing how to handle a crush/enemies to lovers!/manager!reader/gn!reader for this part, could change?/passive-aggressive tsukki/daichi being a friend/suga being a friend/future smut/future sexual frustration notes. i'm branching out! first haikyuu fic! not done with mha but it just doesn't motivate me to write rn :( links. masterlist for mha. my ao3. PART TWO HERE. PART THREE HERE. PART FOUR HERE. FINAL PART HERE. haikyuu collection

You were walking back with a full case of freshly mixed sports drinks for the team when the whistle blew for a break. The entirety of Karasuno was on you at a moment's notice, rowdy despite their long practice.

A plethora of 'thank you's and appreciative mantras filled your heart as you were able to hand out bottles.

The first to swipe them were the first-years that sprinted up to you, trying to beat each other in their own intense, but good-natured race. Then the less excitable members, like your fellow seniors, that gave you slower and sincere thanks, shoulder pats, and tried to engage you in conversation.

Except, you had to make sure everyone got theirs. Which left the bane of your existence.

He sucked his teeth and looked away, disinterested in hydrating as soon as he realized you were handing them out.

"Tsukishima, come on," Suga heeded a subtle warning, but his mistake was turning away to speak to the others- and not following up to ensure the first-year did this simple task.

You weren't going to hold up a bottle for the kid all day. This was ridiculous and beneath you. Your arm slapped down to your side.

Everybody knew he had some issue with you. His disliking for you was nearly automatic upon being placed on the team, but it had somehow grew to a new intensity each day you had to interact.

Little instances like this one added up quick. And it didn't take long to notice, especially amongst your longest friends.

It boiled down to something about you being enough to piss him off, much like Hinata and Kageyama of his own class. For those two, it was relatively harmless bullshit. For you, the structure of the team hinged on him listening to you as his senior and manager.

"I really don't know what's gotten into him-- I-I'm so sorry," Yamaguchi spoke through gritted teeth.

He would've blabbed for much longer on his friend's behalf like usual, but he stopped short with a chill when he found your mirrored cool, upward stare.

"You don't need it anyway," You set his full bottle back into the case with a loud thump, "You haven't even sweat today."

It was a tad bit of an exaggeration, but his growing habit of letting certain spikes through had been prevalent enough to catch your attention. It bothered you because not only did he so quickly run out of steam -much sooner than the others who got the same court time as him-, but Coach didn't always notice his faults the same way you could.

You didn't try to look at him more than the others, truly. Your job hinged on being objective and you liked to think you did a great job at that. Lately though, it'd been tough not noticing every little shitty idiosyncrasy of his.

The way he hit the ball. The curve of his body into the net when he leaped into the air. The angle he liked to hit. The side he favored. The amount of steps he took before he jumped.

He wasn't as skilled as he let on. They could all use improvement, but his cockiness really ate at your patience. The others at the very least pretended to listen to you, and most took your criticism as a chance to improve. God forbid you comment on his faults, though.

The last time you did, his face had frozen with that ugly, twisted expression for the rest of the match.

Almost as soon as your accusation met his ears, that unbelievably fake calm demeanor crumbled into one serious mixture of aggravation.

His jaw tightened and he glanced around your stone-cold stare.

Bitter, he almost seemed to loom over you as he wiped his forehead with an oversized palm. His gaze remained unfaltering, ever so hateful, and he squeezed a closed fist in between you.

Sweat drip, drip, dripped onto the gym floor.

Head cocked, he opened his mouth to speak-- but Daichi slapped a mighty hand onto Tsukishima's upper arm. His forced grin -a welcome sight at this point- came into view.

"Thank you for volunteering to mop today, Tsukishima!"

Sometimes, when you had these types of exchanges, everyone else just sort of... fell away. Despite some polite cover-up conversations, most of the other players had a sensitive ear to his attitude problem with you. They were practically trained to listen to you speak-- this, compounded with Tsukishima's quiet demeanor, and the gym usually fell just short of completely still.

The blond's scowl elicited your covered laugh as you were pulled away. Suga warned you quietly to not get too caught up in talking to the first-years, but it was difficult to focus on his words.

"Thanks," Was punctuated with the sound of Coach's whistle- he gave you a sympathetic expression and ran off.

You didn't realize how worked up you got until they all returned to the court to finish their spiking drills. They formed up in a neat line, one after the other.

Clipboard gripped a bit tighter, you took a big breath in. Then, out. Your heart settled.

Nobody likes confrontation.

SLAM!

Not unless they're a masochist or something.

SLAM.

Why did he have to pick on you? And not some bigger fish that was actually on the team? Your heart squeezed from the burden of it all.

S L A M !

Tsukishima turned to move to the back of the line, but made sure to catch your eyes before you could even think to ignore him. His expression was indescribable but nothing short of trouble.

@ me to be added to the taglist for this fic series! i have at least 4 more parts i want to do that will be substantially longer

[amazinglyashy]

Hi hello!!! I saw tons of your work and I'm very impressed with your skill! If I may, may I request the LaDS Men with Reader who sometimes stare at kids who are having fun with their parents or spending time with each other because Reader doesn't have a good relationship with her family and felt envy to those kids who got to spend time with their parents.

I wanted to know how would they react and do! If my words are confusing, feel free to DM me! Thank you for your time!!

Everyone keeps yelling at me in the tags about me personally attacking them with some of my posts, yet YALL ARE ATTACKING ME WITH PROMPTS AS WELL, POT MEET KETTLE! Thank you so much for this prompt <3 I felt this one personally :'D So I had fun writing it!

LaDS men when you get emotional in public seeing parents and their kids in public

Zayne -

It's… difficult for Zayne to watch.

He knew you when you were both younger, but old enough to know that what was happening to you was… not good. But still too young to do anything about it himself.

