#go to plan page... see a button to select plan

[deergravity]

yawl i put myself thru the WRINGER this morning for nauuugghhhtttt

[n7punk]

Tumblr Backup Options: None of them do everything

Cheeky but true. I'll go through what's good and bad about each option though so you can decide which balances out for you.

Covered: native export, WordPress (kinda), TumblThree, tumblr-utils (kinda)

Native Export

If you go to "https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/yourblogname", at the bottom of the page is an export option

Once you hit the button to start the request, it will start processing. Feel free to log off, this is going to to take a few hours. You don't need to keep it open. ~22k posts took roughly a day for me. If you have a small number of posts and get stuck, you're probably broken.

When it's done processing, you can hit that download backup button and then wait some more as you wait for the zip file to download. Mine failed the first time after like twenty minutes, and then I had to start over. I think it took 1-2 hour(s) and I'm almost certain that was on Tumblr and not my internet. And that was the zip file! So make sure your computer can be on for a while before getting this started.

So what do you get?

A media folder, conversations folder, and posts folder

Media folder: Every single photo, gif, and video that has ever been on your blog or in your DMs. There is no context data attached (except for dm images which do say which conversation they're from at least), but they seem to be in chronological order because they seem to be titled by the post's ID (the string of numbers in the address bar after "/post/"). They look like "100868498227", "100868498228_0", "100868498228_1"

When you see something end with "_0" and up that means the photos are in the same post, so _0 represents the first image in the post, _1 represents the second, etc (at least, I think).

Conversations folder: HTML export files of every DM history you have on your blog. These are actually pretty well formatted, see example here.

Posts folder: html subfolder and posts_index.html file

posts_index.html: File listing every single post on your blog by post ID on its own line with no other context. Example of a line: "Post: 780053389730037760". The ID number will link to the post in the html folder

html subfolder: contains a submissions subfolder and stripped html file versions of every post on your blog. See below first what the post looks like on Tumblr, and second what the post looks like in the html folder

The way you seem to be intended to use this is to open the file index, select a post ID, and be jumped to where that post is saved as an html file, but I don't know why you would bother when the index doesn't provide any information about the posts inside it. The posts all have extremely minimal formatting. See a reblog chain below.

Notice I said ALL posts on your blog. Photo posts without a caption will just have a broken image icon and then the date and tags. Theoretically, it might be that if you unzip the entire export folder that allows it to automatically link to the image saved in your media folder. I have no fucking idea, unzipping the folder was estimated to take two hours so I didn't do it. Let me know if you do though so I can update this post!

The submissions folder is such a rabbithole I made a post just on it but long story short it's asks you haven't replied to

What do I see as the main reasons to opt for this option? 1) you don't want to download any programs or files from the internet just to backup your blog, 2) your blog is relatively small, so digging through the ID files isn't a big deal, 3) you mostly just want to download either the images (which will be browsable via thumbnail previews in the media folder if you unzip it) or conversation history, which are fairly well formatted, 4) you don't need to update your export often/ever, because you'd have to request it from the start and download the entire thing all over again, 5) you want to be able to read your text posts clearly and don't care about preserving the full formatting, and/or 6) you don't plan to reupload this information elsewhere (say on... a WordPress blog)

WordPress Automatic Ex/Import

Move your post's from Matt's right hand to his left! WordPress (another product of Automattic) has a native Tumblr importer found under your WP Admin dashboard for your site under Tools > Import > Tumblr.

How does this work? No idea! I hit import 2 days ago and it has done nothing. Maybe I'm stuck, maybe it's permanently broken. It says to contact support if it's been over 24 hours but they don't make that easy. I disconnected from Tumblr (you can only port over a blog you have the login of) and reconnected and it still said it was importing. I don't think it's ever going to do anything.

Presumably it's supposed to 1:1 import every post on your blog onto the WordPress site, which will result in a whole lot of stolen art because there's no way to select just your original posts. Also, you'd need enough storage on your webhost to house all the posts (this honestly might be my problem, but I was planning to delete all the non-original posts once it imported.... anything and backfill what it didn't get to). The one thing I'll say about this option is that it's the only one I've seen so far that exports drafts and queues as well.

I mean, if it exported anything. If this ever does anything I'll update this post, but either my blog is too large or this tool isn't totally functional anymore.

TumblThree

(previously TumblTwo, etc)

TumblThree is an all-in-one program requiring no extra downloads beyond the main Zip, and was last updated fairly recently at the time of this post. In order to run it, unzip it into one folder and run the main .exe. It has a full UI interface with lots of very descriptive helper text to help you select the right options for you without looking at the wiki. I think it's user-friendly for non-tech people.

There are a lot of options in TumblThree to change what output it gives you, but I'm going to start with the largely universal parts first:

Everything from one blog will be exported to one folder, no subfolders or sorting. As a result, the output is very messy and difficult to wade through, but post metadata and the photos are named in the same way so you can scroll, see an image preview, and then click on the metadata txt for that post and read the caption.

Depending on your settings, you can export all photos, videos, text posts, etc as their own files or exclude them from the export entirely. For the different types of media posts, you can independently select if you what to download just the media, just the metadata for it (everything that surrounds the post when you see it on Tumblr, such as the caption, OP, tags, etc), or both.

Master txt file: For every type of media metadata you export, a correspondingly named txt file will be created (images.txt, answers.txt, etc) that contains the text/metadata of every post of that type in one txt file. This is also the default behavior for exporting text posts.

Note: for text posts (which includes asks/answers), it only creates a master txt file if you do not select "Save texts as individual files", in which case it will only save each text as an individual txt file and not make a master file.

The formatting on these files is so brutal I won't even give examples, but they're unreadable. Being a .txt file, there is no native formatting, so it exports in html formatting.

Example: instead of a post that says "I want to go swimming", it exports: "I want to go < b >swimming< / b >" (minus the spaces around the b) as the post body, which is a big part of what makes it unreadable, because there are a lot of hyperlinks in all the header information listed below.

Each post in the master txt exports with: Post ID, date, post URL, slug, reblog key (no idea what that is), reblog URL, reblog name, title, [the text/caption itself], and tags.

Theoretically this means you could ctrl+f "cybertrucks" in the master txt file and then browse all your posts making fun of Tesla owners by tabbing through the returns. This is not possible with any of the previous options, and only is possible because it's all in one file, as ridiculous as it is, which is why getting that master file is so important.

For the trick to get both the individual text posts and master text.txt & answers.txt file, as well as my recommended settings and details on how updating backups works, see the read more at the end of this post.

The images.txt includes all the information listed above, but with the following additions: photo url (NOTE: this is the url on Tumblr, not a link to where it is in your folder), photo set URLs, photo caption, and "downloaded files" (NOTE: this is the name of the file it has downloaded)

The video.txt is similar to the above

The use case for this would be similar to what I described for text posts above: search keywords from captions, tags, etc and when you find what you think is what you want, copy the name from "downloaded files" and search your folder to find the actual image

I really hated TumblThree's output the first time I looked at it and then I realized the single file is the only way to make browsing tags workable, because otherwise you would have to have a folder for every tag, and posts with multiple tags would have to be duplicated between them. I'm not pressed on finding a txt to HTML converter right now but it could be an option in the future if you wanted to make things more readable.

Okay, let's get into the non-universal stuff you can customize in settings, because it's like, everything:

File names: We've already established you can search with the downloaded file name for images, but what will that be? Whatever you fucking want. Post date, reblogger name, post ID, post title, original file name, you can make it any and all of these in any order you want! You can have actually useful file names! Personally I like %e_%p_%q_%i_%x which exports as DateTime_PostTitle_BlogOriginName_PostID_IteratingNumber (note: you need some kind of unique iterator to be valid so two files don't have the same name, such as multiple photos from one post). Look how much searchable information that gives me, in chronological order! It decreases your need for the master txt file.

Tip I wish I thought of before doing my massive export: make one of the unique headers from the master txt file part of the exported file name so it's easy to search for it after identifying it in the master file.

Files scanned: this is the only method I've found that lets you back everything up, remember what it backed up, and then lets you add any new posts since that date without having to download the whole thing again. That's a game changer, but see the read more below for limitations.

You also have the option to rescan the entire thing if you want.

Post type: T3 (I'm abbreviating it now) also lets you export just your original posts, just reblogs, etc - again, giving you the most control of any options. It also lets you export replies. I, uh, would not do this because if you have any popular post on your blog it might have hundreds, or thousands of replies but hey, you can do it!

You also have the option to only download posts with a certain tag.

Blog options: You can export literally any blog you have the URL of. In fact, if you copy a blog URL while it's open, it will automatically add that blog to its UI and create an empty folder for it. It makes it easy, no private key required. I do have mixed feelings about the concept of exporting someone else's blog... but I'm also planning to do it to some of Crew-ra's blogs so... my digital horde must grow.

You can also queue blogs up and leave it to run through a lot of them. It is a lot faster than Tumblr's native export, I started this import well after I started typing this post and it took a few hours, probably not all that much longer than just downloading Tumblr's export took (and that's while running it alongside other data copy operations because I'm backing up a lot of stuff right now).

I do recommend doing a test export with a sideblog, I was able to use wild-bitchofthenorthwoods as a test import since it only has one post and it has media, so it was super quick.

(I do want to note, I think the number of downloadable items starts out matching the number of posts on your blog without scanning them until you start the export - but if you choose to export everything as its own file, you're going to end up with way more than that because a post with three images would be multiple files)

Things T3 cannot export:

Since in its simplest form it's just accessing the public upload of your blog, it cannot export your drafts, queue, or conversations

It cannot export posts as HTML files, and thus cannot export them with readable formatting natively

What do I see as the main reasons to opt for this option? 1) you don't care about exporting your DMs/conversations, 2) you want the ability to export only certain kinds of posts (original, photos, using a tag, etc), 3) you want to control the titles of the exported files 4) you don't mind wading through massive folders, 5) you want the ability to search tags (using the txt files), 6) you want the ability to update your export without starting over from the beginning, 7) you either don't want to reupload this information somewhere else, or you want to upload it somewhere that supports automatic HTML conversion (for instance, you can switch a Tumblr post from a rich text format to HTML, same with AO3, so you can put it in as HTML and then hit post to see it turn into a rich format. This techically makes T3 the most versatile/useful export option if you're planning to do anything with it other than browse your own files).

tumblr-utils

Full disclosure: haven't tried this one. But others have! tumblr-utils is a no-UI, python-based backup software. This means in order to use it you have to type commands into the terminal. If you don't know what I just said, don't use this one.

If you do, you'll need to separately download python and youtube-dl just to get this one running. You'll also need to give it your personal Tumblr API key and feed it commands deciphered from the wiki page I linked. Here are two different guides people have written on how to use it. Output:

Obviously I'm guessing based on the documentation, but one thing that is nice is this tool allows you to save each post in its own folder. Presumably each post is multiple files like we saw with T3, so this would make it easy to group them, but it also means you'd have to look in every single folder to find anything.

It seems to break posts up into timestamp folders by month, again, helping with management to narrow down where you have to search

It allows you to save only certain kinds of posts at a time like T3

It allows you to backup posts only from a certain time period (so if you keep a little .txt note of the last time you backed up, you can easily add only the new posts into your backup without having to start over from the beginning)

It allows you to only save posts under a certain tag like T3

It allows you to save only original posts

It's the only one I've found that lets you back up your liked posts

What do I see as the main reasons to opt for this option? 1) you don't care about exporting your DMs/conversations, 2) you want the ability to export only certain kinds of posts (original, photos, using a tag, etc), (okay now we get to the points that aren't also covered by T3), 3) you want posts to export already broken into folders, whether by post or by month, 4) you want to back up your likes, 5) you don't care what file names look like, 6) you're comfortable with the command line/coding and don't need a UI.

Summary:

None of these options are ideal for reuploading your files anywhere (except WordPress), but I do think TumblThree is the best of the options because of the written HTML formatting in the txt files being useful for websites that support automatic conversion (or require HTML input).

For starting another blog, WordPress wins. If it works. I'm trying to be generous here.

For searchability, T3 wins again.

For versatility... yeah you know it's T3, but tumblr-utils has a lot of the same features, too!

For sentimentality (aka conversations), it has to be the native export. There literally is not any other option.

For queues and drafts, the only theoretical option is WordPress. If it works.

For likes, the only option is tumblr-utils.

Every option does something the others don't, so theoretically to cover everything, you have to do all four options. Actually I would say do the native export if you don't have a lot of posts and aren't a freak like me, check it out, and if it doesn't work (I know it's finnicky) or you don't like the export, go with TumblThree. This also means you'll at least have your conversations even if you don't end up using the native export any other way.

And I wish it could go without saying, but don't repost people's shit, y'all. I'm backing up everything for my records only and it will never be shared with anyone else, or even browsed as long as using Tumblr instead is an option.

TumblThree adding to old backup quirks, recommended settings, & master file backup solution:

Adding to backup quirks:

From my tests, when you scan a blog you've already backed up to just add new posts to it, it does not update the master file, so if you want to update it, you'll have to do the steps I list at the end of this post. It might be possible it does update if you force rescan, but I highly doubt it.

If you scan a blog you previously backed up under more restrictive settings - say you only backed up original text posts as one file before and now you've selected to back up absolutely everything - it will only download up until the time you last backed up that blog. It will not blow past where you last downloaded to download all the photos and videos it didn't get before just because they're selected now. This is great for doing after using the master file solution I'm showing below, but if you do need to download everything after doing a more restrictive scan, you can once again follow the first few steps below to do so.

