#yes i used photoshop to create this ugly meme. what of it

[josephtrohman]

love wins <3 (insp)

[wintersongstress]

So 👀 you have inspired me to think about making gifs and/or edits 👀 and I don’t know shit about either. Care to throw some tips at ya girl? 👀 I ain’t even know what the first gah damn step is

I’m really flattered that I’ve inspired you 🥺 I’d be happy to help you get started!

HOW I MAKE A GIF 101: 

1. The first step is acquiring the software needed to create gifs—which means you need Photoshop. I use Photoshop CC and it costs $10 a month with the plan I have. There’s also cracked versions available, but from what I hear they might not be as reliable at times and can be buggier. It’s up to you if you want the cracked or legitimate version. Either way I’m not judging you 😂

2. Gifs are made from video footage, so to begin the process you’ll need footage on your computer. The higher the quality the better. Since I make gaming edits, I record from my PS4 using the share button. I privately upload onto youtube and download them onto my computer. I can also plug a flashdrive into my PS4, but I don’t have a decent one. If the footage is captured on my computer then I don’t have to go through the hassle. You might a screen recording software. I have a PC and with windows 10 I can record by pressing the windows key, alt, and R. 

When you have those two things, you’re ready to make a gif! Here are the actual steps to my process. (please note, this is just a tutorial on how to make a basic gif. I’m not going in-depth on my coloring processes and what filters I use and such.)

(I apologize for my screenshots being the best 😖)

The first thing you do once you open PS is to go to File, and then from the drop-down menu click Import, and from there Video Frames to Layers. So what we’re doing here is opening up the footage in PS and loading it into frames. Next, a file explorer window will pop up.

(Yes laugh. I have a folder for heart memes and Arthur. Mind your own business 😂)

So since I download my uploads off of youtube, they are stored in my downloads folder, so I go there to find them and select the clip I want. For today’s example I’ll do a clip from Ghost of Tsushima. Click open. 

This will be your next screen. Here it’s asking to select a range from which to make layers. You’ll notice two beginning and ending slider bars you can use to crop between what part of the video you want to gif. Also note the setting I have of limiting to every 2 frames. Click OK.  

Once that loads, your screen should look like this. If it doesn’t, go to the Window tab in the header bar above and make sure Adjustments, History, Layers, and Timeline are checked off. You can customize your workspace layout however you wish. 

So now you have a timeline bar that let’s you play through the frames. Make sure on the bottom left you change Once to Forever. This controls how much the timeline will loop. During my process I play through it and look for where I actually want my gif to start and end, so I do delete frames as needed. When I’m satisfied with the range, I select all of my frames (there’s a short cut in the hamburger menu ≡ up to the right of the timeline bar, click it and find select all frames) and I select all of my layers in the layers window on the right (click first frame and hold the shift key until you select the last frame). 

With everything selected, I now change the frame delay. If you notice on the bottom on each individual frame there’s a decimal number and a downwards arrow. This is the time that elapses before the next frame plays and so on and so forth. I click that arrow and a menu will pop up. Typically, most gifs have a frame delay of 0.05, but I personally find that too fast for game gifs so I set mine to 0.07.  Again, everyone is different, you use what works for you. Anyways if you want to set the delay to 0.05 click Other... from that menu. 

Then just type in the amount you want and click OK. 

Now it’s time for the real work to begin. On the bottom left of your timeline panel, click square with the icon of a stack of bars with a slider. This will convert the gif into a video timeline.

Shit’s gonna look like this now ^

Next, go to the Filter menu from the header bar and select Covert to Smart Filters 

Once it’s converted, go back to the Filter menu and go to Sharpen. 

Select Smart Sharpen.

A new window will pop up.

Everyone uses different settings, but I typically go with Amount at 500% and Radius at 0.3. This is something you can experiment with, each gif may require different levels of sharpening. I know 150% is another popular option for the amount. Choose whatever you think looks best and makes the image clearer. Sharpening is a very important step. 

Now, you’re free to experiment with coloring using the adjustments panel. I’ll typically tinker around with Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Curves, Vibrance, Color Balance, Photo Filter, and Selective Color. I do all of my colorings from scratch and just go by what I think looks good, trusting my eye. Once you’re satisfied with how everything turned out, here’s the next step:

Go to the File menu, choose Export, and then Save for Web (Legacy). 

Now comes the waiting. You can resize the gif before this step by going to the Image menu on top, and then Image size, and type in the dimensions you want. I personally don’t do this because it creates a transparent border around the gif? and it fucks with the specific filters I frequently use and makes it turn out ugly? So that’s why this step takes time for it load. 

