#I got at least some basic HTML knowledge in

[nanimoshiranaikoneko]

20/100

Hello Tumblr I'm back with some updates of my coding journey

I got a little ill so i was doing everything in a listless manner but still i proceeded to learn new things. And currently I am feeling motivated to continue progressing in that field even more

In the last 10 days I: - Finished Beginner CSS Course by Dave Gray (i am obsessed with his tutorials lol) - Revised HTML basics one more time - Played around on my foolish website with the only purpose of practicing new knowledge (i made this HTML about cats with the help of freecodecamp and reused it again to practice CSS basics so don't judge it i know it's cringy af but at least it works and) - And i finally started JavaScript and it's super complicated so i need much more time to proceed it to draw any conclusions

and some small off topic... i was watching some videos on YT about coding languages etc and I was reminded that I actually kinda(?) had Pascal basics in the middle school (even tho i hardly remember anything since it was more than a decade ago)

so a question for everyone have you had Pascal at school and does anyone know is it used for anything nowadays or it remains as a thing of the past?

see you in ten days, nya if you started cringy proceed to be cringy with a pride till the end

[mentalisttraceur-software]

Could you elaborate on how software is applied philosophy?

Software work ends up using and empirically testing a lot of the thinking and conclusions that get serious discussion in philosophy, or that would look like philosophy if generalized beyond software.

---

My go-to example of this, probably not the best example but it's simple and accessible, is "Chesterton's Fence", which is basically the idea that we shouldn't change something unless we understand why it is (or was) good/useful.

Outside of software, some philosopher named Chesterton popularized this idea like a hundred years ago with an analogy about a fence, and it has been discussed enough that today it still has an established name from that. People debate and hair-split when it applies and what other values/heuristics should take precedence. You can even find people arguing whether it's a good heuristic at all or always wrong.

In software, getting any real work done depends on already having a practical, working solution to this problem space. When you need to change code but you feel that desire to understand more of it first, or you want to get more testing with a new change before rolling into production, that's your brain already having a whole philosophy paper's worth of ideas expanding on Chesterton's Fence. When is it safe or an acceptable trade-off to proceed without learning more? Precisely what edge cases do you need to look into or rule out? What tests can take the place of needing to know the consequences? What design of my implementation or API can eliminate the need for code guarding against special cases?

---

So that's just one example, but I think this generalizes pretty well.

A lot of philosophy boils down to: how think, what's true, what do? The study of correct thinking, what we can know and how, and what we ought to do. (Logic, epistemology, and ethics.)

And in software, we use all those skills. If our logic is bad, we make more mistakes. If our ability to know what we know and how to verify truth of our ideas is bad, we'll make more mistakes. If we have bad ideas about how to make decisions, or bad skills at reviewing ourselves for errors in thinking and knowledge, we'll have more inefficiencies in our processes/workflows and be slower to improve. Very few activities have as tight/short/fast of a feedback loop between how your think and what results you get.

---

There is a lot of overlap in the mental skills involved in sound philosophical thought and coming up with good software designs for a given problem. In as little as I can claim to have done both, I seem to need mostly the same mental skills for them.

---

A lot of decisions and trade-offs in software have ethics impacts. We get a lot of personal freedom within our code that will have real impacts on other people - edge cases frustratingly unhandled vs handled in an intuitive and helpful way; errors silently swallowed or harmfully ignored or cryptically unadorned vs considerately detected before destructive actions and informatively wrapped before being shown; code left opaque and complected vs helpfully tuned to guide understanding and written so as to minimize what needs to be known or changed to work with any given spot. All that adds up to affect people, sometimes very significantly, wasting hours of work or losing data.

Two examples of that in one. Just the other day I helped someone save a lot of stuff they had typed from a website that got stuck in some state where their text was unclickable+unselectabled and covered by an overlay. Losing all that text and having to retype it would've been severely unpleasant, mentally+emotionally costly, and probably would've ruined an evening for at least one person. I was only able to help because I am fluent with web browsers' dev tools, so I was able to find the text box in the HTML inspector. I doubt the devs of either the web app or the browser dev tools had this particular situation in mind, but these were predictable ethics impacts on both sides - and besides ethics in general being a subset of philosophy, the thought shapes that enable you to automatically predict entire categories of impacts like those are also a kind of philosophy.

---

When you design a class hierarchy in code, or a database schemas, or a REST API, or just come up with a way to factor some logic into separate functions... you're doing ontology. And while the philosopher ontologist sees no real consequences if they get it wrong, you will feel the difference between getting it right and getting it wrong as the difference between a force-multiplier and an awkward hindrance - edge-cases and boilerplate elegantly become naturally unnecessary and more things Just Work "for free" when the abstractions and factoring and data shape are right for the problem. You're decomposing things into concepts and identifying relationships between them, and you're testing if the thinking you use to do that is actually good at distilling what's functionally important to the problem space. (This is why "naming things" is one of the "truly hard problems in computer science" - naming things well sometimes entails all the work of coming up with an ontology that's good for thinking about what you're doing, which also must map concisely and intuitively to a language like English.)

---

Sorry for the lack of cohesion/connectedness, this is just what I could think of / remember off the top of my head today.

[bills-bible-basics]

SO, YOU’VE GOT IT ALL FIGURED OUT, DO YOU?

by Bill Kochman 04-27-2025

My friends, it is so sad when I come across certain Christian brethren who have fallen into doctrinal error, who when I patiently try to correct their understanding, instead of accepting or at least considering what I have to say, they immediately choose, due to their own pride, to laugh at me, to mock me, and to belittle me.

This has certainly been the case lately as I have tried to expose the fallacies and misguided interpretations which have become associated with the theological perspective known as Futurism.

As I have explained multiple times before, the error of Futurist theology is that it takes ancient, already-fulfilled Bible prophecies, and applies them to our modern day, as if they have not been fulfilled yet.

Sadly, literally millions of modern Christians have been deceived by this popular belief system. As I point out in some of my other Bill’s Bible Basics articles, I was deceived by it as well for about forty years of my adult Christian life, until 2011-2012 when my spiritual eyes were finally opened to the Scriptural truth.

Wrapped up in this Futurist deception are those Christians who have become convinced that President Trump, or Elon Musk, or King Charles, or Barack Obama, or some other politician or famous person , is the infamous Antichrist, who is also referred to in the Scriptures as the Beast.

In fact, I have already written two recent BBB — Bill’s Bible Basics — articles where I discuss the misguided claims which are currently being made regarding both President Trump and Elon Musk. These two articles are the following:

Article: "It Is Time to Wake Up!":

https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/It-Is-Time-To-Wake-Up-1.html

Article: "Is Elon Musk the Antichrist?":

https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/Is-Elon-Musk-the-Antichrist.html

So because I oppose these false interpretations of the Scriptures, and now fight against and expose the erroneous doctrines which are associated with Futurism, some of my Christian brethren have taken it upon themselves to claim that I am deceived, misguided, blind, asleep at the wheel, missing the signs, etc. Oh, they say all kinds of mean-spirited, vicious things to me, but I just let it roll off my back.

But to those of you who are guilty of engaging in this sad behavior, allow me to state the following:

My friends, the truth is this. You can laugh and mock me all you want with your proud, haughty, know-it-all attitude. However, I assure you that if you embrace any of the aforementioned beliefs, within a few short years at best, just like so many other misguided Christians who have come before you, who for years now have been making all kinds of erroneous assertions regarding this person or that person being the Antichrist, you will likewise eventually, snd hopefully, come to realize that you have been deceived by the lies, deceptions and misinterpretations of the theological perspective known as Futurism.

My friends, if what I have stated above applies to you, please understand that while I mean no offense, I am compelled to tell you that you are so deceived, and so confident in and blinded by your beliefs, that you don’t even realize how deeply deceived you have actually become. Please consider the following Bible verse:

“But‭ evil‭ men‭ and‭ seducers‭ shall wax‭‭ worse and worse‭‭, deceiving‭‭, and‭ ‭being‭ ‭deceived‭‭‭.‭”

2 Timothy 3:13, KJV

No, my friends, I am most certainly NOT saying that you are evil. After all, you are undoubtedly a Christian brother or sister who is simply doing your best to try to be faithful to the Lord, based on the knowledge and understanding which you currently have. However, because you are so deceived regarding this issue regarding the identity of the Antichrist, you are in turn deceiving other people as well without realizing it.

My friends, I think the problem with some of you is that you underestimate Satan’s intelligence. Let’s be honest here, shall we? Do you honestly think that you are smarter than the Devil is? After all, that fiend has had thousands of years of practice in the deception game, and you are no match for him.

My dear friends, you really need to understand that in this satanic game of deception, if something appears to be one thing, it is more than likely something entirely different. If something seems very obvious to you — such as a certain person being the Antichrist, for example — it is more than likely just a distraction and a decoy from the actual truth. In other words, the Devil is not just going to be obvious and reveal his cards. After all, how can he trap you in his snare that way?

So to those of you who remain convinced that either Donald Trump or Elon Musk is the Antichrist, please tell me something, my friends. What do you say to those Christians who STILL insist that Barack Obama is the Antichrist — yes, believe it or not, they are still around — and who likewise have said that Pope Francis was the False Prophet? Well, Pope Francis is now dead, so I guess they are eating crow.

Or what do you say regarding those Christians who have confidently — and erroneously — pointed to other individuals as being the infamous Antichrist, such as King Charles, Lord Maitreya, John Lennon, Adolf Hitler, or anyone else in their mind who has seemed to fit the bill?

