#I haven't worked on a gifset like this in ages

[hyunin]

hiiii everyone, this blog hit 1k followers the other day 🥹 tysm to anyone that has followed me here over the years! i'm sure at least a third of my followers are dead blogs from my suju (🤮) era in 2013 before i returned to gifmaking tumblr in 2020, but so many of you joined me once i returned and i'm so thankful for everyone that has reblogged my content and chatted with me and followed me up until this point! 🫶 i wanted to write some fun lil messages for my mutuals and pals below the cut, as well as shout out some people i don't necessarily speak to but like having on my dash also 💗 if u aren't mentioned on here and we're mutuals that doesn't mean i dislike u it just means i'm stupid and missed you 😭 before i get into the messages i also want to ask anyone who can to consider commissioning me for a gifset or writing by donating at least €10 to this fundraiser and sending me a screenshot of your donation! more info on that via this post. thank u so much again everyone!!! 🥳 (edit: i don't think half the mentions in this post are working so please check to see if you were mentioned even if you weren't notified!)

@redvelvetcult hi ele 🫶 i know we don't speak as often anymore but i'm always so happy to see u around and i love you <3 thank u for running yangjeongin with me even if it has been in spirit for 99% of its run LKJSDLFKJSJLKFD still wouldn't be the same without u @bataranqs hi kid! this is going to sound so lame but it's been rly fun watching u grow up over the years through awoo9, every time u use our weird ass humor it's so much funnier coming from u. thank u for hyping up everything we all do, especially my writing!! i really appreciate it and u @anyujins iwin...whew....LLKSJDKLFJLSKF i'm rly happy that we're a lot closer now than when we were last time i made one of these posts. i think we are anyway?? i forgor...but either way ilysm, thank u for your support when i've been going insane over the years and it would appear both of the stories of our love lives that we've been following for so long will have a tragic ending. LJKSDFJLKSLK but i hope we can be friends for many more moments of insanity to come and that we have more good news than bad news to share w each other soon. in the meantime it's always rly fun to talk to u and i am glad i have u in my life @miyawaki ver. i appreciate u v much if only bc u are a major provider of quality shitposts on my dash, u also being into kpop and giffing is a bonus. u are also so funny even if u are also MEAN!!!! it's funny most of the time. and u have also supported me a lot in ur own ver way over the years, and i can always count on u to give me feedback on giffing and such. i'm so happy for u that u are going to uni again and i hope u have so much fun but also don't forget about us 🔫 🫶 @seulggi gfx queen minya! u deserve a shoutout if ONLY bc u are carrying the gfx side of kpop tumblr on ur back fr. and i love seeing what u make on my dash. but u are also an awoo9er so i will give u a long AWOOOOOOOOO of appreciation ❣️ @meongppangz RI omg idk what account is best to tag u on so i tag u here. i rmr the last one of these i made i was like 'hope to talk more under better circumstances' and now we talk nearly every day LJSDFLKSDF i love that for us. thank u crazy person gc for bringing us together fr....love that we can bond over loving ggs and also hating collecting pcs and any other random shit of the day skz is doing. and giffing ofc. talking to u always makes me happy so i hope we continue talking and being friends for a long time to come 🫶 ily. also i'm going through my follow list for this in order of oldest blogs first and i just discovered y'all were one of the first skz blogs i followed. how cute @curiosityjams hi drea, we haven't spoken ages but i wanted to shout u out individually as well because i still enjoy seeing u on my dash and i still consider us friends 🫶 fellow eunbi stan...i will never forget waiting for the 2020 election results w you LMAO abt to do it all again soon...but i hope you're well and hope good things continue coming to u 🙇‍♀️ @hyunjinz agnes, backbone of stayblr that u are, i love u!! i know we don't Personally speak much at all i still feel like u are a dear friend of mine. you were one of the first ppl to support my skz content and i think you're that for a lot of people on stayblr and i think that is so sweet of u and also important for the community. u are so brave for going through the tags all the time and reblogging everything i do not have that kind of energy but i'm so glad u do!! i miss ur gifs but i'm happy that you're still around even when you don't gif. we're some of the last remaining pre-kingdom era skz ccs left 😱 so i will always appreciate ur company here <3 @innielove hi vi, i just want to say i love that u are giffing skz again. i've probably missed a lot of ur sets bc i'm bad at checking tags and dash but when i DO see them i'm like omg vi's gifs r really looking better than ever. thank u for returning to us 🫶 u have also actually been on stayblr for a long time so i'm always happy to see some of the oldies (can u believe we are oldies now...) back on the dash 😌

@kazuhas MS KALE it always makes me happy to see u on my dash here. ur gifs are so lovely and so are u!! i know we mainly know each other from off cc tumblr 🫣 but i wanted to give u a shoutout among all of my other tumblr beloveds bc ily. it's what u deserve @seo-changbinnies marie...another fellow stayblr hag at this point...u are still one of the funniest people on this site i swear. and i'm so glad u are still here and making gifs and blessing us w your funny tags. i hope u always stay just as insane, i love u for that <3 @seungs HI MIAAA we don't talk that much anymore but i wanted u to know that i still always love seeing u and your gifs on my dash 🫶 @felixies luna, legend of stayblr that u are 🙇‍♀️ i think ur work largely goes unappreciated by the fandom but u are an icon for keeping createskz running for all these years despite everything going on in ur life. tysm for your service 🫡 @huiracha marie huiracha...this is how i refer to u in my head btw. like 'huiracha' is ur last name. LKJSDFKLSKLD we have barely spoken but i want to give u your own shoutout just for surviving and continuing to gif on stayblr as long as u have. veterans' discount fr @hyunsung hi mona 🫶 we haven't spoken in a while either omg but i am still always excited to see u on my dash when u gif something or reblog something from me i'm like omg that's my friend mona :D SDKJFSJKLDF so thank u and i hope you're doing well 🙏 @hyunpic VILMA HYUNPIC...u know i am so glad we are better pals now. u are so funny and fun to talk to but also the sweetest ever!! thank u for always listening to me and being kind to me and also making me laugh. every time i feel like an rper named their hyunjin character something dumb i am glad i get to report it to u. some things only u will understand and appreciate. LKJSDKLJFSKLJFKLFD @sungtaro eri <3 we don't talk much anymore and maybe we NEVER HAVE??? but i have always felt like u are a dear friend and beloved mutual. i love seeing u on dash even if we don't have too many groups in common anymore. ur content is always lovely and so are u so we will always be pals as far as i am concerned 🫶 @exocean hi mo!! i must admit i don't have much to say but i wanted to mention you individually because you are so sweet and i love seeing u around and u deserve to know it <3 @hyumjim i don't even know what to say (positive) u know i am so glad ur squirmy wormy tag on one of my hyunjin sets brought us together. idr if we have ever properly spoken like via dm but bc u follow me on all my accounts i feel Seen by u....nd u haven't unfollowed me yet so god bless u. i always enjoy seeing ur thoughts and the posts u put on my dash whether they be a funny text post or someone's hot take getting dismantled or something Thought Provoking. my dash is definitely a better place because of u so thank uu 🫶

