NANA

Talon my rogue-ish bastard playing with his prey <3

One of my absolute favorite tropes is “We have taken the one you love most!” “Oh, have you? Good fukken luck lmao” *distant screams of kidnappers as loved one escapes* or the flipside: “We’ve kidnapped you!” “You are in so much trouble. You are in so much fucking trouble. You are in the most trouble ever, oh my god.” *DOOR EXPLODES INWARDS AS LOVED ONE ARRIVES* and the alternate: *vehicle pulls up, door opens, person is shoved out, door slams, vehicle screeches away* “Did you get kidnapped??” “For a minute yeah”

To add to the last one:

“How much did they give you to leave?” “Forty bucks, not much, but it was all they had on them”

Do people know this is the husband of the prime minister of New Zealand

And who is the guy burying him in the sand

i have spotify. open. right now on my computer. do you want me to blast you? do you want me to put you on blast cuz i got your history right here in the side bar take it back by jimmy buffet. nautical wheelers by jimmy buffet. jolly mon sing by jimmy buffet. STEAMER by jimmy BUFFET! treat her like a LADY by jimmy BUFFET! mañana by jimmy BUFFET! WHEN SALOME PLAYS THE DRUMS BY JAMES BUFFET. HaVaNa Daydreaming by Jimmy Buffet. what the FUCK happened to you? are you HAUNTED? are you FUCKING POSESSED??

YOU USED TO BE MY BROTHER

my favourite vegetable sellers

some dunmeshi restaurant au doodles

every day i am plagued by visions (thoughts about a dunmeshi restaurant au)

part 1

Remember this joke?

Well, I am going to do something similar only with photography. This is a photo someone took for an Amazon review of their Clinique products.

Honestly, it is not a terrible photo. They did some staging. They have an interesting background. All of the labels are legible. It is properly exposed. This would be a perfectly acceptable product photo for an Etsy page.

I've been taking these advanced photography courses in preparation for whenever I am able to create a new studio in the house. And my teacher is a photography badass. I just watched a 6 hour class on how to recreate a professional Clinique ad. And at first glance it looks deceptively simple. It's just some skin care products being splashed with a little water.

Which is why I wanted you to see an average person for reference.

This is what Karl Taylor came up with.

And I don't think I've learned so much about photography in one tutorial before.

Product photography is just loads and loads of problem solving. You have to light the chrome caps with a gradient. Which requires giant diffusion scrims.

Those big white panels are literally only there for the two chrome caps.

You need a pure white background, but you can't let light spill all over the studio, so you put up giant black light blockers.

And you have to add another light just for the orange bottle on the right.

Oh, and if you want the bottles to glow, well, you have to hide a silver reflector behind them.

But you still want the edges of the bottles to be darker so they have some contrast. So you add some black tape to the sides.

And in order for the reflective labels to have bold black lettering, you have to reflect black cards into them.

Ack! Karl's beautiful bald head is showing up in the chrome caps! He must put on the naughty blanket.

And once you get every aspect of every bottle perfectly lit, you finally get to yeet some water at it all.

I don't love product photography because I have a weird obsession to help greedy corporations make their wares look more beautiful. I love it because it is a complicated and challenging new puzzle every time. Every product is a different shape and requires a different technique to make it look its best.

I don't know if I will be able to live up to Karl's standards.

This is about the level I was at in 2017 before I quit photography.

I have so much more knowledge in my brain now. I'm really hoping I can surpass that.

“how would you feel if someone blocked you just because they found you annoying?” then i wouldn’t have to interact with someone who thinks i’m annoying? i don’t see a problem

Also I wouldn't notice. You don't get a notification when someone blocks you. Someone blocking me for any reason does not affect me in any way.

I love thinking of my time in the real world as starting from when I became legally an adult. It helps me be so much less hard on myself to be like well. I’m only 21. I’ve only been legally an adult for 3 years. I am a 3 year old adult. It’s okay if I make mistakes or don’t get things right immediately or bruise myself a little bit trying to hit a stride. Now is the time to trip and fall and get a little bruised. But then u get up and it heals and u know not to trip next time. You quite literally just started so why are u harsh on urself for mistakes that were essentially inevitable

if ur 22 then ur only 4 years old, bc that’s when ur life actually began. If ur 23 then ur only 5 years old. You are an INFANT in this world so humble yourself and stop being so harsh both on your own performance and on other people’s performances and just embrace that you’ll make mistakes and have fun w it and don’t stew too much bc it’s just time passing. u will be fine

This is NOT an excuse to infantilize yourself or behave like a child or not own up to your responsibilities. It’s just a way to ease ur anxiety about figuring things out. It’s a way not to get hung up on ur mistakes. It’s a way to recognize ur incredibly young and learning. But it is not a way to not own up. We own up always but we also approach it from a place of compassion & understanding that we only live this life once & we can’t expect ourselves to never struggle at all times

there's something kinda funny to me about certain ways scar tends to be drawn because it's like. okay imagine hypothetically you took a distillation of fanon scar designs and showed it to someone who's never even heard of a minecraft, and asked them what they think this guy might be like. we're ignoring context here, pretend we're showing them a ref sheet. and it's like, alright, here's a rugged looking buff guy. nice abs. lots of scars. he's got a smug grin on his face. very shirtless. he looks like the love interest in a bodice ripper. i bet he's got some dark angsty secret he keeps buried underneath that suave facade. but not buried too deeply, just enough to intrigue.

and then you go watch third life and he is like a cat whose owner keeps desperately trying to make him stop eating plastic.

the most ruggedly handsome man you've ever seen in your life slowly and seductively leaning down to pick a candy wrapper off the ground while a tiny bird man sprints full-tilt across the desert to stop him from putting it in his mouth.

