#images and art is way better on tumblr as a whole just bc the whole tagging system is super helpful and user friendly | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pankomako · 1 year

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there's probably like a million others out there already, but since im seeing a lot of my friends hop on tumblr due to the twitter situation i figured i'd give this a go. so, welcome to

panko's guide to tumblr!

i've been using this site for almost a year now, so i suppose i'm at least somewhat qualified to do this. i mainly just want to do this for fun honestly. i think lots of people have covered more of the setup and what to expect from tumblr as a whole so i think i'll focus on more of the usage of this site, because it's definitely much different from twitter, and, in my opinion, FAR better, plus that's the thing people seem to be the most confused about. so, here we go!

Post Features

the first thing you may notice is that tumblr has no character limit on posts! if you want to post a 10,000 word essay on the motives of your favorite character from the video game or tv show you're super into right now, nobody's stopping you. already so much more convenient than making threads on twitter.

there's a variety of options you can use to make your text more visually interesting, add emphasis, and/or organize your post! when you highlight text (at least on browser, i dont use the app), these options will appear above what you highlighted. you can make your text bold, italicized, bigger (on a new line), smaller, crossed out, or even colored! under the drop-down list there are other options too such as cursive text and lists. you can also add hyperlinks to text if you want. (this is all in the rich text editor, you can also switch to HTML or Markdown by going to your post settings.)

you can also add plenty of other media to posts! you can add up to 30 images which you can arrange however you please, although from my experience arranging images is kinda clunky, but still way better than twitter lol. you can also add gifs, videos (one per post), audio files (10 per post), and embed links. you can also add a cutoff line where everything under that line is hidden under a "read more" button, which is very useful for longer posts.

when you make a post, there is a space to add a title, but it's not required. most people don't add titles unless it helps with formatting.

you can also schedule a post to be posted at a certain time, queue posts to be posted on a consistent schedule, change who can reblog a post, and even save posts as drafts if you want/need to come back to them later.

Tags

Under every post you make/reblog, there is an option to add tags. these are in their own section under the post itself. you can add as many as you want afaik, but they can only be so many characters long. on tumblr, tags have multiple uses.

you can add tags that correspond to your post such as the topic or fandom (and characters/people involved), or whether it's art or photography, for example, to try to help get your post out there. it's preferred and just better in general to only add tags that are relevant to your post. don't tag character fanart as sports or food or pop music, but ESPECIALLY not an unrelated fandom.

you can also use tags to organize your blog and make it easier to find specific posts. you can tag your own art as "my art" and art you reblog from friends as "friends' art", and even create your own tags for specific topics you frequently post about, such as your oc world or a fandom fic or au you have. i personally don't use tags for organization much, but i do have my own tags for the two oc worlds i have. (you can do this even if you're not a fandom-goer or artist, these just serve as an example bc im both lol)

you can even use tags to add extra comments to a post. lord knows i do this a lot myself. lots of people will use tags to sort of ramble off-handedly under a post when it's not the main content of said post. this is especially common under reblogs - more on that later. since you can add spaces within tags, writing full sentences in the tags is easy and a very common practice. just be careful when using commas; adding a comma starts a new tag.

Notes

similarly to how twitter has likes, retweets and comments, tumblr has likes, reblogs and replies. however, these are all combined into one sum of notes. all notes on a post are compiled under the source post. by clicking on the number of notes under a post, you can see a list of all replies, likes and reblogs on a post, if you're curious like me.

on tumblr, likes act as more of a bookmarking tool. you can look at a list of all the posts you liked, and you can have this list displayed on your blog if you want, but likes do NOT increase the visibility of a post. if you want to help a post gain traction, you need to reblog it. if you don't want that post on your blog, but you want to let the person know that you've seen and enjoyed their post, you can leave a like as a small but kind gesture if you want. if you were playing minecraft, liking a post would be akin to punching a mob, but reblogging would be like using a sword. it may not necessarily be a powerful diamond sword, but it does more than a one-damage punch. i should also mention - you can only like a post once; if you like a reblog of a post, you like the source post and can't like separate reblogs of the post.

reblogs are the core of tumblr's functionality. this site does not have an algorithm, so reblogs are the only way for posts to circulate. it's probably pretty easy to figure out, but reblogs put another person's post on your own blog and on your followers' feeds. this is likely the biggest difference between tumblr and twitter: you can reblog a post as many times as you want, and you can add on to a post directly by reblogging, which is much different from a quote-tweet on twitter. also different from quote-tweets, all notes on reblogs are notes contributed to the source post. in a reblog, you can add a comment either in normal text or in the tags, and you can add images and gifs as well. it's common courtesy to put comments that don't contribute to the post in the tags, such as saying you think a post is funny. lots of famous tumblr posts are chains of reblogs - unlike on twitter where you can only retweet one tweet/reply at a time, you can reblog these reblog chains. you can also add the tags of the person you reblogged from to your own reblog if you want, though usually people just say "prev" if they liked the previous reblogger's tags.

replies are a convenient way to have a conversation under a post without repeatedly reblogging. although convenient, replies are limited in what you can do with them. they're text-only and have a character cap. but they're still a good way to add a quick comment to a post if you don't want it on your blog. you can also reply directly to a person in the notes of a post by mentioning them in your reply. replies can be deleted from a post or be turned off for a post entirely by the original poster.

I think that's about all you need to know to get started posting and reblogging, but please feel free to add on if i did happen to forget anything. thanks for reading and happy tumbling! :D

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raineydaywrites · 3 years

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There’s a post going around about fanfic versus books that honestly kind of baffles me a little. Not gonna link to it bc I’m not that kind of bitch, but I AM the kind of bitch to make my own post about it so.

It talks about how people who want ao3-esque tags on books want to read tropes not fiction or something (with images from Twitter and TikTok which makes sense since this discourse is STRAIGHT out of 2015 tumblr).

And first off, the judgmental tone of it annoys me. Like it comes across as judging people’s intelligence for how they chose to read, which seems to me a lot like those awful teachers who said that comic books or whatever aren’t “real reading.”

And I think maybe that stems a bit from wanting better public reading comprehension, which yeah, having good reading comprehension is important, I agree, but most people aren’t reading a new book or reading a fanfic to have an intense intellectual experience- they’re reading it to have fun. To engage with a hobby. All you’re doing is judging people for not doing your hobby the way you do it- the way you think is “right,” which itself reminds me of people who say you should never play video games on easy, or make art that you don’t intend to monetize, or that there’s no point in following a hobby just because you personally have fun doing it.

And then the bit about ao3 tags specifically comes off as so judgmental, but also confusing to me, because yes, I know books have a summary, but the summary doesn’t tell you everything. I’ve read books I adored that had summaries I hated. I’ve loved summaries and hated the book. Like, what’s wrong with wanting to know a little bit more about a book before starting it? I’m not even out here arguing that publishers or authors should actually promote books like that- just saying that it’s understandable to me to want a better idea of what I’m getting into before investing my time and possibly money on something I might very well hate.

Also ao3 tags are good for finding out a bit more about the story without spoilers, which can be difficult for books. Not all spoilery reviews bother to mention that they’re gonna tell you the whole plot, when all you wanted was a little bit more information.

Writing fic, you can sometimes run into the problem of people not wanting to read something that’s not tropey, and I get that, which is part of why I’m saying it’s not something I really want publishers or whatever to do. I don’t like the idea of the same trend happening in the publishing world, but why are we insulting and judging people for wishing that their hobby was a little easier to engage with sometimes?

#Rainey rants

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seercayder · 3 years

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No but I feel as though artists are probably experiencing one of the most hostile years of posting art online that they’ve ever experienced for maybe forever. And I mean this for both amateur artists and professionals (with maybe a lil bit of bias since I also do The Art).

Tumblr’s nudity ban has crippled any piece that is either NSFW or uses nudity as artistic expression and it ultimately drove away both the artists themselves and a lot of their fans, which destroyed any remaining traction for the artists who managed to remain. Tumblr is no longer an artistic freedom-friendly site and it shows, which is a fucking shame bc they genuinely have one of the better tagging systems than other sites and I believe that most feedback on art there has been positive and friendly, which has now gone the way of the dinosaur much like Deviantart.

Twitter has problems with image compression but their biggest issue is toxic abuse, which I find to be the most damaging to artists out of all the other problems i’m listing here. Both the lure of anonymity and the mindset that ‘Speak Loud In Little Words To Make Point Means You Are Important And Right’ has fuelled the absolutely vile comments I have seen directed at artists on the site. Although it’s mainly aimed at fanartists and ship artists, I have noticed unwanted (even rude) criticism on immaculate, well-done art pieces, which is extremely belittling and insulting because the artist (although they may be open to criticism) if they haven’t asked for criticism then that means that they are not in the right mindset to receive any, and therefore it is not your place to throw disparaging comments at them.

But the biggest issue with abuse on Twitter is obviously aimed at fan-artists, especially those those that draw NSFW or “problematic” content. I could go into a whole spiel about how a drawing of a fictional character doesn’t affect reality but in short: If you find disturbing art of a non-existent character (or hey, even non-disturbing art, it’s just something you don’t like) then ignore it. Don’t go and fucking bully the artist you psychopath. If it is truly illegal then report the piece and then see if it gets taken down. Because 90% of the time it won’t be taken down because it doesn’t go against guidelines and you’re just trying to police the site like you’re the thought-police, monitoring other peoples art as if you have the god-given right to. And if you’re a minor stay the fuck out of 18+ accounts. Don’t comment, don’t follow, don’t even look. I am absolutely amazed by the mindset that some children have to waltz into a space not made for them and having the balls to insult the 18+ artist, who have specifically said “no minors”, for posting icky content. It gets even worse when you see how they abuse the Privatter or Curiouscat links the Twitter artists provide, made for anonymous feedback or for being the final barrier for an adult piece that says “hey this stuff is NSFW, don’t click if you are underage, last warning”. I’m gonna go into this more when I cover TikTok in the next few paragraphs. But ultimately, the artists on that site are having to be constantly vigilant against abuse, and it’s not unusual for them having to spend hours going through their 1K+ followers and having to block every underage follower who just didn’t fucking listen to their warnings. Imagine how exhausting and irritating and down-right uncomfortable that must be; having to monitor every fan that sees your work out of fear that they’re a minor seeing adult content or that they could throw abusive comments at you. Horrible.

Instagram is saturated with bots attempting to steal your work or advertise it on their own page and feedback isn’t really a ‘thing’ on there. Also, their algorithm (which may have also been implemented on Twitter, I believe that the Twitter algorithm now avoids promoting popular artist terms, but I can’t be certain bc the Twitter post that pointed this out is long-lost in the depths of my timeline, bc again, no tagging system) is based more around sharing than likes, which can be a huge barrier to artists. Sure, you may like someones art and even leave a nice comment on it, but do you really want to share every piece you come across, especially if it’s not something you would show dear Aunty Susan who follows you? It’s infuriating that a whole site dedicated for images is so difficult to use for artists, and with Instagram implementing features that are similar to Snapchats ‘stories’ it’s clear they’ve moving in a different direction, focusing on momentary attention-grabbing photos. This is simply because Instagram is advertising itself as more of a promotional influencer site nowadays, and anything that could sully their reputation has to be thrown into the algorithm trash. NSFW art or just plain ‘bad’ art? Trash. If you’re not gonna make money for them then why should they bother? You wanna promote your art? Pay for it because the algorithm will absolutely be working against you.

Now, the biggest fucking offender for worst art-sharing site of the year is TikTok (no surprise there), which is absolutely rampant with reposts and uncredited artwork and a gateway for abusive comments against artists. Like the Ouroboros snake, it goes through the same pattern every time; People (usually minors) find art on Twitter or Pinterest and repost it, usually without credit or going against the artist’s wishes about reposting. Then it either goes two-ways: Firstly, if the piece is SFW it will get about five-seconds of interest, a like for the reposter and people will then just move on. TikTok is built entirely around short bursts of satisfaction, feeding a a constant loop of serotonin for a few seconds before you move on. So ultimately, people rarely then hunt down the original artist, especially if their credit isn’t readily available, and usually the original artists doesn’t see any rise in likes, followers or popularity and are usually unaware that their art is even getting any attention on TikTok.

Or, if the art is NSFW, it can go down the second way. It is reposted and, as the majority of TikTok users are under-18, many users find the image uncomfortable, especially if it is a bit more ‘out-there’ or of a ship they don’t like. The reposters sometimes find the image off of Privatter, which is even worse since the piece has been posted to Privatter not just as a final barrier against minors, but also as a form of directing the piece to a specific and niche audience due to it’s... spicer than usual NSFW content. I’m talking really specific pieces with really specific kinks. Now that piece is floating around TikTok, widely seen by the general fans of a fandom, who again, are usually underage. The viewers grow uncomfortable, as the piece is not made for them, especially since sometimes the reposter only posted the piece for shock-value, and would even encourage insulting comments by only posting the credits for the purpose of getting fans to throw abuse at the artist (”The artist is ***** but they ship **** and are icky”) and so the viewers finally decide to make the effort to hunt down the original artist, only to throw insulting and bullying comments at them, made worse by the fact that they are children who don’t have the sense to hold back and have been fuelling their mindset in the echo-chamber that is TikTok.

And as a result of a lot of this hostile feedback for artists, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a space for amateur artists who are just starting out, since the art community is becoming a little bit scary. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that new (or not even new but recently promoted) sites such as Artstation are becoming a better place for professional artists only, but it is very intimidating for learner artists. That’s not necessarily a bad thing - I believe that part of the reason for Deviantarts decline was that the tagging system was horrible, so good art was being drowned out by amateur, fetish content, so more advanced artists were distancing themselves from the site, especially if they were trying to build a portfolio for employment. I also find that fanart usually gets far more likes than more original art pieces, even if the original piece is amazingly good, which isn’t a criticism against fanart but posting your original piece on a site more aimed at professional pieces may help you reach your target audience better and improve likes and interaction. However, that does mean that if you are an amateur, or hell, just an average artists who is still learning, your best bet for exposure is posting your piece across multiple sites and very, very regularly, braving any abusive comments if you try anything slightly “spicy”. Which, obviously, become a very potentially toxic atmosphere and it’s not uncommon for artists to feel burn-out or depressed at their lack of attention or the cyber-bullying they may receive.

I’m not trying to say that posting artwork has always been easy, but there is definitely a more aggressive culture surrounding it and I think artists have to be aware that chances are they will face insulting comments, reposters, frustrating algorithms, cyber-bullying, a lack of interaction and burn-out as they try and appeal to websites that would do the bare minimum for you in terms of promotion.

This isn’t meant to be a post to scare away artists, I just wanted to point out that there is a big fucking problem and it feels as though it’s getting worse. Nowadays, websites have become a bit too comfortable targeting creators rather than fans when it comes to monitoring content and artists have been put under more and more pressure as they face more and more abuse that is rarely addressed, especially by the sites themselves that host the content. Things that are a huge punch in the face for artists, such as NFT’s, are becoming more normalised and it’s honestly just sad.