To me personally, it is rather obvious that they were all wrong — or else will yet prove to be wrong — and yet now some of you claim to be wide awake, and know the truth, as if you have got some kind of inside scoop regarding the true identity of the Antichrist? My friends, as I said, I am convinced that you don’t even realize the error in your own understanding of the Scriptures. Please carefully consider the truth which is found in the following Bible verse:

“And‭ if any man‭ think‭‭ that he knoweth‭‭ any thing‭, he knoweth‭‭ nothing‭ yet‭ as‭ he ought‭‭ to know‭‭.‭”

1 Corinthians 8:2, KJV

It is interesting to note that in the previous verse that comes right before this one, the Apostle Paul likewise writes “Knowledge puffeth up.” In our modern language, Paul is talking about people who get the big head because they think they know it all.

My friends, again, I don’t wish to offend you, but from my perspective, some of you are indeed puffed up with knowledge, and it has made you rather haughty and condescending. That is why some of you belittle me, and mock me, and make little jabs at me with words such as “sleepy” or “asleep”, because I refuse to accept your point of view, and your particular understanding of the Scriptures.

Look, I am very open regarding the fact that even after studying the Scriptures for over five decades now, there are still some things which I don’t fully understand, and which I continue to struggle with. This is particularly true in the area of ancient — and often ambiguous — Bible prophecies. I humbly recognize my limitations.

The truth is that deciphering what has already been fulfilled, what may possibly be occurring in our present time, and what may yet be reserved for future fulfillment, is no easy task. It requires a lot of time, a lot of patience, a lot of prayer, a lot of diligently studying the Scriptures, and a lot of delving into the historical records of the ancient past as well. All are necessary components in order to hopefully arrive at the truth.

Yet sadly, it is quite evident to me that on the social networks, some of you proud, young bucks don’t take the time to do this. Instead, you foolishly decide to take a shortcut and just shoot off your mouths, pretending that you know what you are talking about, when in reality, you are absolutely clueless, deceived yourself, and deceiving others in the process.

Again, it is not my intention to offend anyone, but some of you really need to hear the truth.

In closing, please carefully and prayerfully consider my words. Following are some additional articles for your further consideration, which I believe will be of benefit to you. That is, unless you are just too proud to read them:

Article: "Humility in Our Understanding of God's Word":

https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/Humility-in-Our-Understanding-01.html

Article: "Understanding the Bible in Context":

https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/Understanding-the-Bible-in-Context.html

Article: "Are You Flexible?":

https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/are-you-flexible.html

Article: "My Evolving Theology":

https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/my-evolving-theology.html

Article: "Please Stop Misinterpreting the Scriptures":

https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/stop-misinterpreting-scriptures-1.html

Article: "Facebook False Prophets and Misguided Teachers":

https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/facebook-false-prophets-teachers-1.html

Article: "Fight Against Futurism!":

https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/Fight-Against-Futurism.html

Article: "Should Christians Engage in Doctrinal Debates?":

https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/Doctrinal-Debate-01.html

[willinglyghoulified]

Just a lil life update since I still have some people upvoting my work on Wattpad, and some are still giving my work kudos on AO3 (thanks you guys, I love y'all and I'm sorry I don't have more time to write right now ♥).

I started an account through Coursera and have found tons and tons of classes that I can take "for free" with the exception of the monthly Coursera fee, and when I tell you that I feel like I've found a trove of knowledge...

I've got classes planned for grammar, English basics, creative writing, editing, outlining, website management, self management, HTML, freelancing, portfolio creation... I'M SO EXCITED. I haven't been this excited to learn in so so long.

I have a feeling that by this time next year, I'll be a copy editor doing freelance work at least for free to get my foot in the door. This year is all about learning and saving my money (since I'm going to get a different job anyway to fit my study lifestyle and anything I get from here will be a paycut, RIP). I just wish that finding work from home jobs didn't feel so fucking impossible?

I just want to say thank you to the ones that have supported me so far and helped me on my way. When I've asked for advice or help, at least ONE OF YOU has been there and I can't thank y'all and this hellsite enough. ♥

[sugarspunfaerie]

Granted I’m taking a break from coding my Neocities but I’m so into it I would love to start coding my own Toyhouse & Tumblr themes once I get more confident in my skills

[liliths-missing-pen]

Idia With Yuu Who Wants To Learn How to Program Games

Not gonna lie this is a very self indulgent piece because my computer programming class is making me want to code but I also want to write 💀 This is my compromise here.

Notes/Warnings: Reader is Yuu, I am in the English server and wish to not know what happens in Book 6 till it comes out so artistic liberties will be taken. Also, Idia might seem a little ooc but when checking the wiki it says he gets excited and talkative when stuff he likes gets brought up so I took it and ran with it. Enjoy!

Masterlist

Before you came to Twisted Wonderland you already known how to code. Mostly just from camps that your family made you do or just out of general interest. Nonetheless you only knew the minimal to basic things, like HTML, CSS, a little bit of Javascript and Python as well C++. So to say the least there wasn’t that much you could do especially as a beginner. You’ve always seen video games or visual novels and wished you’d be able to do something like that one day but yet, you never got around to polishing skills or making yourself actually do anything to get yourself to that goal.

Jump skip to know that you are in Twisted Wonderland. You didn’t know much about this world at all, lots of things were different than your own world. The way things were done, school expectations, slang, magic. So to say, you just expected that anything you knew would be just thrown out the window one way or another. Once you met Idia though you felt more secure in your knowledge. Idia was someone who you can imagine to be the most normal in your world. He was one of those kids in your class at the back of the room, typically not speaking to anyone unless prompted. Now you may wonder, “How did the Ramshackle prefect become associated with the shut-in hermit?” Well like any other instance, Ortho.

Ortho was extremely persistent that once you expressed interest or made an off-handed comment that you knew some code and loved visual novel games, you should meet his brother. Honestly, the issue wasn’t to convince you, it was Idia that needed convincing.

Since it wasn't Idia who invited you to his dorm, he was flipping out when Ortho told him to expect you. He's heard about the notorious Ramshackle prefect who dealt with Overbolts even though they're magicless. He couldn't lie and say that he wasn't interested in you though. Not everyone was able to do that. He just wasn't sure if he could do this right now.

Once you did arrive, Ortho carried most of the conversation. Idia was trying his best to try to make conversation as well but he couldn't bring himself. It was hard to talk to a normie okay?!

Well, that's what he kept thinking after each of his failed attempts. Ortho knew what to do though, he knew his brother would have issues so he hacked into your Magicam account to learn more about you till he ran upon all the gaming and anime accounts you followed. He put to and to together and this was Ortho's plan to make you two talk normally. Once he mentioned a game he knew both you and Idia played it was the start of something great.

Idia's attitude towards you changed completely once you talked about video games and anything else he was into. Which dragged into how the game was coded and whatnot. Once you mentioned how you wanted to program your own game and your vision he was just like an over-excited child he ushered you over to his game, asking how much you knew about code and how fun it would be to create a game.

But basically, once he dragged you in it'll be very hard to leave. Your whole friendship with Idia from then on was built on the game y'all were creating together, anime and gaming. Not that you'd complain it was very to have Idia around. Just that you'd always have to start up the conversion since Idia will always second guess himself

Even once you two finish creating your game Idia would still keep you around. He'd even start being the one to invite you instead of just showing up! After helping you learn and sharpen your skills in programming by working on a game together, you'd start to help him out too! If you know anything about programming, especially C++ you know how picky it is with its writing. Whilst he's off typing quickly you start to point out to him certain things he's missing, like a semicolon on something that'll screw the whole code up.

Wholeheartedly once you make friends with Idiai from one of his special interests it's going to be hard to pull him away from you <3

[awesamkiller]

It was very helpful, and I agree with your tags. I don’t think these kids need to be told their brilliant, and I don’t think they’re assuming the older generations think them to be stupid; why say “YOU’RE BRILLIANT DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT!” Out of nowhere, it sort of makes you think that maybe the adults WERE thinking of you as stupid. At least, that’s how I would have seen it in highschool.

It feels insane to me, the entire post that is, because it was part of my (England) curriculum to sit there, learn about forums, learn how to touch type, how to create a spreadsheet, learn the basics about HTML, learn the basics about malware prevention.

Also, from the original post,

“I never laugh in their faces, but it’s always a close thing.”

Stop fucking teaching, op. If your student lacks knowledge on something, this likely being a thing beyond their control, as their parents are the people who decide what technology they get and how they can use it? And you have to actively hold back from LAUGHING IN THEIR FACE?

You are not kind enough, nor mature enough to teach.

I was, by all means, a teacher at one point, actually.

Had to get the safeguarding and protection and other qualifications and everything. Mandated reporter, had to plan lessons, go to meetings, discuss discipline and expulsions just like a normal teacher, etc. basically a teacher but just for first aid.

I taught first aid to kids for a pretty long time, I got to a Corporal rank in my organisation and attended some very serious incidents, so all of what I knew felt like common knowledge to me.

I can stabilise this broken leg like this, I can move this person into the recovery position, I can do the Heimlich Manoeuvre (whatever you guys call it I think it’s different here) etc.

The kids didn’t know that. Hell, sometimes the kids didn’t know how to take care of themselves! They’d come up to me, and the questions were things I expected they knew;

‘Corporal Toby, can you button my collar please?’

‘Corporal Toby, can you tie my tie?’

‘Corporal Toby, how do you wash your hands properly?’

I never, EVER, laughed at those kids. I had kids that were 15, 16, asking me to tie their tie, or show them how to polish their drill boots. I had a 17 year old boy ask me how to iron the proper creases into his uniform. I had a 15 year old girl ask me if a Reese’s cup had peanuts in it.

Sometimes people have off days, sometimes people genuinely don’t know, but you shouldn’t make fun of them for it, especially if they’re a child, you know, they’re just one of that days lucky 10,00.

