#and since I wanted to edit some stuff I had to redo the other additions as well

[jianqzai]

that disheveled bratz doll but make it drunk lan wangji

#lan wangji #mdzs #this version is different that the twtr one because somehow my laptop didn't save the original ps file?? #and since I wanted to edit some stuff I had to redo the other additions as well #he still looks good tho #mwah mwah I love you lwj #milo art

[acetone-free]

Getting the Dames and Dragons wiki up and running proper

Hello!!!

So I’ve been editing and adding to the Dames and Dragons fan wiki for about a year now. I’m an admin and bureaucrat and all that jazz but to be honest the wiki totally needs a revamp and I would really love some help with it!! If you would be interested in writing or editing some stuff please check out the bit under the cut! 

Thank you! :D

First off: Transcripts

@camomilafil got the ball rolling on the transcript front in 2018, but since then only 19 have been completed. I’ve done a couple myself, so I know that they can be pretty high effort and time consuming. But at the rate that they’re going right now Torva will have been defeated and the Guardian’s will have started their true quest of destroying Dawson before episode 50 even has a google doc.

Creating transcripts not only makes the podcast more accessible, but they also make a super good information base for pages on the wiki. Writing episodes and character pages is made so much easier when you can CTRL F for keywords on a transcript doc, rather than having to re-listen to specific episodes. 

At this point there are only four more episodes to transcribe for Into Avelis, but I think it would be really good if people were to begin transcribing later arcs as well. I would love to be able to stay on top of current episodes.

If you are interested in transcribing, you can find a guide on how to format here and the master doc of all episodes here. I’ve only added a little bit to the original rules of the transcribing doc, but I think they were helpful additions :). Keep in mind, you don’t have to transcribe a full episode, or even format any of it. Every little bit helps and even just doing a minute or two is awesome of you!

Secondly: Wiki Pages

Arc and Episode summaries

So far I am up to episode 16 for the summaries. I’m trying to transcribe a few episodes ahead because personally I find it way easier to write a summary with a transcript than while listening to the episode. However, you absolutely don’t have to have a transcript to write an episode summary. On the wiki I have created a page for every Arc so far (except for The Survivor's Ballad, I’ll get on that soon hehe), with an episode table so it should be pretty easy to see episodes that need summarising. 

If you don't want to summarise an entire episode but do want to help, please, please, please feel free to go back and edit episode summaries from Arc 1. I made those about a year ago before I really had a good idea on how to summarise and trust me, those bad boys are rough to read. I’ve been planning on going back and redoing those for a while now lmao. 

Otherwise, whole Arc summaries also need to be written. I’ve already done one for Arc 1, so that should give you a good idea on the type of detail needed. 

For writing episode or arc summaries, I would say try to keep them around 1000 words and generally don’t write anything too meta. Try to keep it as in the world as possible. That being said, it’s totally cool if the summaries aren’t Serious Retellings. I usually try to do jokey subheadings and stuff like that. 

There are a few more things I think are important to keep in mind while writing episode summaries, and if people express interest I am totally down in writing a guide to how I have been doing it. The best thing I think to do would be to go and read a couple of the summaries already on the wiki. Preferably from Arc 2 because I wasn't kidding about the quality of the ones from Arc 1. 

Place and People pages

Hehe alliteration.

Just to get it out there: The main Guardians’ and Maeri’s pages totally need revising. They need summaries for their actions in each arc, as well as updates on their personality sections because these dudes have gone through character development. So if you wanna start somewhere, I’d say go ahead and do that. 

Otherwise, here's what I think you should do if you want to write a character or location page: Choose your favourite character or location or item or whatever. Figure out exactly what episodes they are in, listen to them, take notes, and then write the page. If you’re feeling frisky, even transcribe the parts of the episodes that they appear in. 

Once again, I think the best thing to do is to read a few characters or location pages to get an idea of the amount of detail needed as well as what type of sections you should write. Like, their personality and appearance and whether or not to separate their page into episode summaries or arc summaries for that location/character. If people want, I can also make a more thorough guide on how to write these pages. 

To be honest I haven’t done many of these because I’ve been more focused on getting transcripts and summaries out. So far, however, I’ve been doing these pages as I go. If a new NPC is introduced and only appears for an episode or two, I’ll write those character pages as I’m writing the episode summaries. That being said, if an NPC is introduced and I know they’ll appear later down the line I’ll usually compile all information I have on them in a separate google doc and wait until later to write they’re page. The same goes for location pages, really. For example, I have a google doc full of a half-written page on Danmar that I haven’t published yet because I know that in about five transcribed episodes the party will be back there and I don’t want to have to edit it a whole bunch. 

Thirdly: Editing

If you don’t really want to write an entire summary or don’t feel comfortable enough to do so but still want to contribute the absolute most helpful and important thing you can do it edit. The wiki is like, full of typo’s my dude. (Totally my bad, I’m really bad at catching them hehe). Not only that, but it would be really good if people were to fix any grammar issues or any incorrect information within the pages themselves. Broken links, missing info, inconsistencies in categorisation, all that good stuff. 

You could also go through and double check transcripts that have been deemed ‘complete’ for any typos or formatting issues, if you wished. Absolutely anything and everything helps and it’s always good to have a second or third pair of eyes. 

Fourthly: Where to start

Here’s a list of wanted pages on the wiki. For anyone unfamiliar with how fan wikis work, a red link indicates that the page hasn’t yet been written but has been linked in another page, and that’s where you come in, my dude. 

You don’t have to write a full on, in depth complete page. Even just creating the page and beginning to summarise is great. That creates a basis for other editors, allowing people to build on what you have started. 

If you want to start a transcription you absolutely have to read the formatting and editing guide, linked here once again. Do your best to follow those rules, but it’s okay if you forget or miss some here or there. That’s why other people double check your work! This is collaborative and you can’t be expected to do everything right in the beginning. 

A Final Word

I think it would be cool if we got a few more people to semi-consistently edit and add to the wiki. I don’t expect many people, but any addition to it makes it a better compendium. 

If anyone wants to start writing stuff for it but feels like they need direction please message me! I’m sure I can find something fun for you to do :). Again, I think I’ll write some more in depth guides for how to write pages on the wiki, but if you want to do transcriptions the instructions are already in place and good to go.

That being said, I don’t completely know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to write any of the cool formatting code and stuff that some wiki’s have, so if anyone is interested in helping create a more fancy-schmancy lookin’ wiki and knows how to do all that, it would be really cool if you could get in touch with me as well. 

I would love to hear any other questions or suggestions! To anyone who chooses to help, thank you in advance!

#dames and dragons #maeri the survivor #maeri #fran #corbin #laika #slake

[theonyxpath]

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate art by Yihyoung Li

Hello, everyone! This is Dixie doing the Monday Meeting notes this week, so expect 89% fewer puns. We had a pretty short meeting this week, and focused mainly on what we and our freelancers are doing during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. As far as our day jobs go here at Onyx Path, it’s business as usual since we work from home, but we know that’s not the case for everyone. We have freelancers who work in healthcare, some who are immunocompromised or otherwise susceptible, and then others who have to take care of older family members or small children as cancellations continue.

In addition to anyone directly impacted by the outbreak, there’s also the spate of conventions being cancelled, and many people have had to postpone/cancel trips and events. this is very much still a developing situation, and we encourage our freelancers and fans to take measures to keep themselves safe and healthy. While some people may think, “Oh, this will mean everyone can get a lot of their freelance work done while they’re self-isolating!” that’s not always going to be the case (childcare, housemates all being home, etc.) but we’re working with our freelancers as best we can.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate art by Gunship Revolution

The Onyx Pathcast hosts in particular would like to apologize if anyone thought we were making light of the COVID-19 outbreak in last week’s episode. I assure you, everyone here is taking it seriously.

That said, self-isolation can be difficult if you’re used to being around people, including gathering for tabletop games, so our friends at Astral Virtual TableTop are giving everyone their paid features for free during this time! There’s a post about it here: https://ift.tt/2TTFS5O, but your account should already have the features unlocked.

That’s all well and good, you might say, but I don’t have any new games to try out! Well, we’ve got you covered on that front, too. Today, you can pick up V20 Dark Ages for free at DriveThruRPG, and we’re putting up a new free corebook every day this week. They’re only up for one day each folks, so make sure you grab the ones you want!

You can get V20 Dark ages here today: https://ift.tt/2QjDtiw

Tuesday we’ll be offering the Werewolf 20 core here: https://ift.tt/38RNqdL

Wednesday is Mage 20: https://ift.tt/2IU0dBE

Thursday is Changeling 20: https://ift.tt/3b2fJr8

And we’re wrapping up the week by descending into the Underworld with Wraith 20: https://ift.tt/2vwtfEA

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate art by Gong Studios

In other news, the Legendlore Kickstarter is ongoing, and we’re close to halfway funded! I, personally, am a big fan of the setting. As Ian A. A. Watson put it on Twitter:

Do you like El-Hazard, Alice in Wonderland, Labyrinth, Wizard of Oz, Chronicles of Narnia, Neverending Story, Magic Kingdom of Landover, Apprentice Adept, Castle Perilous, or the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon?

@VonAether

If so, this book is for you. Check it out and read manuscript updates here: https://ift.tt/2x03Pzp

Another cool thing you can do while you’re home is to attend Gehenna Gaming‘s VirtualHorror Con April 4-6. From the website:

VirtualHorror Con is a two-day virtual horror tabletop RPG convention that can be experienced on any screen no matter where you are. Many of your favorite events and conventions have been canceled, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the convention experience. This event will give fans and players the opportunity to connect with the game developers, artists, and publishers they love. No lines. Safe social distancing. Horror-themed actual play streams, live panels, and digital tabletop RPG one-shot sessions running the whole time!