Recommended settings:

This will obviously vary by what you're trying to do, but one or two things weren't immediately obvious to me and I did say I think this was the best solution for less technical users, so I want give my personal recommendations. Settings can obviously be found under the settings button at the bottom of the screen (you may need to use the scrollbar on the UI for, which is separate from the scrollbar on the blogs panel), but when you click on a blog, when you click "Details" in the right sidebar, you can also see your most important settings at a glance and adjust them to whatever you want them to be "per blog". I believe TumblThree remembers what you last used for the blog and applies the things in settings only to new/other blogs.

The thing that is going to vary the most is how many different types of posts you want to back up (text, video, reblogs included, etc), so I'll leave that up to you. If you're going to export a media type, though, I generally recommend exporting the metadata too.

I already gave my preferred file names above and again that's going to be something that varies a lot by people. Hover over the "Filename template" box and it will give you all the options in the legend you can combine via underscores.

Leave "Skip .gif files" off unless you're hurting for hard drive space. This removes all the gifs from your download, and the reason this is provided as a separate setting is because gifs have relatively massive files (at least compared to a text file)

I'll be honest I haven't seen a difference between turning on and off "Group photo sets". Because of the way file names work, most conventions will naturally lead to photos from the same post all being in a row.

"Save texts as individual files": if you only want texts to be saved as their master text.txt and answers.txt files, uncheck this. If you want the individual files I highly recommend you also download the master file for searching purposes, in which case my recommendation is this:

1) Select to export texts only, leaving off all media options, and uncheck the "Save texts as individual files" option. 2) Export the blog. This will only result in two files, answers.txt and texts.txt. 3) Move these files elsewhere on the computer to save them. 4) With T3 closed, delete the folder for the blog and the blog's Indexes (see instructions at the end of this post for finding these). 5) Reopen T3, which shouldn't remember it ever saw the blog and create a new folder for it. Turn on the "Save texts as individual files", as well as any other media posts you want to download. 6) Export the entire blog again. 7) Move the texts.txt and answers.txt file back into the blog's folder.

I leave all other options on the Details tab off, except for:

"Force rescan" scans past the point it last backed up and searches the whole blog again. If you have a big blog, this is going to burn time. This is needed for the number of downloaded items in the panel to be accurate but I don't know why you would care or turn this on unless it lets you skip steps 3-4 above, but my blog is too big to burn through testing that, so if you try it, let me know and I'll update this post!

Master file backup solution:

See my 7 steps from above to skip having to do this, but if you accidentally do things out of order and then realize you still need the master files for texts post after backing everything else up, here's how you get it with minimal pain:

T3 will make an "Index" folder in both the main folder for the program where the exe is located and the destination folder where you have your blogs backing up (note: these were two very different places for me, if you just have it back up to the automatic Blogs folder within T3's folder, it might not create a second Index folder).

To make T3 "forget" what it has backed up previously so it goes through to the beginning and makes a master file that includes everything, all you have to do is remove the Index file(s) for the blog while it's closed so it doesn't remember it anymore. I backed my index up in another folder.

Check off for it to only download text posts, and then uncheck the "Save texts in individual files" option. This will cause it to only create the master answers.txt and texts.txt file on the rescan.

The combination of only going for one post type and only downloading one file for it means this rescan is relatively fast. When you look at your Blogs folder, you'll find a new folder has been created for your blog name (in my case, there was "n7punk" and "n7punk_2) and your output is in the new folder. I just moved it over to the original folder.

At this point you can restore the indexes, though I've only gotten it to half recognize them. I can get it to recognize my original n7punk folder so everything can stay there, but the total downloaded items is stuck at what it was when I did just the text posts. I don't really care, it was mainly the folder thing I wanted to fix. If you have lag between your last full backup and your master-only backup, this might cause some issues? I don't know because I made sure there wasn't lag, so I recommend doing another backup to add any missing items before doing this method.

You can also use this technique if you want to download only your original posts and then download everything else to a second folder. Adjust the setting to only download original posts, download the whole blog, close T3 and delete the indexes, rename the folder to whatever you want ("n7punk_original", etc), and then reopen T3 and set it to download everything and run it again from the start.

[it-crowd-unexpected-reboot]

Update #2: A New Outlining Method, Dropdown Plotter

I've been having a hard time conceptualizing how to plan out a novel lately. It used to come so easy to me. Now that I'm a real adult, it feels like there isn't enough space in my brain anymore for me to have my story all in my head without writing my ideas down somewhere.

So, good outlining methods, which can be hard to come by, are crucial for my writing process.

But, a lot of traditional methods don't work for me.

In my opinion, it's extremely important to have an outlining method that doesn't overwhelm you, and which feels creatively freeing. And when do I need to be more creatively free, than when writing an IT Crowd fanfiction?

So I've come up with a new outlining method that I'd love to share with you all! I call it Dropdown Plotter.

Dropdown Plotter uses the dropdown menu feature, which can be found in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, to help you better visualize (and, most importantly, easily reorganize) the major aspects of each chapter of your story.

Basically, it's a spreadsheet that includes, at minimum, 8 columns.

Chapter Title

Plotlines

Included Character(s)

Perspective Character(s)

Location(s)

Chapter Story Description

Writing Stage

Due Date

Why keep track of these things? Balance. Basically, making sure your characters, plotlines, POVs, and important locations all get adequate page time.

It's a lot easier to conceptualize these things when you have it on a color-coded spreadsheet, zoomed out really far, and can see in a big picture way. For example, you might see that the red color indicating "Legolas" is in a scene, drops off after Chapter 17. You might see that the green-coded plot about his missing shoe is only important for 5 chapters in the middle of the story, or that we're spending almost the entire story in the bathroom and never in the evil lair.

So, how do you use the Dropdown Plotter?

First, you go into the dropdown menu, and you can see all the plots you've selected. There's a handy "search feature" for those writing the next Game of Thrones. You want to click the little pencil icon in the bottom right, which is the "edit" button.

On the right-hand side of your screen, a column will pop up called "Data Validation Rules." From here, you can edit the names and colors of each item in the dropdown menu, and add or delete things as you'd like.

Make sure to click "allow multiple selections" on the bottom of the data validation rules pop-up. This will allow you to select multiple characters, multiple locations, and multiple plots when you're in the dropdown menus.

Don't forget to click "Done" at the bottom!

On top of the dropdown menus, the nice thing about working in a spreadsheet is that you can always drag and drop the rows and columns. This makes it extremely easy to change the order of scenes around, in a way that feels very impermanent and easy.

Here is what my Dropdown Plotter looked like for the first three chapters of The Grant: An IT Crowd Fanfiction.

Looks pretty, right? And pretty outlines build confidence! Not only that, but what I like most about this outlining method is that it encourages me to be less precious with my ideas.

It's way less intimidating to overhaul major aspects of your story, such as the dominant POV, the main plot, etc., when all you have to do is click a little button in the dropdown menu to change everything. When I'm editing a little blurb in a spreadsheet versus an entire step outline, it reminds me that no writing problem is insurmountable, and nothing is ever really set in stone.

Again, it builds confidence.

Unfortunately, I've only built a Dropdown Plotter in Google Sheets, but I've provided a blank version to share with you all. The nice thing about spreadsheets is that you can add and delete things as you see fit. For example, some people might want to add...

More columns indicating multiple scenes within the same chapter!

A "Story Beat" column, to mark the specific plot beats each chapter follows (as in the Hero's Journey or the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet).

An "Important Info" column, to mark any worldbuilding or character details discussed or introduced in a certain chapter.

Literally anything your little heart desires!

Happy outlining and I hope you enjoy the Dropdown Plotter!

[sparklecarehospital-archive]

an overview of my progress on the new site over the past 5 months of building

i decided i would put together a big post compiling all of the things i have currently implemented to the new site since at the moment it's scattered amongst a million small update posts. i feel like this will be good reference for anyone who has ideas that aren't included yet

the comic reader

you can now change the placement of the comic pagination arrows to be above, below, or on both the top and bottom of the comic page.

you can search for individual page numbers via a search bar (and also search 'cover' 'back cover' etc)

you can bookmark pages and save your place at any time in any series, and the home landing page will give you a link to your saved page when you revisit the site so you dont have to go all the way to the read section just to access your place. saving your bookmark tells you what page you're saving (or clearing if you're removing it)

you can now select individual scenes in the volume that have non-spoiler names but proper associations to the content for returning readers to quickly find specific scenes

on desktop you can change the size of the page on your screen

on desktop you can hide the site header (this is not necessary on mobile)

there is a legend explaining what each button does

new comment service that does not have ads

transcripts now come from the sides of the screens and do not require scrolling down to read them, and they are correct and no longer inaccurate on certain pages

tooltips that explain what each navigation arrow button is for

content warnings

you can select individual categories of content you do or don't want to see via switches

you have the ability to disable warnings entirely if you wish, just turn all of them off

you can choose between verbal warnings (stuff in dialogue) or visual warnings (things seen on-screen)

you can suggest adding content warnings to specific pages if there are errors OR if there is something major i overlooked

there is a page that lists every content warning in a volume with contexts for each individual warning, whether it's verbal or visual, and links to the pages

there is a pre-moderated comment section that allows anyone to ask questions about content warnings (for example, asking if something will ever be in the comic or asking what category something specific would be listed under).

there is a list of things that do not get warnings and a list of things that will never be depicted in the comic

scenes that did not have content warnings before now have them to match the proper category system

archives

volume archives are now images instead of links, and they are displayed in a grid format which is mobile-responsive so it doesn't take absolutely forever to scroll through an entire volumes archive

volume summaries are more easily accessible

the new transcript archive which is a text-only version of the entire comic, including a clean version in case you need things in dialogue filtered out

mobile devices/tablets

the website is now properly mobile responsive and designed to function like a regular mobile website and is not unbearable to use anymore. it just feels and looks like any other mobile site!

comic pages now touch the edge of the screen and do not always require zooming in to read dialogue

transcripts are now more device-friendly and do not appear broken on small screen devices anymore

all comic reader features work on mobile (except the 2 desktop-only features)

content warnings do not take up too much space or overflow the comic page box

margins are improved to make basically everything more mobile friendly

you can still see page backgrounds faintly on mobile, but they have an overlay to make reading the comic page contents easier. this was not originally planned but i made it happen! yippie!

display

the site now has a built-in dark mode that works for every site theme, however, keep in mind that due to the nature of dark themes they are obviously not as colorful as the main site themes

there is now a saturation slider which changes the saturation of the site to whatever percentage you wish

saturation affects the background and does not ignore it

the screen does not flash as new elements load in, however, images specifically may take a moment to load depending on your internet speed. this is something i'm trying to fix but i can't guarantee it because it's not entirely in my control how websites load images depending on your internet speed

secrets!

cast page

cast page for each series is divided by individual character type (main patients, side patients, main staff, side staff, family, outsiders etc)

cast profiles are mobile responsive in an easy-to-use way and do not take forever to scroll through on mobile devices, instead they are collapsible and you only have one open at a time.

desktop has anchor links to specific profiles using my cute emoji edits :]

search bar on the main cast directory page that takes you to specific characters by entering their name (or variations of it)

profiles include allotpuns, genders, pronouns, nouns, sexuality, species, age, hatchday, height, and a list of all of their afflictions

there are popups that explain the meanings of certain phrases or words (like specific sexualities) and neopronoun usage explanations and examples

cast page profiles for all of the currently public cast members

biographies that contain character history (or at least the currently public history) and a detailed explanation of their personality that replaces the trait system for simplicity's sake

secrets!

comic itself

pages with errors have been corrected

pages with improper characterization/retconned information have been updated and replaced with new dialogue

character card intros now contain pronouns and retconned pronouns have been corrected

uni is no longer referred to with exclusively he/him anywhere except in the comic itself to avoid confusing new readers/people who do not look at other areas of the site

scenes that did not previously have site themes now have them, for fun!

secrets!

FAQ

the FAQ is no longer a million miles long despite containing all of the questions it originally had. it is now collapsible sections that make accessing certain question types easier

pre-moderated comment section that allows anyone to ask questions about the comic, even if they do not have a tumblr account. these questions are directly on the FAQ itself. it is pre-moderated to keep things on-topic.

bug report page where you can describe problems you're having if the site isn't working right for you. this is also pre-moderated. common/important issues will be pinned

navigation bar

there will be links to all of the ask blogs on the navigation bar, including the AUs

there is a link to the spinch lore page directly at the top. no more digging through the FAQ!

navigation bar has dropdowns to specific types of pages to increase the link count without cluttering/taking up too much space

the links are no longer poorly sized images, instead they are actually made with html

landing page

when you first open the site, you will be linked to a settings page that allows you to set your display settings and content warnings in advance

you can set saturation and select dark mode if you want

this landing page is not bright and has an overlay to prevent it from immediately forcing you to see bright colors

this is everything that is currently implemented. there may be things added in the future, this is just all of my current progress.

what do i have to finish?

uploading the comic. i currently have volumes 1-2 fully uploaded and transcribed, v3 is fully uploaded, and v4 is undergoing the upload process.

finish the archive pages to include all of the volumes

finish the cast profiles

work on the spinch lore page

do proper beta testing with the crew to make sure everything works on as many devices as i can possibly test it on

thank you to everyone for being patient with me over the past few months as i work hard on this. i feel really good actually writing out everything i've done overall because i have more progress than i actually realized!!! i hope everyone is excited to see all of this in action because i can't wait for you to see it either!

