are some of the people newer to tumblr aware of the joys of theme customization on desktop? I know some ppl are just on mobile so they can’t really change things but like SO many blogs nowadays have 0 theme customization and just use the default theme and I’m beginning to wonder if they even know about the option. It’s one of the main reasons why I still use tumblr

With the release of How to Train Your Hogfly, Cressida made the incredible decision to make Hiccup's Family Tree even more Complicated, this time with the inclusion of polyamory* and uncle's second cousins twice removed!

As if it needed to be more complex than it already was

The worst part is, it actually just works.

So with that, may I present, the Extended Haddock Family Tree << Link in case Tumblr kills the quality

*Explanation below the cut

Also if you've been trying to make a family tree or chart of some kind, and the most popular/most common sites just don't cut it, I highly recommend checking out the site I used Its a little bit wonky at times, but overall far better and easier to use than anything else I tried, plus its free, no sign up involved, and has a desktop app if you want

*.... Alright well technically that's not confirmed

What she actually did is make Hiccup related to the Chief of the Danger-Brutes, Dastardly Dangerus, through his 2nd cousin twice removed marrying Hiccup's Great Grandmother, Buffintruda

The problem with this is, she's already listed as Chucklehead's wife

And in order for her to be related to Hiccup at all, she would have had to already be married to Chucklehead

Now there are a couple other options of course She could have been married to Chucklehead, had 2 kids, he either died or they got divorced, and then she remarried

BUT to me, that doesn't seem like what happened, just doesn't feel like it the way its spoken about

So for me, I am in the camp of they got polyamory in there

@fidgetyfawn hi hi so i thought i'd go and give you a very brief tumblr beginner/early intermediate guide since i've also seen some other people around here that may find it useful!!

i'm going to assume you know little to nothing, and this post is good both for people who are just looking to find cool art/fic/whatever, or for people looking to post their own art/fic.

click on the readmore here and i'll give you a bit of a walkthrough for how to get things set up and how to start interacting with people, as well as some basic etiquette!

THIS IS A VERY LONG POST!! pro tip: if you're on desktop, you can use the J key to skip down a post and the K key to skip up. youre welcome

so first things first, when you log in, the first thing you'll see is your dashboard. this is where posts from people you follow will appear.

dashboard management

i can't remember if this is the default or not, but i highly recommend you change your dashboard (almost typed dachshund ATD counter: 1) to chronological order. you can do this by clicking settings on the left, then dashboard (ATD counter: 2) on the right.

personally, i uncheck the 'shorten longer posts' option since it cuts things too short, and further down you'll see the option that says 'best stuff first'. turn that shit off. you'll miss a lot of posts from people you follow if you have it on. actually, everything on that preferences section can get turned off. tumblr is designed to be more curated, and those are all options the staff added trying to emulate things like twitter. they suck. turn em off.

how to find blogs to follow

so now that you've got your dash set up, it's time to get some shit showing up!! you've already started off right by following me, so i can see you know how to do that much. but in case this post breaches containment, i'll put some tips here for people:

if you see people out in the wild that you like who link their tumblrs, go check em out. see if you like what they post. if so, you can follow them. this will put their posts on your dashboard, and they'll get a notification that you've followed if they have those turned on.

once you find someone you like, check out who they're reblogging from. go check out those blogs. see who they're reblogging. go check out those blogs. search for things that you're interested in, and click on the people posting into those tags (more on this later). eventually, you'll be following lots of people who post things that you like, and now you can start really curating your own posting experience.

some people will have a DNI (do not interact) linked somewhere. if they do, it's considered good etiquette to give it a look and make sure you're not gonna step on toes. some people will have a "blank blogs"/"ageless blogs dni" on theirs, or say they'll block you if you're a blank/ageless blog. this is because a lot of bots will have a blank tumblr, so it's a good idea to make some text posts or something saying IM REAL I PROMISE and you can have "i'm an adult"/"18+"/"(your actual age if you're comfortable with it)"/"(an approximation of your age, e.g. 20s, if you arent)" before you get too in the weeds on following people.

sidebar, once you're blocked, it's a bit tacky to go find that person on other platforms or go on anon and ask why they blocked you. just move on and don't take it personally.

how to post shit

these are the buttons that let you post new shit. when you make a new post, you'll get the post editor popping up. it's actually pretty cool, hot take, but here are the important things to know:

put your post in the spot. i'm using the text post one here since i post either fanfic or nattering. you can add links to stuff, change formatting, font colors, all that. i'm not gonna get too into the weeds on that since this is a beginner guide, but there are other guides on how to do it slash you should fuck around with it a bit yourself. i will, however, show you the details of the "post now" button

post now: posts now

add to queue: tumblr has a function where it will automatically post things in your queue. you can find it in your blog detail page, which you get to via account>[click on your blog name]>queue on the right. you can change how many per day go there. a lot of people will have a cutesy queue tag (eg "i love queue" or something punny like that) so your followers will know if it's a queued post or a regular one. this is cute, but not necessary

save as draft: if you want to keep a post for later but not publish it yet, you can save it as a draft. it's in the same place as your queue, but these will stay there until you post it yourself. i do this a lot for posts that i want to keep for their information, or to save art to post for when i'm trying to break up an ocean of asks. very cool feature

post privately: this will make it so that only you can see the post. just a warning though that anything that goes online will be seen by Someone, so i wouldn't put like. deep dark secrets or your ssn here or something. (<- does not use this feature at all hahaha)

schedule: you can have the post drop on a certain time on a certain day. fun for flashbanging yourself later, or reminding yourself of something, etc.

if you put something in your post, it will be "searchable" on tumblr. that means if you have a post saying "i hate tmnt rise" then people who look for "tmnt rise" may be able to see your post. just a heads up. you can make your blog not show up in search results, but if you're someone looking to be found (e.g. a writer trying to post, or someone trying to make friends, etc.) i dont recommend you turn that on. just be aware that if you post things talking shit, you might get some people trolling you. just block them and move on.

if you click into a post, this thing will pop up. this will allow you to add a picture, a gif, a link, an audio file, a video file, a poll, or a readmore break (shortens the post like i did with this one to make it less intrusive on someone's dashboard).

etiquette note: if your post is going to be on the long side, Especially if it's a text post (for me this is around the 650-700 word mark), put it under a readmore. it's really annoying on mobile to scroll through a bunch of text. also, if you're going to post nsfw (which i will remind you, WILL show up in the public tags!) either have some kind of nsfw tag, put it under a readmore, or both.

tags

on the bottom of your post, you will see the option to tag your posts. some people don't use the tag function at all. i use it religiously. tagging serves two functions: organizing your blog, and sharing your content.

on your blog, you can search posts by tag. this is the best way to search your tumblr, which has a notoriously terrible search function. if you ever want to confidently be able to find things again, tag them something you'll remember. i have a list here of tags i use as an example for some ideas.

secondly, tumblr has a function where you can see what everyone is posting under a certain phrase. you can find this by typing a phrase into the "search tumblr" bar in the upper right. this will largely be posts that are tagged by that thing, or have tags that contain that phrase. (e.g. if you search "tmnt" you will find posts that are tagged "tmnt" but also some that are tagged "donnie tmnt"). this is how you can find new people to find, and fun art to reblog, etc. search for things you're interested in, then go through the tag and find who looks cool.

you'll also find that some people (<- me) will "talk" in the tags. the op of the post Can See These!!! so don't say anything that's rude or that you wouldn't want them to see!!! but this is a holdover of tumblr etiquette from years ago when it was considered rude to reblog art, let's say, and put your thoughts about something in the reblog as its own reblog. the old school of thought is that it disrupted the "aesthetic" of the post, so you'll see a lot of people put their commentary in the tags instead. it's not as obtrusive, but everyone can still see it. there's a joke that your tags will "pass peer review" if someone screenshots them and puts them on the post while reblogging, but that's usually something you'll see on particularly funny posts or creative posts or that sort of thing.

reblogs vs reposts

you will come across people who have "no reposts" or "don't repost my art" in their description or on their blog or on their art. there's a lot of confusion for new tumblr people on what that means.

reposting means that you are downloading the art/fic/whatever, then using the upload function and creating your own original post.

reblogging is when you take the post that the person made, and clicking on the reblog button (third one here):

reposting things is BAD because it does not give the op original credit and it makes it look like you created the thing. reblogging is GOOD because it shares art/writing/etc with the people who are following you, and encourages community. the double arrows are what keep community alive!!