It hurts to see you look at families and know exactly what's going through your mind in that moment, but he does his best to quell his own emotions and keep them in check. You don't need to be worried or feeling any kind of guilt for making him feel hurt on your behalf. He wants you to express things in a way that'll help you, without being conscious about how he might be feeling.

Zayne stays quiet though. Sometimes it's good to get you away from the bad thoughts wracking through your mind, he knows that. But other times? You have to process it. You have to get through the painful and the ugly in order to start healing, and you have to do the fighting on your own. Inside your head, where he can't help you.

But out here?

He'll do anything for you.

Anything you ask, anywhere you want to go after you snap out of your envy and thoughts, you can consider it done.

He might not be able to help you- might not be able to stop those feelings of envy and sadness from even entering your mind before they make a home there, even if for a little while-

But he'll help you in any other way he can.

Sylus -

"The people closest to you might be the ones who want to kill you the most."

Sylus keeps so many tabs on you, even prior to your eventful meeting, that he knows good and well what the relationship with your family looks like. And there's more than one reason to why he said this to you, gun in your hand and legs straddling his lap. He may not believe they want to kill you, or may be he does depending on the circumstances, but what he does know is that you're safe with him regardless.

That doesn't solve the whole 'emotions' aspect of it, however.

He'll place a hand on the small of your back, ushering you forward. It's not that he doesn't want you to watch the family, it's just he can see the clouds forming in your eyes, and he'd rather you get emotional somewhere more private, for your own sake. He didn't need you feeling humiliated for getting misty-eyed in public on top of the already complex emotions you were already feeling.

Even if you're not close to tears, it's still better to him to get you away. He wants you to feel safe enough to do so, if your feelings bubbled up unexpectedly and you suddenly needed to cry, he wanted you to be somewhere you could.

And he knows you know you're already with someone you could cry around, as well.

Sometimes, he'll ask about it, just to allow you the space to vent. Oftentimes, he just keeps quiet, letting you process the thoughts going through your mind.

He's right there though, no matter what you may need.

Xavier -

"That looks good, would you like one too?" He'll ask, referencing the ice cream cone the kid is holding, knowing fully well why you're staring.

He has his own generous share of family and parental issues, so he knows how you feel. And after hearing some of your childhood memories, whether they were about your feelings or if he just gathered that information from in between the lines- he can relate to you well.

But... he'd rather not let you dwell too long, if he can help it.

The way he sees it, is you already spent a long time in pain. Years upon years of it, wondering if you would ever get the approval- love, care- from your family that was never going to come. Your own forever waiting and hoping and trying to make a relationship work that was always destined to fail, because the deciding factor on it's success or failure was not on you. It was never on you.

And he doesn't want you to waste more time feeling sorrow over something you've already dug a knife into your gut over, so many times already.

But if you need to- feel what you're feeling, be a little wistful, or even cry- he's here for you. He's here for you no matter what you need.

A shoulder to cry on, a big hug, a favorite movie on the couch later that still reminds you of a time where you chased after affections that were sadly never meant for you- but the happy parts that made you laugh alone in a room raised on a television-

He's got you.

Rafayel -

Rafayel's heard the stories.

Whether it's about your babied little sibling getting a bike after asking once when you spent years begging and saving to buy your own, being treated to the bare minimum of care by your parents, or something more insidious-

Rafayel has heard all of the stories from you by now.

So when he sees you looking abnormally long at a family, when nothing particularly funny is happening- the kid isn't saying something insane, the parents aren't trolling the kid, etc- and he sees your far-away expression, it's like he's pulled up a chair in the recesses of your mind to join you in your melancholy.

It's better than you suffering alone.

"Hey cutie. How's it going?"

He'll ask you after a while, having been with you the whole time, so he knows exactly how it's going. But his words are less out of concern for you and more to snap you out of the daze you're in. He doesn't mind if you feel sad, he's here for you no matter what, but he just doesn't want you to start and spiral.

He knows there's not really anything he can do. It's just a part of you now, the pain of the relationship you'll never get to have, that's nearly there but just an inch away from your fingertips every time you reach for it, no matter how much you try and strain yourself to grasp it. And he knows he can't exactly fill that hole.

But damn if he's not going to be with you throughout every bad thought, bad day, bad experience.

You're stuck with him, and he'll love you through it all.

[chaithetics]

Oscar Isaac Boys with Period, Endo and PCOS Reader HCs

Pairing: Multiple Oscar Isaac characters (Steven Grant, Marc Spector, Jake Lockley, Abel Morales, Nathan Bateman, Cecil Dennis, Laurent LeClaire, Basil Stitt, Santiago Garcia, Anselm Vogelweide) x AFAB reader Word count: 2.2K Dividers by: @saradika-graphics Warnings: Periods, endometriosis, chronic pain, PCOS, non-specified shitty medical experiences, pretty much all fluff though douchebag Laurent mention sorry. No pronouns or body descriptions are used for reader. A/N: I hope you all enjoy this! It's just fluffy blainrot because the endo/post-lap hasn't been great. Reblogs and comments are encouraged and appreciated! 🫶 Tagging: @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

Steven Grant

Steven researches endometriosis, PCOS, adenomyosis and period pains. He learns about all of the different types of treatment plans. He learns about dietary changes that can help with inflammation and that other people diagnosed with these conditions have said have helped him. He goes down a rabbit hole of different PCOS recipes and dietary lifestyles, Steven ends up knowing of more PCOS blogs on every platform than you do by the end of that fixation. 

He’s so sweet, there’s been many days where you’ve come home at the end of the day and been greeted with an endearing “Love, I found this new recipe, I thought we could try it for dinner? It has the PCOS and the vegan stamps of approval!” 

