#but i couldnt get it to work so i ended up with the same layout i always draw which is an issue

[bugflies00]

count the parts of me i’m yet to break

[kenthenugget]

Adobe Broke Photoshop in 2023

A bit of a disclaimer: this will contain quite a bit of swearing and a lot of anger so be warned

For the past 3 and half years, I've been using photoshop for pretty much all of my digital drawings. Ever since I discovered you could draw in it back in my high school digital media class back in the 11th grade in 2019, I've pretty much used it for everything from school work to my comic to personal works. Despite its hefty price, its been reliable tool for me, and I've never had any sort of issues with it, up until recently.

Upon joining the tapas community, I was shocked at how much photoshop was disliked by the wider art community. Hell the mod in a server I'm in hates it with a burning passion (and may hate others who use it but idk). Mostly I've noticed that the complaints boil down to photoshop being buggy, unstable and overall unreliable. But in my experience that couldn't be further from the case. And if this were me from 2022 typing this, I would have to agree. But now I can see where they're coming from. In the course of 6 months, photoshop has gone from being a reliable good program to a complete mess. And any good will I had towards it is gone, and I'm surprised I'm still using it. The following is a recollection of my experience with the program beginning at the tail end of 2022 to now. Its going to be hard for me to frame this story in terms of escalation because it starts off really bad but gets slightly better by the end, but not by much.

Crashing:

Its inevitable that any computer program will crash at some point, and Photoshop is no exception. Up until this year, crashes were never really an issue. Sure they were annoying then they happened but they happened so infrequently that it was never a major problem. But that would quickly change. Beginning a few days before 2023, and ending around March and April, Photoshop would crash at the frequency of...every week, usually once per week at best and up to 3 or fucking 5 at worst. And it would all be the exact same. I would be drawing and out of nowhere, the program would freeze. I couldnt minimize it, close, save or do anything. The only way I'd be able to close it was by using task manager to force quit it. This was, as you could expect, annoying and extremely rage inducing but it wasnt just crashing that caused this.

Now thankfully, photoshop has an auto recovery feature so if the program crashes or if your pc looses power, you can recovery what you were working on and everything would be fine! But if photoshop crashed this way, auto recovery wouldnt work properly. It would recovery the file yes, but anything I was working up to the moment of crashing would be fucking gone. I cant tell you how many hours of work I lost because of this. Entire page layouts, sketches, selections, layers, etc gone within in an instant. I would try to levy the damage by changing the auto recovery timer from 10 to 5 minutes but only just.

I tried tolerating this at first but it kept happening more and more and eventually I had enough. My solution was to downgrade to the previous photoshop version as I surmised that the newer version had broken photoshop. This happened in February and up until the end of my spring break in March, I felt a sense of peace that I hadn't felt in a while. Sure, it would still crash but not the level as it did before. But that changed on the 16th and 17th. Photoshop crashed 5 times within those two days, three of them happening on the SAME... FUCKING... DAY!!! I wont lie, I felt defeated in a way I hadnt felt in a long time and out of desperation, I ended up updating to the latest version, praying that that would be the fix.

However this part of the story has a happy ending...sort of. I ended up making a thread about this on the adobe forums and ending up updating the driver for my graphics card and after that, photoshop stopped crashing. And unlike the last time, it didnt increase to that frequency ever again. In fact, I found a way of spotting when a crash would happen and found ways of avoiding it. The freezing would happen on certain files I was working on. And if I closed that file, I could avoid the entire thing freezing and loosing all my work. But regardless, the first 3 months of the year have (as stupid as this sounds) permanently scared me and Im still subconiously scared photoshop will crash constantly again.

The Annoying Ass Bugs:

Though the program had stabilized, my issues with photoshop would persist in the form of bugs which are really really fucking annoying to deal with. The first of those came in the form of it getting stuck on left click. If I had the program open for longer than 24 hours (or if I used the keyboard commands for undo, copy + cut + paste, or other tools that werent the brush and eraser tool), photoshop would get stuck on whatever tool I was using left click for. If it was the zoom tool, it would zoom in and out without me holding my finger down on the left mouse key. Same with the rotation tool and so on. The only way I could stop this was by closing the program and reopening it. Now, this is far better than the program crashing on me every day, but its very inconvenient. And I dont think I need to explain why. Other updates would come but Adobe didnt seem to fix it until an update that came out in early June. However, in doing this, they introduced another bug....

If I rotate the canvas or zoom in on a file Im working on, switch tabs and come back to that file, the camera position is reset. Rotations are reset, Im now zoomed out instead of zoom in, the camera is focused on a different part of the canvas. And unlike the last one, I cant stop it by closing the program. I dont understand how Adobe keeps on doing this. This fix a bug by introducing a new one. How is that even possible? And to make matters worse, they rolled out another update with "stablitiy issues" and according a comment left on a thread I made about this on the adobe forums, they still haven't fixed it. God only knows when they will and when they do, I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe found a way to break photoshop again.

So there you have it! With 6 months Photoshop has gone from a reliable work horse to a program I don't trust using. About half an hour before typing this blog out, Photoshop crashed while I was trying to fill in something, and I have to ask myself, "Why am I still doing this?" Why am I still using a program I hate using? Why am I subjecting myself to this? Why cant I just use the program every artist gushes over like its the second coming of Jesus Christ, Clip Studio Paint? And I dont have an answer. Apart from me wanting to finish my comic without worrying about adjusting to different art programs, I don't know why I'm still using photoshop. Maybe its because I've used it for so long that I have an attachment to it. Like I cant move on and just be done with it. Maybe despite all I said, I dont want photoshop to be this bad. I want it to be a good program. I want say with pride that its reliable program. I want it to be a functional stable thing I can use to draw my characters. I hate what Adobe's done with it.

I don't really know how to end this post. But all I can say is Adobe, you fucked up big time....

[rohitgurumith]

REFLECTIONS ON MY LEARNING

The Practice 1 Module and Semester A will be coming to an end in a few days and i just want to take a step back to reflect on my learning and my progress as an animator in these past few months.

I made alot of mistakes, but i also managed to learn from those mistakes and came back stronger and Its safe to say that i've definitely improved in terms of both knowledge and technical skillsets. I will be listing all the new things i learnt in all the 5 briefs and the 2 developed projects this semester,and share how this module changed my way of working overall.

BRIEF 1 : RED VS BLUE -

I still remember this week very clearly because it was my first week into the course and i was very confused on how to approach things. I also never had the habit of storyboarding, concept art and taking references until when i had to work on my portfolio for applying to the course. I would usually dive right into working when it came to my previous projects.

So i was still fairly new to all that and i only had a week and a half to complete the storyboards,concept designs and the animatic. another problem i had was the fact that i couldnt think of a simple concept for the brief. i just kept thinking about complex storylines that were impossible to fit in just 30 seconds. so when alex asked me to redo the whole thing from scratch with a new concept, i was terrified since i only had 3 more days until the submission date.

This is where the fearless hardworker in me started grinding and i got the job done in 3 days with a simple yet efficient animatic with good storyboard, concept art and fairly decent designs compared to the previous one. i was appreciated by the class and alex for picking myself back up so quickly.

I studied animal head movements and looked at some reference material for the wings of the chickens so i can judge how they would move from a certain angle. i also studied the facial expressions of animals in cartoons which was also pretty helpful.

BRIEF 2 : PLACES OF THE MIND -

For this brief, i once again intended to keep the concept very simple but complex at the same time. what i meant by that was the fact that the thought process and coming up with the idea would be simple (since i based it off of my real life experiences and how my mind works sometimes) and the workflow would be complex (2D character with 3D backgrounds, dynamic camera movements and animating 3D objects)

I got some 3D models to help me find some key poses, saving me alot of time. I also looked at and refered to several street layouts until i found the right one. I would say that i learnt to brush up the timing skills since this animatic and the movements of the character were highly dependent on the beat of the soundtrack used.

BRIEF 3 : MEMORY AND NOSTALGIA -

For this brief, Alex advised me not to use any manga styled characters and he wanted me to find my own style of character designing. So i did my research on different styles of character designing and did alot of rough sketching until i found the right one. though the animatic and concept itself didnt achieve what it was intended to, i still got appreciation for trying something new with my character design

BRIEF 4 : OPTICAL SOUND -

For this brief i only had 24 hours to do everything since i was preoccupied and not in a good place mentally during that week due to a family emergency.

My roommate was talking about cleaning our room soon and that sparked the idea in my head. i looked around my room, quickly modelled it in 3D to get the perspectives right and made a simple animatic of someone cleaning thier room when listening to music. that was the simplest concept i could think of and get done within 24 hours. i ended up completing everything on time and the class absolutely loved it to the point where they suggested me to develop it further.

BRIEF 5 : LIGHT AND SHADOW -

For this brief i wanted to use a "Tom and Jerry" (Hanna,Barbera,1980) type concept where a mouse tries to steal a snack and get away with it.

I had to study the positioning of shadows according to different sources and angles of light since this took place in a dark room. I also looked at alot of dark room references so it would help me find the one that fits my environment and lighting placement.

RED VS BLUE : DEVELOPMENT -

I wanted this to have a studio ghibli artstyle but also wanted it to have detailed compositing. So i decided to create an amalgam of different styles i researched ,adjusted it according to my will and added my own touches to it. I inspired my color palette from studio ghibli, did the compositing in my own way until it got a lively and vibrant look. I also learnt a new style when doing my background paintings for this animation

PLACES OF THE MIND : DEVELOPMENT -

This was the most challenging project for me so far because i learnt alot about the value of proportions when working with a 3D environment. I also dove in depth with the compositing since i wanted to make the environments look as vibrant and flashy as possible.

CONCLUSION :

I would say that i have a broader mind now with the capability to think about alot of simple quick ideas rather than lengthy and complex ones. I learnt new things from Sean's workshops and Alex's seminars. I also developed the habit of having a backup plan just as good as the initial one just in case something goes wrong. My backup plans have worked and been recieved well by my tutor and my class 3 times in this semester and its safe to say that i have inherited alot of habits that a professional animator should have and i only intend to fly higher and learn more new things.

[warmau]

★ donation request: suburbia summer nights house party!au jaehyun 

the summer night air is too sticky and too sweet for your liking

you had opened your window hoping to chill down your room, but it was even hotter outside than it was inside

even still, you keep the window open and the curtains pushed back, leaning the upper half of your body out to the empty streets of the neighborhood you’ve lived in since you were born

it is quiet - like always

until you hear something rustle below

you look down and your eyes widen, standing in your mothers beloved rose bushes is the familiar face of something - well someone - you’ve also known since you were born

johnny waves at you and from behind his broad shoulders peeks mark lee

“bro, we shouldn’t be here - what if their parents-”

marks paranoid whispering is loud enough that even you hear it, so you bring your finger up to your lips

johnny ignores the younger boys trifling and motions for you to come out

you know your parents are probably either working in the kitchen or watching tv in the living room

there’s no way in hell you’re going to be able to walk out the front door, so your only means of escape are making it down the rickety old water pipe on the side of the house closest to your room

you’ve done it before so you’re not scared or anything - but still, you aren’t exactly sure what those two are up to

you grab your phone and text johnny:

why are you trespassing in my backyard :P

house party @ jaehyuns

you swallow - jung jaehyun - another familiar name

not interested, now go before you get caught and my dad flings a shovel at you or something

mark starts tugging on johnny’s shirt as soon as they both read the message

but johnny stays put

c’mon, don’t you like jaehyun? 

you furrow your eyebrows and glare down at johnny, who just grins up at you with the kind of smile you know means trouble

dude i don’t like jaehyun, im just not in a party mood

fine - can you come for like an hour then? don’t leave me alone with mark you know he doesn’t know how to party

“hey!”

mark jumps back in offense and you shush him from your window as johnny playfully pulls him into a headlock at his side and ruffles his hair

you don’t text back, just slip your phone in your back pocket and look at yourself one last time in your mirror

you’re wearing a t-shirt thats too big with the local fishing shops logo on it and beat up old chucks with doodles on it from two years ago

really, not a party outfit, but you’re going for an hour so you don’t care

you quickly lock your door and slip through the window

johnny gives a little dance of victory as you make your way down that old pipe and lets go of mark to sling his hand over your shoulder

“are we walking to jaehyuns?”

you ask when you’re safely out of earshot of your house but johnny just shakes his head 

“nah, he’s driving us there.”

