American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified)

Quenya (LOTR fantasy elf language)

hamletthedane

Want to learn something new in 2024??

Beginner-oriented video on how to sail

This guy has so many videos on baking different types of bread. SO very many.

Coding in Python - one of the most flexible and adaptable high-level programming languages out there - explained through projects making video games

Learn to swim! (for adult learners. I don’t care if you live in Kansas or Mali or wherever. LEARN TO SWIM.)

Learn how quantum mechanics works. Then read some more about it

[Learn about quantum mechanics again, but in a more advanced engineering/mathematics class. Then read more about the math and physics of it]

Poetry Handbook, by Mary Oliver

Something I learned this year: how to sew a quilt (Here’s a very easy beginning pattern that looks amazing and can be done with pre-cut fabric!)

How to hit the ball in softball

Tutorial video on what is under the hood of most (gas) cars + weird engine sounds and what they mean

Lecture series on architecture design through study of buildings

How (American income) taxes & tax law work (choose “audit course” at checkout for free class)

Pickleball for beginners (so you can finally join your neighbor/friend/distant cousin who is always insisting you join their team)

+ Para-Pickleball for beginners (for mobility aid users!)

School is so much more fun when there’s no tests:

American Law - Contracts

Shakespeare’s Life and Plays

Fairy Tales: Meanings, Messages, and Morals

Modern Poetry

World History [Part 1, Part 2]

Learn a language:

Arabic + Resource Guide compiled from Reddit (includes info on different dialects)

Chinese (Cantonese) (audio)

Urdu (frequently recommended course on Reddit) + Resource Guide

Yucatec Maya

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged howtodrawyourdragon

pizzashowgirls

Francisco Riolobos

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged shyshitter

fennecshandgf

sometimes i think about the golden record and i want to cry

fennecshandgf

there is a disk. it is 12 inches in diameter, it is made of copper, plated with gold. there is an inscription— "To the makers of music – all worlds, all times" on its surface. it lies on the space probe, Voyager 1, launched in 1977, to explore interstellar space beyond our solar system.

it contains human existence.

116 images— the sun, the location of our solar system, mathematical and physical unit definitions, and our planets, including a blue and swirling white sphere simply labelled "Home." it contains images of human dna, of our atoms, their structure, the way they divide, our anatomy, our conception, our birth.

it does not contain an image of war. nor of disease, nor poverty, nor crime, religion, or ideology.

it does contain a father looking lovingly at his daughter. it does contain the picture of a tree toad in a gentle hand, of a woman eating a grape at a supermarket.

the remainder of the disk is audio. a 90-minute selection of music from all over the world, sounds, and greetings. there are greetings in 55 different languages, one akkadian, spoken in sumer about six thousand years ago, and one wu, a modern chinese dialect. the greetings call out to a friend. it wishes them well. it asks them if they have eaten yet.

but it contains other sounds too. it holds the sound of rain, of thunder, of a volcano and an earthquake. it holds the sound of mud pots and trains. it holds the sound of a mother kissing her child.

with little to erode it in space, the golden record would probably outlast all human creation. it will be 40,000 years before it approaches another planetary system. if it does, it cannot find intelligent life. intelligent life will have to find it, retrieve it from where it floats silent and small through space. we still don't know if they would understand it.

in 7.5 billion years, the evolution of the sun would burn the earth up, and we would not exist any longer, but the voyager would fly on, bearing a memory.

bearing a disk with a little inscription etched by hand on its surface.

st-jimmysidiot

susiephone

the opening recording, by Kurt Waldheim:

"I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of the immense universe that surrounds us and it is with humility and hope that we take this step."

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged jaaneymann

boycritter

thinking about anastasia trusova paintings again

boycritter

CAN ANYONE HEAR ME

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged fiovske

pokicha

I love it when the unreliable narrator begins to trip and reveal the flaws in their story and themself. I cannot explain how much I adore them. The moment you realize that "wait, something is not right" and start to rethink the whole book is the absolute best thing to happen to you while reading. You just know the reread will be even better.

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged sherlock-is-ace

xbuster

Marvel movies have completely eliminated the concept of practical effects from the movie-watching public’s consciousness

banjobutch

Not just practical effects just like. Basic set design lol

wemblingfool

How… How do they think sci-fi was done before CGI?

seldo

Really badly? Do you remember sci-fi before CGI? It was shit. And don’t say Star Wars because they went back and fixed that with CGI later.

fantastic-nonsense

*big sigh* *puts head in hands* heathens who’ve never watched pre-MCU sci-fi movies OR the unedited Star Wars movies, my beloathed

So first of all, most people agree that the majority of the “CGI fixes” in the Star Wars original trilogy (excluding minor visual/sound effects like lightsaber colors and blaster sounds) are unececssary, extremely conspicuous, and/or bad. This is not news to literally anyone older than about 20 who has consumed Star Wars content on any level. There are quite literally two very famous ‘despecialized’ fan projects explicitly dedicated to un-doing all of the shitty “fixed” CGI effects while simultaneously restoring the OT in HD.