So this was originally a response to this post:

****

****

Which is about people wanting an AO3 app, but then it became large and way off topic, so here you go.

Nobody under the age of 20 knows how to use a computer or the internet. At all. They only know how to use apps. Their whole lives are in their phones or *maybe* a tablet/iPad if they're an artist. This is becoming a huge concern.

I'm a private tutor for middle- and high-school students, and since 2020 my business has been 100% virtual. Either the student's on a tablet, which comes with its own series of problems for screen-sharing and file access, or they're on mom's or dad's computer, and they have zero understanding of it.

They also don't know what the internet is, or even the absolute basics of how it works. You might not think that's an important thing to know, but stick with me.

Last week I accepted a new student. The first session is always about the tech -- I tell them this in advance, that they'll have to set up a few things, but once we're set up, we'll be good to go. They all say the same thing -- it won't be a problem because they're so "online" that they get technology easily.

I never laugh in their faces, but it's always a close thing. Because they are expecting an app. They are not expecting to be shown how little they actually know about tech.

I must say up front: this story is not an outlier. This is *every* student during their first session with me. Every single one. I go through this with each of them because most of them learn more, and more solidly, via discussion and discovery rather than direct instruction.

Once she logged in, I asked her to click on the icon for screen-sharing. I described the icon, then started with "Okay, move your mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen." She did the thing that those of us who are old enough to remember the beginnings of widespread home computers remember - picked up the mouse and moved it and then put it down. I explained she had to pull the mouse along the surface, and then click on the icon. She found this cumbersome. I asked if she was on a laptop or desktop computer. She didn't know what I meant. I asked if the computer screen was connected to the keyboard as one piece of machinery that you can open and close, or if there was a monitor - like a TV - and the keyboard was connected to another machine either by cord or by Bluetooth. Once we figured it out was a laptop, I asked her if she could use the touchpad, because it's similar (though not equivalent) to a phone screen in terms of touching clicking and dragging.

Once we got her using the touchpad, we tried screen-sharing again. We got it working, to an extent, but she was having trouble with... lots of things. I asked if she could email me a download or a photo of her homework instead, and we could both have a copy, and talk through it rather than put it on the screen, and we'd worry about learning more tech another day. She said she tried, but her email blocked her from sending anything to me.

This is because the only email address she has is for school, and she never uses email for any other purpose. I asked if her mom or dad could email it to me. They weren't home.

(Re: school email that blocks any emails not whitelisted by the school: that's great for kids as are all parental controls for young ones, but 16-year-olds really should be getting used to using an email that belongs to them, not an institution.)

I asked if the homework was on a paper handout, or in a book, or on the computer. She said it was on the computer. Great! I asked her where it was saved. She didn't know. I asked her to search for the name of the file. She said she already did that and now it was on her screen. Then, she said to me: "You can just search for it yourself - it's Chapter 5, page 11."

This is because homework is on the school's website, in her math class's homework section, which is where she searched. For her, that was "searching the internet."

Her concepts of "on my computer" "on the internet" or "on my school's website" are all the same thing. If something is displayed on the monitor, it's "on the internet" and "on my phone/tablet/computer" and "on the school's website."

She doesn't understand "upload" or "download," because she does her homework on the school's website and hits a "submit" button when she's done. I asked her how she shares photos and stuff with friends; she said she posts to Snapchat or TikTok, or she AirDrops. (She said she sometimes uses Insta, though she said Insta is more "for old people"). So in her world, there's a button for "post" or "share," and that's how you put things on "the internet".

She doesn't know how it works. None of it. And she doesn't know how to use it, either.

Also, none of them can type. Not a one. They don't want to learn how, because "everything is on my phone."

And you know, maybe that's where we're headed. Maybe one day, everything will be on "my phone" and computers as we know them will be a thing of the past. But for the time being, they're not. Students need to learn how to use computers. They need to learn how to type. No one is telling them this, because people think teenagers are "digital natives." And to an extent, they are, but the definition of that has changed radically in the last 20-30 years. Today it means "everything is on my phone."

[henfox]

KYLOSOLO’S/KRYLORENS’ STEP BY STEP BASIC GIFFING TUTORIAL, inc. ALL RESOURCES:

this is part one out of two not don’t worry, part two is just me filming the process, i just had to put it onto a separate tumblr post since i can’t place it in this one.  PART TWO HERE: [x]

i’ve been giffing for about over six years and it’s only very recently that i feel i’ve got a grasp on a pretty good method, for me at least. if you’re reading this you probably have prior knowledge already but this tutorial is also going to go over the basics as if you know nothing. → this is just how i do everything and my ordering process, there are way better gif-makers out there but i know how finicky the process can be so i wanted to give out all my tricks! it might seem like a lot but it becomes second nature easily. (let me know of any broken links and or questions.) just to note i use windows not mac.

SORRY FOR SPELLING AND GRAMMAR ISSUES, i really pushed myself and i struggle with articulation. 

things you will need/learn: (it’s all free!)  →the ones in bold are essential.  —adobe photoshop; i use cc2020 which you can get here: [x] —mpv; (a frame captures, i’ve used pretty much every type over the years, even ps’ inbuilt one but this is my favourite & this tutorial on how to use/dl it is the best) [x] —***at least 1080p footage; if you don’t have any you can still use this frames folder to follow along with me :) [x]*** —4k video downloader [x] —a megasync account [x]

actions: —@kylos tumblr sharpening; (these are just my favourites you can use any you find/make really but this makes your gifs look even more hq) [x] —@kylos twitter sharpening: [x] —@rory-amy tumblr/twitter save; (i just use the save action out of this pack and it’s a LIFESAVER) [x] —if you’re not sure how to put these into your ps i’ll show you how later on in this tutorial. 

how to learn colouring + how to add subtitles correctly + how to make hq twitter gifs: —all later on in this tutorial with links to my own resources and might have my twitter watermark by mistake. 

*what this tutorial isn’t including: —how to t*rrent. —how to upscale footage. —how to make multiple gifs/gifset are crop them the same way/move frames over to a new document; (i’m just focusing on how to make one simple gif) —how to use gradient/html text for captions but here’s a great tutorial on it. [x]

i just want to give a big shout out to @kylos because all her tips are just amazing and top-tier!!!

‧͙⁺˚*・༓☾ ☽༓・*˚⁺‧͙  ok now onto the good stuff!  ‧͙⁺˚*・༓☾ ☽༓・*˚⁺‧͙

★ how to load in and sort out your layers: [1/2] ★ —once you’ve dl the frames or gotten your own you’ll need to load them into ps like this;

when load layers pops up, you can select individual files (for a more complicated set this is good) but i prefer to just use the folder option. now select your captures folder from wherever you saved it. depending on how many frames/how hq they are will effect how long the loading time is. it can really vary.  —ONE THING YOU SHOULD NEVER DO: is take EVERY OTHER FRAME when making your gifs this destroys the flow of them and is an older method to gifs that isn’t needed. 

—if your ps is brand new you’re going to have to add some stuff, which i’ll show you how to do. — first go to window and select TIMELINE and ACTIONS. then move your ADJUSTMENTS bar up and close the tab it came from since you won’t need those. (if you ever do, just click workspace and then RESET ESSENTIALS) and next you’re going to click on your timeline bar, then CREATE FRAME ANIMATION. — *your screen should now look like this:*

—then on your timeline bar at the right top corner there’s three little lines, click that. then select MAKE FRAMES FROM LAYERS and after SELECT ALL FRAMES and next REVERSE ALL FRAMES. (depending on the ps you use your frames might be like mine and need to be reversed, just click the play icon on your timeline to make sure). —i always play through the gif before doing anything and i noticed the gif frames are a bit long for my taste so i’m going to press my shift key and then select up to frame ten by right clicking (they should now be highlighted) and click the trashcan icon on the TIMELINE bar to delete them. you can trim your gifs at the end doing this if the mb is too high and your gif doesn’t load when uploading. currently tumblr is up to 10mb and twitter is around past 15mb.  —after deleting your frames you then need to SELECT ALL FRAMES again and then CONVERT TO TIMELINE.

★ how to crop your gifs: ★ ***here is when i like to do it: (4th icon on the bar on your left)*** —however, you can do this before or after, just as long as it isn’t after making it a SMART OBJECT or sharpening.  —there should now be a new a bar on top of your gif and next to RATIO is where you should put your dimensions in (as in width:height) 

—there are tumblr dimensions but i find you can be more lax with them, i like to change it up a lot but for now i make square gifs around 450px x 450px and rectangular ones around 500px x 340px but it’s up to you. if you’re really struggling and see a set with a size you want to use yourself you can study the size of it by inspecting its elements on desktop, and rounding up. but i would recommending doing it yourself. making your own style is the fun of it!!! —for twitter the best size is 600px x 600px. this is a square, sometimes frames can’t just fit neatly into this shape/sizing so find what’s best or copy my tumblr dimensions if you’re struggling. 

***note: when cropping your gif you can get weird transparent lines around it. → to get rid of those when cropping your gif, you have to: crop inwards a bit, (or as much as you want) and move the cropping square/shape a bit into the middle. 

now, make sure you go to IMAGE on top bar select and put in your gif dimensions.***

‧͙⁺˚*・༓☾ ☽༓・*˚⁺‧͙  

★ back to your layers: [2/2] ★ —now go to your LAYERS bar and select every frame with an eye icon next to it, right click and select on top of them and select CONVERT TO SMART OBJECT. this should leave all the frames you have deleted earlier and those have no eye icon, you can select those akin to how you did it on your TIMELINE bar, just use the trashcan icon on your LAYERS bar or just select DELETE LAYERS when right clicking. 

