#anyway really communication is key

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bestie Deficiency

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[puppyeared]

When you backread through a fun conversation you had with someone for hours an angel gets its wings

[bonestrouslingbones]

hm. realizing now that the fluffy hood thing on. fluff. is definitely his defining feature. but the thing is i love a good fur trim so i'm gonna have like at least 3 other characters with the same idea and he's not unique at all. god dammit

[aro-aizawa]

i swear nothing comes close to the amount of pride i get when i follow along a game development especially from an early start its just,,, hhhhhh

[bmpmp3]

with the vocaloid beta studio synth, nagi beta, i do hope they change his representational image someday. i dont mind vsynths having abstract boxart and designs and stuff, i like the dreamtonics letter people situation, i adore the hairstick and sword designs the vy's have, but man.

(put three of him so the post isnt too long LOL) this is just a tumblr image placeholder. this is a buffering error

[arklay]

WIP DAY.

tagged by @girlbosselrond @morvaris @aartyom @risingsh0t @phillipsgraves @leviiackrman @indorilnerevarine & @denerims over the past month! sorry it's taken me so long to get to anything at all, i'm sure you guys have heard me address it enough, but thank you all so much for continuing to tag me in things while i've been inactive ♡

tagging @aelyosos @brujah @calenhads @florbelles @jendoe @lightwardens @liurnia @nokstella @nuclearstorms @shadowsofrose @shellibisshe @steelport @swordcoasts @wrymbloods @voerman & all of those who tagged me again cause i'm so behind + anyone else who'd like to share anything they're working on, not just writing! ♡

i haven't written anything since the last wip game i did, but i started trying to put diana's timeline together at the start of january, so i mean... i'll show that instead. as you can see, fatigue hasn't let me do much with it even though i've got all of her timeline already done and strewn about all over the place.

started with 1995 onwards cause it was originally going to be an ewskers timeline situation, but then wanted to include all of her backstory so i went back to the start and still have the late 80s and early 90s to get through before then, but yeah :]

it's going to include like all little moments i've thought of between the ewskers just for me and placing them on the timeline, so you can imagine how long this is going to get if i have to go to 2021 for village... like just 1996-1998 is going to be so much... she's very special to me if you couldn't tell already lmaoo

never sharing this though, it's just for me, and like will help for when i do her timeline page (more in-depth version of what's on her oc page) to just run through canon events and brief descriptions and whatnot. you understand.

everything is blurred out besides 1995 ewskers momence and the years, just cause like idk her i feel weird sharing her in-depth backstory unless it's in dms or something, just cause there's lots going on there and yeah. things. idk

i also made a carrd for twt if you wanna have a look at that :] there's some cheeky subtle things with the two resi items i used as pics hehe

actually, you know what, i'll give a lil bit from where i left of with that rewrite anyways, even though it's been months since i wrote it. but why not

Wesker left a fleeting kiss behind her ear then reached around her and hooked his fingers beneath her coat, prompting Diana to glance back at him. But all he did was gently pull it from her shoulders. She watched him from out of the corner of her eye as he hung it up on the rack by the door, his movements careful and almost calculated, until he turned back towards her, and the warmth of his body returned once more. He pressed up against her side this time, as opposed to her back, and one of his hands found a home on her waist. The way the arm it belonged to was resting firmly against her as he began leading her towards the kitchen was comforting, secure, yet unmistakably possessive. And she revelled in it. He had quite the knack for handling her just the way she wanted.

[wallbeatjournal]

ngl this s5e7 scene reworked my brain chemistry and fully convinced me for a time that eric jackson was a #fightclubcore manifestation of archie's repressed anger and trauma and i still think about it a lot. istg it's a good reading. istg it has legs. istg it works GREAT in the character arc/subtext no question but it also works NEARLY in the literal text to the point that it's magical to me, plus/minus a couple of interactions with real people that can't fully be worked around

i mean s5 had the nerve to move on from this and have eric continue to visibly struggle and suffer under the weight of his rage and grief while (outwardly) functional/coping archie only begins addressing his own ptsd by first witnessing one of eric's ptsd breakdowns and fighting to get ERIC some ptsd support

and then they reveal that archie DOES have trauma manifestation hallucinations haunting him

and then after archie experienced catharsis eric just..."moves away" offscreen alongside all the other war ghosts

it's near-perfect i'm saying. eric could just be archie i'm saying

[padfootastic]

I follow some wolfstar people, but I am real selective about them, they love Sirius as much as I do. Other than that, I’m mostly just hanging out in my own little corner

no but same. i follow a few r/s authors that i can wholeheartedly trust with my boys and that’s it. i’m so, so happy w this little community and everyday, i sit there, fingers crossed & touching wood, that it doesn’t become…more than this.