@wolfchans lau the Actual backbone of stayblr tysm for ur service fr. without u providing files for us i genuinely believe most of stayblr would be lost. not only do u do that but u are also genuinely very kind and make great content so i appreciate u so much!! thank u for making stayblr (and my dash) a better place @hyunebear hi adri i gotta admit i didn't even realize u were back on tumblr until i was going through my following and saw that u posted recently akljsdflkjdsf goes to show how much i'm on my dash...but i wanted to mention you individually even though it's been so long because you have genuinely touched my heart a lot and i will never forget ur compliments 🙏 ok maybe i did forget some of them word for word. but i will never forget how sweet u were to me. how about that. so thank you and i hope to see u around more!! i probably have to be on my dash more for that tho huh... @romanceuntold hi jen 🫶 i miss u on stayblr i'm ngl but i'm also still glad to see u on my dash through all your phases. you are such a warm and kind person and another person who i will never forget being so sweet to me. thank you and i hope you're doing well ❣️ @wearehappiness sidrah <3 the fact that we were both on stayblr but met properly on pc ig first is still so silly to me. me intending to wait on ur mail to get to me then being like 'stayblr perk i'll send ur mail rn' after i found out u were here LKJSDLKFLJKSF but you are suuuuch a sweet person who makes lovely gifs too. i miss ur gifs also!! and just you in general. wishing u the best in life always 💗 @mybodyfails hi oli 🫶 another person who has been soooo sweet to me, i'm so glad i got to help w leeknoween and i still have all the freebies u sent me from it preserved safely in my freebie photocard binder 😌 you are always lovely to talk to whenever we do, and thank u for reading my fic too despite zombies not being ur thing i appreciate u!! @strayklds / @facethesuns em i just think it's so funny that we like didn't speak before i invited u to the gif streaming server and i just did that on a whim bc u passed the vibe check and now i feel like we are good friends. despite still rarely speaking KSLDFLSDLKF but i love that for us and love ur gifs and seeing u around always 💞 @neohyune hi fae <3 i know us speaking is like a very recent development but i also wanted to mention u individually to thank u for your help 🙏 i need to write more of my fic tbh...but i Will be checking our conversation again for Notes. you also seem like a very sweet person so i would love to talk to u more in the future also 💕 @linoyes another very recent friendship (yes i am calling it that already) in my life, but thank u for your generosity, let's meet that fundraising goal together 💪 i hope we're also able to talk more outside of this context too. i just have a feeling i will have a lot more to say about u once i make another one of these!!

i'm ngl i don't know how many of you actually follow me here and i don't have time to check everyone's username individually so i'm just going to list a bunch of blogs i follow who may or may not follow me JKLSDFLKSDF but y'all make my dash a better place, thank u for all u do! 🫶 feel free to talk to me anytime too

@dazzlingkai @theseulgis @joytual @anyujin @cchuu @cherry-heartss @boynextdoors @hyunchans @ambivartence @minzbins @everglowz @chogiwow @ttathinker @minhosblr @minho-knows @yang-innie @leegahyun @bu99erfly

[princemick]

I’m obsessed with your coloring, sharpening and grain. Do you mind doing a tutoral or sharing your settings?

hell yea I can! I haven't done an updated gif tutorial in ages so here is

kyle princemick's 2024 gifmaking process!

alright class, sit down, shut up, raise your hand if you have questions and I might answer them. today we're going to be making this gif together!

there are a few steps to this

record settings

import and timeline

sharpening

basic colour

export

for this tutorial you need the newest version of photoshop but previous knowledge of giffing is not needed

record settings

I use OBS and screen record. my video settings are:

and output is:

if I live gif I change the 'common FPS values' to 30 as it makes it easier/faster to export but for now we're gonna use a recording of 60 fps where the thing I recorded is of higher quality.

2. import and timeline

importing your recorded video is easy peasy you just drop your video into your photoshop homescreen. after you do that, this should be your view

if you dont see the bottom blue timeline go to window and make sure 'timeline' is selected.

now, because this is recorded w high quality n 60 fps the frames that are in our fimeline rn go real fast, to slow it down we're gonna go to the little play button on the side of our blue timeline and change the speed to 50%

after this we're going to change the length of our gif.

because we recorded at 60 fps it works best to keep the eventual gif at 60 fps. on the timeline this means 2f. for most gifsets I like 2/3 gifs so I either make the full timeline 4f or 6f.

for this we're just going to make it one gif so with the little arrows on the side im going to slide it down until it's the length I want.

then I'm going to play the timeline and put my marker when I want the gif to start. I move my 2 frame selection tool to the start of the moment I want to gif.

then you have a bunch of timeline still left that you wont need so I'm going to delete that part by making the video smaller.

in the end I will have a single 60 frame video left on my timeline.

3. sharpening

so, sharpening is all personal preference and I highly recommend taking mine or other people's settings and playing around with it until it works for you!

now for my settings and proccess.

we're going to convert our video layer to get ready for smart filters, you do this by making sure your layer is selected and then you go to filers -> convert for smart filters

now we're going to crop it. this is again, all personal preference BUT tumblr prefers 5:7 or 1:1.

if you go to the little crop icon on your toolbar you have a bunch of size presets all ready for you

for this gif I'm going to use the 5:7.

now atp I do smth a lil different then a lot of other people tend to do and I dont know how much I recommend doing it either bc it makes the process a lot longer but it makes me like the way my gifs look the most. so I have stuck to it for the last 2+ yrs.

we're gonna go to imagine -> image size and then I like making my with size 900.

540 is what tumblr likes most, it's smaller and when you export it like that tumblr will read your full gif so there won't be need for the 'click for higher quality'

but for me it makes the gifs really low quality so I export and make my gifs at 900 unless I am live giffing bc when I export at 540 it exports quicker.

anyway, so the gif is 900 by 642. we're gonna go to sharpening now. my process is pretty long but the steps go like this

(all these smart filters are under the filter -> sharpen tab)

1: smart sharpen

2: gaussian blur

3: add noise

4: smart sharpen

5: smart sharpen

I tend to play around with the amount and radius of the last smart sharpen layer all depending on what I prefer for that gifset specifically.

now your gif layer should look like this

now your sharpening is done. you can keep it like this or add colouring.

4. basic colour

my colouring is...complex a lot of the time and it changes with every gif I make but there is some basic stuff I always stick to.

colouring itself is a bunch of adjustment layers which you can find at the bottom of your layers here

for colouring steps one of the first things I tend to use is 'curves' to up the contrast of my gif

then I use 'color balance' to neutralize the colours, I personally like it when my gifs are a little more on the colder side.

then I add a layer of 'exposure' to make the contrast even heavier.

then for my personal colouring I always go into hue/saturation to play around w lips/blush.

and lastly I always go into selective colour to change the colour more specifically.

there's a bunch of different stuff you can add and change but that's all personal preference but the only thing you have to keep in mind is skintone, especially when it comes to poc. (which is y u see the massive colour change in the selective colour one, that's me trying to neutralize his undertones again)

you have to make sure that you dont make someones skin to light or overplay someones red/yellow undertones. (which I am personally also still working on and learning abt)

here is a really good tutorial on how to colour black skin

5. export

and now, the easiest part, export. if you go to file -> export ->

then this window will show up. you're free to copy my settings, most of these things don't really matter that much to know anything.

the only thing semi important is the top right one that says colours: 128. that is the amount if colours the gif will read, I tend to export on 128 instead of 256 because tumblr won't accept gifs bigger then 10M and the more colours the bigger the gif.

now if you just click on export while your gifset is 900 x 642 your gifset will deff be over 10M. I make it smaller by changing the width of the gif by the 'image size'

I tend to starts w the W: at 700, it most of the time makes the size small enough, down at the bottom left is where you have to look to check until your gifsize is under 10

if you make your gif 700 and it's still bigger then 700 just go smaller until its under that 10m. I dont make my gifs smaller then 500 though, then the quality will truly suffer.

obviously the gif quality will be the best the bigger it is.

thats it! youre done, a gif is made and coloured.

hopefully this was understanable if it wasnt you're very free to ask questions abt anything else in my process!!

good luck and have fun ! <3

[no-goodbyes-no-regrets]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers! Spread the self-love 💞

Ok this is super hard because I feel like I always mention the same fics for this kind of thing so I'm going to try limit myself to the past year.

