gwen-tolios
Gwen Tolios
Author from Chicago | Neck deep in plot bunnies
6429 posts
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Last Seen Blogs
icicle-ark
2008 was so last year.. right?
tokiaxe
Untitled
can-y0u-hear-me-n0w
Don’t report, just block
auditect
Here to hyperfocus on underused characters
doopn00p
Welcome!
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nobuddy feels like they have a sharp attention span these days, right? and we all just click “agree on terms of service” because its hard to love yourself sometimes, well
enter Terms of Service, Didn’t Read: a website and a browser addon that streamlines the terms of service of many popular web services to be read by the tech sunday drivers.
It’s graded from A (great) to E (awful) and if you have the addon you have access to the info about the website on your bar
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I've met him in person btw and he's a fucking sweetheart
[ID: Text-intensive Twitter thread from the Shapeshifters chest binders Twitter account in reply to a post by artist and author Ursula Vernon. Vernon says, A non-zero number of you apparently did not know that The Last Unicorn was a book before it was a movie. It is by Peter S. Beagle. It is made of spun glass and fairytales and iron knives and there are individual lines that I would give my lungs to have written. Shapechangers replies, I saw him every year at NYCC for several years straight, bought something at his table, asked him to sign it, and we spoke. He remembered me from year to year, no small feat at that con. He remembered which stories he'd told me. One year I came back with a different gender on. He squinted at me a bit and said thoughtfully, "I've seen you before in this place." All I had to say was, "last year you told me the story about the inoshishi." And his face cleared, and he leaned in with a grin and told me about a German guitarist who he traveled with, twice. Who transitioned between the first and second time, so he'd gotten to meet this person all over again on the second round. It was a wonderfully kind way to let me know that everything was fine. I was fresh out of the closet and I needed that, and maybe he could see it. The Last Unicorn is the best book in the world and I will defend it and its author til I die. the end. /end ID]
I don't usually talk about celebrities; artists, when I do, and I'm keenly aware that one needn't be a good person to be a hell of a heartwrenching artist.
But Peter S. Beagle has written a few of my favorite things in the world, he's an excellent singer and filker, and this Twitter thread was dreadfully important to me. I don't want it going away as Twitter becomes Shitter, because it's so often bad news, isn't it? It's important to me to share trans joy.
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Remember this joke?
Well, I am going to do something similar only with photography. This is a photo someone took for an Amazon review of their Clinique products.
Honestly, it is not a terrible photo. They did some staging. They have an interesting background. All of the labels are legible. It is properly exposed. This would be a perfectly acceptable product photo for an Etsy page.
I've been taking these advanced photography courses in preparation for whenever I am able to create a new studio in the house. And my teacher is a photography badass. I just watched a 6 hour class on how to recreate a professional Clinique ad. And at first glance it looks deceptively simple. It's just some skin care products being splashed with a little water.
Which is why I wanted you to see an average person for reference.
This is what Karl Taylor came up with.
And I don't think I've learned so much about photography in one tutorial before.
Product photography is just loads and loads of problem solving. You have to light the chrome caps with a gradient. Which requires giant diffusion scrims.
Those big white panels are literally only there for the two chrome caps.
You need a pure white background, but you can't let light spill all over the studio, so you put up giant black light blockers.
And you have to add another light just for the orange bottle on the right.
Oh, and if you want the bottles to glow, well, you have to hide a silver reflector behind them.
But you still want the edges of the bottles to be darker so they have some contrast. So you add some black tape to the sides.
And in order for the reflective labels to have bold black lettering, you have to reflect black cards into them.
Ack! Karl's beautiful bald head is showing up in the chrome caps! He must put on the naughty blanket.
And once you get every aspect of every bottle perfectly lit, you finally get to yeet some water at it all.
I don't love product photography because I have a weird obsession to help greedy corporations make their wares look more beautiful. I love it because it is a complicated and challenging new puzzle every time. Every product is a different shape and requires a different technique to make it look its best.
I don't know if I will be able to live up to Karl's standards.
This is about the level I was at in 2017 before I quit photography.
I have so much more knowledge in my brain now. I'm really hoping I can surpass that.
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I feel like wanting things has been important to being happier for me
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Holy shit, they got Voyager 1 working again!
15 billion miles away and NASA was able to tweak code packages on one of the onboard computers and it worked and Voyager 1 is sending signals back to earth for the first time since November.
Incredible!
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I am so proud to say that my college is so LGBT friendly, that in a survey Res Life put out they forgot to include straight people.
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20 Emotional Wounds in Fiction That Make Readers Root for the Character
Abandonment: Characters who have been abandoned by loved ones or caregivers can evoke sympathy from readers.
Betrayal: Being betrayed by someone close can create deep emotional wounds that make readers empathize with the character.
Loss of a Loved One: Whether through death or separation, the loss of a loved one can be a powerful emotional wound.
Rejection: Characters who experience rejection, whether in relationships or by society, can be relatable and evoke empathy.
Abuse: Physical, emotional, or psychological abuse can create complex wounds that shape a character's personality and behavior.
Neglect: Characters who have been neglected, especially in childhood, can evoke sympathy from readers.