All ticket and raffle sales will go to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization to support the development of vaccines, tests, and treatments for the coronavirus pandemic.”

For more information, check out https://ift.tt/2TTwcbC

There isn’t much else that came out of our meeting, as people are just buckling down to get some work done and continue monitoring the situation. We’re still working on the Dragon-Blooded surprise and will have that out to backers as soon as we can! So stay safe, wash your hands, and as always…

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

As noted above, Legendlore is in its first week of Kickstarter! Please go check it out; it’s a truly awesome book, compatible with the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game!

Onyx Path Media!

This week, we’re talking Scarred Lands with Travis Legge!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

Despite everything in the world right now, or maybe because of it, we’ve got a massive number of shows for you on Twitch this week. Please tune in for an enjoyable distraction! We’re going to have three games of V5, as well as Chronicles of Darkness, Pugmire, Hunter: The Vigil, Changeling: The Lost, Mage: The Awakening, Scarred Lands, and a Dark Eras Werewolf: The Forsaken chronicle! 

This week sees the finale of Blood City as well as the finale of Uptown Shadows. I would like to give major recognition to both streams for their fantastic work in bringing our games out to the audience. Thank you! You can subscribe to our channel over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath to catch up with any episodes you missed! (Another great idea for social distancing!)

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:

Scion: Behind the Screen: https://youtu.be/v9Wo38rl5-Y

Changeling: The Lost – Littlebrook Reunion: https://youtu.be/hxSbemynBLs

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale: https://youtu.be/gKAm-zGxTW4

Even more Scion: Behind the Screen: https://youtu.be/QDSIS_ClFbE

Pugmire: Paws & Claws: https://youtu.be/Ddm-cl48OR0

And even more Changeling: The Lost: https://youtu.be/dqM0ZdeS88s

Do subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

The Story Told RPG Podcast reaches the penultimate episode of their excellent Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition chronicle right here: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/the-78-laments-episode-4-passenger

And if you missed it, here’s The Story Told’s review of Trinity Continuum: Aeon http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/episode-40-trinity-continuum-on-overview

Red Moon Roleplaying’s V5 Cults of the Blood Gods “The Family” chronicle continues on their YouTube channel, Spotify, their website redmoonroleplaying.com and everywhere else good podcasts might be found! https://youtu.be/PDPZyy-ZHNw

More new Occultists Anonymous for all you Mage: The Awakening fans out there:

Episode 88: Arms and Armor – Wyrd has a terrible premonition about the strike on the vampire Prince. The cabal helps ready Songbird when she is called to action by the Adamantine Arrow.  https://youtu.be/WPHjGDGwRmQ

Episode 89: Tactical Yeet – Songbird enters the vampire Prince’s haven with a small team of Adamantine Arrows while the rest of the cabal scrys on the proceedings. Things don’t go according to plan, in several ways.https://youtu.be/r5zuU4UglYs

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

Update: the devs are working on the updates for the roller in both Android and iOS; here is the rundown from them:

1) Redo the UI for system for Android. It will look the same as the current design. My goal is to have something ready by Saturday to send out to the Facebook users, asking them if this fixes the issues. This will be a beta type thing. This will break several of the fancy dice.

2) If the above worked out and the android users give all the clear, we’ll redo the graphics system to fix the fancy dice that got broken. We’ll do another Android beta through Facebook. This might take up to two weeks, as my schedule allows.

3) If everything worked well, we’ll release to Android for real at that point.

4) Port all of the existing stuff to iOS and release on that.

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This week, Geist: The Sin-Eaters Second Edition will be available on Studio2, IPR, and DriveThruRPG! Yay!

Conventions!

Though it’s subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s our current list of upcoming conventions:

UKGames Expo: https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/

GenCon: https://www.gencon.com/

Tabletop Scotland: https://tabletopscotland.co.uk/

Gamehole Con: https://www.gameholecon.com/

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

And now, the new project status updates!

(We know why you’re here.

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Scarred Lands – RUST (working title)

TC Aeon – Under Alien Suns

TC Aeon – Mission Statements

TC Aberrant – Novas Worldwide

Exalted 3rd – Adversaries of the Righteous

Exalted – Exalted: Essence Edition

Deviant the Renegades – The Clades Companion

Deviant the Renegades – The Devoted Companion

Scion – Saints and Monsters

Mage: The Ascension – Rich Bastard’s Guide to Magick

Scion – Wild Hunt

Redlines

Exalted 3rd – Dragon-Blooded Novella 2 (Roy)

TC Adventure – Adventure!

Exalted 3rd – Hundred Devils Night Parade

Mummy: The Curse – The Book of Lasting Death

Chronicles of Darkness – Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters

TC Aberrant – N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment

Second Draft

Exalted 3rd – Exigents

Exalted 3rd – Crucible of Legends

Exalted – Many-Faced Strangers (Lunars Companion)

Changeling: The Lost – Kith and Kin

They Came From – They Came from Beyond the Grave!

Trinity Continuum – Assassins

Development

Exalted 3rd – Heirs to the Shogunate

TC Aberrant – Aberrant Reference Screen

Exalted 3rd – Across the Eight Directions

Chronicles of Darkness – The Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks

Mage the Ascension – Victorian Mage

Manuscript Approval

Scion – Scion: Dragon

Scion – Masks of the Mythos

Scion – Scion: Demigod

Post-Approval Development

Scion: Origin and Hero LARP

Geist the Sin-Eaters: One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart

Editing

Legendlore – Legendlore  

Realms of Pugmire – Pirates of Pugmire additional adventure

TC Aeon – Terra Firma

Exalted – Lunars Novella (Rosenberg)

Realms of Pugmire – Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire  

They Came From – Tales of Aquatic Terror

Mummy: The Curse – Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition  

Scion – Titanomachy

Chronicles of Darkness – Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle  

Chronicles of Darkness – Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart

TC Aberrant – Aberrant Jumpstart

Trinity Continuum – Jumpstart

Post-Editing Development

Hunter: The Vigil – Hunter: The Vigil 2e

World of Darkness – Ghost Hunters

Deviant: The Renegades – Deviant: The Renegades

TCfBtS! – Monsters of the Deep

Indexing

They Came From Beneath the Sea! (TCfBtS!)

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Scion Titanomachy

Tales of Aquatic Terror 

TC Aeon Terra Firma – Contracted

V5 Let the Streets Run Red

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

WoD Ghost Hunters – Getting KS artwork going

Aberrant

Pugmire Adventure 

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2 – ADing that out post Aberrant AD

Deviant

Legendlore – Kickstarter in progress

Technocracy Reloaded (KS)

Cults of the Blood God (KS) – Contracting

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet

Contagion Chronicle

Vigil Watch 

Scion Companion – Artwork in progress.

Proofing

Trinity Aeon Jumpstart 

Pirates of Pugmire 

TCFBTS Heroic Land Dwellers – Inputting proofing comments

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate

At Press

Ex 3 The Silence of Our Ancestors (Huggins Novella)

TC Distant Worlds

Scion Mythical Denizens

Night Horrors : Nameless and Accursed – Errata gathering

Dark Eras 2 – Errata with Aileen

VtR Spilled Blood – Josh wrapping up inputting changes and tweaking layout to account for any shift in the text

Geist 2e – Out this week

Dystopia Rising: Evolution

DR:E Screen & Booklet

DR:E Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties

Geist 2e Screen

Memento Mori

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Indexing

Chicago Folios – Awaiting PoD proof

Geist 2e Anthology – Errata gathering

C:tL 2e Oak, Ash, & Thorn – Errata gathering

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Yesterday was the Ides of March and tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day! Please celebrate either one responsibly and while practicing safe social distancing. Also, today is my stepmom’s birthday! I don’t usually get to do shout-outs on the blog, but since I’ve taken over today I’m indulging myself. Happy Birthday, Laura! Hope you and dad are having a blast (still while practicing safe social distancing).

#Onyx Path Publishing

[mysticsparklewings]