Date night (buck/tommy) Bobby and Athena spot Buck and Tommy out on a date together. A little outsider POV-ish that I wrote in an hour and my first time really writing bucktommy AND bathena. I just really want Buck's pseudo parents to "officially" give Tommy their stamp of approval. I know we've already had the scene of Bobby approving, but I want Athena too - though judging by Angela smiling in that zoom interview when Oliver was talking about Buck's relationship with Tommy, we might just get it.

Buck's bisexual speedrun (buck/tommy) taking it slow? we don't know her. Buck and Tommy both going from 0 to 60 in their relationship in .02 seconds. The bucktommy brainrot is real, people. This was based on a post (or ask i don't remember) I saw in the tag where someone said the way things were going with them, Buck would probably show up to work one day soon and be like "Oh yeah Tommy and I got married in Vegas, my name is Kinard now. How was your weekend?"

Love online (tarlos) Luisa takes matters into her own hands to fix Carlos' love life. I just really liked the idea of interfering sisters - and the last line that I basically wrote the rest of the fic around.

Undercover (tarlos) A season 4 what if...? Where Carlos' big secret is him going undercover instead of his marriage to Iris. Inspired by this gifset of Rafa in some other show (I think) playing a barman. (I wanted to link it but the link on my AO3 is dead - the OP might have deleted it or something) This is a little older but I got a comment on this a few days ago asking for more. I'd kind of abandoned it/forgotten about it but it made me dig up the file on my computer and found a half finished next chapter, so I'm going to try (not making any promises) to update it in the not too distant future.

View from the taco truck (tarlos) My season 5 countdown exchange fic - TK and Carlos' relationship through the eyes of their favourite food truck vendor. The idea has been knocking around my head for ages and I finally (eventually) decided to write it... but I'm honestly not sure about it. it "sounded" better in my head (as usual). But thank you to everyone that's read it and liked it and left kudos or a comment!!

Thanks for including me ❤ I'm a little late to the party so I think all of my fic writing mutuals have done this by now. If you haven't and want to - consider this your 'tag'!

[emospritelet]

2, 11, 13!

2. Will you participate in any fandom exchanges or fic challenges, etc? 

I hope so. I haven't done an event in ages!

11. Would you like to try any new fanfic genres or tropes this year?

Nothing springs to mind. I just want to start writing again. 2024 was a horrible year for my creativity due to - lots of reasons.

13. Aside from fanfic, are there any other fan works you’d like to try creating? Fanart, or fanvids, gifsets, or podfic? 

I'd like to try making some fanart!

Thanks for the asks! Happy New Year!

[faejilly]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @shadoedseptmbr ages and ages ago

tagging uh... i have no fucking clue. anyone who writes! no pressure! please blame me! @fancytrinkets @la-muerta @leahazel @jadesabre301 & ?!?!?

1: How many works do you have on AO3?

178 fics, since this is a fic writer meme.

2: What's your total AO3 wordcount?

1,193,590, with the caveat that that includes a collab fic of 190,409 words of which I was primarily writing only one of three POV characters. (And also one other shorter collab and the minimal amount of words required to describe the podfic/fanmixes.)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Shadowhunters (TV) atm, a lot of BioWare Games (especially Dragon Age 2) and then a truly random smattering of smaller games and tiny!fandom prompts back when askbox games were more common here plus Yuletide/Fic Exchange Matches On Unexpected Things. (I think I've broken 20 fandoms on AO3, depending on how one counts the various DA sub-fandoms.)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

These are all Shadowhunters and Malec fics. The first three are complete, the last two are WIPs.

two are halves of one

My only posted 5+1 fic, a series of outsider perspectives on Alec & Magnus & their very long day of denied cuddles/alone time. 😅

i cannot touch because they are too near

Parabatai Feels & Magic Lore! I wrote this for a Season 3B countdown event, and it's Magnus Being A Nerd and trying to figure out how this parabatai thing works. I snuck Jace and Michael Wayland feels in there kind of sideways too. I do think it's one of the most self-indulgent things I've ever written (epistolary! melancholy comfort! No Plot!) with many thanks to @rutherinahobbit because she helped me land the ending.

with an if in its soul

So I killed Alec off-screen right before the fic starts, and proceeded to keep poor Magnus very upset about it for the following 22k words. (It gets better! I promise! No one stays dead!) I got many angry and wailing comments, I have never been so proud. (This one suffered from very dramatic scope creep while I was trying to write it, which amused tumblr a lot, and this time I have to thank @poemsfromthealley for helping to make it work. And also the blurb, because I just could not figure out how to post it for ages.)

i am for you

Epistolary!Fluff Fic that was supposed to be a bit of a missed connection thing for @pameluke but Alec instead proposed to Magnus on first sight and I just kind of went with that instead. /I am not in charge of the voices in my head

It is the first fic I ever had really break containment and get a lot of engagement/comments/subs/etc. It has been out-kudosed now, obviously as it's #4 on this list, but that's only because I killed the momentum and never finished it. 😅😅😅 ISTFG I am going to finish it some day though!

if broken hearts were whole

From a soulmates/massage combined prompt meme thing ALSO for @pameluke. I got stuck on this one largely because I had three different prequel/s1 retellings in my head at the same time and I kind of tangled them all up too much to get any of them done. I will eventually figure this one out too, but I may have to finish one of the other things to sort of clean my brain out, and I haven't managed that either.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

In theory? I got hung up on a comment from an FTH bidder the year I failed to finish my FTH fic, and didn't want to reply to their comment 'til I wrote their fic?

which doesn't make much sense, but brains are weird, so there we are

someday I'll answer the backlong. it's only like two or three years at this point? 😅😭🤣

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

so about uh... five years ago? there was a really popular gifset format from an Elizabeth Hewer poem called in one timeline and I haven't the faintest idea how to gifset so I wrote a fic for Malec instead. [ao3]

I have written other things which Have Angst, but for me I tend to ease the ending... this is one of the few where I didn't.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Everything Else! (Almost)

I think, as an exercise in the true form of Happily Ever After, I'd have to go with Fine Feathers, which is an epilogue to a Georgette Heyer Regency Romance novel I did for Yuletide 2016.

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

Not usually. I don't even get people yelling at me to update on my WIPs, which may be hateful but isn't the same thing 😅

/and I'm certainly not complaining about either of these things, but I wish I knew how I avoided The Discourse™️so I could do it on purpose

9. Do you write smut?

I used to pretty regularly. I was even known as a smut!fic writer when Dragon Age Fandom and I were mutually more active together. Not so much (on either the writing quantity or the requests for more smut) for Shadowhunters.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Mostly no? I did two very short ficlets for Bingo Squares. I do still believe that Leverage is the Fix-It Fandom that fits everywhere and thus only kind-of counts as a crossover, plus I wrote a Shadowhunters / Inception bit with Ariadne as a Warlock.

I do also enjoy a good fusion fic, aka using a different canon as an AU setting, rather than combining characters from two settings.

For example: Shadowhunters Characters as BAU Agents from Criminal Minds!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of? I've seen it happen to co-authors though, and other friends

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I am still stunned and amazed and delighted by this!

Batty_Blue translated several of my Shadowhunters fics into Russian:

a flower of always i cannot touch because they are too near trust your heart ashes of angels / ashes of roses

And Pomyluna translated 'First Choice' into Polish

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes!