on that note, likes are functionally useless. that little heart there does nothing for artist engagement. while there is a tumblr algorithm, it's terrible, doesn't really work, and! we've already turned ours off in the beginning, remember? most people will have done this. liking a post doesn't put it on your blog, it doesn't make it so that you can find it later, it doesn't boost the op's engagement. likes do the two things and only the two things:

op knows you saw the post

tumblr puts it into one giant unsearchable pile of things you've liked

that's it! so if you like a post, consider reblogging it. add that fun commentary in the tags we talked about! this is a really good way to make someone's day.

etiquette note; you'll sometimes see people who say "no spam likes". this means that they don't like it when people go through their blog and just hit like on the latest posts over and over and over. it clogs up the notification feed and makes it harder to see the engagement that actually Means something, e.g. reblogs, mentions, replies, etc. i personally don't have an issue with it since you can filter those out if you're looking for something, but if someone asks you not to do it, don't do it. also, if you do it and suddenly find that you're blocked even if you've not done anything wrong, that might be why. some people just don't like it shrug.

how to make friends

tumblr is a social media site, and while it's possible to have a great time on your own just reblogging pretty art and great fics onto your page, a lot of the joy comes from participating in community.

there's a good post here i reblogged the other day for some details, but here are some basic things for a beginner to know:

you can send messages to blogs you like called "asks". you'll find the link to it on the left of the follow button on someone's blog, and a lot of people will have changed the wording. for example, mine is called "request a song." you can send people messages, anonymously if you wish, and tumblr will let you know when the person has answered your message. they may do so publicly (which i always do!), so make sure not to put anything there you wouldn't be okay with all of their followers seeing. don't be rude. but it's the best way to start talking with someone. and most people are very excited to get messages like this!! so don't be intimidated!!

there is a dm system. most people aren't going to have it available except to people they're following, and it has a bit more of an intimate feel than an ask. personally, i only use this function for my mutuals (people whom i follow who are also following me), and i'd be willing to bet that's a common mood about it.

replies: just like you did with the post you started, you can reply to text posts. the op will see it, and you can start talking about a post without having it appear on your blog. it's a nice way to communicate without clogging up your dash/blog, and you did so perfectly!

reblogs: we already went over this, but you can also just reblog posts. the person from whom you reblog will see what you say, and op will see what you say. etiquette here is not to reblog posts if someone asks you not to, and to tag longer posts as "long post" so people on mobile who have that limited don't have to scroll as long

talk to people! be friendly! ask them about their day. if it's an author, tell them your favorite part of their last fic. ask what the inspiration was for this part or that part. i get people sending me songs in that remind them of character moments, and that's fun! draw art of your favorite scene, then tag the author in it! (to tag people, use the @ symbol, then type their username, e.g. @desceros tags me).

find people that are posting the things that you like, follow them, reblog from them, send in asks off anon when they reblog little games asking for them, just. you know. be social. that post i linked has some good ideas if you need help.

if you're coming from ao3, go to the author's profile page. a lot of us have our tumblrs linked there. go to their tumblr. follow them. send in asks about their fics. you'll often find fun fanart, or wips, or that kind of thing!

anyway i think that answered all the questions you had, but you can ask if there's something specific you were looking for i didn't touch. hope this helps!! C:

Maybe you have some drawing tips for beginners?

Your style is incredibly beautiful and it just inspires this thing inside me to grab my iPad and start drawing but unfortunately I have no idea where to even begin

Or maybe you have some recs where to look to learn how to draw stuff?

But I understand completely that it’s your thing and artists should never feel pressured to share all their techniques and secrets, you worked hard on it!

I just really really love your art to the point where I just look at it for 30 minutes straight with this big feeling in my chest

<3

ah it was never about being secretive, i'm pretty open about my drawing process since gatekeeping knowledge is a big pet peeve of mine. It was more like,, laziness because writing a cohesive and helpful drawing tutorial is pretty difficult and i wouldn't even know where to start; i'm afraid i'll get maybe too technical and what have you.

As for tips for beginners, i've shared plenty on my couriouscat so you can scroll through the answers there, i also have some drawing timelapses on my twitter account as well (albeit you'll have to scroll a little)

I'm very flattered you feel that way about my art, it really means a lot to me and i'm glad to have inspired you to draw as well that's awesome and i wish you best of luck!

I actually don't know how different drawing on an iPad is compared to a graphic tablet+desktop, so I am actually pretty clueless in that regard. I think Procreate is the most used digital art app for iPad so you can start by getting it and familiarizing yourself with the UI. I think this step is often overlooked. The brushes and the chosen program can make or break the drawing experience. If you simply find yourself not enjoying Procreate, experiment with other apps or maybe try switching to a graphic tablet, maybe that feels better and is more suited to your tastes.

To be completely honest, one "bad" piece of advice that i should probably keep to myself is to draw something you actually enjoy: fanart, Pretty Girl Portrait(tm), your cat, landscapes etc even if it's above your skill level (becoming obsessed/ fixated on some character from a piece of media also works wonders i'm just gonna throw that out there). The main point is to actually care about your chosen subject in order to get inspired and to have that inner desire of "doing them justice" aka drawing them well. The traditional art learning route probably involves studying the fundamentals, shading spheres and cones and simple 3D forms blablbablah which. Yeah ! sure that's probably better advice but i'm telling you what will make you want to keep going and not get discouraged after a few failed attempts.

As for the drawing subject, I highly recommend having photo references to guide you.. you always need refs it's a recurring thing. My fastest artworks are the ones where I have the right references. the less references the more difficult it is to draw something

As a beginner it is also a good practice to draw OVER your photo reference to get the proportions right ( i'm not talking about literally tracing the contour of a face or limb ( just an example ), but moreso identifying the Main shape which makes up that body part and observe how long is it in respect to the other components, how does it connect to the other parts etc - big difference. Tracing won't help you in the long run).

Another thing you can do is to study your favourite artists and see how They tackle whatever it is that you like in their work. how do they simplify facial features? what about anatomy? color/ light etc and kinda reverse engineer your way through their process. ( but i highly recommend to just keep these practice sketches to yourself, and to not share them on social media- unless you get the artist's permission)

This is how i got into drawing and what i did back then, again, for more technical hands-on information i did answer similar CCs before so with a little bit of stalking you'll find them in no time

I wanna finish this with some resources that helped me:

>youtube guys - sinix, ahmed aldoori, marco bucci, and also just speedpaints in general i highly recommend watching those

>for simplified anatomy i found @/ taco1704 's ref sheets to be very helpful but ........... I'm pretty dry here i just look up refs on Pinterest tbvh

speaking of, here's my pinterest i have a bunch of art related boards board cool stuff overall maybe they can help guide you towards some direction or inspire you in some way idk

ok i kinda suck in the resource department listeN. im starving too just.................. watch youtube speedpaints ok

SORRY IT'S SO LONGGGBGGG i hope it was at least a bit helpful? this was all over the place... I'll try to come up with a tutorial as well but i really gotta be careful with how i go about it. I'll leave you with this for the time being. Again, thank you a lot for the kind words, I really am very grateful and touched esp by that last part about staring with the big feeling stuff eeeeeeeeeeeeee really wow T T that's so lovely and a big compliment thanks ty ly

Then and now - shippy edition! 💜

Enabled and inspired by @pinkyjulien @humberg @arcandoria @breezypunk @kharonion and everyone else who's done something similar XD My little VP and modding journey featuring Vince and Kerry over the last few months!

So, I figure, most of you can relate to my disappointment when I realized at the end of my first playthrough that there's so little interaction possible with the main NPCs outside of their respective questlines. The text messages your LI sends you are adorable, yes. Being able to sleep in their bed and then waking up next to them? A+ game design, 100/100, every game with romances needs this. But where is my option to hug, kiss, spend time with Kerry? Rude!!

Still though, I was undeterred to create some shots for my new favourite blorbos with my vanilla game (I had never heard of AMM then (or at least was too chickenshit still to install it)).

2023/Feb/06

Behold, my first attempts at creating something shippy (and I do still like these a lot) - title: Kerry meets Nibbles.

The idea behind this is probably kinda self-explainatory XD I had these as desktop background for so long, it feels so nostalgic to look back at them now. I think I have some slightly edited versions somewhere but cannot find them for the life of me, but there's no big difference really, just some slight colour/contrast editing.

I was always a bit bummed out by the fact that Kerry's default outfit for idling at the villa is the one with sunglasses on (while over the progression of his questline he wears it less and less as he gets to know V better, as if he is letting his guard down). But oh well! Also yes, that was and still is my favourite photomode pose for V really, because it is very versatile:

But that's... really it when it comes to opportunities for shippy moments outside of the quests.

