#whew that took a while

[tortol]

parasitism

poem by @growrotten

[thebirdsandthebats]

Okay @s-p-r-i-n-g-t-i-m-e I’m sure you know plenty BUT I’m going to use your wonderful and hilarious comment on this as an excuse to talk about Bernard, bc I realized recently that there are plenty of ppl who haven’t read most of the comics he’s been in. So get ready for my long overdue:

UNPACKING BERNARD DOWD + HIS TRAUMA (for those who cannot keep up with comics but want to get to know him)

So to start, Tim met Bernard years ago ofc, when they were in high school. It’s established pretty quick that Bernard is an extremely Unserious guy LMAO, the first thing he does is literally circle Tim and try to feel him out socially, see what kind of guy he is. He’s the kind of guy who gets himself in trouble with his big mouth, and seems to enjoy poking at Tim and testing his patience. By the time we meet Bernard again in the recent years, he’s grown a lot, but at his core he’s still the light-hearted, fun, goofy guy with very strong opinions. Just less stand-offish, maybe

Throughout the time Tim spends at this school though, Bernard does experience some wild shit. He lost Darla (somebody he really cared about), he experienced a shooting at his school, and then Darla came back from the dead, kind of scared the hell out of him, and used him to contact Tim again. It was kind of played for laughs, but like. That’s gotta fuck you up. (Robin #140)

Obviously this is the kind of thing that maybeee has a lasting effect on you. And BECAUSE Tim Drake: Robin got cut so short and the writer had to rush to wrap up the series, we’re left to fill in a lot of gaps and draw conclusions about the years we didn’t see Bernard ourselves. But we absolutely get some insight as to his life after Tim left that school and we stopped seeing him in the comics. Spoiler alert: it was hard.

In TDR, Bernard discusses the the cult that he’d been in that Tim saved him from in Urban Legends. He says that “he’d accepted himself”, but others hadn’t. Obviously there’s the natural reading that he means his queerness (which has me chewing through drywall), but I think that he’s speaking very broadly too. Bernard is a very odd example of a civilian, because he’s always getting dragged into things much bigger than him. And even before that, he had his big ideas, his conspiracies, his loud personality. He tended to rub people the wrong way in high school. Then in issue #7 of TDR (the Bernard pov issue my most beloved, weird pacing aside) Bernard refers to this “oozy, sticky feeling” that he ALWAYS feels when Tim isn’t around. He says when he’s alone it’s harder to put one foot in front of the other. To keep GOING. To wake up every day.

I think that Bernard has always felt like an outcast. (Robin #121, he doesn’t fit into any clique). He wasn’t as okay with it as he acted. And I think he wasn’t getting any attention from his parents. (Batman: Urban Legends #5, Bernard’s parents nonchalance to the days leading up to his kidnapping)

So just like Bernard explained to Tim, that feeling got bad. and he wanted to let go. The chaos monsters, the cult, all of it was a means to an end. But then Tim agreed to see him again, and I think that sparked something in him. Because he started learning to fight. When he was tied down to that alter and Tim was saving him, I think it fully sank in to Bernard that he didn’t want to die. Reconnecting with Tim gave him hope and made him really feel something good for the first time in ages.

So now that they’re dating after the cult fiasco, we get to know this current Bernard. A less goading, maybe calmer Bernard. But he’s still himself, of course, rambling about his ideas and making bad jokes and sticking to his guns (he has NEVER been a pushover, no idea where people get that idea?). I think a lot of people complained that Bernard mellowed out too much in terms of attitude, but I think if he seems “nicer” it’s because 1) he’s grown now. It’s been a while since we last saw him, and he’s clearly changed a lot. And 2) because he’s dating Tim now. He likes him a lot, and he’s an affectionate partner. He wants to lift Tim up.

But the fact that he was pulled into a cult still remains. And as lighthearted as Bernard tries to be, that traumatic experience still happened. It said in Urban Legends #5 while Tim was searching for him that Bernard had welts on his arms and legs and had been acting different, so it’s not like he was just snatched up on a whim. He’d spent significant time there. For those who haven’t read much abt the ways cult trauma specifically can fuck you up, I recommend doing a search if you’re in a good headspace for that and want to understand him more. because it’s pretty bad.

And then! yeah. you guessed it. Bernard gets kidnapped again. Chained up next to a BOMB that’s counting down. RIGHT WHEN HE’S WORKING ON HEALING FROM ALMOST BEING SACRIFICED BY A CULT.

And surely this can’t get crazier. He’s almost died twice in the past 6 months. except, remember his parents? In TD:R #7, we really see a little more of his relationship with his parents. He doesn’t live up to their standards, and his dad specifically seems to just want to argue with him. The restaurant they’re at is attacked, and everything goes to shit, and. you know, I think these panels really speak for themselves.

And for the record, when it’s revealed that everyone is seeing their worst fears, Bernard’s parents fears are not about him.