In the Image Size box here I type in the dimensions I want. Usually I always do a width of 540, your typical rectangular gif. Hit enter and it will start to resize again. Please note that the Animation box I have the Looping Option set to Forever. That’s very important. Again, everyone is gonna use different settings here based on what they think looks best. I use Quality: Bicubic, Selective coloring and Diffusion dithering. Some people using Pattern dithering and Adaptive coloring. 

Once your gif is all ready you can click save. This window will also tell you the size of the gif in that left corner. And that’s it. That’s how you make a gif. 

It’s a trial and error process and it takes so much practice. You’re gonna get frustrated, it’s gonna take awhile to learn your way around photoshop, and you’re gonna have to look things up sometimes. There’s many great resource blogs on tumblr for this as well, but for the most part I learned by doing and experimenting. 

I know this was long but I hope I explained the process well? Feel free to shoot me more questions if not, I’m always down to help out with this. 

Good luck! ��

[redatuvu-blog]

Making Art for Cheap: The Current Cost of Game Development

Gamers tend to complain that gaming has become more expensive in recent years. In actuality, gaming is becoming somewhat more accessible. In parallel, game development also used to be far more expensive to get into, but in recent years, many resources have been made available to make development easier and cheaper - often even free. While originally too expensive for common hobbyists, game development has become inexpensive enough to be accessible to all, and is on the verge of becoming a popular art form, much like music and painting.

Game development is usually seen as expensive by default. Even in the 80’s, when video games first started to become widespread, they would cost a few-hundred-thousand dollars to create. Steve Theodore, a developer who worked on games such as Half-Life and Halo 3, says that nowadays, triple-A (aka “blockbuster,” but for games) budgets can reach the hundred-millions, and predicts that those numbers will continue to rise. Due to the steadily improving speeds of processors and capabilities of hardware, games are consistently expected to become more outstanding and amazing – and thus, more costly – every year.

As a result of these larger budgets, these triple-A games are also fairly expensive for gamers to play, currently selling for about $70 a copy, and not all of them live up to the demanded quality for their scale. Reviewers like Caddicarus on YouTube state in many reviews that a lot of high-budget games are “not worth the price I paid,” and players on social media tell others to “wait for a sale before buying this game.” There is almost an air of entitlement as to how much a game should cost when compared to how much a player enjoys it, and, in many ways, that makes sense. Paying $70 to a triple-A developer for a poorly-made game does not feel like a fair trade to most people.

But not every game is $70; PC games on the online distributor Steam average at around $6 - $10, and there are multitudes of games on sale for much cheaper. On the “Free to Play” page alone, there are 1,415 games listed. Players don’t need to pay a dime to be able to play even a large selection of games, and this is becoming the norm. This makes the steadily rising cost of mainstream triple-A games look a bit pricey in comparison.

But even in that case, while those prices have indeed been rising, they have not been keeping up with inflation. In 1990, the average cost of a new game to play on a Nintendo Entertainment System was $50. According to the CPI Inflation Calculator, that would be around $96 as of the time of this writing - a fair chunk more than the $70 for high-end games of today. The actual cost of video games hasn’t risen at the rate they could have - and that’s still overlooking the waves of sales and discounts that games often go through.

The lower costs of games is a result of the lower costs of game development. While triple-A budgets are obviously still rising, much of that cost is being directed toward marketing, rather than actual development. Plus, there’s many more small, independent companies making games for cheap than there used to be. Minecraft, one of the highest-profiting video games in history, was started as a hobby project, costing the developers next to nothing. While the game was in beta, it was $12 to play. This comparatively low price tag was due to that lack of a large budget. Another popular independent game is Undertale, still available for most systems at an outrageously high price of 10 whole dollars. Again, the creator of Undertale, Toby Fox, did most of the work himself, with a bit of help from friends, not expecting much of a return. Yet, because it became the source of many memes and the inspiration to countless creative projects, the game sold enough that Fox earned far more than he invested in creating it. Not all independent games get as popular as Minecraft or Undertale, of course, but that doesn’t matter much when a $5 game still results in profit.s

That’s not even touching on the 1,415 free games available on Steam. Many of them are free to download and get into, but offer upgrades or DLC as microtransactions. While a company can make a good chunk of change from these transactions, the games are still playable from the start for free, which shows that the development was at least cheap enough to suffer some sacrifice for the initial release.

Additionally, a lot of those Free to Play games are free forever. Often short and, again, independently developed, these games are made solely for the sake of the art. Some of the developers of these artistic games may have sacrificed some cash to bring them to fruition, but the majority of them were made for free, put together from homemade code and art and music.