[patrickbatemanstradwife]

Hey guys, here’s the first chapter of the fanfic I’ve been working on. There’s not really any sex in this chapter because it’s more to establish the storyline, but I promise it gets better in the upcoming chapters. You can also find this story on my Wattpad @blueberrybunnyrabbit. I hope you enjoy!

PatrickxFemOC, DomxSub, BossxSecretary

Falling For Mr. Bateman

As I wait for the elevator, I take a deep breath. I know that everyone gets nervous starting a new job, but this is such a big company, I’m scared to do anything wrong. I enter the elevator and select the floor labeled Pierce & Pierce. The elevator rises, too slow, I can’t wait any longer, too fast, I’m not ready. But then the doors open and I step out, walking towards the nice, older, dark haired woman at the front desk.

“Hi,” I say unconfidently, brushing a lock of blonde hair behind my ear, “My name is Rosalie Connors, I’m here for my first day?”

She smiles. “Right! You’re Mr Bateman’s new assistant, follow me.” She gets up and leads me down the winding hallways of the office, until we come to a desk in front of a door labeled “Patrick Bateman, Vice President, Mergers and Acquisitions”.

“Mr Bateman is running a little late today, so why don’t you go ahead and settle in, and I’m sure he’ll have plenty for you to do when he gets in.”

I nod and take a seat at the desk. I start rummaging through the desk drawers, curious if my predecessor left anything behind. There doesn’t seem to be anything of note, just a few files and an empty stapler. I begin arranging my findings back in the drawer when I feel the presence of someone tall standing over me. I look up and see a tan, dark haired man in a very expensive suit. My mind goes blank when I see his face, I have never seen a man so beautiful. I realize I must be staring, and try to pull myself together. “Hi,” I start, “you must be-”

Patrick, Patrick Bateman.” He smiles, and holds out a hand for me to shake. “Step into my office and I’ll tell you a bit more about the job.”

I follow him into the office, and he sits down at his desk in front of me, and all I can think about is how much I want him. “Sorry I was late today, I had an exercise class. Most days, I really don't need much from you. Your main job is just to answer my phone, and keep people out of my office. I feel like you can handle that, right?” I nod my head, “yeah, of course.”

“Great, I’m glad we’re on the same page. On that note, it is customary for the employer to take his new employee out for dinner to celebrate the new job. I know it’s last minute, but are you free tonight? You don’t have a boyfriend or anyone at home waiting for you?”

Being so new to the city, I don’t have anybody waiting on me, especially not a boyfriend. “No, I don’t have any plans tonight, the only person waiting at home is my roommate, but she works nights, so I’m free.”

He smiles. “Perfect, I already made reservations at Barcadia for 7. Feel free to head out a little early to go home and change, and I’ll pick you up.”

I spend the day at the desk, answering the occasional phone call, and passing along messages, but the day passes by slowly. It doesn’t really seem like anyone really does much here. Before I know it, I’m back in my apartment trying to find an outfit for dinner. I have no idea what someone wears to a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant with their boss. Eventually I settle on a sage green cocktail dress, with tan heels and a matching tan bag. The dress is a bit low cut, but not scandalously so, and overall, I think it looks nice. I adjust the final touches to my eyeliner and reapply my lipstick, and try to take deep breaths. Why am I so nervous? He’s my boss. With a face like an angel, and that suit only does so much to hide his muscular frame. But he’s my boss. This isn’t a date, it’s a “welcome to the company dinner”. I have no reason to be this nervous. Then the doorbell buzzes, and I press the intercom button and say “I’ll be right down”. I run down the stairs and there he is at the entryway, in a different, but equally nice suit.

“You look spectacular,” he says, putting a hand on the small of my back to guide me, “the limo is right this way.”

In the back of the limo, it’s mostly just small talk, how long he’s been with Pierce & Pierce, things like that.

At the restaurant, Patrick asks if he can order for me, and I say yes. He knows the menu incredibly well, and walks me through what he thinks I’ll enjoy and why. The entire time, I’m absolutely in awe of him. So handsome, smart, professional, in control.

“So, Rosalie, what brings you to New York? You said you’re new here, right?”

I sip my wine, and say “I was looking for something new I guess. I just got out of a serious relationship that wasn’t going anywhere, and I needed a change. I needed to feel like I’m in control, I guess. If that makes any sense.”

He grins softly, and I feel like I’ve said too much. “I know all about wanting to be in control. I like to feel like I have complete control over everything in my life, and I mean everything.”

I felt myself blush from the way he stared at me, at my collarbone, the neckline of my dress. I felt myself getting aroused, and resisted the urge to bite my lip. “You see,” he continues, “that’s why I need the perfect assistant. I need someone who knows what I want before I want it, and is prepared to do anything for me.” He reaches his hand across the table, and places it over mine. “Can you be that assistant, Rosalie?”

In the back of the limo, the tension is incredible. We both want each other, but we can’t say it. How could we? He’s my boss, I’m his employee, it’s not even my second day, I don’t want to get fired. For what, sleeping with my, admittedly very attractive, boss? But then, we make eye contact.

His eyes lock on mine and he moves so close to me that I can smell his cologne. Something musky and designer. His one hand is on my thigh, playing with the hemline of my dress, the other is on my face, pulling me closer to him. His lips meet mine, he tastes like whiskey and I want to drink him. His tongue is in my mouth, and my hands are in his hair. The hand on my face moved towards my breasts, and his mouth makes its way towards my collar bone. The hand on my thigh slides up, under my dress. Any higher, and he’ll feel how wet I am for him. I want him, no, I need him so badly right now. I would do anything for him. I instinctively move my body closer, as I feel his hand getting higher.

“Mr Bateman, we’re here.” The limo driver’s voice interrupts to let us know we’ve reached my apartment. I hesitate, waiting for him to offer to come in, or to tell the driver to take us to his apartment instead, but he just turns to me and says “Get some rest, you have a long day tomorrow.”

I climb out of the limo and walk to my front door, trying to adjust my dress and fix my ragged breath.

[eri-lessthan3]

Hey you

all of you complaining about tumblr live

Seethe and cope 😎

Okay but seriously

Get yourself the Stylus extension For Firefox users: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/styl-us/ and for everyone else: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpeebahjckkjfobafhncgmne

Get the Old Tumblr Dashboard Style: https://userstyles.world/style/11286/old-tumblr-dashboard-2023

You should get this stuff even if you don't plan to remove tumblr live :3 Now here is where the magic comes from:

Stylus allows you to add custom css styles to websites, and you can edit themes made by other people to fit your needs!

See that little fucker? How about we fuckin g kill it?

Press f12 to open the Developer Tools (or however it is called lmao)

Click on this little guy

Now you can select an element on the website, and it will show where it is in the html!

3. Point

Click on it, and now we will see something like this in the inspector!

Collapse a bunch of this stuff, since here we only care about the list items, or <li>

These are the different buttons in the banner

Now, how do we fucking kill that guy?

There are a number of ways to do this, so let's start with the simplest one

Delete

Just select the list item that has the title "Live" and press delete!

So it is gone now, right?

Well... not really. If you refresh the page, it is back. Which makes sense, since the only thing we did is remove that part of the "code" (if you can call html "code"), but when we refreshed it, the server gave us a version of the site that obviously had the button still there.

So what is a smarter way to get rid of it?

While you can't really delete a specific part of the site with just css, you can hide it! To do that, all you have to do is apply the style display: none;

Like that! While it doesn't fix the problem with the refresh, it brings us closer to the solution.

Remember when we got Stylus? yeah!

Go inside of it (😳), and inside the Old tumblr dashboard theme (😳😳), and now we just need to apply the css style of "remove that fucker" to the specific list item. How do we do that, since we can't add it directly into html? We use the attribute selector, and we look for title="Live"!

Where do I write this????

Well, css applies the styles from top to bottom of the style sheet (usually, this post is already too long), and you see how the list item has a few classes assigned to it? It so happens that they also modify the display property, so we have to override it by putting our selector after those in the css sheet... so basically you can just write the thingie at the end 😅

Here is how the attribute selector works!

the .IYr09 part is that specific class, so that if there is ever something on this page that has the title="Live" but isn't what we are looking for, it won't apply there (You don't need to do this, but whatever). The attribute selector is written in the square brackets, and you just... write the attribute that you are looking for there ;P

(I also did the same for the Explore button, but that can be an exercise for the interested ;P)

And now, BEHOLD

(How am I so popular that I got dms during the making of this >.&lt;)

And it will stay like this, forever*

*except if something happens to the addon, theme, css of it or whatever, but you get the point!

[thornsent]

YOUTUBE EXODUS MASTERPOST

fuck youtube and fuck their anti-ad blocker policy. aside from advertisements being a capitalist nuisance where we are the actual product being sold, ads which contain flashing lights or otherwise triggering material can and do harm people, and youtube's decision to ban ad blockers will impact these folks the most. here I'm gonna talk about what I use to mitigate this bullshit!!!

DESKTOP - FREETUBE

Ublock and Youtube are basically in an arms race right now, and the instability and inconsistency of FF working with ad blockers isn't great. Today, I can't watch anything on desktop, it's totally blocked for me as long as I'm logged into my account.

I would recommend switching to Freetube, which is a client for youtube that runs on your computer, ad-free. You're able to import your subscriptions and search history, and a proper playlist function is in the works.

In order to export this stuff for Freetube, you'll need to log in to youtube and click on your icon. In the list that pops up, click "In order to export this stuff for Freetube, you'll need to log in to youtube and click on your icon. In the list that pops up, click "Your data in Youtube".

From here, click on "Download Youtube data" on the dashboard card. You might have to click "see more" for this option.

This is where we get particular. First, hit the button that says "All youtube data included"

In the list that pops up, deselect everything except for history, subscriptions, and playlists. Then click okay, which will return you to that ^ page above. You then need to click "multiple formats", scroll down to history, and change the format to JSON.

Once you've done that, you can click "next step" and decide if you'd like for the data to be emailed to you or put in your dropbox or whatever. all the files will be in a .zip folder, so extract them somewhere convenient, and if you plan on using Newpipe for your mobile device, KEEP THAT .ZIP FILE!

Once you've installed Freetube, go to settings -> data settings and import your subs. the file for this will be nested in a folder named "subscriptions" in the .zip file you extracted. Do the same thing with importing your history, but make sure to select the file that's named watch_history. importing playlists is not yet a feature for freetube, but I recommend downloading yours anyway.

From there, you're free to watch desktop Youtube, addless as God intended.

MOBILE - NEWPIPE

I've used newpipe for years now, and it's a game changer. You can download as audio or video files, play in the background with your phone locked, and still have your subs and playlists. it's lightweight and has a great UI.

The great thing about importing your subs and other info to Newpipe is that it's less fiddly. Go to your subs, and then tap the three dots in the right upper corner. Then tap import from, and select Youtube. Select the .zip file from earlier (you saved it, right?) and it should import all your stuff. If this doesn't work, Newpipe provides instructions on alternative ways to import your subs/playlists/etc on-screen.

Don't subject yourself to advertisements. You deserve better. Get Freetube, Get Newpipe, and if other people have suggestions, feel free to add it to this post!

[athanwritesthings]

No Judgement || Reader x TJD [request]

A/N: I wanted to preface with this, this is a request for a more platonic relationship with reader & TJD. I will be making more of these throughout time, either with the group as an entirety, or a specific person in the group. <33

word count: 1,104

summary: you, a WWE Creative, have spent majority of your day after work, working. Rhea, Dominik, Damian, and Finn see you've been hard at work when they get home. this initiates your group of close knit friends/platonic soulmates to take action and make sure you've taken care of you, no judgement at all.

All too often, time was never something I had been good at keeping, lost in the words on the page, or on the screen of my laptop, the faint light being the only thing illuminating my face. Sometimes, the quiet click of my keyboard was the only thing to be heard as I would sit there, building the world on paper in a way, instead of building it in my head as I'd read. On other occasions, it was theater and plays, seeing how many expressed themselves through some sort of acting. It was often that I was lost in my own world, spilling everything in my mind onto paper. When you've grown up with the comforts of these things, it sticks and never lets go. Reading, writing and theater was my thing, my outlet. That was why I found myself lucky for loving the arts, setting myself right into a seat on the Creative team.

Tonight was no different. I sat in my office at home, face almost void of expression, the faint light of my laptop illuminating my face, fingers tirelessly typing out scripts and any ideas that I had that could possible work, even in the slightest bit. Hours had to have passed, with a couple bathroom breaks possibly every couple hours or so. As much as the back of my head told me to stop, nothing had really pulled my focus. Even when I heard their footsteps, their talking and laughter. Even when I felt eyes looking at me from where I sat.

If I had been aware of my surroundings, I'd actually hear Rhea, Dom, Damian and Finn's hushed voices talking to each other, discussing on if they'd know if I had eaten, drank anything, or even relaxed. And I would not only learn that Rhea and Dom were leaving to the new Italian restaurant that it wouldn't take long for Rhea and Dom to leave to the new Italian restaurant that we had gone to a few weeks ago, and that they'd be back soon with the most mouthwatering Fettuccine Alfredo, as that had been my absolute favorite. I would also know that they planned to bring my hydro, filled with fresh ice water to make sure I drank. Or even that Damian and Finn were getting snacks from the store for us all, just for a movie night to get my mind off of work.

It all quieted again once they had dispersed, though I didn't exactly know when the talking stopped, it not threatening to cross my mind again anyways. With uncertainty in my mind, I leaned back some in my chair, my eyes looking at the screen. A small scowl slowly paints my face, reading everything over one… two… even three times. How had I gotten this far without really looking at what I wrote? Just to see if I liked it? I huffed, leaning forward and selecting everything. My finger, finding it's place on the "Backspace" button, froze, still hovering over it in just the slightest.