2023/Feb/09

I was yearning for more!! As you can see, these are only 3 days apart. I had done some research and learned about the "[NPC] Interactions Enhanced" mods that I highly recommend for the options to kiss and hug your LIs alone :3 And! More shippy shot opportunities, because Kerry will finally be somewhere else in his huge-ass villa besides the sofa or the bed, and take off those beloathed sunglasses:

Hhhh.... I can't tell you how happy I was about this shot. I remember yelling to my friends on Discord about it half in tears (none of them really knowing much about the game yet apart from my occasional screaming about all the angst and plot twists). I think I described it as "Vince finally feeling some actual, real happiness, daring to imagine a future", just content and relaxed, having a late night talk with Kerry. I still like it a lot, and because of the mod enabling me to take this pic I still low-key wanna look into quest-modding some day and see if I can make something in a "romance-enhanced" direction. The "Kerry calls V and wants help with cleaning up the villa" quest we all deserve xD

2023/Feb/12

Another couple of days later, and with one toe dipped into modding now, I finally installed AMM (I think, since this was around Valentine's Day, this must've been when I saw a tutorial by @pinkyjulien on how to pose your blorbos for kissing poses with AMM, and my mind was blown XD). My first attempt to even get anything accomplished was kinda frustrating though (because I wanted to do too much too quickly). In a couple of the other "then and now" posts I saw earlier that the more common approach for getting into AMM used to be "swap your characters with NPCs around the city" and I was like.... "oh, yeah, that would've made things a lot easier" 🤡 Nope, I went right in with spawning them in and trying to squish them together with poses that somewhat matched XD

The following were my first AMM-posed screenshots that worked how I wanted them to, and aösdhfdsaf I am somewhat self-conscious about them still. What is a "look at" feature? What are expressions?

I never shared these publically before but hhhhh... this is it, this is the moment where the brainrot started. They're at Dark Matter, talking about V's childhood in Charter Hill, musing about how it's insane how they both occupied almost the same spaces for such long periods of their lives and only never ran into each other due to their age difference. I'm actually still (slooooowly) working on a little comic with this scene/story as topic, cause it is so essential and important to me (based on a random spontaneous decision I made about V's past before even knowing the Dark Matter existed... right across from V's childhood home asdöasdhfjds. Setting the whole "we were destined for each other" trope I have going on with them so much in stone ;A;). This is one of the shoots I'd also really like to redo with my current VP skills... maybe when I've finished my hand-holding poses, cause yeah... hand holding ;__;

Speaking of which:

2023/Jul/13

Five months later, still stupidly in love with each other, still regularly back at the Dark Matter because the place is so gorgeous and important to them. Kerry's getting some more outfits slowly but surely (even with sunglasses!), I have a much better understanding of AMM and the VP possibilities in general now. These two unlocked completely new ways of creative expression for me that I wouldn't even have dreamed of possessing or wanting to follow. VP has become such an amazing creative outlet, for creating all those little scenes I wish I existed in the base game, or which I'd love for them to have in their future.

Am I crying about fictional pixel men too much? Maybe. But over a short period of time they've become so important to me, and I got to meet so many cool and inspiring people in this community after not really feeling part of or even drawn to creating for a fandom for a long time anymore. Can't wait to update this post some time in the future to see where my and their journey will lead to!

I feel like my progress is kinda slow, and I wish I had more time to dedicate to them and all my creative endeavours, cause they'd deserve it for all the joy they bring me xD But alas... Fingers crossed for more spare time and better time management in my future! Thanks for reading this far and coming to my blorbo talk 💜

writeblr positivity tag

my wonderful morbo @serenanymph tagged me <3 gently tagging @lyssa-ink @lena-rambles @zmwrites @winterandwords and under a cut because it's long. blank questions at the bottom <3

1. What motivates you to write?

the thought of holding the finished book in my hands and being able to reread it and share it. also spite

2. A line/short snippet of your writing that you are most proud/happy of. If not maybe share a line of someone else's work you love (just please credit them)

y'all wanna see maura be a little bit fucked up and evil

“My father said something to me often,” Maura interrupts, her eyes narrowing. “The law is the law. None are exempt.” She tosses a disdainful look at the duchess. “Those who have no respect for the law will always have excuses for breaking it.” She bends down and tips the duchess's chin up with a finger. Keelan's fingers tighten around his sword. Maura tilts her head to the side. “Your Grace,” she says. “You asked for mercy. You shall have it.”

The duchess sobs. “Thank you, Your Majesty—”

“Do not thank me, wretch.” Maura's lip curls. “Your mercy is the mercy allotted by law. Tell me. Which foot do you value more?”

The duchess's lip trembles. “I beg you, Your Majesty, mercy—”

“You shall have it.” Maura's eyes are unforgiving. “Which foot?”

The duchess's eyes dart around the throne room, wide and terrified. “I—I don't know.”

“Hm.” Maura releases her and stands. “She can have more time to decide. Until she does, get her out of my sight.”

3. Which OC makes you smile every time you think/talk about them and what are they like?

i love all my children equally this is a mean question. currently my favorite chew toy is Jack, who is a minor character in my current wip. Jack is a pathetic disaster bisexual who was left to die as an infant but still managed to survive to adulthood and is using that luck to cause problems on purpose. he steals for a living and flirts for fun and profit. he is in love with his best friend/accomplice Arthur, but can't handle real emotions and is being really thickheaded about it. Arthur is too busy pining for him to notice. Jack is just a little guy. gay boy disaster man. also he killed like 20 people.

4. What process of writing do you enjoy the most?

working out plot/worldbuilding issues. i love sitting down and going "ok how am i going to make this make any gddamn sense" and then bouncing ideas around until i hit one that fits perfectly. yeah sex is great but have you ever found the perfect answer to your plot hole that ties together all the recurring themes and arcs in the story AND has an opportunity to use your overcomplicated worldbuilding?

5. What part of writing do you think you are the best at? (Yes stroke your own ego it's okay)

mainly dialogue. i love imagining conversations and i've been working on dialogue for a long time. my dialogue used to be so cringey so glad i learned from it

6. What is something in the writeblr community is most enjoyable?

we're all a little unhinged about our own writing so nobody minds when you get a little unhinged about their writing. safe space to be unhinged about people's writing

7. A writing tool/device you use that helps you with writing? (It could be speech to text, a writing program etc)

i use campfire write and i love it for keeping worldbuilding organized. it has a lot of visual tools which is great for me personally and it's very customizable. highly recommend it, there is a free desktop version that still gets you quite a bit of usage and the mobile app is free

8. A piece of worldbuilding that you like in your own story? (It could be the magic system, a particular place in the story, a law etc)

i've really enjoyed fleshing out the countries outside of Raedora and how their political systems and cultures are different. for example Guildi also is monarchical, but they have an emperor and their law is absolute, followed exactly as written based on the judgment of the emperor. Fierodia, by contrast, is the homeland of the dragons, so they have two governments--one for the humans, and one for the dragons--and both are a little more democratic in nature, with a Council of the Wise (elders) ruling the dragons while the most powerful magical human families sit on another council that takes petitions from representatives sent by villages and cities.

9. What piece of advice would you say to encourage others to write if they are having a rough patch?

open a blank document. i do this in a simple text editor (.txt) because it forces me to look at the words more (idk how else to explain it). write the dumbest thing you can think of. literally. if you get stuck, hit enter a few times and start writing something else. yes even if you get stuck in the middle of a sentence. do NOT let yourself sit there staring at a blank document, just write. even if it's bad and stupid and doesn't make sense. ESPECIALLY if it's bad and stupid and doesn't make sense. write the stupid little plot bunnies that you came up with in line at starbucks. bullet point a short story you'll never write. purposefully write the most gd-awful purple prose. have some silly little fun with it. rewrite snl episodes that you think would be funnier if you were in charge. anytime you are stuck for more than like 30 seconds hit enter three times and try something else. rinse and repeat until the gears start turning for the thing you actually want to work on.

save these files (i have a little dedicated spot on my drive) so that you don't lose your funky little experimental stuff. you never know what you'll find there later.

10. Tag some people whose works you love/have been your biggest supporters

i adore @serenanymph's wip beast and all the blorbos found within and how much she supports lacuna. @lyssa-ink's wips my beloved. @zmwrites has some incredible wips and an amazing writing style. i love the worldbuilding from @akindofmagictoo's dragonsong and @oh-no-another-idea is one of the biggest sweethearts on this website.

blank questions:

1. What motivates you to write?

2. A line/short snippet of your writing that you are most proud/happy of. If not maybe share a line of someone else's work you love (just please credit them)

3. Which OC makes you smile every time you think/talk about them and what are they like?

4. What process of writing do you enjoy the most?

5. What part of writing do you think you are the best at? (Yes stroke your own ego it's okay)

6. What is something in the writeblr community is most enjoyable?

7. A writing tool/device you use that helps you with writing? (It could be speech to text, a writing program etc)

8. A piece of worldbuilding that you like in your own story? (It could be the magic system, a particular place in the story, a law etc)

9. What piece of advice would you say to encourage others to write if they are having a rough patch?

10. Tag some people whose works you love/have been your biggest supporters

L3: Thronefall

Tower defense made approachable and replayable.