Only once successfully (aka one and done and finished and posted), and that was entirely thanks to my co-author Raph. 😅 (Against All Odds for @galedekarios back when I knew her as Chignon on an actual forum prior to tumblr. She's who got me onto tumblr, so if you met me here? That's her fault. 🥰)

I have started things with people a few times that never got posted, and there's a massive Mass Effect retelling on potentially permanent hiatus, though all three of us do hold out hope that someday our lives will align again. (Persephone Rising)

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

Me & Sleep

(Sorry, can't do it, can't choose. Beware My Armada. With a couple ancient ship leviathans which can raise themselves from the deep with the slightest provocation.)

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Every thing I have ever posted (except for 12 Moons) is something that I do in fact hold out hope I will eventually finish.

Things I have not started posting are too numerous to count and/or list. Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they are fertilizer for other things that will be written later.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

Dialogue and hopeful melancholy? I get a lot of compliments on emotion/mood, and I do feel like I am usually pleased with the, idk, vibes of most of what I write.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Plot & structure! What is? How do? What do you mean I have to have things happen rather than just reacting all the time?!?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I have done it with mixed success and there are definitely ways to do it more accessibly than I did. It can add a lot, but you do have to think about the execution.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Uh. I think Lois & Clark back when I was a teen!jilly. Either that or Sailormoon when I was a slightly older teen!jilly?

In terms of posting in public, it was Bioware something, either Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Origins back around when Thing 2 was born. And he's 14 now, so... 😅

Orion's Belt, I think? I didn't originally post it on AO3, and then I deleted myself off the internet for awhile, and then I re-uploaded everything, and I'm bad at time in the best of circumstances, which that clearly was not, so it might not have been that one specifically but it was close.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I CAN'T CHOSE JUST ONE WTF

As a formative event/process, I have a certain enduring fondness for Lost for Words, which was like the first fic I really wrote while in fandom... I was social about it and posted while I was writing and finished (eventually) and it is still the longest single story I have ever written. (Tho I am for you will beat it out when I finish that.)

It's not particuarly good from the perspective of who I am as a writer some dozen years later, but it's sincerely meant cotton candy, at least. 🤣

[lucy-sky]

12 and 13 for gifmaker asks!!

12. What gifset made you feel the happiest to work on? (link)

Hmm...

Song of the Sea - every frame of this animated movie looks stunning *_*

Sam Rockwell in Argylle - I haven't giffed him for ages! And I mean... The film has its flaws, but I was just happy to see Sammy's face :3

Kyle Gallner in Band of Robbers - I have no explsanation, but I just enjoyed making this set so much! for sure one of my favorites of the year <3

13. What gifset was the most satisfying to finish? (link)

I think these Civil War sets: [1] and [2]

Also the Frank Castle entry for Bernthist TV Tribute, mostly because I started working on it so late, and I was like yaaaay, I can finally go to bed now!! xD

*

GIFMAKER'S YEAR IN REVIEW ASK MEME

[thefudge]

Hi Dr. Fudge! Firstly, how are you? Secondly, have you watched The Gilded Age or The Buccaneers? What do you think??

hiya, i'm good! trying to catch up with the gilded age, actually, lol. i'm two episodes behind. but i'm very fond of it! for all of julian fellowes' foibles, he knows how to reel me in every time! i think the great charm of that show, for me, is the way it always makes a mountain out of an anthill, like every little occasion becomes a pretext for melodrama. the show does try to look at heavier topics, and it doesn't always succeed in conveying that seriousness, but it still somehow works? like, you'd think the mix of frivolous and deep topics would be jarring, but somehow, the frothy flimsiness of certain stories creates an interesting contrast with some harsh realities. overall, i'm a fan!

as for the buccaneers, i haven't tried it yet but....ok, the trailer and the gifsets make it look kind of obnoxious and girl-power-y to me (i got the sense that the show is trying to spin the very tired narrative that the fin-de-siecle american girls were somehow 21st century girlboss feminists coming to save england from the patriarchy, but that could just be a surface impression). but then! i did see that they've actually included some sapphic pairings? and now i am intrigued.... is it worth watching? lemme know if you're enjoying it.

[pearwaldorf]

As I've said before, I haven't watched any Who in about a decade. I've sort of kept abreast of things via Tumblr gifset and my friends, but it's a little weird seeing a Doctor with the same face and a completely different demeanor.

I personally never liked Ten all that much. Nine is my Doctor, and while I enjoyed Tennant and his initial run, I always thought he was the most sociopathic of the new regenerations. Which was not exactly helped by what he did to Donna. (He is also the reason I can never take David Tennant seriously in dramatic moments that involve fire, which was super hilarious when watching Good Omens.)

I'm not opposed to sequels, remakes, adaptations, or creators revisiting old work as long as they're bringing something interesting to the table, which most things do not*. I don't know if Davies and Tennant are doing that yet. But I'm curious to see if they are, and I'm willing to go along for the ride, at least for the next special.

--

* I watched The Shining and Doctor Sleep back to back, and that's the sort of thoughtful re-evaluation and consideration of both the novel and the movie I would love for any sort of derivative work. I'm not surprised it did poorly at the box office, because people do not want their sequels smart or challenging.

Also if we're talking about adaptations of old work, Interview With the Vampire AMC is a masterclass in both craft and adaptation. All the changes they've made to the original text (aging Claudia up, changing Louis to be Black, giving Daniel Molloy more of a role in the story) make it stronger and more complex/complicated. It is the best thing I watched in 2022 and I am begging you to check it out if you haven't already. Especially if you loved Hannibal and need toxic murder gays in your life.

[amtrak12]

Recently, I realized grief is my primary theme in my Lucifer fics and ideas. More than the theme even, grief is the entire plot of a one-shot I'm editing and the sequel to my current epic WIP. But I'm firmly in my mid-thirties now, so I figured that's just where my head is at in recent years. You go through cycles in life and I'm simply in my 'grief era' as some might say.

Except that's not actually true. I am successfully writing complete stories centered around grief right now, yes, but I've actually been trying to write about grief for a full decade.

Not in my Doctor Who fics, though grief is embedded in the plots.

Not in my Ghostbusters fics either. Those were written out of a mix of spite and love and explore… well I don't really know what they explored. shrug

No, my focus on grief got started back around 2014 (or 2013??) with a Bering and Wells AU that (honest to Jo) was inspired by an innocent Casper gifset @itcameuponamidnightqueer reblogged. I spent YEARS trying to write that AU. I had a ton of worldbuilding and plot elements, but I just could never find the story. There was a clear beginning (er mostly clear) but no obvious middle or end. The concept was just too big and amorphous for me to wrangle at the time. But damn if there isn't something still haunting in it.

When I remembered this, it made me want to put all the story elements together in one place again. Now, I certainly talked about this AU idea before on Tumblr. You can dig back into my 2014-2015 archives, possibly even 2013, and find messy rambles about it. And I haven't actively worked on the idea since Ghostbusters 2016 was released so some of the details are fuzzy now. But in case anyone can spot the story this was trying to be or if anyone's simply curious, here's what I had for this Bering and Wells ghost AU:

Like I said it was a Casper gifset that sparked the inspiration. Specifically, the 'Can I keep you' scene if I remember correctly. With it being late 2013, I was obviously utterly drowning in WH13/B&W feels, and we were all writing and brainstorming full-fledged alternate settings AUs. So of course, my immediate thought was 'ghost Bering and Wells AU' -- except I thought 'what if Myka's the ghost?' Because HG is the obvious candidate, being the historical figure, but I wanted to put a twist on it and then got really obsessed with the idea of ghost!Myka… and it all spiraled from there.

