#Shooting Techniques

[aegisprecisionkinetics]

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[toxtricityamped]

2.5 months later, finally finished my furina cosplay!!! the amount of sweat and tears that went into this bro

+ a video of all the pieces

[izpira-se-zlato]

I've been thinking about the Jance photoshoot and oof do I have Thoughts but -- okay, an attempt to explain why this photoshoot really speaks to me.

I've seen a bunch of different takes float across my dash, but to me the core of this photoshoot is the portrayal of a very deep bond between two men without fully specifying what kind of bond it is. The message I get from their pictures, from Jan looking into the camera (almost?) defiantly while Nace looks serious to the two of them looking at each other and only each other, is "This is us. This is our relationship. What kind? Well, none of your business, but we're not hiding it and we won't help you put us into a definitive drawer."

Since this got long, more thoughts under the cut

And, like -- there's so many layers to this shoot? So many ways to read this as an utter fucking power move, and I'm just. Really touched.

So. Layer one is kind of what I pulled from the art earlier, saying, "you may get to see us be intimate and close, barely hidden behind a glass door (= lack of privacy), but at the end of the day, we decide how much we share. And even if you get these intimate glimpses, you do not get all of me (= him half-hidden behind his hair and/or Nace)"

So what do we glimpse? Well, that's where it gets delicious imo. Because it could be read as non-sexual and non-romantic, so just platonic. Non-sexual intimacy is still pretty rarely portrayed, especially between men, and that goes double for non-romantic intimacy. And so as someone on the aroace-spectrum, that speaks to me so so much.

it's also such a fuck you against Toxic Masculinity -- that they can be this vulnerable together, that they don't mind showing -- that they're actually showing off to -- the world that they're this vulnerable with each other. Just. Intimacy and trust and closeness; laughing together and seeing each other and presenting a united front against the world (= the viewer).

I've long-since wondered if Nace is Jan's emotional support bassist -- if they're each other's comfort people, which would track with them doing this shoot together, presenting themselves in front of the camera together. "I'm doing this, putting myself out there, because with you by my side it feels doable."

And just. The fact that it can be read as queer and they clearly don't mind is also stunning regardless of if they are actually queer and/or actually in a relationship. They know what the fandom thinks. They know what this will look like. And yet -- no "no homo", no "bradders"; just unabashed joy in each other's presence and standing together -- and it's not escaped my notice that it's Jan having Nace's back, fixing the camera with a look of, if you touch him, I'll end you.

And if it is an affirmation that they're queer/together? Then holy shit, what a power move.

Just. I think this is a piece of art that's really resonating because I can see myself in so many of these layers and that's just so powerful. Damon is a pretty good photographer, from what I've picked up, and so I think this is not an accident; I think this series of photos confirms exactly as much and as little as he wants it to. And in the gaps in between, which I understand is something art does, we have space to see ourselves and engage with the artwork in our own ways.

Because at the end of the day, as raw and as candid as these shots look, this isn't an unfiltered version of them. It is them, at least in part, but it's art. It's a performance. It's something we can construct narratives out of (which, probably surprising no one, is something I really enjoy), but we're still engaging with the performance, not the real people underneath. But it still takes guts to give yourself over to that performance, and that is what might move me the most, gorgeous and stunning pictures and all.

The fact that they stepped forward and said, "This is us. Make of it what you will."

[avisisisis]

Something I love about ATLA is that it doesn't force the "forgive the villain" on all the characters. It's been left clear that Ozai is a bad person, and there's no chance of redemption; the only reason he's not dead yet is because Aang is a pacifist

The one episode where a character is supposed to forgive someone who has hurt them in the past is the one where Katara is off to kill a man (which, fair) and Zuko helps. In that episode, even if Aang is telling her to let go, she doesn't forgive him. She never will. But she spares him. Not because she thinks he doesn't deserve death (he does), but because she's not willing to continue the cycle of violence

Killing someone can have a very important impact in your entire being, mostly depending on who you are as a person. Aang would've never recovered from killing Ozai. Katara wouldn't be who she is now, had she taken her revenge on the man that killed her mother

And the best part of it is that Ozai doesn't deserve to die. Not in a "I'm defending him" way (ew), but in a "he deserves worse that than" way

Taking away his bending was the perfect punishment for him. He believed bending made you superior and he never cared enough to train something besides his bending. What a loser. Zuko and Azula wouldn't be restrained by something like that

He's alive. Nobody has forgiven him. Nobody ever will

[bambibuck]

the 'b' in buckley stands for bisexual. yes i mean maddie too. no i don't care what canon says.