I'm not usually one for tower defense games, but put some action gameplay in there and give me a free demo, and I'm more than willing to give it a go.

That's exactly how I got hooked on Thronefall, and having played through what's available in Early Access, I'm very eager to see what else developer GrizzlyGames has planned.

Thronefall is all about expanding and defending your kingdom. The game is split up into levels, each with its own challenges. At the start of each level, you must first place a castle, after which you can expand into a variety of other buildings and features to aid in your defense.

Each building and subsequent upgrade costs money, meaning you have to be very careful in deciding what to buy. Do you buy a house, to increase your income over the long term? Or do you invest into some barracks to have foot soldiers to help fight back waves of enemies?

The variety of options available with upgrades for buildings combined with the three different weapons and abilities you can choose provide you with plenty of gameplay styles. Take into account the various perks and modifiers for each level and there's tons of replayability to be had.

One thing I particularly enjoy about Thronefall is the size of each level. As the camera follows you around, it ends up cutting of parts on the other side of the map. This really makes you focus on your choices, as if you end up moving over to the left, you'll have no idea what's happening on the right. You need to have faith in your strategy, as you can't oversee everywhere all at once.

There were a couple of times I felt frustrated, which occurred when I played levels for the first time. Before you start each wave, the game shows you icons and numbers to represent what enemies you'll face. If you haven't played the level before though, you won't know what it is, meaning you have to blindly set up your defenses and hope you have something that's effective. This happened to me a couple of times, where I was caught out because I didn't know what type of enemy was about to come, making the process feel a little bit like trial and error rather than thought-out planning.

Another issue I ran into with Thronefall is the UI. I found it difficult to see the ability cooldown whilst I was commanding soldiers, which ultimately led to a bit of button mashing. The issue is even worse on Steam Deck, though performance-wise it's stable - if you're going to play Thronefall in handheld mode I highly recommended going into the options and increasing the UI size.

Thronefall is a game you could easily whittle away the hours with. It took me around five hours to clear each level, but I can easily see myself putting in another 20 to tackle all the challenges and unlock every perk. I'll be sticking to it on my desktop, though.

The visual of your Podfic Tumblr Page.. 👌🏼

How did you do that?! 😌

I take great pride in my desktop master list pages (even tho I need to update them ^^')

The short answer is a lot of time and itty bitty knowledge of HTML coding to make the process easier.

The longer answer is:

Find a code you want to use! (you can skip step 3 if the code you want doesn't utilize JAVA script) - The code I'm using is THIS created by @seyche

Go to 'edit appearance' in your desktop settings and create a page that you're going to use. You'll want this ready for step 3 if the HTML you want to use has JAVA script.

Get permission from Tumblr to use JAVA script on pages -> here is a good template. They actually got back to me really quickly, but I've heard it can take a week or two.

Once you have permission, you can go to the page you created. Go to the upper left-hand where it says 'Standard Layout' and hit 'Custom Layout' instead. Then you're going to copy and paste the entire code you've selected into the HTML text. It should look something like what I've posted below.

A lot of code writers will mark clearly where you can edit, what you can edit, and where certain things like backgrounds and colors can be added. It helps if you have a little bit of HTML knowledge or the time to play around and fuck up a bit because it can take a while to learn what you're looking at, but honestly, I think it's super fun.

The code I'm currently using is probably the most complex one I've messed with since it has drop-downs, emojis, and I added a background image and hyperlinks (tho hyperlinking is a super easy code I keep around pretty much everywhere), but there are hundreds of great looking blog and page themes that users make and share so I highly recommend trying them out!

Example:

pspsps ms liz, hi, I've been here multiple times (mostly about games) and I saw you have Deathloop, or at least have it installed (sorry if its weird to look at the games you have installed on your desktop, i was curious) and its currently on sale on steam and i love a good timeloop. I played Prey a bit ago (holy shit the ending threw me for a loop WOW) and enjoyed it, I have a friend who raves about Dishonored and they haven't steered me wrong with games so far, so I have good feelings about Arkane games.

I wanted to ask your opinion on Deathloop before i spend $30 on it 💀💀

um anyways, have a good day!!! please also give your kitties pets for me, they're all adorable

HI BESTIE, dw i am petting ALL of the cats and also it's definitely not weird to look at my desktop since im the one who posted pics of it, although there are some games on there i havent played yet (i tend to take the ones im finished with OFF the desktop but deathloop earned it place). rip start again and night in the woods i swear i am going to get to you soon

so yeah AS you guessed the short answer is YES IT IS WORTH IT!!! doubly so if you can get it on steam. the long answer is:

i have played basically All of the games from arkane and deathloop feels more like dishonored than prey, but that isn't a bad thing!! (if you haven't played the dishonored series and you wind up liking deathloop i'd highly recommend it.) gameplaywise everything feels really polished and fun...when i played i was letting my buddy watch me do the story, so i wound up replaying missions i'd already done in my spare time bc i just couldn't keep my hands off of it. i found ways to do levels i didn't think were possible. there's a lot of freedom in it

the abilities in deathloop imho are what make it resemble DH more than prey, but i think the abilities system is more fun than in prey because in prey when you get the alien abilities it makes the enemies more hostile and i didn't care for that. these are simplified but really fun, i always had a hard time choosing which ones to equip because they're all really good (though admittedly i never played with the one that lets you fling stuff everywhere bc i didn't care). the weapons and trinket system you use for your upgrades comes with a bit of a learning curve (the tutorial section was horrifically annoyingly long) but once you learn the ropes it's a very smooth, fun, satisfying way to work. i havent tried the new update they just released for the 1yr anniversary but it looks amazing too!

the aesthetic and music and the characters are wildly funky and extremely, outrageously fun - the banter you get as you proceed through the levels is very entertaining. it feels like much more of an adventure than prey because it doesnt have that sense of isolation and the characters CUSS. the bosses are the perfect combination of challenging and scary and weird without being TOO hard (with the exception of fia, who has the dubious honor of being one of the most stressful controller-against-the-wall challenges i've ever played, taking me almost twenty tries to complete - come back after you do that one and tell me how many years you aged). i played deathloop before the update that added difficulty levels and i'm not a pro gamer by any means, so anyone should be able to complete it. it's really satisfying to go back to a level you once struggled on with better weapons and abilities and breeze right through it!

that said, there are a couple of cons - the biggest one for me was that my PC had a liiiiittle bit of trouble running it without framerate skips and it took me a long time to get those eliminated. the second biggest one is i think it needed another 6 months or so of dev time, especially in regards to the story. VERY minor story spoilers in the form of: my opinion, but!!! like i said, i haven't played the free update - apparently there's a new, secret ending - but the one we got felt a little bewildering and and anticlimactic. i kept waiting for it all to mean something and it kind of...only meant a little, really?? there's one major twist but instead of making me go "oh COOL" it made me go "oh bad :/" and it was definitely kind of a blueballed feeling bc the rest of the game had my expectations SO astronomically high. to finally finishing the thing was a bit of a letdown

THAT SAID, in spite of its flaws it's one of the most fun times i've ever had playing a first person shooter-ish game. i just wish there was more to do. even replaying some of the levels in my downtime i still only racked up slightly less than 50 hours. but i'm sure on replays/if i were to 100% things/if i tried multiplayer (i havent so far bc crossplatform play costs $$$ and i heard it was a bit lacking anyways) i could get more, which i might go back and try someday, because it's SO FUN. trust me if they gave me 200 hours of content in that game i would play all 200 of them

anyway, can't rec it highly enough, the steam price has apparently dropped to like $24 bucks so you will NEVER find it any cheaper. if you truly do hate it you can return it if you've played less than 4 hours so WHY NOT give it a try. i really hope you enjoy it cuz i sure did!!!

Multiple processes of firefox with one tab

Multiple processes of firefox with one tab drivers#

Multiple processes of firefox with one tab code#

If you would like to use the Firefox Color theme I am using, you can find it here. Unless of course you have made your own colour changes. If you have done everything correctly, your Firefox New Tab page should look exactly like the images shown. If you had Firefox open during the changes, restart it. Once you have finished making any changes, save the file and open Firefox.

