Tools And Toys For Creators @resourcesforartistsandauthors - Tumblr Blog

A HANDY CHART FOR THOSE OF YOU WONDERING WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THESE. NOTE THAT THESE ARE ALL THE INFORMAL AND YOU IS THE FORMAL SO LIKE YOU WOULD ALWAYS ADDRESS YOUR SUPERIOR/ OLDER PERSON/ SOCIAL BETTER WITH YOU BUT WITH YOUR BUDS YOU CAN USE THESE.

heroineimages

I’m not sure I knew the thy/thine distinction. Thanks for this!

a-totally-reasonable-username

@namelessennes

avidreaderffn

@sandstonesunspear

polyamorousmisanthrope

Jesus Tapdancing Christ... THIS is a good welt pocket and the people who designed Simplicity 2895 ought to be blasted well ASHAMED of themselves for the crap way THEY wanted a welt pocket made. *SNARLS*

makereadgrow

This is how I learned to do it and a good example of what you want to see in a short form tutorial: pinning, pressing, seam finishing, good fabric handling.

I would mention that you can make the pocket facing with a small panel of your matching fabric that is visible and the rest in a lighter fabric to reduce bulk. That's a lot of denim layers for comfort.

crankydevon

youtube of the same video

agentromanoffsir

neocities guide - why you should build your own html website

do you miss the charm of the 90s/00s web where sites had actual personality instead of the same minimalistic theme? are you feeling drained by social media and the constant corporate monopoly of your data and time? do you want to be excited about the internet again? try neocities!!

what is neocities?

neocities is a free hosting website that lets you build your own html website from scratch, with total creative control. in their own words: "we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."

why should I make my own website?

web3 has been overtaken by capitalism & conformity. websites that once were meant to be fun online social spaces now exist solely to steal your data and sell you things. it sucks!! building a personal site is a great way to express yourself and take control of your online experience.

what would I even put on a website?

the best part about making your own site is that you can do literally whatever the hell you want! focus on a specific subject or make it a wild collection of all your interests. share your art! make a shrine for one of your interests! post a picture of every bird you see when you step outside! make a collection of your favorite blinkies! the world is your oyster !! here are some cool example sites to inspire you: recently updated neocities sites | it can be fun to just look through these and browse people's content! space bar | local interstellar dive bar creature feature | halloween & monsters big gulp supreme peanutbuttaz | personal site dragodiluna linwood | personal site patho grove | personal site

getting started: neocities/html guide

sound interesting? here are some guides to help you get started, especially if you aren't familiar with html/css sadgrl.online webmastery | a fantastic resource for getting started with html & web revival. also has a layout builder that you can use to start with in case starting from scratch is too intimidating web design in 4 minutes | good for learning coding basics w3schools | html tutorials templaterr | demo & html for basic web elements eggramen test pages | css page templates to get started with sadgrl background tiles | bg tiles rivendell background tiles | more free bg tiles

fun stuff to add to your site

web revival manifestos & communities

also, there's actually a pretty cool community of people out there who want to bring joy back to the web! melonland project | web project/community celebrating individual & joyful online experiences. Also has an online forum melonland intro to web revival | what is web revival? melonking manifesto | status cafe | share your current status nightfall city | online community onio.cafe | leave a message and enjoy the ambiance sadgrl internet manifesto | yesterweb internet manifesto | sadly defunct, still a great resource reclaiming online social spaces | great manifesto on cultivating your online experience

in conclusion

i want everyone to make a neocities site because it's fun af and i love seeing everyone's weird personal sites that they made outside of the control of capitalism :) say hi to me on neocities

fatmasc

Hey i’m a fashion design student so i have tons and tons of pdfs and docs with basic sewing techniques, pattern how-tos, and resources for fabric and trims. I’ve compiled it all into a shareable folder for anyone who wants to look into sewing and making their own clothing. I’ll be adding to this folder whenever i come across new resources

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16uhmMb8kE4P_vOSycr6XSa9zpmDijZSd?usp=sharing

fatmasc

Updated just now with new hand sewing resources (mainly buttonholes) and textbook pdfs on fashion history, fashion illustration, and thinking through designs!

bosstoaster

OP I owe you my life

whatchamacallitz

OP you are the greatest person currently in my life. You beautiful, thoughtful creature.

hrefnatheravenqueen

Parents and teachers in Canada will now have an “educational toolkit” to help them if they notice a child being groomed by a hate group.

The new resource, launched by the Canadian government in partnership with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, intends to combat the growing prevalence of hate groups online. Members of those groups, most of whom were raised in the digital age, are becoming more adept at recruiting. For example, the neo-Nazi terror group The Base, as well as other neo-Nazi groups, have used meme websites to recruit young people, usually male teenagers, into their movement.

Authorities are still figuring out ways to effectively combat the problem.