[Bad transition, fix later] Even then, there are also many free resources available to create games with. Unity and Unreal are two of the most popular engines to start with; both are powerful, professional-level systems that let creators dive in without too much training – but they have plenty of in-depth training available as well. Aspiring creators can jump in and begin practicing with the available tutorials and tips, getting ready to dive into the advanced aspects later on. There’s also Blender 3D for making homemade assets, and plenty of cheap image editors for making 2D assets; aspiring creators do not need to purchase a pricey copy of Photoshop or Maya anymore.

These inexpensive resources are what’s making game development more popular and commonplace - and from that, even more artistic. The same rise seen in pop music, painting, and even filmmaking as popular forms of art is happening now with games. Folk music was born to poor singers playing cheap instruments, and that begat blues, and then blues begat rock ‘n’ roll, which begat pop and hip-hop and rap, which are now omnipresent in modern media. The music of the poor has always been more popular than the grand orchestras and symphonies of the rich, because anyone could pick up a guitar, raise their voice, and sing along with the folk songs, blues, and rock ‘n’ roll. Everyone could join in, and that made it popular. Now, game development is turning the same direction; almost anyone can join in. And, as more developers do join in, they pave the way to make it even easier and more accessible to an even higher number of aspiring creators.

An example of this evolution of accessibility is a hobby called “modding” – short for “modifying.” For years now, gamers have been taking games that already exist, reverse-engineering them, and then changing them for their own enjoyment. These reverse-engineered techniques are then passed on, allowing more creatively-minded fans to use those resources to make their own changes. These modifications – “mods” – have been around for decades, and have been the jumping-off-point for many fans into becoming game developers of their own. For many fans, modding is what gets them into game development as a hobby. It’s an easy way to learn the basics of game logic and asset creation without being overwhelmed by deep code and project management. These fans then transform into hopeful game devs, wanting to create their own artistic projects using what they’ve learned.

Of course, some might argue that paying for these more expensive programs and professionally-produced assets makes for a better quality game in the end, and that can be true. However, more and more affordable resources are being created and developed constantly. Even for someone who can’t draw or compose, there are still plenty of good-quality stand-ins for little to no cost, and the selection is still growing. [examples]  And, as always, practice makes perfect; with enough time and effort, someone who can’t draw well can learn to, and then create their own assets.

Yes, sometimes you can still tell when a game was made on a low budget. Shovelware games - named for the way they seem to be “shoveled” out of a failing developer’s back door – are usually horrendous. But most of the time, these games are also extremely cheap, or even free. They may not be diamonds, but at least they don’t cost as much as diamonds. In contrast, triple-A games are far more expensive, but are also frequently criticized for not being worth their price. Shovelware games are criticized for being bad, but are inevitably waved off with, “Well, you get what you pay for.”

In fact, many of these games exist almost entirely due to the fact that game development is more accessible. Hobbyists can get their feet wet and find out where they fall short without dropping too much of a budget into something that may flop. Additionally, many hobby projects turn out to be outstanding for what they are. Accessibility can surely breed low-quality content, but high-quality content will shine through and last longer. Gems hidden in the bog of ugly messes stand out and become popular, just as many artists and musicians do. When every song on the radio begins to sound the same, one that genuinely sounds new and fresh will overdrive a musician to the top of the charts. The same thing happens with these small-scale indie games.

Indie games are becoming increasingly popular in the eyes of most reviewers. Hollow Knight, Shovel Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest, Celeste, and many more have all been praised for being beautiful, fun games, and they’ve all been developed in just the last few years. Indie games are sweeping through the markets, showing up on every platform, and, since they’re fairly cheap, gamers and reviewers alike are happily claiming that they are worth buying, playing, and supporting.

The same cannot be said of the triple-A market. The publisher EA, one of the few mega-corporations behind game development, is notorious for releasing games of sub-par quality chock full of microtransactions on top of high base-game prices. The Sims series, one of their forefront staples, has hundreds of DLC packs, and those packs average at $30 - half the price of the base game. Other developers, like Bethesda and Ubisoft, are ridiculed for releasing “unfinished” games. Bethesda’s Fallout series and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series are full of bugs and glitches, and are often required to make updates and patches in order to push the games into what players call “suitable for sale” territory.

Still, not all indie games stand out. Some try their best and fall very flat. Mighty No. 9, a highly anticipated, Mega-Man-inspired Kickstarter game, was full of bugs and glitches in place of any good story or gameplay. And on the flipside, triple-A, high-budget games do not always come out as trash. There is, after all, a reason the triple-A developers are called triple-A. In general, many fans have high hopes from big-budget games; they are meant to be beautiful, powerful, fun works of art. For example, Nintendo is very well-known for putting out amazing works, to the point that “Nintendo Polish” is expected as their norm. However, that polish adds extra dollars to the pricetag, and, regrettably, Nintendo does not always live up to the the term. Lately, many of the powerful developers have been “slacking off,” and the independent devs are filling in the holes. More and more, indie games are being praised, and triple-A’s are being criticized. Again, it’s not always true, but it’s becoming more true as time goes on.