[jaeyleo]

.

[caterpillarinacave]

You can't keep living this way you decide, not that it's a bad way to live of course, but the draw to understanding this mystery and the opportunity to go home is too strong to deny. Still, no need to rush foolishly. You plan out your next steps, keeping in mind the possibility of those who may come after you, you write down all you know as clearly as you can and copy the knowledge across three notebooks. One you plan to leave at the house of your friends, another you place in a waterproof container and plan to set around the door, the last you keep for yourself as a journal you want to keep along the way. As for your future, you know searching for any cults spells trouble so you dismiss the idea, and travelling away from the door further in to the world feels like a waste of energy. While you take the time to write out your notebooks you also work out some interesting questions:

1. The hairbrush from the store. You know from asking around that the hairbrush was found in the forest by someone who wasn't sure what it was and gave it to the shop who sold it to you. You think it's likely something that fell into this world from your world somehow, perhaps through the doorway? If the notebook you found from the previous traveller is to be believed then the brush has developed a magic around it which may explain why it changes your hair color when brushing. If there is any deeper reasoning you can't find it.

2. The walkie intrigues you, you keep it on and near you for now. Thankfully, like your phone, it seems to retain its charge. From this point forward you're sure you'll notice if it makes any noise.

3. The berries are interesting. They make you feel better when you eat them, like a health potion almost. Probably has something to do with it having passed through the door. You wonder if any berries around the door also may be affected as they must be descendents of berries that fell through over time.

4. You take out the other items you collected from the brambles and check them each in turn.

The spinning top is metal and smooth. It looks like a toy top, though well made. It offers no clues of an owner. You give it a spin as one does when presented a top and it spins very well, but you notice nothing else happening. In fact, the whole time it spins it seems as if everything except you has gone silent. Once it falls the world resumes.

The dog tag is old and worn, whatever name there may have been once is no longer legible. Studying it provides you no insight into it.

The funnel you found is metal and strange but offers no idea of who the owner may be. You mess with it a bit and find when you hold it to your ear you can hear things from very far away. You aren't sure the specifics of how far though.

The whistle you try blowing again and each time one of the riding creatures comes running up to the house. Not always the same one though and never both. You think the whistle might be calling whichever one is closest to you when you use it.

After a few days you're finished writing your notes and copies. You pack a day bag and head over to the door to inspect it and leave one of your notebooks. On the way you try out some of the berries further away from the door, they taste like berries, good but not like the ones you took through the door. The closer you get to the door the more you think they might be tasting like yours, but you you aren't sure if that's accurate or if your mind is making things up. Once you reach the door you find a secure place to put the waterproof box holding the notebook and look around. You don't find anything of interest so you turn to the door itself. It stands there, still and patient, almost as if it's waiting to see what you'll do. You take your key and open the white door, careful not to step through.

Through the door you see what you noticed before. It opens to an alleyway, a concrete road, a garbage can, a place you might run across in your world, though a look up you can see a bright yellow sky, so you know it isn't yours. You pull out your walkie and try it close to the door, you don't expect anything as usual of course, so imagine your surprise when on the other side you hear something garbled through the static. You can't understand what's being said, but you tell there is someone on the other end purposefully speaking.

You've now learned a little more about the things you hold, you've laid down a path for success for those who come after you, and you've discovered a little more about this mystery with the emergence of a voice on the other end of the walkie, though you can't hear it clearly. No matter how long you wait you don't think you'll be able to get a clearer signal with the walkie, the closer you get to the door the more sounds you hear though you still can't parse any of it out, and there's no saying if you pass through the door it will sound better. Do you walk through the door?