The toolkit can be found online free of charge here and contains modules that run teachers and parents through a variety of subjects related to hate groups, such as ideologies and recruitment techniques. One of the sections presents scenarios and offers ways to handle to them from a variety of perspectives. Elizabeth Simons, the deputy director for the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said that the examples were all taken from real-world events that had occurred in Canada.

"The scenarios in the toolkit deal with increasing severity of what hate might look like within the school community, said Simons.“You start out with anonymous hate promotion—so that could be graffiti, that could be a swastika on a desk.

“It starts from there and then it escalates all the way to overt hate organizing within the school community and outside the school community” she added.

The project is one of the latest anti-racism initiatives rolled out by Canada’s government. In a Wednesday press conference announcing the project, Ahmed Hussen, the minister of housing diversity and inclusion, said that in total the government "has invested $35 million to fund 175 anti-racism projects across the country."

Again, the link to the toolkit is https://www.antihate.school . I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but knowing the CAHN, it should be a good start. Of course, a tool can only serve its purpose if people use it, so I'm hoping this will be part of curriculum in schools across the country.

@allthecanadianpolitics

alanaisalive

The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.

iguanamouth

oh shit

throughshadow-to-the-edgeofnight

alanaisalive

As the OP of this post, I’m going to threaten that if this gets to one million notes by the 10 year anniversary on 1 June 2026, one year from today, I will get a lower back tattoo of the loch ness bear monster.

docd666

Y'all know what to do Tumblr.

crafblr

btw I've found these stretches from the WAK blog very helpful when knitting a lot:

Plus make sure to take breaks regularly - and stop if anything starts to hurt!

especially with gift knitting I know it can be tempting to push through it for a deadline, but it's really not worth causing long term injury. (And anyone knit-worthy should be understanding of that, imho.) Stay well :)

farenmaddox

I have just found. the COOLEST website???

Lost Kitchen Scrolls

It has a huge variety of historical recipes from different regions, taken from manuscripts, transcribed and translated, and a whole section of notes about the context for the recipe. It's really fun and I AM going to try a couple of these recipes.

Look at how this lamb recipe is presented:

This is just such a fun way to learn more about historical foodways and discover traditional cuisine.

Look at all the filters you can use:

Maybe if I can forage some good blackberries this year, I can make a 300 year old recipe for blackberry wine!

Anyway. Check out Lost Kitchen Scrolls.

sometiktoksarevalid

apolloniansorrow

ALSO ARTISTS LOOK AT THIS SO YALL CAN STOP DRAWING UR “PALE” BLACK CHARACTERS WHITE

sycamorality

turns out i have a lot of opinions on subtitles

sycamorality

theres a youtuber ive watched before he ever hit 1k. hell, before he hit 800. he had subtitles on his first video. manual ones, not auto-generated ones. IF HE CAN DO THAT THEN SO CAN SOME FUCKASS WITH THOUSANDS OR MILLIONS OF SUBSCRIBERS. OR AT LEAST FUCKING PAY SOMEONE TO DO THE SUBTITLES

sycamorality

and i hate the autogenerated subtitles so much. if the person swears or says a slur and it isnt censored, DONT CENSOR IT IN THE SUBTITLES. if its censored in speech, then censor it in subtitles. but if someone says a slur outright, no censoring? put it in the damn subtitles, i dont care, subtitles are for telling you what someone says

sycamorality

if your guy says "motherfucking bitch" then the subtitles should not say "motherf*cking b*tch", "mother******* b*****" or void forbid "[_] [_]" like youtube's autogenerated subtitles do. your subtitles should be saying "motherfucking bitch", UNLESS the guy's speech was censored like motherf[dolphin noise] b[dolphin noise], then you subtitles say "motherf[dolphin noise] b[dolphin noise]"

sycamorality

youtube's autogenerated subtitles are maybe some of the most ableist and infantilising ones ever and i think im gonna kill someone

capricorn-0mnikorn

In This Post, I linked to a video about how horse riding can be used as a tool for physical therapy for people with certain disabilities. And the narrator of that video was using technical, clinical, words to describe the effect of the horse's movement on the rider's body.

The video has auto-generated closed captions.

At the 8 minute, 10 second mark, the narrator says that the motion of the horse's back "may decrease tone in spastic muscles" (which is a good thing; clinically speaking, "spastic" means a muscle has way too much tone).

But because YouTube's algorithm has flagged "Spastic" as a slur (with no understanding that words can have different meanings in different contexts), it simply removed the word altogether, and the closed caption was:

"may decrease tone in muscles,"

(not even giving a clue that a word was edited out).

Generally speaking, decreasing tone in (normal) muscles is a bad thing, 'case it means you're making someone weaker.

So not only is the automatic censoring of words infantilizing of disabled people, it also renders what's actually being said to gibberish.