Artists through the ages have used writing, painting, movies, music, and more to express themselves. Today, they are adding game development to the list. Development in the early years of the gaming age required high levels of technical knowledge and skill, but nowadays, it has changed enough that one can take it on as a hobby. Anyone who can draw, write, or express themselves are able to get into game development.

Because the cost of getting into game development is almost nothing, if you’re willing to make assets on your own, you can start. So, what are you waiting for? Get out there and start.

[murfeelee]

Sims Question Meme (TS3)

I saw @lyrea's questions and I’m just sitting here killing time, so....

What’s your favorite sims death? Good ole Fire, cuz it’s a classic, and it’s always hysterical watching the way sims freak out.

Big props to LGR for the Katy Perry House of Pain, lol! XD

Alpha CC or Maxis Match? Whatever looks nice. I’ve seen the good the bad and the ugly on both sides, EA and 3rd party alike.

Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? YES, it’s so annoying. That Stuffed moodlet really gets on my g-d nerves.

Do you use Moveobjects On? MOO!!!! <3

Favorite mod? NRAAS’ mods (MC and DE and Hybrid and--!), and a ton of essential mods from MTS and Naughty Sims Asylum

First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? TS1: Makin Magic, TS2: Nightlife & Apartment Life, TS3: Ambitions. The only Stuff Packs I’ve ever wasted money on are TS3′s Fast Lane and Movie Stuff Pack, both times cuz I wanted the new vehicles -- the motorcycles, specifically. (EA gave away Town Life for free.)

Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? aLIVE

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? Sakura, my avatar sim.

Have you made a simself? Yes, the day I got TS3 I sat down with my whole family and we all made each other; it was a blast.

What sim traits do you give yourself? Artistic, Bookworm, Childish, Computer Whiz, Loner

Which is your favorite EA hair color? Black, White, or Pink

Favorite EA hair? I actually hate most EA hair, tbh. It’s always the same boring styles or cuts, with little variation, even less creativity in the men’s department, and the EPs/SPs have practically zero decent representation for ethnic hair. IMO a lot of EA’s best CAS CC came from the Store, especially the cultural sets like India and Africa. and fun fanciful themes like Midnight Hollow.

For the ladies I really like these X X. (We need way more braids & dreads, EA.)

For men I like these X X. (Most of EA’s male hair is horrendous by default.) 

Favorite life stage? Young Adult, of course. (I’ll always be bitter about kids and elders having such limited interactions.)

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? I’m a Builder. I love making lots! (Just visit my TSR or Exchange pages and it’s just...yeah. :P) Nothing is more fun to me than creating the space; taking something that’s in my head -- or even better: from my favorite shows/games.etc -- and reproducing it in The Sims. I always wanted to be an interior decorator, and my friends knew this and introduced me to The Sims 1 when it came out. I’ve been hooked ever since -- curse them.

Are you a CC creator? Yes, unfortunately. I only got into converting when I got desperate for particularly niche content (fanciful/cultural/period CC) that just wasn’t. being. made. I was sick of waiting, and sick of all the contemporary stuff. I don’t remember how I got into first learning though. It was a lot of trial and error, and my very first conversions were total garbage (some of them are still up at TSR if y'all want to point and laugh). But I just kept practicing. I’m still practicing. I wish more people would get into making TS3 CC though.  

Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? I’m open to talking with anybody. I love chatting with simmers and leaving/getting comments and messages. I get particularly excited when I find simmers who share similar interests & fandoms we can gab away over. I’m a total fangirl.

What’s your favorite game? (1, 2, 3, or 4) The Sims 3, full stop. <3 I miss TS1 and TS2 sometimes, but then I think about CASt and Open Worlds and I get over it. XD TS2 had all the best CC & mods though (I’m still jelly). I haven’t played TS4, and as things stand I don’t think I ever will. Not one of TS4′s EPs thus far have interested me.

Do you have any sims merch? Other than the games themselves, nope. They cost enough; I’m not tryna give EA any more of my effing money if I can help it.

Do you have a YouTube for sims? Ew, no. Starting a Simblr was pushing the social media limit for me. Anything else would be too much of a hassle.

How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? My lots are more cluttered (I’m a CC addict, DON’T JUDGE ME!). With screenshots I learned more about the in-game camera (my fave mods for camera angles/zooming/fade), and EA’s invisible lights in BuyDebug. I was introduced to Topaz, which I’m still struggling with. My sims still look like pudding though.