[highfunctioningfleshrule63]

hey, your video compilation of 4chan post about shield is a great ressource for fandom psychology. Interesting to see another user who lurk the wrestling board and use tumblr. Did you ever work on compilation of the tumblr fandom during the peak of the shield era ? I did not research it yet. xoxo

glad someone liked that video, only in times when im super fixated on something will i end up searching through the 4chan archives for more content...unfortunately 4chan vernacular tends to get a laugh out of me (if it isnt absolute lowtier content, had to scrape through a lot of that). the shield stuff i tried to get from when it was at its peak and you'll see posts on there from 2013+, but i also got modern stuff now bc the boardspeak actually changed with it.

ironically it is way easier to deepdive and compile stuff from 4chan bc it has a much better archival system than tumblr; ive also looked for lots of old stuff on deviantart due to the crossover but i found that it has a pretty shitty way of archiving/sorting older posts (just like on here. ive been on tumblr since 13 so i know what sorts of areas to look for, but its still very hard to find it directly on here. i havent spent as much time as i did getting those posts for that video so i can try harder.)

fandom psychology is interesting to me too so im happy you saw my video with that angle. ive collected lots of old shield fangirl content off of sites like weheartit and pinterest (ironically those are often better at keeping images up for longer periods of time) too but i didnt know if i should make a comp, maybe i will. i also looked through random forums and places like lolcow dot farms (which only really granted one of the screenshots...not too much discussion over there for good or bad. i was hoping to find discussion abt shieldfangirls or wrestling rpf but surprisingly they didnt think to make a "point and laugh" thread abt those topics). i find it interesting how much shieldrelated psychosis was on both sides of the spectrum (tumblr vs 4chan)....i could talk more on it but im a little brainless and sleep deprived rn

heres some extras i had that didnt make the cut (plus just some of my favorites):

and these were from a thread talking abt the modern stereotypical tumblr wrestling fan (specifically talking abt aedubs young bucks fans/the elite fans)

(*fangirl in this is a term im using loosely of course)

[satans-knitwear]

U cant hurt me, im wearing armour. 😎

Treat me ~ Tip me

[not-poignant]

Techniques for writing a bad drug trip:

We're going to be using excerpts from one of my own chapters here from my story Eversion to discuss the kind of writing techniques that will help make a bad drug trip more believable. In context, the character Connor has nonconsensually been given a synthetic made-up highball of drugs that gives him a horrible time, and this does not accurately reflect what bad drug trips look like across all drugs, for example sometimes throwing up on ayahuasca is a feature, and not a bug. What I'll be focusing on instead are the actual narrative techniques that indicate an affected mind and body vs. specific technques for specific drugs.

Beginning Stages:

Firstly, pre-bad-trip, it's useful to depict your character beforehand as being fully - or as close to fully lucid as possible. Have them realising things, actively thinking, describing their surroundings, and doing things in a kind of logical way - show them doing something mundane even, like walking into a room, or a cafe. In this case, Connor walks into a cafe, describes the cafe, makes some mental notes and then has a lucid conversation.

Next, most of the time any drug gives you physical symptoms even before the bad trip part, so describe those. In this case:

Seconds later Connor’s heart began to race

The needle slid free and Connor hardly felt it.

He stumbled over nothing as he passed the group of cyclists, staring at them as his heart beat harder and harder, as sweat broke out over his forehead.

At this point in the story, another character takes over, the person who gives him the highball picks up the conversation because Connor is overwhelmed by the physical sensations and doesn't feel like talking. He stops thinking about his environment accurately and starts to notice things while dropping others. His thoughts are already being affected.

This is when you can start using techniques like time skipping, forgetfulness, memory loss, or alternatively focusing on one thing a lot and a lot of other things a little.

Connor nodded, thinking that he needed to get away, that he needed to go somewhere. He reached for his phone, but it wasn’t there. Where was his phone? His vision slanted, time slipped away from him. He was beneath a tree, throwing up while Gabriel petted his shoulder and waited beside him.