★ how to insert and use actions: ★ —to do this you need to locate your actions folder. so, go to your adobe photoshop file, right click on the ps icon and then click ‘FILE LOCATION’ then search in it for ACTIONS. next if your action(s) are downloaded go open another file explorer tab:

then drag and drop it like this:  —if it says administer permission is needed click yes.

—once you’ve done this head back into ps to use the ACTIONS, first to sharpen, then to save: —you’re going to click the arrow icon on the sidebar on the left side to your LAYERS and then the three lines as shown here: 

—you’ll see where it says SELECT HERE, do that and then click the arrow icon below it and just click continue if you get the make layers error, this won’t affect anything. (sometimes gifs can glitch at this stage but just undo or you may need to restart your gif.)  —ok now your gif is sharpened! if you think it’s too much you can add gaussian blur from the FILTERS bar at the top but i just prefer to lower the opacity by double clicking the bars next to the word SMART SHARPENED which has now appeared x2.  —for me gif colouring at this stage is hard because playing the gif in this mode blurs it and i like having the individual layers so this is where the action pack (save) comes in handy! *it also saves you from having to open your gif at the end and adjusting to 0.07 sec bug to 0.05 gif speed the action auto does it to 0.05 for you (which i’ll explain next.) just select the action the exact way you did sharpening. just scroll down to where it says save.  —now your ps should look like this (this is a good point to save, but i’m the worst and do it after i colour usually.)

adjust the gif speed by double clicking the numbers if you want to change it from 0.05 speed but even if your gif is short making it anything more slower or even faster can mess up your flow. the best range imo is around 0.04-0.06, although i usually never stray from 0.05. i also like to put do not dispose on all the frames (which you again can do by shift clicking or the three lines on your timeline to get select them all and then any frame right clicking to do that should work for both things.)

★ how to colour (basic not colourful): ★ —now this is the best part for me, however it’s the most tricky and vague in a way. one psd (your saved photoshop document that contains your colouring and usually the gif too) might not work for the next gif even if it’s the same film or ‘footage’ and getting your own style can take a long, long time. you can use other peoples psds but i find making your own is the most rewarding. but! i have studied those psds given out and incorporated them into my own style over time.   —*so, what i have decided to do is just that. i have made a base psd for this gif for you to study. but i really recommend looking at other tutorials to teach you how to do that. i’m just gonna get you started, which i hope no one minds. i did try and make it less my very blue-toned grunge style and more ‘normal’. [x] —note 1: select all of the adjustment layers on the side and then to put them into a multi-set just select DUPLICATE LAYERS and put them onto your document/next gif. be smarter than me and don’t name randomly or keyboard smash your psds, sorting out your psds makes life so much easier trust me and you can reuse them!!! (i keep ALL of mine in folders in my documents and then they are sub-dived).  —note 2: i like to go more extreme and lessen the vibrancy/saturation and then constantly edit and mess with the opacity rather than being subtle, there’s so many ways to do this. so again, it’s just messing around. however, even if you all your frames selected sometimes this can bug out and mess up one of the frames. so, keep watch on that and either undo or just duplicate the new version of your adjustment layer and delete the bugged one. 

*if you do want me to make a how to on my colouring that goes more in-depth/colourful please let me know.

★ how to add perfectly in the middle subtitles: ★ —here i’m going to give you my subtitles with its settings preset, but edit it to your own liking! [x] —if you’re loading it in, different sizes/factors effect your subtitle placement and your text can looks random like this: 

so what you’re going to do this: drag it into the place you want and then make sure your text bar looks like this: 

—since this is also an adjustment layer you can get the same bug of it being fixed on one frame only and then the rest are how it used to be. so, just duplicate it into a new file like this: 

—and after duplicating it back onto your main gif and get rid of the old one.it should be good. (again, this is just my own learned solution) —this is also applicable to twitter watermarking which i’ll mention later on. 

now that you’ve done all of that and hopefully saved your gif it’s time to export it!

the save settings i use:

★ how to make hq twitter gifs: ★  —read this tutorial, already linked above but: [x]  —if you’ve read everything above then making a hq twitter gif won’t be a hard adjustment, you just need to change and add a few things. —first: make sure it’s 600px x 600px (you can change this but to get the best result) —second: use the twitter sharpening action!!! you can adjust this, but twitter can really repress the quality if you use just the tumblr one, or your preferred method. although some footage needs you to lower the sharpening or else it can look like a lot, but don’t be afraid it’s an easy fix! —if you’re adding subtitles make them a bigger than you would for tumblr just make sure it doesn’t go through the bottom left side of your gif. —before posting, make sure you have watermarked it! which you can only do on the top left/right corner and bottom right or else it’ll get covered up! you can also place in somewhere else if you’d like it’s up to you. —the video of me making a gif will be one for twitter so if you’re unsure about anything from this or the entire tutorial hopefully it clears that up. :) 

it should look something like this, just in your style!:

✨✨✨ now that should be everything!!! if you have made it this far, thank you for bareing with me and let me know if there’s anything confusing!!! this took a very long time of planning and making so if it helped, interact with this post? <3 ✨✨✨

[queenlua]

hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue.  see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP.   and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP.  so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on.  there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc.  you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

[faterpresources]

Anonymous:

Do you have any advice on how to start an rp blog? I feel like there's so much to do and so many specific things, it looks intimidating, but I really want to get into it (and your blog seems like a safe space to ask as a baby in the matter)

Hi! Thanks you for asking and for trusting. I do admit that rping on tumblr can look daunting and there is a series of things that are considered “etiquette” that might not be obvious for newcomers. And the only way to learn is to ask, right? As I’m not sure if you would like something more specific or a step-by-step, I’m going to go through the whole process.

note: this is a repost from an ask in a more reblog-friendly format

1.       Setting up the blog

You might want to make a new e-mail account for each blog you want. I recommend making a gmail/google account, so you may be able to use other services and associate them with your blog. I’ll go into more details in a minute.

Some people would rather have a personal blog and then making the RP blog as a side-blog. Or a “hub” blog and many side-blogs so they have everything centralized. The downside is that you can’t follow people with side-blogs, only the main – and some rpers are a little suspicious of personal blogs, so if you intend to go this route it might be a good idea to state somewhere in your blog that you have a RP blog.

Tip : It isn’t said too often, but I recommend saving your blog’s e-mail and password somewhere, maybe a flashdrive or even google drive. This way, if something happens you will be able to retrieve your account.

When picking the URL, for a very long time tumblr had problems tagging URLs with a hyphen ( - ). I’m not sure if it has been fixed or if there are still some issues, so I recommend only using letters and maybe numbers. Other than that, pick anything that sounds nice to you!

Themes are nice, but not entirely necessary. Not everybody has photoshop skills and all that. Some people do have commissioned themes, but if you want to try your hand at it my first stop is usually @theme-hunter  or @sheathemes . They reblog many themes from many creators, so there are always many options that might suit your needs.  Some creators offer very newcomer-friendly themes that you can configure a lot of things without much hassle but some might require basic HTML knowledge – a few creators have guides on how to properly set up their themes and are willing to and answer questions, so don’t be afraid to contact them! You can also send me an ask, I’m not a specialist but I can certainly help walk you through the basics.

Tip: @glenthemes have very good themes and a basic installation guide here.

When fiddling with the options, try to pick colors that have nice contrast and are easy to read. If you are bad at picking colors or have problems in finding the code for them, I recommend trying this link. There is also this one that auto-generate palettes.

Tip : If you mess with your theme, remember there is the Theme Recovery.

Tip: If you use Chrome or Firefox you can set up different profiles and associate each with a different blog, so you don’t need to log out from any of your accounts.

There are two pages that I recommend having: one is an about your muse. If they are an OC, it is always a good idea to have at least some information out there to make things easier. If they are from a canon source, not everybody is familiar with the material so it might be a good idea to state. For example, if you are going to roleplay as Altria/Arturia, it is a good idea to have a “RP blog for Saber (Altria Pendragon) from FGO/FSN “ somewhere visible. The other page that is a good idea having is a rules/guidelines page. This one can be a little intimidating, but it is usually a way to communicate important things. For example: are you comfortable writing violence? Do you have any personal triggers? There is something you absolutely won’t write? There are things you may figure out along the way and it is absolutely ok to fine-tune this session every now and then. Some people also credit source for their icons and graphics in general in their rule/guideline page.

If you are using the tumblr default themes, when you create a new page you can turn on the option to show a link to the page. If you are using a custom theme, most of the time you will have to link it manually.

Oh, and if you are planning to do a multimuse, it might be a good idea to list which muses you have. The same goes for a hub blog; list the muses and link to the pages.

Icons aren’t necessary but are considered commonplace. You can find some icons I’ve done here but there are plenty of other sources. If you want to do your own icons, keep in mind to don’t make them too big, as a courtesy to your mutuals.

Tip: Anything larger than 300 pixels will be stretched to fit the post. As of today ( 4/29/2021 ) the posts are currently 540 pixels wide. This can be useful as making banners for your blog.

Tumblr allow users to “pin” posts. This mean that they will always visible if you access your blog, even on dash/mobile. You can use this to set up a post with basic links for mobile users or something else. For example, if you are out on vacations and won’t be able to do replies, you can pin a hiatus notice and then remove the pin once you are back.

2.       Introducing yourself

Time to officially join the fun! (insert a “Hi, Zuko here” joke) Don’t worry if you don’t have a fancy promo graphic or anything, most people make their initial introduction with a simple post.

(as you can see, I’m not very good at saying ‘hi’)

Try to introduce yourself in a few lines, but make sure to state which muse you RP as. Some people also like adding their pen name/alias and establishing a brand. Follow as many people as you want that reblogged or liked your post, and tumblr is going to start recommending other blogs that are related to the tags you use normally or have any relation to the people you follow. You can put as many tags as you want, but tumblr will disregard more than 6 tags in their system. Try tags like “<fandom> rp” and “<fandom> roleplay” along with the media, such as “movie” “video game”, “anime” and so on.