And yes, I do, in fact, remember sci-fi special effects before CGI was the foundational cornerstone of moviemaking. It was not, in fact, shit:

Also, ironically I can show you by….*gasp* using fucking Star Wars, of all things. Welcome to the Tatooine pod race set of The Phantom Menace, which was not, as popularly believed, CGI’d but was instead a fully-built miniature set:

Yes, they built the entire set as a minature, built life-sized pod racers for the actors, then spliced the two together using digital effects. Yes, they did such a fantastic job that people think the entire set and scene sequence was basically completely CGI’d to this day. You’re fucking welcome for undervaluing the time, effort, and talents of set designers by implying that set design and practical effects inherently mean things will look like shit.

madmollcosplay

CGI also ages really poorly. What you think looks incredibly realistic now is going to look terrible in a few years. Just look at the original vs remastered Star Trek. They “restored” Star Trek around 2006 and replaced a lot of the practical effects with CGI, and maybe it looked ok in 2006, but it looks so bad and fake now.

You can see a video comparison for one episode here: https://youtu.be/ruPVTPCavdM

In the 60s they built a whole model of the Enterprise, complete with blinking lights and beautifully sculpted/painted details. It looks stunning! Then they replaced it with that horribly smooth and fake looking cgi ship.

Just look at this beauty

You can see the model at the Air and Space Museum in DC

Unfortunately the remastered version is the only version available to stream, but you can still find DVDs with the original effect.

karadin

made in 1968 and still stunning 2001 A Space Odyssey

GIF by maekar76

GIF by turturros

GIF by scoop16

the designers worked with engineers at NASA to make realistic futuristic special effects using models and matte paintings no computer effects at all! - and incidentally inspired David Bowie to write Space Oddity, later performed in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield

randomslasher

GIF by laughing-on-the-internet

GIF by samuelljackson

GIF by vahkarianmoved

GIF by junkfoodcinemas

The CGI of the original Jurassic Park may not be aging well (though arguably still better than some), but the practical effects will always look stunning.

prismatic-bell

I want to talk fantasy.

GIF by cinema-phantom

This shot was achieved with splicing and green screen.

GIF by time-means-nothing-for-me

This wild-looking shot (and similar manipulations) was famously achieved by having a professional juggler in a duplicate of Bowie’s jacket and gloves sitting behind him, basically with Bowie in his lap, doing the handwork while Bowie kept his arms behind the juggler. You may have seen a game based on this on Whose Line Is It Anyway.

GIF by inafarawaykingdomrol

This? Wires! Splicing! THE CGI TO DO THIS DIDN’T EXIST YET! (The juggler is hidden under the cape. If there’s a scene where he’s wearing a cape, that’s actually probably why.)

GIF by thebowieologist

And this? This heartstopping shot?

This does appear to be from the version with CGI—

—CGI THAT WAS USED TO ERASE THE SHADOW FROM THE PRACTICAL EFFECT.

The shot itself hasn’t changed. The lift itself was done with wires and Bowie was given some propulsion with an air cannon so he could make that turn at speed. A minor amount of CGI was used in the 30th anniversary to “touch up” the work done in 1986, and one of the things they did was to remove a shadow on the wall from one of the wires.

How about this?

GIF by 60s-heartshaped-chevrolet

You don’t know it, but you’re looking at a practical effect. In real life, the Ruby Slippers are almost orange. That luxe, rich ruby color showed up on the film as black when the shoes were the correct color, so the costumers adjusted the actual costume to give the color they wanted.

GIF by witchinghour

A MODEL OF A HOUSE SHOT INSIDE A NYLON STOCKING ATTACHED TO A FAN.

GIF by ernestsewell

MAN IN A COSTUME.

HORSES DUSTED WITH COLORED GELATIN.

GIF by dailyflicks

And this? This is where it would’ve been useful to have CGI. Margaret Hamilton got really badly burned on the steam doing one of her entrance/exits, and ended up in the hospital. THIS is what you use CGI for.

You come into my house and insult practical effects?

I’ll just finish off by reminding you THIS IS ONE, TOO.