Here we have a strong time skip - Connor goes from looking for his phone, in the next paragraph he's throwing up by a tree. This progression of events has no logic, except for the bad drug trip. Which means we now know Connor is being really affected by what's happening. These two paragraphs also show forgetfulness - Connor needs to get away / needs to go somewhere, but can't remember where. He looks for his phone, but has forgotten Gabriel took it from him. You don't even need the 'time slipped away from him' description, vision slanting or blurring tends to indicate to readers in situations like this that someone is being quite seriously affected by what's happening to them.

Middle Stages:

Then, he was walking, but couldn’t think past the scattered, rushing noises in his ears, looking like black jags across his vision.

He landed hard on his knees and stared down bewildered at the grass. He looked around, vision turning to brightness, cars zooming by too fast and too large, the sky distorted, the clouds inverting. He raised a hand to his head, but another hand – warm and gentle – rested at his temple, thumb gently stroking. Connor leaned into it, whimpering.

We're doing a lot of time skipping now, alongside mental symptoms.

The writing technique itself is changing. In one sentence we cover a lot of choppy subjects - vision turning bright, cars too fast, sky distorting, clouds inverting. It gives a sense of too much information happening at the same time - Connor's senses are overwhelmed.

This kind of choppy information can be delivered in short complete sentences, but I liked one run-on sentence here because it gives that sense of 'and then this and this and this and this and this' which is sometimes how it feels to have too much information coming in at once.

It's also making use of the senses. We have vision and hearing and touch all in the same paragraph. We also have 'too fast' 'too large' - things are too much. Not only that, but describing things as distorted indicates strongly that Connor's already hallucinating and hasn't realised yet.

At this point in your bad drug trip, you should not be using your regular writing style. If your character isn't thinking like normal, you might want to consider also not writing 'like normal' for that character.

(This is the same for when a character is having a flashback, is overwhelmed, or is experiencing something intense for any reason).

He took great, shuddering breaths and then pressed shaking fingers to his stomach. The knot of pain in his thigh was manifesting there as well.

Now, for the bad drug trip to truly be bad, we also have the physicality of the experience. The body comes along for the ride and it often feels like it's dying during a bad drug trip.

Huge shuddering breaths and shaking hands can indicate an overloaded nervous system, also someone who might be going into shock, or who is hyperventilating, or who is literally experiencing respiratory distress. We don't have to know what it is - one or all of them could be true! A person on a bad drug trip, unless they're a medical professional or experienced with bad drug trips, will not know or be assessing what is happening to them as it happens.

He flinched back when he saw black inching out from beneath his knees on the grass, dimly knew it as a hallucination before that awareness vanished and he pushed himself back and away.

Boop a hallucination. Connor was already hallucinating, but now he realises too. You don't need to include this. I was writing a smart, analytical character, and he does know he's having a bad drug trip, so he's allowed little moments of realisation. Your character might know more, or they might know less.

Intense / Peak Stages:

He could feel the way his body pulsed at discordant rhythms, too fast, too slow, never in sync throughout his body. The tips of his fingers were throbbing. His feet felt like stones. He looked at Gabriel’s perfect beard and thought of tearing his face off. It would be brief, brutal, bloody, but then he could just lie down.

Writing emotional distortion here is that Connor feels like behaving violently, which - to this degree - isn't normal for him. The drug overdose is making him vengeful. We know it's part of the drug overdose because the first part of the paragraph focuses on all his physical symptoms. The drug trip might make your character too terrified to function, it might make them aroused (i.e. fuck or die sex pollen scenarios), it might make them giddy. Have some emotional distortion going on on some level. Even if it's extreme anhedonia or apathy in the face of potentially dying.

The hospital was clearly giving him too many sedatives. He didn’t know how to tell them that he had no tolerance, he couldn’t take the dosages that his father was pushing for.

Now we hit full flashback. Connor now believes he's being overdosed with sedatives in the hospital, and is no longer in the present at all. He's not even 'I remember' - he's just there. Flashbacks won't happen with every bad drug trip but they are common to any bad drug trip that is hallucinatory in nature.

Connor stared up at the ceiling of his apartment, and his hands rested on the floor. His heart was beating far too fast, fluttering in his chest. He felt hazy. Every now and then he had to clench his hands into fists so tight that his knuckles ached. A compulsion. He couldn’t stop himself from doing it. He’d feel himself shake, and then he’d stop, and he’d stare upwards. He was lying on the floor.

