#i'm still testing tumblr's limits to gifs

[wolfes]

NEW EDITOR 101: A GUIDE FOR GIFMAKERS by v @shangs

Hi friends! I know I said I would do this way back in April/May when this change was announced but I've been massively busy lately so thank you all for being patient with me :)

Based on the results of this poll, I will be trying my level best to help make a guide for gifmakers to best deal with any problems that have been present with the new editor. However, it's worth noting that I have personally not experienced any of these problems myself and I have no record of any problems from other people that I could send to staff and get guidance on, so for some of these issues I will unfortunately be a broken record.

That being said, I have been using the new editor for a few months now and it hasn't been too bad. So don't be discouraged by the new editor if you still love to make gifs and share them. You may need to adapt a bit, but it's doable!

This is meant to be comprehensive and will be explanation and image heavy. Full guide under the cut.

CONTENTS:

What is the new editor?

Steps to take before posting

Making a post

Troubleshooting

01. WHAT IS THE NEW EDITOR?

Some of you may be asking yourselves what the point of the new editor even is and why it's being implemented in the first place when we already had a (mostly) functional editor. My very limited understanding of it as a CS student is app compatibility and flexibility. I'm not totally clear on the details nor am I 100% certain this is the case, but NPF posts (basically, posts made with the "new editor") first started with the mobile app. I'm unsure if the different post types were simply too unwieldy to transfer to the app - having to make a whole bunch of post types when with the new editor you can now have posts with any elements you want without the rigidity of a set post type - or if it was simply not able to be implemented, but the apps have always used NPF. The majority of Tumblr users are coming from the mobile apps. Then it became a case of having the legacy editor for the web users (which were fewer in number) and the new NPF editor for everyone else. That takes resources to keep around and it's pretty inefficient. Naturally the older editor that was used by less people was going to get the axe, especially since you couldn't tell on mobile that there was even a difference between NPF or legacy posts.

So now here we are and the posts are NPF. This means they're in "Neue Post Format." Basically, every post you make is by default a text post, containing "blocks" of other media - as gifmakers we will primarily be dealing with photos.

I understand that it's frustrating to many to see "our gifs are now rendered as text posts" and ask WHY it's happening when photos should logically be rendered as photo posts - but the fact is, there's now no real delineation between a "text post" and a "photo post." The reason NPF posts are now "text posts" is because that's how they are rendered for desktop themes, not because everyone is going to see your post as text and your gifs are going to be compressed into the quality of a potato (though I know some have seen this issue - more on that later.)

02. STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE POSTING

The long and short of it is that you may have to update your theme. More detail here for those who are interested, but check that your theme supports "new editor posts" or "NPF posts" AND that this is true for original posts (you can read more about why in this ask and, although this may be a bit time-consuming, test it out on your blog). I can say with certainty that my second theme Cygnus supports original NPF posts. This is NOT true of my first theme, though.

You can try to add the NPF Fix by @glenthemes to your own theme (beware if you don't know HTML/CSS) or try this tip by @burningblake for original posts.

Feel free to add theme makers with fully NPF-compatible themes in the notes! I have been happily using my own theme so I can't say to what degree others' themes are NPF-friendly.

03. MAKING A POST

If you're sticking around to post on the new editor and you have trouble ordering your gifs around, here's a little guide on how to post.

If I click on "Photo" from web and open up the editor, here's how it looks:

I went ahead and added three full-width gifs and the editor put them in like so:

You'll most likely also have to order your gifs around in the way you want them. You can go ahead and hover over your gifs to see the button to orient them (the four dots in the top left corner) and the button for an image description (the three dots in the bottom right corner). I've attached images of all three below:

If you hold the orientation button, move your gif around until you see the blue line that shows where your gif will end up in the spot that you want it. For example, I wanted to move the second gif below the first one, so I oriented it so that the blue line would show the marker between the two gifs:

Now my gifs are oriented nicely! Of course, this is a simpler layout, but the principles still hold.

If you save your gifs as a draft and reopen them or you just notice a large gap like this in between your gifs when you're in the editor, don't worry.

This will not show up in dash view or on a desktop theme that supports original NPF posts. For example, this is how the gifs' gap (without modification) looked in my desktop theme:

With your gifs ordered, the final step is to add alt text. You can read more about alt text and why you should use it here. (Feel free to ignore the sections about the captions on the legacy editor since it is no longer relevant. It's also unnecessary to clearly mark descriptions if they're not in the caption of your post because they will clearly show up under "ALT" on Tumblr.)

If you click the three dots in the bottom right corner as seen above, and click "update image description:"

You can add the description you like and click "update." Your photos' alt text will show up under the "ALT" bubble on Tumblr. This is generally a good practice to get into to make your content more accessible, so I hope you guys will consider using alt text regularly :)

Also, I've noticed that in the editor, if you go back and edit something it will take some time to show up. You may have to refresh the page or load it again after some time, but your edits should be there. I would not go back and edit posts again if you see your posts haven't shown up. I also advise against editing your posts on mobile because it's easier to make a mistake.

And there you go, you've successfully made a post with the new editor!

04. TROUBLESHOOTING

I'm sure you've all been waiting for this. Unfortunately I am probably going to be extremely unhelpful if the editor hasn't been refined in the last few months for those experiencing issues. I'm going to go in the categories that I listed out in my original poll, but keep in mind that I haven't personally seen any of these issues on my end so I haven't been able to contact staff with any evidence that this happened other than my poll.

Dashboard view quality issues: I haven't noticed this issue. I'm not sure if this has been fixed since the original poll was posted. If you're experiencing this issue, this is not something I know how to fix so I would contact staff with screenshots of the issue.

Desktop theme side padding: As noted before, this is a theme issue. If you change themes to something that is NPF-compatible with original posts, there shouldn't be any more issues here.

Small gifs on mobile: In my experience this was happening regardless of what editor was used; it's a bug that seems to have been fixed since this poll was created. If you're still experiencing it, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would advise contacting staff.

New editor doesn't accept gifs of size 9.8MB < x < 10MB: I haven't experienced this issue so I would say the only workaround would be to either trim the size of your gif so that it is under 9.8MB or whatever threshold seems to be the cutoff or contact staff (I am so sorry for constantly having to suggest this 😭 unfortunately there's no trick I can offer because the new editor has been taking all my gifs just fine)

Logistical issues ordering gifsets: I hope this guide has been able to answer the majority of questions and shed some light on some of the more buggy behaviors of the new editor, but if you have any more specific questions you can feel free to shoot me an ask!

HTML issues / colored text: Unfortunately it seems colored text may be deprecated entirely? This could be for accessibility purposes because I believe screen readers would read out every single letter of gradient text in captions which I imagine can get quite frustrating for users of this technology. I recommend just using the normal rich text editor. If you want small text, you can highlight and click the <s> button!

Other: If it seems like something I may be able to answer, please feel free to ask me. Otherwise... hound staff 😭

Here's where you can hound staff, btw. If you're having major issues I would advise you guys to submit support tickets. That way if there are any widespread bugs, staff will hopefully be able to fix them.

I hope this guide was helpful to you guys in dealing with the new editor, and happy giffing <3

#gif tutorial #new editor tutorial #completeresources #userphotoshop #resourcemarket #userrobin #userbells #arthurpendragonns #ughmerlin #userbecca #usersameera #usermarsy #alielook #tuserlucie #tutorial

[twig-tea]

Top 5 Couple Fights

Oooooooh this is fun! Thank you for a relatively easy category because so often the fights in these shows are unearned and it is very frustrating. I'm still limiting myself to 2023!

Wen and Alan, Moonlight Chicken

This fight felt real, it felt lived in, and it felt heartbreaking even though we only saw some of it. These two men love each other, but love isn't enough to keep them together, and that realization is as heartbreaking as the fight itself.

My Personal Weatherman

I am obsessed with the fights in My Personal Weatherman because the characters often don't know they're in one, or are in two different fights at the same time. This is all tied to how much I love how well the miscommunication is done in this show. These fights are legible based on what we know about these characters and what they've seen, even when they're completely unnecessary, and I adore that. Of course the best one is the ending fight and not just because Segasaki ties up Yo's wrists in his shirt.

Jack O'Frost

[Not enough gifs of this actual fight and I need to finish this list so this is what you get]. The fight at the very start of this show escalated so quickly, at first I wasn't sure about it even while I appreciated the performances and the intimate way it was shot. But when we get the backstory and we finally understand how much has been withheld and said vs. not said between them, and where their anxieties were rooted and the source of these big feelings, this fight makes so much more sense. This is a show that really benefits from being watched more than once.

La Pluie

[for some reason tumblr is giving me this link to Shan's blog rather than @liyazaki so tagging you, friend!]

Patts was pushed and pushed and pushed, and he lashed out in his insecurity, and when he asked for reassurance (this lineeee) Saengtai refused to give it to him and instead lashed out out of his own insecurity. This was a painful fight that was fully earned; all of the characters and their choices were legible even as they were infuriating. And it led to a critical awakening of Saengtai who was so caught up in his own sad boy narrative he hadn't realized how much he was hurting everyone around him.

My Beautiful Man S2

Kiyoi and Hira's communication issues continuing past S1 is very believable. I said elsewhere that Hira's work on his self-worth is more like a spiral than a straight line and that's very relatable and realistic. Kiyoi being hurt by Hira not valuing Kiyoi's feelings was such an important lesson for Hira to get more than once. Again, so earned, and resulted in the characters self-reflecting and moving a little closer to whatever a healthy relationship means for these two lol

Laws of Attraction

How much do I Love Tinn seeing right through Charn and Charn being big mad at him for Perceiving him so well? All of their fights are so good because they're about boundaries and mutual respect at their core, and they actually listen to one another and are based on how well they know one another (rather than what so often happens, when the characters seem to forget who the person they're in love with actually is). This barely counts as fight but I love it and it's my list so it stays.

Bonus entry that's only for me (shh stop counting the above):

Mr. Cinderella S2

Nobody but me and like 2 other people watched this show, but I'm actually obsessed with the couple fight in Mr. Cinderella s2 so thank you for the chance to rant about it on main some more. I need to start by saying: this plot is ridiculous and the ending sucks. But within this show, Dung and Khoa have an established relationship that has been tested in S1 and is being tested harder in S2, and to a point, they actually stand together and weather the storm, and it was rewarding to watch. And then slowly everything happening ("everything" here being an ABSURD amount of melodrama) starts to wear on Khoa, who sees himself as the one solely responsible for everything, and he unlearns some of what he learned in s1, he stops relying on Dung as his support, stops telling Dung what's going on because he doesn't want to burden him, and stops trusting Dung's word about what is happening. And so, when the jealousy plot hits, it's actually believable that Dung would be mad at Khoa, not for cheating, but for not respecting Dung as a partner in their relationship. It's well done, I wish so much that it were in a better show so that I could actually recommend anyone watching (I don't). I've seen this trope (assumed cheating) done so badly and so unearned in so many shows, this was so refreshing.

Extra bonus: Best couple fight scene of all time?

Gameboys S2

[I give up on gifs of this scene; have them upset for other reasons instead!]

What I love about the way they fight in this show is that, beyond it being earned etc. etc., the dialogue is so raw. They repeat themselves, they just yell over one another, they get rude, they try saying something to de-escalate and it gets worse instead. This is not a carefully crafted speech, or a single perfectly delivered devastating line; this is raw emotion. I recognize this fight, I've been in this fight, this is what I sound like when I fight lol And we see them really fight at least twice, and the way they fight in ep8 has changed as a result of the earlier fight is also SO good.

#2023 round-ups #bl meta #multi bl #thank you for the ask! #this one was very fun #i got close to actually being good about following the rules on this one...sort of #moonlight chicken #my personal weatherman #taikan yoho #jack o'frost #la pluie #my beautiful man s2 #utsukushii kare #laws of attraction #mr cinderella s2 #twig talks #gameboys s2 #i feel very strongly that a fight needs to be about the characters as they are and where they need to be in order to work as a couple #and so many shows regress their characters in a fight in order to be able to have a fight and resolution #rather than letting the characters actually grow and mature #anyway I have strong opinions about fights and they're rarely done well lol

[multifandomtrashwritings]

Pros & cons of laboratory mishaps (Pt.1)

Dottore x Fem! Reader (NSFW in future)

I've tried to keep reader as vague as possible, but she's bisexual (for the fem segment) and her hair is longer than Dottore's. Also uses a dendro delusion.

A/N: Does anyone whose into Genshin also have an interest in BBC's Merlin? Because the whole premise of this fic is the troupe of 'magically feeling each other's touches' that is common over there griping me by the throat and shouting 'Dottore'. This part is also mainly intro stuff since Tumblr has a word limit... But I'm posting the smaller second bit with this anyways :)

If there was one thing your time at the Fatui had taught you, it was that you could never anticipate what life would throw at you. When you’d first signed up (mostly out of necessity) and were given a shiny new dendro delusion you could’ve never predicted that it would lead to becoming close with the infamous second harbinger. And yet here you were, regularly meeting with either Dottore himself or one of his many segments to have various tests taken to try and work out why your delusion didn’t drain your life force no matter how much you used it. And more importantly, how to replicate this ‘fluke’ you’d experienced. It was once such routine meeting that set off a chain of events so bizarre, you’re sure only those involved would believe, a chain that led to perhaps the most confusing relationship status one could have.