It might also be a good idea to follow a few RP memes blogs. They often have options to break the ice, like one-liners that your mutual can send you.

Tip: Don’t forget to turn on the asks and the anon

3.       Practical advice

Alright, now that you have a few mutuals, it is time to get to some general tips:

Tumblr can be a little “iffy”, and a great quality of life extension for RPers and navigation in general is installing the New Xkit extension. They offer a number of options to enhance your tumblr experience, but the ones I consider essential are the “editable reblogs”, “quick tags” and “blacklist”. Get it for Chrome or Firefox.

As a rule of thumb I recommend writing your RPs using Google Docs before posting or replying. By doing this you can do some spell check and if your browser crashes for any reason you can easily recover your work. You can also use Word, Open Office, or any text editor you feel like.

Because I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I also have Grammarly ( Chrome / Firefox ) installed for an extra layer of spell/grammar check. There is a subscription option, but the free one works perfectly fine.

To make things easier to locate, always tag the URL of your RP partner when doing a reply. There are other useful things you can tag, such as open starters, memes, and such.

Risking being obvious here, but when you are not interacting as your character it might be a good idea to tag as “ooc” or “out of character”.

Some people like making google docs with basic info and other useful stuff for easier access on mobile. It is a recent trend, it might be easier to edit as opposed to going through tumblr page editor and dealing with the HTML.  You can find some templates here and here.

Tumblr’s activity can be unreliable, so don’t be afraid of contacting your partner to see if they have gotten your reply after a few weeks. However, some people also enjoy using the RP Thread Tracker in order to be on top of things. It might be a good idea to check it out.

Because of Tumblr shadowbanning and shenanigans, it isn’t unusual for people to have NSFW sideblogs (sometimes referred as ‘sin blogs’). If you want to write smut, it might be a good idea to consider making one.

Some people don’t like replying to asks, as Tumblr won’t let you remove the initial ask. It has become common to see people making new posts to reply to asks.  This is a simple example:

As you can see, I used the mention to have the RP partner notified then I copied and pasted their question on my post and used the quote to indicate it. You can also have fancy graphics, like a line to separate the contents, just do whatever you feel like with the formatting or keep it simple.

To make sure your partner got the answer, I recommend copying the link to the post and pasting on the ask and then replying it privately.  An example sent to my rp blog:

4.       Basic Etiquette

Ok, this is a little subjective most of the time but here are a few things that are considered universal courtesy.

Never reblog someone else’s headcanons. If you enjoy it, maybe it should politely contact the author and ask if it is ok to write something based on their original idea but you should never downright copy or lift something from another creator. It is considered rude, or even theft in some cases.

Don’t reblog threads you are not involved with. It is ok to leave a like, but never reblog. This is because Tumblr can mess up the notifications and disrupt the flow of the RP.

Don’t copy other people’s graphics. It is very rude and sometimes they commission (aka: paid) for it.

Trim your posts. What does that mean? Every time you reblog with a reply, the post tends to get longer and longer, and it can cluster your and your mutuals’ dashes. This is why the New X-Kit’s “editable reblogs” is an almost must-have tool. If for some reason you can’t install X-Kit (if you are on mobile for example), then remove the previous post or ask your partner to trim for you.

Never take control of your RP partner’s muse. This is called “godmodding” and it is heavily frowned upon. It is ok to control your muse and the possible NPCs that you inserted, but never seize someone else’s character. Likewise, it can also be very upsetting if you use what people call “meta-gaming”, applying knowledge that your muse shouldn’t know about the other. For example, let’s say your RP partner’s muse is a vampire, but they have never disclosed that information to your muse, who also doesn’t have an excuse to know that (for example, being a vampire hunter) so it can be quite jarring sometimes. When in doubt, contact your partner.

This should go without saying, but RPing sexual themes with users under the age of 18 are illegal. It doesn’t matter if the age of consent in your location is lower, once you join Tumblr you are abiding by their user guidelines and the law of the state they are located in. If you are an adult, don’t engage minors with these topics, maybe a fade to black would be a better option. If you are a minor, don’t insist or you might cause a lot of legal problems for others.

Try to tag anything triggering. Violence, gore, NSFW. Both Tumblr and the New Xkit have options to block keywords.

When picking PSDs or graphics for your blog, you should avoid templates that change the color of the skin of POCs muses and try to pick the right race/ethnicity of the muse you are going to RP as. I won’t go through a lot of details, as it is a rather lengthy subject in an already lengthy conversation but keep this in the back of your mind.

Some RPers don’t like when you reblog memes from them without sending anything. Try to always reblog from a source or to interact with the person you are reblogging from, it can be rather disheartening to be seen as a meme source rather than a RP blog. This isn’t a rule and some people don’t mind, but it is always a good idea to try to do this.

This might be more of a pet peeve of mine than proper etiquette, but it is ok to use small font. What is not ok is use small font + underscript. Some people have disabilities that might make it harder for them to read it, so it might be a good idea to refrain from using it. Maybe if you feel like doing something fancier every now and then, but I wouldn’t recommend making this a habit.

Mun and Muse are different entities. Remember that it isn’t because a muse does something (especially a villain one) that the mun condones something. Never assume anything about the mun, when in doubt talk to them.

Be mindful of your partners and treat them the way you would like to be treated.

As a rule of thumb, always talk to your RP partner. It is only fun as long both of you are enjoying it.

5.       Closing Words

This got longer than I expected.

Despite all of that, don’t be too worried about not being very good at first. I assure you that you will get better with time, so don’t be afraid of experimenting as long you feel comfortable. And don’t be afraid of saying “no” if something bothers you.

My inbox is always open to questions and ideas, so feel free to contact me anytime!

I would also ask my followers: there is advice I missed/overlooked? Anything you would like someone have told you when you first started? Add your thoughts so I can update this.

Happy RPing!

[brehaaorgana]

I think you've hit the nail on the head for a lot of this op. I am a pretty tech savvy person, but don't code and I don't really have a desire to have to relearn EVERYTHING to use an OS. I grew up being "fluent" in windows and Mac basically all my life through my 20's at least. I was the friend you would ask for help with something before you took something to a professional or someone who did tech support or whatever.

I'm good at trouble shooting to at certain point. Farther than most people who aren't comp sci. (My dad managed IT teams/departments/etc when I was a kid. Part of my earliest reading material was installation wizard when my dad had me help his office install software and I was watching the progress bar and hitting "next" for them)

...I have a windows laptop because I can go into a store and easily pick a laptop that runs windows and have the specs I want and also have word, which I can buy non-subscription and know exactly what the functions are.

In theory, especially due to enshittification, I would love to switch to Linux. But it seems like a lot of work, a ton of effort, I have to re-learn everything.... And it's a possible risk for all the software I want to be able to buy or run in the future. Will all the games I want to play be on Linux? What about MS word? I don't want to use open office or office libre or whatever. I *like* word for the most part. Sometimes I wonder if I can just pay someone to do all the effort for me. But then what do I need to ask for? Do I build a laptop from scratch? How much money will that cost? What do I need to know they would need to know?

It just becomes a huge fuckin pile of executive decision making that is stressful and frustrating. It's much easier to switch over to firefox and even that takes several steps. But switching my whole OS would be that but much much much more work and effort!

What I *want* is like...Windows 95, the 2024 edition. What I want is what I remember having and it worked and it ran what I needed it to and didn't do all the terrible stuff it does now. (And I want old Google back, damnit.)

When I was younger, Linux was for people who were really interested in coding and programming and WANTED to be tinkering, who wanted to really wade in and understood way more than html (and who didn't mind the latest computer games might not run on their OS). Linux was, in my mind, a specialist OS. And maybe I was wrong but like. My father, who got most of the way through a comp sci degree before switching to business, and knew programming — did not care/want to use Linux. He didn't want to have to build up Linux to work for what he needed. My dad knew programming enough to understand how to use Linux when it first came out and knew enough he didn't want to be setting all of that up. 😂 He thought it was way too much work for home/personal computers for his enjoyment.

Later, we also never switched to Linux because we'd lose our programs, games(!), and some of the features we'd gotten used to, and it was more complex with a lot more sacrifices to switch.

So now that I'm a fully grown adult it's like "people actually deserve convenient, accessible, computers that make sense and don't need a programmer to set it up for them. Reading the directions and trying should be enough for most people's computers and that shouldn't suck and be a miserable experience! And customization shouldn't be contingent on advanced backend knowledge."

the thing that super techy people - whether that be linux nerds or actual software developers or both - tend to miss is that most people, if a form of technology works as default, won't bother tinkering around with that default. nobody wants to compile all their apps from scratch except a small minority of people. and most people, to be frank, don't wholly understand what they're working with. if word works, they're not going to switch to some open source equivalent that they had to download and set up and fiddle around with. if windows works, they're not going to download linux. they don't want to. they probably don't even know linux is an option, and even if they did, they still wouldn't move to linux. and you can list the benefits of linux and drawbacks of mac os until the sun goes down, but you're not going to persuade the average person, because they just aren't invested enough in their technology! this is why nobody moves away from windows even when it's spying on you and sticking ai in everything and costs $34567890 and your firstborn son: they don't know any better, or they don't have the time to change, or they don't care, or they just, quite simply, don't understand their computer enough to take a risk with software that may not be so easy to use. and i understand this! it's great if you can code, but it's a skill just as much as writing or skating is - something most people are never going to sink much of their time into, no matter how much you personally love it. so if you want people to change their ways, you need to hold your hand, you need to listen to them, and you need to give something that will just work. otherwise, they'll see you as a hindrance - not a help.