Steven is also a great listener, it’s easy to tell him about how long it took to get a diagnosis, how much doctors don’t seem to care and are keen to dismiss you, to tell you birth control is your only pain management option or that you’re anxious and it’s all in your head. He’s horrified by this, he never judges or condescends and talking to him is always validating. 

During your periods, he’ll happily cuddle up with you and attentively watch all your comfort shows and films, especially the guilty pleasure ones. He loves it. Steven finds good books and podcasts for you on the days of your period when you just want to stay in bed. He’ll read to you as a distraction, you find it cute, especially when it’s a mythology or historical book, his passion and excitement drips through more when he reads those books to you. He’s a sweetheart that’s always there for you.

Abel Morales

Abel will have every appointment of yours in his calendar, written in pen, he attends with you for support and as an extra voice to advocate on your behalf. Which he absolutely does. He has no issue speaking up if doctors are ever dismissive, especially when you’re met with a cold one. He’s spent his whole life trying to be taken seriously and to perfect his image. He knows how to use his eloquent words and charming people skills to get a doctor to do their job better and for you to have better healthcare. You both know that having him, a man in the room, makes it much easier for you and your pain to be taken seriously. 

In the evenings during flare ups, Abel sits in bed and quietly holds you. He’ll press gentle and loving kisses to your forehead and the top of your head and rub your back in slow circles while you nap or are curled up on him in pain. He hates seeing you in pain but he knows being there is important for you and it’s also important for him as a partner. It never gets easier for him to see you in pain though but Abel will never complain about getting to spend more time cuddling you so tightly.

Nathan Bateman

When you first start dating you tell him you have endometriosis, it’s something that’ll come up eventually for any relationship that goes anywhere, even a casual one. You think it’s better to rip the band-aid off sooner than later. Nathan takes it in casually, like you’ve just told him what your favourite condiment is. It surprises you to say the least. 

Nathan spends the next day scouring through numerous medical journals in order to become a human encyclopaedia on endometriosis and everything relating to the uterus and other reproductive conditions. If you’ve been medically cleared safe for a TENS machine, he doesn’t even spend a full afternoon building you one and it is the best one you’ve ever used, it becomes a regular essential in your pain management kit. 

The highest ranking and most expensive medical practitioners in the field are flown out to the compound for every symptom and condition. The top pelvic physiotherapists come out, the gynaecologists. You want a dietician to try a diet to help with inflammation and bloating? They’re already on a helicopter. You want to try acupuncture? Again, they’re already on a helicopter. A massage therapist? Again, they’re already on a helicopter to the compound before you can even finish that request. There’s a room in the compound that he had modelled for you and these appointments to essentially be the fanciest hospital room you’ve ever been in. Nathan has no issue throwing money and technological innovations at any issues your uterus might give you, it’s a way of showing he cares, he’s arrogant and he can be infuriating but he loves you and will use his brain and bank account to prove it.

Jake Lockley

Whenever you have a negative experience with a doctor he happily offers to go down and take out that practitioner, sometimes he’ll make a scalpel joke even though he prefers a gun as a weapon. You’re not always sure if he’sjoking or not… Maybe it’s better to not know, plausible deniability and all. 

He absolutely pampers you, every time you have a period, whenever there’s a cramp. Jake pampers you like you’re the most precious thing in the world, which is what you are to him. He makes you hot tea, soups, runs baths, puts on your favourite and comfort films. Jake offers to do things like brushing your hair for you and loves it. Jake pampers you! PAMPERS YOU!

Laurent LeClaire

Don’t. Just don’t. Sure, he’d be cute the first time you had your period and he’d happily offer period sex as a method of relief. But after the second period or flareup he’d attempt to gaslight you and say your symptoms or your pain being psychological. Then Jake Lockley would find a way to teach him a lesson.

Santiago Garcia

Santi’s long career has made him a master in observation and strategy, Santiago seemed to have a better understanding of your body than any period tracking app you’d tried to use, and not in a Tom Wamsgams baby-trap kind of way. More of a he was better at recognising the patterns, symptoms and remembering details than you were. Especially when the pain gave you brain fog. He picks up on the slightest details and after the first couple of months of dating you, he had a fine eye for pain. Whenever he spots the start of a flare up or painful period he goes straight into that mode, he checks in with you about pain meds, he gets heating pads ready for you and cuddles up with you on the couch or in bed while you curl yourself around one, runs baths and showers. 

He has a plan in place for everything; when pain or a symptom is at a dreaded emergency department trip, when pain is flaring up. There’s a plan made for each appointment with symptoms that have been flaring up, objectives of what to get out of the appointment. Santiago learns what your boundaries and limits are, he’s big on pacing with you and not pushing yourself to do more than what you can handle or what will push you too far and lead to following pain days. He really encourages this for you, something he doesn’t do so well for himself and his knees. 

Whenever Santi tags along with you to an appointment he’s great at asking follow up questions, especially if a doctor is being a dick. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming when you’re in appointments, especially when a doctor is talking, it’s easy to forget what’s been said as soon as you get home. Santiago always remembers every word that’s been said if you ever forget or want to double check. He’s an extremely practical partner and strong support. 

Basil Stitt

Basil will have a panic attack, he’ll quickly google ‘period symptoms’, he doesn’t remember if people get cravings on their periods too or if that’s just pregnancy, or is it neither? Just something else he’s thinking of? No, he’s overthinking it. 

During said panic attack, Basil will then do an uber eats order with several different types of chocolate and he’ll run to the kitchen to see what teas he has as Google mentioned peppermint tea several times. After checking the kitchen and making a mess in the cupboard and on the countertop during his search, he’ll order another box of it anyway just to be safe. Basil also is the guy who orders three different boxes of pads and tampons because he’s not sure what you prefer and he wants you to have options. Insert ‘What’s your pussy size, babe?’ meme, that’s Basil. 

