#MIGHT delete later depending on how many people do it

[playingmyselfafiddle]

send me your anonymous soccer confessions please🙏

[rpschtuff]

What is going on with cutting posts?

You may have seen some posts floating around lately about the beta editor and trimming reblogs, and possibly found yourself extremely confused trying to figure out what this tangled web of editors, extensions, and add-ons even means. I’ve been on this site for years, and I still find the whole thing terribly confusing.

So this post is my effort to explain everything -- legacy vs beta, New XKit vs XKit Rewritten, editable reblogs vs trim reblogs -- everything. This also doubles as a tutorial for the various methods of cutting posts.

TL;DR

Tumblr is in the process of switching to a new post editor that some old users have opted into, while new users have been forced into it.

The old Editable Reblogs extension does not work with this new editor, requiring people to use a new extension called Trim Reblogs.

Trim Reblogs and Editable Reblogs are not compatible. If your partner uses Editable Reblogs, you cannot cut their posts properly using Trim Reblogs (unless you’re willing to do some tedious and frankly unreasonable workarounds).

The only way for everyone in the RPC to cut their posts properly and efficiently is if everyone moves to the new system and uses Trim Reblogs. Clinging to the old system with Editable Reblogs is actively creating issues for the people using the new system -- some of whom do not have a choice.

Cutting Posts

Cutting posts is the act of removing older replies on a thread when reblogging it. This goes by several other terms, including trimming replies/reblogs or any variation of that wording, but I will be referring to it as cutting posts to avoid confusion with the Trim Reblogs extension, which will be coming up a lot.

Typically, when cutting a post, you only keep your latest reply and the reply from your partner that immediately precedes it. This means that instead of a thread looking like this...

It would like this:

Or like this, depending on the method used:

In either case, the first post is gone while the second and third post remain.

Cutting posts is done so that threads aren’t all extremely long on the dashboard. When there’s three short replies like this sample, it’s not that bad. But imagine a thread with twenty replies where each is several paragraphs long. That would require people to scroll and scroll and scroll to get past it. And since the same thread would be reblogged multiple times, your dash might become the same posts, over and over and over again, with only one new addition at the end each time.

Cutting posts is extremely common Tumblr RP etiquette. Many people won’t follow you if you don’t regularly cut replies, due to how irritating the alternative is.

Copy and Paste (Outdated)

Once upon a time, you used to be able to cut replies without any kind of extensions. Unfortunately, those days are gone.

That method worked as follows. You would go to reblog as usual...

Copy and paste the last reply, putting it in a blockquote (or using any other formatting you like, really), then add your own reply underneath.

Then you can simply hover over the older replies and click the red X in order to remove them.

And this used to work. But now, the very first post in a thread cannot be deleted -- only later reblogs can. This means that the first post will always stay above the others, no matter how far along in the thread you are.

So since cutting posts can’t be done normally, we have to rely on browser extensions. This is where things get complicated. And also where I need to explain the different editors.

Legacy vs Beta Editor

Every time you make or reblog a post, you are using Tumblr’s post editor to do so. This is the area where you type up your post, add images, etc. Tumblr has been using the same editor for several years now, and it’s called the legacy editor.

However, Tumblr has been slowly rolling out a new text editor, called the beta editor. You may remember the beta editor when it was first rolled out a couple years ago as a buggy, unstable mess -- that’s not the case anymore, and it’s no more buggy than the current editor. For text posts, it’s functionally pretty similar, and even has a few features that some of you might want, such as easy colored text and the ability to make posts non-rebloggable. (Photo and other posts are fairly different, and I know gif makers have some pretty understandable reservations and complaints about it, but I won’t be covering that here.)

Older users have the option to toggle between the legacy and beta editors at will, while new users (starting around November/December 2022) are locked into the beta editor and cannot switch back to legacy.

To check which editor you have, go to make a new text post and look in the top right corner.

If you see either of these:

You are using the legacy editor, with the option to switch between the two.

If you see this:

You are using the beta editor, with the option to switch between the two.

If you don’t see anything at all, you are using the beta editor, and cannot switch.

While the text interface of the two editors isn’t terribly different for roleplay purposes, the methods by which you need to trim reblogs are entirely different. Each requires a different extension -- specifically, a different version of XKit.

XKit

XKit is a browser extension designed to add features and functionality to Tumblr. It includes many quality of life features such as a mutual checker, better tag tracking, queue improvements, ad blocking, more detailed timestamps, and so much more. (It was preceded by a similar extension called Missing E, if you’ve been here long enough to remember that.) And among all of these many features is the ability to cut replies.

The original XKit is no longer in use, having stopped updates in 2015 and being entirely unusable now. However, a few new versions of XKit have popped up throughout the years.

New XKit & Editable Reblogs

A different team created New XKit as a successor to the original, a similar extension designed to restore many of the same features.

New XKit’s feature to cut posts is called Editable Reblogs. It works by adding a pencil button to the left of the post when you reblog.

Clicking that button will break the post’s formatting -- actually changing it to how Tumblr posts used to be formatted -- but allow it to be edited however you wish.

So in this instance, I could simply select the first reply and delete it before adding my new reply underneath.

Editable Reblogs is only available if you use the legacy editor. It does not work with the beta editor and does not even appear as an option.

