#so apparently I answer questions now

[mosspodge]

HELLO @okartichoke I AM HERE WITH MOSSY'S GUIDE ON HOW TO START SEWING: A VERY MESSY TUTORIAL

I am extremely self taught, so this is gonna be a lot of links and infodumping!!!! Hopefully this helps a even just a little bit :>

SO! I honestly got into sewing through youtube during covid, largely bc i wanted silly fun clothes! There are a loooot I could recommend to you out there, but I personally find that the more chaotic and learn-as-they-go people help me the best! Rachel Maksy and The Stitchery are, to me, some of the best to learn from! Which is honestly pretty funny since they tend to just fully wing it most of the time lol. While i could recommend excellent sewists like the amazing Bernadette Banner (who is actually the first sewing channel I watched!), I find that the more loosey goosey the process, the more i can learn, if that makes sense? I find it helpful to watch people trial-and-error their way through projects and show where they succeeded and failed since I get a better grasp on their process that way.

The best way to start sewing, in my humble opinion, is to grab whatever sewing machine you can get your hands on and play around with it! Read the manual, find a tutorial video on how to thread the machine, grab some scrap fabric and play around! You don't really need any special needles or feet (the little thing that holds the fabric down), unless you wanna get started sewing denim or velvet or something Speaking of which, learn about fabrics!!!!! I learned mostly by going to joanns, touching the fabrics, and looking at the content labels. Everything has different uses, and while two things might both be cotton, one could be knit while the other jersey (tshirt fabric). I like this video for learning the basics! Tbh this one took me a while. Usually patterns have recommendations for what fabrics to use, so that's always a good place to start!

Patterns. Ah my arch nemesis. Unless you decide to start drafting your own patterns (or get a mannequin and learn how to drape fabric), you're probably gonna need to use one. There's two major things i recommend for this: 1) Make sure there's a video tutorial online before buying, and 2) start with something you might actually use/wear. Pattern instructions are notoriously vague, but thankfully many wonderful people make video tutorials for them! And while you might be tempted to grab one of those beginner friendly patterns, they can sometimes be. real ugly and not well fitting. Also boring! Finding something you like will hold your attention better and make you actually wanna finish it!

Ok SO. getting into more of the cosplay sewing stuff. First things first my knowledge here is a bit more limited, unfortunately. Fortunately there are many wonderful people out there with tutorials!! So if you wanna learn more definitely look there!!! General tip for cosplays + more complex sewing: MAKE MOCK UPS PLEASE IT SUCKS BUT IT HELPS SO MUCH. Go find the ugliest fabric in the sale bin and buy a few yards, then use it whenever you wanna test patterns. It might be tempting to immediately start cutting and sewing the finished garment, but the truth is that patterns rarely fit perfectly well (especially if they're fitted/tighter on your body). Make an ugly, barebones version first with your bad fabric, take notes, and then start making the finished piece. It'll save you money and sanity.

As for cosplay youtubers, I heartily recommend Sarah Spaceman, since not only do her videos show her process, she also does segments teaching you more about sewing!! She tends to tackle more complex projects, and watching her take those on has helped me a lot :} For cosplay patterns etsy usually has quite a few! I like Indigo Patterns (they have a good array of loz patterns I need to buy) as well as Alice in Cosplay Land. Please note that I haven't bought from either, but both their etsy shops have wonderful reviews and I plan to buy from them in the future!

not gonna lie I am getting very sleepy so I'm gonna cut it off there for now! Hopefully my rambling helped lol. Feel free to ask me any questions or for any clarification!

[azaracyy]

one of my finished ych commissions. other finished artwork can be found here. the tailmon is based on the twitter meme / trend of tailmon with pikachu build

[markscherz]

what's your take on pacman/ornate horned frogs?

Okay so Ceratophrys themselves are pretty great (all round frogs are good frogs), but have you heard of PROceratophrys?

[source]

Some species are just like Ceratophrys, but with eighteen times the eyebrow.

Like, honestly?

[source]

Whose idea was this?

Interestingly, even though they're called PROceratophrys, they're not even in the same family (Odontophrynidae versus Ceratophryidae), and are separated by over 60 million years. Proceratophrys are more closely related to bufonid toads and hylid tree frogs than they are to Ceratophryidae!

Sometimes taxonomy is just dumb that way.

[lloydfrontera]

Im so curious

What about BK Moon gives you so much beef with him like the misogyny I understand but you talk about him like there's more

it's all the untapped potential. that's all it is. bk moon can be such a good writer at times and there's some genuinely interesting and fascinating ideas in his work, but man do they get buried under some of the most bizarre and tedious plots he can come up with.

he comes up with some amazing dynamics, concepts and characters and then does shit with them. he writes incredibly passionate and heart-wrenching relationships between his male protagonists and then shoves them into the most boring and/or underdeveloped straight romances possible. he describes utterly horrifying scenarios (affectionate) with such vivid detail you can almost see them play out perfectly in your head and then goes on and on about very boring topics with too much detail that you can skip without losing anything for it.

his novels could be so good... if only they were good. there's something there but you have to grab a shovel and dig them up by yourself because he's not gonna help you do it.

he's a good writer! but he could so much better. and that's what makes it so infuriating! because i see the potential, i see the seeds being planted, i see what could've been... and i can't do anything about it but make silly little posts about it! i wanna be his editor and beta-reader soooo bad.

but to be clear i don't have,, real beef with the man. like. i don't know him. i just read what he writes and sometimes stalk his fb but that's it. my feelings about him are completely based on what his writing and his novels tell me and nothing more. and i do like his writing! i genuinely do enjoy his style and the way he writes! some times more than others but nonetheless!