I’m Not Dead‪

I'm not laughin', You're not jokin' I'm not dead I only dress that way Out nowhere take me out there Far away and save me from my Self-destruction, hopeless for you Sing a song for California --My Chemical Romance, "Boy Division" ____ Have you heard?? Have you heard the news?? Well if not, I'm gonna tell ya: MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS BACK, BABY!!! :D On Halloween, we got the announcement that they will be playing a show in Los Angeles, California on December 20th. And just a few days ago we got the news that they're also going to New Zealand, Australia, and Japan which basically confirms to me they're doing so sort of tour, whether they actually call it that or not. There's still a lot we don't know for sure; whether this is just a one-time reunion tour or their official comeback tour, if we'll be getting new original music both at the shows and available for download/purchase or if they're just going to redo their existing music and covers, if it's only going to be the main four that were there at the end or if there will be some of the other members that were in and out over the years rejoining them...Where all they're going to go on this tour...the list goes on. But! The important thing, at least to me, is that they came back at all. Six years. Six years we've waited and hoped and prayed, been let down by false rumors and speculation...And now it's actually happening. I just... Hence why I had to make an art piece celebrating the occasion and as an excuse to talk about it. (I figure if I'm going to dump my opinions on the internet I might as well make some art to go with them. Sue me. ) Originally, I was planning on making something more along the lines of true fan art, as this is more pseudo fan art here, but I just couldn't settle on one good idea that I felt really comfortable pursuing. Although I am still considering doing an updated (or at least colored in) version of my Killjoys, Make Some Noise! (lineart) I did a couple of years ago...we'll see. Anyway. Since we did get the news on Halloween, it's worth noting that originally I'd been debating if I wanted to do any makeup this year at all or just slide on a mask since my only plans were going to Krispy Kreme, who was offering a free donut if you showed up in costume. But after the news broke, my decision was made for me. I had to. MCR isn't strictly associated with skeletons/skulls, as has become my preferred Halloween costume, but The Black Parade, their second album, does have a little skeleton as the leader of the marching band, and the band members did wear skeleton/skull inspired makeup during that time. Admittedly this year's makeup wasn't nearly as involved or elaborate as what I've done in years' past, but it beats last year's absolutely nothing. I ended up taking a few pictures to preserve the look, as I always do even though I rarely take photos of myself, and I would decide to draw one of them where I was trying to do this face that Gerard (the frontman and lead singer of the band) has made on a several occasions; this wide-eyed intense stare. Partly because this, I'm sure, is very close to my actual face when I heard the news that they're back, the makeup was inspired by them anyway, and also because it pairs very well with one of my favorite lines from my favorite song by them. Said line being, obviously, "I'm not dead I only dress that way," from Boy Division, as cited at the top of the description. If I'm being completely truthful, I can't even really put my finger on what it is about Boy Division specifically that makes it my favorite, as I've yet to hear an MCR song I truly do not like, but I think there's something in the lyrics of the full song that just sells it for me in combination with the high-energy music. But whatever the case, it is my favorite nonetheless. Beyond that though, it's really hard to place the rest of them in any coherent order because, at least to my ears, they're all really great. Anyway. So I went about drawing my face, erring slightly more on the realistic side than usually (but obviously not too much) in hopes of capturing the facial expression. Which, it's pretty good, but I do think it could've been a little better. I think my biggest problem was getting the eyebrows a mouth right, and I'm still not sure they're quite there since my real eyebrows are pretty translucent and the mouth was hard to balance between looking logical and more neutral than sad/angry. And I think maybe the proper expression was a little more apparent in the sketch, but it's pretty normal to lose some feeling between the sketch and the final product so that I won't discount too much. After that, I had to take a break from the drawing to think about how to color it in any style it and everything. I ended up transferring the sketch to Mixed Media paper after deciding I wanted to use alcohol markers as a base but not knowing if I'd need to adjust it with colored pencil and/or other mediums on top or not, and I did the lines with my Faber Castell Polychromos once I felt like just black lines would be too harsh and thinking colored lines would be better. Plus, the Polychromos are very non-reactive to water, so if I really wanted to I could add watercolor or something water-activated without having to worry about the lines getting messed up. I did not consider how the Polychromos would react to the alcohol markers, but other than one or two spots where the top layer of pencil kinda dissolved after some heavy layering (which was easily fixed by just going back over the lines in that area again really quickly), fortunately, it worked out okay. Although sweet sparkles I swear it took at least twice as long to actually do the lines as opposed to normal between having to apply enough pressure to get the right amount of color down and working on the differences inline weight.   Anyway. I was a little worried about some of the shading/effects I'd be doing with the markers, but I think I did alright with it. This mixed media paper (Strathmore 400 series for anyone who cares) is nice and thick, so I had plenty of room to layer up and blend as I needed to get the look I was going for. This came in especially handy around the eyes and on the nose when I told myself to at least try and get the colors like the photo before cheesing it and just using straight (or nearly) black. The only area that I think came out a little rough is really the skin, mainly the forehead. But that has more to do with 1. There isn't much contrast on the face in the photo so I didn't want to take it too far in the drawing and 2. I think I may have started slightly too dark for skin this pale. I realize that's a weird thing to say, but when you're pale as a ghost like I am, you'd be surprised how easy that is to do. And to be fair, I probably could've tried to adjust that with colored pencils, and my original plan was to add some white pencil on top in the areas of the face where a highlight would naturally hit (forehead, bridge of the nose, cheekbones, etc.)  But by the time I got done with the markers, I honestly felt like it was nice enough without any additional pencil that I thought it might be best to just leave it alone. Since I still have the original drawing, my thoughts may change on that and I could update this eventually, but for now, my decision stands. On the other hand, I was actually pretty pleased with how the hair turned out once it was colored. That is until I scanned it in. I don't know why, but the darkest shadows in the hair were too dark and too bluish on the scan, despite everything else looking fairly color-accurate. I fiddled with the scanner settings for a few minutes to try and fix it, but it became quickly apparent there wasn't much to be done about it at the level. Which meant I had to try making the adjustments in Photoshop. Now, I've done my fair share of scan-fixing, photo editing, and just color adjustments on digital art, but for the life of me I could not get things to work the way I wanted them to here. It became to the point I'm starting to suspect if the actual true-to-life shades of purple of the drawing are just really hard or even impossible for computers to capture and/or create accurately. Fluorescent colors fall in that category, surely they're not the only ones. In the end, after more time than I bothered to document messing around with settings and adjustments, and firmly decided I was not going to essentially manually re-color/shade the hair digitally, I tried the only other thing I could think to do. I took the hair, as I had been for all my adjustments since the rest of the colors were fine, on a separate layer and took all the saturation out so I was left with just the gray values. And I noted while I was at that point that it didn't seem to be an issue of the contrast between the shadows and the rest of the hair. The transition looked perfectly acceptable in grayscale. Then, I added a color layer on top of that one, clipped it to only show up on the hair, and changed it to an "overlay" layer so that I would get the values from the gray layer, but colored purple. It did take a couple of tries to get the right shade of purple for the color layer, and I'm sure it's still not 100% accurate to the IRL drawing, but it's a heck of a lot closer than it was. And this gets even weirder when you consider that just a few days before I made this drawing, I made a different one for a friend where I used the exact same marker colors for the hair, blended in almost exactly the same manner, on the same paper, and it didn't have this problem when I scanned that one in. I have never in my life. Anyway. The accessories actually didn't give me much trouble in drawing or coloring. Admittedly, I did tone down how many feathers and stuff are actually on the tiny hat for my own sanity's sake, and while I did my best with the lace on the choker, I don't have a ton of practice with drawing lace like this so I'm sure it could be improved. Although I did decide to color both of those areas (what I didn't draw/fill in with the pencils at the line stage) with a super dark blue-violet instead of a gray or straight black for the purpose of not totally hiding the linework I'd put in and to make it just slightly more dynamic. Which I think was a good call as it seems to tie in pretty nicely with the grayish tones on the face. Other than that though, I did try to stay fairly accurate with my color choices, and I think I did pretty well with that, all things considered. (Despite having a much larger selection than I did just a few months ago, I do still need a wider selection of alcohol markers in some areas just for the sake of color accuracy and smooth transitions.) Once my face was done, then came the text. I searched for a while, hoping to find an MCR appropriate font that I could hopefully add by hand, but my search came up empty. I did find one I really liked the look of though, called "Miserable." So I scanned the drawing in and after the aforementioned hair struggles, I got to play with the placement and structure of the words. I knew I kinda wanted something that just has that "I'm a logo/t-shirt emblem" kind of feel, and in the end, I think I got that. But I do think I could've planned out the drawing itself a little bit better in terms of the space left to fit the words into. I really didn't do myself a lot of favors on that one.   It has its problems, but I'm still really actually kind of proud of how this turned out...and that's really all I have to say about it. Eh, maybe I'm just really happy because I know why I made it in the first place. Now if MCR can just come within 1-2 hours of my location so I can actually go see them...please... ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#my chemical romance #mcr #boy division #dead #conventional weapons #return #the black parade #skullmakeup #art #fan art #self portrait #i’m not okay #killjoys make some noise

[atvie]

1, 4, 5, 8, 36, & 38!!

1. how did you get into graphics / gif making?

i wanted to color my icons for my roleplay blogs (since i was editing usopp’s anyway to change his lips & and darken his skin) and then i just sorta changed the scale i worked on? um i think i wanted to color a promo for myself for it too but i think i ended up just getting distracted / otherwise not finishing it smdgfdsfj and then i kinda figured. wow i wanna work on coloring, but i don’t like my art, so then started coloring stuff. recently i’ve been doing it more often b/c i’ve been inspired by other graphic makers, namely you, @ii-luffy-i, @lesbianjinbe & a couple of people in the bnha fandom (that i’m embarrassed to tag ;;)

edit: here’s an example of the icons that i started with (with luffy & usopp as the characters, respectively): as u can see they were Super small, & thus only took like. 5 minutes each once i got good at them, so transitioning into larger projects was….. hard. also im just rmmring some rly funny threads i had with usopp & kaku (me as usopp, my friend as kaku) mfdlskfjkdkg… aka usopp being worried abt his doppleganger  //  i had two of urls linked here like 5 min ago but honestly im embarrassed of my writing so im deleting it DSGKJD

more answers below the cut   vvv

4. what do you enjoy about making graphics?

they’re pretty!!!! also, a large part of the fun is finding panels to do specifically, & doing so really makes me appreciate the little details in the backgrounds / how the paneling works / just general visual breakdowns that most likely i otherwise wouldn’t’ve consciously noticed.

