#obviously I did actually explain

[sapphossecondbestfriend]

big things are happening in my texts with my best friend

[coldflasher]

okay but re. that post about elseworlds!barry realizing that oliver woke up in bed with iris... if we coldflashed this, i feel that crossover event would have gone VERY differently because you're not telling me that leonard snart wouldn't have realized there was something wrong the second he woke up in bed with oliver queen

like picture this: you're leonard snart. you have years of trauma, hypervigilance, and experience surviving dangerous men (and, ultimately, being one). and you fall asleep next to barry, the man you love---who, don't get me wrong, IS dangerous, but is in most situations seemingly unaware of it; who appears nonthreatening and harmless unless riled, who, most of the time, just seems like a sweet and normal guy---and you wake up next to... something else. something that looks like barry, and sounds like barry... if you aren't paying attention.

this is a thing that walks without making a sound, like it has years of experience sneaking around and moves that way by default (like len does); it turns into a statue at the slightest sound and doesn't even seem to breathe. barry is always crackling with frenetic, fidgety energy, even when he sleeps; he has nightmares and thrashes until the covers are bunched up around him, but this thing slept stiff as a board, flat on its back without moving a muscle and barely wrinkled the sheets. this thing is wary, and quiet, and it moves like a killer, with a killer's instincts. and it's looking around their bedroom like it's never seen this room in its life

and len would KNOW.

[day-mark]

good morning thinking about the way dream loves and how he describes his friendships in an almost romantic manner and how that is very special to me

i love how while he can make comparisons to "traditional dynamics", brother, father, etc. he also doesn't shy away from using descriptors that i think most would interpret as romantic.

i feel like most people would hear the phrases "more than a friend", "-you've been my partner ever since", "you have a place in my heart" and even dream consistently referring to sapnap and george as his "soulmates" would have someone assume it's about a significant other without context. dream using such romantic terms for his friendships is very special and almost inspirational to me in a way?

it just makes me think about how he views his own sexuality and even marriage, idk something about how it's not about the label or tradition or what is commonly accepted, but about the relationship itself, how you personally view it, and what it means to you is something that resonates a lot with me

+ <3

[front-facing-pokemon]

[kiyomitakada]

what if kiyomi was the first Kira and misa was still second Kira

i wonder!

(bleh that's one of my older ficlets it's before i realized L is polite to literally everyone except light… so it ought to be takada-san but that's fine.)

anyway this ^ was my first attempt at the idea but it has been plaguing me for months and it looks very different in my head now. here are some Thoughts:

kiyomi as first kira

kiyomi is a very outspoken character who is relegated to the most passive position in the narrative. i don't think this was intentional, i think it was Misogyny of the Author, but it is very interesting to me in the context of this AU. i imagine she picked up the notebook fully intending to throw it away but hung onto it for instincts unknown (light also says in canon that "that notebook has a power that makes you want to try it"; i don't really subscribe to the idea that the notebook controls you but i feel like it's fair enough to say it has some kind of weak draw), and then didn't try it until ryuk showed up and she freaked out.

ryuk would be like well if you don't want to use it then just give it back to me. kiyomi "superiority complex" "control freak" takada refuses immediately. i think she'd rather die than get her memory wiped (i have not thought far enough to get to yotsuba arc yet. don't worry about it) and the idea that ryuk dropped it randomly and giving it back might result in some ~mass murderer~ getting it would be horrifying to her.

so of course she has to use it.

i actually have a different post in my drafts about how i think each dn character would use the death note but here is what i have for her

kiyomi: picks up the death note out of curiosity, scoffs, fully intends to throw it away but forgets until ryuk shows up. at which point she starts killing specific government officials at a rate of about one per day (she can't stomach indiscrete killing the way the others can). all the officials are found with a fingerprint-less knife stuck in their chest, so the police suspect a mundane serial killer, but no level of protection has been enough to save any of them yet. kiyomi probably tries to make them write down political demands as her "calling card" and then gets mad when she can't do that (the death note doesn't allow people to write things they don't know). instead she has to send tapes to sakura tv, where she interns, to get her manifesto out. the one time a knife isn't immediately available, the death note makes the politician die of a heart attack, which the media naturally attributes to stress. but Something Feels Off to L… do you know how much i would pay for the protagonist kiyomi takada version of death note do you KNOW she'd be so insane in a completely different way

i stand by this. kiyomi is way more politically minded than light, she talks to him and mikami about supporting kira entirely of her own volition, her first move when light tells her to start airing her own opinions is to talk about how she thinks the education system should start teaching kids about kira and how kira should instruct the army on how to act. kiyomi takada is fucking terrifying. Do Not Let This Girl Into The Government.