Anselm Vogelweide

All anxiety evaporates from his body when you just want to cuddle on the couch with him, watch some weird movies and order pizza and drink tea. He smiles and completely lights up when you tell him you like the flavour of the chocolate he ordered. 

Going forward there’s a cupboard under the basin in his bathroom filled with various boxes of pads, tampons, and he eventually gets to the stage where he confidently has your period orders down and preferences of products. He’s quietly but goofily proud of the fact that he now knows your pussy size.

Anselm completely understands chronic pain from his own lived experience. You never have to apologise for a bad pain day, cancelling plans because your uterus is trying to kill you, when you need to spend all day in bed or in the bath to try and relieve pain and bloating. He completely gets that, he makes sure you have the softest and freshest pillows and blankets, bubbles, epsom salts, bath bombs etc. Whatever you could wish for to make you more comfortable. You no longer feel guilty for the things you used to before relating to having a chronic illness and terrible periods. You’re understood, seen but also pampered beyond what’s comprehensible. 

Anselm immediately finds a team of the best professionals, new studies and treatments, both conventional and experimental, are quickly and quietly funded and greenlit. He offers you a world of treatment options you’d never considered or knew existed.  Anselm always has his estate stocked with pain medication, all the drugs, drugs you’ve never heard of, drugs a normal prescription definitely wouldn’t get you. There’s medications and all the different options of treatment and pain management you could imagine available at the estate, hydrotherapy pools, massage chairs, massage therapists, sensory relaxation rooms, saunas, staff are there to cook all your favourite and comfort meals. Are you in pain and sad and needing cuddles with animals? Don’t worry, Anselm has a room being turned into a barn and a third cousin twice removed bringing a petting zoo over for any cuteness needs you might have. They should be there in five minutes. 

Marc Spector

And if there somehow isn’t something there that you want, don’t worry, you just need to ask if he doesn’t read your mind first and then it’ll be moments away because Anselm can afford anything and everything and he always knows a guy.

Marc knew periods weren’t a walk in the park and were uncomfortable but it wasn’t until dating you and being around somebody with endometriosis and chronic physical pain did he realise how bad it could be. 

The first time you had an endo flare up, it had really woken him up to that reality. He couldn’t help but grimace at seeing how you transformed from your usual self to being hurled over in pain. It freaked him out and his mind had panicked over the thought of this being your reality multiple times a year. It never gets easier for him to see you in pain or discomfort but he starts to find it easier to respond and be more present during flare ups. 

He’s extremely observant, especially when it comes to you. He quickly learns how your facial expressions shift when you have a migraine, he closes all the curtains and turns the lights off. When you curl over on yourself in pain he’s there with a heat pad within minutes. When you screw your face up and say you’re nauseous he’s immediately there with a bucket on the side of the bed. During one of your worst flares when you’d been throwing up, he hadn’t even complained once. He’d helped you feel clean afterwards, there were no comments that made you feel bad and he cleaned the bucket out so it wasn’t something you’d have to worry about. Marc found it much easier to show up and do these acts than to be the verbally reassuring type, he shows up and these acts of service and care make you feel supported, loved and cared for.

Cecil Dennis

“Babe, do you wanna get high?” 

“I read about cannabis and chronic pain, there’s honestly so many articles on the internet about it.” 

Gets just as upset as you do when you're in pain, quite possibly cries more than you do whenever a flare up is happening. He'll watch films with you and he buys a CBD ointment and offers to rub it on your abdomen while you’re cuddled up in bed.

I’ll stop there, I’m sorry.

[wlwitchofwhitestone]

This whole thing with Laudna and Delilah is an abuse narrative and I can't lie, it's really hard to see people absolutely fumbling the ball on it at every turn. My friends eagerly describing to me exactly what a monster my mother was and the violent things they would do to her on my behalf didn't make me feel safer or encourage me to set up boundaries between us. Casting her as an evil manipulator when it was way more an issue of generational trauma that she was always trying to overcome with zero skills for how to do so just made me feel more sympathetic towards her and less able to put distance between us. Hearing that I should go no contact was scary because I knew she loved me, however imperfect that love was, and these people cared for me but they could not understand. I knew I had the right to walk away. I also knew I couldn't. I didn't know a life without her support, however imperfect it was.

What got me to put up boundaries was being around people who gave me agency and treated me the way it was supposed to be all that time. I had to find out what it meant to live out from under that shadow in order to see it and draw lines around it. Bells Hells are not providing that for Laudna, and again I want to stress that it's not malice or even really negligence. They care, they've shown they care, but Delilah has a 30 year head start and I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that the kindness of someone abusive is so much worse than the abuse ever could be because it's the kindness that makes you stay, just to get another glimpse of it and remind yourself you're not crazy. They do love you. They're just doing what they think is best for you, and do you really know better than them what that is? After all this time that they've known, guided, and looked out for you?

I'm perfectly capable of separating fiction from reality but the zero nuance "Laudna is doing being abused wrong" is... Unsettling. Every single time Bells Hells comes at Laudna and holds her accountable, it's for something she can't even see. It doesn't mean what she's doing isn't harmful or that she should not be called out. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying Delilah told her that her friends would turn on her and there is a limited amount of time to figure out how to reach her before Laudna decides it has happened. Even though it very likely never would from an outside view.

[sirfrogsworth]

Photo Restoration Project - Part 1

A long time ago, Katrina sent me some old photos of her family I could restore. Her parents have been helping me from afar for years and I really wanted to do something nice for them. Unfortunately my dad got much worse and I pretty much forgot about this project for quite some time.