and also sometimes i just like being dramatic. sometimes i'm mildly annoyed by one of his writing decision and i say i'll stab a man. doesn't mean i actually hate his guts or anything aksjhdka

i will even admit that maybe if his novels were better i wouldn't be so into them as i am. take orv for example. i love it, i definitely binge-read it, cried my heart out and it remains one of my favorite webnovels of all time. but i didn't dedicate two years of my life to talk about it, y'know? it's so good i don't really have anything to add to the conversation. unlike with tged and cpsm where i have entirely too much to say about them.

i guess i just... mourn the wasted potential of his writing. and like with a lot of other authors i can't help but be bitter about the hetero/amatonormativity that seeps into it. if he were just a little bit more open to write his protagonists as anything else than straight or at least stopped adding romance for romance sake, his novels would stand out from many others even with his rather run-of-the-mill plots.

also i'm salty that he keeps catering to whiny dudebros with such fragile egos they can't handle an emotional scene without calling it cringe. when he could be catering to me instead <3 i, unlike them, do appreciate how he writes incredibly deep and passionate friendships between men willing to risk the whole world for one another <33

tldr: he gives me brain worms. and i'm mad about it. he needs a better editor and it should be me.

[copia]

i can't come back here until the afternoon of the 29th, posting this to hold myself accountable (& i'll be embarrassed if i turn up again)

[bookishjules]

i don't care how big a company is, the response to an employee asking for an advanced warning before they are affected by changes made by the company should never be "get used to it."

[turtlespancake]

me when i write a character who is prone to dooming themself and then they run off and doom themself. core traits are stubbornness and a willingness to disregard their own humanity gET BACK HERE IM NOT DONE WITH YOU

[msburgundy]

[protectoroffaeries]

at my local public library reading as i am wont to do & overheared someone returning a book late saying "sorry it's a little late" & the librarian saying "no worries the library police isnt gonna come after u" but then as soon as they left the librarian turned around to his coworkers & goes "this book was due in november 2008"

[piningpercussionist]

I saw from a post about how many asks you have and I was wondering why not just answer one ask then use that as your daily post? (I'm pretty sure you post daily from my memory)

I'm not a writer so apologies if I sound a bit rude or oblivious. But I think you don't do that because it might get tiring to write an in-character response each day.

I'm actually an Insane Person and ideally would be posting hourly/bi-hourly, if only I ever found enough content to queue up in such a manner,,

But, basically the delays can be summed up in three parts: tired or busy (lumping these together as one problem), no idea how to respond just yet (or respond in a way that satisfies me,) or I have ideas but they're art based and take more time.

I do have some wips for some art answers saved I think, but I've got, like, a single commission remaining on my docket and I refuse to let myself do other art until it's finished (barring one sketch I did for the sake of my sanity.... I cannot stress enough how much of a fight it is to get myself to do full shading and backgrounds 💀 mistakes were made.)

Now, admittedly, it's been a minute since I took a crack at writing out some more thoughtful or lengthy responses for some of the asks I've gotten- so far as I recall, at least- but the dissatisfaction problem is Extremely Real. No joke, I've had an ask sitting in my queue for several months now because I was like "yeah this is good enough," queued it, and then just before it could post I was overcome with an Intense distaste for it. I really liked the question and thought I could do better. (And still clearly have not done better....) Writing Kim honestly comes really naturally to me, and I could never really get tired of it, but sometimes an ask throws a curveball at me in a way that I just really cannot quite wrap my head around responding to. Other times, I get asks that I just can't let myself answer in a subpar manner- either the ask itself or the implications of the answer I concoct end up mattering too much to me, so I get super in my head about finalizing the reply.

And then me being tired is just a skill issue. (I'm joking; this only applies to like the last month or so, but I actually started taking some new medications recently that have been messing with me just a little in this respect. Sometimes I get tired, and when they DO give me the pep to do things, I've admittedly been trying to direct that energy into getting my life together lol)

[konshokoentaiko]

i always thought i was a very typical enemies to lovers girlie but i think i just realized my actual taste in ships is the dynamic where the two are supposedly equal rivals/enemies who represent diametrically opposed themes (for the Aesthetic), but in actuality it’s just one of them yanking the other around on a chain while the other whines and rages and protests and ultimately makes an absolute spectacle of themselves

so uhhh. how did THAT happen and when and why

[soggypotatoes]

the problem with turning up to uni all colourful in overalls and pigtails is that everyone thinks im 18

im 27, i just have the fashion sense of a clown and my neck is sweaty

[h3artbrok3nn]

VENTING IN TAGZ

[caffeinatedopossum]

Events of last night:

Me: *crying*

My girlfriend: what's wrong?? :(

Me: *struggling to form words* intrusive thoughts are bad... I don't want to talk about them because then I'm scared that they're true and you might think I'm awful

My girlfriend: ah I actually get that. I have those a lot. It doesn't mean anything though, intrusive thoughts are just like dreams. Like the things you do in them aren't really things you want to do, it's just stuff your brain comes up with.

[vroomian]

Happy birthday from a fellow end-20s! It sucks! But on the other hand, nothings stopping you from buying the stuff you wanted as a child :D go get yourself a treat!

Thanks! It’s so weird to be 29. I honestly thought I’d be dead years ago 😂. I’ll probably get myself a slice of cake or something, because health or not I want cake on my birthday dammit!

[nicepersondisorder]

torn between asking in the t groupchat if its still possible to get hrt withouy changing documents/gender marker (which is now illegal) or if i have to leave the country completely to finally get hrt