Who’s your favorite CC creator? I have favorite sites and sets, but thinking of just one creator is impossible. 

How long have you had a simblr? Since 2013

How do you edit your pictures? In Photoshop I almost always adjust the brightness & contrast by 10 - 30, depending on how crap my in-game lighting was. Then I use the default settings for Topaz (Clean & Sharpen), since I have no idea what I’m doing.

What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? I hope TS4 makes a fanciful EP. Preferably something with magic, medieval, or steampunk gameplay, in a brand new world we've never had before. Or Japan, I’m always cool with Asian content. ;)

What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? TS1: Makin Magic, TS2: Nightlife, TS3: Supernatural.

As usual I tag whoever!

[mnvulpin-deactivedblog]

Artist Questions - Ask Meme

This is supposed to be an ask meme, but this time I want to answer all questions in one post xD 

 1.When did you get into art? Well, I draw since child, but I just thought to draw like a professional when I was around 15, in High School.

 2. What art-related sites have you ever sign up for?  My first one was DeviantArt. Then I signed up in FurAffinity, Tumblr, Pixiv, Facebook and ArtStation. Currently I haven"t FA anymore and Facebook deleted my personal profile (and consequently my page) for no reason; I created another one but I’m not sure if I should recreate a page.

3. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hands. 

IT HURTS ME XDDDD It was my avatar in a forum *shame*

 4. What defines your art style?  Hmmm maybe some furry-ish and manga style? Note: I’m not furry, but I like furry art xD 

 5.Do you practice other style/have you tried other styles in the past? Yes, eventually I try other styles! Especially cartoon!

 6. What levels of artist education you have? I’m graduating Graphic Design now, and I already did some classes in Visual Arts graduation and some fast courses like ceramic, lithography and serigraphy courses. However… I’m self-taught illustrator! 

7. Show us a least one picture you drew or sketched recently that you did not put on a public site.

It’s a sketch I did in my A4 sketchbok, using ink.

8. What your favourite piece that you have done? I still like so much this one http://mnvulpin.tumblr.com/post/66106985382/ I did it before going to college, it’s so simple and good for me!

9. What your least favourite piece that you have done? I have so many piece I don’t like, most of them I published in DeviantArt and now they’re storaged xD

10. What do you like most in your art? Maybe colors? I like the palletes I choose!

11. What do you like least in your art? Lineart, sometimes it’s so hard to do!

12. Have you ever considered taking commission? Yes, I take “dPoint” commissions in DeviantArt! But since I raised the price to something fairer to me no one commissioned me anymore :’(  If you would like to receive an art done by me, please check my info :D http://fav.me/d5mmkew 

13. Are you looking to pursue a carreer in arts? Yes, I would like to work with this. I think I can to be not only a illustrator, but a plastic artist and graphic designer too!

14. What you like drawing the most? Animals, people and landscape.

15. What you like drawing the least? Mechas, cars, general machines.

16. Do you draw more fanart or original art? If fanart, what fandom do you draw the most? Both, I like to do original and fanart. About fanart I think I draw many stuff about Digimon.

 17. What would you absolutely refuses to draw?  Abusive scenes like rapes, personal insults, racism, homophobia, etc. I do not do art for hurting someone. 

18. What is your purpose for drawing? My drawings haven’t a poetic purpose, I do drawing for hobby. But I would like to improve my art a lot and see people commission me for using my illustration in posters, books, t-shirts... in other words, a good art that everyone want to have!

 19. What medium/program do you use the most in your art?  I’m completely in love for Paint Tool SAI and Photoshop! Eventually I do something in Krita too!

20. Would you rank your art? (poor, mediocre, good, etc) I rank it as good. It’s not perfect or professional, but I think I have a good hand :)

21. Do you believe there is such thing as “bad art”? I understand “art” as many ways. There are illustration, crafts, sculpture, graffitti, engraving, photography, cinema, graphic novels, painting, drawing, installation, intervention, dance, performance, music, circus and theater. Architecture, literature and design are not art, but are related. 

Art is not about beautiful things only, and it is not meant to please everyone; do not think that a wonderful illustration with good colors, amazing pose or a pretty landscape and gorgeous shadows and light effects is the only definition of art. A nonsense gross sculpture in contemporany art museum can be better than a “perfect” drawing of your favourite professional illustrator, because beauty is relative.

I think a “bad art” is not a “aesthetically ugly thing”, but something that does not fulfill its role properly, or a art without purpose (technically and poetically). Amateur artist usually do that; they know nothing about art history and theories and think they can be a master artist doing anything randomly. Before doing art, you need to study a lot.