No

[lovetheorem]

GRAGHH

[mariamlovesyou]

tuned into Plestia's live with Rahma Zein's second account (she got shadowbanned). key moments:

plestia talked about her adjustment to living in australia. "it's 1:30am now and it's normal for me and many palestinians who live abroad to be awake hours into the morning. i am scared of sleeping. because of the time difference, i'm scared if i sleep i will wake up to bad news. in gaza i was scared of the sound of the bombs, here i am scared of the quiet."

contacting family and friends in gaza is near impossible. "sometimes i feel like a crazy person, calling 20 times in a row hoping that on the 21st time the call might go through."

on the destruction of entire communities and neighbourhoods: "i'm scared when i go back to gaza i won't recognise it anymore. someone sent me a picture of my neighbourhood, and i couldn't tell it was mine at first. all my favourite places, cafes where the aunties used to give me extra food and ask about my day, have been destroyed. i dread looking at my gallery or seeing snapchat memories because most of these people in the pictures are no longer alive."

rahma asked plestia to talk about one story that stuck with her. plestia said "i remember walking one time on the 'safe corridor', that's what they called it anyway, and i saw an older woman clutching onto a donkey cart where her son's body was, refusing to let go of it. i asked my colleague what the smell was, he said it's dead bodies under the rubble. it was the first time i familiarised myself with the smell. the son's body was decaying and the woman told me about cats and animals eating away at it. i've had children talk to me about birds eating away at their parents' decomposing bodies and not being able to chase them away."

"it seems so silly to go to hospitals for minor sicknesses now. i can't even think about how many palestinian children are going to be terrified of hospitals now. there was a girl who was taken to the hospital to get treatment for injuries by one of the bombs, and while she was in the bathroom another bomb landed nearby. the impact from that sent the ceiling crashing down on her.. she got another injury while getting treated for her first one."

"i hate how people talk about our resilience - as if it's okay that this is happening to us. we are only surviving because we have to, because we have no other choice."

rahma brought up the way family homes are set up in palestine and asked plestia to elaborate. "basically, there are floors. someone will live on the ground floor, and then their married son lives with his children on the floor above them, and then their successors above them and so on. so when family homes are targeted, they wipe out entire families. many families officially no longer exist."

"i used to wear my journalist helmet and vest all the time, felt naked without it, even slept with the vest on sometimes until i realised it only made me more of a target. they didn't give me any protection, only headaches and back pain."

"i am an optimistic person, i loved covering sweet sentimental things, like at my graduation asking parents of top graduates how they feel about their children graduating. that's what i love reporting on. i wanted to cover things like that when i came back to gaza, show the beautiful side of gaza that the media didn't really show, but i didn't have the chance." "do you think they'll give you right of return?" "i can only hope."

plestia mentioned how hard it was being a journalist with limited access to the internet, charging facilities, no mics, lack of equipment and how difficult it was uploading things. rahma asked her what's one story that wasn't really recorded or posted due to these constraints; plestia said "the evacuations. sometimes they informed us about them, sometimes they didn't. you have no idea how hard it was, everyone looking for their family members, making sure every one was there, taking to the streets in 5 minutes and not knowing which way to go. i remember i went to my friend's house for shelter for 30 minutes before the first evacuation was announced and we ran to another family's house, stayed there for 2 days before another evacuation was announced. me, my friend, and that family all evacuated together to another family's house. there were already so many people there seeking shelter, it wasn't just one family staying there. none of us knew how long we had in any place."

before october 7th, palestinians were used to limitations on electricity. plestia used to plan her day's tasks around when the electricity was working. "for example when the electricity was on from 12 to 4, i would say i will do my laundry and charge the phones during this time. life wasn't exactly 'normal', but all of us pray to have those days back in comparison to what we are experiencing now." plestia also said that cars are running on cooking oil now because there is no fuel.

on hygiene: "many pregnant women have to give birth without any pain medication or medical attention. once we ran out of medicine, that was it. women who had to get C-sections couldn't stay to recover or get followup treatments because someone else needed the bed. we have no water, no tissues, no pads, barely any bathrooms. in the shelter schools you have to wait an hour before even getting to use the bathroom because of how many people are there."

"something you don't hear about is how many people die because of sadness. there's so many ways to die in gaza, because of the bombardment, because of starvation, the lack of resources, but i also know many elderly people who died because their hearts couldn't take it anymore. i have been in gaza before and lived through 4 aggressions, but nothing compared to this one."

a recurring sentiment that was echoed in the video: "sometimes i thought to myself: who am i recording this for? because we've already shown everything, we've already talked about everything. everything has already been said, the proof is everywhere, nothing i talked about today is new." rahma said the first video posted about what's happening in palestine should've been enough.

she is 22 today. plestia's closing words: don't stop talking about us, don't stop boycotting, don't stop protesting, please don't get bored of fighting for palestine.