But then I decided to visit Katrina in Orlando and we discussed having dinner with her parents and I remembered these photos. So I thought I would fix them up so I could present them as a gift in person.

The first and most important photo was from her parents wedding.

Old photo prints can fade over time due to UV light exposure. From what I understand, different colors fade at different rates and red/orange tones tend to be the least susceptible to this fading. Thankfully all of the color information is still there, it's just that the darks are not as dark and the lights are not as light. The dynamic range got squeezed like an accordion. However, if you do a levels adjustment on the red, blue, and green channels individually, you can unsqueeze the accordion and balance everything back to the way it was.

But you can't always save everything and there may be other damage that needs fixing. If something becomes pure white, there is no way to restore that detail. Thankfully I was able to use the new generative fill feature to bring back detail in the dress, the flowers, and the tuxedo shirt.

And because I hate front facing flash and how it makes colors look ugly and sterile, I may have also added a marble floor and pillars.

Next up was a photo of Anastasia, Katrina's mom, protesting Henry Kissinger on behalf of her home country of Greece. This suffered from the same color fading issues.

What made this one a little more tricky was an uneven fading. The left side had to be adjusted independently and the top was even more faded. I had to isolate the trees to bring back their color. And the protest signs were difficult to read, so I enhanced those as well.

Next we have this lovely photo of Anastasia tending to some house plants.

This photo was actually in decent shape. It lost a little contrast, had a little bit of fading, and her top retained almost no detail I could recover. Recovering accurate skin tones is probably one of the most important skills I learned when restoring these photos. I wanted to keep that filmic look of the era while avoiding making people look jaundiced or pale. Lightroom's new masking feature that let's you isolate every aspect of the people it detects in a photo. This made fixing skin tones much easier. I could isolate just her face or her lips or her hair or her eyes and make precise individual adjustments. This process could have taken a great deal longer without this feature. But, I brought back proper contrast and color, added a little bit of detail to her top with gen fill, and hopefully got fairly accurate skin tones as well.

Next up, forward facing flash strikes again in a photo of Mike and Anastasia during Christmas.

Film did not do well in low light. If it was indoors and nighttime, you pretty much had no choice but to use flash. But a flash is a very small, bright light source and this causes a very unflattering result on humans. Today we have much more powerful flashes with rotating heads. We can bounce the light into the ceiling or off a wall and increase the size of the light source to get a more flattering result.

In this photo I wasn't able to do much, so I just balanced the skin tones and brought out some hidden detail and called it a day. It's still a lovely memory and thankfully film has such character that it negates a lot of the unflattering aspects of direct flash.

Next up is some cuteness...

A big priority when editing photos is to make sure the subjects are the star of the photo. And in this one their faces were a bit obscured in shadow. There was also a lot of haze in the background hiding the beautiful vista. Not to mention when I cleared that haze, there was this super faint hint of something in the sky. I can't tell if it was a rainbow, but I decided to believe it was a rainbow. The only thing that I am still struggling with, and this seems to be common with a lot of old photos, is green. Getting a good, saturated, natural green to look right has been very difficult. Everything I try ends up looking toxic or fake. The only thing that ends up looking right with the rest of the photo is more of a yellow-y brown. It's something I'll have to work on as I learn, but as long as the overall photo looks balanced and natural, I'm okay with not perfectly nailing the greens.

Up next we have a lovely scene on a Greek dock...

As far as editing goes, this was pretty basic. I just undid the fading, adjusted the skin tones, replaced the blown-out sky, and made the colors pop. But I think this is actually one of my favorite before and after shots. I just love how such a simple fix brought this scene to life.

A new car is a big deal and Anastasia looks so proud here...

This image has another common issue in addition to the typical fading of colors. It has a yellowish orange color cast. This could have been an issue with the film used or the development process or a chemical reaction on the print. A color cast is a lot like looking through colored glasses. It's like a translucent color material was put on top of the image. This can be a little trickier to deal with, but if you know your color theory, you might already know the solution. Blue is the opposite of yellow/orange on the color wheel, so if you introduce blue to the image it should balance out. Also, add a sky if it was missing.

Next up we have a landscaping project...

This one wasn't too tricky, but there was one interesting issue I had to address. All light has a color temperature. Daylight has a temperature of around 5500K. But the inside of the garage was being lit by reflected light and so that light took on the color temperature of the things it was bouncing off of. So I had to mask out the people and the car and address the color temperature inside the garage to make everything look balanced. Also, the green fought me hard on this one. And with the theme of this picture being plants, I felt I really needed to find a tone that worked. I think I finally got there, but I spent way too much time in the color picker doing trial and error of green tones. Also, new sky.

With this next one I actually did a pretty thorough explanation of how I edited it. But this was probably my favorite puzzle to solve from this collection of photos.

I'll do the abridged explanation...

The physical photograph was printed on a paper with a very heavy texture. And when it was scanned, the light from the scanner bounced off that texture and created a pattern of unwanted highlights.

I was worried this was impossible to fix and I almost gave up on this photo. But after one final Google search I discovered something called "Fast Fourier Transform." It's a mathematical formula that can be used to detect patterns. And the image editing software Affinity Photo, just so happens to have a filter called FFT denoise that helps you remove unwanted patterns from scanned photos.

And thanks to that filter, I was able to remove a substantial amount of that pattern...

Then I did my standard clean up techniques...

Oh, and I decided to try learning how to colorize.

Photoshop has a new set of experimental filters and a colorization tool is one of them. It is not great yet, but it is a great starting place. Instead of having to hand paint every single thing in the photo, Photoshop gave me a base to work with and I could take it from there with traditional techniques.

That's all I have the energy for today, but there are a bunch of cool restorations to talk about. Hopefully you all find this interesting. It was such a great gift to give to Katrina's parents. And spending that time with them and making them happy felt like I was with my own parents again. So we all got a gift in that wonderful evening.