#art #sorry for the long post but I get passionate about art #and I feel like every day i'm seeing more and more cyber abuse towards artists and it's honestly depressing #artists #twitter #instagram #tumblr #tagging is the best invention and i'm confused why Twitter doesn't even have a better system for it

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yume-fanfare · 3 years

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hi i am that anon from like 29th Dec (last dang year) who said i read ur tsuki no hime and loved it and that u understand Aizou. i have read more of ur stuff since then and now i NEED to ask you for writing advice, on both characterization and general writing tips since I didnt mention it before. Sorry about that! i just forgot i sent an ask and i do not get notifs at all (or does anon asks not get notifs?) Also, ART STUDENT! That's why the nice art and art leaning!! I feel smart for sensing it

oh yup, tumblr doesn't send notifs for anon asks! but i'm glad you did see the answer anyway

this post is hideously long, so answer under the cut!

so, on characterization: it is mostly a matter of what would they say, rather than what you want them to say. the joke about "the characters do what they want to" instead of what the writer wants is pretty much true if you want them to be in character lol (that's why sometimes a little bit of OoC isn't too bad)

checking the source material is the most important thing: look at prior similar interactions the characters have had and how they reacted

this is kind of hard with LIPxLIP, as there aren't that many translated texts about them but with honeyworks the most canon and reliable thing to use as reference are the mvs. the mvs are drawn in a way that can pretty much be understood even if you don't have the lyrics, and sometimes it's even better if you can't read them, to properly focus on the images better

look at their expressions closely: while aizou is always explosive in his anger, yuujirou often has a more indifferent expression. so, when they fight, aizou is probably the one to blow up first while yuujirou maintains his composure better. it's kind of the classic "this was only a brief passing panel but i am going to expand on it" www

but the thing about fanfiction is that it's always a bit of a character analysis in itself. you don't start writing having already a color-coded folder of possible situations and reactions a character would have for each setting. you just throw the characters in a scenario and then think from there onwards, and eventually you'll be able to have the folder of situations and what you think their reactions would be like. (though, this links back to the prior point, if the characters have gone through a similar situation in canon, use that as guide! plus, finding little references to canon when reading is always fun)

for general writing, i'm going to mostly talk about my own experiences and process! i'm in no way a professional though

the basic is reading a lot. not just books but also fanfic. in fact, since you're writing fanfic, i Encourage you to read fanfic. even if your story ends up novel length, the way of treating the story is different from that of an actual novel. for example, because you're working under the premise that everyone knows the characters already. the general style of fics is different as well.

in fact, the style is the main reason i'm saying this slfkslfkslkf

read a lot of stuff and find a style you like. think of it as sewing together pieces from here and there to make a frankenstein amalgamation: this person's metaphors, the comparisons from here, the descriptions from there

personally, i adore the "long one-shot with a long title formatted (like this)" fics that are mostly feelings and descriptions and as little dialogue as possible, and some that occasionally play with the "show don't tell" rule, and some months ago i read a book whose descriptions amazed me because you could feel what the character was focusing on the most, rather than being general descriptions of the situation (i actually have a lot of thoughts about descriptions but that's a post for another day). but also i really like dialogue and plot-driven stories, descriptions can get boring and before trying to break rules, you have to be really good at following them

but, let's go step by step: developing an idea

for this i'm going to mostly reference the multichap i finished a while ago as an example

i started with just a few vague concepts in mind: non-idol au with aizou who does some sport and likes music but is insecure about his singing and yuujirou who does some music related thing and encourages him to sing in a way that's somehow related to the hozier song to noisemaking (sing), because it's what inspired me to write in the first place

then, from then onwards i wrote down what would happen in the first chapter of the story bullet-point-list-style, including things like the roommates part or the clubs the boys were in (at first yuujirou was in the choir club lol the change was a last second decision that idk why i took) and then bits of dialogue here and there that would be The Turning Points. those first dialogues were for the fight at the end of ch 1, the apology-date in ch 3 and then some vaguely unused ones for the "yuujirou encourages aizou" part, as those were the first key moments i thought of

because, since it's enemies to friends to lovers, an important aspect was character development

not all fics have character development bc not all of them are long enough (if you're aiming for short and sweet then there's no need). but if they do, i recommend you write down how the character was at the beginning of the story and then how they were at the end and then fill in the middle later, think of what those key turning points that made the character change were (the more little things you add, the more gradual it'll be)

samishigariya illustrates this very nicely: the song starts and finishes with the same lines, but the ending ones feel more light-hearted. the beginning has pre-arisa ken and pre-getting-along-with-yuujirou aizou, when they were the lonely people the title mentioned, and the ending, when they're not lonely anymore. the in between can be seen in depth during the other songs: ken before arisa was a playboy who didn't take love seriously, but after meeting her he realized that games were not all there was to love; and aizou used to be quite cranky and high-key a loner, but then he "meets precious things and knows of love". i will not elaborate on that because this isn't an aiyuu post but Oh You Know

for the fic, aizou would go through that same process, more or less: someone who doesn't really form meaningful connections with people but who, in the end, would end up having quite a bunch of people who care about him as his relationship with yuujirou advances too

since the relationship was the main focus, i wrote a very simple outline for how it would develop throughout 5 hypothetical chapters that was just: 1. civil w each other but mostly bad > 2. bad > 3. half friends > 4. pining > 5. date

and then with that in mind and the bullet point list, the final basic outline ended up like this:

there were scraped ideas and ideas that made it in later, but i believe having a simple outline, a bare skeleton to add things to, is important. stories need continuity, development requires a prior buildup

it's especially important in multichapter fics where you post as you write, you need to have a more or less clear idea of what's going to happen because you can't ignore scenes you've already posted

shorter stories don't need it as much, you can think as you go, but it's still helpful to know where you're going with things to avoid getting stuck

and, on getting stuck: don't be afraid of deleting things. if you can't figure out how to continue things, then delete the situation and start again. it might feel like you'd be wasting time but in the end, it is so much better than being stuck on the same scene for weeks

in fact, you don't have to write in order. jump to the next scene and you'll figure it out later. you Can write the scene you want to write and then build everything else around it

it's normal to write a scene and then realize it would make more sense later in the story, or that it would be better if you added another scene earlier, or sometimes you just find it easier to jump from one part of the story to another. rely on your outline to keep track of what you've written, what you have left to write and what's the best way to arrange your story. make your story understandable

which bring us to editing

there's a lot of much better posts on editing stories, but yeah ctrl+f is your best friend: don't repeat yourself too much. and be sure to vary sentence and paragraph length, as well as sentence structure, to give dynamism to the writing

now, i've mentioned before the show, don't tell rule, but i'm going to talk a bit more about it because it's quite important

once again there's a lot of posts that explain more in depth what it is, so i'm not going to expand too much on that, but, very basically, try to avoid things like "then some time passed and they became friends". explain it: what happened exactly? how did they become friends? if it's important, show it to us, instead of summarizing

since things like these make the story longer, it also gives room for more development and proper explanation for things that happen

for example, the fic was originally going to start with them already in the room, and the whole situation would have been explained in a single paragraph somewhere, but by actually adding the scene where they first arrive to the dorms and argue with the lady at the main desk, the story flows better and it let me actually describe their first meeting

and uuuhhh i think that's all? this took super long to write i hope i didn't forget any super basic stuff lol

i want to add that for enemies to lovers i greatly recommend this post bc it's super good but yeah i think that's basically it, if you have any more specific questions just shoot me an ask

#god this is so long #how should i tag this #tutorials #i guess #anonymous #preguntas

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sugrx · 3 years

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1, 16 and 24

1. what did you learn about yourself this year?

i’ve obv changed a little bit and definitely have COMPLETELY different interests this year,,,, like if my last year self saw me now they would be like ‘wtf is dream smp oh my god you got into minecraft again didn’t you i thought i had finally moved past this phase when i was 9 YEARS OLD WHAT ARE YOU DOING PUT DOWN THE PEN STOP MAKING MINECRAFT FANAR--”

also i think i’ve gotten a bit better grasp on my sexuality/gender?? (that's explained more in the next question) and i feel like my art has DARASTICALLY improved like look at my last year art look at it i didn’t even know how to make .png files if i saw my current art style last year i would CRY OF JOY

but my artistic eye has rlly developed since then tho and even though if i could draw as well as i could this year last year i would be over the moon now i just,,,, i see things i really want to change?? and my inspiration artists are so much beTTER THEN mE?? how do i be as good as thEM??? MY ART BELONGS IN TR ASH??

i was rlly anxious this year about my writing bc i haven’t been doing it as often and i feel like i SHOULD bc art is just a hobby and my main aspiration is writing and literally i feel like i haven’t improved at all since last year literally i looked at a piece i wrote last year and i haven’t improved at all,,, i feel like in general my stories have gotten better but not my general writing abilities?? like,,, last year i had this one story i planned to write that i really liked but i’ve basically scrapped it now and i have like 3 different stories i have going that im in love with but haven’t touched in weeks bc i’ve been so distrACTED

my self-image has also become a little,,, less?? this year?? i think??? idk if its just been the general mood of this year bc it sucked for everybody but im definitely not as excited and confident as i was last year

16. did you learn anything about your sexuality this year?

yeS?? NO?? MAYBE??? YES???

i mean i was questioning last year and im still questioning this year but,,, i’ve kinda thought about it more?? last year i was like completely clueless but i think now i have a vague sense of direction?? somewhat??

ive only had one crush ever when i was in kindergarten and that's not a lot of information to go off but it was a boy so i know i like boys,,, but also at the same time?? i could imagine liking a girl?? but I've never actually had any romantic feelings towards a girl yet so im not going to officially label myself bisexual or pansexual or anything so im sticking to questioning until i've had more romantic experience bUT that’s still something

i’ve also thought about my gender a lil bit?? it’s not something i’ve been super concerned with up until now but idk i haven’t been,,, feeling good abt it?? bc im growing up and my body is getting more “feminine” and it’s been making me uncomfortable??? like not to the point where i absolutely despise my body but like,,, a vague sense of uncomfortableness whenever i look at myself without like 4565492834589 sweaters blocking the shape of my body LOL

like,,, i could imagine being a boy and sometimes i want to be a boy but at the same time,,, there’s some things i rlly like abt being a girl that i wouldn’t want to get rid of entirely?? is there a sexuality for being both a boy and girl???????? idk,,, i’ve been debating if im gender fluid, since sometimes i would prefer if i was a boy and other times i like being a girl,,, but i haven’t done enough research into it so im sticking to she/her pronouns for now, plus this is all kinda vague speculation

so basically nothing’s changed with my gender/sexuality other then i’ve thought abt it more and have more of a vague concept of it

24. who has made the biggest impact in your life this year?

i feel like there hasn't rlly been a single person in particular who has affected my life this year? this year has definitely not been my best (probably one of my worst actually) not just bc of the pandemic but idk i felt like i was drifting away from my friends but couldn’t muster up the courage to do anything abt it??? but nearing the end of the year things have been getting somewhat better with that

i got tumblr this year and managed to become more active with some friends who i felt like i was loosing touch with (like luvu and dan!) and that definitely had a positive impact!! but i feel like if anything shows/fandoms/fictional universes made more impact on me this year then anything?? idk whenever i’m stressed i usually fallback on fictional media bc i love consuming storytelling content,,,, i probably focus more on other’s fictional worlds then my own LMAO

my interests have shifted a lot this year but i feel like my comfort fictional characters and current favorite shows rlly helped me get through this year!

namely a few fandoms that have really made an impact were sander sides, dream smp, the owl house, etc..! i RLLY got into sander sides near the beginning of the year and rn near the end of the year im RLLY into dream smp (as you can tell) but even if i don’t post as obsessively about one fandom doesn’t mean i still don’t love it and it made a significant impact on my life!! i feel like every fictional universe i’ve been into has affected me just as a whole in some way and i’ve definitely subconsciously weaven aspects of them into my own stories! not to mention i’ve been rlly getting into some of my friend’s fictional universes lately and i have been DYING over them and they’re so underrated and inspire me so much!! namely the 4 queens story (@luvuwite‘s), a NUMBER of @raventherobot‘s stories (im simp for vin’s story and also kayne and also EVERYBODYAJKSJKSJKADJK) and also i love @hypnoticcdan‘s oc viper and i dont know a lot about their story yet but i am LEARNING also horizon is baby we stan,,,,

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exhaustedpirate · 4 years

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I think we can all agree that Colin O'Donoghue has brilliant forearms and I'm not putting it mildly bc goddamn!

case in fucking point right there

But what always bothered me was the lack of it in once upon a time and the two reasons why: first, the Milah tattoo and second, the hook brace.

Which i will now explain my problems with... buckle up, kids, this bus is going to rant city and there are no breaks!

First of all, the Milah tattoo is a bit ridiculous - yes she was his first love and literally the reason he became Captain Hook but also what the fuck?! The first scene we see it (and if I'm not mistaken, only scene), it’s just ridiculous the way it shows up... we’ve seen your shirt, Killian, it doesn’t have such billowy sleeves or we would have seen much more of your forearms than we do! It’s just set up a bit awkwardly and the position of the tattoo is a bit ridiculous and it’s a bit over the top. First, i don’t think that the first place sailors would put tattoos like that would be the forearm bc most sailors we see in media have the tattoos on their biceps, so for starters it’s a terrible place. And then it’s the design (and I have a major problem with OUAT’s artist choices but that’s another thing - the illustrations in the book, my god, you could pay any artist here on Tumblr and have good fucking art, ok no ranting!), it’s just a bit much and yes ok I get it, the dagger is a good image and one I think he would make sure to keep around (the graceful path by @unfolded73 definitely makes me consider this a good idea but still you know? also you should defo read) but also, do you want to have the image of the thing that represents your worst enemy most all the time?

My second problem with that whole situation is that it was actually unnecessary - it was there to start up the conversation about Milah and make Killian more of a grey character to Emma but there was no need for the tattoo for that to happen. I rewatched the scene and yes, the tattoo probably instigated that but wouldn’t it have been better some other way than a tattoo that we will never see again and that will prevent us from ever seeing Colin’s amazing forearms? Maybe, because I'm a sucker for parallels, a drawing of Milah could have fallen from the sack when he grabs the powder (you know, like the way Baelfire finds it?) and she goes “who’s she?” and he goes all broody and takes the drawing from her and just “someone from long ago” and there you have it and then we could have all the forearm action - which would also prevent, the ridiculous vision of fully dressed Killian on his own kitchen next to a robe wearing Emma (seriously, not even a sweatshirt and pants? like were you even trying?)

And secondly, the brace issue, which bothers me to no end simply bc of that season 5 scene that basically showed that there are no straps, just almost a cap on his stump and that is ridiculous bc we have seen him use the hook to exert the same or a bigger amount of force that he uses to take it off! No, Killian should have that cap and then straps over his arm and it prevents the brace from moving, not this!

I'm sorry but they could have done more and they didn’t have to show how the brace fits, they could have had him pull on the cuffs or detach the hook and use it on the chains, not show the ridiculous brace they did - Am I right or am I right?

And yes, I will forever be salty that we never got to see Killian in a t-shirt or in a shirt with rolled sleeves - I know Colin does it as JJ Sneed but not the same!

#captain hook #killian jones #ouat #once upon a time #tattoo #forearms #i really needed to see plaid wearing killian with rolled up sleeves #hook #jj sneed #heartstrings #colin o'donoghue #colin o'donoghue's forearms #carolina rants

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batwynn · 4 years

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I'm a newish artist on here and even my friends don't share my posts anymore. Idk what to do bc I keep seeing popular blogs like yours ask for signal boosts and no one bothers and my blog is so small? I feel like I'll never get any attention nvm commissions on here and twitter is almost worse for me.