So now Bernard has to deal with that. And we start to see that Bernard is really not as okay as he’s tried to be. He keeps a baseball bat by his door because he’s been kidnapped twice now. And just when he’d likely thought things couldn’t get worse, he heard the Chaos Monsters were back. I can’t imagine he feels safe. He lashes out for the first time since all this has happened and yells at Kate and Tim, because while they’re doing what they feel is necessary to save more people (AND I DONT BLAME THEM AT ALL), Bernard can’t talk about it.

And I will forever be sad and insist that TD:R got cancelled too soon, just before we could get into the really juicy stuff, because things had to be wrapped up pretty quick and this was the only comic Bernard was consistently appearing in. But when Tim is giving himself up to the chaos monsters, Bernard goes out and rallies anyone he knows can help. Things were rushed because there was no more time to flesh out the story the way it could have been, but I’m including these panels just because I love Bernard Audacity Dowd using a fucking flashlight and shadow puppet to call Batman. geeking out for a minute. And then leading the battalion to save Tim with a SLEDGEHAMMER. gay people rule.

So yeah! While I see the vision of how a lot of Bernard’s trauma was meant to be semi-resolved and let him come to peace after saving Tim back, we just didn’t have the time for him to heal properly. I’d give anything to get inside his brain again. UHH IF YOU READ THIS I HOPE YOU LOVE BERNARD NOW and don’t come at me if I left something out, some of my comics aren’t with me rn. Bonus TimBer for the road:

[v-albion]

World’s Greatest Actor

Song: worlds greatest actor by Terminallysilly

Masterpost

[andthendk]

Damian & Raven two shot in uniform 'cause I realize there hasn't been one from me yet! 🦇🔥🪶

Who else is excited to see what James Gunn has in plan for DC (can't WAIT to see who they cast as Damian👀)

[oodlesodoodles]

[mifflebat]

“ late night “

this one was a challenge to draw but here it is!! little mikey and donnie comic,, set probably a couple days after splinter’s passing.

(i said he’d be a good dad,, i never specified for how long)

enjoy!!

[niidsch]

Would you be able to share some of your gif making process/programs you use to make them? They look great! 💕

Omg thank you,,, 🥺💕💖💕 And yes ofc! I'm going to write down everything I can think of about my gif making process but if I forget anything/you have questions about something specific let me know! ✨

(Long post ahead)

Emulators & Recording

I use different emulators and recording programs, depending on the game I want to play/record:

DesMuMe: This is the one I use for DS games, and it comes with a neat “Record AVI” feature under the “File” tab. Just click it, choose a location for the file and click OK (make sure the Compressor is set to “Full frames (No compression)”). Recordings have a limit of 2 minutes/2GB, but when it reaches it, the program will automatically create a new file and keep recording until it reaches 2 minutes, and the process will repeat (the next recordings will have “part_X” in the name file). When you’re done recording, just lick on File > Stop AVI. Also! The recordings will always have the original resolution. My DesMuMe is set to be 2x its size with a gap between the screens, but all recordings are 256x384 pixels with no gap.

VisualBoyAdvance: Like DesMuMe but for GBA games. Also has a recording feature in Tools > Record > Start AVI recording. The resolution of the video will be that of the original game but I think there’s no limit on how long the recording can be. I’d still recommend stopping and restarting the recording every 5 minutes or so.

Other games & OBS Studio: For 3DS games I use Citra, and Dolphin for Wii ones. They both have Recording features but I don’t use them because they create weird files. Instead, I record them with OBS Studio. Open the program, click on "Start Recording" and then on "Stop Recording" when you’re done. Pretty simple, just remember OBS records your screen so obviously if your emulator window is minimized it won’t record it. You can change your OBS settings to only record the emulator window but I’m too lazy to tinker with OBS so I just record the whole screen lol. There’s always a slight loss of quality with OBS. If you’re recording games with 3DS models then it won’t be too noticeable, but I do not recommend using OBS for pixel/pixelated games like Nintendo DS and Game Boy ones.

Misc: Before OBS, I used to use Camtasia Studio 8. Also does the trick, but instead of saving a .mp4 file it creates its own type of file and it requires you to manually export it as a .mp4 (it's a hassle). It has some editing features too, which OBS does not as far as I can tell. Also, besides DesMuMe I have MelonDS. Highly recommend it if you need to use the multiplayer option (to trade pokemons between games for example) and most importantly for the better mic feature (you WON’T get past the Nintendogs tutorial on DesMuMe). Also the 3D model graphics are of higher quality, but it doesn’t have a recording feature so you will have to rely on OBS and as I said it lowers the quality.

As for video file types, both .avi and .mp4 are allowed in Photoshop. However, .mkv (mostly used for TV shows and movie files) is not, so if you want to edit, say, an anime episode in that format you’ll need to convert it to .mp4. I use Format Factory for that, although I think here’s a slight quality loss.

Here's a comparison of a pixel game recorded with OBS vs with DesMuMe. It's tiny but it will have you shaking the screen violently when you notice it.

OBS recording vs. DesMuMe recording

Do not delete or move the video file until you’re done making gifs of it. Even if you save the file as a .psd, you will get an error message if the video file is gone from its original location and you'll have to start over again.