5. what do you dislike most about making graphics?

mmm when i spend a lot of time on something (like.. more than an hour) & don’t end up liking it? it just feels disappointing. i post it anyway b/c this blog is mostly for keeping track of my own art progress in a more organized fashion but still,,, also that like a month ago i’d been creating them more for the response (the likes/reblogs) than my own enjoyment, & so when they didn’t get noticed i felt really down & didn’t appreciate the process? so i’m trying to do it more for myself ig… i hope that makes sense ;;

8. what is your go-to adjustment / psd for colouring?

i don’t really have one? i mean i guess ….. a warm overlay but that’s as specific as it gets! b/c it doesn’t matter what i start with, i’ll just try it out, then adjust it from there to what i really want. so i’m never consistent with it jdsfjfd

36. graphic makers, how do you get started on a graphic? (how do you get an idea!)

for my art, i have a list of prompts / ideas that i’ve thought of at some point on the app Trello, that actually i can make public if anyone’s interested, so if i’m bored or inspired i’ll check that out!! but that is a new addition (i.e. this week), so before i just made those posts on my sideblog @rldenki (it’s private tho) & sometimes reblogged things from incorrect-quotes blogs there to draw & link back  to later.)

mmm other than that i’ve gone to @rickypozzi (& since yesterday .. or maybe the day before?, @sanjispanels now that i have permission to edit them) or random chapters online to look for panels i might be interested in doing!! i have a folder of to-do’s, on my phone and on my tablet. oh & ofc my prompts tag

as for my ocs, i’ll often just start drawing a face, kinda out of it, & then just see where it takes me! i usually don’t have an idea for the end-product in mind, so when i do it can be kinda scary(?)

anyway those kinda things. i might make another post with some screenshots of my blog / inspo list / folders so y’all can see how it works (it helps a lot!!) but i don’t wanna make this too long gsdjfjdk

38. are you working on anything now? if yes, show us a work in progress!

i don’t really have wips? usually, anyway. in the sense that either i finish them or i abandon them in the middle, but either way they get posted so there’s not really.. anything to put here? i’ve only gone back to a graphic more than like. an hour later twice, usually because my learning is evolving so quickly (that sounds kinda arrogannt but i mean that i’m constantly learning) that by the time i look back on it either i don’t wanna mess the good parts i did up, or if i changed something i would want to redo the entire thing.

um but i actually do have one as a special case!!! i’m trying to learn the patience to go back to old art/graphics, which is why i haven’t just posted it yet! that & i’m kinda embarrassed of it…..,,, i was trying to do some lighting thing with her helmet off of this tutorial, but ended up hating the  product sdkgjkszdgj

ok im at 5% battery so i gotta run & find a charger but ty for the ask!!!!! ilusm

edit: oh & here’s the prompt

#i can already tell that the icon’s gonna look horrid on mobile but .. f #im at 6% & charging so i can add tags now JDGKSJ #atvieasks #saintdevour #not atvie art #rebecca #long post / #sorry for the @‘s guys !! hope it isn’t annoying or anything

[autistickitten]

(urgent/before Friday if possible) Sorry this is kinda nsfw/not strictly related but I'm 18, a trans guy, and in my first relationship. My bf knows I'm trans and that I have social communication issues and sensory issues. He's been great. We're planning to have sex, and I sort of don't know the protocol/what in doing? We've talked about it and stuff but even so. I feel very much I do not know anything really. Thanks

I’m gonna put this under a cut in hopes the Tumblrbots don’t come in and pixelate the blog for being Too En Es Eff Double-ewe :P I’m also gonna get super personal and uhhh descriptive in here so this is also a way for folks who’re squicked out by sex talk to avoid it.

So it’s good that you’ve talked about it a bit already! The most important thing I think is to keep talking about it the whole way through.

When I first had sex with my ex, we talked about it a bit beforehand, specifically (and since you mention you’re a trans guy this is super apt) where I was and was not comfortable being penetrated. (And also since you mentioned that you’re trans but not that he is I’m gonna assume he has a penis but if not and you’re using toys or strap-ons or whatever feel free to ignore my aggressive insistence on condoms! Although if you plan on switching between orifices or sharing toys then still use condoms on them, makes clean-up a breeze to boot!) Make sure you both know where the other stands on things like PIV, anal, oral, and also make sure you’re both comfortable with the idea of changing your mind. It’s always okay to change your mind after you’ve started!

Oh and before I forget: CONDOMS AND LUBE (water-based ONLY, silicone-based lube destroys latex condoms EDIT: Silicone-based destroyed silicone toys, OIL-based destroys condoms (shoutout to @hylianderp, ‘twas I who derped out there). Water-based is still the all-around safest but do note it has to be re-applied more frequently as it absorbs into the skin faster!). We didn’t use condoms, and even through we didn’t do PIV it still could have ended very badly. Semen loves to wander. Make sure you have both and that they’re used properly - condoms always get changed between orifices and between ejaculations. And don’t go stingy on the lube, especially if you’re doing anal. Applying lube is a bit like gathering firewood: Decide how much you think you need, and then double that amount. Re-apply it halfway through if things start to hurt. There’s no such thing as too much.

Also, I suggest you lay down a towel or something, and keep washcloths or tissues handy. Messes happen! And also, for that matter, funny sounds happen, and clumsiness happens. Sex can make you laugh and that’s a good thing.

Now, some people say your first time’s “supposed” to hurt, some people say it’s “never” supposed to hurt, I say there’s a middle ground. See, the first time I had sex with my ex was The First Time I Had Sex, and even though I’d masturbated with toys before, and even though we spent, gods, a solid 15, 20 minutes on foreplay with a lot of, ehh, finger action, fact of the matter is he was pretty well-endowed and yeah, when he put it in me, it hurt! The important thing, I think, is I made sure he knew it hurt, he took it out, we spent some more time with fingers, we added more lube, and the next time he put it in it didn’t hurt. Success! It’s a balancing act your first time, there’s no way to know for sure if it’ll hurt beforehand, but the important thing is that, if it hurts, you stop, redo some steps, and try again in 5 minutes.

If you know you may well have issues communicating verbally, make sure your partner knows he’ll have to be extra attentive. At one point my ex moved me into a position that really hurt but I couldn’t make myself speak so I just sort of.. made some urgent squeaking sounds? Which was enough to make him stop and ask if I was okay, and without that sensory bombardment I was able to answer and we found a different position that felt good.

And that’s the main thing, it should feel good, for both of you! You should both check in on the other regularly, but especially whoever’s in control (which isn’t necessarily the person penetrating depending on position). If it hurts at any point, for either of you, slam on the breaks, back up, figure out where it went wrong, and turn left at Albuquerque.

I also asked a pal who’s a Certified Top if he had any tips on communication, and here’s some very good advice he had to say on the matter:

I mean good communication is good communication. I can only speak for myself but I want to know what feels good for my partner, not just in terms of a “that’s good, that’s not good” but like “that’s good but what could make it BETTER is…”

I think there’s a weird idea a lot of people have that basically if you’re not topping you’re just supposed to… be somehow less involved. That it’s centered around whoever is topping and that’s just untrue and unhealthy.

And you should have fun! If you’re not having fun, there’s no point in doing it. The first few times it’s all about figuring what you like, what’s the most fun for you and for them, what you don’t find particularly fun. I learned that day that I don’t find it fun at all to give blowjobs, and so I did not finish giving that one. You’re very much allowed to not finish what you’ve started.

And finally, two very important points:

You may not orgasm your first time, or even your first few times. That’s fine, it’s normal, you’re still learning about yourself and about each other! It’s very lovely to have one, but it’s not the be-all end-all. The journey should be just as rewarding as the finish.

However, if he comes, you come. End of. If he gets to have that moment he damn well better make sure you get to. The clitoris isn’t an enigma, it has a little 1-2cm shaft and a cute little mushroom head and even gets erect just like a penis and it deserved to be stroked too, gods damn it!

Actually, speaking of that lil mushroom buddy, I have one more tip, as weird as it might sound: Grab a handheld mirror, tuck away in a bathroom, and get a good look at your clitoris. It’s not widely talked about, because sex educators want them to be an enigma, but for such a small thing clitores have quite some variety, and it could play a big role in how much you enjoy that sex you’re about to have. Larger clitores are, unsurprisingly, usually easier to work with, as are ones with smaller hoods (more direct stimulation after all). Get a little self-love sesh in and pay close attention to what motions feel good, what don’t feel like much at all, how that changes as you get more aroused and your clitoris gets engorged, and get ready to relay all that info to your partner.

So that’s pretty much the advice I could think of over the course of a couple hours! Just remember: have fun, communicate in whatever ways you can (but make sure to do it consistently), and if you need to stop for any reason you should always be free to do so. This goes for every time, not just the first time.

-Brother Cat

ETA: Some further good advice in the replies!

@cesium-sheep:

personally I find it useful to have at least one of my hands on my partner, since it gives him that many more signals to pick up on and it helps give me a grounding point. just a little additional thing that may help. 

@rattycastle:

If you get like me and go semi or non-verbal with a lot of sensory stuff, good or bad, tell him beforehand. A safe word is good even for vanilla stuff, like letting him know you're ok even if you cant talk

These two tips go hand-in-hand very well! A safe word doesn’t necessarily have to be an Actual Word, it can be a specific gesture, a rhythm tapped on a wall or headboard, a “Squeeze my fingers once for go, twice for stop” sort of thing, anything you can come up with and remember in the moment.

Keep an eye on the notes, I’m sure there’ll be a few more good tips!

#sex ed #do we have a sex ed tag? #I know we've talked about some genital stuff before but I think it was more hygiene-related... #Anonymous #ask

[hydrus]

Version 316

windows

zip

exe

os x

app

tar.gz

linux

tar.gz

source

tar.gz

I had an excellent week. I was able to cleanly 'do' the big gallery overhaul, resulting in many changes. This is an important release for anyone who does a lot of downloading.

gallery update

So, the meat of the gallery overhaul is complete! Where available, subscriptions, the gallery downloader, and the url downloader will now use the new parsing system to parse 'thumbnail pages'. The new pipeline has numerous improvements behind-the-scenes and is another important step in allowing users to create and share their own downloaders for new sites.

I won't go into all the details here, but anyone who has poked around the new parsing system's advanced dialogs will now see that gallery pages are now featured.

The important change for most users is that the main gallery downloader page is now a 'multi-gallery' page. It looks much like the multi-watcher for thread-watching, where the one page manages multiple queues simultaneously. Gallery download pages now list every query you enter separately and work on them simultaneously, reducing overall ui load significantly and making it much easier to pause one query without affecting others, spot queries that return 0 results, avoid big chokes and delays caused by larger queues, and manage the results you finally get as different pools. The old single-download page can no longer be created--your existing gallery pages will be updated to multi-pages on update (your existing queues will survive as generic 'updated from' entries, but everything will start paused, so you'll want to go through them, verify it all looks good, and then unpause when you are ready).