GIF by cinemotionpicture

ruffboijuliaburnsides

That last one, iirc, was there was a double in a sepia-toned costume, and the interior door and wall there was painted brown, so when it was lit and shot it all appeared to still be in the sepia tone of the Kansas scenes, and part of why Dorothy stepped back out of the frame was so the double and Judy Garland (in the proper blue-and-white costume) could swap.

prismatic-bell

You are correct. The double’s name, by the way, was Bobbi Koshay.

faejilly

#this is also a purely personal opinion but aged practical effects are charming #in a way that aged cgi is not (via @glorious-spoon)

plushchrome1212

Another movie that was made without CGI:

There are so many practical effects in Mary Poppins that it’s unbelievable. Ranging from the big ones (popping through pictures, tea parties on the ceiling, flying with an umbrella, etc.) to the incredibly little details, there’s a big reason why Mary Poppins won the Oscar for “Best Visual Effects” in 1965

I can’t find a list of all effects used, so this is just going off my memory of a documentary I watched once, so bear with me here; some of these things might be misremembered. But, some of the practical effects used in this film:

- Actors suspended on wires

- Scenes filmed front of a white screen lit with sodium vaporlights (early cinema’s “greenscreen” before greenscreen was invented)

- Matte paintings on glass for the cityscape scenes (rooftops of London, St. Paul Cathedral, etc.)

- Animatronics (the robin that whistles with Mary Poppins is an animatronic controlled by a wire, and the movement and sound you see on-screen was what it was actually doing on-set. The talking parrot umbrella head was also an animatronic.)

- Moving set pieces (every time they slide up or down the banister, they’re riding on a mechanized chair-lift hidden from the camera)

- Padded stairs (when they climb up the staircase made of smoke, the actors actually were climbing up a staircase padded with thick styrofoam, so that their feet would actually sink in some. The children found it particularly challenging, prompting Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews to offer extra help in keeping them balanced, thus really selling the idea that they are two kids walking on smoke with assistance from their guardians)

- Scene splicing (When she pulls impossibly large items from her carpet bag, she’s pulling them through a hole from under the table. The scene was spliced with footage depicting the table with nothing underneath it - except for Michael, who crawled underneath to ‘examine’ for a hole)

- Hidden compartments in bottles containing liquid of different colors (this one is my favorite lol; the children were not told that the medicine would come out of the bottle in different colors; they were just supposed to complain about taking it. Their reactions of shock and amazement are 100% genuine)

Even tiny details that you wouldn’t normally even think of as “special effects” were paid careful attention to, in order to help sell the story. Such as, during the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious scene, while Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke are dancing and acting their hearts out, the children are supposed to sit on a fence and eat candy-apples. However, after filming for a long time, the kids were sick of the candy apples they’d been eating. So, Disney called for candy-apples made in tons of unique and delicious flavors, just colored to all look the same. It became the children’s favorite thing about the scene: they just got to sit and listen to fun music and watch the adults sing and dance while they tried a hundred different candy-apples, which is why they’re devouring them like little lions every time you see them on-screen.

(Also not so much a practical effect but just cute to note while I’m talking about Mary Poppins: the kids kept actually falling asleep during filming for the scenes in which Julie Andrews sings them lullabies lol)

CGI has its uses, to be sure. But it ought to be used to ENHANCE practical effects, not REPLACE them.

tbh that’s what Coraline is. And pretty much every movie by LAIKA Studios. It’s all filmed with practical effects and then enhanced with CGI.

Practical effects are actually amazing, and the overreliance on CGI makes films look far more ‘fake’ and causes them to grow outdated far more quickly than modern producers want people to admit.

Mainly because set designers and practical effects specialists are UNIONIZED but computer animators are not, making their labor easy to exploit and often leaving them massively overworked and underpaid.

prismatic-bell

I know I was already here, but since @plushchrome1212 made this incredible addition, I just want to point out this is a gold standard of practical effects work. Like. What I wrote above probably clued you in that I love looking for the man behind the curtain and going “oh, THAT’S how they did that!”

Mary Poppins is my favorite Disney movie. In 33 years, it has never once occurred to me to question how any of it was done. The illusion is so complete, I’m a grownass adult who just. Accepted that they disappeared into the sidewalk.

violetvapours

I recently learned that the sodium vapor light technology used in Mary Poppins was not only superior to greenscreen, but was lost and has finally been recreated:

fred-the-dinosaur

Watch the video. It’s amazing

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged gregorsamsapost-trans-formation

hyrude

ao3′s orphaning option is cool and a good idea but mostly very fucking funny. i posted this work for fun when i was younger and i still want people to be able to come back to it if they liked it, but now im an adult professional and i dont want it attached to my name. whats the word for that? umm, anonymously posting? no. i want something that indicates i murdered this story’s parents

kyraneko

technically the story’s parents faked their own death and disappeared to go have an office job, and that’s even funnier

vyeoh

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged sherlock-is-ace

jamie-elbowz

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged sherlock-is-ace

scrawnym4

”pdf file” “unalived” “grape” “corn” what if i killed myself right here right now

scrawnym4

imagine you read the local newspaper and in the section where they discuss a recent murder they describe it as “young adult unalived by serial game ender”. like you’re a toddler surrounded by adults who need to watch their language around you. you’re sanitizing and cutting down gruesome, horrific actions and situations into digestible baby words. i know this has been said before by other people but i’m so so sick of it dude, don’t speak advertiser language to me.