“he’s w-”

as you turn the corner of the street you see jaehyun’s car

its nothing flashy, but you know its his because its got that dumb handmade sticker of johnny’s garage band name on the bumper and plus he’s got the driver car door open, leaning against it looking-

damnit why does he look good without even trying

you push back the thought and want to throw another glare johnny’s way - but he misses it as he reaches out to take jaehyun’s hand

the two of them bump shoulders and johnny makes a joke about how hard he had to try to convince you to come out

you keep back a little and jump a bit when mark asks

“is everything ok?”

“yeah, just worried my parents might have heard us.”

marks face pales and he climbs into the backseat of the car - you follow him and try not to look at jaehyun

although you feel his eyes move to you past johnny’s shoulder

once you’re all piled in, jaehyun says his house is already half trashed. he left doyoung in charge back there but he knows no one ever listens to him so he expects you’ll all be arriving to a shitshow

you half listen, looking out the window and at the houses of families you know

at least the window of a moving car is much cooler than the cemented window of your bedroom

but the real reason behind your distance is because right now ,,,,, jaehyun is the last person you want to see

it had all started last summer, jaehyun had moved to your town and had befriended johnny instantly

and with johnny’s friendship came your friendship (and mark’s, and practically the whole schools but - you and johnny were joined at the hip so it was different)

but it became quickly and almost embarrassingly obvious that what you and jaehyun felt toward each other was not

what you and johnny felt toward each other

you could easily jump on johnny’s back, have him piggyback you through the huge aisles of the local walmart, you could easily share food with johnny from the same plate, you could easily fall asleep on johnny’s bed as he and mark played video games on the floor 

but with jaehyun - there was a sheepishness 

not because you weren’t best friends but because you saw him and felt nervous 

you saw johnny and felt delight, thats someone you’d be friends with forever

you saw jaehyun and felt a flurry of butterflies swarm around your stomach, thats someone you wanted to kiss

and it was like everyone was waiting for it to happen. everyone was just holding their breath.

some people had even tried to ask jaehyun out, but he had declined and it just solidified the entire towns prediction that you and him would end up being a thing

but 

when he had a chance, he blew it

it had been a house party just like the one you were going to now and you and jaehyun had walked off a little away from all the music and noise

you were wearing those bracelets he’d gifted you and he was toying with one on your hand 

you could have sworn that in that moment you were going to hear the words

“do you want to go out with me?” leave his lips, no matter how coy he was being and how playful this push and pull had been

the flirtatious glances, the midnight texts, the tension of it all had come to this and now

all you were bracing yourself to just say was yes 

when instead he had chuckled and asked,

“can you believe everyone wants us to date?”

you couldn’t read his tone - you’d just blinked at him, was he being for real?

instead of answering him or even acknowledging the awkwardness of the situation 

you’d walked away

you’d pulled the bracelets off your wrist and let them drop to the grass. jaehyun had been confused, grabbing your wrist and asking what was wrong all of a sudden

the last thing you had said to him was

“everything's just a game to you isn’t it?”

there were no words and no more messages after that. you had avoided him like hot fire and had succeeded in dodging all of johnny or marks attempts to make you all hangout together again

you’d agreed to go to this party for an hour because you had planned to just get lost in the crowd before he could spot you and then leave

you didn’t know you’d be stuck in his car, personal damn chauffeur service to his house

you hear the party before you even see it - music blaring from inside and peoples voices like an annoying symphony of shouts and chants

mark gets out first and you try to scramble so you won’t end up somehow alone with jaehyun

nearly pushing poor mark onto the curb 

“hey!”

“im going to go see if uh - whats his name - uh jungwoo is here.”

you make up an excuse before either of the three boys can say a word

you turn the corner, around the pool that you’ve hung out with jaehyun and everyone else at a hundred times and the weird circle of garden gnomes he’s moms put out

you know the layout like its your own house and are happy to see that the wooded part toward the end of his yard is pretty empty - the hammock that you and johnny had helped him tie up a while ago is unoccupied

“thank god”

you plop yourself in it and close your eyes, the sounds are duller out here and you dont have the chance of rubbing shoulders with other drunk teenagers or you know who

your phone buzzes in your back pocket but you dont bother to check it

instead you stare up through the leaves at the bright slice of moon 

how’d i get in this situation?

you lay a hand on your stomach and tap your fingers as you think about how you’re going to kill time 

the noise of giggling passes by you and you assume a couple is going to pass by to fool around in the woods

could have been me and jaehyun if he hadn’t been such a dumba-

you sit up a little and shake your head

you had done such a good job so far. you really hadn’t thought about him at all.

well, well you had thought about him but you just - you weren’t going to coddle yourself into expecting anything ever again

it would just hurt when the day came around and he flat out rejected you

you sink back down and close your eyes - maybe just napping through this dumb party will

“dude they’re so fucking mad at me.”

“nah bro, i bet they’re just tired or something-”

“no johnny, i fucked up.”

you open your eyes and strain a bit at the sound of the voices that are coming closer and closer to your spot

they sound just like-

“what exactly did you do then jaehyun?”

“i said the wrong thing-”

“just said?”

there’s a pause and now you’re sure this is who you think it is

“just said or did you hurt them. jaehyun you’re a cool dude or whatever but if you laid a hand on them-”

the drop of the voice only comes for one person when they’re rallying to get angry

“no johnny, i would never. i just - remember that party a couple months ago. the one at taeyongs.”

“yeah?”

“i was going to ask them out, and then i just blanked like they were looking at me and instead of just kissing them i said ‘haha isn’t it funny everyone wants us to date?’ because like im dumb - i dont know i couldnt think!”

a second of silence passes by and then is followed by johnny’s long and relaxed laugh

“you totally did fuck up!”

“i know, and now i dont know how to make it bet-”

johnny and jaehyun’s footsteps are now only a few feet away - in the darkness of the night you’re sure they haven’t noticed the lump of you in the hammock

not until you suddenly feel it tip over as someones shadow looms over

“DONT YOU DARE SIT ON ME JOHNNY SUH!”

you shout and johnny screams - before stuttering back and bursting into another loud laugh

“oh my god THEY WERE HERE THE WHOLE TIME?”

jaehyun, even though its dark, goes red at the realization

“d-did you hear us?”

you swing your legs out and jump out of the hammock - johnny, who is still laughing at the circumstance, can’t help but back away a little holding himself in a fit

you nod

“yeah i heard and for the record - you were being dumb when you said that to me.”

jaehyun opens his mouth but shuts it because he has no way of protesting it

“but i guess being dumb is kind of part of your charm”

you cross your arms and jaehyun’ shoulders perk up a little

“so you’re not mad at me?”

“i was but, i mean, im a very forgiving person and you can have this second chance to ask me out-”

“yeah just don’t fuck it up jaehyun”

johnny’s voice comes between chuckles before you motion for him to go

he gives you two a thumbs up and leaves, mumbling that he has to tell mark about all this

and as you and jaehyun are alone with the back drop of his house party 

you put your hand out and jaehyun takes it in his

“so, let me try again - instead of everyone saying we should date i want you to know that i want to-”

“yes”

you lean up and take his face with both hands, pressing your lips to his and finally

freaking finally

kissing jaehyun 

the summer night air is still sticky and sweet and you aren’t a big fan, but the way jaehyun’s lips are a perfect taste makes all of that wash away

his hands circle your own and he picks you up swiftly as your legs wrap around his waist

now this - this is what you had expected months ago, but you don’t mind because its finally happening now

when you and jaehyun return to the packed house 

the whole party stops when johnny screams

“EVERYONE CHEER FOR THE TOWNS LOVEBIRDS!”

and both you and jaehyun go wide eyed

not before you take chase after your best friend - threatening to get him and mark just pats jaehyun’s back like

“looks like you didn’t mess up this time!” 

jaehyun grins and scratches his neck, yeah - looks like he didn’t.

[shiningliive]

7th Stage Set List Speculation 

Tumblr hates tall images so please click to see in higher quality!

I put way too much time and effort into thinking up a possible set list for 7th stage, and I’m sure it’ll be way off, but I’m curious how close I can get. Some clarifications, other ideas, and explanations below the read more. Be warned, it’s very long.

*This is not an official set Utapri 7th Stage list, just speculation.

Basic Layout:

1. This is all assuming they want something similar-ish to Maji Love Kingdom, plus solos and other recent songs. I didnt want to just copy the Maji Love Kingdom set list and whack some solos in there

2. Another order I considered was similar to the 5th stage layout where they did ‘character 1 solo, character 2 solo, character 3 solo, song they did together.’ I do think this is definitely possible for 7th stage, and if they do do this, it could be, for example, Tokiya solo, Cecil solo, Yamato solo, Colourfully Spark. I mainly didnt use this for my primary example because I figured it might be odd if they arent doing Quartet Night Solos. 

3. Not very notable, but I also placed the solos in the order the boys are usually in (Otoya, Masato, Natsuki, Tokiya, Ren, Syo, Cecil) with the matching Heavens order. 

4. I did my best to not have too much focus on one group to the point where you dont see another at all until the second half or later. This happened with 6th stage with Heavens not even being introduced until an hour and 45 minutes in. There is a bit of a gap without Quartet Night as Heavens and Starish do their solos, but I feel like this is a bit unnavoidable, and tried to counterbalance it by having the shining masterpiece songs (no heavens) before the solos. 

5. Of this speculative set list, I consider Setsugetsuka-Michibiki Hikari to be the first half, and Up Down Up-Welcome to Utapri Kingdom (just realised I wrote welcome to utapri world in the graphic but you get me) to be the second half. This doesnt matter too much, but it could be split this way across discs or have an interlude inbetween. There are less songs in the ‘second half’ but it does end up being around the same length when you consider we usually get about 2 20 minute talks at the end.

Explanations:

1. I didnt include Quartet Night songs for a few reasons. Mainly because they dont have any new ones released lately and there have already been two QN only lives with qnlf being the most recent main live since 6th stage. It’s certainly possible that they might include some repeats of older QN solos, but this set list is already at the same length and amount of songs as 6th stage, so it would add enough extra time to make 7th stage too long. 

2. Obviously I didnt include a Nagi solo because Wingu isn’t able to attend 7th stage. I assumed this would not affect other song selections and that they will likely have other members fill in for his parts in group songs.

3. I was unable to figure out which new set of solos for Heavens and Starish they would use. I didn’t decide the ones used for any particular reason, so I wouldn’t at all be surprised if different solos than I wrote are used. 

4. I used Setsugetsuka as the opener song, because I thought it would not only allow for special outfits to be worn by Starish and Quartet Night that could be chanegd after their introductions, but it also saved time (instead of having one starish song and one QN song, theyre combined). It’s not quite an exciting booming start to the live, but it is a very well loved song by the fandom that hasnt been performed yet, and the first few notes are very recognisable. I can also imagine it fading nicely into a Heavens group song  I’m not sure about this choice, but I couldnt quite shake the idea, so I kept it. Wouldn’t be surprised if they started with the same three group songs as Maji Love Kingdom though. 