Multiple processes of firefox with one tab code#

It may take a little trial and error to figure out which section the code will affect so make the changes gradually. However, if you want to use different colours you will need to change these codes to the codes for your chosen colour. If you are just wanting to clone the style I have, you can leave the codes unchanged. Other apps like Photoshop do this as well.Url-prefix(about:blank), url-prefix(about:newtab) Īgain you will see quite a few different Hex colour codes in the above text. The reason why I mention this is that Firefox (when behaving normally) uses up to a percentage of the available RAM. This would be problematic on a 1GB RAM system, but on my 4GB rig (of which 3GB is usually spare if nothing is running), this isn't a problem. PM on my system is usually a fairly typical 400MB (with a few tabs open including FB currently). Though I think if people are mentioning how much RAM FF is using, it helps to also mention how much RAM you have in your system as well. I have Process Explorer open and minimised to the systray non-stop just to give me general feedback of what the system is up to. I can't say I've noticed a drop-off in responsiveness as well, but anyway. It also sometimes happens with Flash / plugin-container (I have no other plug-ins installed). Replying to code65536's post, yes, I've sometimes noticed that FF's CPU usage on my Ph2 960T is around 11% even though I'm not actively using it. Chrome and IE work around this problem by using multiple processes, which spreads out this "wear and tear" between processes, but in practice, there is so much overhead that it breaks down even worse with my insane-number-of-tabs browsing style. Well, that's my theory, anyway-I've never instrumented this to confirm my suspicions. The nature of the lags feel very much like garbage collection to me, and the RAM bloat after running for a long time looks a lot like heap fragmentation (which, in fairness, is a problem faced by any browser and JS engine), and a highly-fragmented heap can cause garbage collectors to slow and lag. Hint: 'Bookmark All Tabs' will bookmark a set of tabs. If you frequently have more than 100 tabs open, consider using a more lightweight mechanism to keep track of pages to read and things to do, such as: Bookmarks. But if I have NoScript running, this degradation happens much, much more slowly (might take weeks before it gets annoying). Each tab requires Firefox to store a web page in memory. Usually, after I start Firefox, things work fine for a while, and then it starts to get laggy, and I also notice that memory usage has usually bloated up to something like 6GB or more (I'm using a 64-bit build because I have literally thousands of tabs). Not that much to be done about this, though (except disabling JavaScript). * Increasing heap fragmentation and JavaScript garbage collection. Modern sites use crazy amounts of JS (this becomes more apparent when you use NoScript regularly), and unlike mobile browsers, things keep running in the inactive tabs on desktop browsers, which can add up quickly. Depending on what I have open, disabling JavaScript on my netbook can bring my Firefox CPU usage from 50% down to 5% almost instantly (toggling JS through about:config takes immediate effect, though if you plan on toggling JS often, I'd recommend using NoScript instead). All that background polling can add up and become costly (also, the constant creation and destruction of JS objects churns the heap and garbage collector). This is more of a problem with "Web 2.0" sites where pages and content are self-updating. I always have Process Explorer open, so it's trivial for me to select the Flash plugin-container process and kill that process tree, which instantly kills all Flash, and sometimes that does wonders. Especially noticeable if I'm using a low-end machine like my netbook on sites that have Flash-based ads (like Anandtech ). Each profile has its own bookmarks, settings, add-ons, browser history, cookies, and other data. These are some of the culprits that I've personally seen in my usage: Firefox has its own profiles system that works like Chrome’s user account switcher.

Multiple processes of firefox with one tab drivers#

Here are the PassMark 2D Test results, I was wrong by thinking that the latest nVIDIA Drivers offered the best performance, maybe in games, but not in 2D at least, which is where I spend most my time, I rarely if ever play gamesģ26.83 (official driver for my G750JX laptop from ASUS)ģ32.33 (nVIDIA Driver downloaded from ASUS stolen from the G750JM drivers download page)ģ32.60 (nVIDIA Driver downloaded from ASUS stolen from the G750JS drivers download page) Seems like my problem was that I updated to the latest nVIDIA Driver.

[Top 5] Best Skyrim Weather Mods | GAMERS DECIDE

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 Introduction: This mod is a massive visual overhaul that affects things like weather, lighting, clouds and colors. It adds things like new particle effects for snowflakes, enhanced light rays and more in an attempt to make Skyrim more aesthetic. Get the mod HERE. Introduction: Combining features from several weather and visual mods like Climates of Tamriel and Real Skyrim Snowflakes, Vivid Weathers overhauls the colors and weathers and Skyrim in an effort to create stunning visual effects for Skyrim without an ENB. It adds more weather variations, lighting effects, custom textures and more. Introduction: Only available on Skyrim Special Edition, Cathedral Weathers is a massive visual and weather overhaul mod that affects weather, lighting, fog, clouds, audio and more. Built from mods like Obsidian Weathers and taking lessons from Aequinoctium, this mod seeks to provide the best of what the current modding community has to offer for visuals. When searching visual mods you will see the word ENB pop up alot. ENBs are essentially post-processing modifications that can affect the visuals or graphics of a game. Think of it as a layer of code that comes after the base game code so it comes out looking completely different. Code-paint, as it were. ENBs allow mod authors to alter lighting, shadows and other visual effects. Because ENBs essentially builds past these limitations, this means their performance is dependent on RAM space, video card quality and other factors. So it is highly recommended that modders carefully evaluate the capabilities of their computer before downloading an ENB to their game. Skip to main content. Level up. Earn rewards. Your XP: 0. Updated: 25 Apr am. BY: Paige M. Vividian EnB. More on this topic: the elder scrolls v: skyrim. S history. But even so, I am a passionate writer at heart. Gamer Since: Log in or register to post comments. More Top Stories. Increase racial variety among enemies and allies alike with this seemingly simple mod. Points of Skyrim can stand to be improved a little bit in the environment department. Lightning During Storms A Skyrim Best Archer Builds Top 5. What are some of the Best Archer Builds for Skyrim? Gone are the days of classes in The Elder Scrolls where prisoners had to choose between a Healer or a Mage. A type of warrior What are the best Skyrim face mods to kit your character out with? By , The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim had achieved over 30 million in sales, confirming the love and attention that a lot of gamers across the globe had given the free roaming RPG. Everything can be improved on, however, and The Top 10 Best Skyrim Wallpapers. Decorate Your Desktop With the Dragonborn Skyrim was probably one of the most beautiful games of The scenery was absolutely gorgeous and then made even prettier with mods and an updated version , and the world it created had plenty of options for artists all around the web. Here are the Skyrim Best Assassin Builds Top 5. Assassins are everywhere in Skyrim, but what is the best build for an executioner? Or you have been No matter what type of character you are in Skyrim, you always want to have a wide variety of weapons on you, as you will undoubtedly face people and creatures of all types. Below is a list of the top 15 best weapons to keep in your arsenal to be prepared for any battle. You travel to the island of Phalos and try to piece to together what happened. The atmosphere is super tense and some of the visuals are disturbing. Some say this mod is if Dark Souls and Skyrim had a What are the best bows in Skyrim? So what is the best bow? Where can you Static Mesh Improvements Notice how the mod improves Skyrim The textures in the game a super smooth with this mod, the blockiness of some shapes is gone. This mod bring Skyrim to Not only are recipes helpful in promoting your ability to survive, but they also lessen the time it takes to learn new and powerful Forsworn Armor Forsworn Armor Nicknamed the armor of the old gods this light armor is worn by those who still adhere to the ways of the ancients. These followers are scattered throughout Skyrim, and each have been customized so they stand out from one another Werewolf Build A werewolf not taking any shit This is a great build for those hack and slashers out there. Werewolf Build does what exactly They refer to tweaks, additions, changes, subtractions or anything that modifies a game or program--hence the name. So Skyrim mods refer to modifications This is my longest article yet, so I suggest that you get comfy before you dive in. So this mod adds most of it back in the game. A simple but effective means of changing your Skyrim playthrough Hey, guys! These creatures are This one is for anyone out there who craves a more challenging playthrough.

some tips for writing blogs, especially those who are just starting out. these are some things that works for me and may or may not work for others.

how to add a read more link on mobile

type :readmore: on a free space, then hit the enter or return button

personally i think they’re very helpful because it lessens the space you take up in your dash, and might encourage more people to rb