Part 2 coming as soon as I have the energy!

[strawberrybuni]

BEING FLUENT IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES

A/N: request for shigaraki with a reader who speaks multiple languages!

❥ He’s genuinely in awe of you when you were recruited to the League. You became quite the asset in case they needed to speak to anyone overseas.

❥ He’ll get this wide eyed look when you speak in one of them, he just can’t himself when he catches himself staring which dabi of course likes to point out like an asshole.

❥ Once you two start dating, he just can’t get enough of you speaking in your other languages, he thinks you sound so pretty and cool. 

❥ Loves when you speak to him in your other languages, even if he doesn't always tell you how much he loves it.

❥ Demands when you say "I love you", to say it in each of the languages you know or else he's gonna be extra grumpy.

❥ Wants you to teach him all sorts of swears and insults so he can say them to other people whether online or in person.

❥ Secretly learns compliments in your other languages so he can randomly use them on you just so he can surprise you, he really does love that smile you get.

❥ Lowkey thinks it's hot when you get pissy with him in other languages, he'll act irritated just to rile you up more so you yell at him more.

❥ He just overall thinks it’s very impressive since he really only knows some english, but it’s really only the basics, swears, and other insults that he’s learned through his gaming.

❥ He SO brags about you to everyone. You truly are like the coolest person he knows, and he believes everyone else should too.

❥ His favorite thing when it comes to your skills has to be when it comes to his online gaming. If someone is being an asshat and happens to speak one of your languages, he has you chew them out on his behalf.

You were peacefully chatting with Kurogiri about some stuff when your oh so grumpy boyfriend came storming into the bar area, headset around his neck and a pissed off look in his red, bloodshot eyes.

“I need you, now.” His tone held no room for argument as he grasps your wrist with his index finger raised as he drags you along with him to his bedroom while you apologetically wave to Kurogirii since your conversation was interrupted.

After all, when Tomura wants you, he’s gonna get you whether you like it or not. Not that you ever complain, of course.

He shuts the door behind the two of you once you two enter, revealing his dim bedroom, the bright light coming from his computer screen being the only thing illuminating the messy room. That’s when you realize he’s playing League of Legends and you know exactly what he wants.

He slips his headset back on, clicking a button on his keyboard to enable the voice chat once again. “Will you shut the fuck up… yeah I’m back… listen here fuckface my partner speaks English.” With that, he slipped his headset off completely as he held it out to you expectantly. You already knew the drill at this point as you slipped on the headset.

Tomura watched you with that same look of awe as you went off on the person, pride swelling in his chest as you defended him and roasted whoever was giving him issues. No one ever stood up for him the way you do, getting mad at whoever on his behalf when they insult him.

He doesn’t think he deserves you at all, but he’s far too selfish to ever let you walk away.

[cowboyfromh3ll]

Hcs for the boys' toxic traits. Preferably arthur, javier, john, and charles, but other boys are welcome too! I'm curious to see what you'd say Dutch's toxic traist are, though they're pretty self explanatory 😭

I just love how you write sm sorreyyyy

Van Der Linde Gang's Toxic traits

(Arthur Morgan, Javier Escuella, John Marston, Charles Smith, Micah Bell, Dutch Van Der Linde, Sean Macguire, Kieran Duffy, Eagle Flies)

HAHAHA THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE. I tried not to sugarcoat anything.

Arthur Morgan - He definitely has some trouble communicating. Not to say he never will communicate with you but it'll be long in between and after it's been plaguing him for a milenium. As we've seen, this man is capable of having deep, well thought out conversations. He'd also be pretty prideful to some degree. Mostly depends what point in time you start dating, later in game he'd be able to see past his pride. Also, I feel like if you were dating a major point of contention in your relationship would be questioning whether it's time to move on from this life.

Javier Escuella - WAY too jealous. I don't even mean it in a cute way but in a way that would genuinely cause several arguments between you two. "Why were you looking at him that way?" "That sounded like you were flirting with him" "Why do you spend so much time around the other guys?" Would also be around you 24/7. Someone would be incapable of having a conversation with you that doesn't include Javier. You two would also argue about Dutch's leadership skills.

John Marston - Oh my God this man is so indecisive. Doesn't know what he wants ever. In a modern setting you two would be sitting in the car, asking each other back and forth "what do you wanna eat?". And his commitment issues? Good lord. At some points in your relationship it'd probably feel like you guys aren't dating at all. You'd probably have to beg him to put some effort into the relationship to be honest.

Charles Smith - It's so hard to think of ANYTHING this man can do wrong but alas, I must. You probably wouldn't be his top priority at all times. Which isn't to say you should ALWAYS be at the top of his list, but sometimes it can result in your feelings being neglected over a situation that affects you. Only when the day reaches it's end will he consult you over something, which will have you feeling incredibly frustrated.

Micah Bell - This man is a walking red flag so let's not dance around his flaws. Incredibly prideful, will ignore your warnings over something just to get his way. Also probably lies to you A LOT. Can be way too rough with you in many aspects. Also this man embodies the word sleezy. Yuck.

Dutch Van Der Linde - Do I even need to say. So fucking stubborn. He also probably thinks he's intelectually superior to you. If you bring up a concern to him he'll probably use as many flowery and big words as possible to make himself appear smarter during the discussion than he actually is. And if you advise him to do anything he'll probably just ignore you, saying you don't know what you're talking about. All in all, thinks he's better than you. Also you're probably a trophy wife since Dutch views women as accessories to his success, if you can even call it success.