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

I am SO FRUSTRATED!

Basically there is a project coming up that has 2 components, let’s say X and Y. For some reason, Coworker 1 decided that even though sending out the types of emails required for both X and Y is my literal job, I would only send out the emails for X and Coworker 2 would send out the emails for Y. 

Problem: Coworker 2 does not know how to format the type of email required for Y. She is only able to set up emails using a template which is too limited to accommodate the needs of this type of email. I on the other hand set up emails using a more complicated and less user-friendly program that we for some inexplicable reason use, which requires at least some basic knowledge of HTML to format things correctly. Coworker 2 had previously asked me to show her how to fix one of the issues that arises with this program in almost every email and while I sent her a screen share video explaining how to find the relevant part of the HTML and fix it even if you don’t know everything about what the HTML means, she has absolutely zero familiarity with HTML and was not able to handle that. 

So Coworker 2 tried to set up the first email for Y last week and, predictably, was not able to do so, and had to pull me in to clean up the mess at the last minute. It would have been way simpler and more efficient if we had just assumed from the start that I would be doing it, and again, it is literally part of my job to do this type of thing. I told Coworker 1 that for the rest of the Y emails we should just assume my involvement from the start.

There are supposed to be emails going out for both X and Y respectively early next week and I had received zero of the info for them, so I emailed Coworker 1 asking if she had them ready. She does not have anything ready for X (which is ridiculous but predictable) and she told me that Coworker 2 had actually been able to set up the Y email by copying that first email that I set up so they were all set. I had a feeling this was NOT as much the case as she thought and went to look at what Coworker 2 had done. She did mostly get it set up ok; however, she formatted it weirdly and had some spacing issues that didn’t look great, neglected to update one of the links to the correct analytics URL for this email, had introduced some grammar/typo issues that didn’t exist in the original copy provided by Coworker 1, and most importantly, had not noticed a typo that WAS present in Coworker 1′s work. Namely, there was a misspelling in the name of a major donor foundation - think something along the lines of “Prevention” instead of “Presentation.” Think major donor as in contributing around $100k to this project alone. This is a donor that got really upset during a previous project because they didn’t think the perfectly decent marketing materials looked adequately high-end for their taste, so blatantly misspelling their name in their sponsorship would uhhhh....not go over well.

I fixed all the issues and let Coworker 1 know that I had fixed several issues but didn’t specify exactly the typo. I then contacted my boss (who was CC’d on that original thread) separately to tell her about the donor typo and how frustrated I was that Coworker 1 had chosen not to involve me after the first Y email incident. She thanked me for the catch and basically said that while she agrees with my frustration and admires my dedication, I can’t be sitting in the shadows cleaning up other people’s messes all the time, and it seems like there is nothing we can do at this point going forward but let them fail and make it clear that I wasn’t involved. She CC’ed her boss on this email to make him aware.

Before I was in this position I was in a different one that I really disliked. Because I was so unhappy, I wasn’t performing my best. My boss davka offered me my current position because she knew that I would and could do better in a position more suited to my interests and strengths. But ever since then I feel like I am constantly being told, “You’re right that ___ is a problem, but because of ____ there is nothing we can do about it really, so it would be better if you stop caring so much about doing your job well and keep your head down.” The whole point of my being offered this position was that I would be more motivated to do my job well, but I am motivated and trying to do it well, and am regularly being told that I just need to be less motivated because our hands are tied. It’s extremely demoralizing and it’s ridiculous that the solution to “our structure as it relates to your job is dysfunctional and Coworker 1 is incompetent” is not “so we will fix the structure and/or address Coworker 1′s performance in a meaningful way” but “so just stop wanting this organization to succeed as it pertains to your job for the time being and maybe one day things will change.”

[aliceslantern]

Give/Take, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 2

Ienzo has been too busy since the war to be overwhelmed by the past. But with little progress to be made in his work with Kairi, old nightmares start to invade.

Riku is a glorified housesitter. Lonely and faced with no choice but to wait for a way to find his friends, he eagerly accepts when Ienzo asks him to help do repairs around the castle. Before long, the two strike up an unlikely friendship, united by their dark pasts and their attempts to be better people.

But just as they begin to consider something more... Kairi wakes up.

Ienzoku (Ienzo/Riku), post-Melody of Memory, slow burn. Updates Thursdays until it's done.

Chapter summary:  Ienzo and Ansem have an honest conversation about his time as Zexion. Riku is restless.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

Ienzo thought often about sleep. Most of his days were preoccupied with sleep, and hearts, and trying to remember what he had studied years ago. In the intervening years in the Organization, he had cared less about hearts and more about Kingdom Hearts.

Hearts. Sleep. Old men passive-aggressively jabbing at each other.

His hands were on the keyboard, and he saw code slowly and steadily ticking in. Code he should subsequently be de coding. But he… felt…

Ansem’s hand on his shoulder startled him, making him gasp aloud like a startled animal. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Ienzo shook the fuzz out of his eyes, his heart still pounding in his chest, adrenaline making him shaky. All of these human reactions were so sensorily intense . “It’s… it’s alright. I was the one far away.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” He stood, feeling woozy. “I’m…” He pressed two fingers to his brow, trying to hide the dizziness.

“How long have you been here?” Ansem asked softly.

Ienzo blinked, and realized, “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you go get some rest?”

“I don’t need rest, I need to keep working through this.” He scowled. “It doesn’t help that my memory of coding is hazy at best--”

“Then why don’t you let me help you? I can give you a refresher on the basics.” He smiled kindly, and Ienzo felt an unexpected stab of memory--sitting as a small child on Ansem’s lap as he taught him the very basics of HTML, his eyes gleaming with pride at Ienzo’s first project (a page that simply said “HELLO!”).

But then, equally… his eyes flicked over to the closed door to the lab, the one he’d begged Ansem to finalize. And he was reminded for the millionth time that this was his fault.

“Would that help?” Ansem prompted.

He shook his head to dismiss the memories. “Yes. Yes, that would be prudent.”

“When was the last time you slept?” Ansem asked.

“I’m fine.”

He frowned.

“Really. I’m fine.”

There was a pause. Ansem knotted his hands together. “Naminé once told me that Nobodies do not need sleep. Is that true?”

Ienzo’s eyebrows shot up. Ansem hadn’t brought up the reality of their pasts--namely, the ten years he and Even had been Nobodies. “Yes, it’s true,” he said. “One physiologically can , of course, but it is not necessary to live.”

Ansem pursed his lips. “Does it feel… odd, to return to those needs, then?”

Ienzo considered, woozily. “Yes, it does,” he admitted. “I feel like I’m losing a lot of time from my day.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, then finally said, “do you like being human again?”

“Well, I had no say in the matter,” he said, “but it is… better than being the monster I was. I…” He rested his hand on his chest, feeling the pound of his heart. “I like having choice.”

Ansem smiled. “I’m sure you must.”

Ienzo exhaled. “I’ve done a great many awful things,” he said. “I wasn’t… a passive captive. Were it not for Saїx’s machinations, I likely would’ve been second in command. I… cared for their goals. I wanted it.”

Ansem cocked his head. “To be whole?”

“I don’t think so.” Ienzo squinted, trying to remember how it had felt to be Zexion. “In pursuit of… knowledge. Of growth of the Organization. I’m… I’m sorry.” Guilt hardened into a sour seed in his stomach, making him nauseous. “I’m so sorry.”

Ansem digested this, his eyes going somewhere distant and sad. “It says a lot about who you truly are, that the moment you were whole again, you chose the path of light,” he said gently.

“It does not feel that way.”

“I’m sure,” he said. “But we’ve all done things we regret. There’s no changing the past, as paltry as that sounds. Helping Kairi, and ergo, Sora and Riku… is a good first step.”

“I’m not sure it will ever be enough.”

“You can’t help how you grew up,” Ansem said. “In darkness, in nothing, manipulated, I’m sure, by them. You were just a boy. You said so yourself. How old were you, Ienzo?”

“Just shy of nine,” he said, not wanting to make eye contact.

“Precisely. A brilliant child… but still a child.”

“But what of--when I grew older? When I should have known better?”

Ansem squeezed his shoulder a second time. “By then you already believed.”

“I’m not innocent. I… the things I’ve done…” He exhaled. “I cannot simply absolve myself of guilt. I… I don’t want to.”

“I do hope that someday you can forgive yourself,” Ansem said. “You’re too young to live with such a heavy heart.”

“I think it is earned,” Ienzo said.

Ansem sighed.

“I’m going to go try to sleep for a few hours,” he said. “I’m sorry to leave this all in your lap.”

“It’s quite alright. I don’t mind.”

Ienzo wasn’t sure what else to say, so he started walking back to his room. He thought about what Ansem had said. His heart did feel heavy--quite literally. But how could he just… move on and have a normal life after everything he’d done? He didn’t know of anyone who’d messed up as colossally as he had. Wouldn’t it be wrong ? Masturbatory, so to speak? Where was his karmic payback? Why had he gotten this wholeness so many craved so dearly? He didn’t even want --

There had to be some way to silence the noise in his head.

Ienzo took a quick shower, put on some pajamas, and climbed into bed. His bedroom felt more cluttered and cramped than he remembered, the window by his double bed drafty. The overburdened bookcase was packed two and three deep, the rolltop desk flooded with yet more papers. He should clean and organize, remove the very last of his childhood things; there was still kid’s clothing in some of his dresser’s drawers.

His mind was swimming hopelessly with memories of the Organization’s plans to take down worlds--

Somehow, Ienzo fell into a restless sleep.