+ you can also add this on a spot where it gives a sort of cliffhanger, essentially making people want to ‘read more’

headers, banners, and dividers

though not necessary, it’s good to have a title for your work. make sure it’s bold and doesn’t blend in with your notes (aka pairing, warnings, etc.). this also helps when someone wants to look up one of your works in your search bar

i don’t really make banners or covers for my works. but some good apps that i know of would be picsart and canva. if you’re looking for ideas, i definitely recommend going into canva

wondering how to make those really small, thin dividers? you can make them using picsart! to make a divider hit tools > free crop > brush > size (adjust it to your preference > then draw a line along the edge of your photo > save

using the divider you just saved, go back to picsart and edit it again > draw option > hit rainbow square at the bottom left corner > hit suction/droplet symbol right below the check mark > color in the white spots bc for some reason picsart glitches and makes dividers look white-ish

new blog? just opened an account?

this is gonna sound really frustrating. but... tumblr needs to check if you’re a bot or not. what does this mean? it’s likely that your first few posts won’t show up on the search bar. you may not even get to edit your header/pfp yet ://

this happened to me and there was no visibility on my account at ALL. what helped me get ‘verified’ is that i followed a LOT of accounts, liked a bunch of posts, made some posts here and there. now that lets tumblr know you’re not a bot

visibility

the tumblr tagging system usually only allows the first 5 tags in your post to show up. so, what can do you about this? only use FIVE or less tags in your post. wait about 15 minutes or more until you can add some more tags in your post, and they usually all show up like that

another important thing about using tags is not to generalize! especially if you’re using a popular tag. but also don’t specify it too much where barely anyone looks it up. for example, if you’re writing a gn piece about oikawa, i recommend you use the tags such as: oikawa x reader, haikyuu x reader, oikawa x gn!reader, haikyuu headcanons, etc

a good rule of thumb is to use character x reader tags first, then leave the full name or fandom tag last

FOR NSFW: tumblr doesn’t let any tags with nsfw show up. so, give your nsfw works another tag. maybe #namegetspicy idk, you figure it out

FOR WARNINGS: especially if you’re a dark content creator, i highly encourage you to add tw:xyz tags. if you already have a warning note at the top then that’s great. but even better for readers who prefer to actually block these tags that way they never get to see it

another important thing to note is that people have different timezones. it helps if you rb your work at a different time of the day, in case people missed it! (icymi) i’ve noticed that reblogging helps to make your post show up in the tags

interaction + feedback

first and foremost, you are not obligated to write for your followers, and neither are your followers obligated to interact with you. remember that everyone has their own individual lives, and they have their own things to do— so do you, too.

make friends! become mutuals with other writers, visit their ask box. i know it can be daunting having to initiate these things, but you might just turn out to have fun! you can’t expect people to interact with you if you’re not interacting (back). it’s... kind of a two way thing yk? no need to be afraid to interact with other writers. oh, and rb other writers works!

pspsps join tag games or do ask games. it’s fun and very interactive

it never hurts to ask for feedback. i usually do this in a more subtle way because i don’t really expect a full on analysis on my works. maybe a little, is this okay? or feedback appreciated. sometimes it takes a little bit of coaxing for the silent readers

formatting your posts and blog

i generally put in the title at the top in big, bold letters

then comes the header/divider. helps to make the post more... visually appealing ig?

it’s important to add warnings (if any) and the pairing. the audience is not all female, and it might be a little frustrating for male readers having to find out its an x fem reader piece like halfway through your fic

if you have multiple works posted, it’s really really helpful to have a navigation page!

you can organize the posts you make with tags! for example, if you’re shitposting, you can use a specific tag for that. if you have a nsfw related post (ESPECIALLY when your blog is open to the general audience) please make a tag for it

themes + colors

if you have a color in mind but don’t know which direction to go from there, i recommend looking up color + aesthetic

looking to use the same color? download a name color app that’ll give you a hex code for any color you want to use. then, you can type in that hex code for when you’re choosing a color for your tumblr bio

wondering how to make your header image small like mine? just choose a photo for your header and turn off the stretch image option

want to use a different text color that tumblr doesn’t offer? it’s not as complicated as you think. you’ll have to go on a desktop to do this and do some html (but trust me, it’s not very difficult). look up “HTML noob but trying my best - how to use colored text on desktop”

^^ i don’t have the link for the color text tutorial so you can try looking it up

how to make an aesthetic navi and masterlist

step 1: decide a theme! if you’re stuck, think about a character + color/season/mood or look up “[insert] aesthetic” to find some inspiration. or you can try looking at other blogs too

step 2: find a color scheme! it’s easier if you choose fewer colors. if you want to use the same color for both divider and text, download a color name app in order to get the hex code of that color.

step 3: add categories to your navi! most navigation pages include a link to masterlist, about/byi, and rules. your navi should have a title that indicates that it’s... a navigation page. you can add thin colored dividers with the same color to make it easier for followers to navigate

step 4: you can choose to create a ‘cover’ or a picture for your navigation and masterlist! again, i recommend you use the canva app as a starting point

extra: search up emoticon symbols to spice up your titles!

reminder for you as a writer

you’re not obligated to do any of these things. i’ve noticed that we tend to build pressure on ourselves when it comes to content and interaction. remember, this !! is !! for !! fun !! when you realize that it’s no longer fun, then know that it’s time to take a break. and there’s nothing wrong with a bit of self care.

^^ c/p from this post lol

at the end of the day, follower count and interaction doesn’t define you. again for the love of beings, you’re here on your own accord.

will be adding more if needed/asked.

Please give advice on moving out or on getting jobs.

hey! i hope you're doing well anon. apologies for never seeing this ask? i guess with the new tumblr beta i'm seeing some asks on mobile and more on desktop? super weird, but happy to give you my two cents!

moving out

so for moving out, i don't have much to say because i'm kind of limbo on whether or not i want to pay rent for a year and a half before grad school. i'm kind of leaning towards staying at home with my family because grad/law school is MAD money, and for now, i think it's fiscially responsible that i stay home

WITH THAT, moving out is a big financial commiment, and a lot of people have different reasons for moving out. is it for a new job? are you unproductive where you are now? do you need to get out of an abusive situation? do you have the money and means to do so? these are all important questions to ask yourself before making the decision to live alone/with friends/with other people

if you're thinking of moving out LATER in the year, i would say look at places NOW and get a good estimate of the prices you'll have to pay for living. factor in utilities, do you want an in-wash unit? how safe is the area? is it transportation friendly or do you need a car? you have to factor all these in when determining a price range that you're looking for. once you have that down, start saving a little bit so you can comfortable pay rent and access utilities and such when you move

another thing to consider is, do you want roommates? are you okay living in a sublease? (cheaper, but you don't have rights). you should start looking for people you might want to live with soon as well. this will also dramatically reduce how much you're paying in rent and utilities

getting jobs

hoo boy, this is a BIG question that might need its own post one day. i also don't know how great of a resource i am bc i'm still trying to pivot in a full-time job from my current internship (i DID get my first big girl job offer, but i declined it like a FOOL). i do have a few suggestions for your search though:

step 1: identify employers - who are some the people/companies you're thinking of working for? follow their social media (especially LinkedIn), so you're in the loop when they're recuriting cycle begins

step 2: NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK - i know networking is the 8th deadly sin, but it is SO important. you MUST connected with recruitors and attend virtual hiring events because when you apply to a job with that organization, they will likely put in a good word for you! i also HIGHLY recommend that if you ever find a job you're interesting in applying to, PLEASE message and connect with someone on LinkedIn because they can give you advice on your application materials AND send in a private note for you (if they like you) once you've submitted an application

step 3: the search - use the broader job searching websites (Handshake; Google Jobs; Indeed; LinkedIn) and make sure that you’re filtering those searches to find things that you’re most interested, in such as level and location. if you're looking for entry-level jobs, most have the term "associate" in them. also make sure you’re getting email alerts and notifications for those job searches, maybe even set those alters to daily because the timing of job drops matters (week to 2 weeks)

step 4: the application - unpopular opinion, but just have ONE general resume with your skills and experince, i don't find it helpful to create a tailored one for every job you apply to. what needs to be new and tailored each time is the COVER LETTER. the cl is one of THE most important parts of your application. make sure it doesn't photocopy everything from your resume - this is really your opportunity to showcase why you're passionate about the organization, why you want to work here (use personal expereinces!), what your skills and experiences can CONTRIBUTE to the work of the organization (actually read into what they do and LINK to how you can add upon that work with your experience).

step 5: timing matters - get in the habit to applying immediately, put the application within 24 hours or into a week, nothing longer than this

this is SUPER long, but also so brief lol. i hope you find this helpful! best of luck with everything anon - you got this!