And like the multi-watcher, gallery pages can have a 'highlighted query'. Double-clicking on a list entry will show its current thumbnails in the media panel and show its full details in a panel below the main list. This new panel is very similar to the old gallery page's ui and lets you see downloads as they happen and inspect the file import queue and gallery log and so on in more detail.

Gallery download pages are now also downloader-agnostic. You open them just as 'gallery' from the F9 new page popup (there's also a new shortcut for them, under the 'main_gui' set), and they have a new 'gallery selector' button that lets you change the source for the next queries you enter. The gallery selector means that one gallery page can handle queries for multiple sites simultaneously! This new button will always default as 'deviant art' for now, but when I do the last stage of this downloader overhaul--the 'searcher' step--I will be able to add some reasonable 'favourite' options here.

Subscriptions can also use the new gallery parser, and they have the neater 'gallery selector' as well. You shouldn't notice any difference with how they operate--they should just run as before. But after some thought, I have reduced subscriptions' maximum 'first time' and 'regular' file limits to 1000 and written some help on the edit panel to explain this change. tl;dr is: use download pages to do big one-time syncs, use subs to keep up with new stuff. If this 1000 change affects you, please check out the help and feel free to ask me about it.

URL downloader pages also support parsable gallery urls. They only do the single page you add (i.e. they don't start a whole new multi-page search, but this capability will come), but they'll suck up any drag and drop for any working parser. For this week, I've written gallery parsers for danbooru, gelbooru (0.2.0 and 0.2.5), and e621 to get us started. Like with 'file pages', I will roll out more gallery parsers over the coming weeks until all default downloaders are using the new system.

A lot has changed. I have done a whole bunch of testing here and I am overall happy with it, but if you encounter problems with an unusual query or site or anything else, please let me know. If you are the sort of user with 200k items waiting to download in your current session, I strongly recommend you ensure you have a good backup before you update. This multi-gallery page also makes it easier than ever to create a session with lots and lots of files, but I will reiterate that the client tends to get laggy at 50k+ items, so take it easy and make a schedule for big stuff if you can!

There is a little more work to do here to support some unusual situations like tumblr, but the big hump of the downloader overhaul is now done. The 'searcher' change will be much simpler (it is basically just converting samus_aran -> http://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=samus_aran and some ui to manage it) and then it'll just be ui cleanup and figuring out an easy-mode share object, and redoing some help, and then we can talk about what we want out of a login manager (including whether it should be put off for something else).

multi-watcher

The multi-watcher also has a new 'highlight' panel just below its list. In a similar way, it has similar ui to the old single-page watcher and lets you inspect the file list and gallery (thread) log. Single watcher pages are removed this week, so all existing single watchers will be updated to multi-watchers. A variety of related single-watcher 'page naming' options and so on are also removed. Rather than be redundantly complicated, hydrus now just has 'url downloader', 'watcher', 'gallery', and 'simple downloader'.

full list

gallery:

gallery url classes can now be linked to parsers!

if parsers are linked, gallery pagewalk can now work on the new parsing system. gallery import pipeline has been significantly updated to reflect this

gallery import objects are now 'multiple' gallery imports, much like the multi-watcher, with each separate query having its own entry in a list (they also run in parallel!)

the multi-gallery list will show file/gallery pause status in slender columns, and will show a 'stop' character when gallery parsing is done

wrote a 'gallery selector' button and added it to the new multi-gallery page, so you can spawn queries for ~different sites~ on the same import page! it always defaults to 'deviant art' for now, but when the next 'searcher' overhaul step is done, this will be customisable

the new page selector and related 'pages' menu is now simpler--with the new selector, you just select 'gallery'

added 'new_gallery_downloader_page' shortcut action to the 'main gui' set to allow quick opening of this new page type

wrote a 'gallery import panel', which reviews a single gallery import stream, and added it to the multi-gallery page to show the current highlighted query

as all gallery imports now run in parallel and work on the new system, the now almost-useless 'cancel' gallery pagewalk button is now removed

with the wider availability of the new gallery log for file count and error reports, shifted around and smoothed out some gallery status text presentation

improved the auto url_class->parser linking 'try to fill in gaps' logic to work with gallery urls (this was surprisingly complicated)

fixed a misc stupid waste of time in auto url_class->parser linking

many misc updates to gallery pipeline

.

subscriptions:

wrote a new gallery pagewalk pipeline for subscriptions, which still does oldest-to-newest url addition and obeys file limits and so on

numerous subscription pipeline and error handling tweaks and improvements, particularly in regards to the new code

subscriptions now have max initial and periodic file limits of 1000. existing subs with >1000 or infinite will be cut to 1000. there is a help button on the edit sub panel to explain why you should do large syncs with the manual downloader and not subs

the ugly and dangerous-if-you-scroll-in-the-wrong-place gallery selector mismash control in the edit subscription panel is now replaced with the new gallery selector button

fixed an issue where the edit subs panels could sometimes say '48 years ago' (i.e. displaying a literal time delta since 0, 1970) on initial timestamps

juggled some 'periodic limit' reporting logic to skip an unusual false positive that affect hentai foundry subs for now and more in future

.

urls:

the url downloader now accepts gallery urls and will receive drag-and-dropped gallery urls. at the moment, it only parses the one page (i.e. it doesn't start a new 'searching' pagewalk) and sends the parsed links to its file queue

.

watcher:

finished 'watcher panel', which reviews a watcher, and added it to the multi-watcher page to show the current highlighted watcher

the single watcher page is completely removed--it is only the multiple watcher now. all singles will be converted to multiples on update

some single-watcher options (like watchers naming their own page tabs and the [404]-style page name prefixes) are removed

multiple watcher panel now lists file/checking pause status and has separate buttons to control these paused statuses

fixed some misc watcher highlight code--highlighted watchers should correctly publish to the page from the start of session load now

improved some 'repage' logic in how highlighted threads get removed

.

misc:

discovered a scroll-setup parameter that stops janky scroll-to-click-focus behaviour on all the new scrolling panels, thank the LORD

improved some 'can't parse' error handling for post url parsing

reworked how all importers present their network jobs to the ui, including fast response if the switch happens during a job

in prep for searcher switchover where all downloader sources will be harmonised into one system, booru identifiers now present in several ui locations as 'name', not 'booru: name'

updated the danbooru parser to deal with the new 'next page' markup they use

wrote a gelbooru gallery parser that works with 0.2.0 and 0.2.5 gelb sites--an ancillary issue where gelb-related downloaders could sometimes not accurately figure out the magic '42' next-page offset is hence now fixed

wrote an e621 gallery page parser

these sites hence now support single-page gallery drag-and-drop

added url classes for artstation gallery url and its api counterpart, but didn't go further yet--we aren't quite there with api pagewalking just yet

updated deviant art gallery url classes

added an e621 'search initialisation' gallery url class to improve some future drag-and-drop stuff

url normalisation no longer cuts off 'www.'-style prefixes

url comparison is more careful to test 'www.'-style prefixes, so a file import cache should recognise that 'http://www.blah.com/blah' is the same as 'https://blah.com/blah'

did a bunch of refactoring to further split up the bloated ClientImporting.py

fixed some misc downloader layout that may have been hiding some texts previously

some multi-watcher and multi-gallery events like add/pause query should be a bit snappier

in the parsing ui, url and title priorities are now 50 by default

prepped a little subscription unit test code for when searcher object is done

misc downloader layout improvements

misc listctrl refactoring

next week

A lot of stuff I overconfidently said "I will check this this week" about has been left in the dust of this unexpectedly large job. I want to spend a week focusing on this smaller stuff and catch up back to regular schedule.

#release

[sunnyoongi]

FAQ - mobile version

Important pages

About = What this blog is about.

Tags = Where we have all our tags accessible.

More Melanin = Where we promote other anti-whitewashing sources/blogs.

Explanations = Contains links to answers we give to complex questions/topics.

Fansites = Page/s that contain fansites.

Fansites to avoid (for bad behavior) = Page/s that contain fansites that are sasaengs, stalkers, scammers etc.

Fan Ettiquette = Rules by BTS Official Fan Club on how to interact with/respect BTS.

Whitewashed or Lighting? = Tips on how to tell if a photo is whitewashed or not.

Make Up = What we assume their foundation shade is.

Sunny Yoongi Merch = If you want to support us/wear our stuff.

We also have an "faq" tag you can look into as well.

Restoring

1. What does “Restored” mean? Please check this ask

2. What program do you use to restore? (Tutorial included) We currently only restore on desktop: all admins are using Adobe Lightroom Classic CC, which is a more advanced and professional software. And rarely we would use Photoshop when we need to layer things. We also used to use Photoshop Express for desktop, we made a tutorial for restoring with this application.

When we used to edit on mobile: we used the free app Photoshop Express. You can also use camera360 and facetune. To be honest though, the photos are not going to be as high quality as the ones on desktop and might come out really noisy.

Further help and assistance for restoring: assist tag

3. What kind of process do you go through while restoring? Here is a short explanation of what we analyze in order to restore and here is a post discussing the rules we have to follow during the process.

4. How do you know your restore is accurate? Please refer to this ask.  And this one.

5. Can I restore too if I am not East/Southeast Asian? Not by yourself, no. The reason why is linked to this ask and this ask. If you would still like to restore by submitting your restores to us, please refer to this ask.

6. Can videos be restored? Yes it's possible. We don't do it because it's too much work and a very tedious one. We don't feel that it's very necessary since there are usually other unwhitewashed videos/content available.

7. You're making them too light. You're whitewashing them just the same! Please check this ask. If you have an issue with a certain restore , please politely tell us about it and we will look into it and possibly redo the restore. Don't be a dumbass and wait to the last minute before sending us hate. 