22. List at least one of your “artispirations” I like so much the works done by Favetoni, Grypwolf, Lhuin, Sarah Grey and MrLipschutz! Also, some of my professors are my references too; I won’t quote their names, but they’re a editorial professor, painting professor, a color theory professor, a observational drawing professor and a art history professor.

23. What do you think you could stand to improve on? Hmm maybe I should improve in storytelling, I think my arts need more narrative!

24. Do you have a shameful art past? (recolor sprite comic, tracing art, etc) I did a lot of tracing art, but c’mon I was a child xD

25. Draw a picture! I’m tired, so I did a quick sketch to represent my tiredness.

[in-paradox-space]

I scheduled a post for every day for 21 days.

I made them as a reminder for myself everything would get better, but I’m feeling better sooner than anticipated. I regret making the posts because they’re cringy but I’m sure nobody at all sees them. 

You’ll feel better too, whatever you’re going through. 

After some research I decided that’s how long it’d take for me feel alright again after a pretty heavy MDMA and other substance comedown.

I feel like the other substance might be cocaine or ketamine, i dont know. It hit me really quickly and my left arm was being controlled by my leg, when I tried to move my limbs a different part of my body would move.

It was extremely euphoric and terrifying but I just didn’t move for a while until I felt I could carefully attempt to move again.

So yeah the posts are like really emotional and dramatic but I felt fucking awful the week of the comedown.

You heard of brain zaps? They’re fucking awful.

I kept researching online in how the fuck to feel better and stop the brain zaps. Everywhere pointed to a thing called 5htp. It’s tryptophan. From my memory, I believe it’s a chemical which aids to production of serotonin. We get it naturally from food, and it helps our body to create and/or properly absorb serotonin. Something like that... it helps us feel serotonin anyway.

and the internet suggested the brain zaps were likely my brain trying to return back to it’s balance

and at that time i was really lovestruck by a girl. I feel okay knowing i likely wont ever be with her now. 

i dont mind if i see her again or not. I’d like to see her again but i think it’d just be cool to be friends. I think the chemical imbalance made me feel the need to be around someone. It’s all down to the chemicals in your mind at the end of the day. They control your perception of everything, your attitude to the world. 

well yeah, everywhere told me to buy 5htp. i knew it wouldnt arrive in time for me to use them but i ordered anyway, in case this shit happens again. they also sounded good

I tried my first one today, a 100mg pill. 

I felt kind of sick afterwards but I ate a sandwich and I was fine. 

Whether or not it’s a placebo, I felt great today.

Not a euphoric feeling, but I just feel good. 

I smile, type smiley faces and can say I’m good.

I’ve been really confident today. I arrived at college a little late, cracked jokes very naturally. Like it just happened, I just made jokes without thinking and everybody let off genuine, unstoppable laughter. 

I’m not extremely acquainted with my class. I know the names of my tutor and 5 students. We joked like we’d already spent the year together and I smiled. It was a sunny day and I got hella work done.

Work in illustrator. Photoshop is pretty simple but illustrator is just frustrating.

I did a whole art piece in illustrator and I’ve almost half-finished the annotation; I’ll have to type that up tomorrow. I wrote notes and keywords for when I type it up. 

I also have to design like 10 logos.The minimum is six, but I put a lot of planning and basically create multiple logo designs for every one logo.

So if I create six logos as meticulously as I do I should get a merit at least. I’ll have to annotate it well.

I have some work experience lined up. I don’t know where yet, we’re sort of trying the first choice, somewhere pretty prestigious but I don’t want to name it here.

Then if not, it’s some other places which will be pretty useful for my future.

but outside of college

I have some other work experience lined up 

like legit

you see an opportunity, you take it. You say yes. 

Tell yourself yes enough times every morning. 

you will say yes to others 

they say yes to you

Just bring the word into your vocabulary. 

So yeah, 5HTP. I don’t think it’s a placebo. I recommend it to anyone who even knows about this blog. Not suitable if you’re on SSRIs though, of course, because of the connections with serotonin.

I felt pretty good today.

I put out a lot of positive vibrations and recieved them. 

I shouldn’t let my guard down though. 

so yeah

someone posted an opportunity online

somebody sent it to me 

I decided I’d go for it, a lot of other people went for it

but what I had to offer was closest to what the client wanted and/or believed they wanted

and I think I got the place

they wont be disappointed.  

It was on facebook though, they was middle-aged and not exactly an internet dweller

my facebook is fucking FILLED with underground memes

very obscure and ironic to the point of not at all being understood by anyone just a little outside of it

and some accessible, wholesome shit 

but idk

if this person sees them they wont understand

im really surprised they even got to me about it

i think its because i was the only one who offered what they wanted.