So, as some of you might know, one of my GIFs was recently featured on the Tumblr Radar - which is pretty cool!  I was fairly happy with how that one turned out, especially considering that I made it rather last-minute on a whim to acknowledge Valentine’s Day.  It understandably received a lot of attention as a result of this, and I’ve loved reading through all the comments and tags (especially all the ones about how people want to eat the heart containers from TP); however, I wanted to clear up a bit of a misunderstanding surrounding the creation of that GIF, as there were additionally a lot of tags along the lines of #3d art or #artists on tumblr in that influx of reblogs.  I don’t want to take credit for something I didn’t do, even accidentally, and so allow me to be perfectly clear: the heart container GIF is not something I modeled and rendered myself! It is the original in-game model, recorded in-game using the Dolphin GCN/Wii emulator, with very little done in the way of post-processing in Photoshop.  If that sounds impossible or confusing (which is perfectly understandable, for those of you unaware of what Dolphin is capable of), I’d like to take this opportunity to give you guys a bit of a “peek behind the curtain,” as it were, to show you guys exactly how I made that particular GIF, as well as similar ones I’ve made (such as those in my #items tag).  

I didn’t take screenshots of my initial process (nor did I save the edited textures I used), so I’ll be recreating it from the ground up for the sake of demonstration, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

First thing’s first: finding a heart container! For this particular GIF, I wound up using the one that spawns after the Morpheel fight at the end of Lakebed Temple.  I’m sure many others would work just as well (I think, at the time, this one just happened to be the most accessible to me), but let’s use the same one for the sake of it.  

Morpheel: defeated.  And I didn’t even need Zora Armor! (Seriously, we do that in the speedrun.  But I’m getting off-topic.)  Of course, we’re going to need clean, close-up footage of the heart container rotating in order to do what we want to do, so let’s shift into first-person mode and and get a bit closer to the thing.

Now, because the only UI-element in this shot is Link’s health (and it’s in the corner and relatively non-obtrusive), removing it isn’t strictly necessary - but I’ve already made a texture pack that removes UI elements as part of my Text Free TP project from a while back, so let’s load it anyway, for the sake of being thorough.  This shot is also still a bit too far away, so next we’ll be utilizing Dolphin’s free cam feature (which can be accessed by going to Graphics > Advanced > Free Look and checking “Enable” in Dolphin) in order to get the heart container in a more central position. Now we’re left with this:

And we’re already looking well on our way to making a nice, solid color background GIF.  But how do we get the solid color? Well, that’s where more texture editing comes into play - and here I have to give credit where credit is due, as this is a trick I picked up from 186px, after wondering how they were able to make this GIFset of Link fighting Ganondorf in The Wind Waker in a great, black void.  (Seriously, shoutouts to them, their stuff was and still is amazing.)

But, very basically, we’ll be using Dolphin’s texture dump feature in order to find the textures that need to be edited so we can replace them with pure black ones.  Texture dumping can be enabled by going to Graphics > Advanced > Utility and checking “Dump Textures,” and the file path for these dumped textures by default is Documents > Dolphin Emulator > Dump > Textures > [Game ID].  (In the case of Twilight Princess, the Game ID is GZ2E01).  After dumping the textures in the Morpheel arena, my GZ2E01 folder looks like this:

When editing textures, sometimes you’ll have to endure a bit of trial and error until you find the correct ones.  Luckily, in this scene, the textures making up the sand floor and the stone walls are rather large, so let’s isolate the ones we’re pretty sure are responsible (plus a few others that are obviously environmental, just to be safe).

Now, when loading custom textures, it’s important that the file name you’re trying to load matches up exactly with the original texture that you’re trying to replace.  I have a plain, black, square PNG that I keep on my desktop specifically for this purpose; I copy the file names of the textures I’ve isolated, then rename and drag and drop the black PNG into the folder where custom textures are loaded (Documents > Dolphin Emulator > Load > Textures > [Game ID]).  Like so:

And now, to refresh our custom textures by disabling and reenabling them in Dolphin’s graphics settings:

And voilà! We have something that very nearly resembles the GIF I made (well, a still of it, at least).  I skipped over a few details, such as the fact that TP has a pretty significant amount of bloom surrounding just about everything, which I’m fairly certain I disabled using cheat codes when I made the original GIF in order to give it an overall cleaner look.  It’s hard to tell from this still, but TP’s heart containers also sparkle considerably in a way that’s random and not loopable; I found the texture responsible for this sparkle and replaced it with a transparent 1x1 PNG, in order to remove it entirely (as well as the texture behind the “glow” of the thing).  After that, it was as simple as recording the game with OBS, dumping the MP4 into Photoshop, cropping and cutting it to make it loop, and adding some adjustment layers for contrast and color.  So...yeah!

I hope this has served to clear up any confusion about some of the things that I’ve made in the past.  I’m not a 3D artist - just a person with an emulator and way too much free time on their hands.  This stuff is really, super simple, and also lots of fun, so I would highly encourage anyone with the means to mess around with emulation on their own some time to see what they can do!  (Even if you don’t have Photoshop and can’t make GIFs, there are always edits, such as this one I made of Midna.)  For Twilight Princess in particular, I also highly recommend checking out TPGZ; it’s a patch you can apply to a clean ISO of the original game, designed with the purposes of helping folks learn and practice the speedruns (yes, I had to bring up speedrunning one last time, kill me), but it’s got nifty features like built-in savestates, cheat codes, and HUD removal, as well as the ability to freeze actors while maintaining the ability to move the camera freely, among other things (all things that are very useful as far as making unique graphics go).  Sorry this post got as long as it did, but I at the very least hope that some of you found it educational and/or interesting.  Cheers!

Is it time to tear ANOTHER Dhar Mann video to shreds? YOU BET.

I've been sitting on this one for a bit because I wanted to make sure I talk about this tactfully. The subject of parents abandoning their disabled children is a very touchy one.

Parents abandoning their disabled children simply for being disabled is way too common. Like, I understand that not everyone has the resources to care for a disabled child (which is why you reach out for help, and why people like me, who work with disabled people, exist), but it doesn't mean you just walk out of their life. There are exceptions, like if you truly didn't want children or something like that, but just flat-out walking out of your kid's life BECAUSE they're disabled is fucked up.

I know someone personally whose biological mother abandoned her when she was born. Why? Because she's disabled. Physically, and mentally, to a point. I work with this woman on a daily basis. I don't really know WHY exactly her biological mother abandoned her, but I do know that her being disabled was part of it. It's sad. It doesn't affect her, thankfully. I'm happy that she's got her biological dad, her brother, and another maternal figure in her life, at least.

ANYWAYS. Before we get to the topic at hand, I need to put an obligatory trigger warning, like I do with EVERY Dhar Mann post:

This post will be talking about parents abandoning their disabled children simply for being disabled, treating disabilities like they're tragedies (in this case, we're talking about autism...again), divorce, and some SPICY ableist bullshit from an allistic (nonautistic) PIECE OF SHIT.

If any of this triggers you or makes you uncomfortable in any way, you don't have to read this post. This isn't worth putting yourself in a bad state mentally. I would never ask for any of you to put yourselves in that position all for a post. Put your mental health and well-being first. Consume media that sparks joy for you.

As far as my response goes, it's definitely more calm than normal. Funny....since this video is about autism spectrum disorder again. (Third time's the charm, huh, Dhar Mann? NOT.)

LET'S FUCKING GET IT.

The video starts off with these two parents (Gwen and Allen) in a psychologist's office. The psychologist tells the parents that their son (Chance) is autistic, and she tries to explain what autism is to the parents, but Allen cuts her off. Why? Because he teaches at a prestigious university, so he AUTOMATICALLY knows what autism is from that fact alone.

Um, excuse me? Just because you're a teacher at a prestigious university, it doesn't mean you're an expert in everything. It doesn't make you an expert in ASD or anything like that. Unless you SPECIALIZE in that area. Even then, shut the fuck up. The people who know about being autistic are AUTISTIC PEOPLE THEMSELVES! SHOCKER.

Hey, Dhar Mann! QUIT WITH THE VIDEOS ABOUT AUTISTIC LITTLE WHITE BOYS AND YOUNG WHITE AUTISTIC CISHET MEN! I'M SICK AND TIRED OF IT. It's annoying, ignorant, and it feels like you're doing this on purpose at this point to piss people off. If you're so uninformed about autism in women and girls, FUCKING ASK AUTISTIC WOMEN AND GIRLS! DO BETTER RESEARCH THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE AUTISM SPEAKS. The Autism Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and the Autistic Women and Nonbinary People Network (AWN) are great organizations to go to for any kind of research on ASD in women and girls. STOP GOING OFF OF THE BRAINS OF AUTISTIC WHITE BOYS AND AUTISTIC WHITE MEN.

I don't feel I need to go too deep into the fact that autistic women, autistic girls, autistic nonbinary people, autistic BIPOC, autistic AAPI, autistic LGBT people, autistic teenagers, and autistic adults exist. Y'all already know.