I decided on a modern setting, 2014, and then went college aged -- possibly because I was only a few years removed from my own college years at the time, but also Myka's relationship with her father/family as a whole ended up playing a huge factor in the world-building so that could've influenced the ages. I don't even know where to begin here because again, I never had a real plot, so let's just dive in I guess.

Helena Wells, age 20, an engineering (? of sorts?) student who Caturanga took on as an intern for his work. Now, Caturanga is effectively studying ghosts, though he dresses it up in fancier terms. I can't remember what his research goals were, but identification and communication were certainly the first two steps.

Usually when I age HG down, I make Christina a baby sister who she either lost or is estranged from to keep that aspect of her backstory. This time I decided to center her grief on her father who I made up for this story as also someone sciencey and someone Helena really admired and was close to. But he died in a car accident a few years ago (technically he might have been hit by a car while crossing the street but I can't confirm that). So Helena is interested in Caturanga's research because she would love to at least talk to her father again and refuses to believe he's fully gone. Resurrecting him is not currently her goal, though could easily come up given later events.

Caturanga isn't looking for the flashy haunted locations. He's looking for the mundane and preferably newer ghosts because they would be closer to the living and thus easier to talk to. He hears about a house in Colorado Springs in the US that can't keep a resident longer than two years so he chooses to study it. He and Helena rent it with plans on staying for a year.

Obviously this is Myka's childhood home and she is the ghost haunting the house. So what happened to Myka?

It's 1994 and Myka Bering is 19 years old. Her father still owns a bookstore, though they live in a separate house rather than an apartment above it. She still has her sister Tracy who I believe I made 15, so four years younger. Myka had been enrolled in college at the University of Colorado - Denver, but when she decided to switch majors from pre-med to pre-law at the end of her freshman year, her father complained about her indecisiveness and wasting money and pulled her out of school. He said, she could return to college when she had saved up enough money to pay for it herself.

Myka was gutted because she wanted to finish her degree so badly. She also hated leaving the friends she had made and tried to visit them as much as possible once school started back up that fall. One night when she drove up to visit her friends and boyfriend (Sam, of course), she lingered too long and arrived back home after curfew. Her father locked her out of the house as punishment, leaving her to sleep in the car in the garage where she left the overhead light on. There was an electrical fire that night. Myka didn't wake up in time to get out and she died.

Okay here's one of the rabbit holes I got super distracted by while trying to plot this out: Tracy's reaction. Because this whole thing is supposed to be a Bering and Wells AU, so clearly Helena and Myka are the main characters, right? But the more I obsessed over this story, the more prominent Tracy's role became. This was a tale of two sisters, dual POVs, each grappling with their rough childhoods in different ways. Except, there's also still the plot of Helena finding Myka, befriending her, and ultimately resurrecting her (more on this later), so how the hell were these things supposed to be balanced and woven into one coherent plot?? It was beyond my skill level. :S

In my head, Tracy had managed to skate under their dad's strict thumb throughout her childhood, largely because she just didn't care what her dad said and always opted to do her own thing. Myka did care what their father thought and tried to follow the rules which made the times when she didn't seem like more of an offense. Oldest child syndrome was also definitely at play where the youngest just gets away with more. So when Myka got pulled out of school, Tracy was less sympathetic and more 'you brought that on yourself.' I mean, it's not like Myka even needed to admit she changed majors. Colleges don't send report cards to your parents. She could've kept her mouth shut and stayed in school.

Tracy 1000% blamed their dad for Myka's death though. The electrical fire was an accident and no one was to blame, but he locked the door and didn't let Myka sleep inside that night. Therefore it's his fault. Myka was right about him this entire time. He's not just an annoying or strict dad, he's abusive. (Something Myka never said and will later disagree with though her own feelings towards their dad are certainly complicated.) Tracy's grief becomes anger and even hatred and builds until she emancipates herself from her parents and leaves home at 16. She spirals for a while (partying, reckless sex) before pulling herself out and finding some help to deal with her grief. She puts herself through school and becomes a social worker. By 2014, she's married and has two very young kids, one of which I'm 99% certain I named Micah after his aunt that he never got to meet. Tracy periodically takes them to visit Myka's grave, and did I write one of those visits in my multiple drafts? Yes, yes I did.

Making her a social worker both seemed fitting for her arc in this setting and is a helpful connection to ghosts when a certain little 10-12 year old (can't remember the exact age I made Claudia but it might have skewed towards 10) continually gets flagged in foster care because she insists she's talking to her brother's ghost.

On that note, let's jump back to the actual ghost plot. So in this universe, ghosts exist as amorphous blobs that can't be seen or touched by the living. At best, you can talk to them. Claudia can talk easily with Joshua because he's only been dead for a few years and immediately began following his little sister around. He's never been isolated. Other ghosts often are. It can take up to a couple of years for a ghost to become aware of their surroundings and new existence and if their loved ones are no longer in the same place, they might forget about their previous life.

This is what happened to Myka. Her family left the house immediately after the fire. Her room was empty when she regained awareness after her death and so her memories slipped away. After twenty-years of isolation, Myka doesn't remember ever having a physical body and doesn't even remember her name.

But she reads still. She remembers books and has stolen many from whoever was currently living in the house. She stashes them all away in the closet of her old bedroom and when these stashes are found and thrown out/reclaimed, she just starts again. Sometimes she only had one book to read over and over and over again. Other times, she had many. The reports of moved/missing books is what flagged this house as haunted.

Now, I said the living couldn't touch ghosts and that's because ghosts can't really interact with objects. It involves remembering being alive and corporeal well enough to remember what touching something like a doorknob feels like. Most ghosts can't do this without a lot of interaction with living people to jog their memories. Myka being able to touch books (only books but still) is rare and a huge discovery.

Helena finds Myka first. (Well, she finds the open book on the floor with pages moving on their own.) Communication is slow because Myka isn't used to speaking, so Helena has to figure out who this ghost is on her own with some good old fashioned cross-checking property records against obituaries. It's a bit of a gut punch to learn the quiet, book-obsessed ghost is a girl around her age.

(By book-obsessed, I don't mean just reading them. Ghost!Myka is very, very territorial and protective of her books because they're the only things she's owned since she's died.)

Helena and Caturanga's research involves a lot of equipment to try and sense a ghost. They manage to fine-tune a scanner to see the invisible ghost. This is when they learn ghosts are really just blobs and not a full-fledged body like the stories. Though, over the course of their tests, they do see Myka form pseudo-hands to carry and read her books which brings up all kinds of new questions for them to pursue.

I remember Myka never went through walls either. She could pass right through solid objects and would whenever a door was unexpectedly closed on her. But it always pinged her mind as Wrong so she would skirt under doors and around objects to get around the house. She never left the house -- though again, experiments with Helena later prove she can leave. It's a mental block. This is her house, even if she can't remember living there.

Helena works hard to get to know Myka and slowly befriends her as Myka re-learns how to talk to someone. The more she talks, the more Helena asks her questions, the more her memories return. Some of them return easily. The more painful ones, she fights and tries to forget again. She never looks out the kitchen door at the side of the house where the garage once stood. She doesn't want to talk about it.

Eventually, as Myka's learning how to grasp other objects and open doors herself and Helena's getting more and more attached to her (and feeling more and more outraged that Myka died so young), we hit a tipping point where Helena tries to take Myka's hand. Or more accurately, she asks Myka to try and take her hand since she still can't see Myka. The time Myka finally manages to touch her is when she suddenly returns with a physical body, alive once again. Apparently, a living person touching a ghost leads to resurrection.