Ever since you’d discovered that your delusion didn’t drain your life force like they did your comrades you’d been transferred from being a generic recruit serving under whoever had menial tasks at any particular time to working pretty much directly under Lord Dottore himself. At first the decision terrified you, you’d heard the other new recruits’ gossip about how they’d prefer to work under any harbinger but Dottore and the horror stories many brought back whenever someone was unlucky enough to be assigned to the rare instance of Dottore needing a recruit’s help, or more accurately Dottore’s assistants requesting extra help. You’d never been lucky (Or unlucky) enough to have experienced such things firsthand, but it’s all that you could think of as you nervously made your way through the basement level of Zapolyarny Palace with your pathetically small duffle bag of belongings.

Despite your concerns your first meeting with the harbinger went quite well, or rather what you’d at first assumed was the harbinger and later learnt was in fact a segment, Beta to be precise. Beta was the most ‘normal’ of the bunch, having the most social awareness and least extreme emotions. For the first week you only ever saw Beta, and whenever there wasn’t a need for any samples from you, you were pretty much free to do what you liked. As long as you kept up your training to continue to monitor how your delusion reacted to increasing strength.

And that was the routine you settled into happily, spending at least half a day everyday training and stopping by the lab pretty much every other day for someone to take some blood or stick some sensors on you and monitor various things. At first you only ever delt with Beta, and that was fine since the rumors could very well be true about the ‘real’ Dottore and you were happy to stay in your bubble with the relatively nice segment. After a few weeks though you were introduced to another segment. This one was more like what you’d feared, Delta’s mood changed as quick as the snow pelted the palaces windows, and the moon-like mask he wore only served to exaggerate his crazed smiles and intense eyes. Still, Delta wasn’t unbearable, and you soon worked out that playing to his ego was a guaranteed way to make any encounter with him almost pleasant.

The next segment you met was on accident, after you went out to the training grounds later in the day than you normally would due to a snowstorm. You were met with a small child with a familiar mop of mint blue hair and distinct glowing earring sitting in the snow making a crude snowman. The young segment couldn’t be any older than 10 years old and watched you train intently. After you’d finished and were sitting on a bench to enjoy the gardens while you caught your breath he approached you slowly, introducing himself as Epsilon and bombarding you with questions about your delusion and fighting style, having heard about your unique situation from the other segments. From then on Epsilon had decided he liked you, and often watched you train, eventually convincing you to become an informal mother figure for him, which you were hesitant to do since who knows what the actual Dottore would think of it, but Epsilon was persuasive, and you never heard anything after he started regularly spending time in your small quarters with you.

After Epsilon you met the last few segments all at once, due to them all being in the lab when you’d gone in for your weekly blood test. There were four segments milling around the lab, doing various things and you took a moment to observe them as you tried to decide who you were supposed to be asking to take your blood. There was a segment dressed in a outfit clearly reminiscent of the Sumeru Akademiya’s scholars robes, who you later learned was Alpha, a similar looking segment with more travelling style gear called Gamma, a tall segment noticeably much older than the rest with a distinct beaked mask over his eyes and a very complicated looking outfit called Omega and the last one made you do a double take, it was a woman (a quite beautiful woman your bisexual heart told you) but still clearly a segment who you learnt was called Xi. Omega had taken your blood that day and mentioned something in passing about ‘Prime’ who you assumed was the real Dottore wanting to meet you himself at some stage. His words made you worried, but not as much as when you first learnt you’d be working under him, after all Omega was supposedly the closest in age to Dottore and he was nice enough, if a bit awkward at actually conversing with you on personal level, and you were sure he wouldn’t be worse than Delta, who over time had come to tolerate you, bestowing you with the very friendly nickname of his ‘favourite test subject’.

The day you met Dottore you’d had no time to mentally or physically prepare yourself, having been expecting to see Beta or Alpha you’d trudged down to the lab in your pyjamas after waking up late due to a headache. Swinging the lab door open without really looking inside you only realized something was different when no one scolded you for wearing your pyjama shirt into the lab, since apparently it was more difficult for them to pull the sleeves up enough to draw blood since it was so thick and had nice long sleeves. Glancing around the lab to see where the segments were only to realize there were none and instead at the desk in the centre of the lab, the one none of the segments ever used was unmistakably the real Dottore. He was leaned over the desk writing something, and his hair was mostly similar to Omega’s just a bit longer and quite messy. He wore a long lab coat, and it was fully buttoned up so you couldn’t make out what he was wearing underneath, but as you approached slowly he looked up and noticed you making you freeze for a second before forcing yourself to continue approaching. As you stopped just in front of his desk he gave you a quick once over, and you cursed yourself for not bothering to change into more presentable clothing, you may have gotten comfortable with the segments but this was the actual harbinger! And your first meeting at that. To your relief though he doesn’t comment nor seem to have any reaction to your clothing choice, just motioning you over to a stool and silently drawing the few vials that was always taken for analysis. Afterwards though he spoke to you for the first time, his voice recognizable as similar to the segments, but also completely unique. “I intend to move on to testing the effects of some potions on yourself and your delusion. I expect you to prepare yourself to make observations round the clock when the time comes.” He says, his voice smooth, but noticeably tired. You nod quickly, not wanting to annoy the harbinger and he dismisses you, letting you hurry out of the lab and continue with your day.

#dottore x reader #dottore x fem!reader #dottore x y/n #genshin x reader #dottore x you #genshin dottore #il dottore #genshin imagines #genshin impact

[breachverse]

Breach: Chicago War Zone - WIP Update 15 - 20th of March 2023

… After some rough few patches, I did it. A bit later than I had hoped, but, I did it!

Update 15 has been released! Chapter 2 Part 2 for both routes have started all the way up to the first chance of a downtime. The hangouts for Hayne and Justin are available for the Archangel route, and the hangouts for Salazar, Rook and Bishop are available for the FBI route.

Breach: Chicago War Zone (Updated)

DEVELOPMENT LOG#15 (20-March-2023) (B2.1.1.23.03.6)

Alpha - 15

Bugs? Squashed. Typos? Fixed. Grammar? Corrected. Hotel? Trivago.

Added Justin's 1st hangout

Added Salazar's 1st Hangout

Added Rook and Bishop's 1st Hangout

Added HK MP5K

Added Mateba Autorevolver

Added Styer MP9

Added Colt Python

Tweaked hangout counters

Alpha - 15.5

Removed redundant choices

ARC route Fixed drop errors in C2P1

Longer Barrels now add damage to your weapon

Shorter Barrels now reduce damage to your weapon

Added Tavor TAR-21

Added MTs-255

W.I.P.: Chapter 2 Part 2 of The AA branch (23%) W.I.P.: Chapter 2 Part 2 of The FBI branch (23%) W.I.P.: AA Hangout Part 1 (26%) W.I.P.: AA Store system (75%) W.I.P.: FBI Hangout Part 1 (23%) W.I.P.: FBI Store system (65%) W.I.P.: Stat screen upgrade (30%) COMPLETED: Chapter 2 Part 1 of The AA branch (100%) COMPLETED: Chapter 2 Part 1 of The FBI branch (100%)

Word Count: 690,972 words including codes (Last update was 663,808)

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I tried to get this done at the end of February but, life took a different turn, in more ways than one. I'm still trying my best to take care while still working on Breach, honestly it's one of the things keeping me afloat, to focus writing on this game.

This update includes a few new weapons as well as Justin's 1st hangout for the Archangel route, as well as the 1st hangouts for Salazar, Rook and Bishop for the FBI route. Keep in mind that you cannot do both Justin and Hayne's hangout. you have to pick one or the other. Same with Salazar, Rook and Bishop. You have to pick one or the other.

This is mainly to limit the stress on my brain on writing for 18 different hangouts for all romance options and, yeah… I'm a masochist, but I'm still human and my brain needs help.

The private testing for this latest update was released on the 5th this month, so I guess I'm back on the track to release the private testing on the 5th and the public update on the 20th next month as well.

Aside from that, I try my best to post status update some time after the public release, (probably the 25th, if I remember) on here, Patreon, tumblr, and on the Discord, to gauge whether or not I'm confident I can release something the following month.

If I do not post anything, the patreon update is still on track for the 5th next month, and every month after that, and the public update will always be released in the 15 to 20 day timeframe afterwards. Though, such as this one, please keep in mind that I may be few days late…

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

Much love! ❤️

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Link to the CoG Forums post

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I also have a Discord server!

As always feel free to drop however many screenshot feedbacks you'd like, either in the forums or in our Discord channel!

#breachverse #breach update #breach: chicago warzone #choice of games #interactive fiction #bcwz #breach the archangel job #if wip #choicescript #hosted games #cyoa #dashingdon #if game #interactive novel #breachverse news #btaj

[jellazticious]

biiiiiiig doodle dump under the cut. Stuff I have not posted to my knowledge and it will be random. It's legit a scramble in there lol. Well, read the tags if you wanna know what's innit

characters on the 17th pic are Ambrose by @teufort-tactics, and Dominique and Lance by @lithefider.

Most of the ones with the yellow canvas are request doodles from the DNAD server, god bless DNAD

Cello, the sonic oc is co-made with my sweetie @xypher-orai, Booboo I love you, thank you for the oc UuU. The coloured one is a collab, he lined Cello and I get to colour him. I also put in here the little clown engiespy doodle that he asked for the one time. pfbfbfb Babes I'm sorry I kept you waiting for it

some old stuff here and there which I never posted so like I'm compiling them now

Also an Engiespy animatic which I still plan to finish by the full song. Song used is Nemeses by Jonathan Coulton btw, from the same guy who composed those Portal ending songs. Perfect fucking song for these two tbh

two of them are animation tests with Iya and CWP attire Peppino and Pepperman. Also I learnt the hard way that Tumblr has a 30 image limit OUGH DYIN THERE WAS MORE I WANNA SHOWWWWWWWW

#DST #The Light Plague #TF2 #DHMIS #sonic the hedgehog #Portal #Portal 2 #Pizza Tower #She-Clops #RE8 #Clone High #The Bad Guys #Murpheus #Cello the Cephalopod #DST Wilson #DST Willow #TF2 Medic #Cobalt Roussel #Dr Morter #Tak the Oracle #Plague Kiwi #TF2 Engineer #TF2 Spy #Portal Wheatley #Sal Cosparr #Michel Lemieux #Peppino Spaghetti #Dynamite Anton #Fake Peppino #Clone High JFK

[faces-ofvenus]

Daeron x wild genius girl HCs? Like he seems calm and levelheaded so it’d be funny to imagine him trying to keep up with a rambunctious person.

Yes it was just supposed to be something pro Daeron, but I don't know I was seduced by the Targaryen, currently I'm annoyed because the Tumblr gave error and the blog didn't come as I wanted :). I hope you at least like the Daeron part, honestly I wrote more stuff but Tumblr deleted it.

Your relationship with Aegon would be like you are the brake of this man, he is like a cannon ball that is just waiting for some gunpowder, and you are so serious and tough that honestly it is so strange, Aegon wants to test all your limits, he is a person without limits if we can say so, and it's up to you to set them, secretly he loves, he loves your rules, he loves how you are a highly pacifist, who hates confrontation and your diplomacy, it's something that is not only sexual, but he doesn't know it, he feels that you are so powerful and sincerely being next to you makes him feel strange.

You are not as gifted in showing affection, not like him, Aegon feels that with you he could take you in any corner, and be seen by anyone, and you sincerely would like to keep your dignity, but it's funny, because he takes away your more rebellious side this side that you never allowed yourself to release, mainly with the fears of the labels you know you will receive, but who dares to label the queen/princess, don't worry love, your head will be on a platter just for you, but you don't allow yourself to think about it much, not when he convinced you to use a secret passage and climb on the council table or on the iron throne itself, in the kitchen, just what this man is making you, you don't know but you love, you love to walk with him on Sunfyre's back, how liberating the wind in your hair and caressing your face.

Aegon loves to drink and guess what, you loathe him in every way, it's not because of labels, or anything like that, you just hate how people get when drunk, they change so much and mask their character through drinks that only take away your judgment each time, so no you don't abhor booze you abhor the rampant way Aegon ends up drowning in it, how it just doesn't allow him to grow up to be the man you know he can become, Aegon doesn't see the appeal, he's perfectly fine drunk, wrong he sees a time, after almost having sex with a whore he thought was you, in his distorted vision it seemed, he only recognized that there wasn't the same sweet smell you grew from lilies, or when he almost said so many horrible things at a dinner party that not only embarrassed you but everyone around you, he was already used to the look of disappointment from his relatives, but he couldn't stand yours, you made him promise to really try, and he wouldn't even take it seriously, if he didn't see the look you gave him, and he saw how serious you were, and he tried, with slips here and maybe there, but always making sure it was enough to get you back into bed at night.

