#need to figure out how to take good screencap so I can use them as references

[peachyhoolagan]

I’m playing Jedi Survivor!!1 bode reminds me so much of Tristan. Can’t believe him and cal flirted their whole first mission together, wild.

Anyways, have some sketches. I’m like REALLY busy and also creatively stunted rn. I just applied to university and I’ve been organizing my portfolio while also still in school and finishing up my last year. Honestly I really really want to keep making rebels/ Star Wars art but I have no juices left. Hoping cal and his slutty outfits can help fix that

[bisexualbaker]

Crochet Pattern for Palestine and Israel Relief

At long last, it's done!

This crochet pattern is for small cats, of a good size to make into keychains, magnets, or even hair clips! There are six PDF versions available:

- US stitch names in 12 point Atkinson Hyperlegible - US stitch names in 22 point Atkinson Hyperlegible - US stitch names in 22 point Comic Sans

- UK stitch names in 12 point Atkinson Hyperlegible - UK stitch names in 22 point Atkinson Hyperlegible - UK stitch names in 22 point Comic Sans

Between those six options, that should cover most pattern accessibility needs. If you need something else, though, let me know! I'm prepared to offer a .doc or similar file on an individual basis if you need a screenreader to access crochet patterns, and have a sheet I can use to translate things to German stitch terms (though more in-depth instructions would still be in English). The pattern is worked primarily in (US) single crochet/(UK) double crochet, with the ears in (US) double crochet/(UK) treble crochet popcorn stitches, and is bundled with similar file options of a popcorn stitch tutorial PDF (no stitch names used).

"Socchan," you say, "These cats are super cute! And you said that this pattern is for charity? How does that work exactly?"

I'm glad you asked! Simply donate a minimum of $3 or close-enough local equivalent to a related charity, then take a screencap of your receipt/proof of donation. Block out any information that could doxx you; it's nice if you trust me, but it's not impossible that my email could get hacked, and I want you to be safe! Finally, email the altered screencap to socchan (at) protonmail (dot) com.

Once I get and check the screencap, I will email you back with a link to a MediaFire folder and the password you'll need to open the PDFs. Yes, it is a bit of a pain to need a password to open these files, but this was the simplest way I could figure out how to do things without needing to upload and send a minimum of six files to every person. Download as many of the variations as you want, keep a copy of the password somewhere safe (and don't delete the email with it), and go to town!

As a bonus, if you take your donation up to at least $5 (or close-enough local equivalent), I'll throw in an additional link and password for a very cute little flower pattern!

"That sounds pretty easy," you go on to say, "but where should I donate? There are so many options to choose from!"

No problem! Here's a couple of short lists of options that can help you narrow things down:

Palestine: Palestine Children's Relief Fund - Focuses on medical aid to children in Palestine Medical Aid for Palestine - "[H]elp MAP respond to the ongoing emergency in Gaza, as well as provide medical supplies, support healthcare services and deliver long term development to healthcare in the occupied Palestinian territory and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon." MAP reportedly has a team on the ground in Gaza, providing critical medical aid. Anera - Providing food, hygiene kits, and medical care in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Palestine Red Crescent - More medical support in Palestine; the rest of the webpage is in Arabic, so be prepared if you want to click around at all. Basically the Palestinian Red Cross. Gaza Cemetery Project - "Al-Hamdulillah, a ​​5,500 square meters’ piece of land has been secured to create a public cemetery for the city and neighbouring areas." This area still needs a fence to protect the burial plots before it can be used.

Israel: Zaka - A group of first responders and people who identify bodies and prepare them for burial (sadly, sorely needed right now); they are in need of safety equipment, medical supplies, first aid kits, and more. Red Magen David - The Israeli/Jewish equivalent of the Red Cross; first responder medical support and similar. (This one has some pretty immediate upsetting text, so take care!) Hatzalah - Similar to Red Magen David, another first responder and emergency medical group. The Koby Mandell Foundation - Focuses on bereavement aid in Israel for people who have lost loved ones in traumatic circumstances; they've got support hotlines and can arrange for support visits, among other things. The Refuser Solidarity Network - Providing support for Israeli citizens who refuse government mandatory military service.

I think that's everything, aside from: Please Signal Boost! If I end up having to send out two hundred emails in the next couple of days, that still won't be too many.

[argentangelhelps]

HOW TO SCREENCAP & POST YOUR CAPS : A MOSTLY COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE

i got an ask about this, and it felt like it was too long of an explanation to answer in an ask so i made this guide. i am definitely not the expert (as proven by the fact that my VLC tutorial is two links to better tutorials than i could ever make) , but i hope this is helpful!

TABLE OF CONTENTS - finding stuff to cap - capping 101 - storage

FINDING STUFF TO CAP the less "crime" you do while doing this the better honestly. make someone else do it for you and if you absolutely must sail the seven seas 🏴‍☠️ for the love of god use a good vpn and anti-virus. the safest way to find downloads is to find pages who post them for you to use - on tumblr that is hdsources ! we love hdsources here - there are also pages on instagram (and apparently the site formerly known as twitter, but i don't use those) who post downloads of stuff. my favorites on insta are megaawrld_ , logolessfiles, djatsscenes, sadisticscenes and elyse.logoless . to get into these pages you do have to have an instagram account, but once you get in you can get links to them posting shows and movies. this is significantly safer than p*racy. the next step if these pages don't have what you want is to get them yourself through other ways. if you have to do that, GET A FUCKING VPN.

CAPPING 101 now that you have something to cap, it's time to actually make screencaps. you're gonna wanna download a program to do that. most people use VLC, i use adapter for the most part but it can be fickle so i'm learning to use VLC too.

adapter doesn't require much in depth so here's a quick tutorial: - have file and drop it into the window (it can read mp4 and mkv files) - select where you want your screencaps to end up, i make a folder for them - select your frame rate (how many images you want to generate per second of video. i tend to do 1, and anything over 5 creates so many pictures that its too much to deal with, but if you're making gifs you want more pictures) - select your file size and image quality.

i could not explain VLC to you if i tried, i am still figuring out how to use it. this tutorial & this tutorial have been very helpful though !