[secondbeatsongs]

as a bi person, the bisexual flag brings me infinite joy and always puts a smile on my face, however as a person who has a Passion for Graphic Design, that undersaturated shade of purple infuriates me when it's used digitally

like, on an actual flag - which was its original purpose - it looks great!

those look fine! lovely, even! with the semi-transparent fabric, the way it catches the sunlight, it looks beautiful!

but now look at how it looks digitally

the pink and blue are so vibrant compared to the sad, lonely lavender!

and let's look at this statement from Michael Page, the creator of the bi flag:

(sidenote: he created this flag in 1998, so if his takes on bisexuality is different from yours, it's okay to notice that! a lot has changed since the 90s when it comes to lived experiences and the way we describe them. but, it's also important to respect his thoughts about this and the way he presented them, even if today, we'd probably not say that bi people "blend unnoticeably into both the gay/lesbian and straight communities.")

so in pantone colors, the pink is 226 C, the blue is 286 C, and the purple of the flag is 258 C.

but...here's the deal

Michael talks here about how the key to understanding the symbolism is to know that the purple blends into both the pink and blue. and on a physical flag, I think you can see that!

but digitally, it absolutely does not blend. it clashes badly, and looks oddly separate from the other two colors.

which got me wondering...what purple do you get if you actually blend 226 C and 286 C?

oh! oh, my god.

look at that! look at how nicely it fits between those colors!

look at it next to the original color scheme! look at how much more vibrant the purple is!

and friends. this is just blending through rgb! you get even more purple variations when you use other color spaces!

let's compare all of them:

(top: original, lab. middle: lrgb, lch. bottom: rgb, hsl)

look at all of the different purple options you can get just by combining these two colors!

if you want almost too-vibrant saturation, you can go hsl, if you want something more relaxed that's closer to the original, you can go lab or lrgb. and if you want to split the difference, lch is bright and violet, while rgb is there with its saturated but darker purple.

anyway, I guess I don't really have a point here? this isn't so much an informational post as it is Me Getting Weird About Colors, but I think it is a useful lesson about how colors look very different on screens compared to how they look on objects in real life.

and sometimes, I think it's okay to compensate for that.

out of all of these, this is my favorite bi flag:

it's the one where the colors were blended in lab color space. for me, the lighter, softer purple is close enough to the original bi flag purple, while also feeling like a smoother blend of the blue and pink

but that's just me! and it might not even look the same to you, since every screen is different, because technology is a nightmare!

anyway, thank you for coming with me on this colorful journey! I will now retreat back to inkscape and make pained sounds about inkstitch gradients until something tangible pulls me back into reality

[hedgehog-moss]

(There is blood pictured at the end of this post) (well, 1 drop) (don't worry it's mine, not some innocent creature's)

I found a dormouse in my kitchen today, just chilling on the ceiling above my head, watching me cook. Maybe even judging my cooking technique like Ratatouille. I only noticed its presence because there's a bunch of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling above the stove and at one point I heard a rustling, then a crunching noise.

It was eating my herbs.

As if they were a little snack I'd placed here for my dormouse friends. None of my other animals can walk on the ceiling, therefore any food that's near the ceiling must be an offering to the dormice. (I admit, that's sound logic.)

A dormouse family has been living in my walls since before I moved here—I should probably call it a dormouse dynasty, by now. Here's the first post I wrote about them, in 2019 ! The cats eat a lot of them (especially Morille, she loves dormice) but apparently not enough to make the key decision makers in this dormouse community decide that living in my house is more trouble than it's worth.

Every year when they hibernate and go quiet for eight months I have the renewed hope that this time the cats got rid of all of them, but the next spring they wake up and start scratching inside my walls in the middle of the night again. (Not only that's creepy, but it's so loud.)

Anyway, this dormouse, let's call him Alfred. I saw immediately which hole between two stones he'd crawled out of and the first thing I did was to stuff a salt shaker in there to block his escape route. Step 2 was to call for backup—I summoned Morille, and she came down from the living-room 2 seconds later (the cats know it's always good news when I call them to the kitchen while cooking.)