My services for free. They won’t be disappointed but I’m sure they have doubts.

I won’t be surprised if they change their mind.

I don’t wanna change my whole facebook to look presentable though, the memers on that friends list were there throughout the whole shabang

the good, the bad and the ugly

they’re brothers and I’m not going to sell them out.

so i need to make a page, then eventually a website, to showcase my work and offer people my services.

tomorrow, I also need to filter through around 2000 HD photos and put the best ones into a folder

then filter those to the very best in another folder

and upload them all on imgur, in the meantime, I suppose

then create a quick Facebook page

haha fuck

creating pages is the hard part

maintaining them can be tricky

they either run themselves, or become a chore you eventually abandon 

If the thought of keeping your page up to date tires you, I recommend scheduling weeks and weeks ahead

and working your ass off for a few days every few weeks.

then u literally just have to read comments and check interactions every now and then.

hnnng

I hate having to filter through hundreds of photos, every time I go somewhere with my camera, to put them into the ‘good’ folders.

mainly because my pc is slow at loading them. 

 I wanted to get a new cpu but the one I wanted was out of stock. 

i think everything else is decent in there. i could use more, faster ram and i need to fix the codecs. 

but the hardware is fine, its just a shitty cpu i got from ebay.

also the tiny motherboard and ram came in a cheap bundle lmao

i dont want to change the motherboard though.

where am i going with this?

Yes! Tomorrow will be a big day.

Gonna take some 5htp in the morning to get through it. I wake up in 4 hours and go to the gym in 5. 

I have to finish my college annotation and spend a few hours doing logos.

Then pilfer through hundreds and hundreds of photos

choose the best ones

upload hundreds and hundreds of high res photos

smooth talk with some potential first clients

and i have to create a facebook page

aaaaa

and I have  to write all the details in there

do I have to watermark all the photos too?  

well

i just wanted to say the 5htp is good. 

im getting good opportunities

things are really starting to look good. 

i write this sentence to you with love!

I have hella work to do tomorrow

and the MDMA comedown isn’t a problem now.

[radthursdays]

#RadThursdays Roundup 03/02/2017

A deliberately badly Photoshopped image of a laughing white man with his head thrown back and his arms up in celebration tosses hundred dollar bills in the air, a lit joint in his mouth and green aviator sunglasses askew on his face. Overlaid is the text, each line in a differently styled and colored font, "HELL YEAH! got my George Soros PROTEST CASH".

Shadowy Left-Wing Billionaires Paid Us To Link To This

The Straw Protester: “The 'paid protester' trope is a tired one that has been around almost as long as protesting itself. It typically serves two purposes: it delegitimizes the protests in the eyes of the supporters of those on the receiving end of the protests; and it plays into a comforting fantasy that reassures those same people that what they’re doing isn’t really being opposed by any significant share of the population — just people who are getting checks to do so.”

White Supremacy Euphemism Generator for journalists: “Amid fringe goosestep enthusiasts, a dream comes true.”

A four-panel comic of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger is edited as part of a popular meme. In the first panel, Pooh licks his lips as he dips his hand into a pot of honey. In the second panel, panicked, Tigger yells, "Sweet Jesus, Pooh! That's not honey". In the third panel, Tigger, clutching his head and sweating, elaborates, "You're eating liberal ideology!" In the final panel, with honey all over his mouth and hand, Pooh intones, "Resisting fascism through violent means makes you a fascist too".

Technology

[CW: sexual harassment] Will Uber’s Very Public Sexual Harassment Debacle Actually Change Things For Women in Tech?: "And how could we have written a piece on women’s experiences in the industry in 2013 that seems unchanged from then until now? And how could we have written about how frustrated we were that we were stuck at the storytelling phase of things in 2015, that people still weren’t believing women and moving into doing something about it? Are we really still pretending that Uber’s engineering department diversity (3% women) doesn’t have anything to do with this treatment of women? Are we really still pretending that this is only a problem for Uber, a company that’s easy to hate due to its treatment of workers, its dismissal of safety issues, its strike-breaking tendencies and, yes, the fighting nature of its CEO."

It’s Not Just Uber: The dysfunction and harassment Susan Fowler experienced doesn’t just happen at Uber. It pervades our working lives. "More than anything, the frustrations Fowler lays out demonstrate the need for a working-class politics that unites the whole working class: not just builders and manufacturing workers, but engineers, lawyers, graphic designers, museum curators, and human resources officers too. Fowler didn’t have anyone to approach who was accountable only to her and not to her bosses at Uber. She didn’t have union representation, only managers and the HR department, workers also trying to survive the company’s noxious culture."