STORAGE

honestly this should have probably come first, but i didn't want to scare people. there are two types of storage, physical and cloud storage. to run a resource blog you need both.

physical storage comes in the form of space on a hard drive. your computer has a limited amount of space and i truly do not suggest keeping every screencap you've ever made on your computer's hard drive. screencaps take up A LOT of space. get an external hard drive and get the beefiest one you can afford. ssds (solid state drives) are fast as fuck. depending on how much content you make (and how much you can afford) get at LEAST 2 tbs but maybe get more. i like this guy cause it's fast and small!

if you just came here to learn how to screencap you can stop here unless you want to learn how to back up your files because that's really what cloud storage is for.

cloud storage is storage that is not on your actual computer. you cannot touch it but it's important if you want to make your screencaps available for other people to use.

i'm a big fan of dropbox, mega, mediafire and if you absolutely must use it google drive. (my preferences are in that order) unfortunately, cloud storage gets really expensive really fast and there's kind of no way to avoid it. compress your files when you upload them so they take up less space in whatever form of cloud storage you do get, and pray.

that's what i got for ya! if you have any questions feel free to send an ask or join my discord server!

[sanderssideswriting]

Just watched the Halloween video from this year and saw screencaps of the Halloween video from a few years back… I just don’t understand how we can go from Frankenstein prosthetics for Logan in that episode to messy eyeliner with visible mess up marks for Janus in the new one. Like it’s not a difference of a new makeup artist, it just feels like a lack of caring for it to be as good as it’s been.

I just loved this series so deeply before, so it’s frustrating to see what seem like such flippant disregard for the quality of what they’re making

thank you for this ask because I've been thinking of going through each makeup look and analyzing them more. I totally agree with you about the lack of care. The whole thing is so insanely rushed when they could've taken like, a few more days of planning if they wanted to get it out for halloween, or hell a few days after and have them spin it as them being sad spirit halloween is gone for the year and what a spirit christmas would be like. Or like, the 12 days of christmas but 12 days of spirit halloween? I just feel like there could've been some better ideas. The makeup looks like they were given 5 minutes to figure out what each side would be and 5 minutes to do the make up itself.

onto the make up analysis that'll be under the cut.

Little disclaimer before though, I'm in no way a makeup artist, what I am is a cosplayer and I've pulled together some pretty cool shit with very limited supplies and knowledge.

editors note: so according to the comments it seems like everyone's a character from the nightmare before christmas? Or at the least, Remus, Virgil, Roman and maybe Logan. I don't know, I've seen the movie like twice. just keep that in mind I didn't know until after writing everything below. But it really doesn't change my criticisms of the makeup

first on the list: JANUS

now this is just, I don't even know what it is. I think it's from the I'm Mr White Christmas, song because every year people do half Mr. White Christmas and half Mr. Sun makeup and it looks very good. But you don't need it to look that good. Like, I'd personally make the contrast between the blue and red way more, because it just isn't there. Maybe to keep the snake appearance do like, orange scales or orange underneath then red? Something to look more like fire. the joker esque smile doesn't work, again the contrast is very bad. The blue sticks out but the red doesn't so I'd get some lipstick, maybe a blue eyeliner if you can't get a blue lipstick, and loose the black lines, maybe make the blue side white and the red side more of a very dark red?

VIRGIL

I've got no idea, it's just so generic. A ghoul? A zombie? Who knows, not me. first of all, make the eye makeup darker, maybe some dark contour to make his cheeks look sunken in. if the stitches have to be purple then I'd say make it darker and use a black eyeliner pencil to add some definition and some detail that's harder to do with the eyeshadow

LOGAN

Frankenstein's monster? Or Frankenstein, the thing on his forehead says monster, the lab coat says man. why the fuck is Logan the only one who's got something over his usual attire. I guess you could argue that he just has one laying around? I'm not going to get into the wonky line, straight lines are hard. but the screw, again could've been done better with an eyeliner pencil because they are very pale.

PATTON

also I'm not trying to take unflattering screenshots, I'm just trying to get a clear one of Thomas facing the camera

a clown! very simple, very easy and the makeup is fucking visible!! Personally, adding the triangles around the eyes would be nice, for Patton I'd definitely lean on the fun side of clows and not the scary side. I just think a little more could be done. But I'm just thankful there's an actual red nose. The bar is low. I have to mention Patton's verse again, it's so bad, so rushed, could there not have been a little more thought into it specifically?

ROMAN

Jack Skellington I believe? I don't fucking know. my issue is the eyemake up once again, Make it much darker and less blocky. maybe some nose contour or try to make it look like an actual human skull? the stitches are eh, but I feel like they could be darker, maybe a liquid eyeliner in this case. This is also the only one where I think they really tried to hide Thomas's mustache I guess for the lip stitches?

REMUS

THe boogey man? Also from the nightmare before christmas. Are Roman and Remus doing a group costume? Remus's is probablt the best, he is also the only other side with something over his costume. The makeup looks pretty good, the black is solid at least around his mouth. Again, the eye makeup should be darker. the things on his cheeks are worms I believe. those are alright, I'd probably try to make them stand out a little more

[starmocha]

I'M GONNA HUG YOU SO MUCH!!!! 🫂 🫂🫂🫂🫂

I needed to get that vent about caleb's horrible kisses out of my chest. I liked his bday, I think it was a tiny bit rushed but I understand the need to get them into a relationship they're not afraid of being anymore because the other lis had the NR card to erase any kind of doubt that they were dating and doing it, well, maybe not officially dating since sylusmc only started referring to themselves as a couple in MO and his 4 stars card which name i forgot.

But anyway, I figured they'd do something like that on caleb's bday because it was the perfect opportunity.

But the popping sounds...like, c'mon, he must have practiced a little with his hand when he was a teen (kissing, I mean)

I'm not gonna lie, it upset me so much. How did that pass through the editing process, idk. And it sucks because the kiss itself was very beautiful.

Also lowkey upset that if this really was their first time, we just got a fade to black. Kinda hoping the rumored spicy beach banner gives us some panting caleb, some worshipping of her body like the other guys did.

It feels so good to talk about this. 😭😭Seriously, it was eating at me. I almost posted on twitter but lads twitter doesn't know that you can love a character and complain about a flaw of theirs at the same time.

I feel bad for the va but the kissing needs to get better. It just does.