You might be a little too naive, maybe just a little, unlike Aegon, he is so malicious, his looks his sighs his smile everything about him says how depraved he can be, and you are not ignorant no you see that, but at the same time you can't help your naivety and innocence to some of his attitudes, maybe that's why you are still with him everybody thinks, but as much as Aegon always tries to get the worst out of you, You're not stupid of course, you're not blind, and that doesn't mean that your innocence should be confused by one of those adjectives, it's just a way for both Aegon and you to bring out sides that neither of you before you met allowed yourself to know with each other.

Being the total opposite of Aemond is so funny I can say, you are just a sweetheart of a person all over the face of the earth, from the heavens where only the wings of the greatest dragon can reach to the bottom of the sea where there are no more lives, it's just weird really that you and Aemond are in a relationship, like!? Like this.

Not exactly it has to make sense, you and Aemond don't give a damn about people who say you shouldn't be with him or visse versa, just because of your personality, as I mentioned in Aegon's, plus your genetics unlike Aemond's inherent cruelty, you are highly innocent and just sweet with everyone, so it would be no different with Aemond, sweetness is garlic which frankly he strongly abhors, being kind friendly and nice, is a sign of weakness and he feels everyone will take advantage and swallow you for it, but he loves how he loves, the sweet way not how you treat others, it just gives him a feeling of envy and jealousy, but how you treat him, how you gently run your hands over his face, how you kiss his scar, how in your eyes there is never pity when you see his eye or his scars, you just love him, and he thanks you so infinitely, he allows himself to be kind only to you, he will be hostile to everyone, which you disapprove of with a passion, it makes him in front of you not kind, only less aggressive, sarcastic and mean in every way.

So yes dear servant be glad you won't lose your job or a body part, because you were there, and you soothed Aemond by the woman spilling wine on his expensive dress with the Hightower colors, he even forgot, for a while his dress stained, it was hard to remember the servant's face when she ran out into the halls, and his eyes and bodies were fixed on your body, on your lips, and how they looked so perfect together from yours, so be thankful.

Aemond will swallow up anyone who takes advantage of your naivety, you're like an innocent sheep that everyone thinks, ah it's easy to kill you, but behind you is not so hidden mind a giant fucking dragon with eyes so dark and cruel that he will burn anyone who tries to lay a finger on your soft strands of hair, he protects you from everything and everyone, you are not weak, but the fact that you always really avoid confrontations to the point of getting hurt or being hurt, that will not happen anymore, not while you have a beautiful Targaryen prince as your love, and that will be forever.

Your dynamic in my mind is something like INTJ and ENFP, like two opposite currencies that complete each other in unimaginable ways, those who see it at first glance simply think it's impossible and even crazy for Daeron to support you, or to support your outgoing and hyperactive personality, well, sometimes they are right, the platinum prince is not as sociable as you, even though he is someone who is quite diplomatic, so sometimes your social battery runs out easily, which was something you quickly learned.

It was always difficult because you were like a bottomless pit, you just couldn't get any more, you just overflowed, you could never keep still or stand still for long, and you felt quite insecure because Daeron is quite closed off especially when it comes to feelings or his past, which is unlike you who once told your life story to a stranger on the street that you had helped, but this is not all bad, with you Daeron learned to really talk, without being for political agreements, you are usually the one who brings up some random subject, what he finds totally funny and what makes him feel comfortable in your presence, he doesn't feel obligated you are like a free spirit, that moves like the wind, and he allows himself sometimes to try to be more with you.

He keeps you calm most of the time when you are standing still, usually because you really end up bumping into various things, or just talking on and on, he doesn't mind talking he just doesn't want you to get hurt, so sometimes privately you are almost always sitting on him or in his lap, and his arms around you, while you are chattering about something, or lying in a meadow where your head is on his chest and you are in a comfortable embrace, him enjoying the beautiful moments, while listening to you talking about trees, squirrels, and just watching the sky, is something that warms his heart, or when you are in public he doesn't show direct affection, but still he insists on letting his arm tied around yours if possible, or being up close watching you, usually with a smile on his face while watching you talking to some lady, who for sure can't keep up with your broken humor, and nonsense jokes that nobody finds funny, well just you and him.

#hotd #hotd x reader #reader #reader insert #house of the dragon x reader #house of the dragon #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon ii targaryen #aemond targaryen #aegon targaryen x you #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon targaryen imagine #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond imagine #daeron targaryen x reader #daeron x reader #daeron targaryen #hotd fic #hotd imagine #house of the dragon imagine #house of the dragon fanfic

[abbyfmc]

Yandere Demon! x Witch! Reader:

Haber, someone has asked me for this in my second book about yandere things, but I don't think that person has a tumblr to mention they.

Yandere: Other oc named Darius.

Warning: Pictures are not mine.

*(Y/n) PO.V*

Magic existed since time immemorial in the world and with it, witches and wizards, my family among them. Both good, or neutral, and evil witches and wizards. But there were also beings called "demons" and "semi-demons". Demons are totally immortal and predators of humans, while demi-demons, although they share that characteristic, can also eat human food and drink.

I grew up in a family of good wizards and sorcerers and some evil ones who dealt with different types of spells, among them those of the elements such as water, earth, fire, air and other types of magic such as black, which implies everything bad. , the white one that covers everything good, and the red one that covers the whole theme of love and passion. But I stood out as the first elemental witch capable of combining all the elements into a single type of magic.

Elemental magic.

--Daughter, I never thought you would be so powerful-- It was what my parents told me, especially because it was a time when women were very limited. They didn't practice elemental magic as much. My mother practiced the well-known "pink magic" which was a softer derivation of red magic that consisted of helping to consolidate a couple, although on the other hand, I have seen her work with some white magic spells while my father he practiced "neutral magic", that is, a middle or gray point between white magic and black magic, he did not always use it for good but he did not always use it for evil either. How did I learn to master elemental magic? That took years of practice and study where people addressed me in a very macho and misogynistic way, and a lot of "mistake and try again" situations, so I have a library full of information, but I knew I didn't I would survive, and that was even clearer to me when I left my parents' house and met my husband who was a young farmer and no, I didn't use magic to make him fall in love. He knew that I was a witch and I confided in him the secret that I was an elemental witch.

--I think there's bad news honey. There are people who envy you and are willing to use black magic on you and use demons to kill you and your family-- He was right, and more so when they killed my entire clan or family little by little, leaving only me and him alive at 17 years old and it was since then that I dedicated myself to studying immortality, achieving it a long time later, but unfortunately my boyfriend did not got that as he died sick in his bed. Shortly before he died, I prepared a spell that will help me so that when he reincarnates, I can restore his memory of his past life, but before giving him the spell, he told me this:

--Be careful love, a demon is looking for you and although you can no longer age, I recommend you take demonic blood to avoid its harmful attacks more easily-- I began to perceive a strange presence and by my abilities, I could see that this presence had a very dark aura, which makes me fear for myself, so after a while, I decided to ingest demonic blood at 27 years old but… something didn't work out very good.

The transformation wasn't 100% complete, so I was left as a demi-demon.

Time passed and that presence did not go away, but that did not prevent me from being able to improve my powers to dazzling levels, to the point of drawing the attention of my schoolmates, especially boys, and that was for years and years where I fought to that they would believe me that I was the first elemental witch.

--The first ruling witch of the four elements? That's amazing, I didn't expect a woman to do that-- One of the boys from the magic school asked me, and no, it's not hogwarts but it's quite well known, and in fact I'm about to become a teacher having tested my knowledge about the different types of magic with the evolution of time but I still have a few classes left in which I am classified as "the questioner" but it is really to know how much knowledge they have of magic.

And not only that, but my boyfriend was finally able to reincarnate in this century and thanks to my spell, he was able to recover his memory but when I was going to provide him with demon blood, he said he wasn't ready.

--Honey don't worry I'll let you know when I'm ready-- I nodded, put the syringe with demon blood in a special box, and went to my training classes to be a teacher, where a new instructor arrived with an aura that I recognize and that I don't like at all.

--Sorry for the delay guys-- A young and elegant-looking man entered, tall, pale skin, hair the same color, since he was albino and reddish eyes, and no, his face is not familiar to me, but his aura… GOD it's the same that was haunting me literally a century ago.

--I am Mr. Darius Luckman, nice to meet you-- I know where that aura comes from and so does my boyfriend and yes, I know I said that I hope to become a teacher, but for that I am taking other training classes… kind of like training.

Then he looks at me carefully for a few seconds and tells me to introduce myself, I do, and so on with each one.

Things will get difficult here.

--Dear-- I approached my boyfriend, who was waiting for me in the cafeteria, at a table already with his food.

--Yes? Something happens?-- He knows when I'm nervous, which is not very normal, since having been alive for quite some time thanks to my being a demi-demon and my abilities as an elemental witch… it's hard to see me like this.

--Do you remember that demon you said a long time ago that could put me in danger?-- He nodded and his face paled so I think he already suspects that this supposed demon is around here, and I'm worried since I don't know what he can do to the other teachers, my students and even the principal, because yes, everyone knows me and they know that although I am quite old despite my young appearance, I have enough power, but I suspect that this demon is the one that was chasing me or is another with a similar appearance.

--Yes, do you think the new training teacher is him?-- I nodded again. One thing I forgot to mention is that my boyfriend controls blue magic, that is, he can connect with the plane of the spirits and be able to channel his energies for different purposes, although he still has it in practice. I have a theory that it was thanks to her that she was able to see the negative energy of that new teacher.

--Yes, I think so and… I am concerned about the students and other teachers-- I'm not one of those who simply seek to surpass them all and fill my ego, I just want to pass on my knowledge and I don't want that demon to harm my students.

*Darius Luckman PO.V*

I've been alive for over three centuries, five or so I think four, being a converted demon when I was 35 or so older, and I was raised under mostly black and red magic, so I come from times where the catholic church it was much more deceitful with people until the demons, witches, sorcerers, and semi-demons came along as they became completely ridiculous back in the late middle ages.

I was a prince, but one day demons attacked my castle, me and well… here I am. They forced me to take demonic blood and in my case, the transformation from human to demon was 100% complete but times have changed and so has my monarchy though… one night, while I was stalking people from my town, I discovered her she.

She was a witch, but from the conversation I overheard she was the "first elemental witch". At first I didn't believe it, but then I was spying on her practicing her magic and it was true but she seems to have realized that my presence has been close to her, so… she totally disappeared and I haven't smelled her again. aroma, which makes me think that she disappeared it.

--Maybe I can't find you but with my black magic I got rid of your little boyfriend-- Not only did I end her family, but with my magic, I made her boyfriend seriously ill little by little until his death but now that… my monarchy was transformed into a dark kingdom by me, and I prepared to prepare to instruct the bad in that school of magic after "hunting time" and… I finally found her, and how do I keep my castle? Well… let's just say that anyone who tries to dethrone me, destroy the castle or steal from me, will be gravely cursed for generations or immediately killed and devoured by me. As was the case with a pair of twins who for trying to kill me, even knowing that you can't kill a demon, I cursed them by turning them into my demon minions, in what way? Dooming them to watch over the castle like gargoyles in plain sight unless I call upon them for a favor.

'You pair of vermin' I said at the entrance of the castle, at night and in that I see that they move and fly down towards me until they are in front of me.

'What is your order?' One of them asked me, to which I took out a garment with still fresh blood from a man who tried to kill me.

'Sniff him, chase his scent and bring him to me' They obeyed me, and took flight in the night air.

--I finally found you, elemental witch-- I whispered watching her walk away…wait a second…is that the same boyfriend from that time? But I do remember cursing it, and it was over a century ago! Could it be that he reincarnated? Yes… most likely, but will he remember? I don't think so unless she had helped him. She seems to have not only not been reincarnated, but… she never grew old or died, which makes me more interested in her.

*(Y/n) PO.V*

Time has passed and my boyfriend and I have agreed that this demon is the presence I felt in the past.

--Not only that honey, look-- I have given him permission under my supervision to use my crystal ball and there he shows me a series of murdered students, with which I was horrified and then would downplay it if it were not for the fact that all the victims I saw here agreed that they were in love. from my. Then I was discovering with the passing of approximately 6 months that this demon wanted something from me.

--Miss, do you have something to say?-- He asked me. I was the intern for a "questioning" teacher, but now I began little by little to answer her in a cold way, sometimes angry and even a bit sharp, and how not to do it? if many students are disappearing.

--Well I guess I should relax-- I said taking off all my clothes as soon as I entered my little private lake in my house since my bathtub had been damaged and it would take a while to replace it according to my boyfriend.

--Uff, a little cold, but relaxing-- I dived again and again and swam a little in the small lake of my house until I felt again that same presence and that same dark aura that I have tried to avoid.

--Who's there?-- I got out of the lake and quickly looked for my clothes or so I tried since something emerged from the water and grabbed me from behind, but obviously I used my elemental magic, in this case the water to get away from…Darius Luckman?! But it looked very different. He had horns protruding from his forehead, the normal white part of his eyes is darker, and he has piercing reddish eyes like the first day he stepped foot in the institution of magic.

--Go go go, my victim is not bad at all-- He looks at me lewdly from top to bottom and as I walk further back, he gets closer and… yes, he's naked unlike me that at least I put on the towel and got hostile to at least try to get him away from me. my home.

