Based on this post

niche trope I enjoy: person recounting a story of something terrible they did and the way they describe it makes it sound like an active decision where they were completely in control and knew what they were doing and enjoyed it, but if you look at the bare bones facts, it's like. are you sure about that? are you sure you didn't just panic and lash out and do something irreparable? are you sure that's what you wanted and you aren't just retroactively assigning yourself agency to cope? but you as the audience can't really know the answer to that, because the storyteller is the only one who was there and this is how they're choosing to preserve it, and that matters for how they want to be perceived going forward... but you do still wonder.

was gonna type a far longer post on this but don't really need to tbh. basically: MCYT fandom has a huge whiteness problem in large part because broader social structures make it very hard for non-white creators to become even slightly popular without being ignored/sidelined, demonized/nitpicked to death, whitewashed, or some combination of the three.

this is a hard sentence to grapple with, because "it's a structural issue" is something very hard to fix and "it's recreating existing social bias" puts the reader in a situation where they have to grapple with the fact that they may be unconsciously reproducing and spreading that bias.

in an ideal world, people would have all the time and effort and bandwidth needed to combat that issue by going out and actively seeking out more varied creators, but a lot of people will bristle at being told they have to put in a lot of effort to combat bias in what is supposed to be their relatively low-stakes space of engagement. whether or not that bristling is justifiable, we don't particularly care to talk about. that is not the point of this post. the point here is that we would like to propose something small that is a little more than "the bare minimum" of not being actively and willfully racist, something that should not take much more effort than MCYT fans are already putting in to find new creators they might enjoy anyway.

ready? okay.

treat recommendations for non-white MCYTers just a tiny bit more seriously than you would in passing.

that's it. seriously. if you get a random YouTube rec, treat it like a very tentative "you might find this cool" from an acquaintance. if you get a distant or tentative recommendation from a friend, consider it a little more strongly. if something seems "kinda up your alley", put it on the shortlist to watch sooner. if a friend is already going "drop everything and watch this now" then you were probably going to check that thing out anyway. in general, just... give things a tiny bit more of a chance when they are made by creators of color (and other marginalized demographics, but let's focus on one thing in particular here), understanding that those creators have to put in a little more effort to get to the same space as their more broadly acclaimed peers in the first place and they may even have to disguise things with clickbait.

you don't have to like everything you end up checking out, but give things a shot if they compel you. if you have a "guilty pleasure" kind of MCYT video -- low-effort machinima, snarky lists, crashing pay-to-win servers, some other drama -- then YouTube might serve you some similar stuff from a non-white creator at some point. show a little more interest. you might not find the world's next most best hidden gem, but you will probably find something you enjoy at least a small bit.

Reblogging this for all the fanfic writers out there

My resolution last year was to do one thing before bed that would make my morning feel easier, and that’s become a daily habit that I’m carrying into this new year.

Some nights even filling up the kettle and setting an empty mug out for my morning tea felt hard. But I was always thankful for it in the morning.

Other nights, one thing would lead to another, and I’d wake up in a clean house with everything ready to go.

And, on a rare few nights, the one thing that I could do to make my morning easier was going straight to bed and allowing myself to rest.

What stayed the same each day is that I would take a moment to think of what I could do for my future self and do it, even after a hard day. And I would wake up knowing that I had done my best and any effort—no matter how small—was a kindness to myself.

I’ve been doing a lot of “a treat for future me” moments lately.

I’ve been doing a

lot of “a treat for future

me” moments lately.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

This is a slow fandom zone

None of that "Oh no they bomb-dropped all the episodes in a week 1 month ago, I'm late!" "The tag hasn't been active all week is the fandom dead?" "I only got a hundred shares the first hour no one cares about my art"

Slow down

Take a deep breath and slow down

Fandom is YOU. And me and everyone. If we doodle stick figures for a show that ended 30 years ago we aren't "late" or "doing too little", we're playing dolls in our own time and having fun with works of art that mean a lot to us

You can literally watch and engage with something that aired in 2004 as if it aired yesterday

If the tag hasn't been active for 14 months guess what? If YOU post there, it isn't dead. Literally you can talk about anything you want whenever you want there is no weird law against watching things that people aren't actively talk about

Let's be deranged about stories together

i hate that concerns about urban gardening/foraging safety is often met with "What are you, a cop?" scorn. I believe it's a suspicion of anything that hinders the punk/anti-system urgency to jump in immediately and do whatever feels right.

Safety, ethics, and sustainability are all a part of urban gardening and foraging. I'm sorry that means you need to do homework before you can do anything, I know that sounds lame. But life is complicated.

I know anti-intellectualism is viewed as activist these days, but like, surely you don't want to literally eat lead, right?

Let’s check in and see how those rascally solarpunk kids are doing, surely they’ve learned by now that…..

Daily reminder: Leafy greens like kales uptake all those delicious heavy metals in urban soils like lead and cadmium.

Don’t eat sidewalk-crack kale.

Here's some cool references from the EPA on safe urban gardening:

REUSING POTENTIALLY CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPES: Growing Gardens in Urban Soils

Steps to Creating a Community Garden or Expand Urban Agriculture at a Brownfields Site

last life

@factual-fantasy

i'd like to add that the shadow color isnt necessarily dictated entirely by the primary light source, but the bounce light! so for the example of a sunny environment, the reason the shadows are blue are because of the light from the blue sky reflects across the environment; but, if the character were to be under tree cover, the bounce light would be coming from the leaves and thus the shadow would look greener.