(I'm also mourning the loss of that tension a little bit. I'm glad they're not afraid but I was loving their interactions, caleb holding back, mc feeling guilty but wanting him. Hidden waves and endless summer are my favorite cards because of that exact tension. especially in hidden waves when he covers her mouth and stares into her eyes with so much longing.)

(I'm also keeping my hcs that she'd sneak into his bed at night and they'd do stuff. That he'd be the big spoon but always try to keep his hips far but she'd wiggle her way back into him and they'd basically dry hump and he'd cum in his pants while making her cum by just touching her clit, nothing else, nothing more. YOU'RE NOT TAKING THAT FROM ME INFOLD.)

but seriously

the kissing needs to get better 😭😭😭😭

The funny part is I've noticed from his myth until his birthday, on many of the official posts on both twitter and instagram, people were pleading with the devs to have his English VA work on his kissing sounds... 😔

I wasn't expecting a leap in improvement since his myth, but... this was regressing. It was distracting from quite an emotional scene. I literally had secondhand embarrassment so bad that when I went back to do some screencaps, I muted the volume........ 😔😔😔

I agree! This is not dissing the VA. I was really rooting for him to improve, because I know the internet is not always kind with their criticism. I'm sure he will improve in the future, but it's such a shame that an important scene for a birthday card was short of perfection.

Caleb's yearning game is top tier <3 I love his expressions in those cards, too, and I also want to add Rain's Embrace during the scene he watches over MC as she sleeps against him while it's raining. Honestly, I loved those little tidbits into their lives growing up together. 🥺

[thequeensgrimoire]

Deck Interview! The Alleyway Tarot

Greetings all! I've recently gotten three new decks from Seven Dane Osmund and am excited to do my first new deck interview in quite a while - a spread for the new mismatched Tarot deck I picked up, which is called The Alleyway Tarot.

I'll be using the deck interview spread from queerjusticetarot.com, shown in a screencap below, and you can find their spreads linked here if you'd like to check them out!

Now without further ado, let's continue with the interview down below...

I love this deck already, it's energy is nice to work with and seems very easy to shuffle and intuitive to use.

What major lesson are you here to help me learn? High Priestess - Pure intuition and magic, a divine muse of inspiration. This deck is here to help me be inspired and open to magic, to learn to take opportunities and not to hesitate or doubt myself in a reading, a magical working, or in life.

Through what energy can we best communicate? 9 of Pentacles - With adult maturity, a stable mindset and centered sense of self, and a commitment to putting in the work. The energy needs to be a balance of enjoyment and a willingness to work hard for the results - not a slackers deck.

In what area can you help me to help others? The Devil - In the area of allowing them to be their true, basic self. This card if about the body and ones wants and desires not as controlling, terrible things, but as natural and unavoidable. It's going to be most useful in the area of helping people accept who and what they are, and not trying to force people into something they aren't. Truth to the self.

In what area is your guidance most easily understood? 8 of Cups, Reversed - This deck's guidance will be most clear in the area of assessment, in waiting and watching or in giving signs on when to move on and when to stick things through. It's a deck of moderation, not just in refusing excess or restriction but in moderation between choices or opposing forces.

What can I do to keep our communication clear? Ace of Cups - Keep your heart open for the new, and treat each reading as a primal origin and a blank canvas from which new insights can emerge. Accept the reading as it is with an open heart - not good, not bad, just being.

How can I use your guidance for the highest good? Queen of the Cauldron - When you read with this deck, it's guidance is that of motherly advice, or of an assured mentor's guiding hand. When using the guidance of this deck, do so with the firm confidence and gentle touch of a wise, maternal figure - never condescending or haughty, but assured of ones own intuition.

How will I know when we're ready for a new lesson? Ace of Pentacles - You will know it's time for the next lesson when the opportunity presents itself, plain and simple. It will be offered, not made, but it will come either way.

[brotherconstant]

Hi 😊 👋 I hope I'm not bothering you, I have two questions, do you use 2k files and how do you make actions work on photopea? Your GIFs are so beautiful and I can't make mine look that good.

hello anon, of course you're not bothering me <3

yes, i always use hd videos (1080p, never 720p. when using photoshop you can make a 720p file work, but on photopea it's a hard no, at least for me. it makes coloring and sharpening harder, too). i never use 4k/2160p files, they slow my computer down and loading the screencaps takes ages. plus for most of the shows i gif 4k/2160p eps are unavailable.

i went over actions in this tutorial if you want to check it out, but i'll explain again in case you already read that, i know it can be tricky when you're new to it. it took me a few tries as well, i almost gave up lol.

(i'm assuming you know how to create actions since you're asking abt how to make them work but if not, let me know)

so, after creating the action (or downloading it + loading it in photopea, if you don't want to create your own, but i recommend creating your own), you need to make sure you

DO NOT select the folder/action set (ACTION SET 3 in this case) but the action itself, as shown above.

then you want to select all your screencaps

(not while they're smart objects, rasterize and make into frames first)

(select the first screencap, scroll back up - or down, depending on which screencap you choose - press Shift and, while you keep pressing Shift, select the last screencap).

Now you want to click or tap the play button at the bottom of the screencap, next to the rec button.

All your screencaps will be sharpened.

It's better to do this after cropping and resizing btw.

[in my tutorial i also explain you can create actions to resize and crop your gifs, which makes your work faster, but it hasn't always worked out for me (works with succ, black sails for example). it's especially tricky for shows like iwtv or foundation s2 where you need to make sure you crop out the black borders. there's probably a way to do it but i haven't figured it out yet.]

you'll know notice that for every tv show/movie you gif, you may need to slightly (or dramatically) adjust your sharpening settings. with some shows, like foundation and the expanse, i can even "over sharpen" and the quality won't suffer much, the opposite sometimes.

just try out different settings until you're happy with the result. you can rarely go wrong with 500% + 0.3p | 10% + 10p. but i also change the 500 value to 400 or 300 for some of my gifs. it takes a lot of practice, but you will see results. ❤️❤️❤️

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Speaking of translation (t.y. for the opening anon), I'm curious of the closest true in-context translation of this panel (ch.3), bcoz there're 2 version with completely different tone.