Hi newish artist anon! Firstly, I don’t know what’s up with your friends, but I would hope they supported you and your work? I know what you mean, though, it’s been a rough period for creators of all types on this site, and I have a feeling it won’t get any better. I wish I could bring you back to the days of reblogs, mutuals screaming about stuff together, and lots of traffic to everyone’s accounts, but... time travel, as far as I can see, is not a viable option. :( Here are some links to some basic tips I wrote out before to managing Tumblr a bit, first and foremost: How to Get Your Art Noticed (On Tumblr)How to Manage Bullying (On Tumblr) How to Sell On ETSY (Super basic) More serious talk under the cut:

The thing is, also, is that I’m not actually a popular blog. I have a largish sum of followers, but at this point I’ve become aware that a thousand of them are probably porn bots, and at least another 7 thousand or so are hacked accounts/abandoned of friends and mutuals that no longer post or use this site at all.(I say this after exploring some of my older follower’s accounts, a lot of the mutual followed accounts, and a lot more old friend accounts from people I haven’t heard from since 2015 or so.)

SO many people have left, or were forced off this site, and it’s left a pretty big void for a lot creators like myself and others. It means that a lot of us, while once being decently ‘popular’ are now sort of stagnated to this ‘I have a lot of followers but half my friends are gone and a lot of the followers aren’t actual accounts anymore’ kind of place. Which means, with the whole anti-reblogging front going on, you just... go nowhere. Your posts don’t get outside of your bubble, especially when Tumblr does stuff like hides your posts with links from the tag. :/

On the other side of things, If you look at accounts like Pangur and Grim you can really see a difference in account activity and follower interaction. You’ll notice there’s a surplus of activity on multiple types of posts, from personal, to cats, to art, etc. (You’ll also notice a lot of negative stuff, which I honestly don’t miss from the time when I had a lot of activity on this blog lol) That kind of blog is what I would consider an actual ‘popular’ blog, especially since the owner does a lot of interactive posts and gets actual interactions with them. The point I’m trying to make with all this, is that there is no one true way to get interaction on this site, and I don’t really think there’s a perfect way to gain it without, honestly, luck. Even two years ago, I would say something like, ‘You may be able to get people’s attention by working hard at focusing on post times, popular trends, networking, working with other artists, joining zines, etc.’ But that just doesn’t work anymore. Hard work does not automatically equal popularity or give you attention and interactions, especially not on this site.

Things have changed, unfortunately in a very negative way for creators, and we’re all sort of left trying to find a place that works like Tumblr used to. A place we can congregate yet have our personal spaces, while exploring our ‘likes’ and mutual fandoms etc. A place where a little extra work on your content and following trends and posting at good times was all you really needed to get at least some interactions and attention.

Twitter is also not good at that, and I know a lot of my friends and mutuals are there and we are following one another, but Twitter is just not made for creators. It really just isn’t. It’s fast-paced, it’s styled for short, quippy responses to media and other people, and it’s terrible with image quality never mind the whole bad cropping situation. If you able, by luck and some hard work, to manage a following, even then there is no promise of interaction or commissions. People move on, people ‘like’ and skip to the next post, people ignore donations posts, people scroll past art if they can’t see the whole thing, people are looking at Twitter at midnight after a long day of work and have no energy to look at your kickstarter for your original work, people spend all day looking and talking about politics and are burnt out, etc. etc.

I know this is... not a cheerful message for anyone, but I wanted to be honest. There isn’t one way to get attention for your work, and there is no promise that doing ‘one simple trick!’ will work for you when it worked for others. Just by asking and wanting to be proactive about this is a great way to get going, though!

That being said, I would love to reblog/retweet your work and never feel bad for asking me for a signal boost. Seriously, I may not be a popular blog but if you need commissions or donations and need a boost, It’s worth a try and I’m absolutely open to sharing your work and posts.

#Batwynn Talks #Advice #popular blogs #artists on tumblr #sorry it's kind of sad?#It's just tumblr kind of doesn't work anymore and #twitter is not as great for artist #It CAN be done though!#it can #but it also involves good luck #that's just a fact #I'm sorry #:(#Anonymous

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thejudgingtrash · 4 years

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I wanna hear the Dom/sub discourse!!! Also love ur blog :) (I personally am a proponent of dom percy just bc I like that idea but I’d love to hear yours!!! I didnt even know there was discourse!) love to hear your thoughts and again super cool blog!!!! :’)

* ALSO WOULD LIKE TO CLARIFY IF IT WASNT ALREADY ESTABLISHED BUT ONLLLLLLY IF THEY ARE LIKE IN THEIR OLDER 20S!!!! ppl doing that in the context of teens is *gross* (previous anon who sent in the ask before) :)

Oh! Thank you for the compliments. I’m still not used at being so visible now to people 🥺😥😅

Good that you’ve added your points because that essentially brings down my issues with this whole spiel. I guess I’m going to play the other card. My main issues with this whole thing are:

A) the fandom sexualizing kids

B) people not understanding that looks/behavior in or outside of a (romantic) relationship don’t necessarily have to correlate with sexual behavior, especially when powerplay is involved

Of course Percy is easier to grasp for us. We have five whole books where we hear his every thought, follow his every move and think we get to know him (that automatically makes Percy not a reliable narrator, just saying).

For every book quote that puts Percy into the „Dom“ slot, there’s also a book quote that would be fitting for Annabeth (the dance from TTC comes to my mind). I can see both going either way. Despite them having mostly different personalities (Percy internalizing his thoughts and motives, whereas Annabeth is doing rather the opposite), they are very similar when it comes to leadership and end goals. Annabeth can range from emotional to bossy in a similar way Percy does. They just express themselves on different levels and get seen by outsiders in different ways.

Did you catch that? Did you see the hypocrisy that I just committed? We are using book quotes to justify placing characters that are in that context and in overall canon minors/teens/essentially fucking children in sexualized categories. Tbh, as much flag as you can give Riordan, I can’t blame him for blocking people who do this. Not every author is a fan of fanfiction and fan theory and what not.

People throwing these BSDM terms around without a second thought makes me cringe (tbh, I’m too lazy to explain the psychology of power play and kinks in that regard, just know that the instigator is not automatically the top/dom and there are many, many, many layers in a pp relationship). You cannot base sexual behavior from the canon itself. We know nothing about Percy and Annabeth in that regard to even justify the slightest. Ripping actions out of context to give them a label doesn’t work like that so easily unfortunately.

The only way to settle this question for once and all would be by simply doing this:

The whole debate that happened months/weeks ago (quarantine makes everything blurry in my memory) was just fucking stupid?

Imagine being a 15 year old, anxious, frightened girl. You’ve been deeply traumatized since you’ve been seven years old, you’re scared to death because you have a crush on your best friend and think he might perish (newsflash: of course you as the reader can foreshadow that in that context the series goes on. The characters can’t as they lack that specific insight. Percy didn’t have to wind up dead in the books, but he could have been severely mutilated, gone missing (guess he did later), bruised, etc. apart from his mental struggles. The super power part is essentially the only thing that’s keeping him alive), you give him a kiss because you’re too shy to admit your feelings for him and he’s being an awkward cheeky bastard before looking for a fight and then some adult asshole has the caucasity of calling you a bratty sub. Literally what.

Some anon (or a group of anons, don’t know which) contacted a bunch of people with that Dom!Percy and Sub!Annabeth stuff. Anon, Liebste, homegirl, my love, mija, if you see this please slide into the DMs because whaddefuck? Your thought process hotdamn. Where did you pick this up? Let’s be open about this discussion. You didn’t go from A to B, you went from A to Z and robbed Jeff Bezos on the way out. I mean what???

People using canon to justify their headcanons is simply something I can’t get behind in this matter. The main issues is that they are children/teens/minors in canon. There is no way around it. Trying to justify/back up some of your thoughts in that regard with actual quotes only makes it worse because you aren’t only sexualizing them in your fanon, but you are also automatically transferring these thoughts to the actual books and thus fore sexualizing them in canon. You’re changing the basis and narrative.

I honestly don’t get the obsession that some have with their teenage sex life? This isn’t a personal attack on people but I’ve seen this throughout several group chats and social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest even and of course Tumblr. And popular stuff like Riverdale, Euphoria, 13 Reasons Why and New Adult Twilight rip-offs á la Shades of Grey and that Harry Styles fanfic honestly don’t help with the portrayal of „curious“ teens.

This also isn’t a strict PJO phenomenon, it happens across all fandoms. The odd trend with sexualizing kids/teens or things intended for kids has been going on for ages. I get it, you grow out of the related audience but that doesn’t justify the means? Canon won’t change simply because you do.

Percy and Annabeth are awkward teens that have never dated anyone else and had barely half a year between pjo and hoo before getting caught up in another mess. I’m not saying that teens aren’t curious and don’t experiment, some do drugs and/or have sex (let’s be real the probability of something happening in the stable scene in MOA is very high) but still? Putting dom/sub labels on them is sketchyyy. Also throw your fucking sex god headcanons out of the motherfucking window. They are 17-ish, if you need the mental image of some weird kids flopping on top of each other for two whole minutes for some odd reason, good for you but I’m side eying the fuck outta you.

You can’t really blame Riordan for not being more explicit. A) the series is for middle schoolers (aka kids), so it’s not strictly Young Adult and there’s only so much you can do B) publishers/editors interfering is a thing (especially with society’s views of sex = bad and violence = just fine) and c) the probability of sexualizing the characters of his own creation in that sense might have made him uncomfortable. Better to play safe, than end up with a bigger mess, just saying. I’m all for the sex talk in a non-berating, (slightly) educational approach when it comes to that in non-adult literature. Or even just stating a sex scene in a mere sentence. (Karen M. McManus did an amazing job with portraying struggling teens with a right approach in One of Us is Lying. Stating it or making it very, very, very clear between the lines. Then again, not everyone can pull that off or wants to go in that direction).

In addition to that, seeing stuff like the infamous ”the sea doesn’t like to be restrained“ or ”Percy has handsome features which shifted from humor to anger“ quotes getting constantly shredded is so… Meh. One simple question: what does Percy having a mean resting bitch face to do with his sexuality/sexual behavior? What does him being annoyed and on the moodier side have to do with it? For me absolutely nothing. The correlation isn’t really clear and out there. Pissed Percy doesn’t translate into Percy automatically being the dominant (in Percabeth’s sex life)?

I mean I get it. We all grow up. Erotica is a wonderful genre and art form (if you waddle through the trash). You will never be able to get that out of fiction and fanfiction. That’s also neither my goal nor my place to decide. As cheap and stupid as it is, I’d rather have people intentionally aging the characters up and stating their headcanons in that regard rather than people attempting to abuse canon where the characters are minors in order for sexualizing them. There’s no good way to prevent this from happening unfortunately (unless you really want to abolish all explicit fanon stuff).

Whenever you post a sexy headcanon just hold on for a second. If you have abstract future headcanons sure, go ahead, personally don’t see a problem with that. But if you use source material to fixate your thoughts on minors in canon to give them sexual labels… I urge you to seriously rethink that.

Stop sexualizing minors. Please. Pretty please.

Peace

#if you want to know my honest opinion about adult percabeth‘s sex life: they have the blandest whitest most boring sex going on.#Tank‘s Coldest playing in the background would be a highlight and they‘d stop a minute in because the harmonies are too tight #like i said i don‘t see any of them being the dom or the sub. they‘re both and neither so I‘d say they are switches. still spiceless sex ngl #also if you think that hickeys going down on someone handcuffs dirty talk or having a red ass are kinky you are 100% vanilla. it is what it #also damn. all of these rants keep me productive af? this is like my fourth in three weeks? whut lol #pjo #my rants #percabeth #annabeth chase #percy jackson #hoo #anon #ask me

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bayrut · 4 years

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SO since you’re the marvel expert here, which marvel movies are good in your opinion? I want a TED talk, please explain yourself with full detail bc ily when you talk about thing you like 💖 (I’m preparing myself to hear some bad takes tho)

ok so hi camila I am currently during a lab meeting so i will be able to finish this essay, but be warned this is,,,, extremely long i hope tumblr even lets me post this. but here are my favorite mcu movies in no particular order. like they’re all good, then i have a tiny section for honorable mentions of some movies that have a certain few good elements but overall are not Good TM. then i have a special mention for The Movie that shaped superhero movies forever (even though it is not my fave).

If you find this too long and decide to not read that it okay!!! i totally get it. but if you don’t read my reply at least read this:

comic books are like a story and art/visuals right? but the two things that movie makers forget about when adapting a comic book to the screen are exactly that!!! the story and the visuals. they thing that they can make a movie where everyone punches everyone and throw in a few jokes and people will be please (and they are, look at how much money they are making...) but i am not pleased. there is no story, they don’t care about character arc. and the visuals are ugly, the art in comics is supposed to help the story, to help the plot flow, like the fights should tell stories in the way that they’re organized, and the visuals should be breathtaking and serve the plot. and this all is not hard to do like: just hired a good choreographer for the fights and learn how to shoot shots properly and that’s... it. and it has been done before in some of the movies i mentioned and some shows *cough cough* watch daredevil *cough cough* so yeah it is doable but the directors dont care and would prefer to make mindless action movies with jokes and label them as ‘superhero movies’ because they know people will eat that up.

