Xuebing Du
@theartofmadeline
KIROKAZE
NASA
Misplaced Lens Cap
⁂
tumblr dot com
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let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
titsay
Keni
Peter Solarz
Andulka
Kiana Khansmith
izzy's playlists!
YOU ARE THE REASON
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
One Nice Bug Per Day
Product Placement
will byers stan first human second
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@snackattackballsac
idk why people are still trying to do "hear me out"s on tumblr
you could talk about wanting to fuck the space needle on here and people would still call you a poser for insisting on fucking "conventionally attractive architecture" as if that's a coherent, easily-recognizable category
I want to fuck Antoni Gaudi's unbuilt Hotel Attraction skyscraper design
"hear me out" and it's a picture of the most fuckable building you've ever seen. c'mon now.
World Heritage Post
having such an obvious favorite character trope is life ruining bro
i can’t say shit about liking a character that acts slightly in a very specific way without being hit with a tidal wave of “of course you would” to live is to suffer
tumblr users love reading. you literally stopped for this post just because it has words in it
this is one of my favorite bits about tumblr
the users seem to actually prefer text posts to anything else, and treat it as a chore to play a video especially with sound
HATE when u can feel ur intestines writhing. cease your wriggling insolent belly worm
WHEN do you ever feel that
the worms yearn for escape
The worms are telling you to go see a doctor...
@entities-of-posts the corruption/flesh?
After my hysto, I was in *intense* abdominal pain that didn't feel like wound pain from the ablation but something different that I couldn't explain, until the gynecologist told me "yep, that'd be your intestines rearranging themselves into the gap left behind by your uterus."
So there's a mental picture for you. Slither slither. Slither slither.
awwww, they were exploring their new enclosure 😍😍😍
Hey so that was a great date, yeah, but I don't think it's going to work out. Nono you didn't do anything wrong, and I have indeed had a crush on you since we started high school, it's just... well, I didn't want to bring it up at the time but we kinda got sucked into a portal fantasy midway through. We saved the kingdom over and over, relying on our knowledge of and trust in each other every time, throwing ourselves into the firing line to protect each other and using each others' conviction as a rock. We got married and lived a happy life together until the portal sucked us back mid-battle and you gave up all your memories of our journey in order to save my life right when we ended up back in the coffee shop. Yeah that was when I got a bit weird and went to the bathroom.
Anyway I thought we could push on and make the date work but I have all of these memories of secrets that this you never chose to share, decisions that this you never made, and intimacies that this you never experienced. And it's kind of screwing with the vibe yeah. Also on the date it was really, blatantly clear that you're sixteen whereas I have memories of ruling a fantasy kingdom for thirty years so like... that's a problem all on its own. Anyway this you just feels more like a daughter to me. A daughter with the woman I gave my heart and soul to over and over and received like in return, only to lose her forever on the journey home. On the plus side I can definitely help you with your math homework now.
#what the fuck#this one was actually really very short why is it still like that what
The shorter it is, the more concentrated the what the fuck can be.
I can help you with your math homework because the fantasy world's magic system was based on calculus and I was a gifted mage, stop nitpicking.
#this world's magic system is also based in calculus
My favorite trope is “janitor in headphones continues cleaning through extreme action”
I’ve been the janitor in headphones and trust me it’s an act we just don’t wanna be involved in the nonsense
I had noticed these strange little occurrences all my life. A bird would fly past my window and it'd sorta look like it was half there, half not. I'd glance up at a clock and for a moment, the second hand would be in two places at once. Never really thought much about it. I thought it was just normal. Someone told me once about the clock hand illusion where you flick your eyes and it looks like time stops for a half second or so, I figured it was something weird like that.
But one day, I think it was August 2021, I flipped a coin. Thinking back, I think it might have been the first time in my life I'd ever flipped a coin. But we were deciding where to eat, me and my friends.
And then it happened. The coin landed on the table, heads... and also on the floor, tails. I tracked the coin with my eyes, but suddenly realized I was looking at two things at the same time. It was like crossing your eyes, and seeing things kinda overlaid on top of eachother, kinda mixing and fading in and out, but with four eyes instead of two.
It was such a weird experience. At first I just stood there kinda motionless, trying to figure out what was going on. Then my friend bent down and picked up the coin off the floor, and said "Hah! Tails! Pizza!" and also she just stood there and said "Damnit. Heads. Guess we're gonna get burgers after all."
And I looked down at her and up at her at the same time.
That's really when the desynch started. I reached for the coin on the table and held a fuzzy, half-there, transparent coin in my hand.
I began to feel kinda sick. We got in the car and things got more and more confusing. Thank goodness I wasn't driving that day. My friends were having two increasingly different conversations and I just sat there kinda dissociating. By the time we got to the two different restaurants I was nauseated and I had a bad headache. I stayed in the car in the parking lot at the pizza place for a few minutes until the other car going to the burger place parked. One of my friends was worried and stayed with me, so that was nice. But when I tried getting out of the car, everything went wrong.