"but she supports the canon kira so wouldn't she act like him?"

well the problem is kiyomi has the intention but never has the resolve until pressed

(i have the manga panels to prove this but i can't be bothered to dig them up right now. sorry. One Day i will write a full kiyomi analysis and it will even be decent)

in this way she is much like chapter 1 light yagami. light going on a murder spree because he thinks his soul is about to be taken = kiyomi shaking and bloody in the back of mello's truck thinking i have to judge as many people as possible right now.

so in this scenario, since she didn't start killing until ryuk showed up and explained things to her, kiyomi is not motivated by fear for her life but rather fear for her memory + her canon support for killing everyone + "if someone else had this they'd do much worse than me" (just like light, with that one) (who else would have the guts?). so she does kill people but not as many. she puts thought into each one. ideally she wants to kill as little as possible for maximum impact.

i think she wavers between staging these deaths as suicides (invoking the societal stigma around them & so that there would naturally be a suicide note, etc) or making them obvious murders and would eventually go with the latter because she . also has a god complex. i mean nooo obviously it's because politicians will be more scared if they know someone's out there to get them!

anyway

what the fuck does the first arc look like

kiyomi imo gets just as mad as light does about being called evil. but unlike light she has more experience being called a cold bitch, snake, little miss perfect, etc, so she sees lind l tailor and does deep breathing exercises because killing him on air would do nothing but traumatize generations of children

so basically the broadcast ends and nothing happens until sometime around midnight lind l tailor drops dead of a heart attack

interpol was originally very mad at L for staging this whole thing because he has far less evidence that the killings are supernatural in this one, but they're kind of creeped out by this because of that other politician who had a heart attack — tailor was in the prime of his health and everything (L picked the death row inmate with the least history of cardiac disorders)

anyway [sighs really hard] this whole plot has to be reworked from the bottom up because kiyomi doesn't have access to police information and, unlike light, is not invested in The Game as much as she is societal change, so she wouldn't want to draw L out and eliminate him in the first place.

(i think kiyomi and light share the same fundamental loneliness in their souls — "if you were smarter this could've been interesting" / "you're the only man i've ever actually admired" — but kiyomi is drawn not just to intelligence but to people who share her principles, whereas light is drawn to people who can beat him at his own game. this is one area where they are different! thank god!)

(you could argue kiyomi is too, considering her reaction to misa, but her immediate response when misa starts getting under her skin is trying to leave)

(and besides i'm not even sure if kiyomi ever realizes lind l tailor was a scheme. like presumably she knows L is still alive and panics the day after when L is like hi. im still here. but since her killing was time-delayed L might not be able to get as much information and so he has no reason to gloat.)

anyway kiyomi's not giving L any clues so basically things are going to be a lot harder for L

but she's also going to spread kira's message through news stations so…………… more information source there? better not fuck up with that voice modulator kiyo

misa as second kira

oh thank god, l lawliet thinks, a development, i was about to die of stagnation

thankfully no matter how things shake out in first arc i think misa would still try to use the tv stations & the fake diary to get to kira, so that doesn't change. although since kira's voice is already becoming established she might have to do it in a more roundabout way (remember she also didn't want the cops to figure out she wasn't the first kira)

maybe this is how we can get manga misa to sing i'll only love you more????

anyway. they meet in aoyama, still. kiyomi went for the same reason light did: she has to size up her threat (see: inviting misa to dinner)

light & kiyomi significant difference no. 2: perceived gender

misa voice kira is a GIRL?!?!?!?!

she still buys all the information she can get on kiyomi. ("kiyomi takada… what a boring name.") (fun fact kiyo's pretty much the only character in death note with an entirely normal name; this is why her death is so shocking)

so misa shows up at her house all casual-like

light & kiyomi significant difference no. 3: where light's thought is "this girl isn't as stupid as i thought" kiyomi's thought is "this girl is the most dangerous person i have ever met"

like as far as kiyomi knows L is kind of useless. misa is the first direct challenge she has ever faced. misa can kill just by looking at a person. misa has a death note and she is sure as hell not giving it to kiyomi.