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged valtsv

amethystsoda

good work in the tags everyone

lastvalyrian

revivaldi

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged

shencomix

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged mitskibf

alivehouse

everyone STOP having steady 9-5s and start being able to hang out with me at 2 am on a wednesday

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged theapplepielifestyle

writingwithfolklore

If it doesn’t impact the rest of the story, you didn’t raise the stakes

I recently went back to a chapter at the midpoint of my novel and changed a huge detail of it because I thought it didn’t raise the stakes enough as it was. Because of this change, I had to go through every single scene and chapter beyond that point and edit it to fit in and make sense. It was annoying, but that’s how I knew I achieved what I wanted to.

Raised stakes change everything about a story.

If your characters can continue on as they were, then you didn’t really raise the stakes at all. This heightened pressure or danger has to be heightened enough that their lives as they know them are different now.

Consider this: at the midpoint, you introduce a mutated form of a monster your characters have been facing that’s more deadly and intelligent than its predecessor. It’s a super scary scene, but after that, your characters go back to their safe house to talk over how best to kill it.

Suddenly, this new monster doesn’t feel as much of a threat. It’s just another element of the same threat they’ve already been facing.

To properly use this element as a way to raise the stakes, it should take away something the characters rely on—safety, allies, powers, etc. Something they can’t get back, and don’t get back for the rest of the story. They now have to adapt to new circumstances, and things will never be as easy for them again.

So maybe instead, they flee to their safe house only to discover that it’s no longer safe—the monster is smart enough to get through their hidden entrance and corner them. Now they’re stuck out in the open, taking turns keeping watch and slowly deteriorating to sleeplessness and stress.

That’s a delicious steak.

author-a-holmes

I fucking love you.

You may have just solved a huge problem that I've been stuck on how to fix for-bloody-ever.

Thank you for making this post. Just. Thank you.

To anyone else out there wondering if you should write up a post about something you've been busy solving in your own work, I encourage you to do so. You never know who might be struggling with the same probelm <3

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged bi-writes

gridmaster5000-deactivated20241

why is privacy so eroded. I get treated like a nutcase if I say no, I don't want strange companies taking pictures of my home and putting them online for maps or whatever. I don't want to be in the background of your tiktok, and I think it's weirder for you to assume I'm okay with it than it is for me to politely ask you to refilm it so my face isn't in the frame. I don't enjoy handing my employer a list of every online account I have and feeling under surveillance when I'm just shit posting or sharing pictures of my cats or garden harvest. I don't want to hear your private calls on speaker on the bus, esp when the person on the line doesn't know you're broadcasting their words to strangers. I don't want an algorithm guessing what will piss me off the most so I spend more time online, engaging with shit I don't want to see or hear out of outrage. I don't want any of this. it's total ass.

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged

howtodrawyourdragon

So rumor has it that the Light Fury's design was solely based around the concept of "lady dragon." Apparently, so I've heard, the team behind her design didn't want her to look "too reptilian, like a lot of dragons."

So apparently, the Light Fury wasn't allowed to look like a dragon. She had to look female.

komodo-kalia

It's actually makes my stomach churn a bit to read what some of the men who created this film have to say about the Light Fury and the process of creating her.

They go on and on and on about how this dragon needs to be 'feminine' and the way to do that is to have her airbrushed smooth and devoid of any detail and graceful and elegant, because that's what being a woman is to them I guess. She couldn't have patterning because that kinda looked like scars and we can't have that! This dragon is POWERFUL and WILD but god forbid it even looks like she might have some scars.

She exists to be a sexy object for Toothless to lust after, and a vessel to create his children, nothing more, nothing less.

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged spongebobssquarepants

ms-demeanor

hey, don't cry. one cup heavy whipping cream, two tablespoons granulated sugar, three tablespoons cocoa powder and whisk until stiff peaks form for three ingredient chocolate mousse, okay?

ms-demeanor

i realized that i like the format because it's the exact opposite of the recipe blogs with 1000 words before they get to an ingredient list.

fandom-is-my-middle-name

Reblogged writing-prompt-s

cheeto-flavoured-pasta

You will not use AI to get ideas for your story. You will lie on the floor and have wretched visions like god intended