--What is he supposed to do here?-- The elemental magic that I seek to prepare to attack alongside my demonic side is that of fire and he seems to notice it and then smiles evilly.

--Let's say I was bored and I came to pay you a face-to-face visit on my part-- It must be said that he has a seductive appearance that he is not shy about showing unlike me, since I am covering myself with the towel without wearing anything underneath. I tried to tell him to go away but he tried to corner me and with my attacks… I got ready to take him away from my house and at that moment I showed my semi-demon features.

--Hmm… wow, I suspected you weren't quite human and wow, you weren't-- He seemed to regenerate from my attacks easily, but I wouldn't give up, also, I know thanks to my crystal ball that he has been obsessed with me and that it was he who made my boyfriend seriously ill in his past life until he died.

--I also knew that you weren't human, now get the hell out of here!-- He fought to get close to me and I fought to get him away from my home and when I did, I put on an even stronger camouflage and protection spell and then went into my house and dressed.

*Narrator PO.V*

Things were getting worse.

You became frivolous towards him, but he became even more obsessed with you when you answered him in such a curt way in the institution, and even more so when you finally managed to become a teacher but… your students were killed or at least those who were in love with you , and you found out through your crystal ball that Darius had killed them, and your boyfriend too, and that he was terribly obsessed with you.

Apparently he got angry when you didn't pay attention to him and on the outskirts of your house you felt his presence and even saw him and something told you that it wouldn't take long to break that magical shield of protection that your house has, he followed you home, and even a Once he tried to take advantage of you when you were near your domain but you attacked him with your air element powers. But…

It happened… and after a long fight… he kidnapped you in his domain.

--Finally you will be mine-- He carried you like a sack of potatoes while he made his wings on his back come out, giving flight to his great and gloomy castle.

You woke up in a kind of dark dungeon, except for a tiny little window with thick iron bars that let you see that it was a full moon night or something like that outside, and a small torch.

--What is this place?-- You tried to go through the door but there was some kind of magical barrier that prevented you.

--Ouch! what the fuck?-- That barrier made you fall backwards, and you got scared to feel the same dark presence, so you turned and saw it.

--Good night princess-- He smiled evilly as he seductively approached you.

--Why did you bring me here? Do you plan to eat me?-- You were scared but you were also prepared to attack, something that caused him grace and tenderness that someone small like you, both in size and age, wanted to challenge him. He even cornered you against the wall.

--Cause you're mine, you should know-- He explained to you how obsessed he was with you since the century he discovered you and that he was the one who killed your family and cursed your boyfriend in that life until he killed him but giving you the opportunity that every time he reincarnates he can remember his previous life with you, that he killed and ate all your students and companions. Obviously you were afraid of him and you didn't want him to keep killing anyone, until you had an idea.

--It's okay, I agree to be yours-- He smiled pulled you to him to kiss you and make you his all night, biting you, thrusting at you and listening to your moans, and groping you.

--With this I indicate that… ngh! You're mine-- You hoped it wouldn't kill you, and no, it wouldn't because you're not fully human anymore.

*Some time later*

You would dedicate yourself to continue studying and perfecting your magic, while trying to "control" a demon or at least persuade him not to continue killing students.

'Well, I'll try to sneak into his mind when he's at school, so he won't kill anyone' You tried to perfect your magic first with rodents and crows that you found in the garden, at the same time that you tried to keep him happy out of fear since you hardly had any demon and he was a powerful demon in his entirety who used his red magic to make you yield to him lustfully whenever he wanted.

'Come on, there must be some way I can get into his mind without him noticing' Entering the mind of a demon or semi-demon is difficult due to the strength they possess, which indicates that you would have a lot of work ahead of you.

-The end.

#yandere oc #yandere x you #yandere love #tw yandere #yandere #yandere male #cw yandere #platonic yandere #yandere x reader #yancore #yandere demon x reader #witch reader #one shot #fanfiction #fanfics #yandere writing

[dukeoftheblackstar]

Is tumblr eating posts again? I remember making a post about that shrimp incident earlier today and now it's gone.

In other news, I am alive!

I guess I have used up my limit on crustaceans because apparently, some people (the guy who pureed some shrimps and stuff into a sauce) believes that allergies can be cured with aggressive exposure? That "no one has THAT severe allergy to xyz".

I'm like, sir. Sir. Brother in Christ. My mans.

Just because I indulge in a few pieces here and there, doesn't mean you have the right to test the waters with me.

His response was "I'm allergic to pineapples and I don't make pretend to choke over it".

I still feel my throat unwell. I feel like there's gash or a cut — feel like if I swallow anything, even water, it has that same feeling of running a needle, scraping or something.

The doctor said it's irritation since my stupid ass had to self-medicate with burning the sensation with coca cola since that usually works, but apparently coke didn't do me a solid earlier.

The eye puffiness are gone which only made my already strained eyes hurt more, the little bumpy things you get when you get an allergic reaction is gone from the face and neck, lip swelling also subsiding and the itchiness too, and well, I can breathe again.

I am very uncomfortable ;-----; . I am already stressing about work now I'm uncomfortable AND stressing.

But hey. I'm alive.

Last day of my shift for the week. Guess I'm reading filth later idk ♥ Gonna sort my to read and maybe, just maybe, sleep a little little bit.

Allergies are absolutely not a joke and not to be taken lightly in very serious foolishness. Like, we can probably joke about it nasty, but to actually do something to trigger it? Big no no, my dudes. Big. No. NO.

#♝ #rant #a tale for my future kids #back in my day LOLOLOL

[misscammiedawn]

Miss Cammie Dawn's 2023 Round-Up

Permit me the self-indulgence to do a lil' wrap-up. Perhaps a little bit longer than a "lil'", we shall see. I don't expect any eyes on this. I write purely for the purposes of rereading later. Remember, I treat Tumblr like Livejournal.

I wish to focus upon the concepts of "what did you do/watch/read etc" and wrap it up for the year.

Personal Life

With the pandemic still limiting my options for socializing and having ended my close friendships and finally gone No Contact with my family of origin in the past few years, there's not been a lot of momentum in my life of late and I'm kind of okay with it.

Still. Some major events are to be expected. Here are mine for 2023:

Bottom surgery - Of everything in my year this was always going to be the first thing we needed to talk about. The process for getting here was such a long road and it almost doesn't feel real now that it's all done.

April 10th 2023 I went under the knife and began a healing journey that took much of the next 6 months of my life.

Going off of hormones for the time surrounding it was a complete emotional roller-coaster and I was *unstable* by the end of it. Oikos were kind enough to be supportive to me the whole time, thankfully. Daja traveled out to be there with me during the procedure. I have a detailed personal journal that conveys the whole experience but wow... that was a journey.

Those who know me may be aware of Precious, Cammie's Squishmallow. She goes wherever we go and she serves as an important tool for us. When we were in the hospital Daja asked our partners permission and with consent applied a hypnotic compulsion that made it so squeezing Precious and thinking of a partner would summon them in our mind and forge a connection. We refer to her now as the "Magical Scrying Kitty" and the trigger was essential for those first few days of recovery. Particularly the lonely void between visiting hours.

It all just sort of blurs now. I almost cannot remember being in bed for months after getting home nor the amount of energy that even the smallest tasks took. I have a vague memory of trying to get photographs in our yoga outfit before Beguiled and the effort of maneuvering around the bed was monumental.

We ended up returning to events in June/July, though we were still fairly restricted by the body's healing schedule.

I'm happier this side of the surgery. It has done wonders for my mental health and day to day comfort in our skin. Worth every sacrifice we made a hundred times over.

I don't think I have words for it yet but I feel there is a difference. There had been a level of anxiety and fear about the procedure before it but that has all melted away. I cannot even recall what those nebulous fears even were.

Anyway! Sleepyhead was nice enough to make my dream come true:

I have wanted that photo for years. I spoke of the dream often. I also made the Dickless for Chiklis tweet as promised years ago, though I doubt the intended audience saw it.

Life changes a bunch between starting the waiting list and getting the surgery, doesn't it?

DID Diagnosis - This has been a huge adjustment for us because of all the work that goes into trauma & dissociation therapy. We have joined support groups, we are putting in work to structure our journaling, we have built an innerworld conference space with isolated safe spaces (I was surprised to learn that this media trope is not only a real thing but it's a therapy technique that is taught. People are not born with these things and they are not a symptom of the disorder) and finally we are learning where the emotions originate, who has attachment to individual memories and experiences and then we are learning process things correctly. It is a process.

I am only slightly bitter that I had no context for the whole compartmentalized emotions thing. We wrote a frustrated Tumblr post about it recently.

The initial diagnosis came after a few months of testing. Many of our preconceptions were found to be based on a mixture of denial and ignorance exasperated by too much misinformation from fiction. Our therapist and Daja have both been on our case this entire year to stop obfuscating and hiding behind these excuses and barriers. It helps.

When we began the year our little system of 4 (technically 5) were completely at odds with one another. We had a number of distorted and self-loathing beliefs. Cammie was too childish and made us unreliable and immature and too stereotypically girlygirl trans. Camden was too strict and controlling and lived in constant hyper-vigilant survival mode, battling demons that had died decades ago. Dawn (presently typing) was a filthy NSFW embarrassment that was going to invite unwelcome elements to our life and post unforgivable content which must be deleted. Craig is a failing to our femininity that invalidates our struggles as a transwoman and Tilly-Mo doesn't even exist.

Now we're more comfortable working for a unified vision of self. Accepting that each of us is not the others and that we share a life. It's a process.

In May our therapist sent us to an online event held by a non-profit group who were tackling a bunch of topics ranging from "how to live with these conditions" "Professionals with CDD and their experiences with ISSTD" and a panel with transgender individuals with dissociative disorders. I was involved in that last one and I have to admit it was a turning point for me. For the first time in my life my experiences felt relatable and were being framed in a perspective of normal people living normal lives rather than the loud and proud version online. One of the things we continue to struggle with is how to integrate our condition into our life without fetishizing it. It's an invisible illness so all attempts to have our parts recognized feel like an attention grab. Even typing about it now. Somehow we have to navigate the gap between being open about it without highlight it. That's also a process.

Simply spoken we feel uncomfortable insisting on the one typing unless it's essential to being understood in how we communicate. We had an internal discussion about this post, wondering if we should let individual parts type different sections and highlight who was typing each one with a color or nametag. But that's not our style or comfort. It raises too much attention and sets off alarm bells. Half the reason we do our tagging system as we do on Tumblr is as a note to ourselves. Like a little filing system for when we go back searching later. A little switch counter. Helps us spot when someone has been away for too long.

Incidentally we decided we would write the post as time allowed and give everyone an opportunity to edit/add/delete from it before posting.

Electrolysis and Laser - My Electrolysist fired me. A shame. I really liked her. I... did not handle it well. There are only two times we have had a full blown meltdown during a session with our trauma and dissociation therapist and the week we got fired was one of them.

I did a few months of laser after leaving electrolysis but they have not yet invented a new form of laser that works for redheads so I just gave up. I'm done with my hair removal. I know there's a level of pettiness in that decision but being tortured for an hour a week wasn't good for my mental health and I barely go outside anyway. I'll just shave.

Trans activism in former career - I keep in touch with some of the people from my former career. I'll not name names or circumstances, but helping one of my former coworkers in their transition and joining an effort to petition the leadership (leveraging my weight as an out and proud transgender woman while I worked there) to rally against a company decision that actively promoted transphobia was a real highlight of my year. We won. I can type the name into Google and see articles about our victory. I may have been a single drop in the ocean when it comes to it but I know the people who made that decision. My emails shamed them for daring to do something like that on the ecosystem I helped create. It made me feel like I'd done something with my life. Made a difference to vulnerable people and guided some other people through these confusing halls we all wander down. That gave me life.

Immigration - I am applying for citizenship as it's easier than trying to get TERF Island to recognize my identity and I would rather all my documents have the same name and gender marker on them.

Events

Charmed 2023 - I wrote detailed con reports of last January's event. Suffice to say it was my first time taking the stage and teaching a class. A prominent member of the community posted on Twitter that they had gained a crush on me from watching me teach which is about the kindest thing anyone can say. Certainly boosted my self-estimation a little.

The vampire ball on the final day changed our brain chemistry forever. It has become the gold standard for our submissive scenes.

Charmed is the best. I am excited for the 2024 event.

Cybertronic Spree & The Protomen - I love going on roadtrips with my boyfriend, Copper. He loves driving and I love just sharing space and being comfortable with him. We shared music during the long drive to Chicago and I got to enjoy my "Other City". Part of us shall always view Chicago as our American home. We're a city girl at heart and seeing the night skyline of our former home was such a balm for the soul, particularly as it was our first time back there since we were married. My last trip there was an anniversary date to see Hamilton.

COVID risk was heavy on our mind but we had a fairly nice hotel a little out of the city and got to go to a pleasant venue. A couple of people I recognize from the hypnocon circuit were in the audience but we didn't think to approach them. A shame.

Sleepyhead and Puppet were the ones who bought the tickets but unfortunately health problems prevented them traveling. They were VIP tickets. We got merch signed for them both as a thank you and I got to meet Cybertronic spree.