because if you interpret kiyomi this way, she hasn't avenged misa's parents

(i wonder if i could come up with a reason for her to do that because i admit the whole misa arc doesn't make as much sense otherwise… but let's assume not for now)

so why does misa want to meet up with her anyway?

well. who else is there who would understand.

anyway i kind of picture them close to this yagamane dynamic (sorry yagamane i'm stealing your valor). misa doesn't have any reason to be grateful to kiyomi, but she does want to be useful still, wants to have a purpose. wants to have people she can talk to in perfect honesty, but also has kiyomi's real name dangling over her head at all times and wants her to know that

also. crucially. she wants to have a perfect family because of course she does. in canon light is her gateway to this: by becoming his girlfriend she can integrate into the family dynamic. calls soichiro her dad, calls sachiko her mom… but this doesn't work with kiyomi because she's a girl and misa, as we all know, is totally one hundred percent heterosexual.

so. so:

Kiyomi sighs. "Okay. I… I suppose it's a deal." "Yay!" Amane jumps up and flings her arms around Kiyomi's neck; she's warm and unexpectedly bony and smells like artificially flavored shampoo and Kiyomi's heart spasms in her chest. It's been a long time since anyone's hugged her like this. She's a mature young woman and that means she doesn't hug people. "You won't regret this, Kiyo-chan!" "I am already," Kiyomi mutters. It's far too mean, far too revealing, but — oh, who cares, Amane already knows she's a serial killer. Amane's triumphant smirk as she pulls away carves its way into her skin regardless: she knows Kiyomi didn't mean to say that. "I'm so happy," Amane keeps going, patting her dress down like she's worried Kiyomi's gotten lint on it. "I've always wanted a little sister!" Kiyomi stares. "What." The look Amane casts her is pitying. "Didn't you know? You're a year younger than me." "That is not the problem here," Kiyomi hisses. (It is sort of the problem.) "I'm an only child!" "I know," Amane says very patiently, "I bought all your records, remember? I'm an only child too!" Is this a bonding moment? Is Kiyomi finally experiencing Lady Macbeth insanity? "We don't look anything like each other," she points out. "If you're planning on another disguise—" Amane rolls her eyes. "Ugh, you're so serious all the time. Lighten up a little! I'm joking! We can just be sisters from different mothers, or whatever they say. Together forever, you know? Through thick and thin? You won't die on me, will you?" Kiyomi, being an only child, is not entirely sure what having a sibling is like, but she's pretty sure the rage(?) coiling in her stomach isn't it. "…Not unless you kill me." Amane smiles. It's not as wide as usual. "Well, that's a start."

[oceanwithouthermoon]

"doing all his talking in between panels"

a few examples of this (where he had to have spoken otherwise it doesnt make sense):

some im pretty sure he spoke in but not 100% confirmed:

(he most likely said something in the first part, otherwise idk why they would know he was lying about doing stuff, but then just walked away wordlessly in the second part ☠️ im not sure)

(its most likely that he said something but its also possible that they just noticed his shock and explained. but the others do explain their situation and dont give any indication of being asked like these two did, so im pretty sure he said something.)

(more direct indications of being asked a question, but he probably couldve asked with gestures or expressions, so not sure)

[falconfate]

Hello ranger’s apprentice fandom can we talk real quick about the stupidest thing Flanagan ever wrote

It’s about the bows. Yanno, the rangers’ Iconique™️ main weapon. That one. You know the one.

Flanagan. Flanagan why are your rangers using longbows.

“uh well recurve arrows drop faster” BUT DO THEY. FLANAGAN. DO THEY.

the answer is no they don’t. Compared to a MODERN, COMPOUND (aka cheating) bow, yes, but compared to a longbow? Y’know, what the rangers use in canon? Yeah no a recurve actually has a FLATTER trajectory. It drops LATER.

This from an article comparing the two:

“Both a longbow and a recurve bow, when equipped with the right arrow and broadhead combination, are capable of taking down big game animals. Afterall, hunters have been doing it for centuries with both types of bows.