These Apps Teach the Culture and Languages of Mexican Indigenous Communities: "Vamos a aprender náhuatl is the result of the work of indigenous communities, artists, and developers, which explains why it goes beyond just teaching language. Kernaia has also created similar apps for Purépecha and Mixteco. 'The purpose of this app is to build a bridge towards culture and the purépecha language,' the site’s page reads. 'The origins of this great culture is in Mexico, specifically Michoacán. We seek to offer an experience directed for two audiences. First, directed to people who has [knowledge] of the language and are interested in using technologies to relate with the culture. Second, directed to people who beyond learning words in purépecha want to learn about a town that maintains its traditions while transforming, and that is why it renovates and adapts its language.'"

Is Your Child A Hacker?: "1. They spend most of their free time alone with their computer. 2. They have few real friends, but talk extensively to online friends about computers. 3. Teachers say the child has a keen interest in computers, almost to the exclusion of all other subjects. 4. They’re online so much it affects their sleeping habits. 5. They use the language of hacking, with terms such as ‘DdoS’ (pronounced D-dos), Dossing, pwnd, Doxing, Bots, Botnets, Cracking, Hash (refers to a type of encryption rather than cannabis), Keylogger, Lulz, Phishing, Spoof or Spoofing. Members of the Anonymous Hackivist [sic] group refer to their attacks as ‘Ops’"

A four-panel comic, the first panel with a stick figure person coming across a stick figure cat, remarking, "whoa it's a cat". In the second panel, the person bends down to pat the cat's head, saying, "cat." and the cat saying, "meow meow". In the third panel, the cat's smiling face is shown and the cat says, "donald trump is a symptom, capitalism is the disease. anti-fascism is self-defense". In the final panel, the person's blank face is shown and the person says, "holy shit it's woke af".

Remembrance

A Closing Prayer for Standing Rock’s Oceti Sakowin: "On Wednesday, as many walked out of Oceti for the last time, smoke filled the air. Spiritual leaders chose to burn Native religious structures instead of allowing the police to bulldoze them."

Unerased: Counting Transgender Lives: "A comprehensive look at transgender murders since 2010. The number is rising — and likely far higher than we know."

Picture showing three columns: Planet, Deaths, and HAS CAPITALISM. All the planets in our solar system are shown in the first column. In the second column, only Earth has a number other than 0 for the number of deaths: 120,315,672,896+. In the third column, only Earth has "YES" in response to the column heading, "HAS CAPITALISM". At the bottom in large letters reads, "COINCIDENCE?"

Issues

It Is Just Open Season Now: A conversation with Aly Wane: "Sort of a pet peeve/frustration of mine is [that] a lot of folks come out and say, 'Yes, we are a sanctuary city. We are a sanctuary community.' But, without enough solid clauses in those pieces of legislation to stop actual CBP and ICE from deporting individuals. . . . I think, sadly, we are at a place where for any Democrat to declare that they are still going to be a leader in the sanctuary city, center, or place is seen as 'political courage' in this era, which is a depressingly low standard. We need more than just a couple of pronouncements. We are going to need solid, solid allies who are going to be willing to challenge the federal government."

A black and white cartoon of four people sitting around a fire in a cave, with faint cave drawings of a city skyline in the background. To the right of the fire are three children in tattered clothes, and to the left of the fire is a person in a tattered business suit who says, "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."

New Book Excerpts

After the Ugly Laws: Call me an animal—because all of us are. "I feel animal in my embodiment, and this feeling is one of connection, not shame. Recognizing my animality has in fact been a way of claiming the dignity in the way my body and other non-normative and vulnerable bodies move, look, and experience the world around them. It is a claiming of my animalized parts and movements, an assertion that my animality is integral to my humanity. It’s an assertion that animality is integral to humanity."

When the Meek Inherit the Movement: Bland, sweet, bikini-waxed: that’s feminism now. "Somewhere along the way toward female liberation, it was decided that the most effective method was for feminism to become universal. But instead of shaping a world and a philosophy that would become attractive to the masses, a world based on fairness and community and exchange, it was feminism itself that would have to be rebranded and remarketed for contemporary men and women. They forgot that for something to be universally accepted, it must become as banal, as non-threatening and ineffective as possible."

Direct Action Item

Have any books been influential in your life? This week, talk to someone about it! If you have a physical copy, swap books with someone and learn more about each other's beliefs, politics, and lives.

If there’s something you’d like to see in next week’s #RT, please send us a message.

In solidarity!

What is direct action? Direct action means doing things yourself instead of petitioning authorities or relying on external institutions. It means taking matters into your own hands and not waiting to be empowered, because you are already powerful. A “direct action item” is a way to put your beliefs into practice every week.