Editing (I)

I exclusively use Photoshop 2020. If you use CSP, GIMP or other editing program you’ll have to find the equivalent features or look at other tutorials, because I’m only familiar with Photoshop. Other PS versions should have either the same or similar features. Here are the steps I usually follow (names might be wrong because my PS is in Spanish “OTL):

Importing: Drag and drop your file into PS. You should have your Timeline window on the bottom part. If you import a .mp4 or .avi file you should get the Video Timeline, which is what we will work with. If you export a .gif you will get the Frame Animation Timeline; in that case you need to convert it to a single timeline. Click on “Convert to Timeline Video”, then select all the layers (click on Layer 1 and then hold Shift+Click on the last layer) and then right-click on the last layer > “Convert to Intelligent Object”. This is what your PS window should look like for both cases:

avi/mp4 file (has a Video Timeline) vs. gif file (has a Frame Animation Timeline)

Cutting and resizing: Often your file will either be the wrong size or have unnecessary parts. To resize your video, go to Image > Image Size (NOT Canvas size) and change the resolution. For good gif quality, the image resolution should always be 540 pixels wide (Tumblr’s image size), height doesn’t really matter. PS will change the height proportionally if you change the width. So, for example, a 1440x1080 video will be 540x405 after the conversion. Similarly, you can crop out parts with the Selection tool + Image > Crop. Making pixel games bigger requires a different method (more on this later).

Cropping vs. Resizing

Cutting the timeline: Your gif will likely be too long, or you might need to stitch two parts together. In the Timeline window, move the vertical red line to the part where you want to make the cut. You can precisely move frame by frame with the arrows next to the play button. You can also zoom in and out the timeline with the slider at the bottom. Once you’ve placed the red line on the part where you want to make a cut, click on the scissors. You’ll get two layers – delete the one you don’t need and repeat until your gif is the right length. Similarly, you can click on either end of the timeline and drag it left and right to extend/reduce the length, but it’s less precise. I recommend moving the gif layer out of the video group in the Layer window, especially if you’re going to stitch parts together or add new layers that aren’t Color adjustment layers (like your watermark). If you do so, you’ll notice that each layer occupies a different line in the timeline, while if it’s in a group, it will all be in the same line (this means that all layers will be one after the other, you won’t be able to overlay them).

Cutting the timeline (1-3) + Moving the gif layer out of the video group (4)

Color adjustments: The fun part! You can get hella crazy with this one. If you want to go for really fancy stuff, I recommend checking out @/usergif, they have lots of tutorials and gifsets you can use as inspiration. I am however a simple man and will mostly use the same tools: Sharpen, Hue/Saturation, Gradient Map and Curves.

Soft sharpen in the Filters tab + Curves, Hue/Saturation and Gradient Map in the Layer window

Editing (II)

Can't make a bullet list of a bullet list so here's each adjustment layer explained. Note that this part is very personal so feel free to tinker with the settings for each tool until you get what you like:

Sharpen: Used only with non pixel media, aka for 3D models and series/movies. It makes the image look sharper. You'll notice that the video layer can have two icons: a movie film or a folded paper (in the "Import" section, the Pokémon gif has a movie film icon, while the converted Nintendogs gif has a folded paper icon). If your layer has the former, the sharpen tool will only be applied to one frame. To avoid that, right-click on the layer > Convert to intelligent object. Resizing the image will also do the trick. Filters are always applied to the layer, they don't create a new one (this is what the rest of the following adjustments will do). As for settings, this is what I usually have:

Two types of Sharpen settings (original on the left)

Hue/Saturation: Changes both the global colors and specific hues. To do the latter, open the menu right above all three sliders (by default it's set to "All") and then choose the color you want to change. Be careful! Sometimes you might accidentally edit the wrong hue, for ex a bluish green if you are editing blue hues. If you want to see what parts of the gif you're targeting, set the saturation to the max. Colors play a heavy role on gif size: the more diverse and brighter the color palette, the bigger the file. Gif size will be the ruin of your gif making process, so don't go too overboard with this. More on gif size later, but for now, I recommend "unifying" the color palette (aka making some hues similar).

Two examples of Hue/Saturation adjustments (Original above)

Gradient map: Adds a gradient overlay to the image. When you open the Gradient Map window, click on the gradient and you'll be able to edit it or create a new one. To do so, click on the tiny boxes with colors (only the lower ones, the upper ones won't work), then on the slightly bigger box to change the hue. To add a color, click anywhere below the gradient; to move the colors around, drag the tiny boxes and move them, and to edit the limit between each hue, drag the tiny diamond. The way gradient maps work is by editing the colors from lighter (right) to darker (left). So if you have blue on the right of the gradient, light hues will be blue, and if you have pink on the left of the gradient, dark hues will be pink, with mid tones being a mix of pink and blue (either purple, or bluish purple or pinkish purple). The image will look weird when you add a gradient map, but don't mind that for now. Just create the gradient you want and click OK. Now, select the new layer that has been created and play with the blending modes and the opacity of the layer until you get something you like. For blending modes, I usually go for the ones in the second and third sections. To edit either the Hue/Saturation layer or the Gradient Map one, click on the black and white icons (left to the mask, aka the white box) in the Layer window.