anyway, rant over, these are the best marvel movies: (open at your own risk this is extremely detailed, 4 word pages long and i did not proof read it, it took me over two hours to write)

the best marvel movie of all time must spider-man: into the spider-verse but that’s probably because they spent so many time on it to get it right. also, it’s probably cheating to consider it the best movie, since it’s animated so it does get the whole comic book vibe best automatically. but really the movie is funny, like a spider-man movie should be, the art is beautiful it is Art and honestly anyone that doesn’t think the same can unfollow me. i tried the first time i saw the trailer and also when i watched it in the cinema. Art. although the dialogue is a bit poor, and they did my girls gwen and peni dirty. but john mulaney is in it so!!! definitely one of the superior movies. the art is so beautiful i write and cry about it all the day but the fact that each character is done in a different style, and that the background and scenery is so,,, detailed,,, like it’s beautiful. even besides being a good superhero movie, it’s an amazing animated movie when compared to the trash kids get these days, where all characters look the same in a movie but also from a movie to the next. also the soundtrack was kinda amazing for the movie. tl;dr: i want my spider-verse 2 now please and thank you, the 10 second teaser was enough for me to tear up

black panther is one of the best marvel movie. i know a lot of people have focused on the diversity aspect of it and how we need black superheros so i won’t focus on it too much, you already know that. but. the costumes. are so beautiful. they spent so much time designing costumes. the plot was interesting, which honestly,,, i can’t say the same for most superhero movies these days. the movie encapsulates the magically tehcnological vibe that wakanda gives off in the comics, and honestly all the actors did a great job. also, the casino fight scene... like help that was too beautiful. superhero movies fight scenes should feel like a well-organized and elegant choreography, and honestly i’m so upset that a lot of movies decide to be like whatever they can throw in punches and that will. like in comics the punches and kicks serve to fight a narrative, to help the flow of the images move. it’s not an action movie or one of those war movies where whoever punches whoever else and that’s done. those are comic book adaptations. i need to see the flow of images. the art. where is it. anyway. black panther has that in probably all fight scenes, and i would like to say thanks to everyone who worked on that aspect. like for real fight scences looking pretty is a big part of why i like or don’t like a superhero comic book, movie, or tv show (on that note, go watch daredevil). also, the movie was funny enough but not a joke. like a comic book should be. loved it

logan: ok idk if this is an unpopular opinion and idc, but the xmen movies are far more superior than the other movies. they just get the vibe right. logan was a beautiful movie. it was different than all other movies in the superhero genre, it is violent but not violent for the sake of violent, it was violent to portray how violent life it. it wasn’t showing blood just to show blood. it captures so many emotions like intense grief and regret correctly, it is an actually Good Content movie, like many adults treat the superhero genre as a joke, and i think logan shows that it should not be treated as a joke. also, i think the characterisation of logan (like i mean the character himself) was much better in this movie compared to the xmen movies. like there he is just brooding and rude, but in logan i think he stopped being a 2-dimensional character. anyway, love it, teared up at the end, we should get more xmen movies and in general, superhero movies like this

ok i might be biased because i know the script by heart by now, but guardians of the galaxy is also one of the greatest movies based on a comic book. idk how much you know about gotg, but the comics were not doing great before the movie, but after it like marvel started making new runs and they all became popular. anyway my point is: the story was beautiful, the images and background were Beautiful, it was funny, it was a movie about not belonging anywhere but finding people to call home, about finding a reason to live. all the characters were like whatever i just exist i don’t matter and!! they found home. a lot of people treat the movie as a joke because of how light it is and how the characters are all different stereotypes of ‘funny sarcastic character’, but it really is beautiful. and the soundtrack.... can i just say... genius, superior, amazing, fantastic, i could go on for days. that opening scene where star-lord is alone and singing??? the way it is filmed??? the choreography of it all?? like idk it’s just too good. i have lots of feelings about gotg. the second one wasn’t as good, i didn’t like the main plot it was a bit Too Much but i liked the continuing theme of finding home with Yondu (who deserved better imo) but yes gotg is a superior movie

iron man, like how do i even describe this movie without insulting it... it launched the MCU. it is iconic. RDJ is amazing but not only him, everyone in that movie is great. and honestly all the iron man movies are great. (if you compare with how tony stark is portrayed in the avengers movies, like he’s way more shallow there). the movies make sense, the fight scence have that dramatic and elegant element about them. the second wasn’t my fave, but still was extremely good. the third was amazing too, like the ending of it with the suits and all that... the portrayal of mental illness, like panic attacks and anxiety,,, like this is truly what the movie genre should be about. not just mindless fights, it is about stories, and that is why most superhero movies are not good. normal people go and like them but i can’t enjoy them. and not just me (and comic book readers), like people who enjoy them are usually the people who are okay to go watch a random movie with good jokes (because that’s what most superhero movies are these days, bad plot but good enough jokes for people to go pay 15$ and see them). i mean i am ok with those movies too, but since i read comics i don’t and can’t really enjoy those movies. i think when people tell me they don’t like marvel, it is most often because they are people that read (not just comics) like they read books and care about plot and what is the movie really trying to say so when they’re asked why they dont like the movie they’re like oh it’s a dumb superhero movie... and i can’t argue with that because most superhero movies are like that right now... they profit off the fact that some superhero movies (like iron man) were huge hits that revived the genre, and profit off the fact that people think they will automatically enjoy the movie and wil go watch it, so they don’t care about actually writing a story...

xmen days of the future past this is,,, such a good movie,,, i’m a sucker for time-travel when it’s done right, and the slow-motion quicksilver scene with the music,, can i just say,,, poetic cinema,,, beautiful,, my only complaint is that there are not enough relevant female characters but like,,, it looks how a comic book movie should look like,,, anytime i’m on a plane i have to watch it... also,,, i discovered 2 years ago that a lot of scenes were filmed at my university so like,, it holds an extremely special place in my heart, i can’t believe i’ve been in the same buildings where they filmed it, it’s crazy..

doctor strange: ok ok dont @ me yet please listen. i know story-wise it is meh, they didn’t do it well (but i have real high hopes for the sequel, but that’s a talk for another day) but the visuals!!!! the visuals!!!! the fights!!! the way that they morph like reality during the fights,,, it’s just,, so beautiful, one could get drunk just by looking at it,,, also,, the sanctum sancotrum looks so pretty. the fights flow amazingly well (kudos to the cape). the dormammu scence!!!! oscar-worthy!! like i know the plot wasn’t great and the movie is zelma-erasure but!!! it looks like a superhero movie should look like and look i’m an arts kid that’s why i like comics because they’re pretty and the pictures tell a story. like of course i read books i read a lot but the visuals are so important for comic books and they should be for comic book to movie adaptations and they’re often not but doctor strange had it

ok one of my faves it ant-man and also the sequel but let’s focus on ant-man for a second, it is goofy but has lots of emphasis on the family subplot and that’s beautiful. this movie should have gotten an award just for when Luis tells stories like that scene is iconic. a lot of people think it’s a dumb movie because it focuses a lot on being funny but actually like the themes!!! aborded. like being in jail then not being able to find a job, then trying to steal again just because you need money because you wanna see your kid, like the power of showing this!! people treat it as a joke like ha ha look he is an engineer and he is working in an ice cream store, but here again no it’s an important story and comic books are books like @ movie directors where is my story??? why are you making a movie but forgetting the story??? how and why?? anyway ant-man had a story!! and also the scott/cassie father/daughter relationship.... like.. my heart. also the visual when ant-man becomes too tiny... very pretty

ok now for some movies that arent the best but have some really good elements that have to be mentioned

thor ok so a lot of people think it is not good but loki in it... i swear tom hiddleston is a great actor and just like,,, the way he portrays despair and like sadness and grief (over himself! about losing himself) is really beautiful... like even in the dark world his performance was really good,,, the Dramaticism of it all.... amazing,,, but his character was done so dirty in the MCU, like loki and wanda and strange are supposed to be the 3 most powerful sorcerers in the marvel world and the MCU was like there you get a small knife, as a treat (like don’t get me wrong i want loki to have a knife but...) also his character deserves more depth than that... like the comic books are breathtaking i’m so sad they did loki so bad... they erased the fact that loki is genderfluid, that he has complex morals, that loki is the god/goddess of stories not just whatever he is supposed to be in those movies... anyway i’m hoping for better characterization in the show, especially that they also hired a female actress to also play loki so we might get genderfluid loki,,, but also i dont wanna have hope and clown

big hero 6 (yes it counts do not fight me): although the animation was very similar to the animation these days, like it was not Special like into the spider-verse, the story is cute, it tackles important topics like grief and how do deal with grief, which is good considering that most kids movies these days just rehash the same topics and don’t care about the plot lines or what is learned

ok i hate and i really mean absolutely hate the new spider-man movies because the are bad but far from home has to be acknowledged for jake gyllenhaal as mysterio but not just about jake, in the end he is just an actor. you know that scene where he is doing his ‘illusions’ towards the end of the movie and it never ends and everytime you think the scene is over and we’re back to reality it turns out we’re still in the ‘illusion’??? just this scene and i really mean just this one scence did it right. like it’s like a comic book. when i watched it i was breathless i is beautiful. anything else in that movie i don’t care at all

i like venom but not because it’s great, the plot is very weak and it doesn’t look great but tom hardy is really good in it... like him losing it over having a symbiote in himself, being like Stressed and Anxious and A Disaster TM is really good... like when he goes to the restaurant and eats that lobster alive and sits in the tank... like amazing and superb love it

and finally, i can’t make this list without mentioning the movie that really made the difference:

avengers ok so avengers was not the best because it really did not care about black widow or hawkeye or hulk at all (their characterization is horrible and butchered in all the movies), and i don’t even like captain america, and thor is annoying, so basically tony stark, loki, and our buddies at shield carry the whole movie, but this movie is so important in terms of like, it’s the first movie that really like started the crossover movies for superheros, the ‘let’s put it all together and hope people don’t get confused’. without it like really the MCU (and DCU, even though idc much about it sorry) would be nothing like they are today!! but yeah like it did so many characters dirty like the characterization sucks, the plot is rushed,,, but like it’s okay. oh and the fight scenes are good! like you still have the whole elegant choreography element of it, which exists in the first few crossover marvel movies like this one and age of ultron (that movie was dissapointing i was so hyped for ultron as a villain and then they made him out to be a tuna can) but then for like civil war and endgame and all that it’s just huge fights and everyone hitting anyone and i don’t care for that like you get lost the only info you can take out is like: oh, there is punching happening. you don’t get to enjoy elements of it and how all the characters are interacting and collaborating together to make a visually pleasing scene simply because those fights are. not. visually. pleasing. anyway. also the shawarma scene was superior.

#camila if you actually read this all #or if anyone else actually reads this all....#like rip idk you guys are true friends #like truly idk no one cares about what i talk about and i know i talk a lot #like if you do read this i literally dont know how to repay you #maybe i'll read all of your larry fics #anyway if you dont i really wont be sad dont worry about it i went overboard #ily camila #asks #my mcu rant #pinkpoppunk #thechampagnelovers

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cecelianonymous22 · 3 years

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bmc digital art dump

Basically all the shit I can scrounge up considering I was in this fandom before I had Tumblr

This is band!Michael! I love him. He plays guitar and does backup vocals. He also plays trumpet on the side. Me and my friend Evan were trying to do Expensive Headphones but then there was a lot of drama and forced Stagedorks AND Pupgrade. So..we didn’t make it. Smh they were just tryna eat breakfast.

Another RP-based one! This is Project Player Two, aka Jeremy, created by Michael, who is an engineer. This one was with another friend (and Evan’s girlfriend) named Gold. It was going pretty well but we kinda fell out of it. There was going to be a whole Expensive Headphones thing for Jeremy to get suspicious about but the RP died before we got there. Also Jeremy fucking broke Michael’s TV with a remote.

My most recent one! This is god!Michael. He’s originally from a fantasy RP but me and Evan just decided to turn it into an Expensive Headphones RP. So, it’s demon!Rich x god!Michael, because angel x demon stuff is cool but boring for roleplays. So this is something to spice up the norms. I did this on my school computer, which is way more sensitive to brush strokes than my drawing tablet. Hence why it’s a little more detailed than my other pieces. Oh and fun fact: Michael was alive but died and became reincarnated as a god (he doesn’t know why and it frustrates him). He was a poet in his past life. :)

DUSTY!! I love him lmao. But yeah, this is my headcannon for what he looks like (minus the bleached tips. idk why I did that but I just thought it would look cool). This is the design that I’m using for my BMC fangame Feelin’ Kinda Cocky, btw.

Alright, digging into some of my older pieces. This was for the YouTuber contest on Amino! I don’t think I did the submission right though, bc I really thought this would be mentioned. But oh well. This is Michael and Jeremy as Kryoz and Smii7y! (Note: I don’t ship them. Shipping real people is toxic as hell unless they want to be shipped, like Wilbur Soot and Nihachu. Just thought I’d mention.)

This one isn’t really a full piece of art but I’m still putting it in. This is the art for the quarantine cover of More Than Survive! It was a big project that I’m very proud to have been a part of. Not only did I draw this but I also voiced Jenna, edited the audio together, and made the lyric video. You can find the video here: https://youtu.be/3bGAFtTVaYw?list=PLswS5sUYgqXS9OIkRBrLIi5o9wMvZf2Ug

Ew crusty looking one- Yeah, you can tell this is one of my older pieces because they have the same body type. But it’s not too bad- But yeah, Expensive Headphones! My comfort ship. This is the thumbnail for an animation meme I made on my second YouTube channel (aka, not my main one, yet it has more subscribers). I honestly don’t want to promote it because it sucks ass but if you wanna go look for it, alright, whatever. Just know that I have no fucking clue how to animate but I wanted to make Expensive Headphones content.

I was fucking around with color palettes and made this neat-looking Michael. This image just gives me Glass Animals vibes for some reason. Even if this falls into the old “every character has the same body” line of art, I’m kinda proud of this :)

This one was kind of a lazy one. Another thing I drew on my school laptop. Not much to say other than it looked way better on my school laptop.

Another one from my school laptop. I’m pretty proud of this one! I started the sketch one day, then kinda felt like shit the next day. And so I made some Rich angst. (Also first time I’ve properly drawn messy hair, I think. But it won’t be the last time, course. The Creep comic exists lmao-)

This was literally just a shitpost because I found this fuckin thing so funny:

Behold, my most liked post on the BMC Amino. Pickle Rich.

Alright, this one’s an OC. Me and Gold had a demon hunter!Jake x angel!Jeremy RP. And this was the motherfucker who helped Jake get to Jeremy. He’s a dick and I love him. (Yes I know he looks like a fucking Homestuck character, piss off)

A phone background that I made! Evan used it for a while. Hell, she might still use it. I have no clue. I just thought this little concept was cool and wanted to draw it out.

Me and my girlfriend, Cal, did this a while ago. It was fun lmao- Chuck E Cheese Michael (I can explain) and Goth IHOP Rich :)))

#bmc #be more chill #fanart #art dump

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fearfearer · 4 years

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i have caught up with the magnus archives.

when i started listening, i started a text file to note down any thoughts/confusion/analysis/jokes i had as i listened. i isolated a few bits of it into standalone text posts that i already posted, but here is the whole thing, my long-form liveblog

thoughts on the magnus archive as i listen

jonny sims gives an impassioned performance of someone's statement-- a diegetic impassioned performance, as we witness it being interrupted and resuming-- and follows it up with his own judgement of merciless doubt. classic. why the impassioned performance? he's just a nerd. i dearly hope this is the fandom consensus

every episode ends at the perfect volume to which i have adjusted it, and then i start the next episode and it blares in my ears. i think the volume of the intro must be like 1.75x the volume of the rest

*makes a serious effort to listen to and remember the name and date at the beginning of the statement recording* *forgets completely within 2 minutes*

i saw a fanart of gerard keay and learned [1] that he must be a good guy after all, since they drew him lookin cute, and [2] that his name is not, in fact, jared key. what, am i supposed to be looking at the transcripts? understanding names properly? in my defense, jonny sims clearly articulates "Jared" when he says it. maybe i'm not as good at decoding british accents as i thought. [footnote added in later: ok good i'm not the only one who hears "Jared" and thinks "Jared" instead of "Gerard"]

when gerard keay was described as having numerous eye tattoos on his joints, obviously my first thought was, "including the ankle? so he's count olaf?" because that's definitely a way count olaf would disguise his eye tattoo: by tattooing eyes everywhere else too and becoming The Eye Tattoo Guy. anyway this is part of why i was not at first inclined to think favorably of gerard keay

"The first thing about this statement that makes me dubious is that it comes from a fellow academic." if you know shit fuck you

it has come to my attention that there are ships. makes sense... after all, everyone in every fandom is horny af*. i'm not in deep enough to ship yet but naturally i'm keeping an eye on it

*horny af for depictions of intimacy, sexual or otherwise, but mostly sexual

definitely feel like i need to be writing down every name i hear because they're never not cropping back up but for now i'll just let it all wash over me

so sasha has been replaced with not-sasha, huh? pretty sure. though i'm not good at distinguishing voices. but that sounded pretty different, and my listening comprehension wrt that table isn't that bad. <<as time passes i doubt myself more and more on this point but not enough to go back and listen again

"You believe me?" "Yes, I think I do." (smashes button labeled "CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT" and a loud buzzer sounds)