8. I don't think you're doing an accurate job! This ______ restore doesn't look good.  If you have an issue with a certain restore , please politely tell us about it and we will look into it and possibly redo the restore. 

Skintone

1. How do you know what their natural skin tone looks like? Please check this ask.

2. What make up foundation might they wear? Check this page please.

3. How do I know my own undertone ? Check this ask please.

Whitewashing

1. How does a picture get whitewashed? Please check this ask.

2. I don’t know anything about whitewashing / colorism ? Please check our Explanations Page to look for discussions regarding complex topics within whitewashing / colorism / restoring / racism / etc.

3. How are you so sure the pictures are whitewashed? Please refer to this ask.

4. I can’t tell when they have been whitewashed or not? This page might help you.

5. How do you know it’s not just the lighting? Please, check this page.

6. Why do people whitewash? Please refer to this ask.

7. Can videos and gifs be whitewashed? Yes they can. Please check this post.

8. What about just lightening photos? Is it whitewashing as well? Please check this ask.

9. Do the BTS members whitewash themselves too? Yes and no. Please check this ask.

10. Is it possible to whitewash pale skinned individuals? Yes, it is. Please check this ask. 

11. Can pictures be whitewashed accidentally? Yes, they can. It's due to inappropriate camera settings. 

12. Is there a difference between a whitewashed picture and a picture that was edited (brightened) because it originally had bad lighting?

Please check this ask.

About SUNNYOONGI

1. How do I use the search bar? Just type the words you’re looking for, like a member’s name or a tag.You can search on multiple tags just by typing them down separated by the space bar (ex: “taehyung daw” - when looking for restores of taehyung during dark and wild era). Tags for eras are the abbreviations of it’s names, check the Tags Page for all of them.

2. What do all of your “uww” tags mean? UWW is an abbreviation for the word unwhitewashed. So all posts on that tag are considered unwhitewashed or “natural” by the admins.

RUWW = Reblogged Unwhitewashed, unwhitewashed content that we reblogged.

OUWW = Original Unwhitewashed, unwhitewashed content that we posted ourselves on this blog. 

Here is the Tags Page if you need other tags.

3. I’m looking for references that have not been whitewashed/restored? Just use the uww tag or the fansites with the sun symbol or go to @sunkissedbts.

4. Do you have permission from the fansites to edit their content? Hell no. Here is why we won’t reconsider.

At the very least, we will give credit. But we also refuse to link their content. We have only started giving credit recently. We might go back through our old posts and credit old edits, only when we have time to do so if it doesn't halt this blog's activity or our lives.

5. Can you restore selfies/selcas? Sorry, but we won’t restore selfies. Check this post for more info.

6. How many pictures can I submit for restoring? As many as you like! We just ask that you pay attention when submitting the pictures or giving us links so that what you’re giving us is in high definition and not cropped or furthered edited by the fandom (after it was released by the fansite etc).

7. Why haven’t my submissions been posted/ restored yet? Sometimes we take a while to restore them cuz of personal issues and just life in general.There’s always the possibility of Tumblr eating your message. If you submitted a selfie, it won’t be restored.Or if you submitted a Black and White photo or any graphics editing. Unfortunately, not all whitewashed pictures can be decently restored. Sometimes we just can’t undo all the damaging previous editing. Here are examples of photos than we couldn't fix at all. Some pictures actually do not need to be restored even if they might look like they have been whitewashed. In such cases we will post the picture and explain it.

8. Can we use your restores for icons/headers/graphics editing etc? (Plus tips) Yeah, sure! This ask may help regarding how to edit without whitewashing plus additional resources. We are here to spread awareness, provide a safe space, and educate others. We will focus more on the social aspect. Aesthetics or graphics is not our goal. It is up to the individual person on how they want to edit it/crop it. Whether they give credit to us or the fansite is up to the individual’s own choice. We will no longer ask for credits for photos, graphics, or any of our restores. We just ask that others do not whitewash the photos.

9. Do you know about fansites that don’t whitewash? / Any fansites I should stay away from? 85~90% of fansites whitewash. It would be easier to focus on the ones that don’t whitewash rather than the other way around.

Please check our Fansite Compilation Page.

Also please follow@sunkissedbts for fansite/news/official/endorsements photos that are not whitewashed/minimally edited photos.

10. Do you recommend any other restoring/melanin/anti-whitewashing blog(s)? Actually yes, we do. Check in the More Melanin page.

11. Can we know more about the admins of this blog? Despite choosing to remain anonymous for the time being, you can find out some things about us on our About Page and we also take personal asks.

12. Did you call Yoongi ugly? Yes we did, please check this ask. 

13. Are you guys on twitter? We only have personal accounts, nothing sunnyoongi related. You are welcome to share our stuff there if you want!

#faq #mobile faq

[buckaholic]

What program did you find if you don't mind me asking ?

PhotoScape X in the App Store! But I’m not using the full version. I’ve never had Photoshop so I can’t say if this will live up to any sort of expectations you have. I had to use all this free photo editing stuff online before PhotoScape, which kind of limited what I could do.

I’ll put some more information under the cut in case you want to know before downloading it. There’s a tl;dr if you want to skip all of that and a link to what I recently made at the end.

So for instance, if I wanted to cut out a part of an image before, I had to go to a free background burner website in addition to the photo editor website I was already using for banners and such. And even then, what I got wasn’t as clean as I wanted it to be in the end. It was a huge pain in the ass.

If I had an image of say, Steve Rogers and wanted to isolate just him, there’d be leftover bits from the background. I’d zoom in, and make sure there wasn’t any around him, but when I clicked the ‘finish button’ the website’s program or whatever would keep it in no matter how many times I tried.

You can adjust color or whatever, which I’m still playing around with a bit (I’m trying to adjust again. I’m emphasizing that the free stuff I had to use online was slightly more basic than what I’m working with now).

Adding text; can handle most of the fonts that I’ve downloaded over the years with the exceptions of the ones that have a major warning before installation (they just don’t show up if that happens, but rarely occurs)

There are other things under this feature that I’m experimenting with. They’re not major, mostly just neat extras, like layers from the program, images (also good for overlaying whatever you want), etc.

Still getting used to this one, so I can’t say a lot about it.

Okay, okay tl;dr- it comes with a lot of features that I haven’t gotten into yet, but I think that it’s cool, especially since it’s free. I’m sorry if this doesn’t end up being what you’re looking for but these are things that I needed for my stuff (and I can accomplish a lot with them, considering that I had to make-do and find all sorts of creative bypasses/loopholes with the free online websites). Please let me know if this does work out for you though!

If you need a comparison, I made my mobile header with the free online websites (befunky.com, which I’ll be redoing in a couple days or so), and after I downloaded PhotoScape X, I made a desktop header for my side blog yesterday. There’s a huge difference in quality. It won’t let me post picture examples for some reason so I’ll just link them. 

Basically, the Local Garbage mobile header for my main blog is what I used with befunky.com (what you see now), and this is what my desktop header looks like with PhotoScape. It should say A Gateway to Trash

The Trash Bin Blog mobile header for my side blog is also actual shit, so ignore that one because I made that with befunky too, which I’ll be redoing after my Local Garbage one. 

#gabi cries + gabi replies #:') #please let me know if this was of any use! #i'm still trying to figure the program out

[bookcoversalt]

I Fixed it For You: Dark of the West

So this cover was sent to me by multiple people when it was revealed five days ago, on account of it being terrible, but in terms of stuff we cover on this blog, I consider it kind of unique case. It’s bad but it’s not garishly so; it’s fairly, though not entirely, Technically competent, with a straightforward hierarchy, no weird spacing, and photographs that are attractive and highly edited but not too artificial-looking, taken on their own. But all of the individual choices here contradict each other and are executed in a bizzare pastiche of moods, eras, and imagery that is super, super not working together, especially not when we consider the contents of the book. So before we get into my version, we have to like. Break this down. And we’re gonna use numbers.

OVERALL CONCEPT/ COMPOSITION: 2/10

This is a fantasy world war II book. That is extremely marketable. Also it is the year of our lord 2017 and we are gripped by tracked-out type and object covers. Yet this book decides to go with a GIRL IN PROM DRESS RUNNING AWAY FROM SOMETHING AND ALSO NOT LOOKING AT YOU cover like it's 2011, nary a narrative element in sight except the pathetic attempt at planes in the distance that we'll get to in a second. Why??? Did this happen ?????

I want to be clear that I don't hate GIRL IN PROM DRESS covers on principle. They were extremely popular for a while and thus there are many, many examples of them being done badly, and yes, they tend towards the generic, often sort of a cheap bid for visual Romance with minimal reflection of the story itself, BUT ALL THAT SAID, there's a reason they're appealing, and when done well they promise a specific sort of female protagonist oriented drama with a Sexy, often Dark aesthetic. And if you know me, you know I'm all about that. But WHY in the world would you not SELL THE FUCK out of your extremely marketable premise here? WWII planes attacking a fantasy castle is the important imagery, not a generic princess and the twenty-odd miles of wildly unthreatening landscape that stand between us and being interested in this book.

But even if, for some crazy reason, the princess really was the only viable central image for this book, this composition is still stiff and dull. A small lone central figure, paired with oversimplified type and nothing else with any visual weight to speak of, is super fucking boring; there’s also something a little weird about how far inwards everything sits, like it’s afraid of being cropped off?

If I had to say something nice about it overall, there’s a very dreamy, unreal feeling to it-- but not only is it ruined by the type (which I’ll get into) but it feels inappropriate. I want drama from this cover, not dreaminess.