My gaze, finally having broken from the laptop screen, looks over to the hand on my water bottle. I… hadn't brought that in. Had I? Finally fully looking up, I see Rhea, with Dom close behind, standing beside me. The light was on now, and the sun had set. "You lost track of time again, didn't ya?" Was the first thing said to me, only responding back with a simple nod. "And I'm assuming you haven't ate?" This time, shaking my head. Dom takes a couple steps up and around Rhea, a smile forming on his face as he looked at me, showing the box to me.

Many would see little things, like this, from them as possibly concerned significant others/partners. Coupled with homemade meals that may sometimes seem like a lot for packed lunches, pictures of us and the other members of TJD on Insta (or anywhere else really,) that shared how close we were, or even how much Rhea and Dom cared, one may solidify in their own head that we were all three something… that just wasn't it.

Rhea and Dom were simply just platonic. They knew me well, knew how my brain ticked and clicked. What things kept me flowing, and what things didn't. They weren't my romantic partners. In all cases, they fit in my definition of those platonic soulmates, just a little bit above best friends. Day in, day out, they took opportunities to care, and had loved me for me. Just as platonic soulmates/friends did.

Snapping back to reality, smelling the food finally, my eyes lit up. "Is that… Is that from the new place we tried once before, with the good fettuccine alfredo?" Was all that left my lips, Dom grinning wide as he walked over, chewing his gum as usual. 'Yeah, we figured it's been a bit, might as well get it again for you…' He'd respond, handing me the box and a fork.

Rhea, pulling up a spare chair I had in my office, sits next to me, her gaze landing on the screen. "Am I allowed to read this?" She asks, looking at me first, before even thinking of reading further. I nod as I take my first bite, internally smiling. Dom, wanting to read it too, leans forward on Rhea's chair, his chin resting on the top of her head. A few moments of silence, then a surprised look for just a split second. "You were going to delete this? Y/N this is good so far…"

"It is good. But… come take a break. Damian and Finn are gonna be back with snacks and everything. We wanted to all watch a movie. Would be a great time for you to take a break." Dom's grin had returned as his chin raised from the top of Rhea's head to look at me, an excited look in his eyes.

Part of me knew that I couldn't say no either, I needed the break. I had been relentlessly working all day and I could eventually burn myself out. "You're coming to watch the movie, Y/N. You deserve the break." Rhea's voice was stern, yet kind.

What kind people they were. I acted like I was thinking about it, before actually deciding to respond. I criss cross my legs and lean forward as I begin.

"Okay, okay, fine! But on one condition," I still act as if I'm thinking when I speak, before jabbing the air, towards them with my fork. "I get to choose the movie."

"Deal." The two of them said in unison, goofy grins on their faces.

[pinkr3mix]

Making a dystopian inzoi save:

This is the first part in a small series of post I plan on making, on how to set up an inzoi dystopian style save file. This might change seeing as the game is in early access and the game itself might go through many changes and patches seeing as its in early access.

In this tutorial we will be going over:

How to find the map/edit city button

How to turn down the amount of townies and vehicles on the road.

How to make your world look dirty and grungy

How to delete the townies (side note npc's will still show up, I don't know what to do about that, yet).

First thing you need to do is make a Zoi and select somewhere for them to live. Once you are on your lot we will get started, first you need to get to the edit city section. You can do this 3 different ways. You can either press M or click the phone icon (seen in one of the images below). Its purple and you click the map icon on the phone screen. Also, on the lower right-hand corner you can click what looks like a hand and click edit city (as seen in one of the images below.

Next you will see what looks like a tablet. Mine looks grungy because I have already started setting up my save file. Yours will look clean and normal.

Next, we are going to click manage city, it's the button on the far right, on the grey section.

You will find a page that says control city status (as seen on the image below).

Next you will scroll all the way down, the part we will be messing with in this tutorial will be the Maximum population and Maximum vehicle count. I turned both of these to the lowest they can go; you don't have to, but I didn't want cars all over the road in my dystopian save.

Now we will go over to city appearance, on the top middle section of the page is where you will find it.

Then click over to Adjust Environment.

Once on this page you can decide how far you want to go with the dirty and grungy vibes, I turned mine all the way down, but you can do what you want with your save file. On this page theirs a bunch of different sections you can use to change stuff I suggest clicking around to check it all out.

The last thing I will be going over is how to delete townies from the 'all families' section. Go back to manage zoi's page (the page with the tablet). Click all families. I needed to use a new save for this since I already did all this in my grungy save.

You will want to click this trash can looking thing over in the right-hand corner.

You will then click through each family you want to delete. It will ask if you're sure you will say okay. I deleted them all, but you can do whatever you want.

After all of this you will be left with 5 households, you can't delete them until you move them out.

Go back to the map/tablet page these are the households you need to move out.

Click one and this side panel will pop up.

Click dismiss, side note you will get a warning (as seen in image below). So, think about this carefully if you have already started playing and your Zoi's have an ongoing relationship with any of these families.

If you deleted them all like I did it should look like this.

Once you go back, I also suggest playing with some of the filters to really set the tone, example in the photo below I am using the thriller filter.

I can't believe I typed this all out lol, anyway I already had most of this typed out. As far as bulldozing all lots you can't they all get revery back, the only work around I can think of is making 8 individual households with 1 townie each in them and bulldozing each lot like that and leaving all 8 households occupied. I'm hoping this gets fixed in the future.

[scopostims]

stim gifs in photopea

[PT: Stim gifs in photopea /End PT]

Hello! This is my (lengthy) tutorial for how I make GIFs for stimblr using Photopea. It's not going to be as extensive as how I make for shows, celebrities, etc, because I have different processes for both, however I'm still aiming to cover everything I think necessary!

It'll be split into multiple sections with headers, so feel free to skip whatever you want if you don't find it necessary :•] Reblogs appreciated if you found it useful, but no pressure obviously!

Sections:

Getting your video

Importing into Photopea

Making the GIF

Sharpening the GIF

Coloring

Exporting & Optimization (in EZGIF)

End results, and misc tips and comments

1. Getting your video

[PT: 1. Getting your video /End PT]

Short section! These are the ways I download and source videos for use

Youtube - yt-dlp (installation instructions)

Instagram

Tiktok (Allows without watermark)

Pexels

For yt-dlp, check out this basic list of commands I made solely for downloading material to GIF! If you have further questions, either send me an ask or refer to the github page.

2. Importing into Photopea

[PT: 2. Importing into Photopea /End PT]

There are two ways to import into Photopea, the first is importing footage directly, and the second is screencapping (which I won't cover in detail, but this tutorial is for installing the program I use on mac & how to use it, and this is for installing on windows)

Option 1: Importing footage directly (see end for comments)

On the home page of Photopea, you'll want to click "Open from computer", and select your clip, upon selecting you'll be presented with a popup like below

All that really matters here is where you see "30 FPS", that's the videos native frame rate. I always put whatever that number is as my frame rate because I find it to be the best, but you can use different presets (Like ezgif, which gives you 12, 20, etc). The less frames you have, the chopper it will be. If you plan to slow it down later, I'd also recommend having more frames so it looks smoother after slowing.

Now you just have to wait for it to load all the frames, then you're set!

Option 2: Importing screencaps

This is my personal way of doing things, so this is assuming you've installed a screencapping program and already have your frames ready.

For this, when you click "open from computer", select the first frame and open it by itself. Once that's loaded, look in the top left at the "File" tab, select "Open & Place", then ctrl + shift to select the rest of your frames. Once they've all loaded in, you can either rasterize them now, or wait until after cropping and resizing (goes faster then).

What's important though, is use the shift key to select all your layers, in the top left open the "Layer" tab, hover over "Animation" at the bottom to expand it, and select "Make frames". With your frames still selected, hit the folder button in the bottom left.

Without this, Photopea won't recognize this as an animation, therefore you'll be unable to export it as a GIF.

3. Making the GIF

[PT: 3. Making the GIF /End PT]

3A. Cropping

To begin with cropping, select the crop tool, which is the fifth one down on the left bar (if you hover over, it will say the name), or the "C" key on the keyboard.

Along the top now, you should have some new options. The dropdown menu that says "Free" is going to be how you select an aspect ratio or fixed size, and I always set to 1:1 since most people on stimblr use square GIFs, but you can do whatever works for you! Make sure to leave "Delete uncropped pixels" unchecked, because that lets you move stuff around later without having to recrop.

Crop your animation down as you see fit, then either hit the enter key, or the check button along the top bar. If you're unhappy with the placement, you can undo it OR, select all your layers, then use the move tool (First icon on the left, or the "V" key) and drag it around as you see fit.

3B. Resizing

With all your layers selected still, open the "Image" tab in the top left, towards the bottom select "Image Size", then select what you want to resize to.

Tumblr's exact GIF sizing

1 per row: 540px

2 per row: 268px

3 per row: 177px

HOWEVER. For stim GIFs, I find the quality difference so negligible, you can resize to what you want. It's also better for it to be bigger and scale down, then smaller and scale up. For this reason, I typically do 268px no matter what, or 300px.

As far as resampling goes, leave it turned on, and I personally leave it on bilinear, but the different options vary slightly, so experiment and see what works for you!

If you're happy at this step, go ahead and skip down to exporting! But when doing this way, I do recommend sharpening for better quality at smaller size.

4. Sharpening the GIF

[PT: 4. Sharpening the GIF /End PT]

The fun thing about this section is you get to experiment and find what works for you! I'll give you my personal method, but you can play around, add and remove bits, etc until you get something you're happy with!

4A. High pass

High pass is my personal favorite way to sharpen GIFs, and for stim GIFs I'll often use only this.

(Steps 1-3 in image) To do, start by right clicking the *Folder* all your frames are in, and select "Duplicate Layer". Select all the frames in Only the folder on top, then go to the "Filter" tab along the top left, hover over "Other", and select "High Pass". The grey look is entirely normal! I normally set my high pass at 2-4, but play around with this step and find something you like!

Select the *Folder* all your high pass frames are in, and change the blending mode (fourth step in image) to "Soft Light", it should be on "Pass Through" initially. With that done, you've used high pass on your GIFs! If you're content here, skip the next section about smart sharpening, and see about merging animation folders under it.

4B. Smart Sharpen

Note: I recommend testing your sharpening settings on one layer BEFORE applying them to all layers, as it will be easier on your computer.

I utilize this in addition to high pass usually, but you can do it all by itself as well! To begin, select all the frames in your folder (if you used high pass, select the frames in the *Bottom* folder). Open the "Filter" tab on the top left, hover over "Sharpen", and select "Smart Sharpen". Now find what you like!

For stim GIFs, if I used high pass, I'll go for 75-110% amount, and a .1 radius. I personally don't like the look of an over sharpened GIF, so I only use smart sharpen if I want to enhance some small details high pass didn't touch enough, which is why I use so little. If you don't like high pass, you might use more here!

4C. Combining animation folders

If you used high pass, you'll notice you have two animation folders. To fix this, select both folders using ctrl + shift, open the "Layer" tab, hover over "Animation", and select "Merge". It will give you a popup to confirm, and you can go ahead and accept!

If you don't merge these, Photopea will think they're two GIFs in one document, rather than only one, which is why this step is so important.

As a note, once you merge these folders, you can no longer shift the frames around to change where they are in the crop like you could earlier.

5. Coloring (Image Heavy)

[PT: 5. Coloring (Image Heavy) /End PT]

This section is going to be less of a tutorial and more a basic rundown of the adjustment layers and what they do. Coloring will change from GIF to GIF, and you can do light or intense coloring, so this is just a guide to begin with, but really just play around and find what you like!

To access the adjustment layer menu, in the bottom right where "New Folder" was, the one directly next to it that looks like a circle made of two half-circles, will bring up your adjustment layers.

As a note, I always group my adjustment layers in a folder above my animation, for ease of hiding to compare with and without.

5A. Levels

Levels is one I almost *Always* use on a GIF because it makes it look cleaner to me. In the first box, sliding the black square on the left *increases* the blacks, sliding the white square on the right *increases* the whites, and the one in the center changes the general brightness up or down.

Sliding the black box on the bottom bar *decreases* the blacks, sliding the white box *decreases* the whites.

If you change the channel from RGB to another option, you can change the balance of reds/cyans, greens/magentas, or blue/yellows, I personally don't touch this for stim GIFs. In the RGB channel, I set the top black box at ~10, and the top white box at ~245 usually.

5B. Curves

This is another way of adjusting brightness, blacks and whites, or color balance. By adjusting the dot in the bottom corner you adjust blacks, the top corner adjusts whites, and if you make a dot in the center, it adjusts general brightness! You can also make multiple dots to separately adjust some values. By changing the channels, you adjust color channels rather than white/black.

5C. Exposure

This is another way of adjusting the lights and darks of the GIF. Sliding the exposure up and down will add/take away light from the lighter parts of your images. Adjusting the gamma correction up and down will add/take away shadow from the darker parts of your image. Offset increases/decreases the brightness of the whole thing but I almost never use it.

5D. Vibrance

Vibrance is what I like to think of as a "softer" way to increase intensity of colors, instead of using a Hue/Saturation layer. It affects warmer colours more intensely than cooler colours, whether you use the vibrance or saturation slider. The saturation slider here is more intense than the vibrance one, but less intense than saturation in a Hue/Saturation layer.

5E. Hue/Saturation

This one is simple! Sliding the hue slider changes the colour, sliding the saturation slider increases/decreases saturation, and sliding the lightness is basically like directly adding black/white to a color. I use lightness only sparingly.