IT'S MICHAEL!!! i hope michael is a long-term good guy... he's not seeming like a good guy right now... he says he's mostly neutral. vaguely recall seeing a tumblr post about michael in the recent past but that didn't give me any hints and i don't remember it well anyway. michael's voice is good though. good laugh

i'm not good at visualizing characters based on descriptions, let alone based merely on their voices, so the only image i have in my head of jonathan is a furrowed brow

i'm on episode 49 and i don't like jonathan's distrust of his colleagues... i don't understand why his immediate suspicion was that gertrude's murder was an inside job. hasn't he just learned firsthand that the institute is not impenetrable? it's not inconceivable that someone could enter and shoot her and leave. especially when it took place in underground tunnels connected to unknown locations.

there's a good Old Lady Voice Combo on episode 62

so agnes montague was heavily cursed... that's my conclusion after episode 67

elias seems to tell jonathan to "get some sleep" a lot. though it IS generally good advice

episode 70, 9 minutes, 41 seconds: jonny sims's cell phone goes off in the background

small brain: ghost ship medium brain: ghost train galaxy brain: dirt train

i wanted to see if there was fanart of michael so i looked it up... i might as well have googled "blonde slenderman"

sweeney todd mentions tally: II

for some reason, hearing michael described this time as "a tall man with curly blonde hair and an unnerving laugh" puts an image in my head without my consent, and that image is chris fleming. now, he's not quite blonde, is he? but that doesn't change my casting decision, which is now set in stone. hope he does a good british accent

"YES i know what a meme is."

why is melanie the first/only one to notice that sasha is now not-sasha? is it because she is experienced in firsthand paranormal encounters (whereas the archivists are experienced in decidedly SECONDhand paranormal encounters, save for the worm debacle)? oh, my question was answered handily in the next episode. ok.

the replacer definitely limits its glamour to everyone except one person just so that it can be amused by the distress and confusion of the one person who can see the truth. that must also be the reason it chooses a completely different appearance. it surely COULD replace a person with their exact likeness; it just uses another face for fun, and to be satisfied that it can get away with it.

this table has appeared in like 10 episodes... Guess It's Crucial

jonny sims yelling while swinging an axe. jonny sims goes through michael's door (eyes emoji)

the idea of the replacer killing jonathan and not even replacing him brings to mind "AT LEAST RIDE IT YOU ASSHOLE"

wasn't expecting to hear from leitner at this point... he's dropping tons of lore here. too much lore. so much is happening. i have to say i kinda like it better when the stakes are not quite so high as this.

so at the end of season 2, tim and martin believe that jonny sims killed this guy, who they probably don't know is leitner... and we the audience believe that elias, now almost certainly a double murderer, has very quietly stabbed leitner to death. do i the audience believe it? i'll keep an open mind for now. things are not always as they seem. except when sasha was replaced with not-sasha, which was exactly as it seemed. [footnote added in later: looks like elias being a double murderer was exactly as it seemed.]

so jonathan sims is the name of the actual guy voicing jonathan sims. it's a cecil situation. so are they someday going to go back and retcon every episode to change his name, like with palmer/baldwin? or does jonathan sims just not mind being a character as well? as long as it doesn't devolve into RPS i guess it's fine. if there's fanart of jonmartin i hope it doesn't depict them as their actors bc that's too close for comfort to RPS

there's been a truly hellish c*ndy cr*sh ad that has played like 40 times between episodes and i'm pretty well convinced to never ever play that curséd game

elias has some serious blackmail for daisy, huh? that's heavy, having police characters in fiction who do extrajudicial killings. life imitates art imitates life

"i'm not on drugs or anything. ...what? i could be on drugs!"

he said "ample opportunity" but like "amplopportunity" with emphasis on the "plop"

it was obviously elias who delivered the statement to jonathan in hiding, because he knew he would record it despite not being at work... bc he's a nerd

so if gerard keay has eye tattoos, does that mean he also serves the uhh the observing or whatever? [verdict arrived at later: no he just has those because he's cool. or because his mom tattooed him. ok almost certainly the latter.]

"what do i feed it?" obviously you feed it filled up cassette tapes, jon... nothing has ever been more obvious

it's okay that jon very stupidly burned his hand to a crisp. you don't need even one hand to turn on a cassette recorder. you can do that with your nose

so if these people who are wax figures serve the desolation, and not-sasha was spending time at the wax museum, does that mean there is a connection between the replacer and desolation? i think that would make sense, since both seem to enjoy making people feel bad feelings. also i'm starting to think that agnes was not actually cursed, but that would mean she burned that guy on purpose after being nice to him... was she just really selfish in that way? using him to experience Dating and mutilating him when he crossed the line, so she punished him as a cruel goodbye? or just building up his hopes so they will be even more fun to burn down when the time comes?

"perhaps doing a bit of mindless filing will help distract you." honestly that is something i would like to do in real life... i do enjoy a good mindless task. though doing mostly mindless tasks 40 hours a week is not a fun time for me lately. but it would be better if i didn't have to listen to bad radio at the same time

what?! the friendly midnight acrobat described in episode 90 sounds totally non-threatening and i hope there's fanart of it. was that gym just jared the bone turner helping people live their twisted athletic fetishes?! [footnote added in later: YES! god i hope people draw these turn-boned creatures optimized for their gymnastic of choice. show me a person who remade their body specifically for the balance beam]

so the power endowed in the archivist by the viewening is that when you sit them down across from someone they want to interview, that someone will invariably spill SOME beans and think it was their idea. maybe? [footnote added in later: yes.]

ok so Michael "The Distortion" Michael, of fractals and golden ringlets, has specifically tormented this other michael, lichtenberg michael?

jon is clearly moved to ask questions by an external force because he's a sensible guy who would not try to ask questions when daisy is holding a gun on him

i think basira has precisely the same accent as estelle... or maybe just a similarly staccato way of speaking (or of line-reading)

[episode 93] elias: (holding jon's face between two pieces of bread) what are you? jon: (sigh) the archivist...

well, they did something i didn't expect them to do with this show: create a compelling in-universe reason for jon to read statements aloud. because obviously until now there was none.

jon did the cockney accents. (insert emoji for indescribable feeling)

here's the purpose of the pit: if we all climb in the muddy pit together at night, the earthquake will only jiggle us gently and no one will be inside collapsing buildings to be crushed. it's only logical

ok i was gonna say this before but why is jon still at georgie's house??? he's not on the run for murder anymore, right? he has an apartment with all his stuff in it, right? [footnote added in later: i still don't understand why it was like this.]

i will confess that usually once the credits start to roll i zip to the next episode, but this time i zoned out a bit and it's really funny that jonny sims reads out "Rate and Review Us Online" in his archivist voice

a third michael. this one is probably already dead though. unless distortion michael takes over this guy's body or something. oh, jon came in at the end of the episode to say precisely this.

was episode 100 mostly improvised? if so, that would be appropriate. but i wouldn't put it past them to write every stuttering bit of those four statements

MARTIN...................................................................................................................................................... (typed this as martin gave some of his own money to the lady who expected payment for a statement)

i'm skipping 100.1 through 100.5 for now... just for now.

ok so michael is michael but not lightning mike michael, and two of these michaels are dead, but one is something that has never been alive nor dead. got it

everyone's morality is much more gray than i at first anticipated. the only people who seem to be solidly and earnestly on the side of good, as much as possible, are jonathan and martin and basira and georgie and maybe tim?

so michael just died and was overtaken by pseudo-helen? neo-helen? ok. that's kinda too bad, as i enjoyed michael's terrible laugh and unpredictability. but the feeling of michael being revealed as having been michael shelley feels somewhat similarly disappointing (but a bit less staggeringly groan-inducing) to when the mysterious koro-sensei in assassination classroom was revealed to have been a twink in his past. because of course he was. (that's when i stopped reading that manga. too precipitously dumb to sustain my suspension of disbelief.) it's like, ok, you had an interestingly mysterious character going on, but having solved the mystery, what interestingness is left? not much. fortunately this was resolved by promptly ending the existence of this michael and instead introducing new and improved helen

ooh martin has the asky ability too huh? nice [footnote added in later: he only used it this one time, and i'm wondering if they did that and then forgot and decided that jon is actually the only one with asky ability.] [[another footnote added in much later: How did i manage to mistake jon’s voice for martin’s voice? How?]]

the way martin said "kumo ga tabeteiru" in episode 110... alexander j newall does not watch anime

"I'm a book." ~Gerard Keay, 2017

it was a few episodes ago now but i noticed that when jon clearly articulated "Jared" referring to gerard, elias was like "Jared? you mean Gerard Keay?" (pronouncing it like "Gerard.") there is definitely a disagreement between these two (actors) about how to pronounce that name

the eye, the spiral, the end, the stranger, the lonely, the desolation, the slaughter, the vast, the buried, the dark, the corruption, the web, the flesh, the hunt.

Q: why would anyone want one of these rituals to succeed? A: it's their fetish. it's their sexual fetish

ok time to make up names for each possible apocalypse. these are the real and true names according to me, who knows such things: the eye - the viewening the spiral - down the drain the end - the really end end the stranger - oh wait we know this one. it's the unknowing. the lonely - the alonening the desolation - Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Lightless Flame the slaughter - world war all the vast - the expansion the buried - the grand lahar (or the Smothering) the dark - the extinguishment the corruption - the Great Rot the web - the spidening the flesh - the smorgasbord (or the Eatening) the hunt - come and get it

gerry said there was no dark god of indigestion, but i can tell you from personal experience that there is. though it's true that there is also fear involved, so maybe no separate pantheon is necessary

i sense that there is a battle between people who say it like "gotta get myself oriented" and "i feel disoriented" (as feels correct/natural to me) and people who say "gotta get myself orienTATed" and "i feel disorienTATed," and this podcast falls SQUARELY on the latter team. they've said it like 20 times

idk why he has to be such a dick to helen. jeez

the guy who coded his mind into a computer, which of the 14 was that? the corruption? the stranger? gotta be the corruption, but that doesn't fit perfectly with its rot/bugs aesthetic...

speed -> speeding -> sped. heed -> heeding -> hed. thus i decree

in my dream i listened to a whole episode of this show, narrated by gertrude, and i was like "whoa this is cool" and i went to write it down but i was still in the dream and writing doesn't work in dreams :( also any successful writing in dreams doesn't transfer to real life paper :( the only snippet i remember: “...in his white mouth, which had known only bread...”

"I, uh..." Jonathan Sims, a thousand times, 20XX

martin's job is PLAINLY to distract elias and elias barges in like "martin. i see you're trying to distract me." and martin's like "maybe i am!"

o, jonny took a breath. that's good

he wasn't hooked up to an EKG or anything? you spend long enough with no heartbeat that they're just like "i guess we can turn this off"

this episode about philosophical zombies sounds a lot like that NPC meme from a year or two ago... and it makes me kind of uncomfortable, the way this person inspects others to determine whether they are True Minds or Impostors based on their emotional expressions, their eyes... because i don't always do the correct or appropriate expressions, and would someone judge me as being a non-person who is trying and failing to imitate human emotions?

i generally don't enjoy ships that have more-or-less explicit canon support, but i can't say jon/martin isn't good

melanie blaming jon isn't right... no one had a better plan to stop the unknowing, did they? (they didn't!) didn't all of them agree on the plan and understand that they might die? (they did!) she's just imposing survivor's guilt upon him because he survived for supernatural reasons. but it's not like he eagerly embraced his new supernaturalness, or even asked for it outright! i think she's being unreasonable. i didn't like her insistence on trying to kill elias either, even though elias is a huge dick. what's with her?

wait, peter lukas is the lonely? (meme where calculations and equations whiz past me)

jonathan baa'd

oh, see. the bullet is making melanie act without reason. i get it now. can't say i think they had the best approach to getting the bullet out, but all's well that ends well (???)

martin is being prohibited from talking to jon >:I martin is on a first-name basis with peter lukas >:I...

martin grumbles, "i don't like being manipulated..." while obviously and continuously allowing himself to be manipulated

jon is afraid of and uncomfortable with what he's becoming, at least to a degree, right? but he seems to be going about his duties (i.e. feeding the eye) with vigor and without reluctance. is he really that motivated by his own desire to know and understand? who is he doing this for? is the eye's influence on him so strong that "doing what the eye wants" seems to manifest as what HE wants to do?

"He'd place it over the one he wore already, and he would larf and larf and larf" (from breacon’s statement... just heard it like this for some reason)

deep water could be the domain of both the buried and the vast, because you could lose yourself in the vast ocean, but experience the physical effects of being buried under thousands of feet of water...

so tom han was an avatar of the flesh but he ultimately died after being tortured by the spiral... right?

"we're not people, though, are we? not anymore." close enough, i'd say.

jonathan has deployed THREE "I, uh..."s in episode 131 alone and i want to smack him in real life. FOUR NOW. JON. JONATHAN SIMS THE REAL ACTOR. LISTEN... quit falling back on your "I, uh..."s. and if they're written into the script i'll punch whoever did that too. total of five in a single episode. never utter "I, uh..." again

i hope whoever's throat is okay after doing bone turner voice for a whole statement.

jonny sure needs saving quite often, doesn't he.

peter lukas being a slightly chipper advocate for becoming a follower of the lonely is very strange

neil lagorio and his whole cinematographic history is made up but they namedropped kevin costner, who is real

VERY, VERY GOOD laugh at 23:44 of episode 136

melanie getting her session recorded... i was doing audio transcription for a while and you'd definitely come across bits of therapy-type sessions that very much seemed like they should have been confidential.

i wonder if the eye ultimately turned its back on gertrude and allowed her to be killed. if jon could survive a collapsing building, could gertrude not have survived a couple of bullets? wouldn't the difference be the protection of the eye? [footnote added in later: of course now i see who turned their back on whom.]

i'm somewhat heartened to learn that agnes montague was, in fact, a heavily cursed individual, though she seemed to have embraced it to a degree... and she wasn't made of wax.

i like that jon now includes helen in his office politics briefing

basira's like "Edmund Halley" and jon's like "Halley's comet?" (like “Hale-ey”) and two minutes later jon's like "Edmund Hally" (not "Hale-y")

"What's this?" "OH... That's, uh... that's... my rib..." "Right." (tiny clunk of rib being set down)

so giving a statement puts a curse on you... or is it "having a statement extracted / being compelled" that puts a curse on you? and the resulting curse, the fear it reawakens, is that good for the eye, or is that good for the powers that initially caused the fear?

well, i heard a homestuck reference in one of the patreon names at the beginning of an episode, and who is surprised? of course, i'm not one to talk

episode 144- the english think their summer is bad... as a professional "hot weather is bad" person, i feel doubtful, because if the sky is grey, it is not as hot as it Could Be, and therefore one should quit one's bitching

first statement about the extinction... interesting. but hearing martin be a jerk to daisy makes me sad :(

the powers never tell avatars exactly what they need to be doing, but that's just concerning the means. the ends are always clear: the power gets fed. and all of the powers feed on fear. also jonny is horny for statements. i hope, but also doubt, that his harmful behavior is at least partially the spider's doing. oh, i see now that it's not. yeah.

jon wants to eat fresh and delicious statements produced just for him, instead of reconstituting the dusty old statements already in the archive

episode 148 - samson stiller gets a crush. but in all seriousness, is he becoming an avatar of the eye but like, not institute-related? is that a thing? i guess that would make sense, but still seems weird

episode 149 - considering ring -> rang -> rung, we seem to have stumbled upon spin -> span -> spun, and the compasses gently span around (9:40)

does martin have loneliness powers now? it's sad that he is getting lonely... as a lonely person, i know.

the lady on TV in episode 150 was just speaking simlish.