(I once watched a video on the origin of animal / pet words, and when talking about cats, the word "Pussy" was likewise just removed from the captions)

whyenn-reader

firm believer you can't be a ''good person''. too much niuance to life.

whyenn-reader

you can be good (adjective) but you cannot be good (identity)

whyenn-reader

if you think you are good (identity) you are more likely to cause harm as you don't consider yourself to be capable of it

jemeryl

If you think you are good (identity), you are not likely to take the fact that you have done harm and accept it with accountability. The disruption of your ability to see yourself as Good (identity) will most likely cause you to explode, make excuses, deny, and otherwise cause more harm to the people you've already harmed

alwayswasalwayswillbeourland

I was today years old when I learnt about what those symbols in Aboriginal art represented I honestly can't believe we never got taught that, even when I was studying art. I always assumed they had meaning but no one [no white person] had ever bothered to mention it. I'm glad I learnt something new today.

Yeah, I think a lot of people tend to look down on Aboriginal art because they think it's a form of abstract art that is just lines and shapes but almost all of them tell a story. Sometimes it's a very obvious story, such as the emu dreaming where the waterhole flooded, and sometimes it's more symbolic.

the circle in the middle is a waterhole/dam or billabong. The squiggly lines coming out of it are small rivers. the dots represent the earth but because they are in neat lines, it almost feels as if they have been flattened by the flooded water, especially as the vector lines draw out from the waterhole in the middle. the emu tracks are heading toward the waterhole, and the three lines in the middle are marks left by their tail, implying that they are wading through the mud to get there.

It's a birdseye view of a moment just after the waterhole floods and afterwards the emus go looking for food.

It's Interesting, because the original artist D. J. Ross was from Yuendumu which is in central australia, so this would have been a rare time that there was enough rain to flood the waterhole.

Dreaming stories, kinship links, sacred rites, keeping track of biodiversity and songlines are some other topics covered by Aboriginal art.

In the same way monet painted the middle class and the local landscape in the late 1800's/early 1900's Aboriginal people also paint the average lifestyle of our people. It just looks different.

For example, this picture shows a LOT of activity. The men at the top left of the picture are doing a cultural burn near and around a sacred site, the women at the bottom left are digging for food. across the river, on the right the people are preparing food and in the center, two people (presumably elders) are preparing for a ceremony.

I wouldn't say these all happened at the same time, more that this was a common undertaking over a set of time.

it takes time to understand and not all symbols are the same in all areas, but once you do understand them it becomes easier to see the story being told.

So yeah, I hope this gives you the chance to look at Aboriginal art with new eyes

thestarlightforge

Cool article from the U.S. National Gallery of Art about Aboriginal art

alwayswasalwayswillbeourland

Oh this link is really good.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are warned the link features names of the deceased.

bdalak

the more i talk w/ leftist friends the more i start to realize that they think culture is only defined by food or "traditional" (i.e. "ethnic") garb and nothing else

mentioned how white americans do in fact have a common culture and they genuinely thought i was joking. culture isnt something only granted to the Cool People of Color. just feels like among progressive groups there's this dichotomy created in which only the virtuous oppressed minorities have culture and anyone who is privileged some sort of void cultureless being

pigeonsplease

When I visited Chicago, the very first thing to weird me out from the airport was… how almost everywhere had revolving doors.

I’m Australian. Sure, we do have those doors, but the vast majority of places in Sydney are automatic sliding doors or old-fashioned manual push/pulls because we don’t need to block out the cold and wind the same way here.

So every day I experienced a culture clash with something as basic as what doors were normal for me.

Americans who say they don’t have a culture are plagued with defaultism beyond belief. Culture isn’t just made up of costumes and language and the largest stuff, it’s constructed of a billion small things you do every day that you never even consider could be different because that’s just “normal” to your daily life. No one has no culture just because they’re not adhering to the biggest markers they can consciously recognise.

the-library-alcove

Yes, I have these saved for exactly this reason.

ampervadasz

Unmute !

a-kind-of-merry-war

The problem with trying to come up with a way to say "this book has sex in" is that there's loads of options which all mean different things and none are perfect. Like...

clean/wholesome vs dirty - obviously this one is bullshit, we don't need to talk about why

smut/smutty - a classique. Pretty good, but feels like its falling out of favour.

steamy - as above, really. feels slightly more vague, makes me assume it's sexy but not explicit. More dated - been replaced by spicy.

erotic - erotica is a whole genre to itself, with different parameters to romance. Conflating the two weakens genre defninitions for both.

explicit - does what it says on the tin, but risks sounding a bit clinical. If steamy is make outs and fondling, explicit is genitals getting described up-close.

spicy - gets a lot of complaints, but lends itself well to a rating scale and is very popular

open/closed door - this is a good shorthand, but not very familiar to people who aren't reading romance. Again, doesn't rate very easily - a closed door is a closed door, but the open door could lead to either slow vanilla missionary or a full-on BDSM scene.

porn/pornography - comes with a lot of assumptions which makes it harder to use in certain spaces. Sits at the 5/5 end of the scale in my head. Similar to erotica in that its a distinct genre.

saucy - this is just a Carry On film. no one is aroused.

sexy - too vague. colin firth fully clothed in a pond is sexy. gwendoline christie in plate armour is sexy. that one fish from finding nemo is sexy. brushing hands described in the right way is sexy. could mean anything.

this book has sex in it - literally no

Then you've got the problem that websites like tiktok and instagram, which is where most marketing happens, can surpress content that's too sexy, especially if its queer, and authors are being forced to be over-cautious with the words they use.