However, generally speaking and all things equal, a recurve bow will offer more arrow speed, creating a flatter flight trajectory and retain more kinetic energy at impact.

The archers draw length, along with the weight of the arrow also affect speed and kinetic energy. However, the curved design of the limbs on a recurve adds to its output of force.”

It doesn’t actually mention ANY distance in range! And this is from a resource for bow hunting, which, presumably, WOULD CARE ABOUT THAT SORT OF THING!

Okay so that’s just. That’s just the first thing.

The MAIN thing is that even accounting for “hur dur recurves drop faster” LONGBOWS ARE STILL THE STUPID OPTION.

Longbows, particularly and especially ENGLISH longbows, are—as their name suggests—very long. English longbows in particular are often as tall or taller than their wielder even while strung, but especially when unstrung. An unstrung longbow is a very long and expensive stick, one that will GLADLY entangle itself in nearby trees, other people’s clothes, and any doorway you’re passing through.

And yes, there are shorter longbows, but at that point if you’re shortening your longbow, just get a goddamn recurve. And Flanagan makes a point to compare his rangers’ bows to the Very Long English Longbow.

Oh, do you know how the Very Long English Longbow was mostly historically militarily used? BY ON-FOOT ARCHER UNITS. Do you know what they’re TERRIBLE for? MOUNTED ARCHERY.

Trust me. Go look up right now “mounted archery longbow.” You’ll find MAYBE one or two pictures of some guy on a horse struggling with a big stick; mostly you will actually see either mounted archers with RECURVES, or comparisons of Roman longbow archers to Mongolian horse archers (which are neat, can’t lie, I love comparing archery styles like that).

Anyway. Why are longbows terrible for mounted archery? Because they’re so damn long. Think about it: imagine you’re on a horse. You’re straddling a beast that can think for itself and moves at your command, but ultimately independently of you; if you’re both well-trained enough, you’re barely paying attention to your horse except to give it commands. And you have a bow in your hands. If your target is close enough to you that you know, from years of shooting experience, you will need to actually angle your bow down to hit it because of your equine height advantage, guess what? If you have a longbow, YOU CAN’T! YOUR HORSE IS IN THE WAY BECAUSE YOUR BOW IS TOO LONG! Worse, it’s probably going to get in the general area of your horse’s shoulder or legs, aka moving parts, which WILL injure your horse AND your bow and leave you fresh out of both a getaway vehicle and a ranged weapon. It’s stupid. Don’t do it.

A recurve, on the other hand, is short. It was literally made for horse archers. You have SO much range of motion with a recurve on horseback; and if you’re REALLY good, you know how to give yourself even more, with techniques like Jamarkee, a Turkish technique where you LITERALLY CAN AIM BACKWARDS.

For your viewing enjoyment, Serena Lynn of Texas demonstrating Jamarkee:

Yes, that’s real! This type of draw style is INCREDIBLY versatile: you can shoot backwards on horseback, straight down from a parapet or sally port without exposing yourself as a target, or from low to the ground to keep stealthy without banging your bow against the ground. And, while I’m sure you could attempt it with a longbow, I wouldn’t recommend it: a recurve’s smaller size makes it far more maneuverable up and over your head to actually get it into position for a Jamarkee shot.

A recurve just makes so much more SENSE. It’s not a baby bow! It’s not the longbow’s lesser cousin! It’s a COMPLETELY different instrument made to be used in a completely different context! For the rangers of Araluen, who put soooo much stock in being stealthy and their strong bonds with their horses, a recurve is the perfect fit! It’s small and easily transportable, it’s more maneuverable in combat and especially on horseback, it offers more power than a longbow of the same draw weight—really, truly, the only advantage in this case that a longbow has over the recurve is that longbows are quicker and easier to make. But we KNOW the rangers don’t care about that, their KNIVES use a forging technique (folding) that takes several times as long as standard Araluen forging practices at the time!

Okay.

Okay I think I’m done. For now.