What's cool here, is you can adjust the range to target a specific batch of colours! If you find your reds are too bright compared to everything else, you can target the saturation of them specifically.

5F. Color balance

This is a simple way to adjust the base colors of an image, by changing it to be more cyan or red, magenta or green, or yellow and blue. This can be useful for making a GIF appear warmer or cooler!

I almost only touch the shadows & midtones, and highlights sparingly. "Preserve Luminosity" preserves the highlights and shadows of the image, so by unchecking it, you can achieve some more intense results.

5G. Black & White

The black and white layer is useful because you can change exactly how light or dark a color appears after making it black and white. For that reason, I prefer it over a gradient map if I need to make something black and white.

5H. Photo filter

Photo filter is a simple way to add a color filter over the entire image, and adjust how strong or weak it is. "Preserve luminosity" once again just keeps the darks and whites of the original GIF.

5I. Channel mixer

I couldn’t even begin to cover channel mixer here, but this is for very intense color edits (I typically use it when I'm trying to make a GIF fit a board). However, here's another tutorial solely about channel mixer if you're interested in taking a crack at it!

5J. Selective color

Finally, selective color allows you to adjust the amounts of color or lightness/darkness of a specific batch of color.

By changing the color channel, you can affect different batches of color. The cyan slider controls cyan/red, the magenta slider controls magenta/green, the yellow slider controls yellow/blue, and the black slider controls black/white.

Checking the "absolute" is essentially like "Preserve Luminosity" in the other layers. With absolute, it's like shifting the color one way or the other, and without absolute, it's like adding to the pre-existing color.

6. Exporting and Optimization

[PT: Exporting and Optimization /End PT]

6A. Exporting

With all that done, we're ready to finish it up! To finish your GIF, open the "File" tab in the top left, go to "Export As", and select GIF!

Here you can rename, adjust the size (WILL ruin the sharpening you did), the quality (I leave at 100%), and the speed.

Another important thing to note is the "Dither". If you leave dither off, you can potentially encounter color banding, which is where (typically gradients) with look like strips of color, rather than smooth. This is because GIFs only have 256 colors they can render, so if something has too many, it bands.

By checking dither, it can get rid of color banding, at the cost of dots on the image (around where the worst color banding is usually). Sometimes the dots aren't noticeable and this is the better option, however it will Also increase your file size. It's up to you if you want to use it!

6B. Optimization

This is technically an optional step, as tumblr's GIF size limit is 10mb, so as long as you're under that, you can post, however, smaller GIFs load faster and I personally find are better for use in stimboards where you're loading a lot of GIFs! So to help this, let's head on over to the optimize section of ezgif. My personal goal is UNDER 4.5MB, ideally under 4MB.

The two main things I recommend are Lossy GIF, or removing frames, and I always start with Lossy GIF. I do anywhere from 5-15, and usually this will bring down GIFs a lot if you made them in Photopea! My example GIF was 6.7 MB to begin with, and afterwards it was 4.2MB.

However if you find that to be not enough, you can remove frames. When you remove frames, it speeds the GIF up, so I also recommend slowing it down (this is why I set my frames high in the beginning as well). I typically do "Remove every 4th frame" and slow it down to 75%-85%.

7. End results, and misc tips and comments

[PT: 7. End results, and misc tips and comments /End PT]

(source) The first GIF is without sharpening/colouring, the second is with sharpening but no colouring, and the third is with sharpening and colouring. I didn't color it much besides making it slightly warmer, but I hardly ever do much anyways!

As for misc comments:

In firefox, when you import footage directly, sometimes it glitches and tries to load 4000 blank frames, which is extremely resource intensive on a computer. The solution is import the footage in chrome, save as PSD, then open the PSD in firefox. (Or work in chrome but why do that /half silly). The other solution is screencap which I do since I do this often, but both work fine.

In firefox, sometimes you're unable to slow the GIF down upon export and it will export faster than it actually is. Slowing the video down to 50% restores it to native speed I've found, and you can do this in ezgif before other optimization.

When colouring, my number one tip is slide something all the way up first, then adjust down! By seeing it at max, you have a better idea of what's getting adjusted.

If you have any questions, drop me an ask :•]

And that concludes our tutorial! My apologies for the length, but I wanted to cover every possible thing here. It definitely seems like a lot, much more than working in ezgif, but when you get used to what you're doing, it goes extremely fast (even if you spend extra time screencapping). I personally find it worth it for the ability to sharpen GIFs alone, but as well as more detailed coloring opportunities.

Thank you for reading, I hope this has been useful!

[mementos-of-me]

Evermore

Chapter 29. You make me feel like dancing

Previous chapter

Masterlist

This is a little treat xx

pairing: Pietro Maximoff x OFC

warnings: Sweet Pietro, flirty flirty bants, Pietro and Nadia being Pietro and Nadia, PTSD, Nadia be remembering

The cool surface beneath my palms allowed me to remain present in this moment, that and the sound of Anna guiding me.

“Alright, now turn around and walk toward me.”

I took a deep breath, pushing off the wall and ignoring my aching muscles as I walked feeling the smooth floorboard beneath my feet, creaks echoing through the room on certain steps.

It was February, that, I knew, things had been getting better recently. I’d been more conscious than previous and even able to force myself out of bed. The memories would sometimes come over me like a tidal wave, rendering me powerless to their fervor, though most of the time I could surface on the other side of them mostly unscathed. Dr. Norris had been monitoring me closely, alternating now between showing me the ballerinas and images that he expected might trigger a response. I had learned that his expertise was dismantling the conditioning done to sleeper agents, hence, why Ross had selected him for me.

He wasn’t cruel like I’d expected and most of the time he seemed almost displeased at the toll remembering had on me.

I took the stairs slowly, reveling in the sunshine that warmed my skin and the cool breeze tousling my hair. The doctor was seated at the small table before me, skimming the pages of his notebook. When he noticed my presence, he gestured to me to take the seat before him. “How are you feeling, Nadia?”

I shrugged slightly. “Better than before.”

He nodded, making a note of something. “You’re making good progress. From what I can tell it seems your memories are becoming clearer, more linear as well.” Norris tapped his pen against the paper, glancing over at me. “I’d like to try and delve deeper into the memories you see most often, flesh out more details. The plan I’ve drawn up is to categorize each memory to a room, then perhaps recognizing the room with trigger more associated recollections.” I nodded, glancing down at my hands. “How do you feel about that?”

“Does it matter?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Well, this will work a lot better if you’re a willing participant.”

“Sure. Categorizing my past into rooms, why not.”

“You appear tense.”

I swallowed heavily, taking a deep breath to settle myself. “Just going a little stir-crazy. Your plan makes sense, I want to try it.”

Dr Norris nodded slowly, placing a small device onto the table between us. When he pressed the button on the side music began playing from it, a tune very familiar to me. I closed my eyes as it filled my ears.

“I want you to focus on the sound of the music, and let your mind go back to the memory.” I did as he said, recalling the room, the record player, the dancing. “Where are you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t recognize this place.”

The faint sound of a pen scribbling on paper filled my ears. “What does the room look like?”

With a heavy exhale I let the music wash over me fully, focusing on the memories that flooded my mind, holding onto them tightly. “It’s dark.”

“What is making it dark? Are the lights out? Curtains drawn?”

“No…” I hesitated. “I don’t know, it’s nighttime I think.”

‘You’ve got a cute way of talking

You got the better of me

Just snap your fingers and I’m walking…

Like a dog hangin’ on a leash’

I pushed two large wooden doors open to enter a room that was warm, dimly lit, and most notably, silent. The record player sat in the corner beside a stack of old vinyls that were kept in perfect condition. I ran my fingers across the plastic pockets, skimming the labels to find one I wanted to listen to.

Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, the doors, I sat the discarded records beside myself carefully, sitting cross-legged on the dark grey rug. I hummed as I continued to search, not quite sure if I knew what I was looking for or not. Yet I paused the moment I reached the last album in the stack, bright blue with clouds on it and a man jumping. I felt a giddiness in my chest that suggested perhaps I had known this album was there all along. Moving to kneel beside the record player I ever so carefully slipped the vinyl onto the deck and maneuvered the needle to where I wanted it; Side A, track 2.

The hum of music filled the room, a bouncy and vibrant song, one that I knew. I swayed as I moved to my feet, tapping my feet to the beat that echoed into the room. When I turned around, I spotted the yellow glow of flames, a fireplace. The warmth pressed into my skin, the main source of light in the room. I smiled as I danced, but it all changed when the crashing came, a culmination of sounds, the shattering of glass the most prevalent.

I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t, it was as if I was no longer holding onto the memory, but it was holding onto me.

The music was drowned out by voices, all fighting for dominance in my psyche.

“I’m going now!”

“You’re a child.”

Then the door was thrown open and light blinded me, but this time I fought to see. I paid attention as I ran, I saw photo-lined walls and décor scattered around the rooms. When the hands grabbed me, I kicked and threw my body around to slip from their hold, my foot caught the glass vase of carnations and roses. I managed to get away only to trip on something that I’d knocked down in my fervor.

I never saw their faces but there were two men.

Anna looked tired when I saw her, dark circles pressed into the flesh beneath her eyes. Though for the first time in weeks, I saw more than just exhaustion and remorse, now there was something like hope reflected in them.

Dr Norris told me that the hard part was over, that we’d made it past the block that was in my mind and now it would be much easier to sort through my memories, not completely frictionless but less taxing overall.

“Try to picture the men in your mind.”

“I didn’t see them.”

The music was still echoing through my mind. “You must have seen something, hair color? Scars?”

I’d fought like hell. Even though they were bigger than me, even though I was a child I used every fiber of strength in my body to resist. I reached behind myself to push at the man who attempted to pin me to the hardwood floor, presumably to better his grip and restrain my wriggling limbs. I hit and pushed at any part of him I could reach but it was futile as he wrenched my arm down to hold it at my side. Everything was blurry and my face was against the floor. I never saw anything notable about the man behind me, but then the second one approached, it was his boots I saw first, black and scuffed but clean, nonetheless. They were professionals, never giving me the chance to catch a glimpse of their faces, though in their rushed movements, they missed something, I could see it clearly now the tattoo on his forearm as he shoved a black bag over my head. Within moments a sharp stinging sensation pricked my neck and everything slow and groggy.

My mind was whirring as the tattoo flashed in my mind, distinct, thick black lines. A mark I’d seen before, more than once. The skull and tentacles. The mark of Hydra.

I decided against mentioning that to Norris.

I’d be able to bear it; remembering. Most importantly, I’d be able to function without losing it. This was the basis of the contract I’d signed had Ross’ name on it, though I was certain it had taken a copious amount of convincing. It detailed the conditions of my return to the compound. Dr Norris would sign off on my reinstatement with the expectation that, upon my return, I do not lead any assignments nor participate solo until it was agreed by both Ross and Norris that I was fit, after an evaluation that I suspected would be grueling. Dr Norris would also be continuing his work with me to fix my mind back at the compound. There would be an extensive amount of supervision from Steve to ensure I was both following these rules and not reverting.

I re-read the paper again and again, almost unconvinced that this was really happening, the thought of being so close to freedom, or a semblance of it, was almost unimaginable.

The documents were given to me on the first day of March, 2 weeks later I was staring at the doors that I’d snuck out of 3 months ago. Anna stood a few paces behind me talking to someone on the phone. Norris was finalizing his reports for Ross, he’d arrive at the compound 2 days from now. I was sure Anna had already told the others that I was coming back, the same way I was sure they were attempting to give me some space to breathe. My hands were unsteady, I realized as I reached for the door handle.

“What are you nervous about?” Anna asked, shoving her phone into her pocket and coming to stand beside me.

I shrugged, swallowing over the lump in my throat. “I-It’s just weird, I guess. Being back here.”

She nodded slowly. “It would be, but you should feel proud of yourself, you did what you had to do, you got through it and you’re doing much better.”

“Am I?” She was silenced by my question. I turned my head to look at her then. I thought of the days, weeks when I was barely conscious, barely even there. The suffocating heat, the sweat that clung to me like a second skin, the phantom pains that were only just beginning to fade. “I don’t ever want to go through that again.”

She closed her eyes for a long moment, shoulders sagging slightly. “You won’t.” She spoke with conviction. “I know it was awful, but you came out the other side of it, you always do. You won’t have to do that again, no matter what. We’ll figure it out.” I stared at her, unmoving and completely silent at her words. “Nadia.” She urged me.

I nodded then, looking back toward the door. She stepped behind me, pulling the hair back off my shoulders before placing her hands there and ever so gently nudging me toward the door. “Oh, for fucks sake.” I pulled the door open and forced myself to walk over the threshold in one fluid motion.

“That’s my girl.” I heard Anna murmur, encouragingly. She parted from me returning to typing on her phone. The shattering of glass filled my ears as I stepped into the kitchen. Natasha looked between the broken glass and me, panic evident in her gaze. A combination of shock at seeing me back and on some level concern that the noise might trigger me into an episode. I clenched my hands into fists at my side, part of me felt sickened by the thought, the other part was just as worried that my mind would betray me again. My body stiffened, every muscle strung tightly as I looked at the puddle of water on the floor, when the moment passed and nothing happened, I let my eyes move up to hers, before noting Steve, Sam and Wanda all looking at me from their seats at the table. I let my fists loosen and exhaled a shaky breath.

“That was exactly the warm welcome I was hoping for.” A teasing lilt was evident in my voice. When the corners of Nat’s lips curved upward the tension in my shoulders eased slightly.