One of my bodies walked right into another car and fell down on the ground, while the other stopped and froze in place. The completely different sense of proprioception completely broke me.
I was basically bedridden for a week. Slowly I relearned how to move, and walk, and talk. I had two bodies, in two timelines, connected by a single consciousness. My brain(s?) had to learn how to control two bodies at the same time.
It's like, pretty weird, but I'm used to it these days. My two sets of eyes no longer overlay on top of one another, they're kinda separate. It's hard to describe. I think my brain got better at multitasking too, I can walk in one timeline and draw in the other, for example.
Things kept getting more and more different, as much as I tried to enforce keeping things the same. Finally I started seeing my therapist again.
I had to convince her that what I was experiencing was real. So I asked her to think of her favorite food and her favorite color. Then in the "Burger" timeline I asked her to tell me her favorite food, and in the "Pizza" timelines I asked her to tell me her favorite color. And I told her her favorite color in the burger timeline and her favorite food in the pizza timeline (Spaghetti and Red, btw.)
She quizzed me on a few other things and sometimes her answers differed between the two timelines which was pretty frustrating, and I don't think she really believed me at first, but she was nice enough to play along at least. And like, not have me committed.
I ended up scheduling my therapy so that I have meetings on pizza tuesday and burger friday, so they're kinda spaced out more evenly. It also just makes the meetings a little less confusing. Ironically doing the same thing in both timelines is actually more distracting than doing different things.
In late 2022 I transitioned. I decided to come out in the burger timeline and stay in the closet in the pizza timeline, so if everything fell apart I'd still have one normal timeline. And like, my parents did not support me. Most of my friends did, but some of them drifted away. And I found that just made me resentful of my parents and those friends in the pizza timeline. And the dysphoria of being a guy in the pizza timeline while living as a woman in the burger timeline was killing me. So when I got on HRT in early 2023 I decided I couldn't take it anymore, I had to transition in both timelines. So I did. Ironically things went a little smoother in the pizza timeline, probably because I was already more confident about presenting female.
I ended up making some transfem friends in the burger timeline, and I sought them out in the pizza timeline too.
It's kind of a mixed bag, this phenomenon. You know like, pain is a lot worse. One week I had a bad tummy ache in the pizza timeline and a bad toothache in the burger timeline. Or like, if I have back pain in one timeline, not having back pain in the other timeline doesn't relieve the feeling at all.
It's such a cool thing, like. When I first started out I had all these conflicting signals in my limbs and body and stuff. But now it's just like. Yeah I have a pizza arm and a burger arm, just like I have a left arm and a right arm. They're the same, but different.
When I make a drawing in one timeline, I don't have access to it in the other timeline, which is really annoying because I keep wanting to show people art I made in the other timeline. One day I'll figure out some kind of interdimensional data transfer protocol. I mean I guess I could like, convert the file into hexadecimal text, and then manually type it out and hope I don't make any mistakes. I'd have to compress the hell out of the file though. Maybe I'll try that one of these days when I don't have anything to do in either timeline.
But I get to spend more time with my friends, because I can schedule hanging out on different days of the same week. Does get kinda confusing when I confuse things that happened in one timeline for another.
Because like, ever since that coin flip, the timelines have been steadily moving further apart. You'd be surprised how little the weather has changed. Like, sometimes there's a little rain shower in one timeline a few minutes earlier than in the other, but all the big storms and hurricanes and stuff are basically the same. I guess it's harder to influence these continent-scale systems than the butterfly effect predicts.
I get to see almost twice as much meteors during meteor showers because I can look in two directions at once. Meteors hit the atmosphere in exactly the same way at exactly the same time.
But it does affect a lot of other little things. Even when you don't realize it, you affect the lives of everyone you come into contact with in little ways, and that spreads. I know people with different jobs in each timeline, people who have different relationships. Even people I don't know that well.
I wasn't quick enough in the pizza timeline to keep my friend from. Well. To save my friend's life. But I rushed over to her house in the burger timeline and talked her down. It's so weird, grieving a person you still talk to every week. Because it ended up being this kind of abstract pain. Everyone else is missing her and you're standing there like. Yeah. I have plans to see a movie with her on burger tuesday. I went to her funeral just to make sure that I saw the dead body so I could really internalize that she was gone. And I still didn't cry. It made me feel like a terrible person.
My friends never really take me all that seriously when I talk about being split like this. They kinda play along but I can tell they think it's a joke. It's whatever. But my friend's girlfriend came into my DMs one night sobbing and cry-typing and begging me to let her talk to her gf one last time. I wasn't sure it was a good idea. But I relented, and made plans to have a sort of interdimensional seance.