Gwen asks the psychologist if that means Chance isn't healthy. (I understand not knowing about autism, but don't treat it like it's a terminal illness. Please.) The psychologist tells her that Chance is fine, but he just learns differently and might need more support compared to his peers.

Yeah, autism can affect how you learn about certain things (limited and repetitive patterns), but there are other disabilities that can affect learning as well. Like how dyslexia can affect your ability to read, dyspraxia can affect your ability to do math, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can affect your ability to focus or on impulse control. Autism affects how your brain is developed, it affects you socially, behaviorally, and how you communicate.

Allen is upset, says that he can't have a son "with a learning disability" (ASD is a neurological disability, not necessarily a learning disability), and treats Chance like he's stupid for being autistic. Gwen tells her husband that autism doesn't make you any less intelligent, WHICH IS SO FUCKING TRUE. ABSOLUTE FACTS. I was totally with her until she began that little monologue with "Just because a person HAS autism". SAY "JUST BECAUSE A PERSON'S AUTISTIC" INSTEAD! IT'S NOT HARD. PERSON FIRST LANGUAGE ISN'T WHAT EVERY DISABLED PERSON PREFERS. Allen says that "they could have another kid" and "put Chance up for adoption". Gwen obviously wasn't down with that. Allen gives his wife an ultimatum that it's either HIM or their son Chance. Gwen says that she can't choose between the two, but she will stand by her autistic son. Allen gets up and leaves the office, saying he wants a divorce.

Years pass by, Gwen is single and taking care of her autistic son Chance, and Allen has a new life with a ✨perfect son✨ (Samuel). He never mentions the son HE abandoned (Chance). He's completely forgotten about Gwen and Chance. (YOU OWE SO MUCH CHILD SUPPORT, ALLEN.)

Hey, Allen, how much do you wanna bet that your ✨perfect son✨ Samuel is autistic too?

There's the SATs, they're announcing a winner, and guess who it is? IT'S OBVIOUSLY CHANCE, OF COURSE. He's got the highest score in the country, with Samuel in second place. Allen is PISSED.

Chance gives a speech about how his mom really helped him, he struggled with autism, how Allen LITERALLY ABANDONED HIM, and THE CROWD GOES FUCKING WILD. Samuel, instead of being a sore loser, APPLAUDS FOR CHANCE. Stay humble, Sam.

My thoughts on the video? If you cannot tell by my tone throughout this post, IT WAS DOG SHIT. This video was insensitive to the true reality of parents abandoning their disabled children just because they're disabled. What do I expect from Dhar Mann at this point?

Here's my response to his video below. Don't worry, I will fully type out my response soon for anyone who cannot read the screenshots easily. It's a lot easier for me to do that on the desktop site than it is for me to do it on my phone.

For anyone who can’t read my response, I’m typing it out for you. Like I said, it’s easier for me to type it out on the desktop site than it is for me to type it out on my phone. It’s a real royal pain in the ass. But because I’m trying to make my posts easier to read for people, I’m doing this anyway. /lighthearted

First, second, and third screenshots (broken up into paragraphs):

Hey, listen, I appreciate the message you’re trying to go for, but can you please stop putting autistic people into a box? Can you stop treating being autistic like it’s a tragedy? Not every single autistic person is a little white boy in elementary school who’s considered “wild and unruly” or “super quiet and makes no friends”, nor are they a young white cishet man who’s a super genius or is how Chris Chan was before she came out as trans. (For anyone who doesn’t know about Chris Chan, there are many documentaries people have made on YouTube, and I highly recommend Geno Samuel’s docuseries, if you’re really interested in learning about Chris Chan.)

Autistic women, girls, nonbinary people, BIPOC, APPI, LGBT people, teenagers, and adults all exist too. 

It’s very apparent now that you get your resources from Autism $peaks, a hate group that spends the vast majority of their money on funding eugenics instead of helping autistic people like they claim, claims that only little white boys and young white cishet men are autistic and ignores all other autistic people who don’t fit that description, have no autistic people on their leader board or on any board for that matter, have members who have actually fantasized about k1lling their autistic children, treat autism like it’s a tragedy or a disease someone can catch (completely false), act like autism should be cured (there is no cure, and ABA therapy is a total shit show in itself), and treats autistic people like they’re broken and need to be fixed. Also, not every autistic person is a Super Genius(tm). That’s so demeaning to autistic people who aren’t seen as intelligent in any way. I’m autistic and seen as smart; however, there are subjects I’m stronger in than others.

If you can’t handle the possibility of having autistic children, or just disabled children in general, DON’T HAVE CHILDREN. If you can’t handle working with or alongside disabled people, including autistic people, maybe find a different profession. Even if you do that, you’ll never get away from disabled people. Disabled people aren’t a disease. We’re human beings just like neurotypical and able-bodied people.

Fourth and fifth screenshots (broken up into paragraphs): 

I would highly suggest getting resources from reputable organizations for ASD, such as the Autism Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and the Autistic Women and Nonbinary People Network (AWN). Talk to any autistic person who isn’t a little white boy or a young white cishet man. 

Instead of using the puzzle piece, which is a symbol that many autistic people, myself included, are offended by (because of Autism $peaks and other organizations before them using it, plus it symbolizes that only autistic children exist and that we’re “missing a piece” like we’re broken), use the rainbow infinity sign (for all neurodivergent people) or the red and gold infinity sign (just for autistic people). Instead of “lighting it up blue”, light it up red or gold. Do both if you want. 

I’m actually really sick and tired of seeing just autistic little white boys and young autistic white cishet men being represented in the media, and y’all manage to fuck that up too. 

Before anyone mentions Sia’s movie “Music”, that’s also very poor representation of autistic girls. Besides, the actress who played the autistic girl isn’t even autistic. She MOCKED autistic people. I know she’s a kid, but that’s still super fucked up. I hope she’s able to turn that around. 

If anyone would like to discuss this topic with me or ask any questions, feel free to. I’ll answer as best as I can. Thank you and have a good night.

Before I get attacked for mentioning Chris Chan in my response, I bring up Chris Chan because allistic people think that every autistic person is like her (especially before she came out as trans). That person is part of why I wasn't open about being autistic or talking about my diagnosis until this year. I didn't want to be grouped up with Chris Chan because I do have very similar interests to her, I've been seen as cringey for having said interests, and just the way Chris treated autistic people who were formerly diagnosed with A$p3rg3r$ $yndr0m3 (like I was) really made me feel even more alienated.

Also, S1a supports A$ (Autism $p3aks). She's not a very good person to support. Some of her music is good, but her as a person....no. Her movie "Music" was gross, from what I've read about it and seen pictures of.

If you've read this far, thank you so much!

HIIIIIIIIII i’m a follower that’s simply in love with your writing!! so in love that i’ve read everything that you posted here! just wanted to say you’re incredibly talented and i adore your knight!AU. if you have any other blog//account recommendation f someone who is obsessed w diluc and albedo ((also zhong and venven)) i’m all ears!! TYYYYYYSMMMMM!!!

hi sorry for taking a sec to answer this, i wanted to wait till i was back on desktop to recommend these. thank u for the sweet compliments <3333 if you mean inheritance with the knight!au, that made me giggle a bit bc that was the fic to really get my blog started, even if it remains unfinished to this day. i'm deeply touched that you've actually taken the time to read everything on this blog!

as usual i recommend all my moots (i have a "#fic rec" tag if u wanna check that out!), but i figured this would be a good time to shoutout some specific authors whose works i go out of my way to read when i see them on my dash!

@yanfei-cafe -> dex has a lot of sweet short stories that never fail to improve my mood (well, besides the angst ones). her stories r like those little mini cakes. not too long, but just enough sweetness that ur satisfied! dex writes for genshin ships & for reader-inserts (primarily reader inserts) and i think even i've requested from her a few times hehe.

@tartagliaxx -> op very much has a writing style that i adore w/ how descriptive they are in their stories! i highly recommend them bc u can see the passion and effort they put into their work! each are delightful to read. if an author can make me read albedo and enjoy it, that's how u know they're good !!!

@witch-hazels-musings -> hazel is a sweetie to her anons and is super descriptive in all of her writing! she writes for a plethora of characters && tends to have the shorter scenario style w/ a variety of different characters in response to a single prompt. warning that she does have some adult content/writing on her blog, but it's all tagged appropriately.

as 4 now ill leave it at these 3 recs since i almost never actually read fics, so i can't really pull anyone else out off the top of my head. sorry i can't be of more assistance, anon, but i hope u enjoy their works! <3