5. In general, I tried to consider things like outfit changes, the time of each song, having a first and second half that can be split onto two discs for dvd/bluray release, and most importantly perhaps, not having the same seiyuu perform too many times in a row to avoid them getting too exhausted.

6.  I found it very hard to place Encore. Unlike a lot of the other Mamo songs, it isnt exactly a hype, exciting song to start off a live (after the initial group songs) but it also doesnt really work in the middle after the solos, or towards the end. Having the song be called ‘encore’ and being played during the credits of Maji Love Kingdom really give that vibe that it should be an encore song.

7. I don’t think they would want 4 Quartet Night+Starish joint songs without Heavens (as it would cause a bit of an imbalance) so I figure they might do either the Shining CD 2 songs or the upcoming Black/White songs that are released shortly before the live. For now I’ve gone with Wonder Rondo and Dancing Over Night because we dont know the length of the Black/White songs.

 “Things that would be cool but probably won’t happen”:

1. I placed Encore towards the start of my set list, but theres something that I would love to see, no matter where its placed. If the song starts with Mamo singing, as expected, until about 30 seconds in when slowly all other seiyuu would walk on stage and join in. This would allow the song to be used as an encore with all seiyuu, or just help build variety and excitement to an otherwise (albeit intense) but slower more emotional song. It also lines up well with the songs build itself as well as the MV that slowly includes more and more people. 

2. More special outfits for Setsugetsuka and the Shining Masterpiece songs and more special outfits/performances in general. I think this is the reason why previous performances like Koizakura and other Shining Theatre songs are so memorable.

3. Pretty sure this one is almost 100% not happening, but, I want Sawashiro Miyuki as a guest to sing Maigo no Kokoro, Haru’s solo song from the first season of the anime. It’s so often forgotten, but its a beautiful song. This would also serve as a nice interlude for the boys to have an outfit change or change staging etc. 

4. I feel like there should maybe be a third encore song, but I couldnt choose a good one. It feels odd to not have 1000% or 2000%, so a version of them with all three groups is possible. If they are going to have a new version of an older song, I feel like a Mirai Chizu would be a great choice. Not only does it suit an encore (emotionally and lyrically speaking), but they haven’t performed it since 1st stage, and I feel like it could work really well with all groups together. Or it could be some kind of new medley or song entirely. 

5. Of course, there are 3 big things we’d all like to see announced at 7th stage. These being: a 5th season of the anime or some kind of sequel, Dolce Vita news, and a large scale update to shining live (eg, adding Heavens.)

Stats of my set list:

1. The total song time of my set list is 2 hours and 20 minutes with an hour and a half of extra time including a shining dancers or other interlude, introduction video, talks, about 5-10 seconds inbetween songs, audience encore call, and goodbyes. 

2. The final time of this set list would be about 3 hours and 48 minutes. 

3. For the performance on the 18th for example, doors open at 2pm, and 7th stage begins at 4:30. With this set list, it seems like it would end at about 8:15-8:30pm which allows for enough time to exit the dome before 9:00pm.

4. There are 33 songs in this set list (one talk is incorrectly labeled as an extra song in the graphic) which is the same as 6th stage.

For anyone who’s gotten this far, thank you. This is literally essay length and I wrote it in 50 minutes. It was a lot of fun thinking up this set list, so I’m excited to see if im at all accurate, or 100% wrong. Either way I’m so excited to see the actual set list. 

[currentfandomkick]

Bio! Dad Strange part 4

Shorter but a paris update for her life and a little on gotham with Jason as Robin while Tim is a hero Stalker.

Marinette is 7 when she changes schools, ordered into the Dupont school chain by her teachers since she was getting ‘difficult’ and contradicting their ciriculum. When they challeneged her on this, she went to the school board with Rolland beside her of all people.

The board agreed on one thing, Marinette’s contradictions were not only factually correct, but were done to prevent the outdated ciriculum from hurting her classmates. Instead of punishing her, she got to skip a gade and was given to Dupont as a ‘highly reccomended gifted student’.

Her first day she met Max, who also skipped a grade. The pair bond in five seconds over a new programming focused on learning emotional intelligence. Uncle Riddler was showing her it, and Max got his hands on a various ai bases. This led to then teaming up and designing the one and only Markov together, if only in schematics.

A week in and the two notice that some kids are being followed around by a guy with a bat. They report it. Again and again, but no one can find him.

One day he catches the pair on their way to Max’s—they wanted to work on their ai together, ok? The guy tries to hit Max, saying something about them being lucky metas that needed to suffer.

Marinette’s gotham training kicked in. She caught the bat, ripped it away from him and hit him in the chest with it, while yelling at max to run.

At the end of the incident, videotaped by a bystander, the Dupont Stalker was arrested.

Marinette was given another name by the police, ‘fille de batte’ or bat girl. Her having family in gotham only made the nickname more popular.

This put her on Kim and Alix’s radar. Kim wanted a challenge for fighting and competitions, and this tiny kid did that—to an adult! New friend and rival!

Alix was went from shock to joy as Marientte does art. She does art. Art friend to rant to found!

Nino ran into Marinette not long after Kim and Alix attached themselves to her and Max. Nino became their judge for Kim challenges. Including Mari pinning Kim to the mat, or deciding who did a circus move better (Mari won acrobatics).

Chloe doesnt go to dupont until next year, and sabrina is in another class, mildly concerned for Marinette.

In this au, again, Dupont is considered a ‘i would not be shocked if there were metas there’ school for gifted kids in any way.

Marinette is sent there for her insane science obsession at the time, but is also put in their arts program with Alix to develop as an artist with her medium, fabrics and fashion.

And if marinette redesigns hero outfits as “monsiuer ross, scribbles have more style, let alone fashion sense” alot, well. Kids get obsessed a lot and the Justice League is a common one, as are known villians. Her everyday outfits having different hero schemes—oddly enough some forensic scientist she’s obsessed with from some american city ended up in her mix—well. She’s a kid and showing signs a few types of anxiety.

Possible social and OCD and a developing case of perfectionism common to the arts program. The school has her see a therapist and know she isnt telling them everything beyong mild concern for her gotham family, and confusion over people just ‘not getting things’ as she is terribly smart and good at finding patterns and how do people not see it?

By the end of the year Marinette is in a strong friend group who’s parents and hers have decided to have joint custody during the school year.

She was now (forced) to learn vietnamese from Kim’s Grandparents, italian from Rolland (her nonno that has a Thing for tradition and somehow married Gina and raised Tom mostly on his own while running the bakery to boot), english from Father/Strange, Mandarin from her Maman and she started Arabic to talk with Nino’s aunt who kept saying marinette was her future in-law and point out that nino and her are friends, not dating ma’am.

However, Nino endured most of this with her-not the italian or Mandarin, but the others. Kim couldnt get Arabic but mandarin was a breeze for him. Alix cannot get vietnamese or arabic but Mandarin is her jam after french. Max just speaks french and english, he understands the others he just cant get the sounds right, ok?

When Marinette goes back to Gotham that summer, she ends up dealing with Hero Stalker Tim (jason is robin now) while looking for Red Hoodie who No oNE is telling her what happened and she’s worried, ok?

Tim feeds her obbsession with fixing problems. He sometimes sends her building layouts of places Catwoman stole from. And then the jewlry reappears thanks to a nervous Marinette coached by Rose and Ghoul while Frost handles her post-fix it freak out. Tim also may or may not get helped by her alot during Batman Stalking Time as she teaches his butt how to sneak and complains he’s worse than penguin.

Tim hates that, works on it, and still has nonidea who she is. He does admit to figuring out who batman may be, but needs more evidence so...

Marinette hits him becuase “thats dangerous!” And tries to lecture him in identites.

Batman’s radiowave was used for said lecture.

“And it puts their families in danger you, uh, hero stalker! And stuff so no more identity investigations!”

“They have the same builds, and did signsture moves from—“ the signal cutout.

He and Jason are more careful... ish. They change channels and monitor the old one.

Sometimes Batman catches Marinette and Tim talking about coldcases and she has asked three times if he heard anything about Jason’s street kid identity. Jason is feeling guilty about this as she’s his Pixie Pop. This lets Bruce know that the probably-clark’s-kid would keep Jason away from GCPD and CPS.

When a convo leads to Batman finding out Tim and Marinette have considered asking the police for help with a case of medicine that needed to be recalled as it was beign used to mule drugs contaminated the batches and hurt patients, but turned it down after she saw some taking bribes from Fish, Batman lets Gordon know and an investigation is launched.

While Bats is away, Jason visits marinette as Robin and tries to get her to bats for more information and a lecture on heroing without adult supervision. Maybe.

Only she’s currently stealing from a sleeping selina at another HQ. A Selina who has stopped trying to stop marinette and let riddler turn her house into one of his ‘traps’ to stop Marinette’s ‘return theiving’.

Jason gets stuck in a trap. Marinette is gone by then, scared Robin will tell Superman about her and he’ll hurt her family or something.

Catwoman is annoyed at Marinette’s sucess. She goes to stop the girl after leaving him tied up for Batman with a message: leave her new kitten-to-be alone.

Follow up talk post-Caught Marinette reverse theiving.

“Blame the Council’s decrees. She’s their little princess, and my new neice,” Catwoman watched Batman carefully.

Confused Batman in interrogator mode. “You mean the Court of Owls, arent they disbanded?”

“Bats, the council is gotham’s underground. Apparently Two-Face made the contracts as penance for scaring the Princess during a breakout. Unless you want an organized attack by the council, steer clear of her.”

Batman conencts the dots and curses himself. The girl he was looking for last summer is the Princess of Gotham’s underground. It will be hell finding her. And Superman/Clark will lose it when he’s told.

He lets the JL know about it, saying ‘possibly kyptonian clone, female child. Gotham’s underground is calling her their Princess. Connor and Kidflash tailed her last summer during the arkham breakout while Robin was with the Titans. Be alert for a small asian girl.’

That was how Marinette ended up on the JL watch list and how Superman had another existential crisis.

Dick freaks out with the Titans over this. Becuase kyltonian raised by villians is terrifying. Jason forwarded the message and adds on “she’s a good kid and wants to help. Somehow keeps zsasz and joker from killing people, so its not good to take her away or issolate her from the villians if you find her. From what i remember, she is terrified of her family beign put in danger. The others wont listen to me. If you can, pass this along to the other sidekicks and your allies—none of them trust me enough to listen. I cant talk to her as a civilian like i used to either for obvious reasons. And she’s terrified of me-Robin. Maybe you can get through to her, or someone else can. Just talk to her first, she’s more reasonsble than she looks”

Dick doesnt read the add on until much later and regrets it.

He met marinette once. She was a very excited kid babbling about aerodynamics in acrobatics and asking about that. Not hero things, not power things, or justice league but That.

He tried to be nice but he was having a horrible mission, saw the girl floating as she rambled and tried to grab her.

She freaked out and bolted, sort of. He got slammed into a building, or would have had she not caught him, rambled in french while trying to apologize (he was a but stunned from the throw, and rebooting as villian-kyptonian was... nice?) and put him on the roof, hit his communicator and said one thing.

“I think i broke your robin? All are robins like bird bones or something?”

He regained a functioning brain as that. That was something he could respond to.

“I am human thank you!”

That seemed to be enough for her as he moved to get up. She waved bye and bolted, something about Rose being mad at her for being late...

“Titans. I think we might have been wrong about the kid...”

Later with Young Justice the info was passed on.

Jason asked if anyone read his attachment and was met with silence. He groaned and told them “so another team she’s going to avoid... great.”