And do you know how to learn the meaning of Japanese from contexts and affixes like the previous question? Or what level of Japanase will I need to start learning them? (It really grind my gear everytime I learn that some translations from anything got it wrong/different context than the Japanese counterpart)

For the first part: I haven't actually read that bit in Japanese because I picked up the series when I bought volume one from Viz, but I did see that Viz's translation of this didn't match the screencaps floating around at the time, so I asked a friend of mine who works as a JPN > ENG translator.

TL;DR, Viz's translation is better. While the word William used can be used for sex, it has more connotation of letting loose, going wild, having some reckless fun, etc., without referring to any specific actions.

This is not the first time I've seen fan translations in this series lean heavily on sexual meanings of words that aren't really relevant to the situation in which they're used and taking it too seriously.

For the second...

Context is something you need in every language you know and learn. It's something you need even in languages you're fluent in to intuit meaning. For my last post about this, the context was that the prior discussion was that the brothers had been discussing how Louis was so strong and reliable when he had been weaker beforehand and always protected.

Language doesn't mean much of anything without context. Or at least it means a lot less.

As for connotation, you learn it as part of learning the language and seeing how the words are used and what effect they're being used for. This is just something you pick up as you go. Dictionaries with good example sentences can help.

As for affixes...well, I was actually talking about particles, which in Japanese overlap some, but are really very different things. And you cannot learn Japanese without learning particles. They are critical to Japanese grammar and sentence structure. They are the pieces of the sentence that hold everything together and indicate how words in the sentence relate to other words in the sentence. The particles mean Japanese syntax is in general a lot looser than English syntax.

I personally have a handbook of particles to help figure out the various things. I find it helpful. You can also google them, I guess. Wikipedia has a long list of various uses for various particles.

You need to start learning particles like に at the most introductory levels of Japanese, and your understanding of them will grow as your understanding of the grammar does.

[ms-demeanor]

Here's the info from that article (with a lot of heavy editorializing from me):

Don't call or text; you want to leave as minimal a traceable digital footprint as possible and cellphones are extremely traceable. The Trump admin is committed to collecting metadata from journalists who receive leaks and that includes call history and who sent text messages; even if the message gets deleted there is a record of it with the carrier that can be subpoenaed.

If you are going to email, do so from a burner account created for the purpose of leaking/whistleblowing. (my advice: use a service like protonmail that allows you to encrypt messages and doesn't collect any data beyond what is absolutely necessary for an email system to function; email is inherently insecure you have to treat it as insecure, but a burner account at a privacy-focused company like proton that facilitates sending encrypted messages is the best option for email; here's some information about how to use protonmail as privately as possible) When setting up your burner email, do not use your phone number for 2FA or include any accurate biographical information during the account setup. Set up the account while using a traffic anonymizer like Tor. Here's a PDF about what Tor is and how it works and here's the Tor project's manual explaining how to install and configure the browser for privacy. (The article advises to use Tor or a VPN but that raises the question of whether you trust your VPN provider; if you are going to use a VPN use one of the ones recommended by privacyguides; I know fuck all about VPNs but I know I wouldn't trust most VPN providers in this context).

Don't reach out to the person you're leaking to on social media. I feel like this should be obvious, but it may not be - don't reach out through meta or X or tumblr, these are not anonymous platforms and they can and will be compelled to share messages sent to journalists or data sent from your account. Don't follow the people you're leaking to (unless you already happened to be following them), don't interact with their posts. Do not make any kind of visible connection between you and the person you are leaking to.

Be careful about using encrypted messaging platforms. I personally wouldn't trust telegram or whatsapp, and I haven't heard of Session until now, but generally speaking Signal is one of your safest bets for sending messages. Signal collects the smallest amount of user data it can, and while it does require a phone number to sign up, the phone number doesn't have to stay connected to your username. If you don't already have a signal account, create one NOW because one of the things that they do track and can be compelled to disclose is when an account was created. If an account is linked to you and it was created shortly before a leak, that's suspicious. Create an account now and have it handy for when you need it. IF you are using signal, be aware that people can still screencap your messages; don't share personally identifying data via signal chats.

Have good opsec about how you collect the data that you're going to leak. For example, don't email yourself a copy of the data from your work email account, take photos of the data on a non-work phone and then strip the metadata. If you require login access to get the info you're looking to leak, figure out if there's a way that you can make the leak more ambiguous about the access by making sure there's time between your access and the leak, or that the time of your access isn't included in the information that is leaked. Take a lot of time to think about how someone might track a leak back to you and take steps to mitigate that.

Don't save copies of the data that you've leaked; once you've passed the message on to people who can get it out there, destroy any copies that you had.

GlobaLeaks and SecureDrop are tools to securely share leaks with organizations that will publicize the information you're sharing while protecting you to the best of their ability. Do not access those sites through your normal browser when you are preparing to leak data, only access them through Tor.

Be cautious about who you leak to. (Look I love the team at It Could Happen Here but you don't share a leak with a podcaster you share a leak with a group like Distributed Denial of Secrets). Focus on groups that have a history of securely sharing leaked info and on outlets that might have some legal protection from sharing information about you. The Intercept and DDoSecrets are the two that spring to mind immediately for me. (In fact I got the screenshot at the top of this thread because I went searching for this intercept article to paste on to a reply to another post but then this happened so here we are). Both of those links have their tips for leakers, btw.

It isn't stated elsewhere here so I'll add it at the end: if you are using Tor, don't log in to personal accounts that are associated with your real name or your private data. If you create burner accounts, don't use them to communicate with accounts associated with your real name or private data.

Also don't tell people - partners, parents, friends, etc. - that you're going to leak something.

And, I cannot emphasize this enough, do not tell me or any other tumblr user if you have data you are thinking about leaking or a hack you think you've pulled off. Don't talk about doing crime on the internet and definitely don't talk to me about it. Don't send an anonymous ask, don't send a private message. "The hacker or hacker-adjacent person I parasocially know from tumblr" is not a safe recipient for your leak and tumblr is not a secure or anonymous platform EVER.

buds, this is the wrong article to put under an email gate.