Video showing how Gradient map works

Two examples of Gradient maps, with a readjustment of the Hue/Saturation layer (Original above)

Curves: Edits the light, dark and mid tones. Click any point in the curve/line and then drag it around to see what it does. You can make more than one point in the curve. Afterwards, change the blending mode and the opacity.

An example of a Curve and the same example with the Curves layer at 40%

Gaussian blur: Sometimes I add a blurry/fuzzy effect to certain gifs. To do so, duplicate the gif layer (right-click > Duplicate layer), then, while selecting the new layer, go to Filters > Gaussian blur and pick a small numer (0,4-1). Click OK, set the blending mode of the new layer to Darken and lower the opacity.

Two examples of images with Gaussian blur applied (Original above)

Watermark: Add a watermark to your image. Click on the Text tool, create a text box, pick the font, the size, the color and the placement, and then click the ✔ button. Change the blending mode and opacity of the text layer. Personally, I have a .png image of my watermark that I just import to the gif and then edit, instead of creating a text box everytime. Regarding watermarks, I get that they are annoying but it's going to be far more annoying when someone reposts your gif without credit or crops the watermark out. Tumblr sucks when it comes to reporting this kind of stuff and you deserve to have your work respected (you've spent time and effort on this!!), so I highly recommend putting a watermark on your gifs. If you want to avoid having someone crop it, put it towards the middle of the image and not in a place that can be edited easily. Also, I usually save gifs without a watermark and add it afterwards.

Red: Danger zone, can get cropped easily. Blue: Also Danger zone, can be edited out. Green: Too obtrusive. Yellow: Perfect place, can't be edited out and it's not on the main focus of the image

Exporting

This is the "hell on earth" part. To export a gif, go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy), then once it loads (may take some time), play the gif a couple of times to make sure it looks good and save it. These are my settings:

Settings for the Save for Web (Legacy). You'll only need to tinker with the settings on the right.

However, there's one thing to keep in mind: Tumblr has a size limit of 10MB per gif, meaning your gif won't be uploaded if it's larger than that, and you'll be surprised how easily you can surpass that limit. Also, gifs can't be longer than 500 frames, aka 8 seconds (to check the duration of your gif, zoom in in the Timeline Window, you can see the seconds at the top). Here are some pointers regarding gif size:

Pixel games and anime have a smaller size than life-action and 3D models: This is because the former have limited color palettes and the latter has way more colors. For example, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon or Sailor Moon will rarely pose problems, but Arcane, Breaking Bad, Nintendogs or Baldur's Gate 3 will.

The more complex the animation/motion, the bigger the size: This is because complex animations/motions, like a fight, have more unique frames than, say, someone moving their head up and down and nothing else, and that means there's more information to store.

The longer the gif/the bigger the resolution, the bigger the size: Kind of self-explanatory, longer gifs or gifs with big resolutions means more information stored in the file.

Bright and diverse color palettes increase the gif size: As explained in the first point, more colors means more information and thus a bigger file size.

The more it exceeds the limit, the bigger the changes you'll have to make: If it's 10.5MB you can get that number down easily. If it's like 20MB, you might need to cut the gif in half.

How do you solve this? There are a couple of methods:

Make the gif shorter: In the Timeline window, cut parts of your gif until it's short enough. If you don't want to delete certain parts, you can divide your gif in two separate ones.

Make the colors less bright/unify the color palette with an Hue/Saturation layer: If you haven't done this in the editing process and your gif exceeds 10MB, it's time to edit the gif colors.

Reduce the color palette: In the Save for Web (Legacy), you'll see that there's "Colors: 256" on the left (marked in green in the screenshot). 256 is the max amount of colors you can have, but you can reduce it. PS will automatically get rid of colors that have a smaller presence first (for example, in the anime gif above, if I reduced the colors it would get rid of the reds and magentas before the yellows or the blues).

Change the settings in the Save for Web (Legacy) window: Besides the color palette, there's a setting on the right side, marked in red in the screenshot above (the first one). I have it set to "Adaptable", which is the highest setting, but you can change it to "Perceptual", "Selective" or "Restrictive". This will lower the quality and thus the size, but sometimes it might mess up the gif. Similarly, you can change the setting below that one (set to "Motive" in the screenshot) to "Noise", "Difusion" or none at all to change the quality and size.

Optimize the gif: I use ezgif.com for this. Click on "Optimizer", upload your gif, make the Compression level smaller, click on "Optimize" and then save your gif. This will inevitably lower the quality, so I usually don't go lower than 35. Also, try to get your gif right below the 10MB limit, so if a compression level of 20 gets your gif to 9.5MB but a 15 gets it down to 9.9MB, choose 15. ezgif also has other cool features like one to slow down your gif's speed, so check it out!