Marinette added the titans to her list of ‘people to aviod—tetch and Jerimah were the worst. Luthor and Cadmus were under them. Then the entire Justice League (they would tell batman or superman. Snitches.), followed by GCPD, CPS, the Bat Family and now Titans. She wonders if she needs to add anyone else, and hates that she cant talk to heroes. They could help with controlling her powers instead of suppressing them but she cant trust them not to give her to superman like batman did with Rose to Poison Ivy and she’s pretty sure Superboy too.

Next time, times marinette accidently put together identities and curses Hero Stalker Tim for her now knowing.

[edge-lorde]

hp update: its been a long time, boys. ud think that with this plague outbreak id have more time for shitty phone games, and ud be right! however, the time i normally might use to make tumblr posts has been taken up by reading lotr orc fanfiction non-stop for at least 1 full month. id still be in the thick of that obsession even now if only the fics would update. that is how i find you today folks, for the first time in many weeks i am staring at a screen with nothing to do. so come with me friends, theres no better way to fill the soulless void we are all in than reading a nice long tumbler post. 

disclaimer, first of all, a lot has happened, i prefer to keep these updates as plot spoiler free as possible but do to extenuating circumstances i feel like it is necessary to say, [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER BELOW]

that rowan fucking died,

i wont say exactly how, but i will say that her death was animated as were animations of myself and a few others reacting to our friend fresh corpse. obviously meant to be serious moments but the animations made it seem almost comical. 

i saw at least one post going around right after this update that was like ‘how could the game devs do this to us..... how could they hate rowan so.... this is punishment from on high’ and its like.... u guys do know what a story is right? the events of  a story are not typically done to punish less faithful fans, im pretty sure they were planning to kill rowan off from the beginning. this isnt disney im pretty sure the writers are not writing each chapter the night before its released by popular vote. 

that little “are we drifting away..?” scene with rowan makes more sense now. there was a bit in one of the scenes where the kids all reminisce on rowans life and the mc talks about it being the last real one on one time they had with rowan. a nice bitter sweet moment. i dont hate this turn of events. its a good reminder that actions have consequences and we are way past they days of “should i wear a hat or scarf?” its YA time now. 

i did manage to take 1 screenshot from this time, i had commented that before that when rowan said she didnt have many friedns that barnaby seemed to be hanging out with her without be there as a friend buffer and here was his reaction to her death:

;_;

the funniest part in all of this however, was of course cedericks reaction to rowans death “but she was so young....” LOL fuckin RIP.

lets see... what else.... i forget a lot of what happened but i think there was a time sensitive quidditch event in there somewhere? if so i  dont remember it. what i do remember of the quidditch pals is that im gonna play beater now, skye is being weird and cagey about it, andre is involved.... the others are there.....

sidenote, i love the shitty b characters they throw in to be like yes you know this person but no they are not cool enough for u to even think about befriending. the first one of those is face paint kid, and now we have another, who is a former beater girl with horrible bangs named bean who didnt go to any classes for a whole season so she could just play ball 24/7 and got kicked off the team.  this is a character who only exists to provide an explanation as to why there would be a beater position open but i love them on principle. 

right now im in the midst of another time sensitive event, this one is a bother-your-brother-at-work-day event where recent hogwarts graduate bill weasley is bullied by myself and his younger brother charlie into letting us go with him on one of his curse breaking jobs. 

so for those unfamiliar, bill works for the magical bank of england.... and his job seems to be “retrieving treasure” for said bank. in the books, there is a bit where he takes his family on one of his trips to egypt, where his job seemed to have been tomb plundering indiana jones style for the posterity of the english bank :X. i wont explain here why thats bad but its bad. 

the game devs however in this instance, at least SEEM to be doing what jkr couldnt do by attempting to salvage what is left of gringotts bank and form it into not a super shitty implications factory run by horrible jewish caricatures. bills mission is to retrieve a goblin made artifact that was taken by dragons, so no going to foreign countries to steal things from other people! only going to a dragon reserve to rifle through animal nests. they even appear to be providing us with a likable goblin character, egad!  

my hope for this event is that we get a plotline about how maybe, goblins arent shifty human haters for no reason, and in fact they hate magic humans for very understandable reasons, like being forced to go into hiding with the rest of the magical world even though only the humans wanted to do that, and maybe despite running the bank in england they still dont have a lot of political sway in the world of wizards and witches, and have to rely on the faith that said wizards and witches wont fuck them over at every turn, even as they see how they treat other non-humans, such as house elves, which they desperately dont want to end up like. and maybe they DONT only care about gold... maybe thats a human stereotype based on the fact that theres a long history of humans not respecting goblin ownership customs.... which i could get into..... but i wont.... i just....... very badly dont want them to suck ;__________;

i know i said its ok to still like a piece of media as long as you recognize the problems with it, and i do, but once this game is done im gonna stop hp posting all together. ive been feeling more and more uncomfortable making these posts lately.  

GENERAL GAME NOTES; theres been some new layout changes and such. 

most notably the stairs screen has been changed from a bulleted list of all locations to a screen with tiles picturing an image of each location along with the name + icons of all classes at each place. there is one additional location that is new and yet to be unlocked, and the dragon reservation is appearing temporarily as its own tile as well. i prefer this method of getting in and out of a temporary location to how they did it with car during the last christmas special. the stairs icon also now stays in the corner when you scroll through locations, allowing you to open the stairs menu without scrolling all the way back to the left. 

they also moved a few of the buttons down into the lower left corner rather than the left side & combined the story button and sidequest button. they added a little camera button as well, just like in the dormitory, that makes all the icons in a location disappear and look better for screenshots. 

the daily special add offer thing now has its own button in the top right corner of the screen, and idk if i mentioned it before but now there are daily challenges that appear in the sidequest screen that offer small rewards for completing 3 tasks per day + a better one if u get all 3. the prizes are things like 4 energy, 75 coins, 3 monster food. the better rewards are usually either more coins, 8 energy, 3 gems, or 1 notebook. i think that it does all the different color notebooks but i cant remember for sure if i ever saw the gold one up as a reward. i like this addition in any case. if you dont pick up ur reward by the end of the day, the next time u log on it will force u to stop and accept them, and if one of the rewards is energy and ur energy bar is full, it does not seem to stack beyond the bar so watch out.

 the character stats page is now more zoomed out so you can see your full character instead of just from the waist up. no change to the leaderboard. rowans face in the friendship roster is now a still black and white image that says ur friend may be gone but friendship is forever u-u. 

rowan has been removed from all classes. in the classes where the minigames involved her, those minigames have passed the mantle onto other friends in the class. in potions that person is now liz helping u find stuff off the shelves and in tranfiguration that person is badeea. bless these girls for helping mc get through it. touched my heart. 

theres been a few fun little “i know u have more free time now so uhhhh have some energy” prizes like they do sometimes when they dont update on schedule so thats been nice. just a few days ago they gifted us 3 gold notebooks the same way. :O. 

theres also been a few instances of a energy happy hour where for a limited time energy takes less time to refresh. normally it takes 4 mins for 1 energy to do this but during happy hour its like 2:30 mins. :U its all very interesting.

and that will have to do it for tonight my friends, ill do a post for the dragon event when its done because i do like it so far and i do like getting to bully bill with charlie. 

until next time, remember.......

[modestroad]

you come with pleasure and pain (maybe I treat you the same)

A huge thank you to @canadianwheatpirates for their beta help. This was going to be a ‘Theo gets high’ short fic, but my brain had other ideas. Oh well. Title from sickick’s song ‘No Games’. 

It felt…wrong.

The apartment felt wrong.

It was too big, too expensive, it only had one and a half bathrooms, the walls needed to be painted, and the layout of the kitchen was all wrong.

Theo didn’t seem to mind, of course — she loved the location and the views — but to Shirley it felt wrong. Or maybe it wasn’t the apartment’s fault, but her own. When she had thrown Theo out two months ago she had been angry at her little sister — angry and upset. Yet that was before they had gone to Hill House, before they’d seen Nellie’s ghost, before she’d watched her sister break down in the middle of fucking nowhere. Now here they were, apartment hunting for Theo in Boston, and Shirley didn’t like it at all.

“No, it’s not…” She fought to find something negative to say. “The kitchen’s layout is all wrong. And the appliances need to be update.”

Theo looked at her, and Shirley didn’t need to be a sensitive to know she was pissed off. “It’s not as if I’m going to spend all my time in the kitchen, Shirley.”

“Yeah, well.” she was a Crain, and the Crains were stubborn as hell. “You’re gonna hate it in the long run.”

Five minutes later they were in Theo’s car The music was playing too loud for Shirley’s taste, but she wasn’t going to comment; not when Theo was  still ‘homeless’ and she was doing her best to keep the peace. She wanted Theo to move out — it was about damn time — but she didn’t want it to happen right away. She knew how selfish that thought was. That’s why she kept it for herself.

“Next time you’re not coming with,” Theo told her after twenty minutes of driving in almost silence. Shirley loved her sister, but Theo’s taste in music was getting on her nerves.

“You’re going to end up in a crappy apartment in the wrong part of town if I leave you alone. You need me to-“

“To what? Point out every little thing wrong? Okay, sure, it was overpriced, but it was four blocks for my fucking office, Shirl! I wouldn’t need my car, I could just walk there.”

Shirley could feel a headache coming on. “The kitchen-“

“Fuck the kitchen.” Theo said under her breath and then, more loudly, “Fuck the fucking kitchen!”

“Maybe I don’t want you to move right away,” Shirley finally admitted. “Just…not yet, okay?”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Theo turn her head to look at her. It only lasted a couple of seconds; her attention quickly went back to the road. “Luke’s going to need somewhere to stay after rehab.” Theo reached over and turned down the music. “That gives us a couple months — more if he goes to Steve’s first.”

“Yeah.”

“Besides, I’m moving to Boston, not the West Coast.” Theo’s voice was light, but Shirley’s heart felt heavy with that thought. “Just thirty minutes’ drive.”

“Yeah.”

She tried a different approach. “This is good. Moving on. This is good. For both of us. We both said some things… things we needed to say and hear, so this is good. This is the healthy way to do things.”

“Theo, can we just not do this right now?” It came out harsher that Shirley intended, but she didn’t apologize; she didn’t have to. Maybe Theo had been right. No, she knew that Theo was somewhat right, that night she broke down, and she couldn’t stop thinking it. Theo kept everyone at arm’s length for a good reason, but she was going places; she was living her life while Shirley was, well… living more quietly.

She was thankful that Kevin forgave her. So damn thankful! It was right, what they said: people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, but she had done exactly that, secure in the thought that Kevin wouldn’t find out.

Telling him the truth was the right thing to do.

Now that she was calm enough to think straight, she can see that her family would have suffered if he hadn’t taken Steve’s money.

They had both given up the  secrets they’d kept from one another and now their relationship felt…stronger.

“Does Trish know?” she suddenly asked. Judging from the long silence that followed, Theo was keeping secrets as well. “Are you thinking of telling her?”

“Yeah. No. I don’t know,” came the answer, and she knew now not to push.

She couldn’t really understand how Theo’s… gift, power, whatever, worked, and she still had a hard time accepting it. She could only imagine what Trish could think if, or hopefully when, Theo came clean to her. Besides, it was too early on their relationship to drop such a bomb — and it was a bomb! Perhaps the bomb to end all bombs.

“If you can see a future with her… take your time, but tell her.”

Theo said nothing, so Shirley turned to look at her.

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you see a future with her? When you,” had sex, “when you touched her.”

“Shirley.” The warning was evident in Theo’s voice: drop it.