I could tell my friend--we'll call her Elsie, and we'll call her girlfriend Robin. I could tell Elsie was pretty awkward about it. I think she felt guilty on behalf of her other, dead self. Robin kept saying stuff like "how could you kill yourself, how could you do this to me," and I would have to say that, and Elsie was just like "I'm sorry." And it was really hard to get Robin to understand that we weren't talking to Elsie's dead spirit, we were talking to her in another timeline. I told her she didn't have to apologize, and I told Robin that guilt tripping the dead was kind of rude.
After that things went a little more smoothly, Robin asked about how Elsie's life had gone, how their relationship had progressed you know like if they were still together, things like that. Elsie said some stuff that I wouldn't have known, and Robin was like. Wow you really are talking to Elsie aren't you?
And I was just like :| yep.
Ever since then my friends keep trying to get my help with stuff. Like they'll ask me what their other self is doing, like, ok, for instance, my friend, we'll call her Jane, she wanted to ask out her crush, and she was like ok. Can you ask the burger version of my crush if she likes me back. Which kinda throws the burger version of her under the bus doesn't it!
And another of my friends wanted to know if she'd regret quitting her job, so she told me to ask the other her to quit her job, and then if it went well she'd do the same. I did ask, and she said no, obviously.
The kinda scary thing is, every once in a while I'll see some of those artifacts that I used to see, like, little tiny desynchs within each timeline. I only recently got used to being in two timelines at the same time, I don't think I can handle being in three or four. My brain's already better at handling the desynch, like, one time I managed to move my finger in two directions at once all in the pizza timeline. But I'm really scared of the desynch multiplying over time. Maybe it's inevitable, but my main strategy is just to not flip any coins for the rest of my life.
Mel Brooks on taking studio notes:
what you learn from hobbies:
consistent practice opens up whole worlds of skill that you couldn't imagine
making mistakes in the process of learning is not only natural, it is also essential
activities that you enjoy can give you more energy back than you spent on them
wow everything is so expensive
my hands hurt
a little warm up for the day
ink: diamine oxblood
I think it’s normal for people to be mad at each other sometimes even if they’re close friends or family or intimate with each other. Like I think that’s a normal and healthy part of relationships that can happen sometimes
“Why were you on Mad At Me island” because at the time I was mad at you and yet our friendship has weathered that without trouble
I went to Mad At You island because my feelings are my problem. I needed to stomp down the beach until I could sit and watch the sunrise. I built a sandcastle and did some thinking. Then I boarded the good ship You Matter To Me and sailed it all the way to meet you on the Let’s Talk Shore of I Love You Island.
i hate that every time i look for color studies and tips to improve my art and make it more dynamic and interesting all that comes up are rudimentary explanations of the color wheel that explain it to me like im in 1st grade and just now discovering my primary colors
“red and green are opposites 🥰” cool now how do i paint a tree with pinks and blues without it looking like a child’s finger painting or incongruous blobs of rainbow vomit
ok i can’t explain it very well but im looking for tips and techniques for rendering art like
with specifically the highlights and colors being hues that compliment each other, don’t distract from the scene, and make it more interesting/visually appealing
is it too much to ask
gonna drop some sources I have saved on Pinterest! I don't know if these all link back to the original sources so apologies for that
cohesive but still contrasting
This kind of talks about color and composition
This is a bit about landscape specifically
Values & composition
Contrast in composition
Balance in colors & values
This one's more for palette building but I think it's useful and can be applied to the other ones
Cohesion within compositions/lighting
"Chromatic fringe" - I also see people using this with shading, they bring in a transition color that is a different hue than the base color or shadow, it makes it so that less vibrancy is lost and it doesn't get muddy!
This one specifically has a lot of process behind the style of painting you're looking for!
Also one of my favorite artists who makes bright and colorful art like this is Not Sorry Art on TikTok & YouTube, her website is here and it's<3 my fav. She has some videos where you can see her process
With the oranges painting you put as an example, I noticed they painted the lighter values more toward yellow - they also exaggerated the hues of the undertones of the photo, so I'm guessing they either did it in their head or bumped the saturation up to get a closer look! I really love these paintings you shared and I definitely share your desire to paint/draw like that :)
thanks this is super helpful! /gen
If you'd like 2 Print books that I absolutely reccomend to every visual artist regardless of Media, Color and Light and Imaginative Realism by James Gurney are basically religious texts for artists, even the 3-D people because his understanding and explanation of how light and form work is that damn good.
If you're wondering about Mr. Gurney's chops:
James Gurney is the Dinotopia Guy (that link includes his Dinotopia books, prints and online classes too)
Reblogging to check this out later
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
you solve the mystery of what to have for dinner one night and you think "hell yeah case closed forever" WRONG there is a dinner mystery the next night too
Source
Let’s go!
