#theyre all great though

[percys-lemons]

if you told me these were all the same man i would believe you

[worminterface]

oops uh sorry for the sparkledog spam. I found a good blog and went crazy

[raphaerolo]

wlw codywan anyone?

[steambend]

zutaras are about to be baited so bad for the second time in a row and frankly idc can i get ten more scarf scenes please

[blueskittlesart]

deeply refreshing to see someone critical of Swift who also like, genuinely likes her. Like i'm neutral to positive on her, but the online discourse has been absolutely rancid. flipping between "Taylor Swift has never done anything wrong ever and she's a fucking genius" and "Taylor Swift is the worst lyricist of all time and also a bad person" is exhausting, so thank you for like. nuance or something lmao

not to make it serious for a sec but i genuinely think that being able to like things that are bad is really important. like I think that it's an important skill to be able to look at something and see what you personally enjoy about it and then take a step back and acknowledge that objectively it's flawed. and to also be able to acknowledge that liking something isn't necessarily an identity or a moral stance. and i think that fandom space in general could really benefit from more people taking the time to learn how to do that. it's okay to like things that are bad

[hybbat]

Scar and all the ghosts are stuck eternally in secret life because Jimmy failed to fulfill the role of canary so everything broke, it's also why he could come back as Grian's guardian angel, cause no one can leave.

[iwoulddieforienzo]

Something really great about the persona 2 cast is that they all individually fucking SUCK to talk to casually. Every single one of them. They are all infuriating. We have:

Tatsuya, who will stare at you blankly if you try to initiate conversation (IS) and will dip without saying a word afterward (EP)

Batsuya, who will scoff and brush you off/otherwise act dismissive

Eikichi, who might honestly be the best to talk to in the IS crew and that is not saying much, who WILL talk extremely loudly over you (probably not on purpose?) and will not be paying particularly close attention to the conversation beyond whatever he wants to say (gets points for talking about his gf. gets points taken away for constantly talking about his gf)

Lisa, who will automatically assume bad faith and will be rude to you the entire conversation unless you manage to defuse her temper (good luck)

Jun, who is uncommunicative at BEST and requires an encyclopedic knowledge of flowers, metaphor and body language just to get a HINT on what he’s thinking, and who will be extremely polite but completely unhelpful. If you tried asking him what he wants for dinner I guarantee it will be the longest 30 minutes of your life as he goes “oh I have no opinion :) whatever you want. :))” EXCEPT HE DOES HAVE OPINIONS. He has SO MANY OPINIONS. He is Expecting you to be able to pick up on his “obvious” clues. He will be passive aggressive if you don’t. (Jun babygirl you suck so bad I love u)

Maya, who is a delight but will very quickly become grating if you try to talk to her about anything serious as she hits you with the white suburban mom's "how to live a happy, healthy life" lifecoach slogans. You can’t even mention, like, stepping in a puddle or something without her hitting you with the positivity beam.

Yukino is great actually. 10/10. She’s fabulous we love her. Incredible conversationalist, chill and fun and easy to get along with. But she’s from Persona One, she doesn’t Count.

Ulala, who WILL bring up her relationship problems in every conversation within 10 minutes at least once. Any longer and she will start talking about Maya.

Do I even need to explain Baofu. Have you seen him.

And finally, Katsuya, who is a cop and a kiss ass and Very Obvious about these things. Also he can't talk to women. He can barely talk to men. Help Him.

And yet they all work wonderfully as a group. They are so annoying I love them

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

Hiii, do you have any tips for drafting out embroidery patterns? I've got one in mind, but drafting it out and color picking is so nerve-wracking!!

[Hi!!!! this got kinda really long so I'm gonna crop it under a read more. And I honestly don't have any real training/instruction in fiber arts so this is just how I do things, and probably others do them very differently!]

Haha so my fandom embroideries are VERY different from my non-fandom personal pieces in this respect. For non-fandom things i just kind of throw myself in like WAHOO FREEFORM LETS GO and go for a kind of messy colorful approach that ends up as things like this:

Versus my fandom stuff is way more structured and designed to fill space, be very precise, etc. So for those I do go in with a digital mock up of the design I make in photoshop, that I then color in, and then as my last step translate to thread colors.