“Sorry.” She wasn’t. “I’m just saying, it’s normal to be afraid.”

“Shirley.”

“Okay, I’m stopping.” She couldn’t resist one last comment, though. “I’m just saying.”

[uniformbravo]

me trying to make a gif part 2 (thrilling finale, buildup ver.)

ok good news and bad news: good news being withheld for Spoilers (not that it’s that hard to guess anyway lol), bad news explained first bc, chronologically, it is first

so yesterday i mentioned in the tags of that post that i had seen that krita has an animation feature so i was gonna try importing the frames into that and then exporting it as a gif. easier said than done, as it turns out

i started by opening the file i made yesterday with 62 layers as the frames and importing that into krita, which worked fine (i didn’t know you could actually open .psd files in clip stuido ((this typo is so fucking stupid it made me laugh so im leaving it)) and krita, so that’s pretty neat, i wonder if it works the other way around too) but i ran into problems when i tried to convert those layers into frames in an animation. because, like, the layout of the program has the layers displayed in one tab, and the animation timeline in another, like so:

(do u like how im using pictures now, i thought of that yesterday after i published the other post and realized hey, visual reference would probably make my plight a lot easier to understand!! so enjoy these educational diagrams from now on)

so my goal was to get the frames from the layers into the timeline, and i still don’t know if i did it right bc lbr krita is not very intuitive at all,,.,, i mean i watched a video tutorial abt how to animate in krita which was v helpful (it’s the one by jesse j james on yt fuckin SHout out) but it was about animating from scratch, not importing an animation you’ve already done elsewhere

so like, the way krita’s animation thing works, from what i could piece together as i bumbled my way around w/ it, is that each layer in the layers tab is a separate timeline in the,,, timeline tab

i want them all to be in the same timeline, not separate ones, and there’s no way to combine them in the timeline tab bc doing that just overwrites whatever layer you’re pasting it down onto, and also if you define the number of frames for that timeline (62 for this project) it just puts the single image of that layer for all of the frames instead of just one of them, so you’d have to go through and delete all the other frames you don’t want it to be, which would be such a fuckin pain

so i found a workaround, which is so tedious that it can’t be the right way to do it, but basically i started w/ layer 1 and defined 62 frames & then emptied frames 2-62, like this

(that blue box is the frame, btw, even tho it says 0, which actually kind of annoys me like why doesn’t it start the first frame on 1????)

from there i went up to layer two and selected that in the timeline, but for some reason the frame doesn’t show up automatically?

& i couldnt fuckin figure out how to make it into like, an Official Timeline Layer or whatever tf bc like, u see on layer 1 how theres that little lightbulb-looking icon on the right? that’s for turning on onion skin which only applies when you actually have frames with things drawn on them, so basically layer 2 in the layers tab has a drawing but in the timeline it doesn’t?

i didn’t find out what the actual reason for this is or how you’re /supposed/ to make the frame appear in the timeline, but what i did was right click on layer 2′s timeline & select “create blank frame” which magically made the frame i want appear

but it’s on top of the layer 1 frame, and i want it to be the frame after. also it’s still in a different timeline. this is the only easy fix in this whole damn process, u can literally just click & drag the frame from layer 2 to layer 1 and put it wherever u want on the timeline

and then u just delete layer 2 and that’s it, frame transferred!! then i just had to do that for 60 more layers and after [unspecified amount of time but it was a fuckin while ok] my timeline looked like this!

(the gaps near the end are held frames, to save me time so i didn’t have to copy a bunch of frames that were exactly the same)

krita is great because as far as i know ur animation can have an unlimited number of frames, at the risk of your own pc’s processing power, which is a definite upside to SOME expensive art programs i know (clip studio, i’m talking abt csp) and u can pick the frame rate too (cough photoshop elements 5.0 even tho u dont technically have an animation feature & it’s a miracle u can even make gifs at all) so once i finally got all the frames situated all nice and in order like on the same timeline, playing it was great! played at the right speed, looped perfectly, it was a dream come true right

well, time to export it as a gif

ha

haha

hoooo oo  o

so u got 2 options for exporting ur animation, u can either hit “export,” which lets u save it as different file types, one of which being gif, or you can hit “render,” which gives you gif and video options

well

i tried export first, bc that seemed like a good idea, but the “””gif””” it made was distinctly not a gif, despite its claim to be one?? this is what i got:

notice: 1. it is not moving, and 2. the black bars to the sides?? those are supposed to be transparent. they’re transparent in the file i made so why didn’t they register as transparent in the export, when gifs have transparency capabilities??

so That was some real live bullshit but i still had the “render” option, right? export was wrong, so rrender must be the correct option to go to that will produce the results i am wanting to see produced in front of me like a silver dinner platter with a correctly functioning gif under the lid, that’s what i want to see and “Render Animation...” is gonna Give me that silver platter righWRONG ok look at this shit rn ok Look

it says GIF it says it RIGHT THERE right??? right?????? then WHY

?????????????

and it also gave me all This bullshit

like did i ask?? did i fucking ask???? i already have all the individual frames why do i need even M o re i mfjgjgk

((rationally ok yea thats v useful for if ur making the animation in krita and want to export the frames to use elsewhere, but like uhhh 1. again, they’re not transparent & 2. i should have the option of saying i don’t want these??? bc *meme voice* i don’t want these)

so in the end i could find NO correct method of exporting animations as a gif in krita bc every ooption that says gif is fuckign LYING to ur face there are NO gifs in krita, aliens made the progam who looked at gifs and went “hmm i thikng this is how a gif works “ and just made jpegs instead but somehow got on the computers good side and got it to lie for them about it being a gif so thats why it says gif on the file still even tho its not a gif illimati confinr

so what is the conclusion to this? well i said there was good news too, and this is the portion where i divulge that sweet nectar (i type dthis 2 seconds ago and @ me what the fuck)

so after wasting a good 2 hours trying to figure out krita i gave up and watched some good old [youtuber name redacted bc what if it shows up in search & ppl see this dumbass post in there but it rhymes with fjackfsepticfeye] to relax into accepting my fate that i’ll never be able to upload my animations to tungle except in poor quality loopless video form, making me into a laughing stock on my own art blog, but THEN i had a stroke of genius, in my Brain

so if u read yesterday’s post u might remember that flipnote studio, the animation program i use on my ds, to animate, has the option to export files as gifs, both animated and sequential (meaning either as one fully animated gif or each individual frame separately), which is super convenient, but as i mentioned yesterday, any time i tried to open the folder with those files on my laptop, it crashed immediately

WELL today i thought “hey, how about instead of opening the folder in the sd card when it’s plugged in, how about i copy that folder from the sd card to my flash drive, and try to open it there, in case it’s the card’s hardware that’s causing the problem, not corrupted files”

so i tried that and it FUCKING WORKED THANK GOD GLORY HALLELUJAH

so now instead of spedning A THOUSAND YEARS trying and failing to force art programs to bend to my will i can just export the animations straight from my ds and drag them onto my computer Just As God Intended oh GOD im so fucking happy

here’s the gif in the end, i’m gonna post it to my art blog too but this is the Green Version bc i animate in green bc of some default settings in flipnote that i got used to, plus it makes me feel like i’m just sketching so nothing really has to be finalized so i’m comfortable while i work, and also it’s just nice ok it’s a Nice Green

(there’s a few frames at the end that are like the extra scraps from while i was working dw i got rid of those in the final version that i’m posting to my art blog later. also i added my blog url to that one too it’s aaaaaall good)

the only downside to this method is that i can’t change the canvas size to be 540px wide to fit with tumbrl s image dimensions but whatever i can just post them in a text post and fix the html to display it at its original size instead of the resizing bullshit tmurbl pulls constantly ugh. anyway it works great on desktop but it’s inevitably gonna look like shit on mobile no matter what i do *Big Ass Shrug*

anyway thats the end of my success story uhh i can’t make the like comment & subscribe joke again bc i already did that in the last post so like bye i guess thanks 4 watchign & have a great day i’ll see u in my next fvideo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYob4uDjEKI&t=0s

(^that’s my outro music)

[pizzamaximoff]

Surprise (Jason Todd x Reader)

Here’s the first Valentine’s day special with Jason Todd 

Just used this random gif cause I couldn’t find anything else to fit

Warnings: lil bit angst, lotta fluff

Words: 2,415

8:27 am

You awoke to an empty and cold bed, the same as you had fallen asleep in the previous night. Not much different from usual although you couldn’t blame your boyfriend, afterall he did go out most night protecting the city from harm. If it were any other day you would have shrugged it off and waited patiently for him to return later on. But today, today was Valentine’s day and although you didn’t mind much for the holiday you had hoped that maybe, just maybe you would get to spend they day with your beloved hero.

You rolled over onto your side, reaching for your phone on the bedside table. Lifting it up you waited for the screen to blink on. No new messages. Even so you decided to send your lover a text to celebrate the day, making sure to overload it with hearts, knowing he found it cringey (but secretly cute). You sighed, any thoughts of him remembering the date dampining your mood more.

9:00

About half an hour of moping in bed you finally got up. You took a long, hot shower, if you weren’t spending it with Jason you may as well still treat yourself to a relaxing one. Thanking the Gods that you didnt have work today you scrubbed away.

After you finished up and changed into some casual clothes you walked to the kitchen, eager to get some tea and something to eat. As you passed the island you noticed something strange, the dishes you left to dry over night had all been put away.

“He must have come home after all” you mutterd to yourself. While it was a pleasant surprise for him to help out with the little things, you do wish he had stayed long enough for you to at least see him.

10:44

An hour and a half of doing nothing, to say you were bored was an understatement. You had checked social media countless of times, thinking you could maybe hangout with your close friends instead to celebrate the day. Alas everyone was either romancing it up or busy working the day away. Your hopes of spending the day with your other loved ones being whisked away. The walls of your apartment were becoming unbareable and it was then that you decided maybe getting some fresh air would be a good thing. So you dragged yourself off the couch and to the door. You could tell be the sight outside it was a particularly cold day, even with the sun brightly shining. You pulled on your thick coat, making sure to put on your hat and scarf too (you did not want painfully frozen ears), and after grabbing your phone, earphones and keys you left the empty apartment. You sent Jason another message, notifying him of your whereabouts if he came home while you were out, noticing the message was unread. Maybe his phone died?

11:52

Great. It was if the whole world was out to remind you that you were alone today. Your music kept plaing love songs (that you’d usually enjoy but in the company of yourself the sappy lyrics were beginning to irk you). The whole park was filled with happy couples holding hands and smiling with glee. Sure it wasn’t their fault but it was still pissing you off. It was a battle to keep the scowl off your face and not look like a moody single. reaching a more secluded area you found a bench and too a seat, tired of walking. It was a quaint little area. Bushes surrounding a small pond, with a family of ducks amongst the greenery. Maybe you could bring Jason here, get away from all the chaos of life for a few moments. Although you’d have to come when it got warmer, the environment would be much more enjoyable when you could actually feel your limbs.

You pulled your icy phone out of your pocket. Still no reply. You unlocked his phone and clicked on his nickname, Jaybird, and for a moment your heart stopped.

Read 11:32, you gasped quietly. Read? You could understand him not seeing the message yet, he wasn’t on his phone nearly as much as yourself. But he had now read the message. Negative thoughts clouded your mind. Was he outright ignoring you. Knowing you shouldn’t over react and jump to conclusions you shook your head and rubbed away the potential tears. He probably absentmindenlty checked his phone before crashing asleep back home.

Sighing for the umpteenth time that day you decided to spend some more time in the park, even in the bitter air.