Not to invoke the ghost of our marriage too often but our ex-wife and I saw The Protomen in 2010 during their Chicago stop of that year and I spoke with some of the band about it. A lifetime ago.

It was nice to step into a world we had long since exited with our current partner. The venue was a live rock place that had Rush posters on the wall and that black brick aesthetic that brought me back to when we saw gigs like Thunder in London.

I truly miss live events like this and though there was a COVID risk and though our throat was raw from 4-6 hours of no fluids, it was worth it. A highlight of my year for certain.

Cybertronic Spree played the theme of One Punch Man and a bunch of music from Transformers The Movie (1986) and generally kicked ass. Gambler and Arcee did a duet in both halves of the concert.

Dare to Be Stupid was ridiculous and I loved every second of it.

Beguiled 2023 - I only posted my outfits for public. But I was very detailed in my private journal. It was a difficult con for us as we were still weak from surgery and had limited mobility. We tapped out of our usual hypnoyoga class (perfect attendance ruined forever). Got to eat some incredible Japanese curry from a place that held great significance from me in a past life and danced with Daja to the music of the night...

Beguiled could have been a perfect event if my health were better.

I suppose I shall await 2025's event for the promised encore.

Daja Vacation - A very important trip. In October we headed over to Daja's state for a quick little visit. Sleepyhead accompanied us. There was curry, pan pizza (better than Giordano's. Daja is a chemist by day and kitchen sorceress by night), British meat pies, so many British chocolates, fountain trances, magic shows and time for all of us.

How can it be after 18 months that I still worry I have NRE with Daja? I truly do not know. But she shared her city with me. Created some new vital memories that shall be eternally treasured and gave the tightly wound little stress ball in my head a pretty view to admire inside of her little imagined safe space.

I am so damned smitten.

Books

My goal was to read every single Tamora Pierce book within a year of starting my relationship with Daja (named for the Emelan character, yes) and I found reading to be quite the comfort while I was laid up.

The Provost's Dog (Beka Cooper) Trilogy - The final Tortall books and the longest. They gave us many memories of our city and the caste system at play there. Beka is a wonderful protagonist and I fell in love with Farmer. Farmer is my favorite. I love him.

The police procedural in a high fantasy world was not entirely my cup of tea and I prefer it in the Rivers of London urban fantasy mold but seeing Pounce/Faithful as a far more actiive (and prissy) part of the story was a joy. Not my favorite of Tammy's series' by a long shot (For Tortall it would be Daine and Kel's quartets and for Emelan it would be any book which features Briar or Tris as a protagonist) but my preferences do not speak to quality. Tammy has evolved as a writer over the decades of her work and it breaks my heart that she is not as ubiquitous as Sir Terry.

I broke down into a weeping mess at the end because Beka's actions and her compassion granted her a single wish no one in universe or reading could have ever thought would have been granted. The sheer surprise and joy in that act of kindness was enough to break the dams of my heart.

Possibly the best ending of all Tammy's books.

The Circle of Magic Quartet - I am going to come out and say it right away. I prefer Emelan to Tortall. I do look at it as a "two cakes!" scenario and the two series are not in contest with one another (albeit Numair Chronicles is preventing the epilogue to the Reforged quartet from being written). But I enjoy the 4 displaced children and their mentors. I feel there is something solid about exploring Found Family tropes in kids who have known hardships beyond their years.

Daja (my partner, not the character in the book) had wondered which of the 4 I would gravitate towards more. Obviously I would be fond of Daja Kisubo for the name alone but would it be Briar the street kid who was caught between the world of his poverty street origins and his unexpected elevation in the caste system or perhaps Tris, the unwanted child who heard her caregivers tell her outright that she was an unwanted burden.

"Two cakes!"

The vignettes that brought the 4 together was a tough read and I didn't really feel the conflict of the books until the finale of Tris' book which kicked the series into high gear and from then on I ate Emelan up hungrily.

We were on track for 2.5 books read per month going into Emelan and actively had to slow ourselves down. I am pretty sure the only limitation we experienced was waiting lists on our library app.

Of the first quartet Briar's Book was an absolute favorite. Rosethorn's boy is wonderful and I love him. Also I wish to point out that the audio books were put out by Full Cast Audio who had actors for every role. Mo Harrington as Rosethorn was perfection. She also voiced Cloud in Daine's books but her Rosethorn is a career defining role. I wish only good things for Harrington. My favorite character of my favorite Tammy series will always be shaped in your vision of her.

The finale of the book, however, did stir some horrible memories and emotions in me. I suppose serendipity being a thing, though, in reacting to the book in real time to Daja as we read she noticed the shift and discovered a verbal quirk unique to a part of me who seldom gets to exist.

In a way much of our healing and accepting Craig came from Rosethorn's trip to the "garden" and our reaction to it as well as Daja's incredible ability to notice how unique it is for us to type "ain't" in a sentence.

I'm so glad I read these books.

The Circle Opens Quartet - At the time of reading these we had our surgery appointment and it became a mission to "catch up" before Daja came to visit to see us through surgery. We were listening to audiobooks from the library and books 3 and 4 (Cold Fire and Shatterglass) have never been adapted to audiobook due to Full Cast Audio's unfortunate financial troubles).

We had planned to borrow Daja's copies when she came over for the surgery.

But... we ended up catching up early enough that Daja in what may be one of the most romantic gestures of a year filled with romantic gestures, recorded herself reading the whole of Cold Fire and sending it to us so we may be caught up to borrow Shatterglass at the time of surgery.

Is it any wonder I'm so smitten?

Of the 4 stories I found Cold Fire and Shatterglass to be the most enjoyable. It was good seeing the siblings growing up in their own way and how their immaturity was evened out by their apprentices. Daja Kisubo's story was the one that got to me the most because the psychology of the serial killer and Kisubo's absolute betrayal towards the end. Watching how she dealt with Ben was heartbreaking.

Also the way insanity as a topic was handled was a little tactless and one quote made my blood boil a little but it was towards the character who spoke the words, not the author who penned them. The character Zhegorz returned in the next quartet and was an absolute highlight for me. I like the idea of scrying mages opening themselves up to mental disorders and for an allegory for schizophrenia I felt it was fairly tasteful in the next book. In this one the topic was not handled beautifully, but we are seeing the world through prejudice eyes and if there is one thing Daja Kisubo stories are good for it is showing prejudice viewpoints and their consequences.

Tris can't always be there to break social etiquette for you.

The Circle Reforged Quartet (albeit book 4 is not yet written) - Tammy matured as a writer a hundred times over before these books. I loved Emelan because it's a story of childhood trauma and how it impacts growth and development, even if the wounded soul is given encouraging and healthy environments to thrive in.

Each character carries scars deeper than they can admit to themselves or one another. Will of the Empress is a fantastic story because it takes everything that has been building and applies it to young adults who matured years before they should have and explores the sheer scale of the damage that does to them when they are left to their own devices.

Goodness... why would I find myself attracted to such a concept? I wonder?

The intro segment is so good we wrote a specific Tumblr post about it. Tris' bitterness that her raw talent cannot be monetized (without murder), Briar's PTSD, Sandry's muted bitterness at being abandoned by her siblings and Daja's hyper-vigilant need to push everyone away because of the betrayal she felt not just with Ben but in being banished from the only stable home she had ever known.

Watching the 4 open their connection to one another again caused many tears as we read it. Tris' accepting Sandry in particular just got me right in the heart.

The final sequence with Briar's safe space I had joked was the most accurate depiction of DID I'd seen. The whole shutting off the connection and having a shared inner world were both topics we were addressing in therapy about the time we listened to those chapters.

Battle Magic was a rough journey for seeing how much the Briar/Evie/Rosethorn trio suffered at the hands of the emperor. Rosethorn had become our quick favorite throughout the franchise and I just didn't want to see her hurt. Not after the end of Briar's Book.

Melting Stones was a cute little side story. Evie and Luvo are great. I don't have much to say about it as the book was written for the Full Cast Audio team and didn't develop anything we hadn't already seen from Will of the Empress which is chronologically the last of the quartet despite being the first in release order.

House of Leaves - Thanks to the MyHouse.WAD stuff happening early this year I was reminded of the book and with surgery recovery time I had time to dedicate to it. I kind of resent that there's no digital option but I appreciate that this book is a book.

Getting out of Mark Z. Danielewski's dumb dumb mind labyrinth of a mental virus is the hard part. If anything about our taste in fiction is true it's that we want to experience altered states and put ourselves in the head of another. So having an obsession simulator burrow deep into our head while we are bedridden and the days are blurred together was... not our best decision.

We have our de-realization symptoms locked down now and I think due to that stability we find ourselves compelled to seek out breaks in reality, especially now we no longer do character play hypnosis, tabletop RPG or allow once trusted individuals to gaslight us for fun.

Glitches and moments when things are wrong freak us out and have caused severe panic episodes for us (thank you Remedy for the credits to the bad ending of Control, that one damn near broke me and it was at a time in my life I didn't have anyone around to ground me or confirm what I was experiencing so we just went into free fall) and we shouldn't poke that bear.

But we do.

Willingly.

I've yet to bring that up with our therapist.

It's not just the ergodic literature that got under our skin though, with this one it was also that it depicts a parent in a mental care facility as a major plot point.

We have a history with that kind of thing and... yeah.

Plus the way Truant described his panic attack at seeing purple ink and remembering his mother's fingernails at his throat...

Reading this book may not have been our best decision... but we have a tag dedicated to it and are deeply in love with it. We knew what we were getting into (well... perhaps not the Pelafina stuff. We were not prepared for that) and there are no regrets!

Between the Whalestone Letters and Rosethorn's trip to the garden we need to check DoesTheDogDie.com more often =/

Regardless! We really dug the book.

Camden especially!

Much discussion online is on what parts of the book "really happened", what was in Navidson's record, what was in Zampano's analysis and what did Johnny edit in and how much did The Editors edit Johnny's narrative and how much is altered by our reading of it.

And like-- how much of the perspective based stuff is impacted by how your read it. For instance! When The Editors note that Johnny's ramblings have context in the appendix, I went and read all the Whalestone Letters then and there which made the panic attacks and Minotaur stuff make way more sense from the get go-- most may read the book first and the appendixes later.

It's a book that takes a unique shape based on how you navigate it. Sorta like a video game.

My experiences made me relate to and extrapolate emotional weight and context from Johnny's narrative after all. Regardless of Johnny's final message I cannot remove how I related to the things he shared... and that's the trick.

None of it happened. It's all a book. Whatever Danielewski intended is unimportant. You can listen to the companion album, you can look up interviews, you can see the citations and source material that inspired the story...

At the end of the day the more you put in, the more it will pull you deeper. There's no definitive way to read the book. It's a spiral staircase down into infinity and insanity.

The only winning move is not to play... or to quote the text:

"Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of not knowing."

Tricksters Duology - Saved for last as Daja isn't a huge fan of the espionage from these books and she had recommended I skip them until I ran out of books to read. I'm glad it was saved as a little cherry on top to my adventures in Emelan and Tortall as meeting with Kyprioth the trickster god was a treat and the book goes out of its way to provide epilogues to all of the existing Tortall books. Seeing Daine and Numair's family grow, seeing Kel vs Alanna and seeing George Cooper be Best Boy was all such a lovely thing to behold.

I also read the Spy's Guide during this time and enjoyed it greatly. Daja handed me her hardcover the week of our surgery and we opened it to Daine's portrait, which just tickles me.

I am deeply fond of trickster gods...

Dissociation Made Simple - We had actually won a copy of this at the chronic dissociation event my therapist sent me to in May. I got to talk with the author and we follow one another on the other social media. They're a lovely person and they work hard to support the community of people who live with these conditions. The book is a navigation of living with a chronic dissociative disorder from a personal perspective and acts as both a guide to living with these experiences and supporting a loved one who happens to live with one.

It offers a wealth of perspectives and seeks to humanize matters in a way that does not rely too heavily upon pathology.

My sole complaint about it is that the author's personal philosophies bleed in. They are jaded with Western mental healthcare and favor an Eastern approach and they apologize profusely for including the perspectives of someone who sought Final Fusion (they say that they include the interview "as a means of painting a complete picture") and it truly felt more akin to an apology for discussing one of the gold standards of treatment goals than anything else. That was projecting on the audience a little in my opinion.

At present I do not seek final fusion as a goal. Healthy Multiplicity is just fine in my world... but I have seen posts and messages from those who did go that path and the support networks closing off to them and even harassing them over their personal decision is not the way to go.

Either way Dr. Jamie+ is a wonderful person I am proud is doing the work to make the world better for individuals struggling with chronic dissociative disorders.

The Third Person - Another suggested piece of reading from our time at the dissociation event. This is a 900 page book written by a transgender woman with DID and reflects her journey through the medical system as she attempts to get her HRT approved by an abusive therapist. There's a sunk cost fallacy that keeps her continuously coming week after week to someone who is an active threat to her mental health. After all. She'd need another 6+ months with a new therapist to get approved for HRT or she could just win Toby over and get him to sign for her.