[elftwink]

i know ive said this exact same thing ten thousand times before but it actually boggles my mind that we have just sort of accepted "generational divides" and the resulting discourse. generations are not real on the population scale. there is no dividing year where one generation starts and the next begins. the closest you can get to this is specifically BABY BOOMERS. who were born during the BABY BOOM. because a huge large amount of people had children immediately following the second world war. thats it. since then there has not been another clear generational divide and the things you think are clear divides are probably divides between specifically your age demographic and specifically your parents age demographic. because that's what a generation actually is when we stop trying to form stupid little clubs. im no longer participating in the legitimization of these terms & if i see the word zoomer one more time i'll detonate the explosives

[problemcore]

MY TIME HAS COME

'Exploding Suns' and 'Intrasport' by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

'Know Me' by Sean Altman

'Hymn to the Decadent Life' by Ro2Noki

'Rise Up' by NiziU

'Bake No Hana' specifically vally.exe cover (fun fact: the bpm in this one is the same as the heartbeat during panic attack !)

'Loretta' and 'No Problems' by Ginger Root

'Stay Soft', 'Should Have Been Me', 'Carry Me Out' by Mitski (you probably heard them but whatever. Honestly could add more but then it would be too much Mitski gjjfnchjr)

'Self-Sabotage' amd 'Stupid For You' by Waterparks

'Again&Again' and 'Witch' by The Bird and the Bee

'W.I.T.C.H' by Devon Cole

'Kanden', 'Pop Song', 'Shinigami' by Kenshi Yonezu (same situation as Mitski here kkkk)

'Love Me Tender' by Stereo Jane

'Figure in the background' by Snake Pool (love the music video of this one a lot)

'Punchline' and 'Mercy' by KiNG MALA (PLEASE check out the music videos of these. Trust me)

'Ты и Я' (You and Me) by Nezhnoe Eto

'Traición', 'Perfecta' and 'Hola' by Miranda!

'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out' by the Smiths

'Lock Me Up' by the Cab

'Hot Mess' by Cobra Starship

As a finishing touch I'm linking this sick trigun edit (no spoilers dw) to the last song :)

https://youtu.be/0SFC8aVHTIc?si=IarZBkfiFQGL1cr5

WOOHOOOOOO YES

[backslashdelta]

How To Gif: Glass Shatter Effect

By popular demand (ie, 7 people who voted in this poll), here is a tutorial on how to do the glass shatter effect I used to create the first gif in this set.

I use Photoshop CC 2015 (yes I know it's old) for my gifmaking, but you should be able to apply everything to newer versions of Photoshop. For this tutorial I'll be assuming you know the gifmaking basics, but if not, I would recommend this tutorial, which is the process I use to make gifs. Note that this particular process involves saving all of the frames, importing those frames into Photoshop, and then using an action to convert to a smart object.

Keep reading below the cut to learn how to do this effect!

Before I could start making this gif, I needed three things; the two scenes that I wanted to use, and a video of the glass shattering effect. I already knew the scenes I wanted, so then I took to YouTube to find a video which I can't for the life of me find again (edit: thanks to add1ctedt0you in the replies for linking this video!), but it looked like this:

Something like this is what you want. Ideally the green part would be entirely white, but as long as there are two clearly different colours you can usually work with it.

This looks a lot slower than the gif that I made, but that's not because of the frame rate - which is exactly the same above as in the final gif - it's just because there are extra frames in this slower one that I cut out. In the video I used, the glass shattering happened very slowly. I didn't want that, so I ended up skipping several frames when I loaded the frames into Photoshop before using my gifmaking action. I just did this by manually selecting one frame, skipping the next several before selecting another frame, and repeating this until I had selected 60 frames.

After using my gif action, I had a smart object of the glass shatter effect that looked like this:

That's a much better speed! It still wasn't quite where I needed it to be though. I needed this in black and white, so I slapped a hue/saturation adjustment on the smart object and set the saturation all the way down to -100.

Okay great, I could start putting the gif together now.

First, I made a copy of the glass shatter smart object, because I'll need that later. Then, I pulled in frames from the scene that I wanted to appear in the hole after the glass shatters, and I used those to create a new smart object with my gif action (we'll call it Scene-bg). I pulled Scene-bg into the same window as the glass shatter objects. Then I created a new smart object by combining one of the glass shatter objects with Scene-bg, which I did by selecting both layers right clicking, and selecting "Convert to Smart Object".

I renamed this smart object to Shatter-fg. I opened it by clicking on the little icon next to the layer name in the layers window here:

The most important thing here is that the shatter effect object should be the top layer, and I set the mode to "lighten". This will make sure that the lightest colour of either this layer and the layer behind it is displayed; that means that anywhere that's white in our shatter animation will still show up, but anywhere that's black we'll see what's in the layer(s) behind it.