For my Dragon Age series. this has been because I'm specifically trying to mimic the stained-glass style of art you see in parts of the game like the dialogue wheels, some icons, windows, etc. The icons in particular were really easy to copy into embroidery because they already come in handy circles:

This is mostly because I have desperately wanted to pick up stained glass work as a hobby for like 6 years now. As in once every 3-6 months I put everything I'd need to start doing it into an online shopping cart and look at the price total and then sadly close the window because I just don't actually have any space I could do it in (I live in a 2bed apartment so i have no garage or yard or anywhere it wouldn't make everything else a mess or be a hazard). The day after one of those events I impulse bought and completed a floral embroidery kit from the craft store and kinda was like... ok, well, I did this once how hard can it be to use this medium to mimic the hobby I wish I could be doing? Plus, it's only like 60 cents per color! I can afford that! So I took the first design I wanted to do, the romance icon, and basically redrew it sloppily in photoshop, then freehand-copied the design onto fabric and stitched it the next day:

I learned a lot from this piece and changed my approach a little. Here you can see I tried shading in the parallel direction to my thread, which looked messy and added texture, so now I shade horizontally to my thread direction instead.

But it gave me a basic approach for turning the Tarot cards or DA Keep tiles (or any other art!) into embroidery patterns, which I couldn't copy as directly into this really smooth stained-glass style. There's a basic process I follow when doing these conversions that generally follows the same order, which I'll go through below.

STEP 1: SHAPES

The first thing I do is pick the shape of my display frame which is usually a circle, but could be an oval or rectangle too, since I hang the finished pieces on my wall to have nice way to show them off. I like to fill the whole space so knowing the size and shape of what I want the finished project to look like is a good goal for me. Since I am doing fandom pieces I want to be recognizable, I do stick pretty close to the "original" character design/art, but you can absolutely change as much as you want and freehand draw your own interpretation instead. If you're doing original art just substitute the below composition notes with "sketch out roughly what you want it to look like". I personally do my pattern drafting digitally as I find it easier, but you can do this part by hand too.

First, I keep the reference image I'm working off of open next to me while I work, and draw in the shape of my frame (here, a circle). If I'm adding in the little border to be fancy, I add a second inner circle. I keep these as their own top layer so I always know I'm working within the final "frame" and don't spend time designing any section that will fall outside it. Then I will take copies of the reference image and knock the layers down to 25-50% opacity, and start moving them around underneath the 'frame' layer until I like the way their positioning looks as a composition. Sometimes elements of a card I want to include don't all fit in, so I'll chop the section out and add an additional layer to throw in (like the background circle things in the Hermit design below). Or I'll just freehand things like adding much bigger diamonds behind Solas in my Hierophant design because I did NOT want to do 1000 tiny ones. Then once I'm satisfied with the general composition, I'll use the plain ol circular brush tool to trace out the major shapes of each element. I try to keep in mind that I can't go too small, and curvy lines are more difficult to fill in than straight ones. I usually do a rough messy version first, make it mostly transparent, and then a cleaner and more precise one over that.

(you can see parts of the rough one on the left and the fully 'cleaned up' on the right for the Hierophant design)

Now: depending on what you are doing next with the pattern, this might be where you stop and start coloring. If you are planning to freehand your design or just trace it onto fabric (or even print it onto fabric here), there's no need to do more than this kind of lineart! However, if you are working digitally and want to create a scalable vector so you can print it at different sizes, you can use the pen tool in photoshop to trace your design and make a "work path" of the lineart. However, another note: THIS PART IS VERY FRUSTRATING AND TEDIOUS BECAUSE THE PEN TOOL WAS CREATED BY THE DEVIL TO TORMENT US. It is so so so easy to accidentally delete a line or even the whole path and not notice later on. Ask me how I know 😭 Anyway I'm not going to include a pen tool tutorial because I don't even know how to use it well and have to google or watch videos every other time I try to use it. But if you can muddle through it gets you some really clean lines that eventually look like this:

With the work path selected, you can select the brush tool/size/color and use the "stroke path" option to create lineart of the vector. Then you can save this as a transparent png file for use at different sizes and for printing and it looks so nice and clean! one of the big benefits to this is that you get really fine lines that are easier to be precise with stitching on. This is extra perfect if you are printing the design directly onto your fabric (which you can do with an at-home inkjet printer for designs under 8inches wide, as long as you stick a piece of stabilizer on the back of your fabric and cut it down to printer sheet size--this is what I do and can make another post about that process if people want haha), or if you are printing onto transfer paper like you can buy at craft stores.

This is where I end the lineart for my designs. After I have this, I move on to the next phase, which is...