He recognized this dream, this nightmare. The tight, dark corners of the basement of Castle Oblivion. A redheaded demon, a boy in a black-and purple jumpsuit. A sharp glove at his throat, the tight heat of darkness swallowing him, and he couldn’t breathe couldn’t breathe--

Ienzo sat up. Slowly. He touched the scar at the base of his throat, thick and ridged. It was the darkness, not the replica’s sharp gloves, that had left this mark on him. Tears burned his eyes. He felt pathetic, weak, for being in the grip of this memory. It was over with. It was the least of what he’d deserved.

Human.

He thought of the dizzy spin of those first few moments after he’d woken, on the cold lab floor, bleeding from the marks around his throat. How the swelling had made it feel like he couldn’t breathe, still, how everything felt like it was echoing loudly around him, his heart like a weight in his chest. Trying to push himself up, seeing Even and Dilan’s brutalized forms, Aeleus trying not to show how much pain he, too, was in. Being the least injured, it had been up to Ienzo to try and tend to their wounds. At least he’d had the foresight to study medicine in the Organization.

And truthfully, even though it had been nearly two months back in this body, with this heart, Ienzo… still was not used to humanity, the pulse and pound of unexpected emotions. Once he couldn’t get open a jar of peanut butter for his breakfast toast and the anger he felt when he struggled was so overwhelming he’d just thrown the damn thing. But more than anything he felt a guilt so thick it was like lead, and an anxiety he could never fully set this right.

He looked at the clock. He’d slept about five hours, which he supposed after that nightmare was all he’d get. He was feeling nauseous and achy again, shaky with low blood sugar. So much time I must spend doing maintenance on this body. It seemed almost like a waste.

But he needed to stay alive. To help, to atone.

Ienzo got up and went to the kitchen.

---

Riku couldn’t take the silence anymore. It was almost making him jumpy, and after so long without human interaction, he thought he was starting to hear sounds that weren’t there. The dizzy nightmares of that city didn't help. He wondered if he should tell Ienzo and the others about it; but every time he tried to remember fine details, all he could recall was the deep blue color of the sky. Not helpful.

If not for the gummiphone, Riku would’ve lost track of time, too. Ienzo had told him how to use it, but he still struggled a bit with the interface. But, he figured, if Sora , who had nearly failed their high school computer literacy course, could grasp it, so could he.

Sora.

Riku felt something like a stab of pain. It felt like it had been a long time since he’d seen him, since they’d gotten to do more than chat for a few minutes. Kairi, too, he’d barely gotten to speak with at the beach during their brief victory party. At least he knew she was--physically--okay.

He felt so… alone.

He took a deep breath in and let it out, slowly. I’m not alone, he forced himself to think. Even if it feels that way. Our hearts are connected.

That didn’t make the silence any less piercing.

Riku got up. He had to go get some laundry, make himself something to eat. At least this was something he could do.

He wondered if it were too soon to go back to Radiant Garden. He knew Ienzo said he’d call the moment something came up, but maybe Cid had something new, or maybe there were even some Heartless to fight. Something. Someone.

“Oh god, I’m losing my mind,” he said out loud. He took out the gummiphone and looked down at its screen. It was still set to the generic background it came with, mostly because he didn’t know how to change it. With clumsy thumbs, he opened the text messaging app and started to write. The keyboard felt awkward in his hands.

Mickey,

I hope your journey with Donald and Goofy is going well. I’m guessing it must be good to spend time with them again. How’s the Queen?

I’ve been staying in the Land of Departure. Terra asked me to, but I think it’s partially because he wanted me to feel like I had an official duty as a Keyblade master. Mostly it’s just housesitting. If you ever have time, you three should come by. It’s a lot prettier than Castle Oblivion. It feels more alive.

The Radiant Garden guys are still hard at work studying Kairi’s heart, so she’s been asleep. They warned me it might take a long time. I still wish there was something I could do, but the power of waking won’t help in this case. So they say, anyway. I don’t really understand it fully myself.

If there’s anything I can do to make your journey any easier, let me know. Take care of yourselves out there.

--Riku

This written, it didn’t make Riku feel any less alone. More like he was speaking out into nowhere. He went and finished his chores, worked out for a little while. When he came back there was a response.

Howdy Riku!

Great to hear from ya! The Queen and Daisy are both doing great. We actually got to talk to them last night--love these nifty gadgets! If only we’d had them years ago… can you thank Ienzo for them the next time you see him? Chip and Dale also say hello to you both.

So far we’re doing our best to find more information about Sora, but so far there are no leads that I can tell, anyway, and you know how sharp Goofy is looking for these things. This all got so complicated… but I have hope that we’ll all be together soon!

I hope you’re not getting too stir crazy up in there. If you like, the Queen says you’re welcome to visit any time. And if we’re in the area I’m sure we’ll drop by! I hope staying there isn’t too hard on you.

Thanks for writing! Speak soon.

--Mickey.

Riku exhaled. He was positive he was reading too much into the tone of the letter. Mickey was never condescending towards him. Every word he’d written, he’d meant.

Maybe Riku should get out of here. He could thank Ienzo, for one thing, maybe help with some Heartless there, or the restoration committee was always working on some project or another. Get his hands dirty, like the work he used to do on the play island--

He was used to the accompanying stab of pain he got when he thought of them, but it didn’t make it any easier. Yes. Riku very much needed to get out of here.

---

It was raining in Radiant Garden when Riku got in. It washed away the rest of the gel in his hair, making it fall hopelessly into his eyes, and he kept trying to blow it out of his face. The haircut had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, something to get rid of that old self, but this current in-between length was unbearable. He didn’t want to think about spikes or spiky hair. (The fact that he’d run out of hair gel was also besides the point.) He wandered the streets for a time. Just seeing other people was nice, made him remember he was real.

The slope up to the entrance of the castle was muddy in the deluge. At least I’ll have an excuse to do laundry when I get back, he thought. One of the guards--he didn’t remember their names yet, and decided he really should--waved him in. “Try not to track mud all over the place,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Riku washed off his shoes with a water spell and kept walking. The place was always dank and damp in the best of circumstances, but today it was downright cold. He shivered and wished he knew air magic, something to dry himself off. Oh well. He’d had worse recently than being a little cold and wet.

The path up to the lab was very much familiar now. He saw places where the people here were trying to repair all the structural issues; the moldy carpeting torn up, the fallen pipes cleared away. The circular office before the lab had been cleaned up too; the bits of broken glass were finally gone.

Riku saw them before they saw him. He observed them for a few minutes, in their long white coats and oddly formal scarves. He tried not to audibly shiver, his hair sending droplets onto the floor.

“All looks… very much ordinary , from what we’ve been able to decipher,” the one formerly known as Vexen was saying. “Would help if I could understand your shorthand.”

Riku saw a scowl cross Ienzo’s face, the first mean expression he’d seen on the young man since they’d met again. He thought of Zexion, all claws and cruelness and teeth. “My shorthand is up-to-date. It’s not my fault your knowledge of coding has fallen by the wayside.”

“Boy, I have more important things to do--”

“Like what? Is this not our priority?”

“ She is our priority. Keeping up with some language is not.”

“Your sniping does not help either,” Ansem the Wise added. He went over to the console computer, punched some things in, and shook his head. “Though I agree with Ienzo that we should all at the very least be on the same page.”

Ienzo’s smirk became a hesitant smile.

Then, “I think we can all use a crash course.”

The smile became a scowl again. Riku chuckled despite himself. So the politeness was partially an act. Good to know. He crossed over into the hallway, letting his footsteps make more noise than earlier. Their heads snapped up; Even seemed to struggle to get his expression to be neutral, while Ansem offered a kindly smile. Ienzo’s face simply went blank, and Riku felt an odd surge of jealousy for his control over his emotion. “Oh, hello, Riku. We weren’t expecting you,” he said.

“I’m sorry just to drop by like this,” he said, feeling a blush color his face. “But I was wondering if--” Seeing their faces fall just slightly, “there’s… no news, is there?”

Ienzo took a few steps closer to him. He always seemed to be a little… cautious, in the way he moved around Riku. Could this really be about the bad blood in their past? “I’m very sorry, but no. No significant change.”

He glanced over towards Kairi, still fast asleep in the chair. He noted that at least they’d given her a blanket. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s being kept very comfortable, I assure you,” Ienzo said. “Neurological functioning is the way it should be.”

He crossed his arms, trying to suppress the shivering; it was even colder in here. “Could I… can I go up to her? It won’t interrupt anything, will it?”

Ienzo shook his head. “She’s too deeply asleep to be disturbed by our voices. Though perhaps--” Looking him over and wrinkling his nose. “You might like a towel?”

Riku looked at his palms. His wrist braces were awkwardly wet, and he knew they’d take hours to dry out. “Sorry. It’s, uh, raining.”

He nodded. “Come with me.”

He followed Ienzo. He was only the slightest bit taller than Riku now, but his strides seemed long, quick and precise, the white coat flaring out. “If you’d like, I can get you something dry to wear,” he said. “We’re probably about the same size.”

The idea of dry clothes was appealing, but the idea of wearing something of Ienzo’s made him feel, well, pretty weird. “No, that’s okay, thanks,” he said. “I’m probably gonna head out before too long anyway.”

“I imagine you must be quite busy.” Ienzo opened a door to a very average linen closet and pulled out a white towel. Riku did feel much better with it around his shoulders.

He just shrugged in response. They started walking back.

“If you’re worried about her health, she’s in quite good hands,” Ienzo said. “I… understand why you might be hesitant.”

“It’s… not that.” Not entirely. “I just…”

“Worry about your friends?” Ienzo prompted. “I can imagine. Yes, it’s been… a rather tectonic year or so.”