SENSHI would want you to get enough sleep and have nice nutritious meals

CHILCHUCK would want you to know your worker rights and what your labor is worth

LAIOS would want you to embrace your passions and try new things

FALIN would want you to take care of your health and treat others with kindness

MARCILLE would want you to practice necromancy and have gay sex

IZUTSUMI would want you to Izutsumi

"Stop saying 15 year olds with weird interests are cringe, they're 15" this is true however you should also stop saying adults with weird interests are cringe because who gives a shit

To wit:

I want to share some wisdom from my high school art teacher.

In my AP Art class, there was a girl who was just starting to experiment with mixed media. At this point she was still playing around, trying to decide what direction she wanted to go with her portfolio. So one critique day, she brought in an abstract canvas with some rhinestone highlights and painted and real peacock feathers. She loved sparkles and peacock feathers so she thought she’d try introducing them a *little*. And after everyone had given some input, the teacher gave her his advice, VERY roughly paraphrased here:

“So here’s the thing… I do not like this style. These are just elements that do not speak to me personally, but I see that you like them, and you’re doing interesting things with them.

“My biggest critique is, I only merely *dislike* this piece. I want you to make me HATE it. Go crazy with the things that you like. Don’t hold back trying to make it palatable to people like me. Because I am NEVER going to like it. And if the audience does not like it, it should drive them crazy seeing how much YOU love it.”

Her portfolio was chock full of neon colors and glitter and rhinestones and splashes of peacock feathers and it was a delight. Our teacher despised every piece lol, but she got great marks and I think even won some awards. And more importantly, she was happy and proud of the results. Because she didn’t limit herself by trying to appeal to people who were never going to enjoy what she enjoyed.

Takeaway here: be as cringe as you want. Don’t limit yourself based on other ppl’s tastes. They’re not you, and you are incredible 💕

"No one remembered my birthday-" Well, but did YOU tell anyone it was coming up and you wanted to celebrate it with them?

"I wish someone would see through it when I tell people I'm fine-" Well, but have YOU considered not lying when people ask you how you're doing?

"I am so resentful of my friend because they keep doing this thing that really bothers me-" Well, but have YOU directly communicated that the thing is bothering you?

"I am burning out because my friend keeps expecting me to help them with serious struggles-" Well, but have YOU tried to establish the boundaries you need to feel okay?

"No one ever asks me about this thing I really care about-" Well, but have YOU brought it up yourself?

"I miss my friend but they haven't texted me-" Well, but have YOU been reaching out to them?

Sometimes people are mean, uncaring assholes, in which case you get to be mad. But sometimes you just need to communicate better. Try communication before you assume someone doesn't care!

Having someone who knows you on such a deep level that they see past your mask, or sense you need a check in is such a deep satisfying fantasy. It's up there with living in a cottagecore farm, or buying all your friends houses when you win the lottery. But you have to make peace with the fact that this is also a fantasy. It is unfair to expect people to "just know" when to respect your boundaries or to push them.

Being cared for is not a fantasy. But you have to let people know you need it. And you have to understand that sometimes they will let you down. Just like you totally could live in a cute farm, but you still have to shovel shit, and the crops sometimes die anyway. Or maybe you win the lottery, but you still have to manage your money and learn real estate law.

The fantasy isn't the caring, the fantasy is not having to do the work. And it sucks. It's embarrassing. But like the meme says, it's not rotten if it's YOU. So do it for yourself.

"The fantasy isn't the caring, the fantasy is not having to do the work"! Thank you for that addition. Because it's not a naive expectation to want someone to care to treat you right. But it requires communication and mutual effort to actually get there

I'd say this is an anomaly but seriously roos are sometimes nosy and just need to be in your business, OR they will fight you if you look at them funny. I love them, they're great, but they make little sense.

The fucking horror I felt in my soul of the 3 seconds it took to try to and work out what the fuck this animal was

Do you ever start writing something that you’re excited about and that seems like it’s turning out well and that you’re getting eager to share, and then you start typing it up or doing an edit pass and it’s just awful it’s awful its premise is fundamentally flawed and it’s out of character and the prose is clunky and the plot is badly paced and ludicrous and the whole thing is embarrassing, how could you have done this, how could you have sunk so much time into this, you can’t even look at it, how is this that shining thing you were so excited about, how could you even have considered finishing it let alone sharing it with anyone, you’re crying, your mother is crying, nuns are spontaneously exploding in the streets,

reread the WIP I wrote this about and turns out actually it’s fine