STEP 2: COLOR

For interpreting my designs into thread, I start by thinking of it as flat colors first. You can't "shade" as easily with threads as you can with things like paint or brushes in digital art (though you can A Little, which I will get into), so to start color planning I pick the "main" color each section will be in the piece.

For the existing icons this was simple--I kept the same sections as the original designs, so for each I just color picked or eyeballed the color in photoshop and colored it in (but you could do this on paper with pencils, markers, whatever as well--they don't need to match your threads exactly and usually won't, it's just to give you an easy reference to follow as you go). For the tarot cards which were more complicated in coloration, I just did my best and went with what looked good next to each other, even if it was a little off the original art. It will be off more later anyway when you have to pick threads so don't stress it too much honestly. I will often make layers with different color options and turn them on/off for direct comparison to try to determine what I think looks best as well, like below where I was debating between more blue/desaturated for the background or brighter colors.

I do wanna note I have regrets about the color selection, shapes, or shading in EVERY SINGLE ONE of my finished pieces. But no one else ever comments or probably even notices! One aspect of this hobby is just learning to be satisfied with what you've made and using what you learned to get closer to your preferences next time. I'm only going back and redoing some of my designs' colors because I want to make it easier for others to choose on the patterns I sell, more than I care for just for myself. Also since I'm doing this lineart/stained glass looking approach where I go over the distinct shapes with black thread at the end, it means I get these clear delineations between sections you might not necessarily have in your own pieces, and that's ok.

Ok right. Now while shading/coloring in detail is hard with thread, you CAN make whats essentially dithered gradients. "Dithering" in the concept of art means using 2 (or more) colors to give the impression of a third color, or to gently scale between the existing binary rather than a hard line. Think of it like blocky pixel art or gameboy game images. If you're doing needlepainting, you use really small stitches close together to get this effect, which translates to "smaller pixes"--if you look at the jellyfish in my first photos that's a very messy casual version of that. If you want a better example, I recommend looking at @ammocharis 's pieces like these in her pinned post, which are truly amazing! I simply do not have the patience myself 😂 For my stained glass style, I work only in very long straight stitches, so I can only shade in one direction and have to be a little more precise with it.

So for shading, I think about in each section which direction my threads might go. Then perpendicular to that direction I pick which side will be the light one and which the darker one. Sometimes I color this in on my pattern mockup, but sometimes I don't! Or I'll only do it for certain sections to make sure I don't forget. Like for my Tower design I only colored it as flats, and waited until I selected threads to decide how the shading would go. I am currently working on a smaller, simplified version of my Hierophant design and I did add shading digitally for that one just for fun. But it's not as important as having the flat color version you can use to quick-reference how you want your design to go while you're stitching. You might also notice I don't actually color my gold--I just throw in a stock image of gold foil for that layer so I can't confuse it with any of my yellow thread sections.

Here's a close up where you can kind of see what I mean by the "dithered" effect between colors--some are more obvious (like the red on the far left or middle orange) and others pretty subtle (dark grey to dark red on the wolf face):

Now, while I use single layers of satin stitches for this, and just alternate thread colors increasing/decreasing as I go, you can accomplish the same thing with short overlapping stitches like with needlepainting, or with clusters of french knots, or whatever else. But in GENERAL you are going to be able to trick people into seeing gradients out of dithering best when you are using the same type of stitch for that whole area. So if I was using multiple stitch types like having french knots, daisy chains, ladder stitching or whatever else for some sections, I would keep those to contrasting areas/colors. A fantastic example of using different layered types of stitching to create more intricate color/texture in an embroidery would be these incredible tarot card depictions by @hattedhedgehog, which I like even better than my own embroideries. Here's his take on the Tower card as well for comparison to mine (I'm so in love with it!!!).

But anyway, at this phase, your design is actually still digital--the above is just to explain how it translates later in the process. The next step is...

STEP 3: THREAD SELECTION

I will admit here I am not great at this part. I am constantly second guessing my thread colors, and can spend over an entire hour in the thread aisle at the craft store agonizing over choices. Really, I think this is just one of those things that takes practice and you get better at it over time. What I have had the best luck with is actually printing out a reference photo of my design/the original artwork and taking it with me. If you already have threads you can do this part at home too, but DMC alone has over 500 colors and I definitely don't even own half that so I like to torture myself by looking at them all together on the thread racks. Plus Anchor and Artiste and whatever other brands there are out there. One approach is to just sit there and pick out what you want for each section and line it all up together on top of your printout. Or in the case of my Tower I laid a bunch of options out on top of my template in the hoop to guess how they'd look in the frame.