[ducknotinarow]

SF Mikey - Mun talks about the Muse

| Mun talks about the Muse. Send one of the following to ask the mun… (please specify muse for multis)

I wasn't originally planning to do this Mikey next but I figure since between the two of us we have nearly all the SF verse muses done it seemed only fair to do this Mikey next uwu And I guess its a good once to do next since well we know how we be with the SF stuff XD

✍ Favorite thing about writing the muse?

I love that he kind of seems very much like 03 Mikey, minus the surfer lingo. He's very high energy and makes a lot of jokes. I still love that even Donnie takes part in one of the jokes once along with mikey. But mostly they also keep Mikey's empathy in tact as well. Because Mikey is close to Slash in the game and he expresses his worries for him. Mikey also shows this when he has his own talk with Splinter. I just love that this mikey seems to mostly put the humor out front well the rest gets treated as a second part of himself and it just makes for an interesting character to write ya know when the muse is there at least.

👀Favorite thing about the muse’s appearance?

it comes down to the smallest thing again XD which I dont blame a game for not going all out on desing. But I think it's really cute that the mask tails are different but mostly I love that Mikey's make tails have like a ribbion cut to the ends ;3;

🌌Favorite alternate version of the muse? 💕Favorite ship for the muse? 💔Least favorite ship for the muse?

Gonna groupd these three together because they all have the same answer which is a big

N/A

Mikey dont have other versions of himself in the verse nor dose he have any ships for me to really speak of.

💢Something about the muse that annoys you?

The lack of content I have to work with for him, in truth? I use the MMPR comic the most to get a feel of his charater since they come off the same way to me. Even with Mikey getting things Don dosen't he still dosen't have a whole lot going for him. He's friends with slash, plays games and makes jokes XD so i gotta do a lot of the leg work here you see XD

😈Worst thing you’ve ever done to your muse?

Nothing..yet uwu

😂Funniest thing that’s ever happened to your muse?

Von telling Mikey about her tarot cards.

Look Mikey latched on to the cards telling him everything thats going to happen like someone who gose to physic once and forgets they are wearing something that gives away a small detail about them but the physic sees it and uses it so now its like damn this is real :0 Because well Mikey went a tad crazy with the whole thing even going so far as to ask what he should eat for breakfast. And Von im sorry that he just bombards you with anything to ask during a card reading XD

💡 What inspires you to write the muse?

playing the game of course like well everything else though in truth Mikey can be a bit hard to touch even with the game to give me muse to work with.

📷 Favorite picture/screencap of your muse?

it's from the prequel comic of course. Look I know I express how annoying it gets how the fandom will reduce Mikey to a baby but also look at this baby ;3; he so sad he needs hugs please TOT

📑 Favorite part of your muse’s backstory?

Lets touch on something I mentioned before. Mikey's empathy is always something im love from his charater and imma be honest its why I can't stand the rise version he just lacks this trait. Not to change it up though but I feel it's often over looked when it comes to Mikey as a character.

Mikey is a goof ball and I don't think that is something anyone wouldn't agree with. Mikey loves to joke around even in fights he often will joke around and I just know hes the type to be like spider-man and come off as not taking fights serious which of course makes sense so many like to compar the twi.

But, under that? is a very caring charater. It shows very well with Slash who like in the IDW comics it seems, is Mikey's best friend. It one of the few times Mikey shows worry. The other beign about Splinter of course, he dose mention a line about Leo I just can't recall it word for word. Also in the comic he dose when it comes to Leo and Raph's fight not so much the fight it self but more how Leo left because of it. I play into it most when I write Mikey

It's almost as if Mikey tries to hide it though maybe because it gives away his own worries and he tries not to let that show Mikey may be the baby of the family and often the one the others look out for but Mikey himself is doing the very same thing for his own brothers.

📝 Favorite headcanon for your muse?

the pizza tax, when mikeys the one todo the pizza run he always takes a slice for himself first his payment for making the run after all.

Mikey can cook but sometimes acts like he cn't to get out of doing it. I feel like Splinter handles cooking the most. And Mikey learned how to cook from his Dad. Around his brothers he acts like he can't just so he isn't always stuck doing ti so he can play more video games

Mikey runs a vintage video game platfourm on his socials. Mostly because old games is like all he can get his hands on. But seeing the whole fandom around that stuff? I feel makes it perfect for Mikey and he just comes off as this guy with a vast know how on these old games.

Mikey uses actual photos of himself for his icons, people just think it's like a costume like Marshmellow or Deadmouse.

Speaking of those I feel like Mikey's a big time fan of music like this and artis who do the whole mask head thing.

Mikey's been following Von's account before she started online fights with Donnie.

😒 Is there anything canon about your muse that you ignore?

Not that I can think of?

🔮 What do you see in your muse’s future?

I like to think Mikey will just become a streamer XD people already think hes in a costume? And hes got the following. I like the Idea of him having Von take part somehow even. Like maybe he'll play games and have her watch and commentate with him. Like I love the idea of him play Until Dawn and The Quarry I dunno they have vibes I think Von could maybe get into? and I can see Mikey asking for her tought cause of the totems and such in both these games XD

🔥 Unpopular opinion about your muse?

I don't think I have any?

💭 Favorite memory of the muse?

hmmm I guess it be the first time he met Von, which was of course the same day after her and Don hooked up. Raph the one who met her first of course but Mikey also got to meet her and of course they just made it worse for poo Donnie XD it's just funny when Donnie gotta deal with the two brothers you never want teaming against you do towards Donatello XD and the fact Von ends up very close with both of them? Rip donnie uwu

😩 Hardest thing about writing the muse?

I love this Mikey I know he doesn't stand out much he dosen't even have like much going on outside the game play even always seen just playing games. Where Leo's got the leader reasonability on him, Raph's got the challenging Leo stuff Don is like Mikey but even he got like something going on with Metal head upgrades or even his interest in the portals.

⌨ What’s a situation you’ve always wanted to RP with the muse?

hmmmmm I have no ideas XD Maybe the thing I mentioned in his future toss in the fact Raph is not a fan od slaher flims so mikey loving games like that? XXD I can just see him playing untill Dawn and Raphs all spooked acting like he aint and Von comes in and dunno maybe she can mention something on that stuff and just sparks this whole bonding experience uwu

🎭 How similar are you and the muse?

