hey….,.,.. no offense but,,. i want someone to love and cherish me

Never ever be normal about fictional characters but please GOD be normal about the people who play them, I am begging you

wlw in stem we love to see it

How to draw Afro textured 4c hair - an explanation/Tutorial

For those of you that don’t know what 4c hair is, 4c hair is a hair texture type that contains coils to small and tight that the hair appears to be more puffy rather than curly ( like to photo below ) this is in NO WAY to be confused with curly hair. there is a drastic difference.

As a black artist that primarily draws characters with 4c hair, I’ve been asked many times to do a tutorial on 4c hair so here we go~

before we get into 4c hair, lets take a moment to fully understand it by talking about hair texture in a general sense first

let’s take a look at this example of straight hair vs curly hair ( 1 type straight hair vs 3 type curly hair )

If you take a moment to compare the two you’ll notice straight hair is flat, it has no texture. Straight hair perfectly hangs down similar to liquid-like silk. It’s lack of curl pattern is the reason as to why it hangs perfectly flat.

curly hair on the other hand doesn’t lie down flat and silky like straight hair, It’s more thick. Curly hair in it’s raw and unstyled state has a trapezoid like shape this is because the sides of the hair spread more outward.

So why is this? Why is straight hair flat and curly hair thick?

the answer to that question is a thing called piling up. When it comes to hair texture, the shape of the hair strands aren’t the only thing that matters, its how the strands coexist with each other, Curly hair strands coexist by piling up on top each other.

moisture also effects hair texture too, different hair types absorbs moisture differently, thus the thickness of each hair type is different. 

…..soooo, how does this all relate to how to draw 4c hair?? 

Well let’s take a look at the drawing below. Notice how the arrows go outward more as the hair texture gets curlier. As we’ve already discussed, this is because hair piles up, The curlier the hair texture, the more it piles up on each other, the bigger it gets, the more outward the arrows go.

Out of any hair texture, 4C hair has the most curls. Because of this, the hair piles up on each other so much that it doesn’t lie down flat like straight hair, nor does it make a trapezoid like shape like curly hair, it instead becomes more cloud like.❤️

This is what you need to take into account when it comes to drawing 4C hair.

Think of it as piling up a bunch of cotton balls on each other. The most cotton on top of top to lead to a bigger patch of  cotton. this is 4c hair.

How to not draw 4c hair:

Garnet fanart. Let’s talk about Garnet Fanart. I notice a trend that when artists draw Garnet from Steven universe, her hair texture is usually changed to 3 type curly like texture. This subtle form of White washing has confused me because this is inaccurate. 

Garnet’s hair is in the shape of a cube. Though 3 type hair piles up on each other, it isn’t curly nor thick enough for their hair to stay in the shape of a cube. Curly hair lies down more than 4c hair. So garnet’s hair being in the shape of a cube is a dead giveaway that it is 4C. Why do you think hairstyles like flat tops are usually seen on black men with 4c hair? It’s because, the 4c hair texture is thick and strong enough to stay in whatever shape you put it in.

please, if you’re drawing a character with 4c hair, avoid drawing it like curly 3 type hair, this is very anti-black and texturist.

So, how do you draw 4c hair?

honestly, its the most easy thing in the world

i wanna clarify that blobby looking 4c drawings ( like the one on the top left ) can work depending on how cartoony your art style is.

Another thing that I want to greatly clarify when it comes to drawing 4C hair is, YOU. DONT. NEED. TO. DRAW. EVERY. HAIR. STRAND!…..like, seriously. I’ve gotten many messages about how 4C hair is hard to draw, and it’s always left me confused; but then I find out that the same people that have trouble drawing 4C hair, attempt to draw every single strand of hair. This is unnecessarily time consuming because it’s merely impossible to get every single detail down, especially when you have a simple cartoon style. 4C hair does not require much effort, all you’re doing is drawing lumps. It’s that simple, nothing more nor nothing less.

The reason why I greatly advise all of you to avoid drawing every single hair strand is because in real life, when you look at a 4C textured Afro, your eyes don’t pick up on each individual hair strand like straight or curly hair. 4C hair, appears to be more undefined and cloud like, so attempting to draw each and every individual strand is unnecessary and will most likely end up looking inaccurate.