Much of the book is conversations between Emma (and Katina and Ed) and their therapist, Toby. Katina is an impulsive party animal and the system's protector. She reminds us intensely of Dawn and that made finishing the book (in a single sitting, no less) an emotionally harrowing experience for us.

There's a refrain in some areas of the support communities that fiction based on our condition is sensationalized because to live with this condition is actually remarkably boring. We're just traumatized people trying to live our lives. This book is very much a shining example of that and I say it in a loving way. Nothing that happens to Emma's system is sensational or exceptional. She's just a normal transgender woman who got entangled with an abusive therapist (a transgender man who should have been an ally) and though it is mired by her hazy and bias recollection of events (she admits that the moment Toby said "your grandfather was right to hit you" she should have left and never come back) it still just reads as a normal person going through some shit.

And that's where the book is at its best. This is normal stuff. These are the things that can and do happen. I read the /r/therapists reddit enough to know that there's a population of people that think that their job includes dispelling "delusional thinking" and some definitions of that are a little uncomfortable. Not every professional believes in DID or transgender identities after all >.>;

This one was just a tough read and though my stated discomfort is that the alter that reminds me so much of Dawn had to hear Emma say the one sentence she could NEVER say to her.

Breaks our hearts =/

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles - Presently Daja is reading us these books on a weekly basis during our dates. We have gotten through the first two and are enamored with the primary cast. Telemain is my favorite.

They are just delightful stories full of tropes and fun. I would have loved them very much when I was young. Cammie presently loves them intensely.

Mr. Robot eps1.91_redwheelbarr0w.txt - Set during the time between Season 1 and Season 2 Episode 8, this is a journal. A literal journal made to look like it was written in pencil by series protagonist Elliot Alderson.

In the show the audience is his imaginary friend who he speaks to. When he is on the screen we see the world through his eyes and his delusions. Only during two flashbacks do we ever see him outside of his perspective, which saves Rami Malek having to play his alters and allows the show to be subjective with what is real and what isn't, plus we also get to see scenes Elliot isn't there for (typically perspective can be seen if someone refers to the villainous avatar of capitalism as "E Corp" their actual name rather than "Evil Corp" which Elliott always hears/reads it as) and when a twist happens at the end of season 1 he knows that we knew and we didn't tell him. We can't communicate with him after all.

To denote the time skip, hide a season 2 twist and to better blur the lines of what is real and what isn't, Elliot stops speaking to us after season 1 and reconciles with us during season 2. The journal covers the time when he was "not speaking with us" because we didn't tell him about Mr. Robot. At times he even writes to us as if we will someday read the book and then corrects himself to say that we will never read it. That kind of makes reading this feel a little invasive. Even the "editor" (a transgender woman in the show who was incarcerated in a male facility. I like Hot Carla) notes at times how fucked up it is that any of us are reading his private journal which he reminds often isn't for anyone elses' eyes.

Within the book are a number of little trinkets which serve to play an ARG that reveal the season 2 plot twist (Mr. Robot has been communicating with the Dark Army to continue his revolution while Elliot is in prison) and to the book's credit there is such an adherence to verisimilitude that the nearest we get to confirmation that there even IS an ARG is some comments penned in by the in-universe character who "published" the journal.

What I liked about it was not just the realism of the journal, which goes to lengths to utilize spaces in between entries as significant (we even get an entry written on the back of a pack of cigarettes when Elliot hands off the journal for another inmate to read it in her cell)

it didn't add a lot to the plot of the show but it was a fantastic dive into the character headspace of Elliot. Particularly during the period of time he was not talking to "us".

Music

Music is so disposable in scope that I'll be skipping much of the new stuff on our radar and focus on things we intentionally listened to.

The Protomen - Copper's favorite band. Puppet and Sleepyhead were nice enough to give him tickets to their show with the Cybertronic Spree (as noted above). We gave them a fair few spins to get ready for the concert. They are a lovely and self-indulgent band and their Queen tribute album is superb. I really dug the whole revolution subplot in the second act with Sniper Joe. Act 1's "after the apocalypse" campfire aesthetic wasn't my touch but the cyberpunk revolution stuff was cool as crap!

The Gambler is bloody amazing and any of her songs are just bangers by definition <3

The Caretaker (Everything At The End of Time) - We're late to the party on this one but god what an incredible experience. We went down a rabbit hole of tributes. For what it's worth Nowehere At The Millenium of Space is so far above the pack that if I ever wanted to listen to a 6 hour dementia simulator again then it'd be my pick. A3 is the track I'd listen to if you wanted to see if it would vibe with you or not.

(Though I wanna see more takes on the concept that try different perspectives-- there's a few that try for different conditions that have a lot of promise)

For the uninitiated, EATEOT is a 6 album concept piece that attempts to place you in the mind of a dementia patient at the end of their life. The composer read that music lingered beyond memories and information and wanted to run ideas of degrading of physical media and nostalgia for a time many of us were not alive for. The first track based on Heartaches from 1947 for instance. It gives us the idea of an era without true familiarity to it. Which makes my love of Nowhere a little odd as it takes the concept and then applies familiarity with many of the songs hitting "I KNOW THIS" buttons and...

Look, I came to learn about EATEOT from MyHouse and there the warped version of Running From Evil used that familiarity to great effect. Much of the subtle horror of the Doom map comes from recognizing the geography of the locations as The House and having your familiarity with Doom mechanics messed with in subtle ways. I like the feeling of "I know this... but it's wrong" especially as a means to invoke discomfort. That makes Nowhere a better album for me but to many the nostalgia for a time they weren't alive for helps put you in the head of a distant dying relative and that is more effective for the concept.

The fact I can talk about such high concepts is a proof of how amazing this album is at what it does.

If you don't have 6 hours and want a quick version of it, a YouTuber named zaza took the concept and applied it to Lo-Fi Beats to Study and Relax To. Add in intangible familiarity to Lo-Fi Beats as an amorphous genre with no real hook to hold onto and glitch effects to turn this video into one that tickles a terror center of my brain unscratched since I first played DDLC.

The Narcissist Cookbook - Apple Music throws some curveballs at me every now and again and I viscerally recall The Simplest Words coming on randomly and I *loved* it.

This Is How We Get Better is just a good album. It's on the topic of healing from crippling mental illness and given everything we have been going through in trauma therapy this year it was the right album at the right time. Pretty much every song is solid in its own special way. The line in The Pattern about walking through the halls of a demolished high school hit close to home and there is something beautiful about Leave My Phone At Home.

Some of the best works are less songs and more folk guitar during impassioned speeches. Courtney is a catchy song with a lecture on why people get into conspiracy rabbit holes, The Absolute State of our Nation is a plea that violent resistance to centrist complacency is a duty of those who wish to prevent history being sanitized and Cognitive Dissonance Blues is about the crushing despair of trying to do good in a world where evil is so deeply systemic that we only serve to hurt ourselves and make no measurable difference.

Highly recommended listening. Here, have The Simplest Words as a sample:

Mint Green (Growth) - Another group Apple threw at me while trying to understand why I love Left At London. I am not a fan of all their music but the album Growth really grew on me (ha!). They are an indie band out of California and sound like an indie band out of California. It is the kind of comforting sound you can lay down on a dark evening and stare at the ceiling listening to. A favorite pastime during our surgical recovery. Pinky Swear is now one of my favorite songs. I just love blasting it while I drive. I really enjoy them.

The Streets (The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light) - Skinner's band has never been able to reclaim its heights from Original Pirate Material (2002) but with Craig being more active in our system this year and Skinner releasing his first studio album under The Streets title since 2001's Computers and Blues we needed to dive on this as soon as it was released.

Like here's the thing. Peeps don't realize we like this sort of shit because we go all in on Rush. But there are certain sounds that just key in to what it was like growing up on a counsel flat in a broken home with an unemployed dad who has you pop down the corner store for some Rizla papers to roll his own.

It's just a tad to the left of pub music, y'know?

Point is Original Pirate Material got a bit of that larey London lad energy and was like a time capsule that yanks you back to 2002 to the point of which you can feel your old Nokia 220 vibrate in your pocket while you listen.

New album ain't terrible. Better than Computer and Blues by a wide margin.

Troubled Waters is an absolute classic and once again Skinner has caught a level of mild desperation with the British public. I always appreciated his "day in the life of a geeza" approach and I think one of the two reasons Skinner's career never took off beyond Original Pirate Material is that he was no longer just another bloke when that song hit. Later albums have songs about dealing with his fame and having affairs with high level pop stars and he lost the relatable flair that brought him to greatness.

Like no shade to Going Through Hell or that one song about the Earth will be fine it's us who are fucked. He's got some bangers in the mid but he came out the gates with an album of "bangers, not anthems"

I mean... Original Pirate Material is just a perfect album. Dunno what else to say.

This new one is growing on me. It's got a mature edge and it comes from a perspective of an older guy who has lived beyond the legacy his debut 20 years ago offered.

I need to force myself to listen to anything other than Troubled Waters but I find myself rewarded for doing so. Just wish Too Much Yayo wasn't the opening track. I'm not fond of it.

Movies

I've not been in a cinema since Spider-Man No Way Home and before then since movies were my career. Losing movie theatres in the pandemic has altered my brain chemistry a little, I think?

Creed III - Creed is one of my alltime favorite movies and so I was really excited for III. I was fucked up from being off of my hormones at the time and so I ended up watching it on the day of a meltdown when I had screamed my throat raw and was crying and non-verbal. That may have impacted my enjoyment of the film a little and I need to go back to it at some point. I really enjoyed the cerebral final battle between Donnie and Majors' character. Cried a bunch when Mary Anne died =/

It's sort of a tough thing to be all attached to this franchise and see it keep missing jumping off points. I wanna see it keep on going but I don't wanna see it decline after so many high finishes, y'know?

Super Mario Bros Movie - I literally do not remember watching this. Granted I was laid up at the time. It came to home media ridiculously fast. Still. I have no firm memory of this at all and I think that's an indictment on Illumination more than my mental state in surgical recovery.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - I am impressed but still waiting on the other shoe to drop. Another "Fuck Joe Quesada" production so I found myself deeply enjoying the fact Pete/MJ's wedding is a "canon event".

I honestly enjoyed the conversation around the movie more than the film itself.

Soundtrack is bloody amazing and Hobie is an absolute bro. Love that guy!

Barbie - Greta Gerwig does not miss. Lady Bird is one of our all time favorites and this was an enjoyable film in the same vein as Lego Movie. It lacks teeth or staying power but many of the movies which reach the top of the box office these days are that way. Teeth aren't profitable.

I adored the production and it is just pleasant to see good costumes in a movie in an increasingly stingy/anti-union world.

Like it's a fine and fun movie but like some people said "this movie doesn't have subtext, it's just text" and that is probably for the best given its wide audience. I just need something more.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 - It was alright. I liked the sentiment with Groot at the end. Yeah. Don't have much to say. It was alright.

War Games (1983) - Sleepyhead and Copper don't bond much. We're all family at Oikos but we're different people at the end of the day. When my two partners discovered I'd never seen this movie they worked together to correct it instantly.

It was a lovely night feeding off of their excitement and I am pleased to say the movie was well worth it and gave some good context for Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker's climax.

Lowkey may have been my favorite movie moment of the year. Plus it gave me context to references made in Mr. Robot so that was nice <3

Before Trilogy - I have had this on my DVD shelf since I was married and the idea of "the most realistic romance trilogy" has never seemed appealing. I'll be honest. I like the locations. I love the chemistry of the main pair and I enjoyed the first two parts way more than expected but didn't vibe with the final movie.

I doubt I will end up watching them again, which is a shame after so many years of having it hyped up on Film Twitter.

Television

TV is a quick and easy way to bond with loved ones and so I've been watching a bunch, especially while I was laid up. Sharing media remains one of my favorite ways to connect with people after all. In this time I've shared all of Twin Peaks with Sleepyhead, rewatched some old anime shows with Copper

Secret Invasion - I sincerely wish I could unwatch this. It was awful. No elaboration. Just... I did not like it. Best I can say is that the discussion threads doing "Boom! You looking for this?!" jokes was funny.

Star Wars Franchise - Okay. Copper, my boyfriend REALLY likes Star Wars and so has been sharing all the new content with me while introducing me to the past stuff. Rebels and Andor have been my favorite. Ahsoka was my least favorite. It's a true sign of love that I'm willing to put in with Star Wars given my history with the movie theatre-- that franchise has caused me so much misery.

Chopper is great though. Love that little war crimes robot.

I now understand the Mortis meme and I agree. I know peeps are all about the midichlorian thing and like, sure, yeah, no. That's bullshit because you're sciencing up the faith thing but like-- this ain't it. Don't rebalance that by going all in on the faith and applying it to deities. That is such a shitty thing to do when the basis was a balance between inner peace and conflict derived from a Buddhist mentality. Idk. The War in our Stars is not our favorite. But we loved sharing it with someone we love.

Loki Season 2 - This year I just about gave up on Marvel and decided to wait for the next story arc to conclude and see if it's worth returning to. I do not watch as many movies these days and they do not serve their social function for me as they had in a life when movies were my career and I was surrounded by those who shared my passion.