“Nads.” She breathed, relieved. She walked toward me but stopped short clasping her hands together as if to control herself. There was a strange moment of silence before she spoke. “Can I hug you?”

I bit back a smile, pretending to think about it. “If you must.” The words were barely out of my mouth before she was yanking me into her arms. Embracing me tightly. I let her hold onto me for dear life, even wrapping my arms around her in response. When she pulled away, I saw the others smiling up at me. I rolled my eyes at them all. “Don’t think that means it’s a free-for-all all now.”

Steve stood, a gentle smile on his lips. “It’s good to have you back, Nads.”

I nodded, looking at my feet momentarily. “It’s good to be back, Cap.”

“Thank god, Pietro was seriously driving me up the wall.” Sam groaned walking by me with a teasing grin, but I could see his sincerity beneath the taunts. Anna gave me a knowing look then.

“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll find someone to put up with you one day, Samuel.” A familiar voice spoke from behind me. The rest of the tension in my shoulders fizzled out as the voice washed over me. I waited a few beats before turning back to look at him, as if steadying myself for the feeling of getting to be with him again, while fully conscious this time. The look on his face almost knocked me over, just as I’d suspected it would. It was tender, almost a smile but there were so many other emotions present in his expression at the same time. He had on a baggy dark green T-shirt with light grey sweatpants and his hair was a little messy, I thought maybe he’d been in the training room. “You look… better.”

Wanda’s snicker echoed behind me. “How romantic.”

Pietro sent a glacial look to his twin sister, groaning in pure frustration, the last thing I heard before I was enveloped in a blur of silver and green. When the world slowed down Pietro was shutting the door of his bedroom and turning to face me. “I feel better.” I finally answered.

“Really?” He sounded so genuinely relieved at my words that I almost didn’t have the heart to tell him that there was more to it than that. However, not talking had never worked out very well for me before so I tried something new.

I shrugged slightly. “Mostly, better.” His eyes seemed to glitter as he watched me, nodding gently as I spoke. “It’s hard… I’m really tired and the things I’m remembering…” I swallowed heavily for what felt like the millionth time. Sitting down on the edge of his bed. “It changes so many things for me and that is really terrifying.”

He moved to stand before me, tucking a few strands of hair behind my ear and tilting my face up to look at him. “Thank you for telling me.”

I nodded, staying where I was and just gazing up at him for a long while. There was nothing more I wanted than to just stay here in this moment. It had been over 2 months of round the clock torment and complete powerlessness and I was utterly drained. For the first time in my life, I was willing to admit that I just wanted to be reassured by someone else that everything was going to be okay. I wanted to be reassured by him but by some stroke of luck, I didn’t need to ask him to do anything. He just knew. Today seemed to be a day of acting uncharacteristically I thought as I stood before him and threw my arms around his neck, embracing him tightly. His arms wrapped around me instantly, as if it was a thoughtless act to him, I realized then that I envied his ability to give affection so freely. I took a deep breath and held onto him tighter, feeling the stinging begin to form in my eyes. If I were a different person, and if I were more like him maybe I would be able to say back to him what he had told me when he came to see me in January. Those words I was barely conscious to hear, that I couldn’t be certain he’d really said.

But I was me, so I didn’t. Instead, I let the embrace linger. I stayed like that because this, now, is what I could give him.

“I just want you to be okay.” He murmured against the flesh of my neck.

“I will be.”

Sleeping at the compound, in my bed with Pietro’s deep, calm breathing beside me was the most at ease I had been in months. When I slept that night, it was a restorative sleep, one that allowed me to actually begin to work away the weary exhaustion that had made its home within me.

…

It was a week before they let me begin training again and I was itching to use my muscles. I had attempted to contain my excitement, but I’d just about raced Natasha to the training room. Exhilaration shot through my veins as I stretched on the mat. I sat down with one leg extended outward and the other folded in toward my body, turning to crack my back before reaching for my pointed foot and bending my upper body over the limb. I repeated this on both sides before moving to extend both legs in a wide ‘v’ shape and laying my elbows on the floor to fold my body over.

“I’m just not sure how good of an idea it is to go full throttle into training after such a long break.”

I shook my head. “That break is exactly why I need to train again, Natasha.”

“These last few months couldn’t have been easy on you, Nads. Maybe we should take a beat.”

“They weren’t easy. It was two and a half months of barely being conscious, barely being alive. I was confined to the walls of a tiny little cabin in the middle of the forest and not allowed to do anything other than remember.” Her eyes softened as she regarded me. “I am going to lose my mind if I have to be idle for much longer.”

Natasha let out a dramatic exhale that had a smile breaking out across my face because I knew I’d convinced her. I adjusted my ponytail waiting for her to say the magic words. “You are such a pain in the ass, seriously.” She groaned, tossing the roll of hand wrap at me whilst she stretched.

I snorted, wrapping my hands in record time before hopping back and forth between my feet, shaking my jittery anticipation out. “You’re going soft.” I taunted bringing my fists up in a defensive motion.

She sparred with me, as agreed. However, her jabs were weak, and she barely fended off any of my attacks. It was evident that she was coddling me, and it was driving me mad. I pulled back from her, dragging a hand over my face with a frustrated exhale. Steve’s voice calling out to her cut me off before I had the chance to question her. I rolled my eyes as she shrugged at me with feigned innocence.

I tilted my head back, rolling my neck on my shoulders.

“You know I’m a little offended.” Pietro’s voice had my eyes popping open again, I felt warmth radiate from him as he moved behind me.

I sent him a glance over my shoulder, a little smile playing at my lips. “Pray tell?”

He circled me, coming to stand only a few paces from me. “You didn’t ask me to train with you. I thought you were supposed to be my sparring partner.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, lips curving up at his words, and feigned look of hurt. My hands fell to my hips, his eyes following the movement. “No, because you would’ve gone too easy on me.”

“You’ve been out of action for over 2 months, there’s no reason to rush back into training.”

I rolled my eyes heavily at that. “Jesus, what, did you and Natasha rehearse that?”

Pietro flashed me an amused grin. “We didn’t need to because it’s the truth.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t ask you to spar with me.”

In an instant he was directly before me, so close his chest would likely graze mine if I inhaled deeply enough. “I still would have sparred with you, Prinţesă.” He caressed my cheek with an affection so intense it had my cheeks heating slightly. “I just would have been gentle.”

“Pietro, will you please spar with me?” I spoke with a teasing tone, though, there was sincerity beneath my words that I knew he heard.

“I’d love nothing more, Nadia.”

His chest brushed mine as he moved to stand behind me causing a little smile to spread across my lips. I turned to face him, swiftly jabbing with my left hand but he dodged it smoothly, blocking the next hit just as easily. He attempted to circle me, but I stepped out of it, elbowing him in the back as I went. He groaned but a little smirk played at his lips.

“Are you going to do something or just keep standing around?”

Amusement seemed his only reaction to my playful quip. “What would you like me to do?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Surprise me.”

Within an instant he had me, dropping down and grabbing around the backs of my thighs before pivoting to throw off my balance and take me down to the mat. I awaited the impact but all that came was the gentle cradling of arms lowering me to the ground. Pietro half-heartedly pinned me down, smiling sweetly above me when I opened my eyes. “Stop being so gentle, fight me properly.”

“But I much prefer doing other things with you.” His eyes danced across my face as he spoke, mapping an invisible path between my eyes and then each freckle. I shoved him slightly with my hand that he’d barely been restraining.

“You are so annoying.”

His smile only widened at my harsh words. “Did you like my move?”

As hard as I tried, I could not fully fight the smile fighting to make a home on my lips. I hummed. “I didn’t teach you that.”

“You didn’t.” He bumped his nose with mine. “You wanted me to surprise you, so...” His lips descended onto mine, but the moment was short-lived before I turned my face away causing him to kiss the flesh of my cheek instead. He raised an eyebrow at me.

“I’ll kiss you when you spar properly.”

The way his lips curved at my words was nothing if not utterly tempting.

“You’re very cruel.” He pressed another kiss to my cheek before moving down to my jaw. I held my breath in order to focus my mind which was quickly descending into the haze of his cologne and the feeling on his lips on me.

“Not cruel, just a quid pro quo,” I responded amusement no doubt shining in my gaze. He huffed at me as I turned my face from him again when he attempted to steal another kiss.

“Fine. I’ll spar you with you properly… If, and only if, you promise to take a break when you need it and not force yourself to keep going.”

I nodded up at him, struck by the startling beauty of his face from this position. It was peculiar and a little silly to me that even after seeing it so many times I’d still be so taken aback by his bright blue gaze and heavy, dark eyelashes. I could always throw our deal out the window and just kiss him, but then again, I was far too competitive for that and anyway he’d already agreed.

I hummed, moving swiftly to lock my leg around his hip and throw him off of me. Pietro laughed breathily and he returned to his feet at lightning speed. It was a relief to my body to be moving again, using the muscle memory I’d spent my life perfecting. The warmth of my limbs as I ducked and weaved was a strange comfort to me and it had the added benefit of allowing me to clear my head completely for the first time in months. Pietro was still being extra gentle but at least he was actually giving me a little more to work with now.

I swept Pietro’s leg from beneath him, pulling him to the ground and pinning him with a light-hearted laugh. The smile that spread over my lips had my cheeks pinching from its fervor. We both breathed heavily as we momentarily rested. Pietro watched me intently, a soft smile tugging at his expression, eyes just a little brighter than normal. He leaned up on his elbows and I let him, moving back slightly to straddle lower on his waist. I planted my hand on the mat beneath us, now only a breath away from him. His eyes danced between my own and my lips. I leaned down a little further, before diverting and moving to whisper in his ear. “Break time is over.” With that, I moved from him swiftly. He dropped down to lay flat on his back, groaning dramatically.

“This is some bullshit.” I turned to him with a hand on my hip, eyebrow raised. “He didn’t back down, lifting himself to sit upright and face me. “I held up my end of the deal.”

I snorted. “Barely.”

He rolled his eyes at my words, putting his hands behind his to lean back a little with an exceptionally glum look. “I don’t want you to overexert yourself, is that so wrong of me?” I crossed my arms over my chest, biting back a smile at his theatrics over being denied one kiss. “Is this really what I get for being a caring boyfriend?”

I laughed heartily, shaking my head in disbelief. “You are such a drama queen.” I grabbed ahold of his hand, helping him up. When he was on his feet, I placed both of my hands over his cheeks, tugging him downwards to plant a kiss on his lips. He made a slight sound of surprise, but I felt him smiling against me.

“You are so soft for me.” He mumbled when I pulled away. It was my turn to huff, shoving him away before gesturing for him to get back into a defensive position. I turned away from him momentarily to tug the hooded sweatshirt from my body as I felt sweat a thin layer of sweat begin to form over my flesh. When I met his eyes again his eyebrows were knitted together, and he’d crossed his arms over his chest.

“What?” I asked, confusion evident in my tone.

“Are you being serious?” He nodded toward the dark blue sports bra that covered my chest. I looked between his and my top, still baffled by what he’d gotten his back up about. “You are not really acting like that’s a coincidence.”

I let out a quiet laugh, narrowing my eyes at him. “Pietro, I have no idea what the hell you are talking about?”

“This is very distracting!” He gestured at my body, before throwing his hands up.

Silence sat heavy in the air for a long few moments, it was me who broke it when I burst out into a fit of laughter. Complete shock was running through my body at the realization of what he was referring to. The man before me did not look amused in the slightest. “You are being completely ridiculous.” I managed through my laughter.

He tilted his head slightly to the side. “Okay, Nadia.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s spar.” He took a step toward me, pausing for a moment to grab the back of his shirt and yank it over his head, tossing it aside. I snorted at his antics. “What? It’s hot.” His tone nearly sent me into another fit of laughter, but I swallowed it down, moving to circle him for a second. I jabbed at him, but he dodged effectively. His swift movements on the mat nearly tripped me but even in this new state of hyper-awareness that he was demonstrating, I still had the skill advantage, having had much longer to hone my abilities. I ducked beneath his arm when it shot toward me slipping beneath and attempting to strike from behind but in a blur of silver, he’d caught my wrist and moved to face me. I yanked backwards to free myself, but he tightened his grasp, twirling my arm over my head and pulling back in one exceedingly fast maneuver, my back colliding with his chest. I could feel his breath hitting my ear, making my heart thud harder against my chest.

“What have I told you about relying on your enhancement.” I breathed out, words far harder to spit out than I’d expected. His bare skin was warm against mine.

“Not relying, just utilizing.” His words were a murmur in my ear, tone low, challenging.

I felt the corner of my lip curve upward at his snark. His nose grazed the skin of my neck, lips following shortly after. It wasn’t a kiss; he just wanted me to know he was there. He thought he was winning and maybe he was, my eyes fluttered for just a second but then who would I be if I allowed him to win so easily? I let my body lean back into his, letting him think he was melting me. One of his hands still held mine behind my back, the other moved to squeeze my hip slightly. I leaned my head back onto his shoulder, meeting his eyes, nose bumping his. In his belief that he was in control, he loosened his grip on me, chasing my lips just slightly. With practiced precision I side-stepped and yanked my hand from his grip, ducking his attempt to grab me once more and instead grabbing ahold of his upper body and pulling him backward to trip him over my leg. When he looked at me with disbelief I only smiled. “I thought I taught you better than that.” I rolled my shoulders, watching his puff on his back.

When his eyes met mine and they had a softness to them that was almost indescribable I felt something deep within my chest that was unfamiliar and a little concerning. He held his hand toward me, pouting like a wounded animal and there was no part of me that wanted to leave him there and that was the moment I officially realized that I had absolutely gone soft for him. Shit.