i really want jon to overcome his urge to forcefully take statements because i want to be able to root for him still

british podcasts really have a leg up over american podcasts, at least among american audiences, purely based on their interesting and varied accents

i can't say the gravedigger's envy doesn't make me myself feel like going to sleep in the cold dirt forever. but bad depression lately is also a factor, so

jonathan having to settle for reading already archived statements instead of harvesting fresh ones is exactly like a vampire (not the kind detailed in this series) who has to choose between hunting people to suck their blood or drinking bags of donated blood from a (near-endless) stockpile. there's an ethical choice with a clear right answer, but the urge is also understandable

jon following up gertrude's tape with just "fuck" was really good. now he's like "ok martin. let's run away together"

spent all day at work thinking about how i can't fuckin believe the first thing jon did when he heard how to escape the institute was to go tell martin like "there will be a great cost, but... we can elope now"

also if tim was still around jon would tell him the way out and he would do it right then and there, i'm 100% sure. like before jon was finished explaining tim would be like "the eyes? (grabs scissors) got it. (does the deed)"

earlier today i was just thinking that we would almost certainly hear gertrude's death on tape, especially given that we now understand tape recorders are wont to turn on autonomously whenever something important is happening. anyway then i came home and heard gertrude's death on tape

peter, as an avatar of the lonely, is easy to play like a cheap whistle because as someone who clearly hates spending time around other people, he is not keen to the symptoms of being played.

elias is like "you'll have to go into the lonely to get him" and jon's probably thinking "but then at least we'll be in the lonely... ~*~*~together~*~*~"

i think martin's whole thing for most of the series has been that he sounds a little doofy, for lack of a better word, and people constantly underestimate his intelligence. and now he has played peter lukas like a cheap whistle and forced me to realize that by taking for granted that he was being successfully manipulated by peter lukas, i too was underestimating martin... and his pure love for jon <:3c no but seriously i even remember explicitly making a mental note to remember that martin is smartin but it fell by the wayside as my emotions (of sadness that jon and martin seemed to be growing further apart) took precedent

i work a non-verbal job just doing mundane tasks and that gives me all the time in the world to think about things like "if they were to have jon and martin reunite in a tearful embrace, how would you convey the physical contact in an audio format? like, whap? soft thud?"

jon enters the lonely and voiceover peter comes in to try and factcheck the ship

i guess it makes sense that peter would try to do the ritual for the lonely all by himself

did he kill peter by asking him to death? or did peter just self-destruct rather than be forced to answer?

the way jon snapped martin out of the loneliness just by making him look at his face... that's powerful. as a lonely person, i know that the most cry-making thing you can realize when you feel alone is that another person is, in fact, there with you

martin went for a walk and now it's thunderstorming. i wonder if he came back as soon as it started raining and now he's standing nearby invisibly as jon reads the intimidating magnus statement. ...I GUESS NOT

i plan to read through the transcripts of all the episodes (as it’s faster than re-listening, though i might selectively re-listen) so that i may better understand some things and answer some questions in this post that i didn’t ultimately resolve. i can’t say i was paying 101% attention all the way through. also april is very far away

#the magnus archives

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whatbutandreil · 5 years

Text

i had an ask sitting in my inbox for a couple of months bc i didn't really know what i wanted to say, but i lost the ask:/

unfortunately, when i tried to save my response to my drafts, tumblr just,, fuckin deleted it, so im sorry to whoever asked it:/ but i have my response now. the ask said "what(or who) got you into tfc?" to the person who asked this question, thank you. this has been a really great reflection. so uh,, here's my answer:

i kinda hate the way i came into tfc bc it was in a way that didn't respect the wishes of my, now friend on twitter, ziegenkind.

basically, i was scrolling on pinterest, as you do, and i fell into a hole of like,, gay fanart? (not a question, just a little self-reflection on how fucking queer i am. how did i not fucking know?)

anyway, so, i was scrolling, as you do, and i found @ziegenkind 's stunning painting of andrew and neil on the bottom bunk of the dorm bed (y'all know the one) and i was like "whooooo,, the fUCk are these two cuties (ʘ‿ʘ)??"

PSA : DONT REPOST PEOPLE'S ART WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION, ESPECIALLY IF SOMEONE EXPLICITLY SAYS NOT TO. THIS COUNTS AS REPOSTING IF YOU POST SOMEONE ELSE'S ART TO PINTEREST, INSTAGRAM, TUMBLR, TWITTER, FACEBOOK, ANY SOCIAL MEDIA. DO NOT QRT PEOPLE'S ART ON TWITTER IF PEOPLE SAY NO. YOU ARE NO EXCEPTION. AND DONT FUCKING ERASE PEOPLE'S WATERMARKS AND DEFINITELY DONT REPLACE THEM WITH YOUR OWN. DONT FUCKING DO IT. to the lovely ziegenkind, (it's julian from twitter (^o^)丿) it's so fuckin unfortunate that i found your art through reposts and it's fucking horrible that people don't listen, but thank you for being my bridge into this fandom and im very grateful to have found you and been able to talk with such an angel. you quite literally changed my life forever and i can't thank you enough:') im eternally grateful for that. BUT DONT FUCKING REPOST DIPSHITS

anyway, so, naturally, i sat in my bed for 3 hours at 1am on a school night, as you do, scrolling through andreil fan art and trying to figure out who the fUCK they were and what they were from. i found tfc and immediately downloaded it on my phone

i didn't get to reading it for a bit tho:/ abt a week later, i was brought to the emergency room bc i was planning to kill myself. id been diagnosed with depression for around a year, who knows how long i was suffering before that, and i was hitting my lowest. it was abt 2 weeks after new years and on new years eve, i was planning on ending it bc i couldn't fathom dealing with it for another year. another year of feeling nothing or everything all at once. but my mom had called me downstairs to go to a new years party, so i didn't go through with it. abt 2 weeks later, i had seen my therapist again, and i was deflecting hard core, and she saw it, and she sent me to the ER. i was evaluated all night, but i wasn't kept for observation since i told the nurse that the thoughts had passed. i was taken out of school and put in an outpatient program where id have group for 4 hours and school for 2. every morning for abt a month, i would get picked up at my house in a minivan and id have a good 20-25+ min drive to program.

every. single. morning. on the van, i would read tfc. every morning. i was going through, what i thought to be the worst time of my life (i now know that it in fact DID get worse and now we're going on a new level of bad, but then it was the worst id experienced) every morning i was reading about neil and him running from his father, something ive wanted to do for years. reading about andrew struggling with depression and self harm like i am and despising most touches bc of people in his life that ruined it, similar to how someone ruined it for me and doesn't understand that "no" means "no". reading about nicky learning to love and accept himself for being gay, for being who he is like ive been trying to accept myself being a queer ace trans boy. reading about kevin trying to cope with his anxiety, even if it's in an unhealthy way, the same way i do. reading about renee growing up one way and wanting to become a better person, something that i want to do every day. reading abt matt overcoming his addiction and loving his friends with his whole heart. reading about dan standing up for herself and being proud of who she is. reading abt allison cutting away the people in her life who wanted to hold her back. reading about aaron and andrew work through their differences to try and salvage their relationship. reading about neil taking his life back and living it the way he wants, on his terms, like i so badly crave to do. reading about neil and andrew finding a respectful and loving relationship, one where all boundaries are respected, not crossed, where there is comfort in being together and a certain understanding on a level that others could never wrap their mind around. the kind of relationship that i have always, always, yearned for, where i feel safe and loved and respected.

these books taught me not only to die for the ones i love or kill for them, but to live for them, and to me, that is a much more daunting and difficult task.

All For the Game gave me hope, something i never thought id have again. it gave me hope for tomorrow. and the day after that. and a month after that. and it gives me hope that one day, i will get away from my father, i will be comfortable with who i am and love myself for it, i will find ways to cope with my anxiety properly, i will be proud of the person i have become, i will have friends who i love and who love me, i will stand up for myself and be proud to be the person ive become, i will surround myself with good people and cut away those who treat me wrong and hold me back, i will work to repair and maintain good relationships.

it gives me hope that i will finally break away from the pain and start to live my life the way i want, as the person i was meant to be, the way i was meant to live my life.

it gives me hope that i will overcome my depression, that i will find the strength to stop harming myself to cope, that i will find the strength to push through, even after ive been given every reason to just give up.

it gives me hope that one day, i will find a person who will love me for who i am, love me despite my past and the scars i carry, love me in a way that i'll never be able to explain or understand. that i will find someone who respects my boundaries, who asks "yes or no?" before touching me, who respects if i say "no" and still fucking loves me regardless. someone who can feel like they can be completely themself around me, and that i can feel the same around them. someone who will fall in love with me a little more every day. someone who i'll fall in love with a little more every day.

it gives me hope that one day, hopefully someday soon—but i think im willing to wait—i will be happy.

All For the Game quite literally changed to course of my life, and i can say with confidence that without it, i would not be here right now.

people say that books and shows and movies change there life all the time, but i know that i wouldn't be here without it. these books saved my fucking life. i wouldn't have experienced those mornings, walking into program with a goofy smile on my face, practically vibrating with what i now know was joy, blabbing to every person i ran into that morning abt a boy with scars and a sharp tongue on the run and the small, depressed and angry blond who told him to stay. or nights when i sobbed and sobbed for those boys who deserved better. and i wouldn't have gotten black armbands to cover my scars and match with my two biggest inspirations. or when i have a bad impulsive thought, i wouldnt have a voice in the back of my head going "what would andrew say? what would neil say?" and the vivid image of the small blond giving me a stare, face carefully blank, yet eyes swimming with a mix between disapproval and hope, and the boy covered in scars tentatively giving me a hug, a bit awkward at first, but he's a lovely hugger and eventually, awkwardness turns into comfort. without it, i don't think id know what pure, honest love is supposed to look like.

sorry, i suppose this got quite a bit off track from what got me into aftg, but once i started writing, i couldn't stop.

TLDR; i saw fanart on pinterest, DONT REPOST ART WITHOUT PERMISSION, and my life was saved and changed for the better by a book that i stumbled upon, purely by chance.

i don't believe in fate, but i do think that i found these books for a reason, and that my life changed because of it. i suppose you could call it the butterfly effect.

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cruddyborderlandstheories · 5 years

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Athenas Masterpost

This is going to cover everything Athenas, like the official page and trailer, both new trailers, the art book preview, and some stuff shown in the ign trailers. It’s a lot.

There will NOT be endgame spoilers in this post. If there’s anything that comes up that I want to discuss, you can find it in a spoiler post I’ll be making soon :) I DO discuss a thing that occurs during the first 3 hours of BL3, though I think that’s pretty okay with y’all lol

tl;dr: there’s too much to summarize. 13 days until bl3. lmao im screaming on the inside.

“A misty, tranquil planet that has recently attracted the wrong kind of attention. Athenas is mostly uninhabited, save for a sect of monks known as the Order of the Impending Storm who have made their home in the high peaks of the mountains. What secrets do they guard here, inside ancient walls that were built long before humans set foot on Athenas?”

We definitely got a lot less info for Athenas than the other planets, and I can see why. They want to keep it mysterious.

Also, I’m not saying I totally called it that the pyramid was Eridian, but I totally called it. I am surprised it’s implying that the entire area was built by them, but what can ya do 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, since this post is long overdue, let’s just jump right in!

The Athenas video is nearly half the time of the Eden-6 one, so there’s not a lot to cover unfortunately:

We’ve seen this shot multiple times before

also the emphasis that Athenas is ‘tranquil’ and ‘peaceful’ ahahahaha no it’s not.

i love these dudes! Order of the Impending Storm!!! I wonder if their funky goggle things have anything to do with Sirens, like how they have Siren-trackers. I also really love their outfits. lowkey want one of these robes.

a great overview look of the area leading up to the pyramid. I got more to say about this... but it’s probably best if i leave it for later on in the post after we get more info

also, note the water and the rocks and stuff on the left there. This will come into play later... not even in this post. a later post.

also i totally called this being an ancient aliens reference lol

Vault logo on the flag there. definitely shows how much these guys worship the Vaults

This!!! I have so much to talk about here!

alright so now that we know what the vault keys look like.... this doesn’t appear to be part of any of the Vault Keys we’ve seen. especially not the Promethean one. not even the pyramid shaped one.

im mostly interested in this because this is obviously a monk, her robes match the ones we saw above with the hood. she doesn’t appear to be Eridian because we’ve seen the Watcher and the other Guardians, who are built in the image of the Eridians, and she looks wayyy too human. We’ve also seen statues of the Eridians in that one shot of the Pandora temple.

so it seems like the monks have gone inside the pyramid before and... built this statue? for some reason??? It’s interesting that she has an extra pair of arms as well. I wonder if she is like the Siren ancestor of Amara. which could prove my theory that the next successor of Amara would have another set of arms... it might also explain why Amara’s tattoos are everywhere on the buildings (outside of her being the Tiger)

it would also explain this shot, the skeleton with the book, which we now know we’ve seen before with Maya:

so even though they’re protecting the pyramid/temple, i don’t think they’ve been avoiding it entirely- at least not for the first time after discovering it. maybe they stopped going in after they discovered something bad, somethin like iunno... the Rampagers?

it would be Really Weird if the Eridians built that statue, especially when they probably didn’t know what humans looked like at the time. unless of course they helped shape humanity or smth. meaning they probably personally created Sirens. oh that’d be wild... i wonder if we’re going to learn about how early Sirens shaped humanity in that case. discovering fire could be entirely different lol

“hallowed land”

i wonder if this is where we’ll have anointed gear explained to us... i imagine the order is still worshipping Eridian/Siren stuff, so them having all sorta knowledge of this stuff would make sense

more Maliwan. you guys notice we see cultists purely on Eden-6 (outside of the crashed ship), but Maliwan purely on Athenas? a mix on Promethea, tho that’s bc we’ve actually gotten gameplay.

So my guess is Maliwan has joined up with the cult (be it through whatever means: Maliwan is in) and they’re looking for the Promethea key. which makes sense. they’re attacking Rhys on Promethea, so when he helps us out, word probably gets back to Maliwan (somehow) and they swap from wanting to take over Atlas (either by defeating them w/ Zer0/that giant space laser/whatever or just changing priorities) to wanting to open that fuckin Vault. Teaming up with the CoV is the best way to ensure that happens. I’m sure there will oodles of betrayal going on between the two parties.