Sean Macguire - He doesn't take anything seriously. If you're trying to have a genuine discussion with him he'll play it down and make it seem less important or severe than it actually is. Don't even bother trying to emphasize how serious you are because he won't take that seriously either. It's only until he feels the consequences of his actions will he listen to you, which results in a frustrating cycle.

Kieran Duffy - Also very indecisive but in the way where he can't speak up for himself because he doesn't think it's important. Has such low self esteem, he also probably thinks his emotions are less important which results in a lot of miscommunication on his behalf. Sorta just let's you take the lead all the way, always let's you have your way, with no valuable input of his own. You have to shake his shoulders and beg for him to actually speak his mind.

Eagle Flies - He's probably so childish. Like, mommy issues CEO over here. Will probably seek for you to fulfill that role in his life. Has almost no control over his emotions and has trouble identifying them, and when he does indentify them, has absolutely no idea what to do with them in terms of expression. He will make various efforts to communicate with you but will struggle immensely. Being with him will probably be like teaching a man how to experience emotions in a healthy way. I could write an entire post dedicated to what I think his toxic traits are

More eagle flies ones

[edenfenixblogs]

I respect your opinion that screenshotting is a normal part of discourse, however, that behavior is restricted to online communications and has only recently become normalized in certain communities, which does not mean that it is normal. I cannot understand that you think my comment about how Jews can function as white in certain contexts has led you to remark the following (forgive me if I mistake you): "I don’t hate you. But I am scared of you. I am scared that you hate me and my people, because so many people do and have shown that they do." Please reconsider your position on deleting both posts, and I offer you my promise that I will never speak to anyone on this site on any issue ever again, as I have very rarely ever used this site for that reason. I respect your feelings regarding virulent hate that you've received in comments, but I am a very private person, and I do not like having my blog name across parts of tumblr that I do not frequent. I only responded when your post came across my dash by chance because the statement that Jews are emphatically not white struck me as ludicrous insofar that it suggests that there is a kind of immutable Whiteness that *is* real. In the course of my response, I have been called an "ass" by your followers; a lifelong reader, my "reading comprehension" has been insulted by one excessively pleasant Jennifer; I was told that "race as a social construct is very much real" by someone in Germany, as if I don't know that after living my entire life as a woman of color in America. I have been, in short, utterly baffled and horrified by my communications with all of you. My comments were not intended to be a statement on antisemitism, or whether Jewish pain is real (of which I believe you accused me), or whether Jewish people can be considered "other" in this century or centuries past, but that is how they have been universally interpreted by you and your bullying, hectoring followers.

So there’s a lot going on here. And I’m not sure how I feel about all of it. So I’ll attempt to break it down.

1. I respect that you’re a private person. I will consider altering my post so that my commentary beneath it is removed on only your words as you wrote them will be visible. I will also delete your username from the screenshots. I may also delete the post entirely, but if I do that’s something I’ll need to mull over for a few hours to a few days. The reason I cannot outright commit to deleting the whole thing right now is because of the aforementioned need to archive comments that trigger trauma responses in Jewish communities.

2. I don’t want you to feel like you cannot speak on any issue. You can and should speak on issues if you’re passionate about them. But you should understand that when you’re speaking on communities of which you are not a part, you may be met with ire at the way you speak on things triggers issues you may previously have been unaware of. And not everyone will be patient or kind when you do so.

3. Name calling is not something I encourage or participate in. Followers, please don’t call people names on my behalf, although I very much appreciate your attempt to defend me. It is not necessary and doesn’t foster peace.

4. I don’t think you understand: your reading comprehension was poor in this case. This is not an indictment of your intelligence broadly speaking, nor is it an indictment of your general reading comprehension skills. The point of my post was to explain that the racial categorization of Jews is unfixed. Even white-passing Jews have to contend with uncertainty of how they are perceived with the ever present fear that this can change at any time. While some Jews may self-identify as white, most that I have met do not. Neither do many of us identify as POC. We are a liminal group in between.

There is a lot of discourse about Jewish whiteness these days, which I have discussed before on this blog. The main points here are that even white-passing Ashkenazi Jews with some ties to Europe are not white as a result of privilege and therefore our status as white cannot be associated with privilege (although we do of course benefit from white-passing privilege). White-passing Jews with historical ties to Europe are often white as a result of mass murder and sexual assault. Meaning: those of us who were too ethnic appearing for Europe were murdered. Those of us who looked “white enough” were sexually assaulted and forced to bear the whiter children of their rapists. This was done so thoroughly to Jews over the course of a few centuries in Europe that many of the surviving Jews with European ancestry today have whiter skin than many of our Sephardi or Mizrahi counterparts. And while other “white”peoples in Europe benefited from their European appearance during the previous few centuries, Jews did not. In most countries we were forced to live in ghettos, denied citizenship, only allowed to work certain jobs and then demonized as if we conspired to control those industries before finally being slaughtered in the millions by people who despised us specifically for being not white enough. In fact, Hitler described as an “Asiatic race.” American white supremacists consider us middle eastern usurpers, as do many European white supremacists. In the Middle East they call us white colonizers. And none of this has anything to do with how we look. It has everything to do with what those who condemn us hate most. Which is why I made my initial post in the first place.

Jewish white passing privilege in the United States is completely different than Irish or Italian white privileged, because of the historical circumstances surrounding our perception in Europe, America, and around the world.

And none of this even begins to touch on the infinitely nuanced experiences of black and brown Jews in America, Europe, and elsewhere. Nor does this address the loss of whiteness experienced by gerim (Jews by choice) who grew up with full white privilege and have experienced a distinct loss of that privilege after conversion.

Jews as a people predate the modern concepts and categorizations of race, religion, and ethnicity. These are words and concepts that came into existence long after Jews already existed. And as such, these terms often fail to account for our experiences in myriad ways.