XD I legit can not think of a single thing I share in common with any Mikey outside the fact I also like Pizza and i dunno maybe the joking nature I have cause I enjoy teasing? But I tend to be more like Raph in that area because of HOW i tease XD

[beatrice-otter]

Yo! Your clarifications about 1980’s studies about the theory of mind talked about a test for kids that involved hearing a story and then answering questions about it. So, like. Does every autistic person have a lot of trouble with this kind of exercise? I’ve always had a lot of trouble with sounds and some other things and idk i guess I’m trying to figure out if autism is something I need to look at more seriously. Sorry if this is crossing a line and totally understand if you choose not to answer. Thanks for your time!

Not every autistic person has trouble with auditory processing, but many of us do.

One of the issues with autism is sensory processing disorder. Different parts of the brain process different pieces of sensory data. How well you process any particular sensation depends partly on how well that part of your brain works, and partly on what pathways your brain has to convey information to and from the various parts of your brain. In autistic people, the axon pathways that connect sensory processing areas tend to be atypical. Temple Grandin once gave a talk that included scans of her brain and put it up on Youtube, and I took some screencaps of it so I can share what it looks like:

On the left is Temple Grandin, on the right is a neurotypical person. The highlighted bits are the axon pathways connecting the visual processing area (at the back of the brain) with the speech processing areas at the front. Notice that Temple's pathways are much bigger and not connected in the same places? Here's a side view:

You will notice that in Temple, the axons are connected with just about everywhere in the brain except the place they're supposed to be.

This is a view of the axons connecting the part of the brain that processes hearing vs. the part that creates speech.

Looking at these view of Temple Grandin's brain, it should not be surprising to learn that she is very good at visual processing--look at how her brain connects visual data to everything!--and not very good at processing things she hears. This is why she talked late and has never been able to learn a second language. It's just not the way her brain functions.

Pretty much every autistic person has issues with sensory processing, because the axon pathways in our brain are nonstandard. But! and here's the key! they are not uniformly nonstandard! So my pathways wouldn't look like Temple Grandin's, and they wouldn't look like my brother's, or my father's (both of whom are autistic). We all have sensory processing issues, but they will vary from person to person.

Problems hearing and understanding speech is very common; it's why so many autistics learn to speak late, or have to take time to process what's said to them before they can understand it. But for some autistics, auditory processing is fine, it's touch or smell or taste that's the problem. Or multiple senses. Or specific sensations! It's not unusual to have someone who can't wear jeans because the fabric feels like sandpaper on their skin, but they might walk around all day with a deep gash on their leg because they didn't feel it. Personally, my sense of smell is not very sensitive in general, but even a whiff of gasoline and I am in distress.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Sensory Processing Disorder is a thing. There are people who have problems with sensory processing and other than that their brains are pretty typical. If I were you, I would investigate both Sensory Processing Disorder and autism and seeing if one of them seems to fit.

[bugborgs]

I am learning to draw and I am enamoured by the way you draw these charecters, do you have any tips or suggestions to help a newbie :)

aww thank you so much, that's very kind of you! :')))

this is a bit of a boring answer but truly the best way is to just draw them a LOT! the more you draw them, the more you'll learn how to draw and then simplify their (very often excessively complicated lol) outfits and design details. i'm a little rusty since this blog was inactive for some time, but there was definitely a point in time where i had basically memorized nebula's vol2 outfit just because i drew her so often haha

as far as character specific tips, references are your best friend!! i would try to search around for anything like, in-character photoshoots or set photos and the like. get an hd rip of the movies and just trawl through and screencap any different angles and such you can find. (same applies if you're going for comic designs, just trawl through the panels for what you need!). also, those very intricate Hot Toys sixth scale figures are REALLY good references! I have the Nebula one that came out a few years ago and it has truly been an invaluable reference for her complicated-ass outfit lmao

i know they're a bit of a splurge though so if you can find like, photos of the figures that works too, you're just limited to whatever angles they take for the photoshoot. but when the nebula figure was up for pre-order i used the photo references of the figure that sideshow had on the pre-order page for refs and they worked really well.

i would also suggest not stressing about getting every single little detail right, because doing so is impossible and frankly a pain in the ass. if you look at nebula's actual design vs how i draw her, depending on the art and how detailed i feel like being, i tend to simplify things quite a bit and cut out little details.

looking at how other artists draw a character can also be helpful! there have been times i've only noticed new details in a character's design after i've seen someone else draw it, haha.

i'm not sure if you're a newbie to art in general, or just to drawing these characters, but if the former then just as a general tip study anatomy and use life references! it's a boring answer but it's also the most helpful one, truly. i've gotten a lot of use out of the Morpho series of books by Michel Lauricella! There's several in the series so far and each book focuses on something different (for example there's one on musculature and one on simplified forms) and has some helpful advice on how to break down anatomy and learning to draw the human figure.

also, finally, just get really REALLY obsessed with one or more characters and draw them all the fucking time if i didn't spend several years obsessively drawing bugborg all the time my human anatomy probably wouldn't be at the point it is now tbh LOL

[thispatternismine]

The best thing to do, as a detail-oriented writer who loves researching stuff, is to leave that stuff for last.

Make liberal use of placeholders. Instead of the detail you wanted to type, just add a [SORT THIS BIT OUT LATER IDK], highlight it however you want (bold text, coloured text, use a highlighter, scribble a note in the margin, all of the above), & then move on & figure it out later, after you've finished the draft of the fic/chapter.

That way you're not stressing yourself out over not making any progress with the actual writing & can focus on the fun of research (really don't understand people who refuse to do any kind of research. Like why would you not want to learn about stuff? And often it's stuff you'd never have thought to look into otherwise???? Who says 'no' to that? So boring. Absolute loser behaviour.), & also you might find when going through it with everything else in place, that that detail just... doesn't matter. Or even does matter, but you know what specifically matters about it, narrowing the scope of any research.

You also have to accept that there's things you're going to miss. You can spend days trying to figure out how a character might get around a city they're supposed to live in, & someone who actually lives there will take one look & be like huh that route they took makes no sense. But most people accept good faith attempts at writing something they have more knowledge of than you, & are more than willing to handwave small errors, especially if you add something to the author's note asking for input.