Don't make gifs of media that causes problems: If you regularly find yourself being frustrated with gifs of X media exceeding the size limit, you might need to find something else. It sucks to think that you might not be able to make gifs of your favourite piece of media, but gif making should be fun, not ruin your day. Of course, it's up to you to decide how much effort you're willing to put on a gif, but don't overexert yourself either.

The Save for Web (Legacy) window is also where you can make your gif bigger in the case of pixel/pixelated games like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon or Nintendogs. In the "Image Size" section, set the quality to "Nearest Neighbor" and the percentage to 200% to double its size (it will be somewhat close to 540 pixels wide). You can make the gif three, four or even more times its size wih this method.

Closing thoughts and results

Managing a gif blog would require a whole new post with some advice so I'll leave that out for now. There are other things I've also left out like actions (highly recommend learning about them) but these are the basics methinks. Again, if you have any questions, my ask box is open ✨

And here are the gifs with a comparison to the original 🎉

Sharpen, Hue/Saturation, Gradient map and Gaussian blur

Sharpen, Hue/Saturation, Gradient map, Curves and Gaussian blur

Hue/Saturation and Gradient Map

[loreleisims]

hii im sorry if this is too personal or if u dont want to give this out but i was wondering what skin details/skin overlays u use? or ones that you'd recommend? i love ur sims btw

hi, love!! thank u sm<3 and this isn't too personal at all!

skins: i mostly use skins & face masks by @thisisthem, @sims3melancholic and @plushxsims (i would link my faves but i basically use all of their skin stuff lol)

eyes: default eyes / contacts: everything by @remussirion but faves: 1, 2 / eyebags: 1, 2 (N6 & N7) / undereye highlight / eye highlight

lips & teeth: lip liner / lip highlight / teeth

face: fav freckles + everything by @sims3melancholic / moles / once again use pretty much all face highlights by @sims3melancholic but here are some faves: 1, 2, 3, 4

eyebrows: ...everything by @sims3melancholic and @obscurus-sims!

body: body highlights: 1, 2 / body blush / cleavage masks / stretch marks

aaaand that's pretty much it! hope this helps<3

[aris-ink]

Would you like to give us some series recs. (Angsty,,mature)typa series

💕💕💕💕💕

series... okay, these are easier to remember, enjoy angel 💖

min yoongi, three tangerines by kithtaehyung. slow burn, slight age gap, brother's best friend, angst, fluff, pining, tension, romance, smut. really beautiful writing. long chapters.

kim namjoon, he's your father's best friend by your-daily-biaswrecking. 👀 this isn't so much a series as it is a drabble with two parts, but it had to be mentioned here bc like >>> dilf!namjoon, age gap, angst, smut. I first came across this story ages ago and I never forgot it, the way the angst and the reunion scene were written did so many things to my heart 😩

kim seokjin, off limits by floralseokjin. brother's best friend, slight angst, fluff, smut. no words no words no words 💖

if you're looking for series that contain some good angst, lots of comfort and amazing smut I am referring you to my queen @beahae 👑 seriously stunning, touching writing, her masterlist is one of my favorite places to go back to for comfort ♥️

jeon jungkook, ex on the beach

ot7, unorthodox

if you're in the mood for series with angst, lots of comfort, lots of fluff and mature themes without the smut, I refer you to my other talented queen @imnotlauriane. I don't even know which series to recommend, I started reading three so far, but I guess she's a magician or something because she comes out with something new and wonderful ALL THE TIME so

here is the masterlist <3

if you'd prefer darker fantasy with these themes and some more amazing smut, please check out claret cravings by @vvh0adie ❤️

hello?! mortician witch reader and seven adorable, possessive vampire bats 🦇 the story is so, so incredibly well written, creative and has the kind of gothic vibes I absolutely love and can't find anywhere else.

speaking of dark fantasy mixed in with these themes and more remarkable writing — @yoongsisbae

masterlist

pick and choose — zombies, werewolves, end of the world. bewitching is the only word I can think of here. I'm only starting my journey through these and I'm in so so love. as I knew I would be ♥️

@jeonggukieverse!!! 🌹fantastic yandere, mystery thrillers. again, I couldn't find works like hers anywhere else. perfection if you ask me, not only in regards to the horror aspect of it, but also the writing itself. 💗

jeon jungkook, bunny boy.

jeon jungkook, let the games begin.