To put it mildly, race as a concept is a very thorny topic for Jews.

5. If my statement struck you as ludicrous, a better course of action would have been to ask what I meant or to look into what I have already said on the subject in reblogs of that very post. But you didn’t. You came into a post by a Jewish person and imposed your understanding and definition of race onto us. As so often happens by non-Jews. And then you spoke down to us by calling us fools. That hurt. Not just emotionally. It hurt in that it causes harm to my community by thoughtlessly igniting cultural wounds. In future, if you see a cultural group of any kind talking about an experience that strikes you as ludicrous, seek understanding. Seek to understand why we feel that way.

6. I did not bully you. Nor did my followers, except those who chose to call you names. Which I do not endorse. We expressed anger at you, because we are angry. We have a right to both feel and express that anger. We are not bullies for having feelings and communicating them. While I always advocate for civility, we do not owe politeness to those who harm us. We should not meet harm with harm. But we don’t have to always be perfect and kind and sweet and understanding. Sometimes, we can be angry.

7. We have all agreed that race is a construct. You. Me. My followers. The German person who you mentioned. What we are having a miscommunication about is how the status of race as a construct uniquely affects Jews in ways that are different from the experiences of both white people in Europe and America as well as from the experiences of other racial and ethnic minority groups. We all know that whiteness is not immutable. What we are all trying to communicate to you is that whiteness as a concept does not now nor has it ever been fully applied to or embraced by Jews as a community.

I want to be very clear: I still don’t hate you. I’m upset about the whole situation—both our conflict here and the status and topic of Jewish ethnicity more broadly. I am trying very hard here to speak clearly and with understanding and compassion for you and your privacy while also remaining steadfast in communicating the feelings of my fellow Jews in hopes that you will understand how and why we have reacted to you in the way that we have. I am also terrified that you will walk away from this interaction feeling negatively about Jews in general and that this will be my fault. Because any less than perfectly sweet and emphatically kind behavior from us as a community so often held as evidence of our terrible [insert negative quality here] and used as an excuse to write us off.

I can tell that you don’t mean us harm as a group nor do you want to be perceived as antisemitic. But just like any systemic prejudice, it must be actively dismantled. Until it is examined and dismantled, its existence will continue to lead you to unintentionally harm us. Antisemitism is a deeply ingrained systemic prejudice. Literally everyone has it until they do the work to get rid of it. That is what I am asking of you. That is what my followers are asking of you. Even if we didn’t ask in the most perfectly polite and self-effacing way.

[naokyunnn]

★ WHAT WOULD CANCEL BLUE LOCK BOYS IN THE INTERNET ★

with — Rin, Shidou, Sae, Nagi

basically just about what canceled people have done but its blue lock characters

cw: mentions of violence (shidou and sae) mentions of reo x nagi 😭 (they’re not in a relationship here just a online inside joke in their fandom)

disclaimer: all just headcanons, all of em never happened, not canon 🫡

★ RIN

just some random day his name was just trending on twitter and people just keep on saying that “Rin is a nepo baby but his brother is the famous one” — “he’s only famous because of his brother”

honestly got canceled for no reason and he doesn’t give a fuck

he would wear those shirt with a “nepo baby” text on it

he would also get alot of backlash about his behavior. “he doesn’t wave at his fans” “he doesn’t want to take pictures together” “he flip us off”

he would go live on insta and have the funniest response on his issues (and they’re mostly used on tiktok as reaction vids)

haters wont affect him if he’s the biggest hater in this planet 🫡

and also restored tweets literally just bashing some other soccer players

★ SHIDOU

mainly literally brawling with rin in the middle of their game

“why is he still on the team anyway” “i can’t believe ya’ll still support shitdou” “all this tiktok girlies will make edits of him being this violent, poor rin :((“

people (rin’s fans) hated his guts because he always pick a fight with rin

another mf who won’t give a fuck about the internet have to say

restored tweets. mostly just saying the most horny statement known to man

has cheating allegations too

“bro thinks he’s aiku 😂” — “are they real? HAHWJSHA” — “bro he gets girlfriends?”

he enjoys being a menace in the internet, he’s fine being a clown of it or whatever he just want to piss people off

★ SAE

being literally friends with shidou 😭😭

“no wonder he’s also a meanie”— “yall need to see someone if you guys find red flags like them hot😭”— “gahdam what’s wrong with his hair🤨”

he gets alot of hate already about his attitude

said a slur once

run over a paparazzi once with his luxurious car

but people find it really hard to hate him fully because he always get the best plays whenever he’s on the field, that at the end of the day more people still will be cheering for him

one of his big issue is literally having a own fight with his OWN brother

people think that’s too far already and feels sorry for rin

“poor guy no wonder why he’s so emo he have a brother like this” — “its always the older siblings” — “this whole soccer thing is turning into a drama”

★ NAGI

he has very overly obsessed fans

yep. i like to think that aside football, he also streams online to show off his gaming skills

doesn’t care about the hate comments he gets because he know that haters can’t be avoided when you’re famous. BUT HIS FANS ON THE OTHER HAND…

if you said something that he didn’t like the world will most likely know your address or something because his fans are gnna come for you

and his fans will probably bully tf out of his haters too 😭

“nagi stans are krazy bruh dont mess with them” — “those nagi stans need jail time 😬” — “nagi control ur fandom 😐 they’re ruining lives online”

will apologize on his fans behalf

has probably said something homophobic accidentally and didn’t know it was that offensive til he reads his chats

“ayo! HAHAHAHAH don’t you have a boyfriend?”— “reo collect ur man HAHAHA” — “bro why u said that 💀”

would apologize for the lack of knowledge

nagi: guys reo is not my boyfriend, he’s my best friend y’ll

thanks for reading lads