Anyways! that’s it for now! there will be a part 2 to this tutorial that will come out next week! i hope you guys have learned from this and apply it to your black character in your art!~

UGH OMG I LOVE THIS POST!!! 😭💕💕

I just love the fact that there’s a guide out there to help folks draw hair textures like my own! I don’t really see things like this too often and it’s welcome information that I’m more than happy reblogging! :))

lgbt heart emoji dividers

lesbian

gay

bi

trans

rainbow

pan

ace

aro

nonbinary

baker

please reblog if you save any! ♡

more heart dividers:

Thank you @itzswaggypeep​ ! I did use nodes, in fact, the pretty much the entirety of how I made this was using nodes in blender! Also thank you for giving me a reason to talk about the nodes behind the render. 

A more in depth breakdown of the shader below the cut! (small warning though, my methods are a bit hacked together and pretty unoptimized, I would not recommend using it for anything other than purely visual purposes

Keep reading

Senpai says you’re welcome

Reblogging again because I just realized that if I had this advice in high school I would’ve never made a tumblr account.

Also works for most of those news sites like WSJ or NYT that only let you read a little bit, or block adblockers. Also some disable the scroll bar but if you go to the right side of the console after hitting F12 and look for the CSS element “overflow” and change it from “hidden” to “visible” then you can continue scrolling for free. Might have to click around on different parts of the page to find it, but it should work.

tricky words I always see misspelled in fics: a guide

Hope this helped! Please add more if you think of them!

Counsel/Council - counsel is advice, the advice giver, or the verb form of giving said advice. Council is the group of people who come together to discuss and/or make decisions.

Desert/Desert/Dessert - desert is a barren landscape where little precipitation occurs. desert - abandon (a person, cause, or organization) in a way considered disloyal or treacherous. dessert - a usually sweet course or dish (as of pastry or ice cream) usually served at the end of a meal.

OH MY TIME IS HERE! I HAVE MADE A POST I KEEP FOR THIS EXACTLY

Taunt/Taut - Taunt is a jeer or provocation, taut means to be pulled tight, or not slack

Weary/Wary - weary means tired and wary means cautious

Rogue/Rouge - rogue is a person who has unaffiliated themselves from what they were before (is the general understanding); a person or thing that behaves in an aberrant, faulty, or unpredictable way - rouge is red

Wonton/Wanton - a wonton is a dumpling, wanton is (of a cruel or violent action) deliberate and unprovoked and/or sexually unrestrained

Haphazard/Halfhazard - haphazard means to  have a lack of plan, order, or direction - the other isn’t a word

Corporal/Corporeal - corporal is a lack of plan, order, or direction and corporeal is to have a physical existence: to be tangible: of a person’s body

Peck/Pec - the first is a kiss (peck) and the second is the shortened version of pectoral (pec)

Virile/Viral - to be virile is to have strength, energy, and a strong sex drive (typically said about men) and then this last year (2020) has personally taught us, is how viral a plague can really be, so of the nature of, caused by, or relating to a virus or viruses

Vulnerable/Venerable - vulnerable means being susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm, and if a person is venerable they’re accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character (or if you’re religious, holy)

Dyed is something that is colored, and died is deceased

Chalk (it up to something) ; chock (-full of something); choked (to cutoff air).

to affect is the action, the effect is the end result

If something doesn’t bother you then you weren’t fazed by it. If you are between two states of being that is a phase.

Please. For the love of all things holy. I beg you.

Loose: the opposite of tight

Lose: to misplace something or the opposite of win.

I BEG YOU.

breath is the noun, breathe is the verb

Ah perfect. I needed these words for an alien character to get them all wrong when writing to a human.

Ohh! I have some!

Notching is when you make a notch in something, while nocking is the act of slotting an arrow into a bowstring.

Reign is a period of rule by a person of royalty or authority, and rein is a strap used to control or guide an animal. Likewise, it’s the same for phrases like “ reigning champion” and “reined in”.

A cord is usually something like a thin rope or a wire, and a chord is something that you play on the guitar.

Reliving yourself means you’re remembering a part of your past; relieving yourself means you’re going to the bathroom

When something is diffused it means it’s spread out, like what happens when you add dye to water. When something is defused it means the situation is made safer or less tense, like removing a fuse from a bomb. 