Then I threw some adjustment layers between them to get the colouring I wanted. I used a curves layer, a hue/saturation layer, and I also added text with an outer glow layer effect. Here's what the layer order looked like and the settings I used for each layer:

After this process, Shatter-fg looked like this:

Okay nice, this is starting to look like something! I saved this and went back to the main file with the other glass shatter object.

I needed to invert that other glass shatter object. There's a weird quirk with the version of Photoshop that I use where it doesn't like it when I apply specifically an invert adjustment to a smart object (it appears correctly when editing, but not on export) so I did this by creating a new smart object which included a separate invert layer, but if you have a newer version of Photoshop you can probably just apply the invert adjustment directly. Just note that you'll need to do one of these options; it won't work if you add a separate adjustment layer in the main file, it needs to be applied specifically to the smart object (which we'll now be calling Shatter-bg). It looked like this after I inverted it:

Once that's done, I made sure Shatter-fg was the layer directly above Shatter-bg, and set the mode of Shatter-fg to "darken" and Shatter-bg to "lighten". Since Shatter-fg is set to darken, it will be visible only when it is darker than the layer behind it. By setting Shatter-bg to lighten, I've guaranteed that the layer behind it will always be lighter (ie, white) in the places we want Shatter-fg to be visible, and will be black otherwise. Once I update those settings, this is what the gif looked like:

This is all there is to the glass shatter effect itself. Next I pulled in frames from the second scene to fill in the black areas. This layer needed to go below both glass shatter layers, so that it only shows through where the black. Then I added adjustment layers and some text. I used curves, hue/saturation, and vibrance adjustment layers, and I also added the "archer" text below the glass shatter layers so that it would be hidden to reveal the "prey" text. The other text I added above all of the layers, since I wanted this to be visible all the time. Here is the layer order and all of the settings I used for each of the layers:

I also grouped Shatter-bg and Shatter-fg and shifted them on the timeline so there would be some time to see the background gif before the shatter effect starts.

And that's all! Then it''s just a matter of exporting the finished product:

This is the first gifmaking tutorial I've ever made, so I hope I was able to be reasonably coherent and helpful! I'd love to hear if you make anything by following these steps, or even if you just feel like you've learned something reading through this. And if you have any outstanding questions, feel free to reply or send me an ask and I'd be happy to answer!

[vandalizingyourschool]

what have I got myself into

[cruyffista]

every once in a while I remember how evil everyone's reactions were to simone biles withdrawing from the tokyo olympics was... comedians were literally mocking her csa on public platforms

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I think of so many stupid shenanigans between Wriothesley and his daughters in the Addison Lee verse. They tell Wriothesley crazy shit all the time, their daddy-daughter secrets, and it drives Neuvillette nuts that Wriothesley won't snitch.

Sigewinne, whispering into his ear: Today at school I punched a boy because he was being mean. I waited until it was recess, and made sure that no one was watching, and I punched him. Everyone knows he is a liar, so noooo one believed him when he cried about it. And Sigewinne is aaaalways a superstar so Mr Vautrin didn't suspect a thing !

Wriothesley, mildly concerned: Uh huh.

Sigewinne: Papa would say Sigewinne has to be nice to everyone, but, Sigewinne thinks bullies need to get punched sometimes, b'cos, b'cos otherwise, they think everyone is just gonna let them be mean

Wriothesley: Y'know what. That's fair

[magentagalaxies]

creation of adam but it's this photo of me handing scott the martini before his buddy cole set in the KITH toronto show

[assblastergaster]

fuckkk veilguard really got my ass…started off honestly weak as hell and then i gave it a chance and then they hit my ass with Virmire 2, the sixth sense, and that old couple from san andreas scene all in less than 30 minutes. bioware when i catch you….

[matteoberrettini]

are you catholic? i wouldn't have said so

anon 😭😭 i'm not trying to make fun of you and i'm taking this as a compliment actually but i don't know how to tell you this... i'm literally italian 😭

but seriously, i've grown up catholic yeah, but i don't believe in god and haven't taken part in anything religious in many years. i would say i'm like culturally catholic tho. and technically still catholic to the eyes of the church bc baptism and all that