13:00

You decided to walk back. Even if he forgot you were still excited to see Jason. Maybe snuggle up and watch Romeo and Juliet while munching on sweets and chocolate, you knew he had a particular soft spot for Shakespeare. Now that would be an ideal Valentine’s day. A smile made its way onto your face at the thought, warming you from the inisde as you journeyed home through the streets of Gotham. A grin soon broke out on your cheeks as the music in your earphones dipped, signaling a new message. With the speed of the flash you whipped out your phone. If there was ever such a strong change in emotion it was now: your face fell drastically as you read the name on the screen, Tim.

Now it wasn’t that you disliked the younger boy, it was just that you were desperate to hear anything from Jason, even if it wasn’t in anyway romantic at all. You opened the message anyway, interested to see what he had to say.

From Timbo 13:26

Hey (y/n), I’m at your’s and Jay’s. No one was in so I used the spare key you guys gave Bruce.

From Timbo 13:26

Hope you don’t mind but I made myself a cup of coffee.

13:27

Let me know when you’ll be in.

You stopped in place. No one’s home? So where the bloody hell was Jason. You could feel anger beginning to well slighlty from his ignorance. Breathing out you got to texting Tim back, maybe you could ask him where your dear boyfriend was when you got home.

To Timbo

That’s cool, I’m on my back from the park now.

To Timbo

Won’t be long, make yourself at home.

From Timbo 13:32

Already have lol

Even with your negative mood you laughed at the antics of the younger boy. With that you locked your phone and continued walking home.

13:45

You unlocked the door and shed your outdoor layers.

“Hey (y/n)!” You heard Tim call from the lounge. You responded with a greeting, albiet not as enthusiastically. Once home ready you walked into the living room, chuckling at the sight of him lounging on the sofa, legs up with his phone and a mug of coffee in hand. Once you pushed his legs off and sat down on the sofa he locked his phone and smiled up at you.

“So what brings you here Timbo?” You spoke, looking at him in curiosity.

“What? Can’t I come visit dear brother’s girlfriend, who happens to be my dear friend?” He said, mock innocence coating his voice. You laughed slightly before continuing.

“I know you Tim, You wouldn’t have come in person if you really didn’t have to.” Feigning hurt for a moment he replied, “How could you? I would come to see you whenever and where ever.” You both paused, “Alright you got me, If Jason heard me speaking like that I’d be a deadman.” You both laughed for a moment before you decided to bring up said male.

“Speaking of, you haven’t heard from him have you? He hasn’t responded to my texts and I haven’t seen him all night”. Tim’s demanor shifted at your question and he responded much too quickly.

“No can’t say I have sorry.” You opened your mouth to question him further but he quickly shifted the subject. You talked with they lad for a good long while, catching up with him. It’d been a while since you’d actually seen him in erson and it was nice to actually get to seem him and talk face to face. After a few hours and multiple teas and coffees later Tim finally got to his original intention. He was here to ask if you wanted to come back to the manor and join the others for a casual Valentine’s get together. they were having at the house. You asked f Jason would be there and he awkwardly responded with an ‘I don’t really know’.You weren’t too keen but you agreed to come anyway, seeing as you would’ve ended up angry and depressed at the apartment alone. Might aswell enjoy the rest of the day with your favourite vigilanties.

You both got up ready to leave as you locked the apartment door and Tim spoke one more time.

“Oh yeah I got dropped off so you’re going to need to drive. meet you at your car!” With that he speed off leaving you to curse at the boy.

17:04

You pulled up the elaborate driveway of the manor. It was already dark and you were in awe at the manor being lit in the darkness. It was a beautiful place. You parked and both exited the car. Tim let the pair of you into the grand home. His awkward state was back as he shuffled ahead. Coughing to get your attention she spoke,”So, um, the others are waiting in the conservatory. I’m going to check on some, um umm, stuff in the kitchen.” and with that he was gone.

“Okay?”. You manouvered to the back of the manor, having been here enough times to know the basic layout. What you were met with was not what you were expecting.

The room was mostly dark, being lit purely by the stars, some candles on a layed table and some fairy lights weaved into the metal work of the consevatory. Your eyes travelled across the delicates lights eventually leading you to a warmly lit figure standing in the middle of the room. Broad shoulders covered with a jet black turtle neck, matching the gorgeous soft waves of hair upon his perfect face. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing the heavenly forearms. In his hands, clutched rather tighlty, was a bouquet of your favourite flowers wrapped together in a perfect red bow. It was then that you realised that you had barely been breathing and you gasped, bring your hands to your mouth in shock. You looked him into his eyes, the perfect blues looking back with pure adoration and happiness.

“Happy Valentine’s day (y/n).” as he spoke you could feel your insides basically melt and you couldnt help yourself as you ran towards him and into his arms. He tensed in shock for a moment, dropping the flowers to catch you before laughing. You could feel the deep chuckles reverbing through his chest as you embraced him tightly. He placed you back on the ground and you stared up at him, the height difference returning to it’s usual (something you’d never change because damn that made you feel things), and you stared into his eyes with love, brushing away all of the day’s earlier doubts.

“I hate you so much” you said, smiling through it. He smiled in return, bright and happy.

“Yeah, I love you too.”

“I was beginning to think you’d gone missing, or beginning to get bored of me” You meant it as a joke even if the thoughts occured but he frowned slightly.

“Bored of you? (y/n) I could never get bored of you. I love you more than I can put into words.” You smiled even more than you were before with his words, making you feel warm and fuzzy inside. You pulled him down to your level, hands locked behind his head and shared the most passionate kiss of your life. His large hands gripped your hips, pulling you impossibly closer. The pair of you only parted at the intrusion of the voice of a much younger brother.

“Gross” came the voice of Damian Wayne. The two of you pulled apart, you blushing while Jason simply glared at the boy from over your shoulder. You could feel one of his hands leave you most likely flipping Damian off before returning to your body.

When you thought your embrassement was over you heard the hushed voices of the others.  

“Damian to get back, you’re blowing our cover!” Dick whisper shouted.

“Hey, ow, your stepping on my feet” Steph complained.

You buried your face into Jason’s chest, red with embrassment.

What startled the you the most was the voice of Bruce, ushering them all away and closing the wooden doors of the room. You finally looked back up at him, but he was frozen staring at the door with a flushed face (for Bruce had sent him a thumbs up with a smirk and a wink). Something you rarely saw, but he snapped out of it as soon as he noticed your stare.

“So, shall we get the evening started?” He spoke, that deep and confident voice.

“We sure shall, I want to know what kept you so busy today you couldn’t answer your texts.” He laughed nervously, hand moving to rub the back of his neck.

“Yeah about that, Damian may have taken my phone as I was about to respond.” You raised an eyebrow at this looking at him with skepticism. “Hey don’t look at me like that! He thought I wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret,” he then mumbled the rest but due to your close proximity you heard it all, “and i definitly can’t with you”.

You laughed loudly at this, not surprised anymore.

“He’s right, you’re a even worse at lying than Tim”

“Hey, take that back, I’m not nearly as bad as that nerd!”

A pounding was heard on the door followed by Tim yelling’ “Excuse me I am an excellen- hey ah Dad wait!” Tim’s voice faded away as he was being dragged away by Bruce. You continued to laugh, Jason joining in.

And so you begun your evening. It was romantic, perfect and full of love and care. Spending time with Jason was like being in your own personal heaven.

[oswednesday]

i had a strange dream last night! it was like, the dream all felt like from the same thing like it had the same feeling but was split into three? like there were three settings and even tho stuff was different in each setting there was some overlay and all had a similar feeling i cant really express? like the first one i was with someone else and we were walking through a village being told to stay away from an area because it was filled with vampires but we ignored the villagers and went through the graveyard and sure enough vampires were just shooting up out of the ground and we ran to our destination which was this castle thats the setting of a d&d campaign im working on like a mixture of mideval euro style buildings and modern glass building in one thing and this building was like a Utopia on the inside where everyone worked to support everyone else and you could live there for Free otherwise like inside there were stores and stuff and who i was with got a job as cashiering and the woman in charge couldnt find a place for me and i was like not?? suspectible to like the hive mind spell she had over everyone that was making them like complacent and not seek the outside at all so she had me turned into a vampire, okay pin that dream

the next dream started and i wasnt in it at all it was like a boy and his friends and his father and they lived in like a ed ed and eddy style but like Real like the high fenced in neighborhood with a park and it was close enough to the beach that they could just go there and it was accessible to the neighborhood but only like open in the summer and it was at the end of the school year and this boy and his friends were like stuck in a cycle where something terrible like his dad kills him at the end of the school year and lots of bad stuff happens to his friends and he tries to stop it like a bunch but the bad things like change slightly but end up happening and the last itteration like just makes sure he stays away from his dad and doesnt try to stop the other bad things and he knows he’ll get murdered when he eventually goes home at the end of the day but hes spending his last day with his friends at the beach when he would normally lik be trying to stop and change a bunch of things and as it turns out one of the things he use to manage to prevent happened but he didnt this time and that other boy that he saves (like the kid is bullied in his class and he stops him from shooting a bunch of people by befriending him) goes on like a murder rampage and ends up at the main boy in my dream house but hes not there, he shoots his dad and then him self and so the main boy is saved from being murdered by like, letting go of the other situation and while hes like free from the cycle finally theres just this Feeling that was carried over from the last dream

 so unpin the last dream and me as a vampire, im set out to look for children because like theyre the most suspectible to the mind control magic and im in this house that the dream before took place only im like, recognizing it like its my family home or something and im noting the stuff that was changed over the years and how some places have fallen into disrepair and i move further back and the more open the layout becomes and theres like a backyard patio area thats like insulated by the outer walls of the house like a maze and theres flowers and an old man and i cant tell if its the boy now grown living there or if its like the spirit of the father, he has a beard and like we’re talking and it feels both like peaceful and violent at the same time and we’re like asking each other what are you doing here, how did you get there, where did you come from, are you happy like without really awnsering each other but holding it in a conversational form like i cant remember the extact way we were saying things cause it was like a conversation

and then i dreamt i was making breakfast at my grandparents on my dads side house at i was like in the middle of making pancakes like the way my grandma would make them but my (middle) brother wanted like some kinda meat in a crust of egg like a keishe and i was suppose to stop what i was doing and make it for him and like my dad and mom were there and my grandpa and grandma and other family members on that side i think and they were all picking at me and i just wanted to finish making the pancakes so i finished the meat and eggs breakfast and when i was done they were telling me how bad it was even tho it came out right so i gathered the pancakes i made up and a thing of whip creme and went to the closet in the hall to hide (which incidentally, was the only closet i never hid in while i lived/visited there) and i was trying to eat in private and my brother now like older was at the door of the hallway trying to open it while i was holding it shut and he was pulling with such force on his side that the wall around the door started to crack all the while im like trying to eat and crying and my grandma who i,r,l never once defended me from Anything told my brother off in my dream to like leave me alone hes done enough stuff like that and then i woke up

like each dream was kind of seperate but they all had a strange feeling like im feeling it now as i write it and im not sure what it is, i feel it in like my joints and its both like dusty and heavy but bright and airy like spring wind coming through a broken window in an old attic in the midday

[swampgallows]

i had a horrible dream that two of my exes (qp/zuke and bf) were going to some anime con that nate was playing but i was just attending, and then i find out that both of them are on the bill to play. only one of my exes is a dj irl and we’re on okay terms but in my dream i saw him kissing a small, cute girl 

it started with my ex qp arriving at my (old) house (all shitty dreams are in my old house it seems) trying ot tell me that he had changed, that he had become a different person because he discovered dancing, or something like that. he said he danced during basketball games, like that was his gig now, and through dancing he got sight of what really matters, some shit like that. there was a well-built woman leaning against the wall as he spoke. she was white but her skin was really tanned, like she was outdoors a lot, and her feet were almost copper color. i thought she was his new girlfriend, maybe, but the way he was following me around my old bedroom made me think he was trying to “patch things up”.