I LOVE THESE THINGS

THEY’RE AMAZING

GOOD BOYS

in all seriousness, actually, im curious why we don’t see these good boys on Promethea. maybe they’re only for the top-tier squads? (mechanically, probably higher-level enemies) they look super high tech, so i would not be surprised if Maliwan thought Atlas would be an easy takeover so they didn’t send everything they could have

Nog! not much to say here tbqh

“Protect Athenas Before It’s Too Late”

I imagine before Maliwan gets the Vault Key or some other wild power, like power over the Rampagers. seriously, in the We Are Mayhem trailer, there’s a rampager are fighting on the side of Maliwan (altho if this is The One Rampager, or just One of Many is hard to tell. it could morph depending on which element it is. we just don’t know. personally i think there’s 1 per planet... i’ll explain later)

From the Art Book Preview:

Alright yes. “Maliwan forces have already seized control of the monastery, where part of the Promethean Vault Key has been located, turning a simply recovery mission into a vicious firefight...... A large and foreboding crypt built into the side of the mountain was also designed, and might perhaps have housed the Vault Key fragment deep within its gloomy interiors”

i don’t think this means the crypt is like an actual area. it would be interesting to discover that the pyramid is a giant crypt because... jesus. it would fit with the whole pyramid theme, at least. altho im wondering if this is more like a labyrinth situation where they’re trying to keep a Rampager inside as well as the treasure... which MAY be a Vault Key Fragment

Actually, this brings up a great point: did Atlas spread the Vault Key out throughout the planets? Is this where Typhon originally found that Key fragment? wtf was in the Vault that Atlas needed to disassemble the Key and return its fragments? oh boy i hope it’s something scary

From the Moze Eden-6 E3 Gameplay:

oh ye this. okay so this is definitely 100% Eridian. I’m guessing we get this from Athenas because this seems like a fairly important object and, well, Athenas is all about Eridian stuff. When we go through the next few videos, keep an eye out for the temples. You’ll see the glowing red diamond shape constantly reappearing there.

one of the devs admitted that there are hunks of Eridian Writing left around the world that will ‘open up’ things for the players, so I imagine this is exactly what we’ll use to get to it. If this IS only for endgame stuff I’ll be slightly disappointed. I know we have access to this before Eden-6, since there are gameplay videos that show the player breaking the Eridium chunks with this thing. the above one is from the Moze Eden-6 gameplay, tho I’ve also seen newer footage from the Balex gameplay with this same tool

The following clips can be found in this video:

im mostly interested in the wall art here

what looks like a sun or a planet

this symbol which makes an appearance elsewhere

these two are the same area, im imagining this is the fight up to the pyramid, with Maliwan forces and barricades everywhere

the sun again in the background (middle top)

this cool piece (bottom left of the above pic) which looks like a hand covered in glowing blue. i imagine this is some sorta representation of Phaselock? mainly because of the blue orb in the palm of her hand

not much to say about this area tbh. looks like a residential area to me, so possibly not in the residential district

writing on the top mid-right.

idk why i just noticed these trees are green and not red but yeah, that’s interesting. so probably a different area from Amara’s trailer aka: not Partali

and yet we see amara’s tattoos on the building in the back right. sorry for such terrible quality btw, tumblr ate these images and spit them back out

These clips can be found in the Borderlands are Yours trailer:

looks like the small building we see directly next to Maya and Ava

altho very clearly not the same exact area so im curious what these are supposed to represent. tbh im kinda reminded of graveyards. i really hope there aren’t corpses in those omg

another better look at the two pieces of art. i imagine the one on the right has something to do with the eridians given its in a diamond shape, which we know has something to do with the eridians now

also im not playing amara first (possibly last. depending on how i feel fl4k may go last) but HOLY SHIT her action skills are beautiful

THIS FUCKER

i know he’s probably a vault monster but like...

idk i feel its kinda sad gearbox is showing off a VAULT MONSTER of all things in so much promo material. like why is he fighting with Maliwan/the cult in the We are Mayhem trailer??

sup with that?

does he have multiple stages?? is that’s why he changes elements? goes from two heads to wings to extended necks. like wtf is up with this guy?? he definitely looks like he can be elementally charged given his eye sockets aren’t glowing when he emerges like they do

here but then

this dude looks like he has an entirely different skull like...

this dude is a corrosive one who also seems to be working with Maya (who i guess IS probably the corrosive aligned siren)

and we’re guessing the nuclear charged one is the one from Athenas... for reasons i’ll explain below

AND honestly i've been thinking and maybe the fire one is actually from Promethea? and maybe there’s another that’s on Eden-6 and another on Pandora?

alright so i have 2 reasons for this. one involves spoiler talk with the cloth map, so that won’t be discussed here (but if you see the map and the planets, you’ll understand what i’m alluding to here, most likely). the other is that in this screenshot of all the quests from the Eden-6 demo:

we see immediately after “hostile takeover” is the quest “the impending storm”. which is, indeedy, a reference to the Order of the Impending Storm. We know they’re on Athenas, so I imagine we run over to Athenas to get part of the Vault Key. We’ve established from the art book that’s where it is.

but then after The Impending Storm, Space-Laser Tag (which we all know is that giant-ass laser thing in the asteroid belt), and Atlas, at Last, there’s a quest called Beneath the Meridian.

And we know this area... is definitely underground. we’ve seen with the fire-y boy that the ceiling is just rocks

then we see this shot with the nuclear (?) one where the window outside is clearly showing off mountains/sky, which we know is kinda Athenas’s deal

and we know these two areas are the same v ^

since there’s the same ‘Vault’ in the background

so my only problem with this entire theory that there’s multiple rampagers is that

we see the twins killing/absorbing the red/fire one’s power which is also on athenas since the background is the same as the vault area from the above two pictures. unless there’s a similar vault-thing on promethea and eden-6. we know there’s one on Pandora, but that one is outside so.

so i guess they are the same beasty boy but... why why why show us one of the vault monsters

it’s so cool going in blind and not knowing what you’re going to get out of it.

so im going to say this is a minor vault monster (especially given it’s not exactly the same rock-like design as the other vault monsters) and the ‘vaults’ are actually something smaller. maybe they hold keys, or the pieces of the keys, or they’re part of that teleportation network i keep talking about (and i guess i should just make a seperate post about it) but i don’t know if these are actual Big Boy Vaults. especially when the Rampager doesn’t match actual Eridian-created Vault Monsters

that said given we see a bunch of dead guardians on the floor, its possible the rampager killed them? but i get the feeling we might actually be the ones to pull the trigger cause... combat is fun

so. yeah. if the rampager is guarding something that’s fine. i wanna believe teleportation network. i’d love to see the twins come in, walk out of that vault, absorb the rampager’s powers, and then walk out after locking us in like ‘peace’ and we have to use the teleportation system to make it back to promethea with the vault key fragment or whatever

[im here after the cloth map reveal like... uh huh. i see. u dumb bitchard.]

idk i just thought this was a fun screenshot lol

BoRdErLaNdS

ah yes

that’s eridium

this also appears to be in the temple, but, like, again if there’s more than one temple this could also be on Pandora or even Eden-6. Kinda leaning towards Pandora. HOWEVER since we only know for certain this sort of temple area is on Athenas (from that one statue shot), we’re gonna analyze this bad boy right now (also lowkey think this is Pandora because of the varkid nests but shhh)

what do i actually have to say about it? uhhh not much tbh. i think i’ve said all that needs to be said concerning the twins mutating cultists with slag/eridium.

i will say im pretty shocked at, like, the eridium HORNS and shit. so maybe this is just some cool little miniboss. (okay not mini because look how big he’s gotten!! just like Bloodwing :D)

you know what, it looks like he’s standing on one of these

floor tile things, and now im super curious. is the fire part of a trap? is it powering this lad up? i definitely know he’s a cultist because he’s got the neon light tubes on his shoulder pad

see here

you can see these on other cultists like goliaths and such and such

also this is pretty similar to what we’ve seen in the LLE (especially the powersuits) given their bodies also form eridium crystals when they’ve ascended

i feel like its powering him up

you know during the fight with bloodwing when Jack powers up bloodwing using the elemental flamethrower things? would be interesting if this is similar to that.

like dis

yeahhh

the radiation boy is back and he’s actually elementally charged this time

huzzah

also i love the chest mouth lmao

has anyone here seen stretch armstrong? like that one episode where Gabe (crostini man) gets turned into a bunch of flexarium monster chunks

but yeah, awesome mouth my guy.

im curious if it’s being elementally charged to cryo or if it’s stopped being charged. if this is like a cutscene between different stages in the fight, etc etc.

this also looks fairly similar to this area here

but red this time. which... may tie into the elemental stages. which maaaaay tie into those floor platforms elementally charging that demon baby up above. bloodwing 2.0!

You can find the following clips in the Official Guide to the Borderlands:

god i keep telling myself to be on the lookout for athenas clips but i get so distracted by the gorgeousness of this fucking game i forget and have to keep going back

if that dude in the back floating was t-posing i would have lost my shit

new Siren tattoos!!! we haven’t seen these before. they’re very flowy, i love them. i hope we get to meet the siren with them!

i also loooooove this area in the back. i hope we get to climb it and explore. i would love to just be able to climb to high up areas in bl3 and look down and see the area i just came from. it’s possible! we have the technology! thousand cuts / bnk3r ascension 2.0!!!

more of amara’s awesome looking powers

zane has 2 trans pride skins im so happy 😄

also look at how teeny tiny that ‘Vault’ is in the back!!! it’s only like 2x the size of Iron Bear!!! gimme BIG vaults!! GIANT VAULTS

also also

the VOID vault

i get a feeling these are connected somehow.

sniper spoooot

not much to say about this tbh. zane’s claw things look fucking dope tho. i want one irl.

we’ve seen this shot a few times before already

alright before you get mad, let me explain why i think this is athenas

you see this picture

this maliwan jackass. the building to his left is 100% athenas architecture.

the rocks in the top picture look identical to the ones next to him. plus we’ve seen water in the distance of some of the areas of Athenas

it could also be Eden-6 (which honestly i would not be surprised if it is instead) but given the ivy and the rocks i felt it was worthwhile to put in. plus the moving eridian structures are so cool looking. i feel like that’s going to be a puzzle.

oh oh also

maybe that area leads into/exits from here? because they’re both underground in cavern-like areas

but like... it could also be eden-6... because of that one shot of the temple area in the side of the cliff ASDFHDGJFJGFHSD

still radiation charged.

also seriously this ‘Vault’ is wayyyy smaller than a regular Vault. like... the one in BL2 that you can walk right up to... huge. and nothing even comes out of it. the Warrior climbs up from over the edge

the bl1 is much bigger than this one, too. also the vault of the traveller, i would argue is the biggest out of all of them but eh

for the Vault of the Sentinel, the actual arch we see... i’ve already gone over why i don’t think that’s a ‘real’ vault and that its all more of a simulation, but you can read that whole thing here bc i am trying my damndest to not get off topic for this post because holy fucking shit. this got long.

Alright so. Onto the website pictures

another cool shot of the academic district, really showing off the pyramid in the background. god i wanna know what that is. could be the temple (underground things notwithstanding). it’s probably holding that statue with the vault keys in either arm

you know the one, it’s at the beginning of this post. but damn that thing is huge!! i am hoping it holds more than just the promethean vault key.

did i already talk about how there are siren tattoos written along the edges of this area??? because... damn.

also the symbol for what is probably Vault Key sitting right smack dab in the middle??

also sorry i just noticed those blue shapes are moving. like a fountain or something?? weird light.

i mean... the trees are also warping in the background. wonder wtf is going on here...

anyway whatever she’s holding actually doesn’t match up with any of the vault keys we’ve seen so... wtf are you???

a very nice shot overlooking the water. also a wind turbine in the background. i think the area on the left is where we’ve seen ava and maya? but dont hold me to that lol

definitely looks the same. even has the tree

another shot of that area i think we’ve seen Amara fighting in

big shot of the pyramid with the vault symbol everywhere. and the planet with the beams coming out of it. which in retrospect...

anyway that’s spoiler talk so let’s talk in another post.

another shot of athenas from a slightly different angle, we’ve seen this one before, too, and i remember because i complemented the road signs

annnnd im tired. good night everybody.

#borderlands #bl3 #borderlands 3 #athenas

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amphtaminedreams · 5 years

Text

All The Tattoos I Couldn’t Really Afford

Hi to anyone who’s reading!

I thought I’d write about my tattoos a lil bit.

Partly because I’d like to talk generally about tattoos and what they mean for people who have dealt with self-harm and poor body image and partly because I get questions now and again about the more practical side of things; who did them, how much did they hurt and probably the most frequent one, how much did they cost (I mean, only my entire livelihood and every last spare pound I had for about 2 years but nbd)? The point being that I can put all this information in one place, especially as I don’t plan to get any more in the foreseeable future.

See, as much as I get tired of people I don’t really know commenting on them, I suppose I did kind of bring it upon myself. Facially, I probably look about 15. I get told I'm exaggerating when I say that BUT I WAS STILL BUYING CHILD’S TICKETS ON THE BUS UP UNTIL LAST YEAR BC AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR £2.60 SINGLES. Where do you live for a bus single to cost £2.60 I hear you ask? In a tory heartland, my friend.

Anyway, the point is that I look pretty young to have a sort-of sleeve and tbh, I am. I’d say that for a lot of people, a sleeve is something you build on kinda throughout your life, not something you plan on getting pretty much the minute you turn 18. That isn’t exactly how it was for me either. I was more like 20 when I started on my left arm, lol. I started on the rest when I was 18 and had known most of the tattoos I wanted to get since I was about 14/15, so for quite a while. I think I always associated a tattooed version of me with a version of myself I liked and respected a lot more than the girl I saw myself as at that age, but I didn’t realise just how true that would be. The tattoos definitely aren’t the reason I’m so much more body confident than I was back then; I’m at a weight I feel more comfortable in, I’ve learned how to do my makeup better and I think I’ve grown into myself more. Plus, I got my braces off, which helps. The constant fear of having food in my teeth hardly conjures up a sense of nostalgia, lol. On top of that, seeing a wider and more diverse range of faces and body types celebrated online and in the media has definitely helped me too.

But one thing that I noticed is how much more respect having tattoos gives me for my own body. When you have talented men and women’s art all over you, it makes you feel like less of a body and more of a blank sheet. I think the attention moves away from the parts underneath that you might not like so much to something you don’t necessarily associate with yourself. It helps me to notice myself more objectively, with appreciation taking the place of scrutiny. And with regards to self-harm, on a practical level, I don’t want to damage somebody else’s hard work.

The first tattoo I actually got, about a month or so after I turned 18 was pretty simple. I found the studio by way of recommendation from someone who’s tattoo I liked, which imo is probably the best route to go down for your first one. Word of mouth is generally a pretty good indicator of what to expect.

The 5 planet formation on the back of my neck was based on a Tumblr photo I’d saved on my phone, though in the original design I believe the planets were on the person’s chest.

PROTIP: If you’re getting a tattoo based on something you found on Pinterest, Google Images or Tumblr, the best thing to do is first to probably make a note of the artist and ideally ask them for their permission. This is something I wish I’d done at the time; the majority of my tattoos are based on images I found on the sites I just mentioned and saved without thinking and I generally deleted the photos once I sent them to the tattoo artist. Understandably, artists see it as respect thing to credit them and if I do ever come across the designs some of my tattoos are based on, I will of course make sure to add their details to this post, BUT to be completely honest, nobody outside of the internet is that bothered if you copied a tattoo you saw on Pinterest one time.

I think the best thing to do is to ask your tattoo artist to put their own spin on a design and add to it, which is what I’ve generally done, and that way you should avoid anyone feeling like their work has been stolen. I like that approach anyway, especially if you’re going back to the same person for all your tattoos; it adds a consistency to them.

This being my first tattoo, there wasn’t really much of a deeper meaning behind it. I liked the way it looked and wanted something simple that could easily be covered. I got this done by dclxvi.tattoo on Instagram, and it cost around £40. In terms of pain, there wasn’t much at all. I thought it was going to be a lot worse from what others had told me, and more than anything I could feel the vibration of the needle. I’d give it a 1/10 on the pain threshold.