Connor stared ahead. The corner of his mouth felt wet. He was drooling. His fingers and toes kept twitching against his will.

What Connor is describing now is seizure activity.

Connor isn't consciously clenching his hands into fists, his body is doing that. He calls it a compulsion, but it's not. Feeling your body shake and then stop and then shake again is - in this instance for Connor - active seizure activity.

Not all seizures cause full unconsciousness of the entire brain, for example. Connor doesn't know what's happening to him, but we can tell from the physical symptoms here - heart fast and fluttering, feeling hazy, physical movements completely beyond his control - that he's now in a danger zone.

If you want the bad drug trip to reach 'a normal person would be in an ambulance by now' - this is a good place to be. Focus on strange sensations of the heart, the pulse, shaking, the sensation of overheating or being too cold. If you want, look up the symptoms of shock, or tachycardia.

Aftermath of bad drug trip:

In the aftermath of a bad drug trip, be aware that it can take some time for a person's thoughts to return to normal. Don't write an instant return to normalcy once a person is physically stabilised. Often they show mood shifts that are quite profound. Even a person coming down from MDMA often experiences depression or flatness after a great night out with zero negative memories.

Normal aftermaths/ongoing side effects from bad drug trips include apathy, depression, suicidal ideation, anhedonia, flatness, lethargy, exhaustion (literally, the body physically went through several marathons), pain, and foggy, disconnected thinking (both because the brain went through something traumatic and the drugs take a while to work through the system). GI (gastrointestional disturbances) are common, from 'not going to the bathroom at all' to 'diarrhea' etc. Sometimes these after-effects last days, sometimes they last weeks, sometimes they even last months.

-

So! In summary helpful techniques for bad drug trips can include:

Shorter, choppier sentences to indicate overwhelm

Physical symptoms being 'experienced' - character often doesn't know what's happening except in special circumstances

A progression of physical symptoms.

Focus on all of the senses

Hallucinations and/or flashbacks (one usually happens with the other)

Unusual emotional affect or emotional distortion

Time skips / non-linear time jumps

Inability to think properly

Focusing on some things too much and other things not at all

Realising there is a progression, that must include a heavy aftermath (unless you're trying to be special, or unless it's one of the few drugs that can make you feel unusually euphoric afterwards and then there's still usually a crash after that lmao)

Different drugs create different, known effects, however, people will have different 'bad drug trips' depending on their circumstances.

I'm a little bit afraid this post is going to crash so I'm going to post it now! And for that anon who asked me what kind of writing I used - this is it! :D

[marleysfinest]

it is time to face my darkest most violent truth…..there is something about mahito

[downtherabbitholewithlucy]

Photographer Chris Cuffaro gives a deep dive behind this LB photo shoot from February 3, 2000

[thatgirlonstage]

I think there should be an isekai where all of the main characters have ALL been isekai’d from various different worlds and they’re all desperately trying to pretend they belong there

[vayneoc]

[enig-og-tro]

Glick 🔫

[thebestworstidea]

'this reaction was not faked-'

'faked'

bro.

They're actors I have some bad news

[sweatermuppet]

it's repulsive the amount of criticism ive seen against young or new artists (particularly in the poetry community or in the country music genre) that's just "they're letting anyone call themselves an artist these days. they're not honoring traditions. they're ruining [art form]" & by "tradition" they 100% mean white supremacy, homophobia, ableism, ect. the mindset of "if everyone thinks they're special & worthy, it will dilute the value of art" is soooo often a thinly veiled way of expressing discomfort in seeing diverse voices finally being represented

[manuhigueras]

Nan Goldin is an American photographer. She is just as famous for her art as she is for social activism, particularly around gay and transgender sub-cultures and also the ongoing opioid addiction epidemic in the USA. Discover her photographs.

Some of the images are haphazard, some are blurry, some are taken in rooms that are either too dark or overexposed by a flash. Some are cluttered with the ephemera of daily life. That is one of Goldin’s trademarks. She wants to photograph in the moment, so setting a scene, selecting props, or checking light levels isn’t on her radar. Her work is immediate and instinctive.

"My photography has come out of emotional need not aesthetic choice. I came from a family and a culture, that was based on `don’t let the neighbours know´. I wanted to let the neighbours know." - Nan Goldin. Interview with Sean O’Hagan, The Observer, 23 March 2014.