Yee yee!!! You got it right on the nose!

Bounce light is something I didn't cover but I adore it!

Gotta work on my bounce light 💪

My good friends this is called using a

(image via )

James Gurney is an absolute master and gives really good clarity on colour techniques. Yes, it is traditional paint focused, but the principles are the same. Yes it is informed by the environmental colour but as a painting technique it is achieved this way!

I would also suggest that in digital processing, rather than apply a regular colour layer at a mid opacity, try out the different types of layers, Eg. Screen or Multiply. This can give you at least a starting point to help direct your colour palette.

Layer Blend Modes are so so so important to working in digital art. There's a ton of math that goes into figuring out how the layers should blend together, which is why some of the modes you can pick are literally called Multiply, Add, Divide, and Difference (that's subtraction). The graphics software takes the color values of your base and blend layers and runs a calculation to get your resulting layer appearance. The ones that don't have specifically mathematical sounding names are still doing calculations, but they're more complicated (think linear Algebra and higher). Some of them, like dodge and burn, are named for actual photo editing techniques.

While it's not super important to know about the mathematical side of blend modes, I think it's worth knowing at least enough about how each of the categories of blend modes works and why they do what they do; if for no other reason than having a starting point when you start experimenting with them in your work.

An overview of the basic blend modes and how they work from Genevieve's Design Studio: Accessible with minimal color knowledge; practical and illustration focused. https://youtu.be/kMc87hQrJd0?si=TWCB365pKSfWS8p0. (16 minutes) This creator also has a ton of free resources you can download, including a Blend Modes cheatsheet, but fair warning: you have to create an account to get them!

Want to learn even more about the math-y stuff? It has great film visuals! A video from FilmmakerIQ: You need some basic knowledge of RGB color models, understanding of values/luma, and at least a tenuous understanding of Algebraic formulas. (26 minutes) https://youtu.be/F7_kaTP7_W4?si=x0urqXZ8f51nQVKl

Gonna make one hundred soups this year. Starting off with kapustnyak, carrot soup, chickpea soup, and parsnip soup.

4% complete.

8% complete baybeee. This may end up being a long post. Hope you like the colour of the soup.

Can't stop won't stop. 15 soups so far.

Slowed down for a minute because vet bills ate up my grocery budget but made it to 20%, baybEEEE.

Whoops I slowed down but BAM, 25%. I'm gonna make a comeback baybeeEEEE.

I AM BECOMING SO POWERFUL

Four new BEAN BASED SOUPS, the first one trailblazing because it was a taco soup recipe courtesy of @alex-of-1000-dumbasseries. 61 IN THE BAG, 39 TO GO.

I am also linking my soup planning doc because I can, and it's easier than tagging all of them individually.

Have I lost all my followers yet? NOT YET. Time for more soups. I'm up to 70 now.

OP this is a gorgeous post and I’m so proud of you

Thank you, I will take these codfish words to my grave. Also, I have achieved 8 more, putting me at 77 soups. How is 70 plus 9 photos 77? I'm glad you asked.

Earlier, I forgot to include a photo of my cock-a-leekie-soup (#57) - pictured above as the first one of this set - and also I MADE TARATOR TWICE by accident so I've struck one from the record since I'm trying to make 100 soups here, not 99 and one twice.

A new bowl approaches. Bought myself some soup bowls from the 70s with goofy little geese on them for my own birthday (though I did not get them in time for my miyeok-guk), because what else is free will for. This puts me at 86. I JUST MIGHT MAKE IT? SOMEHOW?

A COLOURFUL BATCH featuring another Certified Tumblr Soup because people kept recommending Yeto's Soup, and they were right.

How am I at 92? ALL MY LIFE I'VE BEEN A QUITTER.

100/100!

history fucked me up

oxford was built and operational as a college before the rise of the mayans and cleopatra lived in a time nearer to pizza hut’s invention than to the pyramids being built

I need a noncomprehensive history book that covers Known World History in time periods, like “in this century, all this shit was happening concurrently” and not just all spread out so I have to piece it together like some unpaid uneducated scholar

You mean like this?

The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun

I grew up with this book, which is frickin’ enormous, and it was endlessly fascinating to young me to pour over the side by side comparison of events taking place concurrently under different headings and in different parts of the world.

Or if you want something you can put on your wall, there’s this:

World History Timeline

I had this book! My grandpa gave it to me and it was really freakin useful!!

I loved this book! Same for The Timetables of Science: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in the History of Science.

Same for The Timetables of Technology: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in the History of Technology. Great references!

okay but here’s an even cooler (free!) visualization that goes a step further and tracks ideas, devices, infrastructures, and systems of power

Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500

✨️with a special focus on colonialism, militarization, automation, and enclosure✨️

You can spend hours upon hours exploring this

I don’t think most people really understand how incredibly complex everything is.

lol this is so true. and also really cool in a way i could never explain to anyone who isn't Like This

the weirdest/coolest part is that it is genuinely not flirting, and barely feels sexualized as a social interaction at all. it's like seeing your friend's favorite pastry on sale and grabbing one for them, but somehow even less of an overture