“We’ve all been separated on and off since our world fell,” he said, feeling a stab of guilt. “Though that was… kind of my fault. Not kind of. It was .”

Ienzo’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that so?”

“I know, I know. Some hero, right?” he forced himself to laugh.

“I… know that feeling exactly.” Ienzo cleared his throat. “Were it not for all we’ve done here… well.” He sighed. “We cannot… change the past. Not without a lot of nonsense.”

Riku smiled a little despite the heaviness of the conversation. “It almost feels… fake, how all this happened. When I heard about the… vessels, and the time travel, I was just like… are you kidding me? ”

Ienzo chuckled. “I think we all had that reaction. Even I cannot comprehend what exactly he was planning to do--and I was part of some of it.”

Riku thought about that laugh for a moment, how different it sounded than Zexion’s. More human, softer. Then again, the boy next to him was human. Trying to be better. Aren’t we all, he thought, wryly.

Back in the lab, he crossed over to Kairi and took her hand, hoping his wasn’t too cold. Her breathing was deep and even, and she looked peaceful. He wondered if she actually felt that way, what the “examination” made her feel. He almost asked, but Ansem and Even seemed to be deep into some conversation he couldn’t understand, and Ienzo seemed distracted, his brows furrowed. “So, uh,” he began slowly. “How’s the Heartless population around here?”

He looked up, startled. “The claymore defense system manages it quite well,” he said, with a touch of defensiveness. “Though I guess there might be a few hanging around the edges of town.”

“Gotcha,” he said. “Well. I’m going to go check in with the committee. But before I go. Um. The King said thank you for the gummiphone. And that Chip and Dale said hello.”

“Of course,” he said, his expression again quite neutral. “That was kind of them.”

Riku took off his damp towel and folded it. He left the castle and went back out into the rain. If anything, the deluge had gotten heavier, to the point where his left wrist (which had never quite healed correctly) was throbbing. Ienzo had been right about the Heartless; the few ones in the center of town were easily dispatched without him even having to draw his Keyblade. Riku found himself scowling. Logically, he knew that the system was fantastic for the civilians here. But it took from him the only thing he could do to be of use. As it grew darker, he wandered farther and farther into the fissures surrounding town, where he finally found something worth fighting.

He tried to vent his frustration into these Heartless, especially at his own uselessness. He was a Keyblade master , and all he could do was beat up a few mooks, was wait around for things to happen. He hated feeling like this; it was so like the old days on the island. At least this time he wouldn’t do something so off-the-walls stupid like let a creep in a robe persuade him to do what they wanted.

No, instead he was fighting Heartless. Alone. In the rain.

By the time he’d fought the last one in the vicinity, it was dark, and he could no longer suppress the shaking. “Idiot,” he said out loud. The clothes might protect him from darkness, but they wouldn’t protect him from the common cold. He should go back to the Land of Departure, take a hot bath, make himself some soup, and go to bed.

Riku went deeper into the fissures.

[warmonger0]

#100DaysOfCode

Day 1 -

I’ve dabbled in web development on and off for years. I have the basics of html and css down and I can read most javascript but i could really use a formal deep dive into web development.

Even thought I’ve played around for so long, I’ve never successfully built more than a static website or two.  I’ve made the excuses that real life is in the way, that I don’t have the time, or or that it’s too hard. But, the truth is that I haven’t been disciplined enough to devote just a little time to working on it, regularly.

So, I’ve decided to make a commitment to myself to spend time, each day, diving into web development.  The mission is to work for at least 15 minutes a day, each and every day, for 100 days. A successful day is NOT just listening to someone talk about code for 15 minutes.  A successful day IS reading, listening, and then actually applying what I read and heard with actual time typing code.

My goal is to use the knowledge I gain to develop the front end of a web tool for use in my law firm.  That app will need to track my time spent on individual clients and matters, track and manage open tasks, and remind me to follow up on open items.  There are plenty of off the shelf solutions to this but after testing out well over 40, I have yet to find one that suits my practice needs.  That would also defeat the fun of making it myself.

To that end, i’m going to be focusing on vanilla javascript and React to implement the front end design of my web application.  I’ve been halfway into a React course for months and today I finally felt like I needed to take the plunge and commit to myself and my learning. The winter break and wind down of year end legal work mean that I have a few moments each day to focus on programming. 

Today, I ran through some old lessons from react and have started an introductory course on javascript.  The short term goal in doing this is to reinforce basic javascript principles and remind myself of where I left off in my React lessons.  As an added bonus, scrimba.com is running an advent calendar of daily javascript problems.  You can find more about that my going to scrimba.com or by searching the hashtag #javaScriptmas on twitter.

For today’s #javaScriptmas challenge, I was able to complete the solution with a bit of research, but I got through the problem quickly.  Thankfully, logic and math are strong suits for me but I am a bit rusty. Drafting contracts, I rarely have to do math.

Tomorrow, I’ll probably be back to a couple more lessons of vanilla javascript, another lesson on react, and I’m going to tackle setting up my environment in VSCode.  I think that by week end, i’ll try my hand at my first react component for use in my law firm application. 

If you read this, I hope you’ll wish me luck and, if you have the time I hope you’ll encourage me to post more.  Starting a new habit is never easy but encouragement really helps. Thanks in advance.

-p

[stelloids]

hi I really love your town name generator!! thanks for sharing it with all of us. I got the name alderdust from it and I love that name!! I was wondering what you used to make the generator?

awh alderdust!! makes me imagine little dust motes floating around in a sunbeam that’s streaming through the trees <3

i literally just googled “how to make a generator” and “generator maker” to find some sort of tool to do the heavy lifting for me, lmao. i tried out a few different tools/sites/what-have-yous to find something that was suited to what i wanted to make, and there were a lot of really good contenders!

the one i used is called perchance and so far i really like it but i’m honestly not sure if i’d recommend it?? it assumes you have at least a basic understanding of HTML and CSS, and a lot of the more fun features get pretty complicated, so if you haven’t done much coding before it’d probably be kinda frustrating. there are much simpler ones out there if you just wanna make something basic with minimal coding knowledge!!

[bitob]

4 , 9 , 17 , 22 !

four: who is your most-used fc?

of the characters that i’ve played in the last... half a year to a year, i’d say there’s a pretty good mix, i don’t tend to favour one fc over the others... but long-term it’s definitely yoongi.

nine: tell me about your favorite group you ever joined

so this wasn’t on tumblr because a solid 9/10 of rps ive been in on tumblr have died way too fast for me to get attached, but there was one rp i was in in like... 2018? where i had a few rlly iconic plots including a one-sided rivalry to lovers, we-like-each-other-but-hes-always-in-another-country-and-also-im-a-coward (which lasted across like 5 diff groups and also was angsty but had moments of meme-y-ness such as how one of them woke the other up at like 3am when they were teens for an ‘emergency’ which was actually abt manga), the ‘babies’ (they were all like. 17-18. and bullied each other about crushes constantly), the ‘seize the means of production’ gang (dont ask it was so ridiculous sjgkshdk), the twelve idiots who spoke about three languages each and had equally many braincells between them (and one of them keeps harassing the rest with images of terrifying australian bugs). sometimes i go back and read through the threads just for fun bc i miss it that much.

edit: icb i forgot the star-trek-but-not-because-i-literally-had-no-knowledge-of-it-at-the-time group with the duct tape cult that one was also excellent

seventeen: name an fc you wish people used more

like,,, all of victon,,, why r there no gif icons of sejun from the last two years,,, i thought the rpc liked pretty people,,,

twenty-two: do you have any rp horror stories you’d be willing to share?

i have a very small handful but there is one that stuck with me for a long long time and that i’m still bitter about.

so on the site where my favourite rp occurred, my least favourite also occurred. i don’t recall when it was, but i think it was like, 2017? maybe 2016. and it was a high school rp, because of course it was, the plot was something like there r the regular kids and then also the delinquent kids who r there because no regular school will take them iirc, and it started off pretty good — i had characters i liked, plots i enjoyed, and i was helping to admin the rp — running the character & fc masterlists, things like that. and then the main admin dipped. so i was essentially running this thing on my own for about two weeks. and it was going great. and then she came back, and it all went to hell. because she appointed a few extra admins — and on this site that comes with actual privileges of moderation. and one of them i was cool with — she was a friend (at the time, bc the conglomeration of rpers who knew each other that joined that rp split apart in like... 2018? over some nazi apologist or not respecting people’s triggers). the second one, though, i didn’t know and she wasn’t officially appointed as a moderator? and she was going around changing things up and like. she had permission to from the main admin, which is fine! but the main admin didnt bother to like. tell me, the person who had been running the rp for the last nearly three weeks, that this person had the authority to do that. because ‘oh we’re childhood friends’. but then things settled down again, and everything was going well,,, until these two (the main admin & her buddy) thought it’d be fun to enact a plot along the lines of ‘these two people really hate each other, how about one of them shoots the other’ which got the group flagged by the site as 18+ bc fucking yikes and i was like. 15? small anyway. so naturally the website was like ‘no this group is adults-only u cant see it’ so i had to change my age on my profile to be able to actually see the group,, brought this up to the main admin she was just like ‘oh sorry lmao i cant do anything abt it’. so i got the fuck out of there after the other admins started getting on my case about not doing anything for like. a week. because like. i had put so much work into that group - formatting masterlist posts in html, generally running things (accepting characters, updating pages, etc). and i wasnt being acknowledged or respected at all. so yeah, bye.

another time she was running another group and me n one of my friends who had also sorta fallen out w her over her bullshit but were still pretending to be friends w her made a plot together that was basically ‘look if her and her friend are going to have their cliquey plots that affect the whole group why cant we’ which like. in hindsight was maybe not a great decision. but it was therapeutic and probably what she deserved.