GIRL IN PROM DRESS: 3/10

So setting aside the fact that I take issue with its very presence/ centrality, the image is well-edited, but loses big points for the costume, which looks like something I could pull off a Macy's juniors formalwear rack right this fucking second instead of, i don't know, SOMETHING ANALOGUE 1940S AS IF TO REPRESENT SOMETHING FROM THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOK. I'd forgive it if the dress was at least romantic or super pretty and thus contributing to tone, but it's not; the color isn't complimenting anything else on the cover and the style is more anachronistically modern than anything else.

Points are also lost for the weird contradictory lighting on her-- the backlight on the skirt is TECHNCIALLY correct or close enough to it, since we can see the sun there on her far left, but it's so bright on the bottom half of the dress that it's super distracting, and feels incongruous with the lighting in her face. And that's an easy fix? Just trim the image a little and cut off the tulle? She's clearly not actually embedded in the background. We also know this because of her 40% opacity feet, which, lol:

Also, someone was clearly like ROYALTY IS HOT WE NEED TO GET A CROWN IN THERE so it's... just chillin? I'm not at all against metaphorical imagery or crowns in general, but compositionally it looks silly and tacked-on.

WWII PLANES: 0/10

YOU DIDN'T TRY AT ALL.

I’M LITERALLY SO EMBARRASSED  FOR THIS COVER RIGHT NOW.

PASTORAL LANDSCAPE WITH CASTLE: 5/10

There's nothing wrong with this landscape except some overenthusiastic correction of of the dark values, presumably so it doesn't compete with the girl for attention. This just backfires and makes it overwhelmingly clear that the girl has been pasted on top of it, and turns the potential visual drama of a cloudy sunset into a sort of vague murky pastel thing that makes me want to take a nap. Other than that, this would look lovely on some other less terrible book cover.

TITLE TYPOGRAPHY: 2/10

When I said this cover is mostly Technically competent, this (and the planes) is the exception. This is the saddest attempt at grunge texture I've ever seen in my life. It's so depressing I want to start a nonprofit for it. Please attend my charity gala so that this poor plain type can afford to look properly distressed and not like someone blotted a dishwater-soaked tissue on the corners.

But regardless of the texture, heavy photomanips in particular need a strong typographic hand to tie them together tonally, so it is a massive disappointment to have such WILDLY generic letterforms taking up HALF OF THE COVER. It literally looks like a mockup, a quick comp just to demonstrate the idea to the creative director and you'll actually go back and use a REAL font and REAL grunge effects later, but oops, you forgot to edit it before it went to the printer. Also, what's with that color? If you want it to look gold, use a metallic effect or a texture. This is just ORANGE. At least it could have been the red of the dress and then something would have worked together?????

Additional Design Elements: 4/10

Inoffensive but WEAK use of Flourishes and dividing lines. Author name sitting on a weird place on the girl; why the choice not to nudge it down to hide the weird foot I called out earlier?

Overall median score: Bad, needed fixing.

Now we can talk about my design.

I don’t want to make this post much longer, so I won’t go too in depth in defending it, but it’s not immune to the inherent cheesiness of vast photomanip landscapes. That said, I went a lot Deeper than I generally do for fixes because I knew that somewhere, deep down, was a good composition waiting to be unearthed, and i totally think it was worth the effort. 

Focus is split almost equally between FLEEING (?) PRINCESS and the planes attacking the castle, with vast differences in depth generating interest and the overall composition sloping upwards, creating energy and a sense of action. The type had to be something heavy and solid enough to carry a grown-ass grunge texture (because i was determined to show how it should be done), but whimsical enough to keep us within the realm of princessey fantasy, and I added the floruishes on either side to that effect too. (the only Caveat to this redo is that I didn’t intentionally do away with the idea of the girl in a pricess dress, I just couldn’t find any images that worked, and this girl’s grungey jacket ends up suiting the mood, so.)

And I made it, uh, Dark. Because it’s in the title. it just seemed obvious.

Moral of the story: don’t forget the full potential of your type, lean into the inherent artificial nature of photomanip landscapes to max out your composition, and for fuck’s sake, don’t use pixellated planes.

If you like what I do on bookcoversalt, consider buying me a coffee?

#bookcoversalt #book cover design #graphic design #critique #Ko-Fi

[eclairbrun]

Scrivener 3 Upgrade Thoughts

(I’ll stop posting about it after this. Probably.)

Tbh my main thought is that this program would be easier if I didn’t use Scriv 1. The UI is mostly the same, but that just makes it more jarring to encounter a change.

Anyway, here’s my two cents for anyone like me who was thinking of upgrading but didn’t do it instantly. This is Windows version, btw. Apple got it earlier, so if you like overpriced computers designed to break in a couple years and also use scriv, you probably already upgraded.

Editor

It’s now easier to adjust to standard page width without messing with everything else at the same time. There’s also an option for a straight-up page view, which I never saw in old scriv, although I might have missed it. If I were still adapting from MS Word I think I would have loved that, but I’m kinda used to not seeing each new sheet of paper my story takes up at this point. So it’s neat that they added the option, but I’m not using it.

Indentation is no longer an option in line spacing. The only way I’ve found to edit it is add a ruler in your view dropdown menu and mess with the ruler markers. If the ruler were visible by default that would be fine, and I don’t need this adjustment often, since it’s only typically when making templates for my atlas that I deviate from my presets, but I think this is less intuitive than having the option in the main formatting menu.

On the other hand, bullet points seems way less buggy now. Tables are still a headache to get fancy with, but I basically only use them for drafting an outline and that doesn’t require fancy. I only even checked if they changed at all for the purposes of this post.

There’s also now a tracked changes feature of sorts, but it’s weaker than MS Words. Added changes are automatically in a different color, but it doesn’t seem to track deletions. Getting it to accept changes and convert them to default text color also took me a couple tries. I’m going to keep experimenting with it, but for now it seems more like a for-fun feature than a seriously useful one. Without the ability to see deletions, I would still rather send word files if I let someone else edit, so I could catch if they deleted something I want to keep..

Themes

I just really, really love this. None of the themes are perfect, but they change the colors of everything when setting customization in old scriv was limited in what it could hit. There’s dark themes and colored themes that create a lower level of contrast. The dark modes in particular I find to be a godsend. I still mostly use a lighter setting, but dark on days I’m sick makes me less inclined to puke. (I’m not being hyperbolic, so we’re clear. I am very migraine-prone but still hold myself to writing goals on bad days. Dark mode really really really helps when I’m photosensitive.)

I haven’t taken the time yet to look at all the additional customization options, but I plan to sit down on my next day off to toggle settings and create some personalized, low-contrast light and dark themes

Project Targets

I don’t know how many people use this feature, but as someone with a daily word goal this feature making it easier to track words written was the thing that convinced me to make the switch to scrivener in the first place, albeit not the reason I stuck with it. (I bought scriv on sale on a whim and then let it sit for half a year before noticing it had this feature.) I have not yet encountered the glitch where hitting reset sends the count into the negative, but I can’t say for certain that it’s gone.

Targets comes with way more options now. You can set session count to reset on its own under different circumstances, not track if you go into the negative, 

Other than that, there’s a visual change that it now switches from color A to color B the moment you cross your goal, instead of the gradient shift as you got closer. It’s not a functionality change, but it still popped out to me.

Project Notes

They’re gone.

They’ve been replaced with a bookmark feature, which is slightly less intuitive imo. It takes more setup, but once you have it set up it’s roughly the same, except you can’t see the document’s index card while looking at project bookmarks. I guess they changed it because it was easier to do some sort of “open documents in the side bar” thing than it was to make project notes searchable.

There is an option for both document bookmarks and project bookmarks, while document notes is still a thing. If you’re especially type A, that would be a great way to link specific reference notes to scenes that use that info. I, for one, am not about to organize my already once-revised novel to that end, but since I do have an atlas of sorts in my project files, it seems like it could be handy for that. You can change the colors, at least. I switched the “goal not met” color to something a little less pleasant. Failure to reach a goal should not be a pleasant color.

Incidentally, a lot of the visual feel more apple-y to me now. Just an aside.

Toolbar

Mostly the changes seem visual, tbh. Icons are simplified mobile-app style and much smaller. Search options are a little higher powered, but slightly more annoying to back out of. Mass replacing words in a project is a little easier to find now, as it is built into the search options rather than hidden in a different setting.

Spellcheck

Still the main black mark on the program. Missing lots of real words still, including some mainstays that a fantasy writer will want.

They didn’t implement the one feature I would have most wanted in an update either, which is to check for if you typo’d in a way that gave you a real word. It will catch things that aren’t words, but still can’t tell if you used too when you wanted to like MS word does.

Compile

So far, I like it less. I think it’s more powerful, and I’ll probably like it once I’m used to it, but I currently hate it. It has way more options, but a lot of them are options I don’t need and ultimately make things feel cluttered, and I generally find the layout changes less intuitive. If you’re not used to the old version, then the editing options aren’t that hard to find, but I was so thrown off by them not being where I was used to that I initially thought I only had the option for a few preset looks. Although it is now much easier to edit how your project title and author name appear in the final compile. I like to put entire series in one project folder so I don’t have to cross-reference projects for character notes, magic rules, etc. and it was always easier in the past to just let the drafts I loaded onto my phone all have the series name rather than the individual book titles, so I like being able to easily adjust this.

There’s more stuff to edit, but less guiderail to let you know where all those changes take effect, I’ve actually given up on trying to feel it out. It auto-loaded my presets from a project I compiled on old scriv so I just tweaked the font size on those and called it a day. I simply cannot create a new custom set from scratch. I had to look up a few codes for old scriv too, but I think I’m going to actually sit down and read the tutorial on this one when I have the time and patience.

That being said, you now have the ability to save multiple compile settings as personal customizations and access them across all projects. So once I get the settings right, that’s mean no more redoing them over and over for each new project. It also comes with some defaults for different types of projects, including a standard manuscript format that I will definitely not be using for sharing my story with friends and family, but that will be handy for querying.