This is where I got lost down another big rabbit hole. I was absolutely obsessed with Myka's struggles to adapt back to the world of the living. Think about it, right. She's existed without physical sensations for twenty years. Now suddenly, she has a body again. Everything's too loud, too bright, too much. Clothes hurt. Having to use energy to walk, hurts. Food???? A sensory nightmare. And when I was brainstorming this and noodling around with google, I learned about sensory processing disorder and OH MY GOD did that just send me deeper into the rabbit hole. I was so, so distracted by this topic and wanted to spend forever exploring Myka's initial months alive again. Do you understand why I could never find the plot? I was way too lost in the details to find the tent poles of this story.

Once Myka has learned to take care of herself again and has some coping mechanisms in place to help with the constant 'too much' struggle of being alive, her first desire is to return to college. Not see her family. It's been twenty years and that's still too much to tackle. But she'd been desperate to return to college when she died so that's the first thing she wants to do now that she's been resurrected.

This is when Pete and Mrs Frederick come into the picture -- though technically Mrs Frederick has been in play the whole time. Let's start with her. See, I thought a warehouse equivalent organization that was fully aware of ghosts and trying to help them would be handy for this story. But I was convinced at the time that a government funded agency didn't make much sense. Every secret organization in TV shows and movies are always government funded -- but the US government hates funding anything that isn't corporations or the military.

… So why wouldn't the secret organization actually be disguised as a for profit company instead? Insert Mrs Frederick as CEO of a long-running and ever-evolving company that currently brags about being at the cutting edge of smart home devices and appliances. Except the smart home technology serves a secondary purpose of finding new ways to communicate with incorporeal ghosts who are slowly being lost to time. The company (I'm sure I had a name for it but I can't remember it anymore) gains its funding through product sales and government tax cuts/hand outs to pursue its true goal of locating these lost ghosts and reconnecting them back to their loved ones or at least reconnecting them with community. They want to re-socialize them, help them find purpose and meaning. No one knows how to help ghosts move on or if they even should move on, though if ghost decides to try, they certainly don't stop them. They also had never found a way to resurrect a ghost. Some ghosts had asked if it was possible, so the company is researching it. But they're researching in laboratory settings and with Myka's resurrection, it becomes clear that there needs to be a personal connection between the ghost and living person to successfully resurrect them. (Hence, Claudia and Joshua being the second ones to successfully manage a resurrection.)

I'm losing steam and this wasn't super thought out in detailed back in the day anyway -- but Mrs Frederick helps Myka enroll in college in Colorado Springs and her living expenses are all funded by Mrs Frederick's company. Caturanga's research was also being funded by Mrs. Frederick, though Helena wasn't fully aware of how big this operation was until after Myka's resurrection.

Myka meets Pete at college and they become fast friends. Mostly because Pete's too chatty to care about Myka's silences and easy-going enough to roll with her quirks and continued struggles with being alive. At some point, he finds out she had died and been resurrected, but I don't remember if I ever fleshed out that reveal.

I did flesh out the sister reunion. In my head, Tracy would get pulled into the ghost aspect because Claudia is one of her cases. But she wouldn't learn about Myka until Myka decides she's ready to see her. That takes about a year (or even longer) and happens after Myka's started attending college. Tracy is shocked to learn her sister is alive again, obviously, but also happy. Myka is happy to reunite with her too but also feels awkward because Tracy is all grown up with kids and she's still 19 (well now 20). Sometimes, it seemed like their reunion should be the end point. But then there's also still so much story to explore after their reunion too. Their father has died by 2014. Warren died of a heart attack several years earlier. Tracy has no regrets over never reconciling with him. Myka does regret that he died before she came back to life. They have different opinions and feelings about their shared childhood and it creates friction between them. Their mother is still alive though, and I played through Myka reuniting with her too. That's awkward in a different way than reuniting with Tracy. The 20 year time gap still plays a role of course, but mostly it's sits strangely with Myka because her mother keeps telling her how much her father regretted that night and how much he missed her and wished he could apologize. And while Myka doesn't blame him for her death like Tracy does, there's a lot of other hurt she does still blame him for and hearing that he's sorry from Mom instead of getting to talk to him herself -- it doesn't solve anything. It doesn't make anything better.

Not to add it like an after thought, but Sam has died too. He still grew up to join the Secret Service and was still killed on duty. It hits Myka hard when she finds out. She hates that he died too soon too. It's not fair.

And… I think… that's everything I ever came up with for this AU concept? I spent most of my time on Helena and Myka pre-resurrection, Myka immediately after the resurrection, and Tracy always. I had a pretty fleshed out world and a ton of pieces that could count as plot -- but I never had the throughline that turned it into a proper narrative.

If you see the narrative in this mixed soup or if you see something in here that inspires you -- please! By all means, run with it and write your own fic for it! Do not feel like you need to ask my permission, because I guarantee you, I will never turn this into a real story. But it was nice to revisit and maybe you can still get some enjoyment out of what is here. :)

[strangesmallbard]

Tell me more about Torlynn immediately!! haushasha

I haven't found whether you have posted more about her before, but I'd love to know more!

omg i’d LOVE to tell you more, thank you!! torlynn is a brand new tav in my rolodex, so her personality is still in flux but i have the basics of her backstory worked out. she’s a 537-year-old high elf from [op needs to learn more about faerûnian geography], who was sent to wizard school at a young age for her Weave Aptitude. however, unlike gale, she Did not enjoy wizard school. she want wizard homework she wanted to hit things very hard with a sword.

professors despaired of her until she was old enough to learn Combat Spells. after graduating wizard school, she does a fantasy gap year that lasts about a century, whereupon she adventures and wanders and joins a couple merc groups. at some point torlynn finds the harpers, who give her that purpose she craves. she works her way up to high harper and gains a fairly pristine reputation for those in the know.

however, she does hold herself at arms length from people—side effect of vaguely neglectful parents and feeling alienated at wizard school. she has adventuring friendquaintences and agents and trainees, and is mostly content UNTIL. she meets thalia: the most annoying human sorcerer in the whole world. they spend five years annoying each other before kissing so so much. torlynn now has someone she’s genuinely afraid to lose.

haha on no wouldn’t it suck if thalia was a bhaalspawn and spent the next fifteen years valiantly fighting off the urge, only to sacrifice herself during the first ketheric battle by turning into the slayer, finally turning the tides of the war but losing herself in the process? and if torlynn had to kill the slayer afterwards to stop her from going on a murder rampage?

yeah it sucked hard. torlynn deserts the harpers and spends fifty years studying necromancy to bring her back. this doesn’t work. she drinks a lot and becomes bitter and brittle and only emerges from her grief cave when Wizard School offers her a professorship. she immediately meets her arch nemesis: a ten year old boy named gale dekarios haha. by the time we meet her on the nautiloid, she’s mostly settled into that life but still…adrift. looking for a new purpose. angry that her sword muscles have gone soft over the years. nowhere close to the “acceptance” stage of grief.

as for her personality so far: i imagine that young!torlynn had that cocky brash jock energy, although more sensitive than she wants to believe. by the time we meet her, however, that cocky energy is entirely gone and she’s very head-over-heart. all jagged edges, constantly preparing for shit to go wrong but in a droll, exhausted way. she hasn’t socialized with anyone but a necromancy scroll in years and it shows. and now a mindflayer worm is in her brain. and GALE DEKARIOS is there.

(from gale’s pov it’s like. what if you went on a dnd adventure with your mean fifth grade teacher. and she can tell you what to do again. also you broke her only role: don’t ever fuck with the weave. she broke that rule too though so HUH professor alderstar how FASCINATING!)

like i said in the gifset tags, in a better world she romances jaheira. i imagine they knew each other during the first ketheric war, although not well. they likely butted heads about war strategy. jaheira likely looked up to her and holds some bitterness toward torlynn for deserting, especially bc she doesn’t know about the bhaalspawn gf thing. but mostly she’s just curious. right person wrong time older women kissing. you get it

(OH btw thalia is torlynn’s dream guardian! she looks as she did when torlynn first met her. i plan to make some gifsets when i get to their scenes.)

