all-hail-i-guess

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This may be the worst use of LLMs anyone has attempted, ever. Up there with recognizing mushrooms.

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americans making this shit about them “WHAT ABOUT ME OMG WHATS GONNA HAPPEN TO US” nothing. you know who’s gonna suffer? iranians. iran’s ppl will suffer from this, not us. u guys aren’t the ones that are fucked. iranians are. not us. not everything is about us.

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just found out in medieval france, having a lion on your coat of arms was so prevalent that there was literally a colloquial proverb to clown on knights for being basic and not having a real coat of arms. the hate game was so strong back then. imagine medieval hate anons

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The Dabous Giraffes - neolithic petroglyphs found in Saharan Niger estimated to be 6,000 to 8,000 years old. The bigger of the two giraffes is 5.4 meters long and is the largest known petroglyph in the world.

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idk at some point i feel like people dont know how to be insane about two characters dynamic without making it romantic. like emotional closeness and complicated relationships and like doing basic acts of caring about each other/protecting each other automatically gets turned into a romantic thing by many people and im just like. sighs in aro. platonic relationships can be just as deep and interesting! sometimes it being platonic makes it BETTER, even! to do so much for someone that is truly your friend and not anything else... is a really lovely thing to tell and emphasizes how important friendships can be

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forever grateful i was simply too lazy to let the makeup industrial complex get its hooks in me. I was just like im not doing all of that. in fact. im doing none of that

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Book Decoration: AKA All The Ways I Don't Use a Cricut

(this post is for people who don't want to buy an expensive cutting tool, or for those that do have an expensive cutting tool that would like to mix things up a little)

1. Print That Shit

If you're already printing your own textblocks, an easy step for titles is to print them. Above is a title printed onto an "obi" of decorative paper. I measured out where I wanted things on the finished book and laid it out in Affinity, then printed it on a full sheet & trimmed it down to wrap around the book. A more simple method is to print & glue on the label into a slight indent in the cover (to protect it). A third option is to do the spine in bookcloth, while you print on paper for the cover and then glue that paper onto the boards (this usually looks even better when it is a three-piece bradel bind).

2. Foil Quill / Heat Pens

The heat pen is one of my go-to tools, but it can be a bit touchy about materials. The most popular version is the We R Memory Keepers' Foil Quill (which is one of the most ergonomic), but other pens exist that can get you to a higher heat temp, finer lines, or more consistent foil. For example, I have a pen created by a local Japanese bookbinding studio that fares way better on leathers than the WRMK quill & with a finer tip, but it's hell to control. Best results in general are on paper or smooth bookcloth (starched linen, arrestox, colibri - even duo will work but its less solid). The fuzzier a bookcloth is, the less your foil quill wants to deal with it. This means the heat n bond method of making bookcloth does not play nice with a heat pen usually, but there are two solutions: 1) use this tutorial on paste + acrylic medium coated bookcloth instead that will get you a perfect surface for the heat pen, or 2) use the pen on paper & then glue onto the cloth. I did a video tutorial for both foil quill use and this type of homemade bookcloth for @renegadeguild Binderary in 2023.

You get the most consistent results by tracing through a printed template that is taped in place, as I do in the video above.

3. Paint That Shit

Acrylic paints will do you fine! The above is free-handed with a circle template, because I wanted that vibe. If you need straight lines that won't seep, lay them down with tape first & then paint over it first with a clear Acrylic medium, then your color. Same goes for stencils. Two more examples of painted bookcloth:

4. IT'S GOT LAYERS

By using layers of thinner boards, you can create interesting depths & contrasts on your cover. You can also make cutouts that peep through to the decorative paper behind. The most important part to this technique is the order in which each edge is wrapped. To get a good wrapped inside edge, you will split the turn in into tabs to get them to conform to a curve. You can also layer multiple colors of bookcloth without multiple layers of board, as seen below left, so long as you mind your cut edges for fraying.

5. Inlaid... anything

Mirrors! Marbled paper! I saw someone do a pretty metal bookmark once! The key is creating a little home for it to live in, which is pretty similar to the above layering method. On one layer you cut the shape, & glue that layer onto the bottom solid board before covering. You can do the top layer as an entire 1 mm board (like I did for the mirrors) or a sheet of cardstock, like I would use for inlaid paper.

6. Decorative Paper

Decorative paper is always helpful & adds to the paper hoard... & its effects can be layers with other techniques, as below. Marbles, chiyogami, momi, or prints & maps of all kinds can be great additions. Some papers may need a protective coating (such as wax or a sealer).

7. Stamps (with optional linocut)

While I've not used many more regular rubber stamps, I do know some who have, successfully! And I've used one once or twice with embossing powder (see photo 3 up, the gold anchor on the little pamphlet bind). What also works is to carve your own linocut or stamp, & then use block printing ink to ink it onto your fabric (as i did above). A bit time intensive, but it was nice how easily reproducible it was, and I liked the effect I got for this particular bind.

These methods are not exhaustive, just ones I've used, and there are of course many others. I haven't gone too into detail on any of these for the sake of length (& post photo limits) but feel free to ask about more specifics. Usually I'm using them in combination with other options.

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This is still one of the funniest fucking things. Mostly because, due to Internet, one is willing to overlook a lot of the semantic errors until the last six words

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listen, sometimes it's more powerful for a fictional relationship to be a friendship precisely because friendship is devalued in comparison to romance. anyone can sacrifice themself for the love of their life. but for a friend? if anything, that kind of devotion can be even more moving than if the relationship is romantic. there's a real dramatic power to prioritising friendship in your narratives sometimes.

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OP: so this is the ‘intense regional downpour’ on the weather forecast

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part of the reason I think it’s so sad that we collectively write so few stories about unrequited love is bc I feel like there’s very little public acknowledgment of how much it sucks to be the one somebody is in unrequited love with??? and not in a way of like, oh they’re crossing boundaries or putting expectations on me or whatever. becoming close friends with someone and then finding out they’re in love with you and you don’t love them back the same way is heartbreaking, bc a) someone you love is in pain and there is literally nothing you can do about it, and b) it usually means that whether you like it or not there’s going to be distance in your friendship that wasn’t there before as they try to get over you. idk man I just feel like we’ve all discussed the tragedy of loving someone who doesn’t love you back quite a lot and very rarely discuss the tragedy of finding out the way that you love someone just isn’t enough.

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the main problem i have with america is that nothings old as hell there. i cant be so far away from a castle it damages my aura

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daily affirmations:

i am kind

i am in control of my emotions

it does not bother me when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

everyone in the house has the right to be in the kitchen

i am kind and in control of my emotions even when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

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where’s that 1900s painting of the centaur mother playing with her child in a grassy field?

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openin’ the door to the microwave one second early because you don’t need all the hootin’ and hollerin’

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The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.