i couldn’t look at him the whole time. he kept saying things about how he doesn’t want to get famous, like be a famous dancer, he just dances. it’s just what he does. and i couldnt quite understand exactly what his “dancing” was? like he’d do dances after teams scored points or something. it sounded like the behavior of a four year old. “i’m not doing it for fame, but...” dude like you could become famous for this? standing around and doing a little dance like a toddler is your great, renowned art? it didnt make sense to me.

but apparently he took on a new name. his name was now “michael smith” but his act was “MICHAEL LEON”. in capital letters just like that. and he told me some sob story about how he’s “living with his dad now but just focuses on his art” and his dad’s name was like simone or something

i finally get the courage to say something because there’s this awkward silence. he keeps handing me things that are maybe gifts, i dunno. i remember one of them is this sketchbook or journal that he hands me, and i am so irate i almost snatch it from him, which ends up tearing the back of the leather cover. “oh... i didnt mean to do that. is it ruined?” “Oh no it’s fine, it’s... well, it has some scratches, but that’s... that’s okay... i hope you’ll keep it because i can’t take it back now.” “it’s not handmade or anything is it? because at my work we were selling some italian leather-bound journals embossed with angels and demons and they were eighty dollars. I thought about getting it because it looked cool but I couldn’t spend that much on a blank book.” [This is true. And they actually were eighty dollars.]

finally i turn to him and im trying to remember exactly what i said, what the verbiage was, i was cornered in the room that was my old ‘den’, and i said something like

“the pain you gave me / the way you hurt me was irreconcilable/irredeemable” (i used some ir-word but i felt like it was more in the middle of the sentence.) i looked at him with tears in my eyes, and he wouldnt go away, so i crawled into the bottom half of a bunkbed (we used to have one, not in that room. details) until he crawled in with me, trying to put his arms around me and soothe me. i started to cry very hard and muscled my way out of the bed and stormed off. the day ended.

it was a new day and nate and i were heading toward the “convention”. im walking down a long raised corridor with my buddy nate and telling him about all this shit and feeling pretty confident about how i didnt accept his “changed man” bullshit, that for how much he hurt me and what he put me through was nothing i was feeling capable of forgiving him for. we’re suddenly quite high and looking down at the event, and nate tries to not to tell me the bad news, that both of these exes are set to be on stage, performing, and i get a weird jealousy that “MICHAEL LEON” and his shitty singing and baby-dancing is on the bill and not me. he shouldnt even be at the event. i become overwhelmed with emotion and try to turn back, and nathan shouts at me not to go that way, or “let’s try to get out of here a different way”, because as i’m storming off i almost bump into the old zuke and see him deeply kissing a girl. i strafe away, wiping tears from my eyes, and not even a few paces later see my ex boyfriend doing the same. i went into what looked like a casino and then had a layout of some stripped-looking naxxramas.

i killed some dinosaur “mother” whose baby had been killed by a raid party by dropping a heavy, cold can of frozen juice on her head. i saw the achievement appear at the bottom. i had remembered what it was called but i forgot it now. i think it was something like “natural selection”. my brain is an idiot

illidan was further inside the ‘naxxramas’ (it looked a lot more like a very dark version of dire maul with dark gray stone actually but i “understood” it in my dream to be naxx) and i wanted to talk to him about what had happened, as i had cleared the mobs (i guess?) and was still feeling emotionally distraught. he was demon hunter illidan with horns and claws but not the big wings, and more blue than lavender. he was up high on a ledge but i think he was hostile and that was what deterred me from going up to him.

i think that’s where the dream dropped off. but my ex-qp trying to reconnect with me and ask forgiveness and whatever really fucking hurt me and pissed me off. and the “MICHAEL LEON” shit. he performed like neutral milk hotel-sounding stuff, which i’m not a fan of at all but our friend loves it and he used to give him shit about it. and our friend is named michael so im like dude wtf you took his name and his style of music and youre like “oh i’m the person im supposed to be now, i found myself, i’m a better person” no dude you just grafted the personality of our tender and talented friend onto yourself, FUCK OFF

for a moment in my dream i almost felt bad when he was telling me about his shitty dad who he’d call up on the phone to talk about his accomplishments and would have them just panned/passed off. but i was like dude, this guy fucking didnt even apologize to me in the dream, he didnt beg for me back or anything even, if anything, he came to GLOAT about himself like he always did. LOOK AT ME, LOOK WHAT IM DOING NOW, ARENT I GREAT? YOU SHOULD PRAISE ME FOR BEING SO GREAT man FUCK OFF you fucking piece of shit, even in my dreams youre a fucking asshole. if he really meant it, he would apologize, he would be on his fucking knees so weighed down by guilt and sympathy “how could i have put you through that” “i can never undo what i did” “i am sorry for withholding affection from you and toying with your feelings and openly being a conceited selfish horny dick with other girls directly in front of you, cheating on you right in front of your face but using bullshit lines about ‘exclusivity’ so i could take advantage of you while being entirely non-committed, so i could use you and keep you in line to have you when i wanted you but also not owe you anything” FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK MY SHITTY VIVID-ASS DREAMS

[alexrodriguespage]

DIY Living Wall | Wooden Dowel Plant Holders

Are you guys ready for an easy statement wall DIY?! I love the impact of a living wall. Bringing plants into your house give it a life and energy that only living things can. If you’re a plant hoarder like myself, this project is a great way to bring a lot of plants into a small space and on a tiny budget.

This project was sort of inspired by a Netflix binge a few months ago. There was an episode with a guy name Tom Raffield, who does the MOST AMAZING wood steam bending. (It’s season 17 episode 3) Once it was in my brain, I just couldnt get it out. But, obviously not having steam bending experience, I had to improvise. I think that is the best part of creativity, just figuring stuff out.

I knew that I wanted the design to be flush against the wall and then turn out to hold a planter and then turn back into the wall. And I wanted it to be impactful. I still love the trellis wall that I did in our old house  (every time I see it my heart gets a little gushy) and a great way to bring small plants into your home is to find ways to use lots of them. Hence the repeating. That being said, how cute would just one of the rows be by the side of your bed, or on a small wall in your entryway? This cute project will work anywhere!!

It seems like you should be able to walk into a store and all of the wood is perfectly straight. Well friends, that only happens at the Home Depot in heaven. Unfortunately that means for us mere mortals. we need to check our wood before we buy it.  Dowels are one of the easiest types to check. All you have to do is lay them on the ground and give them a slight nudge. You’ll be able to tell really quickly the ones that roll correctly (those are the straight ones!) and the ones that cant complete a full rotation (those are the bent ones!) For a project like this where we are using multiple lines that need to line up and be level, a crooked dowel will stand out like a sore thumb!

Here is your measurements and angles:

The trickiest part of this project is cutting the angles in the dowels so that when they are joined together the whole piece is straight and level. This isnt a hard thing when you are building something out of square or rectangular pieces, but round dowels are a whole different story. Because you are cutting the angles on both ends of the pieces, if it’s off then the shape gets wonky. But never fear my friends, after multiple failures and attempts at cutting them right, I figured out the easiest hack!!

How To Easily and Correctly Cut Angles in a Round Dowel

The first thing that you want to do is set a jig up on your miter saw. A jig is a piece of wood that is clamped in place so that when you put your piece to be cut, it sits against the clamped wood. This makes it so that every cut is the same. It also makes things go quicker because you dont have to measure and mark each individual piece. Life changing info here folks.

Cutting your first 45 degree angle is easy, you just put the dowel against the fence of your saw (the back part) and cut. Cutting the second angle is trickier, so let me show you the hack!

Take one of your off cuts and place it, long side, against your jig. That way, when the tip of your dowel (where the first cut is) touches the jig, this scrap piece meets up with it and forms a 90 degree angle.

This does 2 things. It makes it so the dowel is straight so that the second cut is made correctly. It also keeps the point from your first cut from being mashed into the jig, or wiggling around.

Cool right!?

  Determining the right size space for your planter

There are a world of different planters that you can use in this project. I love the IKEA Citronsyra for this project because they looks so great with their curvy shape, but if you have other planters that you love, it’s really easy to make them work as well. Just make sure they arent straight up and down because they’ll just slip through the hole. Measure the diameter of the opening on your planter and subtract 3/4″. This is the size you want the space for your planter to sit. I HIGHLY recommend building one of the holders and making sure that the planter sits the way you like before building all of them.

To join my dowels together I used wood glue (I love Titebond III) and pin nails. The pin nails do a great job of holding everything in place while the glue dries.

To hang the planters start by predrilling the screw holes that will hold it onto the wall. I LOVE the look of having the screws visible for this project. Because of the way that the dowels will line up on your wall, you will want to make sure that they are drilled the same on all of the planters.

Once you’ve got your holes predrilled, hold the planter up to the wall and level it. Make sure that it is leveled side to side, and front to back. Drill through the hole in the dowel into the wall. This is where you need to place your anchor if you didnt hit a stud. We have tried SO MANY different types of anchors, our favorite are Hillman (they’re the ones with the grey rubber on them.) Set your anchor following the instructions of the box and then screw through the front of the dowel into the anchor.

When you are setting your other rows, use a large level on the edge of the dowels to make sure that they all line up!

  Plant your pots with your favorites and stick em in! I love how easy it is to change where they are placed, you can swap them around until you get the perfect layout. (I recommend putting the tall guys at the top and the spilly ones in the center!)

Want more planter ideas? I’ve got a bunch!! You can check them all out here! Pssst, this Trellis Wall is my favorite!

Any questions? Leave them below!!

      The post DIY Living Wall | Wooden Dowel Plant Holders appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

DIY Living Wall | Wooden Dowel Plant Holders published first on https://vacuumpalguide.tumblr.com/

[lowmaticnews]

DIY Living Wall | Wooden Dowel Plant Holders

Are you guys ready for an easy statement wall DIY?! I love the impact of a living wall. Bringing plants into your house give it a life and energy that only living things can. If you’re a plant hoarder like myself, this project is a great way to bring a lot of plants into a small space and on a tiny budget.

This project was sort of inspired by a Netflix binge a few months ago. There was an episode with a guy name Tom Raffield, who does the MOST AMAZING wood steam bending. (It’s season 17 episode 3) Once it was in my brain, I just couldnt get it out. But, obviously not having steam bending experience, I had to improvise. I think that is the best part of creativity, just figuring stuff out.

I knew that I wanted the design to be flush against the wall and then turn out to hold a planter and then turn back into the wall. And I wanted it to be impactful. I still love the trellis wall that I did in our old house  (every time I see it my heart gets a little gushy) and a great way to bring small plants into your home is to find ways to use lots of them. Hence the repeating. That being said, how cute would just one of the rows be by the side of your bed, or on a small wall in your entryway? This cute project will work anywhere!!

It seems like you should be able to walk into a store and all of the wood is perfectly straight. Well friends, that only happens at the Home Depot in heaven. Unfortunately that means for us mere mortals. we need to check our wood before we buy it.  Dowels are one of the easiest types to check. All you have to do is lay them on the ground and give them a slight nudge. You’ll be able to tell really quickly the ones that roll correctly (those are the straight ones!) and the ones that cant complete a full rotation (those are the bent ones!) For a project like this where we are using multiple lines that need to line up and be level, a crooked dowel will stand out like a sore thumb!