(If you do get someone who is pissy you dared to write something you didn't have 110% perfect knowledge on, block them immediately. They are a buzzkill who will ruin your fandom experience & is asking for something impossible, because even someone who has lived a particular thing every day of their life will have blind spots & biases.)

In terms of checking obscure canon details, I usually either just check a wiki or a transcript or screencaps rather than rewatch the movie/episode for the one frame or line of dialogue I need to refer to.

Also while I'm here, I'm gonna throw out a rec for the Dreamwidth community little_details, for all your 'I need to figure out this niggling detail' needs

I've been trying to write for some time. Usually I focus on one for the time being and gradually I lose interest and move on to another one until I lose interest again and and move back to the other, which is probably why I hadn't really noticed it until now.

The problem, that I have gradually started to notice, is that I plan and plan and plan but bearly ever get to the stage of writing and when I write there are suddenly small details that I need to research and those small details tend to blow-up into another day full of no writing. I want to write, but my brain just refuses to corporate with me. I can't just not research the things, because then I get hung up on that and don't get another word on the page until I do look it up, but I also can't look it up because then I get hung up on finding out more than I need on the topic and, again, don't find my way back to the draft.

So what I am asking is, how do you concentrate on writing? How do you stay focused on the task and not drift into needing to look something up? Even if you do need to look it up how do you get back to writing, so that your attention doesn't get eaten alive by the next Wikipedia article?

The three ways I go about this might or might not help you, so I hope other writers will add on in the notes with other options. Mine are:

don't write things that need me to do research

ask someone who already knows / is willing to do the research for me

accept the fact that I'm not going to be accurate

I don't prioritize world building, so I don't mind having a mistake here or there. The kinds of stories that I write don't rely on historical details or engineering know-how or a specific understanding of geopolitical intrigue. Any time I do need to write that stuff, I throw in some hand-wave-y phrases here or there and keep going. No one is reading my fics expecting an in-depth description of mating habits of swallows.

In cases where I'm trying to remain canon compliant, I'll ask friends of mine who are more familiar with canon or have better memories for those kinds of details. I could spend 2 hours rewatching a movie, or I could just ping my friend and ask for the detail or the order of events, and she'll tell me in 2 minutes.

I've never been a writer who feels the need to know the precise cost of carrots in 1930s Brooklyn or the name of a haberdashery popular in 1880s London. So let's see if those detail-oriented fact-finders can give you some guidance that you might find more helpful.

[prettyboyporter]

harringrove for ukraine: prettyboyporter

It’s been a while, I know!! 

But I’m willing to do what I can to help Ukraine. harrigrove is an amazing community and we’ve pulled out amazing fundraisers in the past. Let’s do it again. 

I’ll be writing fanfiction in exchange for donations to an organization providing aid to support those affected by the war on Ukraine.

Basically, I’m asking that you donate money in exchange for me writing something specifically for you.

Please follow these steps if you’re interested!

1. Send me an ask or DM with a donation amount offer and your request for fanfic ficlets/drabbles/oneshots.

I will be accepting donations until my cap is reached.

Wait until I reply to you before making your donation to one of these organizations supplying aid:

Any organization from the following:

The Ukrainian Army

The Ukrainian Red Cross, which does loads of humanitarian stuff, from aiding refugees to training doctors.

Revived Soldiers Ukraine, which funds medication and medical supplies for army hospitals on the front line.

The UN Refugee Agency, which provides life-saving protection to families forced to flee their homes.

2. Donate!! Screencap your receipt – you need to send me this in a message to show you’ve donated so we can all track how much we’ve raised as a group.

3. Block out any private contact details you don’t want me to see!

Once I’ve seen your receipt, I’ll start working on your project. Please keep in mind it’s been a LONG time since I’ve written and likely it’ll take a while for me to get back into the groove. Be patient. You’ll get content, I promise!

What I Like to Write: If you’ve read my fic, you know my wheelhouse is post s3 soft harringrove. You’re probably already familiar with my use of Uncle Jack Sinclair as a random father figure for Billy lol. I’d be happy to do more of this -- or write a follow-up/sequel to any fic I’ve written that maybe you want to see more of. I can do NSFW but personally, I don’t think I’m v good at it, lol.

I’M NOT GOOD AT WRITING ANGST or unhappy endings!! 

I can accept prompts, but I reserve the right to change or tweak them so that it’s a fic I’m comfortable writing, though.

Additional Info:  Please specify whether or not you'd like smut. (Or if it doesn't matter to you either way)

I’ll be capping my contributions at 2k per work and since I don't want to overwhelm myself, I want to keep my overall promised word count under 10k. (So once that has been hit I won't be accepting any more commissions)

Suggested Donation Amount:   $1 per 100 words of a fic. This means you can donate $10 for 1,000 or $20 for 2,000 or anything in between. (If I go over the word count that's on me so you'll just get some extra free words 😊)

Let's help out our Ukrainian friends in their time of need!

[ageless-aislynn]

In progress!!! (Game spoilers, naturally. 😉)

The bad news, though, is that I’m so lost in the Pillar of Autumn that I’m going in circles. 🤷‍♀️ We’ve cleared out all of the Covenant baddies but I’m just literally going in a big circle, periodically coming back across my marines who give me encouraging pep talks like, “Go on ahead, Chief!” to which I’ve started saying aloud, “I’M LOST. SOMEBODY COME WITH ME AND SHOW ME WHERE TO GO” but alas, they can’t.

I also have a bad habit of taking cover behind my marines in fights. I feel so guilty for that, especially when they greeted me so excitedly, “Chief’s here! We could use your help!” and then I get stuck on a doorway before diving behind them for cover. Oops. 😳

I also somehow seemed to get hung up on the menu in the mess hall. I think I took a screencap of it by mistake, lol. I had a marine following me at that point and I swear he was looking at me like, “For real? You’re Instagraming lunch in the middle of a fight?”

Oh well! I’m having fun and so far, so good on how things are running! I’m definitely ordering the powder puff pink controller, though. We’re at the simple keyboard commands and I cringe to see what I’ll have Chief doing when I need more complex actions, lol!

I laughed at the start where the tech is trying to get me to stand on the red square to calibrate my targeting and I kept accidentally backing up and he’s all, “Chief. I need you over here. Chief. CHIEF!” and I ended up stuck in a corner for a bit, lol! I’m pretty sure I was not inspiring a lot of confidence, LOL!