Watching this season with Sleepyhead was the closest I felt to those old days of excitement and reaction and social lubrication. It was deeply enjoyable for those reasons and more. I feel like it was the epilogue that the early phases of Marvel deserved and the only version of the modern Multiverse plot that felt worthy of my attention. I find that Multiverse as a concept robs a franchise of consequence. I can watch characters slaughtered by Scarlet Witch and feel nothing and it makes it impossible to feel the weight of consequence. Even the protagonist of this show is not the man murdered by Thanos.

Yet it is the acknowledgement and embracement of this fact which allowed me to enjoy Loki as a show. He was a version of the man who was there for Thor at the end of Ragnarok. We saw him robbed of development and we saw him deconstructed and reconstructed into that which we always knew he could be.

Loki gives me hope but I still intend to take a break. It was nice to be driven and excited again, though.

Andromeda - Not gotten far but sharing this with Daja and enjoying it thus far if only because Nietzschean is such a fun concept for a species and there's a ton of time shenanigans involved. I wanna see more!

The cast are a delight, the low budget is endearing and the theme song is written by a member of Rush. Also Daja informs me that some episodes were pitched as DS9 episodes.

Mr. Robot - This may actually be my favorite show now. Like of all time. It just mixes everything I love about Prestige Drama shows, specifically Better Call Saul and then applies it to topics that have my focus like mental illness and Capitalism Bad. Plus it's a pastiche of modern cinema and keeps teasing the "I KNOW THIS!" center of my brain with (intentional in-universe) references.

The plot surrounds the rise of a hacktivist group going up against the evil corporation that controls 70% of the US's money. They are Exxon, Wal-Mart and Wells-Fargo rolled into one.

Each character in the show is suffering from isolation generated by a modern society and the camerawork constantly shows this off by minimizing their space in the frame to show off all the empty space around them. It's rare for two characters to interact on screen at the same time and typically shows trust and connection. The show does this so consistently that it becomes an unspoken language long before the first season concludes. It's a fantastic way of feeling the emotional walls between people and seeing when they are torn down.

By the end of the show they are doing victory laps with themed episodes and all 3 of them are some of the best I've seen in my life.

S3E5 is a simulated one take during a riot that captures the frantic energy of the heist and chaos of protestors breaking into the E Corp building amazingly.

S4E5 is a no dialogue episode and pulls a similar trick to the above, utilizing silence for a better payoff.

S4E7 is the best episode of television I've seen in my life. An hour long bottle episode structured like a 5 act play.

This show changed my brain chemistry forever. I wish I had found it in my past life. I would have loved to have done watch parties as it aired.

Castlevania: Nocturne - I am reserving judgment until later. I enjoyed the first season. Olrox is wonderful. I just don't have enough to bite into to really feel invested. I didn't get into the first show until season 2 so we'll see how this one develops.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Watched it in one sitting with Sleepyhead. It was a fun little show made with a ton of love. I don't have anything deep to say about it. It was nice to see and I enjoyed watching it.

Video Games

If I've gone off of movies then I'm entirely off of games. I haven't really anticipated a game enough to preorder it since God of War Ragnarok, though a part of this is that I see no reason to upgrade to PS5 and my machine isn't powerful enough to play Alan Wake II or Cyberpunk. I likely would have bought Spider-Man 2 if I had a PS5 and would have regretted it and would have bought Metal Gear Solid Master Collection if I were still playing games and also regretted it.

For disclosure we watched a few games on YouTube. Spider-Man 2, Anatomy, Signalis and Slay The Princess most notably. But we're not going to type about the ones we watched. Feels unfair to judge something we didn't experience directly. Though it means we can't (well, chose not to) type about MyHouse and that's a shame because we watched SO much about that! We learned so much about programming from it!

So bonus thoughts "MyHouse fills us with awe and envy over what can be accomplished with existing engines and should be mandatory inspiration for any game dev who is trying to think inside the box" "Spider-Man 2 seems like a better game to play than watch, the game failed on every possible level with the concept of Symbiote controlled Peter. They could have had us fight as him and have no dialogue. They could have had us fight us Miles while Peter is violent and silent. They could have had a sequence of Peter (or Miles) fleeing Kraven while feeling hunted and then use the same concepts for Peter chasing MJ... they failed to do anything to amplify the story and it fell flat. Watching it was a chore." "Signalis is a work of art and I will play it and post full thoughts one of these days" "Anatomy is the scariest fucking thing I've ever played and I wish I didn't check the authors other games. The concept of a user violating a work of art by interacting with it is clearly their obsession and they have done it 3 or 4 times with the exact same framework. Anatomy feels like a complete and whole product in a way the others don't. I am too cowardly to play this myself." "Slay the Princess feels like a game tailor made for someone I care about. It made me miss them while letting me feel close to their memory. The fractured/distorted reality path caused me to have a panic attack."

Disco Elysium - Such an interesting little point and click adventure this is. I found the first few hours deeply frustrating as it is a fully immersive sim with the concept of throwing you into the role of an amnesiac cop in a post revolution community that is trying its hardest to stand upright after being through decades of hardship. It really wants to explore the painful reality of being in decline and caught between the fantasy of a better yesterday and the fantasy of a better tomorrow.

It is also a failure simulator.

In that regard it succeeds perfectly. I was forced to feel the kind of useless that reality offers when I am asked to perform with authority a task that I have absolutely no basis of how to do whatsoever.

Failing continuously during the early game is important to establishing your understanding of the mechanics and grounding how you will adapt. My earliest actions were reprehensible in universe because I could not grasp or master mechanics enough to insert my will upon the character. That, however, is one of the failings of the game in my mind. You are ranked for everything you do (in one of a slim number of cookie-cutter endings - to the point of which this PARODY of how lacking they are comes up first when you type "Disco Elysium Ending" into YouTube) and it feels a little like the game wants you to grapple with the politics and morals of reality via how you interact in game and though it succeeds in many regards it does fail when gameplay mechanics get in the way.

For the most part I loved the breakdown of the city that stands proud and shapes the people within it. I loved the explorations into moral philosophy and I truly enjoyed the comedy, no matter how dark it got. Harry is an absolute human disaster (my Disco Elysium tag is "Human Disaster") and I was endeared.

My final complaint is that it suffers the same bullshit that Donnie Darko does. This is a lovely narrative about the resilience of cultures and community that is buried in the brickwork, it's a beautiful critique on how to live with existential despair and a takedown of overly indulging in pain/regret or rejecting reality and living in pure fantasy. As a moral piece and as a take on philosophy it is second only to NieR:Automata in my mind... BUT... There's the fucking Pale.

I do not think this game benefits from Deep Lore and a dive into What's Really Happening with reality unfolding and the dump of information surrounding it. Like Donnie Darko the fiction's themes are fine on their own and require no supernatural/sci-fi explination for 50 minute YouTube deep dive videos.

Everyone talks about the church sidequest being the best in the game but I resented having this human story warped by the existential dread of a supernatural oblivion, even if it's a stand-in for climate grief.

Night in the Woods - I loved this one far more than I expected. Someone I cared for deeply insisted I play it when it was new but it wasn't until I got it in a charity games bundle that I was willing to give it a shot.

The snapshots of growing up are not things I can relate to. I'm an English city girl from poverty who never went to college. The melancholy of America's forgotten cities and the abandonment of their communities was as alien to me as Revachol from Disco Elysium. I say that because much of the fan reaction I've observed talks of how relatable the game is.

What I did find though was a rich character driven story that was able to get vibes across well. I really like how the game wanted to make us get on the same page of frustration with Mae's parents without making Mae's parents bad. Having them not pick her up from the bus station and seeing the seeds of their resentment to her failure in college really helped me view them through an imperfect lens. I fear if the opening was not introducing us to Mae in such a sympathetic manner then some audience may have rejected her for being as immature and unreliable as she seems at first before we learn of her mental issues.

The mechanic of the towns people you forge connections with showing up at the church was dearly appreciated, though I found much of the optional mechanics of the game to become chores by the end. I did not want to go to the subway and the edge of the town every single day to see if I could advance the plot with the teens so I gave up on it. Poetry neighbor was cool though.

All in all I enjoyed it. I throw "Die Anywhere Else" on sometimes as a feel good track and my favorite sequence was the party in the college town.

Oh and I chose to ignore (or just disregard the legitimacy of) the supernatural elements for the same reason as Elysium. The story works just fine without ancient gods in the mine and cat gods in dreams.

Tears of the Kingdom - TotK was what kept me sane while I was bed ridden. I did not enjoy the absolute freedom. I seldom do in video games, but the sheer expanse of mapping the depths kept me going for a long while.

Dungeons were better this time but I still find myself longing for OoT and Wind Waker's style.

I found much of my enjoyment to come from watching Sleepyhead and Copper playing the game or hearing about Daja's campaign. It's simply not my type of game. A good distraction but I long for something which feels like I'm working towards something and most of modern Nintendo is designed to keep you in a gameplay loop forever with no satisfaction of completion.

Had the map not have been a tangible accomplishment I may have ended up disappointed. Game design is rapidly moving away from my interests. God of War Ragnarok may well be the final game I end up buying new and loving.

The Room Franchise - As a matter of love towards Daja I played one of her all-time favorite game series. Puzzle boxes and many of them. Room 3 is the best by a wide country mile. I enjoyed the aesthetic and found myself trying to get through each room as swiftly as possible. Each game was a single sitting for me but I enjoyed them. Plus the anniversary sale made the franchise barely cost anything.

Sonic Frontiers - I did not enjoy it. I hear that Sega kept working on it and it's actually a good game now but I played it when new and it was... well a modern Sonic game.

Penlight - I have an entire tag dedicated to how much I enjoyed it and Turq, Sleepyhead and I have a Discord chat titled The ENTIRE Penlight Fandom where we share theories, headcanons and story ideas.

Fact of the matter is it is a visual novel that takes a lifetime of existing in the hypnosis community and creates every single cautionary tale we could think of as a community. Angela DeMille knows her stuff and wants you to know how beautiful and incredible hypnosis can be with clear communication, trust and vulnerability and how horrific it can be without those things.

There is a policy of "no good endings for unethical choices" that I truly appreciate. Just check my tag. I wrote tens of thousands of words about how much I enjoyed the game.

I think I got everything?

May edit later? Idk. Anyway! I typed a thing!

#personal #TAG TIME! #DID #watch me post my trauma in public #human disaster #sayori is best girl #domo arigato mr alderson #scott pilgrim's precious little tag #its mahvul baybe #spider posting #odds bobs #the word house in these tags is written in blue

[liz-and-the-blue-bird]

Good evening to me

Since I've gotten some new followers: "Good ___ to me" indicate long personal posts. You don't have to read them ofc, they're mostly for me down the line.

This is kind of a weird one, it's mostly reflective stuff today. I don't usually make these without a lot of negative or at least melancholic emotions to work through. Regardless, I want to stop writing about the recent ex, but a lot of this is going to be tangential to her, so she'll pop up a few times. However, I want to focus on some personal thoughts that I've been thinking about.

Here's a song.

Right at the end of February, I took an OCEAN test or a "Big Five Personality" test. This is actually unusual among personality tests, it is actually supported by Psych research. Results tend to not change over a long period of time, etc. etc. You can take it yourself here, and be sure to share with me your results! I'd love to see them. In the meantime, here are my results:

The Extraversion and Openness to experience being so high is unusual, I think. It means a lot of what makes me comfortable involves art and people, or perhaps as an extension of that, expressing myself and communicating. With this context in mind, I've started to look back at my personal history. Moments where I'm sad or melancholic, I tend to write. When I was very young, it started with poetry, but now it has evolved into these journal entries. And I guess the reason I prefer to make them public is because of that extraversion, that longing to communicate with people my ideas or emotion.

Speaking of, I found a bunch of old notebooks the first week of March. So I've been reading through them all. And by a lot, I mean a lot:

And then, even older notebooks.

You can tell these are older because I doodled things on them. I never doodle anymore.

The first batch, the moleskins and stuff like that are primarily journals. Or at the very least, notes on what happened. The one that is open actually started 4 days after the ex 8 years ago. After a week of being sad and noting every single thing that has been happening, it abruptly jumps 8 months to me complaining about something else because I was not a very consistent note taker.

Meanwhile the one with the bird on it is actually a poetry notebook, before I started preferring to write exclusively online aka in the tumblr editor. The last poem written in there is Sucks. Then I stopped writing poetry for a very long time, and a lot of my writing energy became these journal entries, as well as other stuff on this blog, usually regarding anime.

The older notebooks, the spirals, are pretty much all poetry notebooks back from middle school and early high school. Though there's a few where I just doodled a bunch. They date all the way back to end of middle school.

But the poems SUCK. Like they're REALLY BAD. Most of them are actually on DeviantArt however, so they actually had an audience. Had.

I enjoyed looking through them. Interestingly, a lot of the love poems in them are reference to my first first girlfriend in middle school/high school. There was even a photo of us from back then, which was a big surprise. I don't remember much from her other than, well, making out a lot. I liked making out. I still do, but it started there.