I extended my arm to him to help him up, however, the second he’d locked on I noticed that familiar glint in his eye, but he was yanking me down to the floor with him before I had time to properly register it. He caught me in his arms easily, grinning cheekily in the face of my feigned glare.

[elvhenmage]

rambling thoughts abt dav after beating it in three and a half days (this will contain spoilers):

no kissing davrin whenever i want??? criminal. i miss being able to go up and chat with my companions in general

also idk if it’s just a davrin thing but the romance line wasss… i dunno. not as like, prevalent? as i wanted, i think. but i enjoyed it very much, i do adore him. i just would’ve liked a pet name or a second kiss scene at least

base combat gameplay is fun. i started to learn combos in my last ~four hours of gameplay but i think i like it too. but i don’t like how companions won’t use abilities unless i tell them to

goddamn i love the sprinting. this bitch hauls ass. the jumping and mantling is a little stiff sometimes but not enough to really bother me

the horror of the blight and of ghilan’nain in general!!! oh man. the blight is so disgusting and i love it. she is such a damn freak. they could’ve gone farther with it but i loved what we got

being able to pinpoint exactly when solas is thinking and then lying to rook is so delicious. when he said “if you help me defeat elgar’nan, i promise the veil will not collapse by my hand” or whatever i was like hmm. weird phrasing. and then to find out killing elgar’nan will bring down the veil?? i love it. what a fucking bastard

companions are good. found myself enamored by all of them in different ways. their individual quests felt like a LOT going on that i didn’t understand at first but i got used to it

this felt very high stakes even before my companions started actually dying in my doomed run. dai didn’t feel high stakes to me, but this did. maybe seeing the devastation from the blight made it feel more personal or something? idk

really big fan of being able to witness party banter by finding companions chatting around the lighthouse. and companions cheering you on in battle :) nice touches that make them feel interconnected ykwim

i stand by what i said years ago about wanting this to be a dual protagonist game. i think it could’ve benefited from more inquisitor but i also get how that could’ve been overwhelming and detrimental to rook’s story

oh my god also can we talk about southern thedas getting absolutely fucking destroyed?? that’s insane. when they said our choices in the south wouldn’t matter bc we’re in the north i didn’t think they meant the south would get wiped off the fucking map 😭 the inquisitor never catches a fucking break

getting to encourage nailah to take solas back was super cool and you know i jumped on that shit but the highlight of that scene for me personally was nailah then turning on elowen like “so tell me about DAVRIN” <3 it fit so well into the little backstory i had planned for elowen and nailah

i HATE the menu system. i put over forty hours into this run and by the end of it i was still hitting the button to close the map instead of swapping from local to world. i also don’t know why they put ability selection on the main character page instead of on the skill tree page, but i must’ve been playing for twelve hours before i found out how to swap that fucking thing 😭

speaking of the skill tree. i was right to be intimidated by that when it dropped bc what the fuck is going on in there. there are SO many options and it makes even less sense to only allow three at a time. i was leveling up like a motherfucker to the point that i wouldn’t even look at the skill tree until i had like five points to spend

i like what they did with inventory and gear. companions having set gear/weapons reminded me of da2 and it was much easier to manage vs having 7382 weapons to sell at the end of a section from looting every kill. that said, a LOT of armors for rook are ugly as fuck lmfao. it was kinda crazy going into the endgame with all my companions in their gorgeous legendary armor while i was in my simple dalish wraps

major endgame spoiler here but that’s on you if you’re still reading past the readmore: why the fuck did they make the one canonical and unavoidable companion death between harding and davrin. the amount of people that are going to kill him because harding has history in dai or because they just don’t like him is going to be obscene.

lavellan leaving the south to do whatever it’s gonna do to go with solas into the fade to seek further atonement is WIIILDDDD. i love you nailah. you are insane. who the fuck is going to take care of southern thedas <- this will never matter bc i fear bioware doesn’t care

why did it take so long to get all the companions??? was that just me or did anyone else feel like it took a thousand years to get the full party?

ok that’s enough outta me (for now). i’m gonna browse my mutuals’ blogs and then watch courtney play dav :)

[maryjane888]

On the stump (h.s.)

Author's note: english is not my first language, so please excuse any mistakes. Also, this first part is shorter but the others will be longer. Hope you enjoy. xx

Part I

"Y/n, please see me in my office after class." Professor Morris gave her a small smile after his request. "Nothing to worry about. Just some opportunities I would like to present you."

Y/n sighed of relief as the auditorium started to fill with sleepy students. She tought Mr. Morris would lecture her about the small pile of multiple choice exams in his desk that weren't all graded yet. Being a TA was reveling to be more time consuming than expected. She would have to reorganize her agenda for the third time this week, which also meant that she would have to skip tonight's plans with her friends. There was no room for mistakes or delays, if Mr. Morris was still planning to write her that recommendation letter.

"Alright, today we're going to talk about the decolonization of India. Don't forget the mandatory readings for this part of the course. I will not be speaking in detail about the process of independence of each asian countrie. If you have any questions, y/n can help you during office hours."

How wonderful, y/n thought, more workload. Must be punishment for all those exams.

...

"Take a seat". She pushed the dark oak chair back and smoothed her navy skirt before sitting down.

"This won't take long." He oppened a drawer on his desk, took some papers out of it and started to go through them.

"I have some connections in Vienna." He stopped and looked at her suggestively, adjusting his glasses. Y/n's palms started to sweat.

"I know New York would be more preferable, but Vienna is the only place now with open seats." Oh God. There was a faint quick thump sound in Mr Morris's office. It was y/n's nervous foot tapping in anticipation. He continued to flick through the pieces of paper until he found the one he wanted. Professor Morris pushed the single page in y/n's direction. Her hopeful eyes made him chuckle.

"That is a list of people responsible for selecting the interns at the UN offices in Vienna. Search their names and study them. I have also scribbled some tips for your upcoming interview." Y/n deviated her gaze from the paper to her professor in confusion.

"My interview?" Mr Morris smiled.

"Yes, your interview. Your application was accepted. You should receive an email soon explaining that you will move on to the next phase." She picked up the paper and pressed it tightly to her chest.

"Thank you, so much." He got up from his chair and buttoned his blazer.

"Now, if you fufill your position successfully as a TA by the end of the semester, I will make sure a recommendation letter gets to those offices." Y/n got up so excited her chair squeaked loudly and almost made her cringe. She was to happy to feel embarassed.

"I will not disappoint you, Professor Morris." She promised.

"I'm sure you won't." He then checked his wristwatch and complained about a meeting he was having with the faculty. Y/n took it as a cue to leave, but not without thanking him one more time.

...

The few students passing by looked strangely at the girl with the wide smile and a spring in her step. Who looks that enthusiastic on a Thursday morning? Y/n did. And she had good reasons to. All her work seemed to finally bear fruit. Being an UN intern was going to propel her career in politics. She would actually learn how things work in the real world, outside classrooms and without textbooks. She would have the opportunity to travel and meet new experienced people. And right now she also had the perfect excuse to ditch her social plans, having to make sure all her extracurricular workload was sorted out. Being an incompetent TA was not an option, and not getting that internship was a scenario that y/n refused to conceive as a possibility.

As soon as she got to her dorm, y/n started to search the people on that piece of paper. Her gold tickect to the chocolate factory. She memorized their full names, academic backrounds, previous jobs, and their personal interests. She made some social media searches for that. Then, a draft for her interview was outlined based off of Mr Morris's tips. Serious but not boring, interesting but not fake, professional but still warm. An email notification made her stop typping. She clicked on the unread message and admired the positive response. Her eyes travelled through her desk. It was a mess. She was surrounded by heavy authors and heavier subjects. A pile of crinkled photocopies of ICJ cases, an open Krugman book with dozens of fluorescent post-its, a few flashcards with EU's legislative process. If her desk was a mess, it meant she was busy and working. That mess made her happy. Y/n looked back at the email and she thought to herself, I'm almost there, I'm going to change the world.

...

"Shit." The hot brown liquid spreaded through y/n's white oversized shirt. She tossed the paper cup in the bin and tried to keep the fabric from sticking to her skin. Her brallette was now visible through the wet shirt. As she walked to the small bathroom atached to the office, she mentally patted herself on the back for keeping an extra t-shirt in her bag.

The door to the office was closed and no one usually came at this time of day. She was safe to change. Y/n tried to remove the stain in the sink as much as she could. She then placed it on the back of the chair to dry. A thin light brown outline was still visible. She sighed in annoyance. That was her favourite shirt.

As she reached to her bag to grab the shirt, the sound of the door knob brought horror to her features. She quickly grabbed the piece of clothing and tried to hide her nude state behind the fabric. As the door opened, y/n could already imagine the chocked look on Mr Morris' face at her lack of clothing. She had a plausible excuse, of course, but it was still a very strange situation. She should have locked the door. Well, too late.

Her look of fear turned to a confused one as she stared at the man that entered the room. He paused, hand still grabbing the door knob, and stared back, as confused as her. They stayed like that for a couple minutes trying to make sense of the situation. Y/n grew annoyed at his lack of action. The door was still open for everyone to see her precarious state.

"Close the door!" He awakened from his trance and quickly shut the door, turnig his back to her. She took the opportunity to dress the clean t-shirt. As she pulled the fabric down her torso, she noticed him staring at her again. Y/n was becoming more and more irritated. She had been gradding tests for the past three hours, hadn't gotten any breaks, decided to get a coffe from the machine down the hall, spilled the drink on her favourite shirt and was now being checked out by some random man that would not say anything, not even an apology. He was about to confront a very grumpy side of y/n.

"Are you a student of professor Morris? Office hours are only on Mondays and Wednesdays. I do not have time to answer any questions today." She went to sit on the desk and continue her work, not bothering to look at him as she speaked.

"I was a student of his." The man approched the desk. "I came to visit him." Y/n continued to write notes with her red pen, avoiding eye contact. Her frustration still mixed with the embarassement from moments ago.

"Well, as you can see Mr Morris isn't here, and he won't be coming in today. You can schedule your visit using the contacts printed by door. I also recommend you to knock before meeting with the professor." Y/n added the last part, staring back at him. He stood tall with crossed arms and a hard gaze. She could see that he did not like the way he was being treated. Y/n wondered who this man really was. What if he was someone important? Someone close to Mr Morris? She realised maybe she should have approched him more carefully.

"I was not aware that TAs now felt so free to seduce their superiors. I'll make sure I knock next time, promise." Her annoyance became painfully obvious and the room grew even more tense. She got up from her chair and faced him fully. They were closer now. He hovered over her, angry gazes competing. Y/n noticed his deep green eyes and a single chocolate lock fell between them. That was annoying.

"I spilled coffee on my shirt, not that I owe you any explanations." She backed away slightly and straightened her posture. "I will not admit any insulting accusations about how I work. You don't know me." Y/n tried to calm herself down. She was grumpy and he was just provoking her. It was not worth her time, so she distanced herself from him. He did not say anything else. He only observed her as she checked the time on her phone. Its late, she thought, I'll finish this tomorrow.

"What? Time to get undressed in another professor's office?" Y/n shot him a death glare.

"You're an assh-" she was interrupted by the sound of the door knob. She immediately stoped talking as Mr Morris entered the room. The other man smirked at her, enjoying her big scared eyes.

"Y/n? What are you still doing here?" He noticed the piles of exams with red anotations here and there. "It's late. Please go home and rest. You can finish another time." Mr Morris gave her a reassuring smile. Y/n started to pack her things, happy that he hadn't heard her before. Bad language was a no go with the faculty, especially insults. It could damage her image as a TA.

"And I've seen you have already met Harry." They both exchanged awkward smiles. "Weren't supposed to..." Y/n gave a questioning look at the two men. Harry was now avoyding her eyes. She tried to ignore the whole situation and placed her bag in her shoulder, ready to leave.

"I'll see you next week. Get some sleep, y/n." Professor Morris waved her goodbye. Harry simply stood next to him, hands in his pockets, as he observed her closing the door.

...

Y/n sighed in relief as she closed her laptop. She had asked professor Morris if she could take the online interview in his office. Her small dorm didn't look very professional as a background. He allowed it, telling her to not worry to much. At this point, y/n felt like she could ask him to be her garantor and he would say yes. He was like the godfather she never had.

Y/n had a good feeling about the call. She got the interviewer she most wanted and she felt like they truly connected through their mutual interests. Plus, the tips on that golden piece of paper really came in handy. She would have to thank her professor for the millionth time. Now, all she had left to do was being a good TA, keep her grades high and trust that her capabilites would be good enough to grant her the spot she thought she was worthy of. Y/n thought some relax time was needed and well deserved. She pushed all her work aside, and texted her friends. That night she would be joining them.

[simnostalgia]

I've recently learned how to scrape websites that require a login. This took a lot of work and seemed to have very little documentation online so I decided to go ahead and write my own tutorial on how to do it.

We're using HTTrack as I think that Cyotek does basically the same thing but it's just more complicated. Plus, I'm more familiar with HTTrack and I like the way it works.

So first thing you'll do is give your project a name. This name is what the file that stores your scrape information will be called. If you need to come back to this later, you'll find that file.

Also, be sure to pick a good file-location for your scrape. It's a pain to have to restart a scrape (even if it's not from scratch) because you ran out of room on a drive. I have a secondary drive, so I'll put my scrape data there.

Next you'll put in your WEBSITE NAME and you'll hit "SET OPTIONS..."

This is where things get a little bit complicated. So when the window pops up you'll hit 'browser ID' in the tabs menu up top. You'll see this screen.