@orchidyoonkook 💐

jeon jungkook, to what we were before, and all the things after. smut, fluff, angst, slow burn. again, only starting my journey here but <3 dreamy and beautiful, yes please to the entire concept of Jungkook as a prince, golden minds create golden stories I guess 💯💞

@deepdarkdelights 💘 this one is so obvious, but I completely fell in love with the outstanding writing style and the unique plot.

jeon jungkook, ten seconds. yandere, angst, smut, hurt/comfort themes.

please don't forget to send the talented authors some love <3

[kaeyapilled]

I’m pretty new to kaeya ships and I want to know how Kaebedo appeals to you!! /This isn't a sarcastic question I promise 😭

So far, the only ship I get is Rosakae because haha bi couple/girl that says bruhh x guy that says hiii

Do you have any recommended kaebedo fanfics? Thank you <33

i think the biggest appeal of kaebedo to me is the parallels between them. both are from khaenri'ah and were abandoned by a parent figure with an unclear mission on their shoulders and ended up finding a home in a place they fear they will have to betray one day. even without a romantic lens there is SO much potential here!!! they must know of each other's secret to some degree, there's no way they don't. they could form such a deep connection based on these shared origins. let them bond hoyoverse!!!!

its insane to me that kaeya and albedo have never exchanged more than five words in game when theres so much material to work with here.. especially because they DO know each other! the game tells us that! kaeya has an "about albedo" voiceline (Albedo, eh? Calm, collected, and incredibly talented. He's the type everybody likes, some even more so than others. What, you into him as well?), albedo doesnt have an "about kaeya" voiceline but he does mention him in one of his "more about albedo" ones (The time required to sketch portraits closely correlates with one's mood. I could spend half a day sketching Huffman, while I might only need three strokes of the pencil to sketch Kaeya — one for the face, one for the eyepatch string... and one for the eyepatch.) and, actually, pairing that with this

from a past event i think we can say it's implied that albedo draws kaeya fairly often. kaeya seems to babysit klee frequently, which is all the more chance for them to get to know each other more..... they live in the same region and have so many themes in common LET THEM TALK! LET THEM TALK!! kaebedo as a ship is kind of built from the ground up with just minimal canon content and our wild imaginations but hey. the potential is right there. also i think they look cute together. anyway, fanfic recs, you say? i have some<3

Calcium, Carbonate, and Other Things That Run Bone-Deep by Princeliest

Albedo comes knocking at Kaeya's office door, and asks Kaeya to kill him. All in all, it's the worst falling-in-love experience that Kaeya has ever had. (Albedo fears a lot of things. He's never reached out for help with any of them, but he's also never had anyone see him and reach out first.)

this is genuinely one of the best fics ive ever read in my life it's SO good. i kept rotating it inside my mind for days afterwards. and the kaebedo dynamic here is one of my favorite renditions of it too!!!!! like they cannot live through a normal love story it has to be weird when they are both involved. and this fic executes the brand of weirdness i expect from kaebedo perfectly. the characterization for both of them was really good. warning for some body horror but if you're okay with that it's part of the charm in this fic i really enjoyed reading those parts

this wordless dance, in the night by untunedviola

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Kaeya mutters into Albedo’s chest. Albedo pulls him closer. Gentle fingers thread through his hair. “You don’t have to.” He sighs. “I know.” Kaeya’s relationship with his mother tongue, his family, and Albedo develops in fits in starts.

i just reread this while searching through recs on my bookmarks and!!!!!!!!! this is THE kaebedo relationship study EVER. it's so good. its more focused on kaeya since it's from his point of view but albedo is a central crucial part of it. it explores their connection to khaenri'ah and the connection they could have with each other because of it SO well it's really amazing! the angst is delightful i love this one.

and you should check out this author's other works!! seriously the way they write kaebedo is like the best ever. i havent read all of them but the ones i have read were immediate favorites. untunedviola if youre out there

The Curious Investigation on the Investigation Captain by evesbeve

“This is not an invitation to spoil me,” Albedo says through a bite, a hand over his mouth. “As you have with Klee.” “I have no idea what you are talking about," Kaeya laughs. “Although… would it really be that bad, if I wanted to take care of you?” (Or: When Sucrose mentions that she's been worried about Albedo and his constant cases of zoning out, Kaeya takes it upon himself to investigate the situation.)

a lighter, fluffier work to make up for the angst of the previous recs. so sweet youll get cavities honestly. works to read while giggling about how much you love these silly little characters. bonus ragbros and other mond characters. really nice read!!!!

i wish i had more recs but i really dont. i need to read more about them honestly.

im deeply sorry for taking like three months to answer!! many such cases im afraid. i hope my kaebedo propaganda has worked on you or anyone else reading this

[cottonii]

BASH IN MY BRAIN AND MAKE ME SCREAM WITH PAIN THEN KICK ME ONCE AGAIN AND SAY WE'LL NEVER PA- 💥💥💥💥💥

(extra versions w/o the text and some rose petals i added last minute as well as an alt font for the text. i am very indecisive.)

[iknaenmal]

I FOUND HER FINALLY!!!!!

No way why do people keep kidnapping my girlfriend hey!!!!!! Give her back or else i will have to hit you with my new yo yo

[buggywiththefolkmagic]

Saw your book post and I think you've confused a few things...

You seem to mix up Hoodoo and Vodou a lot. They are not the same. Hoodoo is not a closed practice nor religion. It's just fking weird and poser-ish if someone claims it without ever growing up in the culture for it. But many Hoodoo practioners will tell you their practice is not closed. Vodou/Santeria is closed.