I am having fun, though. 😁👍 (The marines, probably, not so much so. “Chief, stop INSTAGRAMING, PLEASE!” Chief: *moonwalks out of the room* 😂)

Now, I’m not too proud to go read a tutorial and see if I can figure out where to go. Wish me luck! 😎

Part 2

[kieuecaprie]

So... I finished the main taskline (for now) for Toontown Corporate Clash. I won't say too much about the end but it was definitely a journey to get through, especially when the server started having issues and districts had to be reset which made making and finding groups a bit of a drag.

So, I figured it'd be nice to have a little collection of screenshots I took over the course of my journey. Of course, I won't dump all of them, just a select few I found neat.

There may be spoilers but I think most of the screenshots I'm about to post are just out of context stuff anyhow so... I'm gonna give you a fair warning anyway!

I believe I posted this a while back effectively saying that I have been playing TTCC and wanted to post this screenshot. I managed to catch the tailend of the St. Patrick's Day code event so I was able to snag some stuff, including the clover that became a mainstay on my deer.

I think this may have been the first of many buildings I would take on by myself over the course of doing the main taskline so I guess I took this screenshot to comemmorate my first building (plus it was in Toontown Central, where buildings are kind of a rarity even on private servers) and the fact I barely made it out alive.

This was before I learned the power of Prestige Throw, btw, that little prestige gag carried me pretty hard with its self-healing properties.

I just liked visual bugs and this one kind of tickled me. You can still get on the elevator, it's just bugged for some reason. No idea if this was a server thing or the behavior of the base code of the game that it ran on.

Funnily enough, BB was the first playground I got to the final kudos rank-up task for just so I could go see Rainmaker, who would otherwise be known as Misty Monsoon if you searched through some ARG stuff (or read the wiki, I guess).

Her fight was an ordeal the first time through and was frightening and was definitely a step up from the easy gameplay of the babby game that came before it.

I spared her, in case you were asking. Fortunately, my group decided to do the same.

I hated going through YOTT even though I liked the vibe of it all. The dialogue was painful to read but this one with Seymour in particular was chuckleworthy. Kind of appreciated that. Keep at it, TTCC writer's team!

I think this was taken during my runs through Sellbot Factories for the Sellbot parts. I admit, it was a little nervewracking at first to utilize the group finder because, up to this point, I was just using it to set up groups for battles I absolutely needed to do (Derrick Man, Land Acquisition Architect, Public Relations Representative). No idea why this screencap in particular, maybe I just found the name "Medieval Pheasant" on the Turkey toon to be quite amusing.

Fishing was my first activity I'd end up maxing on this server. As customary, I grade games based on how fun their fishing is. I'd give the Toontown fishing, as a whole, a decent 7/10. Fish Bingo is a nice sidegame and casting and reeling is super quick, also a good source of currency and ended up filling my bank to the brim.

A screenshot from... some attempt at mity, I don't know the number tbh. Tried the old "befriend a cog" trick during the mist phase and my heart shattered into a million pieces afterward...

Going through Mezzo Melodyland (At the time of writing, I have the rank-up task available to go from 9 to 10, gonna hold off on that for now but I'm coming for you, DAVE BRUBOT!), and I run into a taskline about a kazoo maestro who wants me to go find someone who is the kazoo kid. I already knew where this was going but I didn't think they'd actually go through with the bit.

Good one!

Shut up and leave me alone.

The only screenshot I ever took in a Cashbot Mint. Honestly thought it'd take a while to clear out the 4 Coin Mints, 4 Dollar Mints, and the 2 Bullion Mints but they were snap compared to the Lawbot and Bossbot facilities... especially in wait time, yeesh.

Come on, you had to break into Reid's van at LEAST once! I hope she didn't mind me coming in, I mean, I do pay her a ton of jellybeans, after all!

My first capped track was Throw, predictably. And I think Lure followed soon after and then it took a while before Sound, Squirt, Zap, and Toon Up would join them. Still got Trap and Drop left to go and I don't look forward to levelling Trap again.

This wizard really wanted the... ahem... minglussy. iamsosorry

Lawbot Lawfices... They were kinda fun but waiting was a bit of a drag. Although I think at one point, someone pointed out that you could play Toono on the couches. WHY COULDN'T BOSSBOT HQ HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!

Speaking of, here's a screenshot from a Bossbot Cog Golf Course. Don't tell me which one because they all felt the same to me, and it was at that point that I really felt the drag. This part was probably one of the biggest hurdles imo and I don't blame anyone for not really wanting to do anything related to Bossbots unless they ABSOLUTELY had to. (Speaking of, if any friendos wanted to do cog golf courses, I'd gladly run it because I don't want them waiting half a century for a group.)

Short detour into the High Roller stuff for MAYpril Toons event. I was sad that I couldn't fight Sads but the High Roller fight was definitely something else. And if they could pull that off for a permanent, non-canon joke of a manager, what could they do for 2.0? Gosh, imagine. The next few are also High Roller related, I had to grind for a bit to get the stuff out of him. (I still need one more item from him, barring another update that adds yet another goalpost, but it takes a while to beat him even with optimal strats.)

Holy meh, Toriel Toontown real.

This one is from one of the CEO fights. I took this one because the game was taking its sweet time waiting for everybody and found the cogs with their hands in the same position as the grief kiwi sticker to be quite funny.

While I was doing the DDL taskline, I ran into this where Featherbedder and a bunch of cogs were just... snoozing. And there was literally nobody fighting them. Guess they just wanted a slumber party, huh?

Hehehe... yeah, game show. Would be crazy if there was one in Mezzo Melodyland hosted by a robotic green duck who is a fusion of two cog managers that we've previously fought, right?

And the end of the road, for now. It feels... weird now that I have ALL FOUR task slots to fill up but it'll be a great boon when grinding out those kudos tasks! I'm not quite done yet with TTCC and I don't think I will be for a while, after all, I have drops to collect, suits to perfect, departments to experience fully, and a couple other stuff left unfinished.

I will say that I absolutely enjoyed my time in Toontown Corporate Clash and I wish the team good luck as they push onwards because this is probably the most polished Toontown experience I've ever... erm... experienced.