THAAT was incredibly long, but thank you to anyone who read! 🫡

[aceofwhump]

1, 6, 9, 10?

Thanks for the ask!!!

What was your favorite whump gif that you made this year?

Just answered this one here :D But because I can I'm going to share another favorite gifset of mine from this year. I really love all of the David Tennant filmography whump I made this year but this one from the movie The Outsider is one of my favorites. https://aceofwhump.tumblr.com/post/734215700786348032/the-outsider-2002-the-fever-has-settled-in

It's got some of my favorite whump and coloring this scene was a challenge but i love how it came out. I could stare at that shivering forever.

6. Can you tell us about any funny or unexpected moments that happened while making whump gifs?

This one is so interesting. Let me think. Funny or unexpected. Ummm. Well one of the things I love about giffing is that I can look at a whump scene literally frame by frame and sometimes I'll see things that I didn't notice before. Like when I was making this set from The Witcher I couldn't stop looking at Joey Batey's incredibly on the verge of tears acting and seeing it frame by frame was so intriguing I ended up making another gifset focusing on that alone and made this one. I love when that happens. When you find another gifset idea within a gifset you're already working on. That's always unexpected and I love it.

9. Are there any upcoming projects or goals you have in mind for next year in regards to whump gifs?

Yes!!! So many. I have a very long list of whump scenes I've always wanted to gif but haven't yet that I've been keeping for ages. One of my goals for 2024 is to tackle that. It's got things from Stargate, Supernatural, Merlin, Hawaii Five-0, Leverage, Once Upon a Time, Hallmark movies, Emergency!, The Hardy Boys, Simon and Simon, MacGyver, and SO MUCH MORE!

Another project I'm currently debating/thinking about is maybe making my own whump month challenge like whumptober or febuwhump but strictly designed for gifmakers. Since so many of the month challenges are writing focused I've been thinking about making one that is gif/visual art focused. Prompts that are easier for gifmaking, maybe share gifmaking tips and tricks, days with questions like this, etc. I'm not sure if I'll go through with this or not but it is something I'm thinking about.

And as for goals I still have a lot gifmaking tricks I want to learn or try out. I want to play more with layouts and blending and typography and really see what I can do. And continue to work on improving my coloring and brightening cause there's always more to learn and I love that.

10. Do you have any advice or tips for aspiring whump gif makers who may be just starting out in the community?

This is such a great question! Yes! To anyone out there who wants to gif but is afraid or intimidated or unsure, I have several pieces of advice for you.

For starters, gif things you like! If there's a whumpy scene you love and want gifs of, start there. It makes it so much more fun if you gif because YOU want to gif it and not because you think this particular scene will be popular or everyone else will like it. Don't focus on getting notes. I know getting notes is nice and I too want them because it means people like what I made and more people see them which is important too BUT if that's the only reason you make gifs you'll end up disappointed very quickly especially in this current fandom climate where no one reblogs things anymore. I keep giffing because I love the process and I gif things I love. Scenes and characters I love. That's where the fun is.

Don't worry about it looking absolutely perfect. Everyone starts somewhere and there's nowhere to go but up. Focus on just learning the basics of gifmaking and go from there. You gif does not need to look perfect for you to post it. I guarantee someone out there will like your gif!

You don't need photoshop to make gifs. There are a ton of online free programs you can use to learn how to make a gif that make it super simple and easy to learn. If you want to do more then photoshop is definitely the way to go but as a beginner it's totally easy and cool to use the online programs. It's a great way to see if you like making gifs.

Just go for it! Anyone can make gifs! So if you've been thinking about giving it a try, go for it!! It's fun!

(list of questions)

[lopeirce]

2, 23, 38, 41 for the gifmaker ask thingy 😁

2. Do you do something creative/related "irl" as well? In terms of like fine art, I have zero skills haha. I was a dancer from the ages 5-25. I can also edit videos pretty well.

23. What is your biggest improvement in the past month? Hmmm.... well I haven't made that much in the past couple weeks but I think I'm getting better at blending. I've learned a few tricks to make things a tad more transparent which makes the blending better.

38. Are you working on something right now? Show us your work in progress! I'm always working on something. I recently joined a creator group where we participate in challenges every month. I have another creator bingo this month. I haven't started my next gifset yet but I have ideas.

41. Show us a picture of your set up!

Dual monitors because I’m extra with my technology 😂

[12freddofrogs]

So I haven't really touched the ouat fandom more than a few gifsets that came onto my dash, but I am assuming this little detail is something that (a) the entire fandom knows and is freaking out about, and (b) the writers did not intend.

Is Henry... the only child in Storybrooke that ages?

Time stopped in Storybrooke. Hansel and Gretel have explicitly made clear that they are also from the Enchanted Forest, and have therefore been 12 years old for 28 years.

Henry is 10 years old. Henry has not been 10 for 28 years. He was born 10 years ago, as a fairly major point. He has gone from a baby to a toddler to a child. He is quite likely to be the only child who actually changes classes each year.

No wonder he worked out there was something going on. I dont know why Regina is at all surprised.

[a-force-dyad-in-space]

I feel like it's time for another "What the Hell is Up with Your WIPs, Jen???? Any Updates?????" post, so let me tell you what the current status is on all them. 🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈

This includes both fics I've already started posting (marked "on AO3") and fics I haven't posted yet, some of which you might not even be aware of because I haven't talked about them before. 🙈

The Untamed

The Angsty SongXue Fic (on AO3)

I gotta be honest, I haven't really worked on it since, like, May or June because my brain keeps semi-fixating on other fandoms at the moment. Chapter 52 is still a work in progress, but I hope I'll get back to it soon.

The It Follows AU (on AO3)

Has it really been TWO YEARS since I posted the first five chapters???? I know, I really need to get back to it and finish it.

The XXC Grew Up in a Cult Fic

I know, I haven't even started posting this fic yet and tbh, at this point I don't know if I ever will, but it is more or less fully outlined and I've written the first chapter, so I don't know, maybe the mood will hit me again one day.

The Color Rush AU

This one I haven't touched in several years and, similarly to the one above, I don't know if I will ever write enough to start posting it, but the first chapter is already done and I have a plan for how it's supposed to go, so maybe one day.

The Observer series (on AO3)

I did write the first chapter of part 2 several years ago, but I have yet to write the other two chapters in this part. I'm not in the biggest smut-writing mood in the moment, so this one will probably stay on the side for a bit longer, but I definitely want to continue it.

The Fierce Corpse Therapist SL meets Reincarnated XueXiao Fic

I don't remember if I ever told you about this one. I wrote a little bit of the beginning for this one and I have an outline for a good portion of this story, but it will probably be a while before it sees the light of day. I do still really like the premise, though, so I will hopefully pick it back up at some point.

Others

There are some others that I have outlines for, but haven't actually started writing, so I won't mention them for now, but the ideas exist and are simmering at the back of my creativity dungeon. Maybe they'll see the light of day, maybe they won't, we'll see.

Word of Honor

The Xie'er Deserves the World Fic (on AO3)

I just realized I only posted the first four chapters of this fic, even though chapter five has already been done for years. I guess I wanted to use that one as a buffer while I work on chapter six (which still isn't done because I haven't worked on it in ages). Even though I haven't worked on this one in a long time, I still eventually want to finish it. Guess I'll post chapter five in the meantime. Really, completely forgot I never posted that chapter, even though it's one of my favorites so far.