My second was the quote on my left side over my ribcage which reads “think deeply, speak gently, give freely and be kind”. This came from one of those cheesy typical middle class white people signs we usually put in our kitchens; we currently have about 6 and counting in ours. The full quote is “Think deeply, speak gently, love much, laugh a lot, work hard, give freely and be kind” but I thought that was a bit long winded so I kept the parts I liked. I suppose the meaning meaning of this is pretty self-explanatory, lol! When I was younger and still even now with the people I’m close to, I worry way too fucking much what people think of me. It’s a very cliche saying but at some point, I learnt that what others say about you says more about them than it does about you. From then, I started realising that as long as I know I do my best to treat people well, that’s the important thing and this tattoo is kind of just a reminder of that. IIRC, this one cost about £60 and was with the same artist as my first. She was really lovely and made me feel very comfortable so I went back to her for this one, and my next couple too. Again, even though it was on my ribs, I’d give it a 1/10 for pain.

I kinda lose track but I’m pretty sure it was over the summer of my 18th that I got the 3 you can see in the photo above, all still by the same artist. The first on this area of my arm was the quote “love yourself so no-one else has to” inside the heart/feminine symbol hybrid. Similarly, it’s quite self-explanatory but if I had to expand on it, it’s just a reminder that it’s not about what other people think and that as long as I’m happy in myself and BY myself, that’s what matters. This was around the £40 mark and I vaguely remember tattoos getting slightly more painful around this point as we’re getting into musclier territory. Not to make out I have guns or anything, lol, but I’ve always found that tattoos that are on top of muscle are the most difficult to sit through, still though I’d give it a 2/10 for pain. Shortly after I got the crystal ball with the quote underneath. The crystal ball is pretty much a copy of a tattoo I found on Pinterest by the tattoo artist Emily Malice/@emilymalice on Instagram:

I then chose a quote to add underneath it to make it my own which was: “it’s not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves”. It’s the modernised version of a quote from the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar, and basically sums up the idea that if we want something, we have to go and get it ourselves. I’m not really a believer in fate or destiny or the idea that the universe has a bigger plan for us and though that might sound really pessimistic, I find it empowering in that we can go out and make our lives into anything we want them to be. Of course there are things that are out of our hands but for the most part, it’s down to us; I’m on that inner locus of control shit. And yes I remembered that from A-level psychology, lol. On the pain scale, also a 2/10.

Next was my Lana tattoo. Imagine copious amounts of the heart eyes emoji here. It’s based on this drawing:

Which I cannot find the artist of fucking ANYWHERE. The image is all over the bloody internet and returned about 30 different results on TinEye but I can’t for the life of me find the original version so if anybody knows, lmk!

Anyway, it was my first of 2 Lana tattoos and it’s probably my favourite of them all. I’ve been a hardcore stan of this woman since I was about 12 and Video Games went viral (yes, I was a very pretentious 12 year old/general human being) and her music has been my soundtrack to EVERYTHING for the last 7/8 years. I’m a basic bitch and so Born to Die: Paradise Edition and Ultraviolence are still my favourite albums of hers but I wanted to pay tribute to the Lust for Life cover with the flowers in the hair because it represented her moving towards inner peace and contentment and I loved that.

COST: approx. £70

PAIN: 2/10

That was my last tattoo for a while until about November 2018, from which point onwards I was getting them pretty much constantly up until a few months ago. I was no longer at uni, had a part time job and for the first time had proper disposable income, so I got my first proper “piece” tattoo:

This one I very shittily designed myself, though the lip part was based on this tattoo by Heidi Kaye/@heidikayetattoo on Instagram:

The lips were always going to be the centrepiece though it was originally a much bigger design. The idea was that it would be a piece based around the elements, water, earth, air and fire, with the things that represents each being something sentimental to me. Well, apart from the lips which would represent the passion of the fire signs; I just thought they looked cool, lol. On a less shallow note, the butterflies, which represent air (along with the moons), I associate with my mum as she’s always wearing butterfly patterned outfits and jewellery. Yeah, I don’t know how you can claim a whole ass insect either but apparently they’re her thing! And similarly, the scorpion is for my sister; it represents water, scorpio being a water sign. She and I used to watch Orphan Black together and took to affectionately calling each other “sestra” instead of sister like the Ukranian character Helena pronounces it in the show. At one point, I believe it’s season 3, her character hallucinates a scorpion (don’t ask, that show was pretty wack at times), hence the scorpion tattoo. Lastly, the flowers and the agate rock represent earth, which is the home of my sun and moon sign. There were originally going to be a lot more details to the piece but I wanted to keep it on the back of my arm and when I showed it to my new tattoo artist, Matt Cassy (cassytattoo on Instagram), he simplified it for me so that it would fit. It cost around £140 and took the longest time yet, but I’d give it a 1/10 for pain and it’s my favourite tattoo after my Lana one, probably because it’s the most individual.

Next after this was my sunflower and it took me to one of kindest and most talented people I’ve ever met! I’m pretty sure this was the first one she did for me and from this point onwards, I went back to Bianca Kidd (biancakiddtattoo on Instagram) for 90% of my tattoos. It’s a pretty basic piece but I really wanted a tattoo on my shoulder and preferably something that will never really go “out of style”. Flower tattoos are so simple but the absolute prettiest imo and I don’t think I’ll ever look back on this one and be like “what was I thinking?” I got Bianca to add the stars which were SUPPOSED to be in the form of the constellations of my sun, moon and rising signs, Capricorn, Virgo and what I thought was Scorpio but turns out is actually Cancer. Shoulda known considering how much of a needy, over-emotional twat I am, lol. On the one hand, it seems kinda contradictory to my crystal ball tattoo quote to believe in astrology but on the other, I think there might be something to the time of year a person is born and the environmental factors that come with that (climate, financial patterns etc.) affecting a person’s temperament slightly. It could all be a load of BS, considering the vagueness of most star signs and our tendency to want to agree with positive statements about ourselves, and I DEFINITELY don’t believe in the stars having any impact on your future or fate but it’s still fun to read about either way. Would be even funner if I didn’t have regrets about getting my natal chart wrong and being sure enough that Scorpio was my rising sign to get a tattoo referencing it every time I did, but there you go. If anyone asks, the placement of the stars is TOTALLY. RANDOM.

COST: approx. £140

PAIN: I find that even if a tattoo isn’t in a super painful position, your skin begins to get a little raw and thus more sensitive when it’s under a needle for a long period of time so 3/10

Next was the snakey boy on the inside of my right arm which I got just before Christmas, again by Bianca:

I don’t have much to say about this one other than it’s pretty much a copy of one I saw on Pinterest that I’d saved quite a while before (unfortunately I can’t find it anywhere now but if anybody does know the source lmk!) because I fricken love snakes and think they’re cute and misunderstood af. Not as cute as cats but definitely up there. Bianca changed it slightly by adding the dots around the rose and we went from there, and the main thing I remember is that this one actually hurt. Close to the armpit and on top of the muscle is a bad combination and I’m totally in awe of the madmen that go right into the pit itself. It cost £80 and for pain I’d give it an 8/10.

Cop the exact same pose only with the other arm instead, but I also got my mermaid around this time:

She was done by Polly (biffinx on instagram) who’s an apprentice tattoo artist. If you are looking for a slightly cheaper tattoo, apprentices are a good shout, as they usually charge slightly less, though in Polly’s case are equally as skilled at what they do; you’re also helping them build their portfolio so it’s a win-win situation for both you and the tattoo artist. That being said, make sure you do your research and get someone who’s good at the style you’re looking for before you commit. Instagram is often your best bet, and if not, tattoo shops often have websites with photo galleries showcasing each artist’s work. It might take you a while to find what you’re looking for but you really can’t compromise when you’re talking about something that’s probably going to be on your body forever. NBD. I got the mermaid as a nod to both growing up by the sea and how much I loved to swim when I was younger. I feel like I’m going to end up saying this far too many times but she’s one of my favourites.

COST: £60

PAIN: 8/10

I also got the other 3 tattoos on my upper right arm during this time. Bianca did the satanic kitty (can’t find the source of the tattoo it was based on! again, if anyone does lmk!), because of course I had to have a cat tattoo, and that was around £50 and a 3/10 on the pain scale. The two shells, which again are a reminder of where I grew up, were done by Terry Weeks (terryweekstattoo on Instagram) and cost £70 for both. I’d give them a 2/10 for pain.

Next were my knee and calf tattoo in February of this year, for which I went back to Matt Cassy:

He did the two of them for £140 and it took around 3 hours. Palm trees always remind me of California which I absolutely love, and the spider’s web was kinda just because...spooky, ya know? Honestly, I hate spiders and I equally hate that it gave the old man on the bus the inspiration to make the joke (imagine this being said in a strong Dorset accent) “you’ve got ae spiderr on yerr leg” at me that one time on the bus. Plus, I’d give my knee tattoo a strong 9/10 for pain. Realistically, it probably wasn’t any more painful than the inner upper arm tattoos but you have the added burden of suppressing your reflexes; when somebody is carving into the skin on your leg, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that your knee jerk reaction is to...well, kick that person in the face. Or away from you at least. I also got the elbow pit tattoo on my left arm from Bianca around this time for £160. 8/10 for pain on that one.

And then, there was the 10/10 in March. The things I do for Miss Lana Del fucking Rey.

Because the Just Ride tattoo above my knees HURT. I wasn’t expecting it at all but BLOODY HELL. My tattoo artist actually had to get the numbing spray out for this one. It was, again, the combined effect of it being on top of muscle and the need to resist my reflexes so that I didn’t flinch, which clearly I didn’t do a very good job at, hence the spray. I think my reaction at the time was kind of, what the fuck, has this stuff always existed? But the more you can put off asking for the spray, the better, because used in large quantities it can be pretty dangerous. This was the only tattoo I felt I did need it for because I literally couldn’t sit still and there was a risk of me jogging the tattoo artist, Megan, the amazing @bunnystattoos on Instagram. Her stuff is adorable and she has such a strong vision and brand and if I was going to get another, I’d love to just give her a starting point and see where she’d take it from there. Like, I’m not a Star Wars fan but LOOK at this set she designed for someone else:

I also got my Dream On tattoo with her in the same session and in total she charged me £110 for both which is pretty reasonable considering how in demand she is (and how much of a total baby I was about the Just Ride tattoo). I chose lyrics from Ride because lyrically, it’s probably one of my favourite songs of hers, plus the opening 30 seconds are pure magic.

Megan also did the linework orchid lady on the back of my arm around the same time:

I suppose you could say this is my most “meaningful” tattoo, because it was inspired by something my care-coordinator said to me about my diagnosis of BPD. In amongst all the other less than complimentary comments, she told me that it just means we need a little more care and sensitivity than others, like orchids do in comparison to other flowers, but that that doesn’t make us any less deserving of care or less beautiful. Basically, in the right circumstances, we can bloom too. And I liked that.

This one cost £80 and was about a 3/10 for pain. I can’t find any photos of the tattoo it was based on so for the millionth time, if you do know, hmu.

From April-May I got a shitload of tattoos and to be honest, I can’t really remember what order it was in so I’m going to group them into artists. First, the ones I got from Polly:

The anatomical heart I got in March and was based on this tattoo by Harry Plane (@harry.plane on Instagram):

COST: £50

PAIN: 7/10

And the sun and moon kissing was also around £50. 2/10 for pain.

Bianca did a few for me too, starting with the floral design on my lower left arm around March, which was probably my biggest piece yet:

The floral piece started off as a 4/10 though it creeped up to a 6 the closer it got to my wrist. Going over raised scars is also slightly more painful, something to bear in mind. Along with the Keep It Cute tattoo (6/10) on my wrist:

It came to £180.

Bianca also did the linework of my favourite GIF, like, ever.

Yes, it’s Go Go Yubari from Kill Bill about to try and maim The Bride, who don’t get me wrong I am perennially rooting for, but come on. It’s an iconic moment in film history Once Upon a Time in Hollywood wishes it could replicate. 4/10 for pain due to it being over scarring, otherwise we’re talking about the kind of placement that’s a reliable 2/10. I also got wrapped into the whole renaissance inspired trend and got Bianca to do me a little cherub gap filler based on this flash sheet I found on Google Images (link to the image found here https://creativemarket.com/Sonulkaster/280110-Angels-and-Cupids-collection.?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=CM):

I suggested the cigarette as a cheeky little addition, lol! I’d give it a 5/10 for pain, being close to the inside of my arm n all and it set me back around £40. Unfortunately, I don’t have any great quality photos of it that I haven’t already used in the post but here’s one where you can see it a little bit (idk why my hair looks so brown and basically my natural colour in this photo but I DO NOT APPROVE, it is not at all fitting with my wannabe mildly goth aesthetic):

Finally, we have my last 2 tattoos.

See, getting my finger tattoos done was an absolute necessity before I went inter-railing and not because I’m an over-dramatic bitch who wanted a little something to make my multitude of me-holding-food photos more aesthetically pleasing (though of course it helped on that count), but because I made the fucking huge mistake of trying to stick and poke them myself. To be fair, they weren’t THAT bad at first. Like I was pretty pleased with them. Buuuut they faded super quickly and I guess that’s the issue with stick and pokes, especially on your fingers, where even professional tattoos are a bit of a flight risk anyway. So, after having to go over them a million times and spilling Indian ink all over my laptop keyboard, I decided to admit defeat and get Bianca to go over them for me. It cost £30 and I’d only give it a 4/10 on the pain scale. After months of having to explain my shitty faded finger tattoos to everyone and convince far too many customers at work that they weren’t just drawn on with a sharpie, I’m finally happy with them. Lesson learnt. Don’t stick and poke kids, especially not near your laptop.

Lastly is my “Wouldst Thou Like to Live Deliciously?” quote that Polly did for me:

The cost of this tattoo? £30. Having to explain to every person who hasn’t seen The VVitch what it actually says and then what it means too? Priceless. Hotel? Tri-

I joke. It’s actually very annoying having to explain what it says and vague what it means, not because I don’t EXACTLY know but also because I feel like a snobby film hoe (which is quite an accurate description of me) every time I do. The VVitch is super good, guys. Please watch if you’ve got the patience, it’s a slow burn.

Anyways, I hope anybody who read to the end enjoyed the post and found it informative! If you have any other tattoo questions, shoot me a message and I will definitely respond. I think one of the most common things I get is people saying they’re too indecisive to get a tattoo and that they want one, but are worried they’ll go off it. What I think is that once you get your first, getting a tattoo starts to feel like less of a momentous decision. Like there are tattoos I have that I probably wouldn’t get now but that doesn’t mean I regret them because, although it sounds cheesy, they sort of become a part of you and represent what you liked at the time. The more you have, the less significant one individual tattoo is. At the end of the day, are you ever going to regret getting a tiny rose? Worst case scenario, you can always get a cover up or if you’re brave and rich enough (lol), get laser removal. In terms of aftercare, I’ve always been kind of sloppy. Follow the instructions your tattoo artist gives you but also, if you don’t get time to moisturise them, it’s not the end of the world. TRY not to itch them but one tiny scratch isn’t going to permanently damage your tattoo.

One thing I will say, though, that’s probably kind of obvious to everyone but me (being the dumbass I am) is that you should NOT go in the sea right after getting a tattoo. It is literally the equivalent of pouring salt in an open wound and whilst it didn’t ruin my Lana, it really fucking stung for about 3 days afterwards. I’m an endless treasure chest of protips, didn’t you know?

Thank you for reading!

Lauren x

#tattoos #ink #lana del rey #lana #lana del rabies #inkaddict #tattoed girls #ewwhatacringeyhashtag #spooky #spoopy #personalstyle

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