For me since I am also doing this dither shading thing, I also need 2-3 colors per sections depending on its size. Sometimes it's easy and the threads have a color just a little darker or lighter right next to them in the numerical lineup! Other times, there is no good match, or it looks too far away to shade nicely, or I want one to be a warmer or cooler tone than the other... which means a lot of standing and fretting to myself over it. I actually take a lot of photos at this stage because it can be easier to see how they will look in the end from a photo than in person to me? Idk why. Plus then after they get scrambled in my bag I remember wtf order I meant for them to go in later. But as long as you're not preventing other customers from shopping themselves, you can spend as long as you want staring at thread in the embroidery aisle and they won't kick you out unless it's closing time, so take your time.

Now, IN THEORY, you can sort of combine steps 2 and 3 by color-selecting from your threads and using that to color in the design. However I have tried this and it led to mixed success because the photoshop eyedropper brush simply isn't actually that exact (in my experience, it desaturates compared to what we actually see). And because then you have to have the threads on hand while you're coloring... which means you might buy ones you don't end up using if you don't like them. So I prefer to just use this as a refinement step where I pick threads based on the design colors, then will re-color the design a second time to match those threads more closely to be sure I like the effect.

I've even used this as a tool when I needed to adjust my color choices mid-project, by digitally coloring over over my WIP:

Or here's a design (but I haven't posted the finished piece yet bc it's a gift so shhh) I made with certain color tones initially, but after buying thread I re-did the color mockup to be more vibrant, because I liked those threads better in the store:

Once you have your thread, you can make yourself a little reference chart with the colors you intend noted on the sections you want them, like below:

(note: i didn't end up sticking to these colors because I ended up dying my own thread for several sections. And then forgot I made this entirely and picked new ones because I put the project down for a year between design and stitching. Sigh).

Or for my Solas pattern I did this in a really detailed way, which i am sorry but i have redacted because... i have it for sale now and don't wanna just give that away haha. But if you buy the pattern from my shop this is one of the files you'd get with it, for ease of reference. I do also include a text-only list of them as well.

Now I don't go to this much trouble for all my designs, just the ones I put up for sale (or plan to). You can also just make a text list of your color plans if you want. Though for fun I also have been using my scrap thread to make these little "color palette" keyrings for my finished pieces, so if I ever remake them or update their patterns I will know what the original colors were, plus I can compare what i used to other threads if I wanna change part of the design up. This step is absolutely not necessary and I'm just doing it because I'm selling the patterns now, but they are kinda fun to look at.

And don't forget.. if you start a section in a certain color and decide you don't like it, you can just cut the threads and pull them out! I did that with my original hierophant piece actually. I had an entirely different color for one row of diamonds i thought just clashed way too much with the others, so I used photoshop to paint over it with some alternate options until I found one I liked better. Then I cut away all the old threads and put in the new color. It can be a little harder to fill a piece the second time since the fabric will have stretched out a little, but as long as you're using a good stabilizer it usually doesn't move too much.

You can also just make test swatches on spare fabric to test before you add them to your real piece. I wish I'd done this for some color transitions that didn't end up looking the way I wanted, but I am simply too lazy most of the time. My exception is usually for metallic, satin, or sparkly threads, because I want to know how they feel while embroidering. But if you're really worried about a certain color or shade it's a good thing to remember you can just do.

SO yep, that's my general process for drafting patterns. I start with the shapes/design, then do my flat color version, then I pick my threads. Makes it sound easy and short when phrased like that :) But I can honestly spend 8-10 hours just on making the lineart and coloring it in. If I was better at art, probably this would be less, but I'm working with what I've got (not much) 😂 I think all aspects of this are also something that gets easier over time, but it will probably never look as bad as you worry when you start out. I think all my pieces look awkward and rough right up until I do the finishing steps and move them to the display frame sometimes.