#clair's corner #scrievener

[topicprinter]

Some Infos:Always liked making money growing up like selling chocolate bars in school and so on. Tried lots of things so far like multiple T-Shirt selling attempts, affiliate websites and that kind of stuff. Never made much money besides a few good weeks of flipping mainly drop shipped on amazon or fulfilled by amazon but I discontinued due to time/scaleability but I will explain that at the end for people who are interested. Funny enough while I focused on youtube my few months old March by Amazon account finally made my first sale. Sold 3 of the same shirt all others got taken down due to no sales.Youtube Background:Started youtube super early when most people didn't know what it was. Had a channel with over a 1000 subscribers back when it was a big deal lmao. Had the opportunity to be one of the first youtube partners in my country but parents looked at me like I am crazy and of course didn't sign for me so yeah would have probably made them some good money considering how much it paid back then. Fast forward lots of projects, copyright issues and youtube updates later I had lots of channels mostly alone some with others but never made money or got successful. I blame some of it on my parents and some on all the things youtube would take years to accept in out country like uploading thumbnails I mean wtf.Anyways I created the channel of this case study around 3 years ago in hopes of launching a big projects thats still in the works and fits the content so yay. Uploaded a ton of videos on there to try stuff out and ended up deleting everything. At one point I had over 100 short videos uploaded and planned with finished descriptions and everything but scraped the whole idea after a few releases. Will explain why down below. So 8 months ago or so I uploaded the first video I wouldn't delete later. Posted it here and there and it got 30k views Then 3 months ago after some trail and error I uploaded the next video which was the same thing only over an hour long with much more information and everything. It took days of work just in researching and days to edit. Should have counted the hours but I just came home everyday and worked on it for a few hours for over two weeks I think. Tried send traffic from the older video and did my best with reddit and so on. The work paid off lots of people thanked me for the effort and worked its way up to 100k views which got me really excited. Still one of my better videos now sitting around 300k. Since then I uploaded over 25 videos.Stats:Subscribers 2k+ Views 3M+ Videos 25+Had 25 inactive subs from experimenting then took for ever to grow to 50 from there around 1 a day for a while until the spike of the 100k video that gave me +100 subscribers in a day. At some point it finally started growing constantly and had some good spikes in the third month.Income:Month 1: 90 Month 2: 290 Month 3: 1400Started while the whole YouTube Add boycott was going on and at some point between the end of month 1 & the middle of month 2 (not exactly sure analytics are very inaccurate n youtube for small channels and for example estimated income was accurate the first time in the third month) my income dropped to 0 for weeks not sure how much money I lost. Overall I heard income is good 30% down since then so I broke $1000+ a month while every freaking youtuber cried for money and started donation accounts.Estimated Month 4: 1200 Had several really good performing videos last month and it will be hard topping that this month unless my next video will proof me wrong but I am sure I will get a new record in month 5 since almost every video makes constant money in addition to the spike in the first week or two of the upload and its really starting to ad up. Also got some good videos planed.Subscribers:Now 3M views and only 2k subscribers seems like a really bad conversion rate but YouTube is confusing in that sense. The more subscribers and views you get the easier it is to get them. Getting to 100 almost feels impossible at first then 1000 seems doable but takes for ever and then it actually starts growing and around 10.000 is the sweet spot where you finally made it. People start commenting about how big you are gonna get and how glad they are that they are here before the hype. Its like once you get more subscriber people actually take you serious even though the content was always just as good like when people wait in line just because the line is so long and that means the food must be good.Video Upload Amount:When starting out focus on nothing but quality videos. Otherwise people find your channel with 100s of videos and no subscribers or views and are overwhelmed with where to start watching. They also see the bad stats and assume your content must suck. I could go a lot more in depth if you are interested but for example look at gamers or vloggers with 100s of episodes and no views and if you klick on lets say episode 257 its just some random dude filming him self eating or silently running trough a dessert in Minecraft and within a minute you klick on a recommended video or leave youtube. But if someone finds your channel and you have 10 videos but all are amazing the viewer it tempted to subscribe since he likes the content but ran out of material to watch. Thats the main reason why I rather upload a few times maybe even just once a week but get share worthy high quality content with 100k views then daily uploads which would help in seo terms but are just not doable for most people if you keep the quality. Also daylight uploads are much more effective if you wait until you have a subscribers base thats waiting and actively asking for it.Thumbnails:Thumbnails are everything they must be easy to understand like one clear picture of something explaining the video. Random example if you make a video about cows you use a clear picture of a cow or a glass of milk. Don't use text for 99% or your thumbnails because its not eye catching, you already have the title for that and its hard to read since on mobile for example the time stamp at the right corner covers usually the last few digits so yeah. I know some successful channels always use text but they are either really god at making them or are already successful enough for other rains then their thumbnails.Video length:I found that 3 minute videos get really well shared but longer content is more impressive, helps with watch time, pays more and people have more time to go to the comment section and stuff. Two of my best videos are over an hour long. Also youtube favors over 10 min videos since adds before after the video.Description box:I still play around with it but I try to make a catching and seo friendly first sentence and I often advertise my others videos. I also try to rephrase the title and add additional informations.Tags:My main tags that bring viewers are really simple ones but longer ones usually and really well on youtube.Annotations:I don't use it since soon gone.Cards:New version of annotations. Mobile friendly. I don't use them on all my videos since I put a lot of effort in them and I don't want to dissect the viewer with popping up cards or asking for likes or anything.End Cards:Use them on all my videos and its nice to send some traffic to other videos but regarding the analytics only a few % of views come from them so its debatable how important they are. I always fit them in with music of the video and stuff so its more engaging and people don't mind it.Making additional money:At first I didn't do anything like affiliate links since I don't want my subscribers to think I just made the channel for money. Lately I placed some links in the description without mentioning it in the video in any form and still got some clicks but no sales. One of those links was to my Merch shirt but also no sales. Will definitely redo my designs and think about fitting products for the affiliate links and add them back in at some point. Maybe I will do a Teespring campaign for special videos or something but like I said its more important to grow the channel then to make some extra cash and risking to make the growth harder.Competitors and Stolen Videos:People already re uploading my videos without giving credit. Left comments on the ones I found and claimed copyright on some. Youtube took them down within a few days.Copyright and Age Restrictions:Had one video flagged for non advertising friendly (yt update since ad boycott) but dispute got accepted within a few hours I think. Had someone threaten to sue me for using a few seconds of material in my longest video. I offered links in the description, in the video and end cards but apparently some people rather fight then get free advertisement all over a several hundred thousand views video. Literally seconds out of an hour. Deleted the clips with the youtube editor without taking it down so kept all the stats. Recent video got copyrighted for the same thing I used in a different video which didn't get copyrighted. Did some research and found out its probably a scam youtube network and I claimed a dispute but no answer yet. Luckily I didn't release it yet but no Idea how they can flag my private video without owning the content but I have to figure that out. Ended up deleting it and uploading it again later without problems.Water Marks:I don't really use one like some people where its always in the corner or something but I place it here and there if that makes sense. Only really big ones protect against stealing it fairly well but I think they suck for the viewers. My videos are supposed to be like movies and do you want to have a giant Warner Brothers Water Mark when watching a movie? Small ones can be ok if they are well made but they get covered by the peoples water marks who steal the videos so they won't help. Depending on the content they can make it seem professional and so on but anyways moving on.All about the Money?I always enjoyed making videos way before I made a cent with it and still do so its confusing because I still somehow feel like I would lie if I say I don't do it for the money. I mean additional 1000 a month is huge for me so its definitely a factor. Its a hobby that makes money so I would be stupid to not do it. I don't know.Goals:Keep income at constant $1000+ Make $2000+ within a month. Start using my website in combination with my videos. Reach 10.000 Subscribers Get enough videos pre made and planed. Get the few low performing videos above 10.000 views. Find more good copyright free music. Keep improving editing. Figure out the best way to deal with re uploads.The Amazon FBA & Drop Shipping Bonus Story:I always sold stuff I no longer used or could randomly get really cheap in person or on ebay. At some point started using amazon. Much later I started using FBA and I was basically exploiting a market which was extremely low completion on amazon. After the first good week I already got a spike in competitors and by now it went from thousands of percent margins close to nothing. One of my best sellers sometimes cost me $3 and I sold it it for $40 and for a while I sold several of those a say so that was exciting. I typed in the main keyword in to amazon, sorted all items by highest price first and listed every single product from over 100 amazon pages. Did all of it without any plugins or tools besides something that could grab the ean number by clicking on the product forgot the name. Main reasons why I stopped was several things. First competitors became a problem because some where undercutting prices insanely like dropping the $40 bestseller to $7 so yeah. (Funny thing it was a collectors niche so selling them that cheap is just stupid because you cant just order lots of them like you could with alibaba stuff.) Second the site I mainly used to buy and drop ship everything was huge but I still created price spikes with my best sellers so I could run out any time. Third my country doesn't have its own Amazon domain like .com so we don't have FBA shipping discounts and other things which would help immensely since international shipping depending on the amazon fertility gets expensive. Fourth it was extremely time consuming I mean if I edit a video for a few hours plus respond to people and stuff it also take a while but the video can make 100s or even thousands of dollars and keeps making profit and getting views every day and the growth of the channel pays of immensely over time. Feels much more useful then researching and listing products all day and connately fight competitors with pricing and all that stuff. Overall it was still extremely worth it since I learned a lot and had a ton of fun making significant money online for the first time while being kinda broke that time. I will definitely come out with my own products at some point and chances are high I will use FBA to distribute them.TLDR: Started focusing on youtube and made $1000+ while add boycott was going on and everyone was crying for donations and acted like the world would end. Reached 3M vies and 2K subscribers. Had experience but learned a lot.

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