Night Has Come

Night Has Come...Again

Remember when I was semi-fixated on Night Has Come and made several gifsets for it? I also started working on a fic that basically picks up where the end of the drama left off. Unfortunately, my semi-fixation died before I could get more than 1.5 chapters into it. I do want to come back to it at some point but right now, my brain is jumping around too much for me to focus on it.

Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon Celestial

Ah yes, my Sailor Moon epic that I've mentioned a few times. I do come back to it every now and then, and I will definitely finish it some day, but it will probably be a while before it will see the light of day, aka AO3.

Love and Redemption

Five Times Linglong Tries to Forget (And One Time She Doesn't)

Another one I have fully outlined and started writing, but since I'm not in the mood for writing smut at the moment, it will probably be a while before I finish it.

Star Wars

The Episode IX Fix-It Fic

Also come back to this every now and then. I WILL get it fully out of my system one day, I just don't know when yet.

Crossovers

Twilight × The Chronicles of Narnia

I've been back in my Twilight era recently and had a look at a crossover with the Narnia movies I started writing like 10+ years ago again. I still really like the premise and I had a good portion outlined back then, so I started rewriting it from the beginning. I hope this time I'll really pull through. At the very least I already got farther into the story now than I did when I first started writing it, so I'm gonna see that as a good sign. This one's angsty.

Twilight × MCU

I wrote 8 chapters with the ninth as a work in progress back when I started working on it. I've done some editing in the last few weeks because I wasn't really happy with a few of the scenes, but other than that I still like what I wrote. We'll see how I'll get into it.

[freckleslikestars]

I was getting frustrated yesterday that I haven't completed writing anything in ages, despite doing a lot of, you know, writing. And I was talking with my friend about it and about how I just feel so creatively overwhelmed at the moment that I just can't seem to actualise conclusions. And I sat down and counted out all of the things going on in my head at the moment, and like...it's actually ridiculous.

I have nine - 9 - choreographies—for a variety of different styles and performances—I'm actively working on, and two that I've kind of side-barred but am still occasionally playing with. I have two painting passion projects that I'm working on, and one birthday present that I'm painting. I have a semi-regular photography freelancing gig. I have a thing that I can't talk about until I know it's gonna happen but I've kind of started plucking away at that, and that's taking up a solid 20% of my brain's processing power at any given moment. I have several birthday presents for friends that I'm making that are an afternoon away from being done but that I just can't find an afternoon for. I'm currently making my friend a spreadsheet that gives detailed, timestamped, colour-coded trigger warnings for every single episode of Hannibal, along with the occasional meta in the margins (or just me rambling about how hot women are). I have four pretty hefty fanfics that I'm actively working on, two of which are multifics and none of which will be done soon. I have so many gifsets I want to make. I'm still needing to make Billcat's headstone for her grave: she passed a year and a half ago and I still haven't gotten around to doing the very simple slab of concrete.

And like. That's all stuff on top of work and the classes I teach and trying to manage the household bills and trying to support my friends whilst they're dealing with personal shit and trying to deal with my own personal shit and dealing with the regular burnout and the autistic burnout and I'm realising I really just need to cut myself some slack.

And I need a fuckin break.

[justalittlespore]

Well I wound up going with the unfinished one first because I wasn't sure if I'd be up for watching both and I figured I needed to see it.

I am currently about 2/3 of the way through the movie. It's still playing on monitor two as I write this.

You know, I was so sure this movie would be terrible. But now, about an hour in, I have to admit: I was completely and totally right. This is fucking awful. This is somehow worse than I expected.

Okay, the unfinished graphics and stuff are mildly amusing. But nothing has happened so far in this movie to make me laugh or smile. Not once. Jack Black is in it! And they somehow managed to make him look like an idiot! JACK BLACK!

This movie is only tangentially related to Minecraft. It feels like someone took a series of screenshots of the game and showed it to a panel of boomers who think video games are only for children, and for adults who act like children. I don't mean adults who enjoy things typically seen as childish, I mean adults who act like children. This is painted as negative from start to finish despite the film's ostensible message about "creativity = good."

They looked at the piglins and thought "those look evil, make them the bad guys." You know, the dudes who are just hanging out and will trade with you and have a preoccupation with gold and will attack anyone who breaks into their home in accordance with their own version of "stand your ground" laws. Pillagers? Never heard of them.

None of the creatures in the film behave remotely the way they do in the game. None of the mechanics work remotely the way they do in the game. The central macguffin is not in the game, not even similar to anything in the game. Neither is the primary antagonist.

Only one of the main characters is an actual child. His older sister looks like she's 15 but apparently is his guardian and works full time, so presumably she's legally an adult.

Everyone else is either a very sad middle-aged adult who won't stop complaining about how bad their life sucks (no, seriously, they will not fucking shut up about how bad their life sucks, every single one of them, endlessly), or a weird off-brand version of a Minecraft character whose personality and behaviors are based on the first impressions of someone who has never, ever, ever played the game for a single second.

They keep saying that creativity is good (like, literally saying it) and that being stopped from being creative is the source of everything bad (it's literally the backstory for the villain, a piglin sorceress character that does not exist in Minecraft). But at no point is creativity actually used to SOLVE ANY PROBLEMS. Everything is just an on-rails roller coaster of "hey I know that character from the Mine Craft!" and explosions which I'm sure will look better in the finished version, if I can bring myself to watch it.

It's too stupid to entertain an adult, but it doesn't seem like it would be very fun for a kid either. The monsters actually look pretty scary, even with the unfinished graphics. The "humor" is all just miserable adults endlessly complaining about how badly their lives suck. The kids who have played the game (most of them) will spend half the movie shouting THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS! The ones who haven't played it still probably won't like it because the movie itself sucks balls. It's not a good movie.

It's a bad movie that was made relying on brand recognition to sell tickets, but the brand recognition is so badly bungled that it makes the movie even worse.

I guess this is why I haven't heard of anyone on here actually watching it or enjoying it. I follow plenty of Minecraft blogs but I haven't seen a single reference or gifset.

I mean, for fuck's sake, this is the most popular video game in the world we're talking about, popular across all ages groups, and the movie's only got 246 total works on AO3.

I don't know how they could have fucked this up so badly.

I mean, I do. But it's still disheartening.

Clearly, someone saw the success of the LEGO movie (which was created as a love letter to LEGO and the power and possibilities of the creativity it offers) and said "do the creativity thing but with that game that's like legos but on the computer. my nephew plays it."

And now the film has just ended. The ending was... not great. I will probably watch the finished version on 2x speed or something, eventually, just out of curiosity.

But this is the most soulless film I've seen in a long time. It's somehow even worse than I expected.

There was not a single moment in this entire film where I chuckled or cracked a smile. And I went in hoping for the best! Hoping I'd be wrong! Ready to be pleasantly surprised! But there's just nothing here.

I'm a little disappointed about the hermits who went to the premiere and only had positive things to say about it. That was the only reason I even went into this hoping for the best. I suppose they didn't have much choice, but still.

What a steaming pile of shit.

I want to go watch the live action Mario Bros movie from 1993 to cleanse my palate.

So I have the opportunity to watch the Minecraft movie (which I have not seen and in fact was originally not planning to watch because the trailer looked terrible). I have been invited to see both the completed final version and the unfinished one that was going around before its release, where the special effects are not finished.

I get to choose which one is first. And I cannot decide.

So... poll. Only two options, just pick at random if you don't care. Arguments for each possibility are welcome in comments/reblogs.

I humbly request reblogs from those kind enough to want me to get enough votes for this poll to be useful, because I only have a few followers and I doubt most of them will even see this on their timelines. 🙏