And we also can't forget too that on these platforms you have to catch people's interest really quickly, and often they might not read the description. So you have to catch people as quickly as possible, using as few words as possible.

thekijs

abalisk

For those who aren't familiar:

[Image Description: in large text "A CITRUS SCALE" with smaller text below it saying "What do tropical fruits have to do with smutty fanfiction?"

What follows is a list that describes each level as follows:

Orange:

The equivalent to a G or PG MPAA rating.

Little to no romantic or sexual content.

Might include dry kisses, handholding , or cuddling.

No sexual or anatomical language.

Lime:

Equivalent to a PG-13 MPAA rating.

Some romantic or sexual content.

Might include clothed rubbing, heavy making out, or lightly described PiV/PiA/PiO sex

Little sexual or anatomical language.

Lemon:

Equivalent to an R or NC-17 MPAA rating.

Explicit romantic and/or sexual content.

Can include any level of graphic sexual activity.

PiV/PiA/PiO sex expected.

Graphic sexual and/or anatomical language.

Grapefruit:

Equivalent to an NC-17 MPAA rating.

Explicit, kinky sexual activity.

Necessarily includes graphic sexual activity.

May be anatomically incorrect or fantastical.

Graphic sexual and/or anatomical language.

Graphic kink.

[End Image Description]

alexseanchai

for clarity, that's describing the second image. the first image is an illustration of four kinds of citrus fruit—grapefruit, lemon, lime, and orange—showing one whole and one or two slices of each.

bisexualbaker

Part of the problem with the citrus scale is that, outside of Lemon itself, there wasn't really a given consensus on what the various fruits represented. Hell, in the parts of the internet I frequented, Lime was effectively an M rating, rather than PG-13! Different archives would have their own fruits on the scale, as well; I remember one that had Kumquat as a rating, and though I couldn't for the life of me tell you what warranted a Kumquat, I do remember it being a "higher"/more specific rating than Lemon.

elodieunderglass

Writing a book is a big project.

The project-work alone is something people get degrees in. They do it for a job. It’s a professional skillset, and the people who are best at book-writing are knowledgeable, trained and experienced in the skills involved. And there's no shame in recognising when the skill is beyond your current level. What do you do then?

You ask for help.

In the back of my head, I remembered something that a long-ago mutual had once posted on her tumblr, years ago, when starting on her own self-publishing journey - she wrote that she had no expectation of making any money, only that she hoped to earn back the fee that she had paid her editor. I remembered, at the time, being interested in the fact that she had paid for her own editor for a self-published book, despite being an established creator. I strongly internalised this idea - that self-published work still ought to be edited - as well as the expectation that publishing your own stories will probably lead to a financial loss. “You must believe in your story very much, to be willing to lose money on it like that,” I thought, admiringly - being in my twenties and rather broke.

It’s my belief that Ursula Vernon’s self-published books did indeed go on to earn back what she had paid her editor; and the understanding that editors can and will save you remained in my head, when I found myself in over my own head. At the limit of my skills, and at the limit of what volunteer readers can reasonably do from love and their own lives, to level me up to a stage beyond myself. And with a story I believe in very much.

That’s why I sent the first ten-thousand-word whack of Throw Your Heart Over to a professional developmental editor.

Gentle reader. For about a hundred pounds, it may have changed the course of my life this year. It's certainly vastly improved the novel.

In addition to an attentive look at the provided chapter, including predictions of where the story appeared to be going, @mumblingsage provided an overall analysis of the project, and an additional memo with a huge amount of provoking food for thought. Drawing on her experience in the publishing industry, she added incredibly useful, tailored advice specific to the characters, project, and my situation.

I want to wholeheartedly recommend a developmental editor for anyone wanting to make the jump into “a piece that people will pay money for.” And for her attentiveness and insight, as well as her ability to understand the spirit and intention of the work - I recommend @mumblingsage .

Learn more about the services she offers here.

nattousan

i've gotten this question a few time both online and irl while working on my mural so i made a lil worksheet to hand out to kids and also anyone who wants to try it here :3

nattousan

SOMEONE TRIED IT!!!!!!!!!

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