Sweetie: A term of endearment or affection (usually understood to be a shortened form of “sweetheart” or “my sweet”), or occasionally a word used with very small children for candy.

Sweaty: Covered in perspiration.

What to do if you suddenly find yourself homeless

FOOD

SHELTER

HYGIENE

OTHER

Reblog to literally save a life

if there is a Dollar Tree near you, they have entire food aisles

Planet Fitness also has $10 memberships. you can shower and they have free food days! pizza night 1st monday every month, bagel tuesday the 2nd tuesday every month.

Save a life reblog

i am so glad that i renblogged this however so long ago. i saw this post and shared it with others in mind, but now i am the one who really needs this. id like to think of this as good karma i guess

also a good list if anyone ever needs to run away from home for whatever reason.

Going to add to this as someone who went through it:

ONLY USE DOLLAR TREE LIKE SHORT TERM/EMERGENCY. Not only is the food like absolute garbage but a lot of it tends to be actually inflated. You can find good stuff cheap sometimes but some of the beans or whatever in a can are shit you can get at walmart for 0.39, not a dollar.

Many local shelters will have resources for homeless that seem silly, but DO THEM. Do they offer a mailing address or PO Box? GET ONE. You can sign up for emergency foodstamps and shit.

Speaking of emergency foodstamps, in most states, while prepared food is considered banned, if you hit some dark spot where like you’ve literally been eating said goddamn beans out of a can for too long, and are about to gouge your eyes out with a spork, some gas stations have pre-made frozen pizza type things, sometimes even their own, and local ovens that will let you throw it in and yes you can have a warm pizza. This isn’t an option for everyone, but it’s something to keep an eye out for the sake of sanity.

Salvation Army generally runs their shelters like shit. However, it can be a sort of beacon to know where to start. Avoid staying there if you can, but you’ll find a LOT of other people who can tell you what the other resources are, or little boards full of local information and stuff like that.

Also if anyone ever loses their housing in Portland OR, reach out to me. I don’t live there anymore but I can teach you to beat your feet to get up to 8 free meals a day from staple meals, free restaurants, donuts, and brunches – or where to find clothes or transitional programs and free health and dental and like an overnight job no questions asked that can put a couple hundred bucks in your pocket quick, no joke. Reach out. That town was my town, those streets were my streets and if any of you get lost out there, I don’t give a fuck if you know me or follow me or you’re just someone that tripped over this post while head over ass, DM me.

The fandom over the last couple months (spoilers)

it’s been a wild ride

The fact his mom thinks Langa’s talking about a girl he’s missing, when actually it’s Reki that he wants to see again, makes my heart melt, he cares so much and now Langa knows just how much he wants Reki by his side.

move he’s gay

so I started watching Sk8 the Infinity…

Those two are at it as always.

This anime gets gayer every week! (I’m not complaining)

They should have called it: ‘Everyone is Gay for Natsusa’.

You know it’s an Utsumi Hiroko anime when That “love at first sight” Moment appears…

Your favorite fic author is probably over 30.

(Yes, this is a response to a post going around how maybe it’s okay if adults are in fandom as long as they understand that fandom is for ickle kiddie-boos and walk on eggshells.  Um, no.  Back in my day, we kicked y’all off our yahoogroups so we could post adult material, and rigorously didn’t post adult material if the list allowed you.)

So, back in the day, several of the authors of an LJ community that posted NSFW fic met up and had a group photo, which they posted.  Apparently, some of the 18 year olds said, “Ewwwwwww!  They’re all, like, oooooollllld!” 

There’s actually a good reason for that. 

Writing is part being good with words and part being good at turning your life experiences into something that other people want to read.  Remember my previous rant about how you can’t assume a mystery writer is a homicidal maniac, and you can’t assume that a reader who likes a character has the same personal flaws as that character?  There’s a reason people assume these things about authors. 