Here is your measurements and angles:

The trickiest part of this project is cutting the angles in the dowels so that when they are joined together the whole piece is straight and level. This isnt a hard thing when you are building something out of square or rectangular pieces, but round dowels are a whole different story. Because you are cutting the angles on both ends of the pieces, if it’s off then the shape gets wonky. But never fear my friends, after multiple failures and attempts at cutting them right, I figured out the easiest hack!!

How To Easily and Correctly Cut Angles in a Round Dowel

The first thing that you want to do is set a jig up on your miter saw. A jig is a piece of wood that is clamped in place so that when you put your piece to be cut, it sits against the clamped wood. This makes it so that every cut is the same. It also makes things go quicker because you dont have to measure and mark each individual piece. Life changing info here folks.

Cutting your first 45 degree angle is easy, you just put the dowel against the fence of your saw (the back part) and cut. Cutting the second angle is trickier, so let me show you the hack!

Take one of your off cuts and place it, long side, against your jig. That way, when the tip of your dowel (where the first cut is) touches the jig, this scrap piece meets up with it and forms a 90 degree angle.

This does 2 things. It makes it so the dowel is straight so that the second cut is made correctly. It also keeps the point from your first cut from being mashed into the jig, or wiggling around.

Cool right!?

  Determining the right size space for your planter

There are a world of different planters that you can use in this project. I love the IKEA Citronsyra for this project because they looks so great with their curvy shape, but if you have other planters that you love, it’s really easy to make them work as well. Just make sure they arent straight up and down because they’ll just slip through the hole. Measure the diameter of the opening on your planter and subtract 3/4″. This is the size you want the space for your planter to sit. I HIGHLY recommend building one of the holders and making sure that the planter sits the way you like before building all of them.

To join my dowels together I used wood glue (I love Titebond III) and pin nails. The pin nails do a great job of holding everything in place while the glue dries.

To hang the planters start by predrilling the screw holes that will hold it onto the wall. I LOVE the look of having the screws visible for this project. Because of the way that the dowels will line up on your wall, you will want to make sure that they are drilled the same on all of the planters.

Once you’ve got your holes predrilled, hold the planter up to the wall and level it. Make sure that it is leveled side to side, and front to back. Drill through the hole in the dowel into the wall. This is where you need to place your anchor if you didnt hit a stud. We have tried SO MANY different types of anchors, our favorite are Hillman (they’re the ones with the grey rubber on them.) Set your anchor following the instructions of the box and then screw through the front of the dowel into the anchor.

When you are setting your other rows, use a large level on the edge of the dowels to make sure that they all line up!

  Plant your pots with your favorites and stick em in! I love how easy it is to change where they are placed, you can swap them around until you get the perfect layout. (I recommend putting the tall guys at the top and the spilly ones in the center!)

Want more planter ideas? I’ve got a bunch!! You can check them all out here! Pssst, this Trellis Wall is my favorite!

Any questions? Leave them below!!

      The post DIY Living Wall | Wooden Dowel Plant Holders appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

DIY Living Wall | Wooden Dowel Plant Holders published first on https://landscapingmates.blogspot.com

[jeffdonaldsons]

DIY Living Wall | Wooden Dowel Plant Holders

Are you guys ready for an easy statement wall DIY?! I love the impact of a living wall. Bringing plants into your house give it a life and energy that only living things can. If you’re a plant hoarder like myself, this project is a great way to bring a lot of plants into a small space and on a tiny budget.

This project was sort of inspired by a Netflix binge a few months ago. There was an episode with a guy name Tom Raffield, who does the MOST AMAZING wood steam bending. (It’s season 17 episode 3) Once it was in my brain, I just couldnt get it out. But, obviously not having steam bending experience, I had to improvise. I think that is the best part of creativity, just figuring stuff out.

I knew that I wanted the design to be flush against the wall and then turn out to hold a planter and then turn back into the wall. And I wanted it to be impactful. I still love the trellis wall that I did in our old house  (every time I see it my heart gets a little gushy) and a great way to bring small plants into your home is to find ways to use lots of them. Hence the repeating. That being said, how cute would just one of the rows be by the side of your bed, or on a small wall in your entryway? This cute project will work anywhere!!

It seems like you should be able to walk into a store and all of the wood is perfectly straight. Well friends, that only happens at the Home Depot in heaven. Unfortunately that means for us mere mortals. we need to check our wood before we buy it.  Dowels are one of the easiest types to check. All you have to do is lay them on the ground and give them a slight nudge. You’ll be able to tell really quickly the ones that roll correctly (those are the straight ones!) and the ones that cant complete a full rotation (those are the bent ones!) For a project like this where we are using multiple lines that need to line up and be level, a crooked dowel will stand out like a sore thumb!

Here is your measurements and angles:

The trickiest part of this project is cutting the angles in the dowels so that when they are joined together the whole piece is straight and level. This isnt a hard thing when you are building something out of square or rectangular pieces, but round dowels are a whole different story. Because you are cutting the angles on both ends of the pieces, if it’s off then the shape gets wonky. But never fear my friends, after multiple failures and attempts at cutting them right, I figured out the easiest hack!!

How To Easily and Correctly Cut Angles in a Round Dowel

The first thing that you want to do is set a jig up on your miter saw. A jig is a piece of wood that is clamped in place so that when you put your piece to be cut, it sits against the clamped wood. This makes it so that every cut is the same. It also makes things go quicker because you dont have to measure and mark each individual piece. Life changing info here folks.

Cutting your first 45 degree angle is easy, you just put the dowel against the fence of your saw (the back part) and cut. Cutting the second angle is trickier, so let me show you the hack!

Take one of your off cuts and place it, long side, against your jig. That way, when the tip of your dowel (where the first cut is) touches the jig, this scrap piece meets up with it and forms a 90 degree angle.

This does 2 things. It makes it so the dowel is straight so that the second cut is made correctly. It also keeps the point from your first cut from being mashed into the jig, or wiggling around.

Cool right!?

 Determining the right size space for your planter

There are a world of different planters that you can use in this project. I love the IKEA Citronsyra for this project because they looks so great with their curvy shape, but if you have other planters that you love, it’s really easy to make them work as well. Just make sure they arent straight up and down because they’ll just slip through the hole. Measure the diameter of the opening on your planter and subtract 3/4″. This is the size you want the space for your planter to sit. I HIGHLY recommend building one of the holders and making sure that the planter sits the way you like before building all of them.

To join my dowels together I used wood glue (I love Titebond III) and pin nails. The pin nails do a great job of holding everything in place while the glue dries.

To hang the planters start by predrilling the screw holes that will hold it onto the wall. I LOVE the look of having the screws visible for this project. Because of the way that the dowels will line up on your wall, you will want to make sure that they are drilled the same on all of the planters.

Once you’ve got your holes predrilled, hold the planter up to the wall and level it. Make sure that it is leveled side to side, and front to back. Drill through the hole in the dowel into the wall. This is where you need to place your anchor if you didnt hit a stud. We have tried SO MANY different types of anchors, our favorite are Hillman (they’re the ones with the grey rubber on them.) Set your anchor following the instructions of the box and then screw through the front of the dowel into the anchor.

When you are setting your other rows, use a large level on the edge of the dowels to make sure that they all line up!

 Plant your pots with your favorites and stick em in! I love how easy it is to change where they are placed, you can swap them around until you get the perfect layout. (I recommend putting the tall guys at the top and the spilly ones in the center!)

Want more planter ideas? I’ve got a bunch!! You can check them all out here! Pssst, this Trellis Wall is my favorite!

Any questions? Leave them below!!

   The post DIY Living Wall | Wooden Dowel Plant Holders appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

via Mandi at DIY Living Wall | Wooden Dowel Plant Holders via Jeff Donaldson’s Blog DIY Living Wall | Wooden Dowel Plant Holders

[mi5015thomascorking]

The good, the bad, the ugly.

Before I do my end of unit review, I want to look back through my blog and explain why I have made decisions and where I have dropped in quality dueto a variety of reasons.

The good: For the most part I managed to build my environment to resemble my concept idea and successfuly recreate his patterns into my mazes structure. My normal maps are convincing and resemble the imbedded rock patterns of my artists work. I have created a huge environment which grounds the themes of the atmosphere his work made me feel, combined with his organic and repetetive patterns. I have successfully managed to learn and experiment with blueprinting, to create new textures, normal maps, make textures glow in the dark using a normal map, trigger boxes and interactive elements. The rooms with the sculptures in are atmospheric and they look pretty in the environment (especially the glowing red sculptures), lit up in the light and with the particle affects. I have successfully managed to incorporate the artist in various ways. For the texture of the walls I used one of his very own patterns, and converted them into a normal map. I did not recreate any of his sculptures, but I created some sculptures that bare a resemblance to his work and I presented them within the environment (mostly) in a similar way to how Peter would photograph and display his work. I have incorporated the very patterns of his work into the structure of my world in the layout of the maze; I have incorporated my own interpretation of his art into my work by capturing the atmosphere and emotion his work makes me experience (albeit exaggerated). I even managed to incorpote the artist via audio. When talking to my lecturer, he told me to think about what I think the artist would use for audio if he was to make a game, so I used music created by rocks (wind whistling through a rocky cave, sonorous rocks that ring when they have been struck). This helped the solidify the organic structure and view of my world and I hopefully have captured the world and ideas of the artist successfully. The Bad: Whilst I managed to capture the artists patterns in the maze, I only succeeded to create a maze structure on two of his designs as opposed to my original idea of 3. Due to time constraints, I had to scrap the third pattern idea and just opted to replace it with a repeat of the first section. I did however add a ramp and a blueprint platform to this area though. The different areas were also meant to be textured differently to make them contrast more against eachother. I only manged to create one texture out of Peters work as I took a long time trying to make his work seamless and then I had to learn how to create a normal map in photoshop. This time consumption has lead to my enviornment being very easy to leave the viewer bored as they are left experiencing the same texture over and over again. This did however sort of help to support my idea of the repetition and also helped in making the maze feel like a maze. Mazes are repetetive. Due to only managing to get one normal map done, this meant a lot of the sculptures textures I had originally planned for had to be scrapped.

I also accidentally created the world as a 3rd person character. The brief calls for 1st person. This meant I had to either restart or convert my player into 1st person. I managed to mimic 1st person view via editing the character blueprint and cameraboom position. This sadly left the movements mildly glitchy. If I looked up too much the character mesh would become visible through the camera.

The Ugly: After converting my seamless texture into a normal map is when the seams began to stand out more. My texture wasnt that seamless. This sadly left my walls to not align up and have very visible seams like slabs on the walls. Overall this seems to be overlooked. In order for my environment interior to be realistically dark enough for a character to be weilding a torch, I removed the sky box. This made the outside no longer bright and had to be lit up with lights. I managed to make the final environment and sculpture look pretty, however the darkess of the outside ruined the contrast between the freedom of the outside world and the cramped dark maze. Sadly I couldnt work out how to make the skylight not go through my objects and stop lighting up the interior of my maze. Despite having a complex maze design for the most part, this made uv unwrapping a hell. In the end I had to settle for auto uv unwrap, which allowed for my textures/maps to be consistent in size along the walls. This did sadly hinder my ability to have multiple textures per area. I originally wanted the display rooms to have the same red glowing walls as some of my sculptures. If I tried to uv unwrap all the walls and floor, the textures would end up pointing in different directions, becoming stretched and hideous. I did successfully manage to map the floor and walls of one display room and the textures were magnificent for that zone, but the rest of the objects walls outside the room were messed up. The constant uv unwrapping for every individual wall in the maze was heavily time consuming. It took me 3 weeks to be able to get the walls to look reasonable when textured. In hindsight I should have left it at auto earlier and this would have gave me more time to create new sculptures and maps/textures and create more blueprints.