I hope this was helpful and answered your questions!! Feel free to post/share your WIPs to ask for feedback or advice ever too :) I've only ever had people in the embroidery community on tumblr be encouraging and helpful to me, and I'm happy to answer any questions myself when I can or if parts of this were confusing

[moonpaw]

Fighting DEMONS rn trying not to get invested in one piece to figure out wtf you're posting about!!!!

come here cyber.... we have this thang

‎

[courtney-deserved-better]

telling myself i can't start another tdwt rewrite but dear god do i want to write one focusing on alejandro and courtney in this weird situationship thats a lot more nuanced than just alejandro manipulating courtney and her falling for it. like theyre best friends they dont trust each other theyre the same person they dont know anything about the other one theres a mutual attraction theyre pining for other people theyre codependent they dont care about each other theyre platonic soulmates like i just want to do a deep dive into how messy that relationship couldve been building off of their friendship that exists in my head except the line between romantic and platonic is so fucking blurred they have no idea what they are to the other person

[sipping-ambrosia-wine]

i wanted to weigh bad faith readings vs how clumsy the writing in Weapons Factory actually was to make people dislike luminara so much and. wow. she literally falls to her knees and despairs when she thinks barriss is dead.

[arsenicflame]

or: 11 songs about divorce & 1 song about having a glove kink (while your marriage is falling apart)

(lyric snippets & audios below the cut)

5 Years Into Marriage - Matt Owens & Hannah White

5 years into marriage And it's looking like we're almost done. I love you, I'm just not in love with you any more (no, no, no) Both floated down the aisle, Started taking each other for granted somewhere between- The pulpit and those church doors. Confetti kissed your face, And I trod it right into the floor. We can stick it out another ten years, and we probably will.

Barricade - Stars

I found you on a Saturday, and that was where I lost you You had to finally walk away because of what it cost you Years later on, I saw your face In line to catch the morning train You looked like you'd been softened Like you never really loved the pain

I Don't Want Love - The Antlers

If I leave before you, And I walk out alone, Keep your hands to yourself When you follow me home.

If You Love Me, You Will Lie - Out lines

And shouting through the bathroom door You said that I was keeping score Why can't we accept that there's no more We never say goodbye

It's Beginning To Get To Me - Snow Patrol

I tried to tell you before I left But I was screamin' under my breath You are the only thing that makes sense Just ignore all this present tense

Midnight Love - Girl In Red

I hope that the right time one day arrives So, I'll be willing to let this die Able to look you right in the eyes Say I'm not your consolation prize

Mothers - Daughter

You will grow all you need to grow inside my spine And then take what you need to take, what's yours is mine And then just give all you want of it to some new thing I'll stay here, the provider of that constant sting they call love

Nothing New - Rio Romeo

So, won't you please spare me indignity? And won't you please give me some decency? And won't you please call it if our time is through? 'Cause I know that we fall apart when nothing's new

Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise - The Mountain Goats

Making contact gets harder As the silence grows longer Why would you think of me? When you were not the one in love When you were not the dreamer When you were just the dream I'm under no illusion As to what I meant to you But you made an impression And sometimes I still feel the bruise

Splinter - Scott Hutchison & James Graham

‘Cause I always took the cutting, And you only missed my heart Although it amounts to nothing, The nothing’s left it’s mark

The Modern Leper - Frightened Rabbit

Well, I crippled your heart a hundred times And still can't work out why You see, I've got this disease I can't shake and I'm just rattling through life Well, this is how we do things now Yeah, this is how the modern stay scared So I cut out all the good stuff Yeah, I cut off my foot to spite my leg

Wedding Gloves - Frightened Rabbit FT. Aiden Moffat

Do you even remember What we said in the vows? God was watching on Saturday But He is not with us now, with us now

[sonknuxadow]

did you hear that they just made a new law where before saying anything about thinking a sonic game is bad you are now required to play through the game in its entirety . if you break it you will explode on the spot btw

[yugiohz]

speaking of people's wrong opinions on art i love haikyuu's art development and its current style idc what ppl say about it

[hybbat]

I do think a good chunk of the 'cringey atheist' stereotype did come from the fact that, especially americans, regardless of their actual religious status are just casually christian and refer to things through a religious filter and that isn't seen for how overwhelming/obnoxious/frustrating it is. Its absense, such as when writing a story and things like "oh god" or other casual references are remove or replaced, is seen as notable the same way people find the cast being all women or queer being 'abnormal'.

And I think more people, especially here on tumblr, should take a moment from ragging on some kid being "cringey" saying god doesn't exist or making atheist jump around like dancing monkeys to establish they're one of the good respectful ones before they ever even begin to talk about their own thoughts, and examine why so much content just inserts god into a conversation that had nothing to do with religion like it's the expected norm, the same way they examine the invasiveness of casual heteronormativity.