We were a problem. We made out on all the band trips home. We would be late to band practice because I had brought her to a quiet corner of the school to just make out with her straddling me or me grabbing her butt. We made out so much in the practice rooms that the band directors ended up putting up signs in the band room saying to limit PDA ("no purpling" I think is what they said).

But I digress. I don't know her anymore. And she has such a common name that I wouldn't be able to stalk her if I wanted to.

Here's an indie song I just learned about and have recently been obsessed with.

I already kind of feel normal. I have spikes down but I've started waking up at 7/10 instead of 3/10 and winding up. 7/10 is about my default state. 10/10 is like... On a date with a girlfriend who I know is excited to be with me. 1/10 is trying to decide if life is worth living. 7/10 is "would dance to One Direction if it started playing right now".

I had a moment about a month after the break up where I just had a really bad breakdown. It was a combination of some more bottled up thoughts about the relationship that I had trouble finding a reason to write down or tell anyone and how poorly I had been taking care of myself and my surroundings because of my mental state. And I told it all out to a very old friend of mine. She comforted me but she said something that has made me feel better the most since the break up happened.

"But the fact that you're here, telling me this in this moment, just shows how much you cared and how much you can care for people."

It made me feel better. A lot better.

My capacity to care.

I care about a lot of things, very deeply, and often for very little reason. Stuff like the most efficient route to work, or my specific boba order that tries to get the "most drink per drink." How I tend to pause and stare at the sky for no real reason other than it's there and I won't see another like it. How I overthink things and memorize useless things. But this is the first time that that I've been told and thus realized, that it is no weakness or weirdness.

It's a strength. It's just me. A tremendous capacity to care.

I've been holding on to that ever since. I hope I don't forget it. Because from my old poetry and journal entrees, I tend to let girls and myself gaslight me into thinking that me caring about them so much, "too much" is a fault of my own. It isn't.

It isn't. It isn't. It isn't.

It is simply me.

But anyway.

I've started talking to a new girl. I've made it clear I just got out of a relationship, just to be fair to her, and tbh I'm not super certain on her, but it feels like I just want to see where this goes. I just really really want to meet people right now.

I think I have always had this fetish for nostalgia. Where I couldn't fall in love with anyone who I hadn't known for a long time. I think I learned about this very recently, and was why I was so aromatic until I re-met the ex. When I realized it, I started thinking I needed to grow out of it in some way. Especially if I'm actively trying to meet someone new. It's not that I wouldn't open up to people, I've always been a chronic oversharer (see, um, this entire tumblr post series), but rather I wouldn't feel supremely comfortable with people until I knew them for years.

But then a friend told me that my music taste is nostalgia. After I linked her that song I just linked. Because a lot of songs I send to her have this nostalgic feeling, even between different bands, genres, languages. Sometimes it's sad nostalgia, sometimes it's happy nostalgia, but it's definitely a longing for something deep and sentimental.

And I had just learned about that song.

This changed my feelings towards my "nostalgia fetish." I don't think I am looking for people who I have known for years. It just so happens that lot of my closest friends are that because I'm old and that's just how friends are when you're old. But I think it's moreso I'm looking for someone who has this same sentimentality. This same depth of emotion when looking at something old or close to them. My fetish for nostalgia isn't nostalgia for the person, but nostalgia in the person.

At least, I hope so.

Whatever, I'm looking forward to meeting new people.

Last song.

Many years ago, I remember the first time I felt normal after that break up. It was like 10 or 11pm and I was bringing someone home. They lived in Round Rock but I lived in downtown Austin, since I was a UT student at the time. After dropping them off, I still had like a 20 minute drive and I had just learned that The Summer Set's album, Legendary, had a deluxe edition, which that song I just linked is a part of. I look them up on youtube and hit play.

And on that drive home I found peace, somehow. I remember stopping before getting to the highway, next to a unkempt grassy field, and standing there, looking at the sky. I missed the sky and stars. I missed that hour drive home from her house when it was getting dark and you could see the constellations because I was between 2 medium sized cities. I missed that bumpy road that seemed perpetually under construction and twisted and winded and didn't make sense. I was a lonely boy who didn't have a place that felt like home and didn't know where he was going to end up. But I knew and, at least in that moment, was fine with it.

I still am that boy. But that constantly under construction road got finished in the past 8 years. That starry sky was gone, I noticed, from our drives to Austin together—too many small towns and buildings had popped up, too much light pollution. I thought I found a place person like home but it was a dusty extended stay motel that I ended up staying at for 5 months, with too high of a rent and a crummy landlord.

Last time I felt over her, I remember saying that my daydreams no longer had a girl on my shoulder. I felt really aromatic. Really antisocial. I became an island. And I don't know if I'm trying to replace her or what, but I don't think that will happen this time. I might be fine without a partner, but I know I am better with one. I know I'm ready.

For anything, really.

#the kyoukai no kanata gifs are important to me too #for some reason i associate it deeply with college and the ex #i have weird associations i think #i mean i describe songs with taste flavors #when i was in uni i made playlists named after drinks #anyway i digress #to me #this might be the last one for a while #thank you everyone who spends the time reading these #as well as anyone who just spends time interacting with me #i consider you all friends

[penumbramewtwos]

I'm still stuck in the editing phase of my 3rd chapter... Staring at the same sentences is driving me nuts... I don't know if it's even good anymore, sigh.

Anyway... I always start each chapter with a piece of written media, I don't know why lol. E.g. 1st was a data entry, 2nd was an email, the 3rd is an online news article, the 4th will be a text message log, and the 5th will be a Tumblr style 'ask and answer'.

Here's the 3rd (non formatted) just because why not lol

Chapter 3: Humanity's Evil. -------------------------------------------

_________________________________________ Saturday, May 25th. 2052.

            A U N U R A - A D V E R T I S E R             ______________________________

                         MYSTERIOUS BACTERIAL INFECTION.                            IDENTIFIED!

Scientists at Helix Laboratories have followed an old lead to find the source of 'Cranious Bacterial Infection' (CBI), currently spreading throughout Aunura at an alarming pace.

By stripping the bacteria down to it's RNA, lead scientist, Professor Kana Drake, has pinpointed its origin to a mutated form of substance 'R'; also known as R-Gas. The Human-made gaseous substance is derived from 'Berserk Genes' found in all Mewtwo.

R-Gas' fruition was created by the Pokémon Comprehensive Laboratory (PCL), under order from disgraced entrepreneur and visionarian, Howard Clifford. Clifford had a covet plan to merge all humans with their companion Pokémon; by using substance 'R' and a mind controlled Mewtwo, now believed to be the original. This notoriously became known as the 'Ryme City Incident' of 2019.

The original R-Gas inhibited a Pokémon's freewill, in-turn making them much stronger and overly aggressive for a short stint of time. This mutated version now also affects humans, disrupting their nervous systems within 4-10 hours of infection; spreading via exhale. The purple coloured, exhaled gas dissipates quickly, but the bacteria can linger for up to 36-hours. Symptoms are visually noticeable in infected beings. In the case of infection, please limit travel where possible.

No 'Patient Zero' has been identified, but sources claim it had emerged from an abandoned warehouse south of Symphony City, spreading to Melody City and Bridge Town via air travellers. So far the advice on the situation is to be cautious and not to panic. Safehouses are being erected by home owners around the region as a precaution. Please visit https://www.aunura_cbi_safehouse.com.au for more information.

With help on the way from Prof. Drake's mythical Pokemon, Deoxys, she's right on track to make an antibacterial fumigation. Once it passes testing, the spray will be mass-produced to coat the air of Aunura via plane and flying Pokèmon.

Helix Laboratories C.E.O., 82-year-old Giov...

TO READ FULL ARTICLE, PLEASE PURCHASE ANY SUBSCRIPTION TO 'AAN': • P2,500 - 1 Year • P5,000 - 3 Years • P15,000 - 10 Years

©2052: Rocket-Industries Pty. Ltd. _________________________________________

#mewtwo #pokemon #fanfic #deoxys #R gas #Fanmade Pokemon region

[maybefandomstuff]

Can you teach me to animate? I really want to do a vent animation but I can't :( -Nebs

I can give you a few tips, at least! Keep in mind that I use Pencil2D for the ones that I've posted so far, and different animation software might work differently. Also that' I'm not really a professional! I just like to draw a lot :] Warning for flashy images under the cut.

From my understanding, most animation is 12 fps (usually called twos, as in holding the frame for "two frames". That's the default for most software I've tried (Flipaclip, Piskel, Pencil2D, there was also something by Picsart I used to use but it was mobile-exclusive last I checked). I use 24 fps because I prefer how it looks and feels, but it really depends on the person. Since you're still new to it, you'll probably want to stick with 12 fps for now. As an example, here's something quick I made (it's a test animation of a potential design for The Dealmaker from Just Wishes and Faeries) that is set to 12 fps:

vs something that's 24 fps (in movie format - it's supposed to be a gif that matches songs of 127 BPM, but tumblr has a file limit of 10 MB for gifs):

To go back to that animation of The Dealmaker, though, there's key frames, and there's smear frames. In that animation, the tail has two key frames in its loop - one where it is up high, and curves up like the body does, and one where it is flat on the ground. If you look at most screenshots of a cartoon, they'll be of key frames. In between each of these key frames, there are 3 smear frames. These are the ones people make fun of, even though they're very important! They show how the movement works. Your middle smear frame should not be directly in the middle of the two key frames though! If you draw it so that it is slightly closer to the end result, it gives the appearance of acceleration, which makes the animation more smooth and lifelike. Also, if you're doing something with gravity, think of how pendulums and motion work. If it's bouncing, that key frame near the bottom might not be held as long as that key frame at the top. That's what I've got for now, at least!

#willow talks #my art #tw flashing

[gojos-whatnow]

How to Live Life like a Blooper Real

AKA: About Me

Requests: OPEN / closed

Wassup pookies and gentlewhores, here's where you find out why I'm so amazing (I'm gonna talk like it's true and let yall be the test)

BUT FIRST

Yall needa know who you're talkin to 😋

Name: just call me whatever, current name is Fenn

Age: 18! :D (as of 2/21 this year)

MBTI: ENTP-A (in my bio hehe)

Pronouns: She/He (also in bio)

Comfortable: nicknames/petnames (no preference unless I have to publicly shame you), treating me like the silly goober I am, random conversations

Uncomfortable: manga spoilers, any talk of rape/non-con or encouraging it, homophobia/transphobia, hating on characters I like (I find a lot of comfort in them so please refrain)

The Writing Style

The entire purpose of this tumblr is so I can write freely without limiting myself to a certain fandom or character, which I struggle with. So, here I am with a collage of me writing about random characters and worshipping ENTP characters because YIPPEE I LOVE THEM *kisses mirror*

WILL write: xReaders, fluff, smut, polyamoury, [mbti, character, mannerism, stereotype, etc.] reader

Characters:

》more fandoms to be added as I feel like it or receive requests

》JJK: Gojo, Geto, Nanami, Sukuna, Inumaki, Maki, Itadori, Nobara, Megumi

》PJSK: Rui, Tsukasa, Emu, Nene

》》(everything is platonic based on age, but if it's for a req I'll age-up)

WON'T write: canon×canon, angst (arguments, death, etc.), rape/non-con (dubcon/cnc/etc. are allowed), anything that would be hard for me to write or find interest in (if I don't find your request interesting, I'll delete it)

Characters (I may still reference them or add them to silly shit, just dont put them in reqs):

》JJK: Panda (he's... he's a literal panda), anyone from Kyoto, any of the curses (minus jogo cuz he's so fine 😍😍😍)

》PJSK: Pretty much everyone but the ones I mentioned up there 👆

》 more fandoms to be added

(Other things will be added to these lists as I think of them or they appear)

[Insert Masterlist here when I actually have one hehehehahahahe]

No joke this whole intro took 6 hours and it is currently 1 AM but I'm playing monopoly so ahaha

#intro post #introduction #dni #byi #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #about me #entp #entp things #pjsk #project sekai

[tinyshinysylveon]

❄ BNHA 7TH POPULARITY POLL TOP 10 ❄

#bnha #boku no hero #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia #my hero #bnha 336 #not sure if i should count this as spoilers even tho its just the popularity poll #my edit #im out of practice haha #i'm still testing tumblr's limits to gifs #izuku midoriya #katsuki bakugou #rody #aizawa shouta #shoto todoroki #hawks #kirishima eijiro #present mic #iida tenya #shinsou hitoshi #new edit! i decided to split it apart

[monochromenight]

Autumn Classic 2019 free skate practice @On Ice Perspectives

#yuzuru hanyu #figure skating #fskateedit #autumn classic 2019 #origin #mine #excuse me i heard tumblr had a new size limit for gifs #you're damned right i'm gonna test that #unfortunately the 8mb limit only works on mobile and on blogs (not dashboard for some reason??) #but whatever #i'm more than happy with 6mb #that's quite a jump from 3mb #i still remember when it was 500kb in 2011... #we’ve come a long way😭

[sarespai]

#promare #promare galo hen #fyanimegifs #studio trigger #allanimanga #mypromaregifs #yeah promare is so good I'm giffing again #still fiddling to find a good psd for it though #also testing tumblr gif size limits with this