Failure: Experiencing a significant failure or loss can create emotional wounds that make characters more relatable.
Guilt: Characters who carry guilt for past actions or decisions can be compelling and evoke empathy from readers.
Shame: Feelings of shame can create internal conflict and make characters more relatable and sympathetic.
Injustice: Characters who have experienced injustice or unfair treatment can evoke strong emotions from readers.
Trauma: Characters who have experienced traumatic events, such as war or natural disasters, can be sympathetic and relatable.
Loneliness: Characters who feel lonely or isolated can evoke empathy from readers who have experienced similar feelings.
Fear: Characters who face their fears or struggle with phobias can be relatable and evoke empathy from readers.
Self-doubt: Characters who struggle with self-doubt or low self-esteem can be relatable and evoke sympathy.
Identity Crisis: Characters who are grappling with questions of identity or struggling to find their place in the world can be sympathetic.
Addiction: Characters who struggle with addiction can be complex and evoke empathy from readers.
Betrayal of Trust: Characters who have had their trust betrayed can be sympathetic and relatable.
Unrequited Love: Characters who experience unrequited love can be sympathetic and evoke empathy from readers.
Isolation: Characters who feel isolated or disconnected from others can be relatable and evoke sympathy.
Fear of Failure: Characters who struggle with a fear of failure can be relatable and evoke empathy from readers.
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In the future, children will think our ways are strange. "Why do old people always grow so much milkweed in their gardens?" they'll say. "Why do old people always write down when the first bees and butterflies show up? Why do old people hate lawn grass so much? Why do old people like to sit outside and watch bees?"
We will try to explain to them that when we were young, most people's yards were almost entirely short grass with barely any flowers at all, and it was so commonplace to spray poisons to kill insects and weeds that it was feared monarch butterflies and American bumblebees would soon go extinct. We will show them pictures of sidewalks, shops, and houses surrounded by empty grass without any flowers or vegetables and they will stare at them like we stared at pictures of grimy children working in coal mines
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not “oh my god it’s just a tv show” as in you are not allowed to find genuine joy and form a true connection to fiction, but “oh my god it’s just a tv show” as in, if it legitimately stresses you out and impacts your mood when things don’t happen exactly the way you want them to, and it causes you to lash out at other - real - people, maybe you need to take a massive step back.
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*im using "dating" to refer to any kind of romantic relationship, it just fits neater in the boxes! interpret as u see fit
pls leave your thoughts in the tags im genuinely very curious
#have dated now neutral#my experiences dating is what helped me figure i was arospec#and while i wouldn't actively look for a date via apps again#if someone in rl asked I'd maybe say yes#aro things#aromantism
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I'm kinda flabbergasted by the leading result because we have sooooo many fanfics about dead people. It's called historical fiction.
Or just retellings. Iron Widow is a reimagining (an au fanfic) of the Chinese Empress Wu, which Zhao has said several times and notes in the book. Epstein's A Tip For The Hangman is historical fiction about Chris Marlow, a famous playwright. Nicholas Flamel has made cameos in stories from Harry Potter to Fullmetal Alchemist. The Other Boylen Girl by Gregory was HUGE in the early 2000s.
Write those dead people fanfics! Just don't tell anyone they're nonfiction.
*This poll was submitted to us and we simply posted it so people could vote and discuss their opinions on the matter. If you’d like for us to ask the internet a question for you, feel free to drop the poll of your choice in our inbox and we’ll post them anonymously (for more info, please check our pinned post).
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LESS THAN 2 HOURS AGO: in chicago, outside of the labor notes conference there was a solidarity rally for palestine, and some protesters were arrested. the crowd, mostly made up of union members and organizers, SUCCESSFULLY DEARRESTED PEOPLE! i highly recommend looking at the entire twitter thread this is from. mel documented the dearrest as it unfolded over the course of about 40 minutes.
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I just don’t get it. How can our society act so goddamned normal about seahorses. How can anybody so casually accept that that’s a fish???
This is one of nature’s most anatomically perverse of all beasts. A FISH, like a carp or a bass or a beta is a fish, but it bent its body straight up only to bend its head permanently back down. It stretched its skull into a pipe. It tapered its tail like a lizard, specifically like a chameleon. It can also move its eyes independently by the way, you know, like a chameleon. Fun fact, it can change color to express its mood, like you know whatever does that. It doesn’t properly swim anymore. It buzzes its few remaining fins like an insect’s wings to float itself around at a snail’s pace. It lives its whole life clinging to coral branches or seaweed, which means it decided to become a “tree dweller” in an environment where gravity didn’t even matter anyway. The males get pregnant. They make noises at each other by rubbing some of their neck bones together. Every day, EVERY DAY a mated pair does a little dance and a little neck bone song so they remember which two seahorses they were. They’re a beautiful precious obscenity. Nothing so adorable ever made such a strong case against a logical creator.
They have as little skin and meat as they could get away with. Their skeleton is almost all they are.
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Hundreds of people are about to board a flotilla and deliver urgent humanitarian relief to Gaza. Please share this video and follow Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The more people watching, the safer the participants.
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