What you're doing here is giving the program the cookies that you're using to log in. You'll need two things. You'll need your cookie and the ID of your browser. To do this you'll need to go to the website you plan to scrape and log in.

Once you're logged in press F12. You'll see a page pop up at the bottom of your screen on Firefox. I believe that for chrome it's on the side. I'll be using Firefox for this demonstration but everything is located in basically the same place so if you don't have Firefox don't worry.

So you'll need to click on some link within the website. You should see the area below be populated by items. Click on one and then click 'header' and then scroll down until  you see cookies and browser id. Just copy those and put those into the corresponding text boxes in HTTrack! Be sure to add "Cookies: " before you paste your cookie text. Also make sure you have ONE space between the colon and the cookie.

Next we're going to make two stops and make sure that we hit a few more smaller options before we add the rule set. First, we'll make a stop at LINKS and click GET NON-HTML LINKS and next we'll go and find the page where we turn on "TOLERANT REQUESTS", turn on "ACCEPT COOKIES"  and select "DO NOT FOLLOW ROBOTS.TXT"

This will make sure that you're not overloading the servers, that you're getting everything from the scrape and NOT just pages, and that you're not following the websites indexing bot rules for Googlebots. Basically you want to get the pages that the website tells Google not to index!

Okay, last section. This part is a little difficult so be sure to read carefully!

So when I first started trying to do this, I kept having an issue where I kept getting logged out. I worked for hours until I realized that it's because the scraper was clicking "log out' to scrape the information and logging itself out! I tried to exclude the link by simply adding it to an exclude list but then I realized that wasn't enough.

So instead, I decided to only download certain files.  So I'm going to show you how to do that. First I want to show you the two buttons over to the side. These will help you add rules. However, once you get good at this you'll be able to write your own by hand or copy and past a rule set that you like from a text file. That's what I did!

Here is my pre-written rule set. Basically this just tells the downloader that I want ALL images, I want any item that includes the following keyword, and the -* means that I want NOTHING ELSE. The 'attach' means that I'll get all .zip files and images that are attached since the website that I'm scraping has attachments with the word 'attach' in the URL.

It would probably be a good time to look at your website and find out what key words are important if you haven't already. You can base your rule set off of mine if you want!

WARNING: It is VERY important that you add -* at the END of the list or else it will basically ignore ALL of your rules. And anything added AFTER it will ALSO be ignored.

Good to go!

And you're scraping! I was using INSIMADULT as my test.

There are a few notes to keep in mind: This may take up to several days. You'll want to leave your computer on. Also, if you need to restart a scrape from a saved file, it still has to re-verify ALL of those links that it already downloaded. It's faster that starting from scratch but it still takes a while. It's better to just let it do it's thing all in one go.

Also, if you need to cancel a scrape but want all the data that is in the process of being added already then ONLY press cancel ONCE. If you press it twice it keeps all the temp files. Like I said, it's better to let it do its thing but if you need to stop it, only press cancel once. That way it can finish up the URLs already scanned before it closes.

[thetrespasserfrontier]

RETURN TO THE LOST WORLD

(This is a short(ish?) story I am working on, a sequel to Michael Crichton's second JP novel, The Lost World. Basic premise is that Levine and Malcolm are returning to the island by themselves. Sort of coming up with the plot as I go.)

APARTMENT

BEEP--BEEP--BEEP-- The alarm sounded. A startled bird flew off, making a short ruckus outside the window. A hand emerged from under the covers, fumbling absently for the source of the loud noise. BEEP--BEEP-- Richard Levine found the button, turned off his digital alarm. He rolled over to look up at the idle ceiling fan, stretching his arms out. He'd thought about waking early this morning, considering his plans for the day. But no, he'd decided, the morning routine would do fine as always.

Getting out of bed, he straightened the sheets before going over to the dresser. Inside, various socks, arranged by color. He selected the grey ones, set them on the bed. Then a red shirt, khaki pants, black leather boots. He began to think as he put them on, his studies from the previous night reentering his mind. Predator-prey relations, crepuscular activities of modern animals. Coming into the dining room, he saw Romelia had prepared breakfast as always. Poached eggs, herb-baked potatoes, steaming early grey tea. He sat down to eat, continuing his thoughts. A crow landed on a branch outside his window. He noticed the scaled legs, the sharp claws. A fitting visit for a day like this, he mused over a sip of tea. Finishing and setting the plate aside, he picked up a book from the end table. The Fauna of East Africa. A helpful recommendation of Sarah Harding's. No sooner than he opened to the page he'd left off on, the phone rang. Sighing, he set the book down, picked up the receiver. "Levine." A familiar voice answered. "Good morning Richard. Ready for our flight this afternoon?" It was Ian Malcolm. Wonderful sense of timing as always. Levine glanced at the antique grandfather clock in the corner. "At seven o'clock in the morning, I suppose so. Our flight to Costa Rica doesn't leave for another seven and a half hours." "Don't forget," Malcolm chided, "we have to go over the final details with Doctor Thorne at nine." Levine hid his annoyance from his voice. "I'm not senile. Of course I remember. I'll be there." He paused. "It's a shame Sarah didn't want to accompany us this time. I'd love to hear her perspectives on the predator-prey relations we're to study." Malcolm chuckled. "I think Sarah is satisfied that mammals are her area, after her last visit." Levine sighed. "I'm sure you're right. A smaller team is probably for the best, this time. By the way is there any more word on Costa Rica's search for the source of the aberrant forms?" "Not directly. But recently there seems to be a sudden hush-hush on the subject. I'm fearing the worst; they may be planning something." "Hmm. A disturbing development. I suppose our expedition to Isla Sorna is well-timed, then." "Seems that way. Well, I have some things to finish up. See you at the garage." "See you there." Levine hung up, reflected a moment. It was unfortunate to be in a rush on such a sensitive matter. The study of these animals deserved time and patience, not a race against a second possible extinction. But then, he should be happy to have the chance at all. The video feeds from InGen's outdoor cameras were really a poor vantage from which to study what was probably the world's only extant population of Dinosauria.

Levine opened his book again and began to read. Just as he reached an explanation for male lions domining over multiple prides, the phone rang again. With a sigh of frustration, he set the book down and picked up the phone again. "Eh-hem. Levine here." "It's Thorne. How's your morning?" "Well. It would be fine, if my phone were not constantly interrupting my attempts to finish The Fauna of East Africa before leaving my apartment for two weeks. What is so pressing that it can't wait until my arrival this morning?" "Nothing major. Just that there are a few more details to go over with you and Ian than I thought. I'd like the two of you to come over at eight-thirty, if it's not too much trouble." Levine sighed. "I suppose that's fine. At this rate I might as well bring the book on the plane. I'll see you at eight-thirty, then." "Thanks, Richard." Thorne hung up.

* * *

As Levine prepared to leave, he gazed at the corkboard on his wall. Much of it was as he'd left it before his first visit to the island. Hints about a lost world and the whereabouts of Site B. There were of course some additions; aberrant forms had continued to wash ashore in Costa Rica and elsewhere, which he'd made sure to keep tabs on. The radio tag he'd sent to Malcolm rested in a plastic baggie, also pinned to the board. Most notable though was an article he'd found online, detailing Costa Rica's continued closure of offshore islands to tourists, with the strange note that their re-opening was expected in under a year. It troubled Levine more than he was willing to admit. He'd been relieved to be successful in procuring permission for a helicopter flight to the island, okayed on the basis of having research purposes, even though he and Ian had later decided to hire a private boat instead. After thinking a moment, he unpinned the article from the board to bring it with him and show it to Malcolm. He grabbed his suitcase, his new safari jacket, his hat, and left to drive his Ferrari to Thorne's garage.

[whatsapp11data]

Your Easy Guide to TruConnect Data Refill

Imagine you are using your phone to watch a video. Suddenly, the video stops. You see a message that says you have no more data. This can be very frustrating. You need more data to get back online. This is where TruConnect data refill comes in. TruConnect is a phone service provider. It gives people free and low-cost phones and data. When you run out of data, you can buy more. This article will explain what a data refill is. We will also look at the different ways you can get more data. By the end, you'll know how to get back online quickly and easily.

What is a TruConnect Data Refill?

A TruConnect data refill is the process of adding more data to your phone plan. TruConnect gives many people a free phone plan. This plan comes with a certain amount of data. When you use up all that data, you cannot go online anymore. You cannot watch videos or browse the internet. A data refill lets you buy more data. You can buy more data for the month. This lets you get back online and use your phone as you like. A data refill is a way to make sure you can stay connected. It is a very helpful service for many people.

In short, a data refill is an add-on to your existing plan. It is designed to give you more internet access. Therefore, it is a crucial service for staying connected.

Why You Might Need a Data Refill

There are many reasons why you might need to buy more data.

Heavy Usage: You might use your phone for many things. You might watch many videos or download many files. This can use up your data very fast.

Video Streaming: Watching videos on YouTube or other sites uses a lot of data. Even a short video can use a good amount.

App Updates: Your phone's apps might update automatically. This can use a lot of data without you even knowing.

Social Media: Browse social media with many pictures and videos can use up your data quickly.

Online Games: Playing games online uses data. Some games use a lot of data.

These are all normal things to do with a phone. That is why having a way to get more data is so important. So, a data refill is a very useful option.

The Problem with Running Out of Data

Running out of data can be a big problem.

No Internet: You cannot go online. You cannot check your email or look up information.

Lost Connection: You might lose contact with friends and family on messaging apps.

Missed Opportunities: You might miss an important email or message. This can be a problem if you are looking for a job.

A data refill helps you avoid these problems. It helps you stay connected and informed. So, a data refill is a very important service.

How to Get a TruConnect Data Refill

Getting a TruConnect data refill is easy. There are a few different ways you can do it. You can do it online from your computer. You can also do it from your phone. This section will walk you through the steps. You will be able to get more data and get back online in a short amount of time.

From logging Afghanistan Phone Number Lead | 10,000 Telemarketing Data into your account to selecting a data plan, a few key steps are involved. Following these steps ensures your data is added correctly and without any issues. Therefore, a clear plan is essential for a smooth process.

Step 1: Log in to Your TruConnect Account

The first step is to log in to your account.

Go to the Website: Go to the official TruConnect website.

Find the Login Page: Look for a "Login" or "My Account" button.

Enter Your Information: Type in your phone number and your password.

Access Your Dashboard: Once you are logged in, you will be on your account dashboard. This page shows your current plan and data usage.

Logging in is the first and most important step. It gives you access to all the tools you need. So, a correct login is foundational for success.

Step 2: Choose and Buy Your Data Refill

Once you are logged in, you can buy more data.

Find the Refill Section: Look for a section called "Add More Data," "Refill," or "Top-Up."

Choose a Data Plan: You will see a list of different data plans. They will have different amounts of data and different prices. Choose the one that works best for you.

Enter Your Payment Information: You will need to enter your credit card information. Make sure the information is correct.

Confirm Your Purchase: Review your order and click "Confirm." The data should be added to your account very soon.

These steps ensure a smooth purchase. It gets you more data so you can get back online. So, choosing the right plan is key to a good refill.

Other Ways to Buy TruConnect Data Refill

The online method is the most common. However, there are other ways you can get a TruConnect data refill. These methods are great if you do not have a computer or if you want to use a different way to pay. This section will look at these other ways to get more data. You can use these options to get back online in a way that is easy for you.

From using the TruConnect app to calling customer service, the options are varied. Understanding these different methods helps you choose the best one for your situation. Therefore, a clear overview of these choices is essential for effective refilling.

Using the TruConnect App

The app is a very simple way to get more data.

Download the App: You can download the TruConnect app on your smartphone. It is available on the app store.

Log In: Log in to the app with your account information.

Find the Refill Option: The app will have a button or a section for buying more data.

Buy Your Data: Follow the on-screen steps to choose a data plan and pay for it.

The app is great because it is always with you. It is a fast and easy way to get more data. So, the app is a very convenient option.

Calling TruConnect Customer Service

If all else fails, you can call them.

The Phone Number: The main phone number for TruConnect is 1-800-430-0440.

Talk to an Agent: You will talk to a customer service agent. Tell them you want to buy more data.

Provide Your Information: You will need to give them your account information and your payment information.

Confirm the Purchase: The agent will help you choose a data plan and complete the purchase.

Calling is a good option if you are having trouble with the website or the app. It lets you talk to a real person. So, calling is a great method for difficult situations.

Conclusion: Stay Connected with Ease

Getting a TruConnect data refill is a simple process. It helps you stay connected and use your phone as you need to. You can do it online, on the app, or by calling them. By knowing how to get more data, you can avoid the frustration of running out. This will ensure you can always get back online.

This strategic approach to communication is fundamental for fostering a better user experience. It ensures you have the tools you need to stay connected and use your phone as you need. This ensures your communication efforts are both effective and responsible.

Manage Your Data Usage

To avoid running out of data, you can also manage your usage.

Check Your Usage: You can check your data usage on your account dashboard.

Use Wi-Fi: Try to connect to Wi-Fi whenever you can. This will save your mobile data.

Limit Video Streaming: Watching videos on your phone uses a lot of data. Try to watch them when you are on Wi-Fi.

By managing your data, you can make it last longer. So, a careful approach to data usage is a smart strategy.

A Simple Way to Stay in Touch

A data refill is a simple way to stay in touch with your friends and family. It helps you keep them informed and engaged. By having a way to get more data, you can ensure the long-term success of your mobile connectivity.

Utilize this resource wisely. It is designed to help you connect, engage, and ultimately achieve your objectives.