Also saying to be careful not to fall into Hoodoo while doing Conjure... you know rootwork is similar across all cultures right? This just feels like a gatekeeping statement and prevents people from really digging into their folkwork by making them constantly worried they're appropriating.

The thing with smudging: you make no mention of which kind of smudging is closed. You just said it generally, which is a bit ridiculous. Burning herbs for the sake of energy and cleansing is not inherently a Native Indigenous practice. Bayabas, or guava leaves, have been used in the Philippines pre-colonialism. Frankenincense in Europe and Old Christianity. Ti Leaves in Hawaii. Rose in Ancient Rome, and Blue Lotus in Ancient Egypt. As a latina, and as half of one myself🇨🇺, we both know our people love to use incense at altars. SAGE, particularly white sage, is where the line is drawn. Same with palo santo. I agree with your points, but I think you need to be specific if you're being critical.

Much love from 🇵🇭✨️

Hello there anon! I see you sent another ask apologizing for assuming I was Latina, and you're quite forgiven! I am as they say white as white can be.

As a white person I went to an American BIPOC friend of mine in order to answer all of this as honestly as I possibly could. Hoodoo by means of origin IS a closed practice. It's roots come from Ghana and was created in America as a very specific response to slavery. Both Hoodoo and Vodu are tribal/family based, and both require a initiation of sorts through community in order to practice them. Vodu's roots are in Haiti, and through community, enslavement, and initiation needed through the "family" as some groups of Vodu practioners call themselves, are required therefore it is also closed. I shall include some links below to help with the distinction of Hoodoo and Vodu and why they are both closed practices/religions. Hoodoo could be considered a religion in Louisiana specifically due to it's usage there and sometimes it's blending with Vodu. https://medium.com/@empressnaima/my-hoodoo-initiation-5086e375e378 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodoo_(spirituality) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Vodou https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/magic-matters/2021/11/10 https://brizomagazine.com/2020/06/15/the-appropriation-of-magic-how-white-people-demonised-voodoo/ Now that I've cleared up through BIPOC voices/history/links on why Hoodoo is in fact closed...let me address the specific comment of

"You know rootwork is similar across all cultures right? This just feels like a gatekeeping statement and prevents people from really digging into their folkwork by making them constantly worried they're appropriating." Rootwork in of itself is a Hoodoo term iirc, but I may be wrong on that front. As for worrying about appropriation...white people SHOULD BE worried about appropriating. Hell currently in America we still through simply social climate and judicial systems are failing our BIPOC/Indigenous communities.

As a folk worker who has some herbalism that stems from Cherokee and Creek peoples I am so beyond careful to make sure my practice is not appropriating from them. White people demolished them, slaughtered them, and took away their homes and sacred spaces, hell, we stole and demolished their LANGUAGE. And you're telling me I don't need to worry about taking anything else from them? The best option is to contact the people you believe is being appropriated from and just...asking them. Wild concept I know. Make friends that are not from your station! Send emails and letters to community leaders in these appropriated cultures in an honest and respectful way to see if what you're studying is appropriated. A good example of this was I found recently an ancestor of mine worked closely with what she called "Grandmama Spider". Grandmother Spider is a Cherokee creation deity. Referencing the above horrors and terrors us white folk did and are still doing to the Cherokee people...I will not be following in her footsteps. Individuals like Cat/Catherin Yronwode has perpetrated that Hoodoo is open, and has caused catastrophic issues with her large standing in the American Folk Magic world. A link to an open letter about Cat Yronwode and her severe appropriation/dismissal of the real history of New Orleans Voodoo being "fake" and "not a slave based religion" is here: https://conjureart.blogspot.com/2013/10/open-letter-to-cat-yronwode-and-lucky.html I don't want to pick on any specific religions/groups of people but all you have to do is read through ONE "witchcraft for beginners" book written in America or England and find at least two stolen items from Indigenous Americans AND the BIPOC/Black community. It's THAT common. Totems and Spirit Animals? Not entirely Indigenous but the ones these authors are teaching about ARE. The same goes for the word smudging, when I mention a book has smudging in it I am talking about white sage. White Americans love to use their white sage with an illegal owl feather and a shell to hold their bundle of sage in. The word smudging in of itself comes from the 15th to 16th century Germanic language and was actually talking about using smoke to rid a home or building of insect infestations. The word we SHOULD be using for cleansing with smoke should simply be...smoke cleansing. It avoids the person reading from having to guess if it's appropriated or not.

Having said all of that I guess all of this boils down to one thing: Listen to the voices of the cultures first. If they say something's appropriated? Stop. If they say it's closed? Stop. I have no authority on anything at all, but if I can speak up just once and give others a platform to say, "Hey this is kinda fucked up" I will. It's the least I as a white person can do.

[putrid-tongue]

𝖆𝖓𝖉  𝖘𝖍𝖊  𝖘𝖕𝖔𝖐𝖊  :

theirs  not  to  make  reply, ⠀theirs  not  to  reason  why, ⠀⠀theirs  but  to  do  and  die. ⠀⠀⠀into  the  valley  of...  DEATH

@oflorien

[the-light-of-stars]

ok but now I need to know your thoughts on the taylor swift lyrics. what songs did you analyze and what were your thoughts on them????