See, if you’ve never fallen in love, you might think romance is when the other person brings you a dozen roses and a box of chocolates.  And that’s fine!  That’s romantic, too!  But if you have fallen in love, you might remember the time that you woke up and went to go to class and found a bunch of wildflowers and a plastic ring from a bubblegum machine tucked under your windshield wiper.  And you might remember the half touched, half about to burst out laughing expression on your sweetie’s face when you showed up to class wearing that tacky plastic ring.  You might think that love is thinking the other person is the best-looking person in the world, or that love is wanting to spend your life with someone else.  That’s love, too! Well, at least the second one is (the first is probably just infatuation). But if you’ve been in love before you’ll know that love is also hurting all over because your sweetie’s abusive parent died and they’re unexpectedly destroyed over it.  The latter is worth a million flowery declarations. 

Now, I’m not saying that no one under 30 can write.  Some young people have had very full lives.  And some young people have a natural talent for extrapolating from their own feelings.  Virgins can write convincingly about sex, even.  But the more life experience you have, the easier it is to extrapolate, and the easier it is to come up with the specific details that make things feel real and true.  

If you want to become a better writer, the best things you can do are write a lot, share what you write, and live a full life.  And remember, before you say adults should be banished from fandom:  your favorite author is probably over 30. 

When I started writing fanfics I was 23 years old and I knew several writers who were in their 30s and 40s. I learned a lot from them because they had more experiences than I did. Now I’m in my mid-30s and my writing has changed and the subject matters I write for has changed and do include things I have experienced personally (those of you who know my Prompto stretch marks fics…these are based on things I dealt with after the age of 27). The funniest thing is when someone tried to lecture me on how to write children and that I wasn’t portraying their developments appropriately (based on their understanding of the older develops faster albeit all the subjects in question are born the same year and in my verse just mere months between the oldest and youngest) but mind you I have children of my own and a sibling much younger than me and I’ve taken child development classes so perhaps I do know what I’m talking about. These are things an older writer can bring to the table.

Some of the best fics I’ve ever read were written by older fans. 

I got a private message on FF.Net once about how I wrote so well, and I’m pretty sure my response was basically “I write so well because I’ve been at this for over a decade.”

It’s not just life experience (but it does help), it’s also the fact writing, like any art form, takes time being put into it.

Like the late great Bob Ross said:

As a 30-something year old fanfic writer, yes, all of this. I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m the best fanfic author out there, but there’s some things that I’m only able to write now just because I’ve got the life experience to do so – and these were often things I struggled to write in my 20s, and never knew why. 

Turns out all I needed to do was be patient, and carry on doing what I was doing. Eventually life experience, or talking to the right person at the right time, meant that I was able to figure out how to write about things I found difficult to write about as a 20-something.  

It also helps that I’ve been a professional full-time writer for 8 years as well. So don’t beat yourself up if you think you’re not as good as another writer – you don’t know what their level of experience and practice are, and chances are it’s probably higher than yours. That’s OK! All it means is that you just keep practising, keep living the best life you can, and it will come in time. 

Of course, not everyone over 30 is a brilliant writer, and not everyone under 30 isn’t – one of my all-time favourite fanfics was written by someone who was 18 when they wrote it, and their turn of phrase and characterisations are still something I love about their fics even now. Just keep doing you, and practising your writing craft (and getting honest feedback can really help), and more than likely you will come good in the end. 

Sorry for hijacking this post but I feel this one a lot. I’ve been contemplating a lot lately how as a thirty-something I’m able to write about things that I never ever considered writing about in my 20s. And, yes, that includes the NSFW stuff I write nowadays. That was near unthinkable for me a few years ago. My life experience and the time I had to process things that happened to me in the past really shows in the way I choose, explore and present themes. I’m also much more confident and self-aware about my contributions to a fandom than I was ten years ago. And I actually enjoy that.

But for the younger writers who get discouraged by the talent of others, I just want to add: Keep going. Keep practicing. Chances are that the writers you admire spent years honing their craft (hence the likeliness of them being 30, 40 or even older). Sure, there are some who are naturally gifted at a younger age, but for most creatives, writing doesn’t come so easily.

I, for instance, have been at this for twenty years now, ten of which I’ve been a professional copywriter. The amount of writing that went from my brain and straight into the trash can is ridiculous. Ninety percent, at least, if not more. I also had the privilege of working with a few creative directors who taught me a lot about the craft – all of them 10+ years my senior, mind you.