Alfred was panicking.

I grabbed a broom and started threatening him with it like an angry old woman in a cartoon. He tried to flee towards the ladder, but Morille was there. He tried to flee towards the door, but Morille was also there. He tried to hide on top of the fridge, and Morille happily lay siege to it, like my fridge was a Gallic oppidum on top of a hill and Morille was Caesar and his entire army.

Morille was having the time of her life.

But my kitchen door was ajar, and Alfred managed a heroic jump from the top of the fridge to the lintel, like a flying squirrel. He scurried out then grabbed hold of the climbing rose right above the door. When I got out and took this photo, he looked fairly stressed and pessimistic.

I didn't want him to climb the wall all the way to the eaves and go right back into my house, so I went back in to get my broom again, either to make him lose his grip and fall straight into Morille's gaping maw (sorry), or make him run away into the woods (inferior solution; they always find their way back, unless you take them very far away.)

(I used to trap dormice humanely then drive them 3km away to release them near the barn of a neighbour I disliked, but this neighbour has since moved. (Not because of my dormouse warfare, I swear.) There's also an abandoned house in the woods where I used to exile my prisoners, but after a while I started feeling silly driving around the countryside with dormice in the backseat, so I stopped trapping them (it really was a hassle) and just let the cats eat them.)

But Alfred is a combative and resourceful rodent. In the half-minute it took me to go back in and grab my broom, he laid a trap for me.

He ran along the stem of my climbing rose in such a way that his weight made it droop jussst enough to be now hanging at face level rather than above the door. So when I ran outside again with my broom, I was slapped in the face by a thorny rose plant. (For a minute I thought I was crying tears of blood, which seemed worrying, but it was just a scratch above my eye.) (I wish it could leave a tiny scar, so people will ask how I got it, and I will tell them about the mighty dormouse wielding a rose sword.)

I sent these pics to my brother hoping to get some sympathy, and he cropped & desaturated the one with the blood teardrop then sent it back with the comment "you look like an Evanescence song"

By this point I decided Alfred had won this battle. (Not the war, because it's almost autumn aka hibernation time so he probably found another gap between two stones and went right back inside. The war continues.) But this humble dormouse set a Saw trap to poke my eyes out the second I stepped outside my house and I respect that. I admire the way he used his environment to his advantage, and teamed up with my climbing rose to level the playing field (since I had teamed up with my cat first.) He has won the right to spend another winter inside my walls, curled up in my cosy wool insulation, dreaming of dried herbs, thwarted cats, and heroic skydiving from fridgetops.

Well played.

[tuesdayisfordancing]

“Communicate” is almost entirely meaningless advice 90% of the time so here’s a few slightly more specific but still pretty general ideas:

You might be making assumptions you don’t realize you’re making about what another party knows, remembers, or understands. Saying “obvious” things helps clear some of these up. Of course even while making an effort to do this you still might not notice things you’re assuming go without saying; don’t beat yourself up when you discover one of these, discovering it means you’re improving! It’s like playing Zelda: the more you uncover the more you get a sense for where and how to look for things. (Disclaimer: I’ve never played Zelda.)

You can take breaks. I’m thinking of personal relationships here but there’s probably a way to apply a similar concept to other relationships. You can say talking more is too much right now, that you’re tired, that you need to process, that you won’t be at your best if you keep going. One thing that can be really great in a personal relationship is asking if the other person is up for hitting pause and doing something you enjoy together for a while (they might not be up for it, be prepared). You can also hit pause and take some time to yourself.

Communication isn’t just for problems! Tell people when you like and appreciate what they’re doing!

Okay this one is probably as useless or at least almost as “communicate” but: contextualize but don’t over-contextualize. I have made people think something is a bigger or more urgent deal than it is by not starting with “overall this is fine/I like X/whatever” and I have had people entirely mentally reverse my point because I spent longer on the disclaimer than the point.

Anyway. Communication is an actual set of skills that you don’t just magically improve by hearing that “communication is key” often enough. It doesn’t just take effort it also takes learning, trial and error, examples! And best practices for communication vary among people, cultures, specific relationships, etc. This has been Pet Peeves With Tuesday.

[athemarina]

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