Alright so first of all for context:

this was a lecture about the literary era of romanticism, so for most of that lecture we had been talking about the literary and philosophical concepts and ideas present in that era.

And then the professor went "ok so I am not a swiftie - I haven't even listened to her newest album yet - but I believe Swift's music greatly encapsulates a - simplified , pop-cultural - continuation of the ideas of romanticism in the modern day....so let's analyse some of her song lyrics-"

So he had us quickly look at a few song lyrics from different songs of hers, but the ones he stayed on longest - and the ones he had us do proper academic analysis of - were these from "My tears ricochet" from her Folklore album:

I have to note that these aren't my personal thoughts, I'm just recounting what happened in the lecture, and I'm putting this under a cut so that it isn't super long :

So multiple students (it was a very tightly filled classroom, had to be at least 100-150 students there) had participated in analysing these lyrics and I gotta be honest I don't remember most of the exact details of their analysis because I had a lot of classes today and had been awake since 6am but I'll try to summarize as best I can.

Essentially the main point was the comparison of these lyrics with philosophical concepts by Schelling and especially a comparison in context of this aphorism by german romanticist poet Novalis:

"Wir suchen überall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dinge"

["Everywhere we look for the Absolute yet we can only ever find things." (in the original german it is a wordplay)]

So one angle of analysis was that these two verses of Swift's lyrics follow this philosophical concept as posited by Hardenberg/Novalis - such as "home" here, as the only defined location, representing the Absolute , the object of Longing as it is conceptualised in romanticism, this that is desired innately but cannot be reached in ways humanly possible, as humans can only ever find "Things": abstractions, objects and concepts limited in their scope and at most a reflection of the Absolute, something that can at best be asymptotically approximated but not be directly perceived or grasped physically or intellectually. Thus here the idea that the lyrical "I" can go "anywhere" and , following that, observe anything, and yet will always be unable to reach the defined and Absolute of "home."

Home then, as defined by other students in the lecture, would be the innate idea of some sort of absolute security in the self, a place of comfort and belonging and a place of certainty. Home, thus, as not just a location but as a concept: a kind of pre-conscious knowledge of being ('Being' here possibly in the hegelian sense), an experience of pure existence. Suppose an analysis also referencing Spinoza's concept of the Substance, the natura naturans, which singular modi are necessarily extensions of and ultimately 'return' to ( 'return' here used simplifying, as modi constituate extensions or aspects of the indivisible infinite Substance under the attributes of Thought and Extension, which thus cannot really be divided and, following, cannot 'return' to it since they were never truly separated.)

Of course, romanticism and general philosophy of the era being concerned with theological questions as well, one student pointed out another angle to view Swift's lyrics under in regards to romanticist theoreticism, that being the theological one: "Home" as the Absolute and the Absolute as God or a christian-mysticist interpretation of it either way, "Anywhere" as the world of human perception and "Home" as the world of god that life springs from, in relation to an article the professor had mentioned about a Times (iirc) journalist visiting a Taylor Swift concert and calling it a "religious experience" to sing specifically the quoted line with and within a crowd of tens of thousands of people.

In regards to this last point the professor also specified that "religious experience" here is not necessarily limited to the scope of (protestant) christianity but rather is to be seen as some sort of pre- or post-religious understanding of a form of ontological transcendence that escapes the boundaries of rational describability.

Following that we also analysed the album title and its cover art:

The romanticist connection in the title being fairly obvious as "Folklore" as a literary category is something romanticist authors in their nature-mysticism and attempt at distinction from Enlightenment era concepts of pure reason loved to discuss, recreate and include in their works.

Furthermore then the connection of the cover art , which students compared to works of famous romanticist painter Caspar David Friedrich (here the painting "Easter Morning"):

The composition of a lone human figure among the trees during a foggy morning or evening is a very popular motif in (german) romanticism as the fog represents the Unknown and - as mentioned above - the always out of reach and never truly perceptible (by human means) Absolute as well as the everlasting Longing towards it. The trees and forests as well a popular romanticist theme as part of its nature-mysticism and above mentioned contrast to the Enlightenment rationalism as practiced in the cities and structured human society.

Apparently on either this or the Evermore album (I don't know on which as I don't listen to Swift's songs and can't remember which song exactly the professor quoted there) there is a lyric saying "we are the new romanticists" as well.

All this to say that after probably twenty minutes of analysing Taylor Swift lyrics in an academic framework of literary theory and ontological philosophy- as well as repeated promises by the professor that he "is not a swiftie" - the prof stated that "Taylor Swift probably didn't put nearly as much thought into this as we did just now but she is an international phenomenon and does - wether intentional or not - make use of concepts and ideas used in romanticist writing and philosophy so analysing her lyrics seemed apt."

[enniewritesathing]

Davidson Family Portrait

Standing: Jacob (L), Johnathan (R) Sitting: Ian (L), Noelle (R)