Writing is an art form that requires a lot of time and effort and love and dedication, regardless of age or experience. Competitions and gate-keeping only detract from the fun that can be had with writing. The important thing is to keep going and enjoying what you do, whether you are 20, 30 or even 60.

My copy of Neil Gaimans The Graveyard Book includes the text of his Newbury Medal acceptance speech for the book, and I love this speech so much.

One of the things he talks about is that he had the idea for this book when he was 25, back at the very very beginning of his career, when his son was 2, but when he started it he knew it was a better book than he was writer. Which doesn’t mean he gave up on either it or writing of course - he just set that particular idea aside and wrote other things for 20 years, until he felt like he could actually do it justice. I’m not sure he says this explicitly in the speech, but it’s clear from the stories he tells in it and the context he gives that 20 years of life experience - of parenthood and dealing with things like death - were just as vital to being able to write this book as actual writing skill.

If 40-something Neil Gaiman can openly admit that he couldn’t have written this book at 25, you can’t expect fic writers in their teens and early 20s to, on average, write as well or be capable of writing the same stories as those who have been at it for 20 years either.

Many or even most of your favorite fics were written by people over 30.

I didn’t even know fanfiction existed until I was almost 30, and then I thought it was a silly concept. Why would you write something so “unoriginal”?

Says the woman who wanted to be an author when she grew up, but gave up on writing before graduating high school.

When I was 31, I finally read my first fanfic, and y'all… I was wrong. And I was hooked. And at 32, I started writing my own. For the first time in my life I finished a story, and even more astonishing–I shared it with people. It’s not just about gaining writing experience, or practicing for decades. Some folks come to fandom later.

Don’t gatekeep them. They lost out on something magical that younger folks take for granted.

I’m 40 now, and I’ve written almost 2 million words in 8 years. And the thought that I might have missed out on that completely makes me grieve for my AU self who never discovered the joy of fandom at all.

I started reading/writing fic when I was 13 ish. It was not good. The writing and ideas may have had potential, but that potential took years and years of development to work out. I feel it’s always a constant process of improving, honing your craft and having those life experiences and consuming media that inspires you to keep writing and engaging with your writing.

And yes, sometimes you have to put aside an idea because you’re not where you need to be for it yet. But it is about sticking with that interest and knowing it’ll get better by writing and sharing and being part of fandom and communities that support you.

Fic is great bc it gives writers a chance for an audience that they might not be able to find with original work; that audience is SO IMPORTANT!! You get feedback and motivation and inspiration and you aren’t limited by traditional publishing (bc yikes).

So basically… embrace fandom, fic, and knowing that regardless of where you stay, you’ll get better over time :)

I discovered fanfic when I was in my late 30′s. I’d already burned myself out on traditional publishing (long story, already on this blog somewhere probably), but I’d been writing for a long time by then. And the idea of writing fanfic– of taking someone else’s characters that everyone else in fandom already knew and loved and trying to write them so that they still felt like those same characters– kinda terrified me. You can’t just ~make the characters do whatever you want~ if it would break characterization, and the entire audience for the story KNOWS who these characters are well enough to call you on it. And to someone used to just making up my own characters because I could, it took practice.

So even for experienced writers, there’s still a learning curve to writing fanfic. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s a “lesser” form of writing, or takes less effort or is less creative than “making up your own stories.” Because fanfic *is* making up your own stories for well known and loved characters that already exist. It’s harder in some ways than original fiction where you can make the characters do whatever you want because nobody already expects them to react or behave in certain ways.

And spoiler alert: people read fanfic BECAUSE they know and love the characters. There’s plenty of original fiction in the universe we could all read, but we keep returning to our most beloved characters because we care about them. Which makes it even more difficult to tell a story with those characters to the very people who care the most about them.

Part of knowing specifically how you can “break characterization” within the context of the specific story you want to tell without making it feel like it’s no longer the same character the entire fandom knows and loves is understanding how changing details of their lives (for AU fic especially) would alter the characters’ outward expression and internal monologue. It’s a skill that comes with 1) writing experience and 2) life experience. 

So KEEP WRITING. That’s the main takeaway here. Keep writing, because everything you write will make you a better storyteller, no matter what your eventual writing goals might be.

DIANXIA WHY DO U KEEP FEELING HIM UP?!!!