XKit Rewritten & Trim Reblogs

In 2020, Tumblr began to roll out its updated dashboard, which is now permanently in effect for all users. While the new interface looks very similar, the code was actually entirely redone, and behind the scenes functions very differently from the older dashboard. As a result, some of New XKit’s features no longer work as intended -- though a few still do, such as Editable Reblogs.

In response, the New XKit team decided to similarly start from scratch and created XKit Rewritten, another iteration of the add-on with similar features once more. However, not all New XKit features are available on XKit Rewritten, and vice versa. Many people are running both extensions simultaneously to take advantage of features on both.

XKit Rewritten’s feature to cut posts is called Trim Reblogs, and it works completely differently than Editable Reblogs. With this, you first need to save the thread to your drafts with your reply already written.

You’ll see a scissors icon appear along the bottom of the post. Clicking that will open the trimming options, letting you select which previous reblogs to delete.

Clicking Trim will remove the selected reblogs.

You can then click post. You’ll note that this method preserves Tumblr’s formatting, as opposed to Editable Reblogs, which breaks it.

EDITED TO ADD: Apparently you don’t need to already have your reply written in your drafts anymore. You can save the post to your drafts without adding anything, use trim reblogs, then edit the post to add your reply. Either works fine.

This method does have two major issues, though. First, if the first post of a thread was created in the legacy editor, then the system gets really buggy and just doesn’t work.

This is what happened when I tried it out. Initially, it seemed to work as expected.

However, when I posted the reply, or simply refreshed my drafts, this happened.

Attempting to trim again simply caused this to repeat. There is no fix for this. This means that for this method to work, both you and your partners need to be using the beta editor.

EDITED TO ADD: You can fix this double posting by either using trim reblogs before adding your reply, or by adding your reply, using trim reblogs as intended, refreshing your drafts, editing the post, and clicking the red X to remove the first of the double postings. I have a better guide here.

The only other alternative is to move the thread to a fresh post when you reply, so that the new first post was made with the beta editor. Then you can cut future reblogs of the post using Trim Reblogs as normal.

However, the other major issue is that if your partner uses Editable Reblogs, you cannot use Trim Reblogs as intended. Let me show you why.

Say I want to reply to this post.

I’ll add my reply and save it to my drafts, as before.

You may have spotted the issue already. The first and second replies are now “combined” so that Tumblr sees them as a single post. We want the post to be interpreted like this, so that I can remove the oldest reply while still keeping the one immediately prior to mine.

But Trim Reblogs can only see it like this.

When I go to trim reblogs, I can only remove the previous replies as an entire unit. I can’t remove just the oldest reply and keep the one immediately prior -- either it all stays or it all goes.

This is admittedly better than nothing. However, most people do want to keep their partner’s previous reply for reference, and just to have on their blog. This means a lot of people using Trim Reblogs simply don’t cut their partner’s posts at all.

You might be able to get around this issue by combining it with the outdated cut and paste method I described above. When saving to your drafts, paste your partner’s last reply above your own, using a blockquote or whatever formatting you like to separate the two.

You can then use Trim Reblogs to remove the first post, leaving only your copy pasted reply. The formatting is broken, but it’s at least workable.

However, this will only work if the very first post of the thread was made with the beta editor -- since people using Editable Reblogs have to be using the legacy editor, you’re likely to still run into issues on a lot of posts. Which can again be solved by moving the thread to a fresh post made with the beta editor, but at this point we’re stacking so many issues on top of each other that I really can’t blame you if you just don’t want to bother with any of them.

All of this brings me to...

It’s time for the RPC to collectively switch to the new system

I’ve stuck to the legacy editor myself due to the issues described above -- using Trim Reblogs when everyone else still uses Editable Reblogs is an enormous pain that I don’t want to deal with. Even as I make this post advocating for people to switch, I’m dreading actually doing it, because I know that most of my partners still use the old system and I will have nothing but headaches.

But the thing is, everyone refusing to switch is what’s creating the headaches in the first place. If we all moved to the new system together, these issues would simply disappear, and we would all be able to effortlessly cut our posts using Trim Reblogs without ever having to worry about it again.

The RPC needs to collectively make the switch, for two reasons.

First, Tumblr is going to switch everyone to beta eventually. Refusing to switch now is really just delaying the inevitable -- it’s not a question of if you’re going to be forced into the new system, but when. By switching now, you can go ahead and get used to it and start giving feedback to both Tumblr and the XKit Rewritten team if you find anything buggy or broken.

Second, as I said above, new users are locked into beta, with no option to switch back to legacy. Trim Reblogs is their only option for cutting posts -- and as long as most of their partners are using Editable Reblogs instead, they cannot cut their posts properly. Their only option is to use a series of increasingly ridiculous workarounds that most people won’t understand. The fact that it took me 1500 words just to explain everything should tell you how confusing the whole thing is -- you can’t be that surprised when a lot of people, upon realizing that they can’t cut posts without a whole lot of tedium, decide to just not bother cutting them at all. The best way for everyone to be able to cut their posts properly and efficiently is for everyone to be on the same system.

Yes, the beta editor is different. It has some weird quirks. It will be a bit of a learning curve to get used to a new system of replying to threads. But this is a change that’s going to happen eventually, and is a change that needs to happen for a lot of people to able to cut their posts properly.

(It’s also worth noting that -- assuming you still have the option to switch -- you may be able to toggle between the two systems during the adjustment period. I haven’t been able to test this yet, but I see no reason it wouldn’t work. Use Trim Reblogs whenever possible, and especially for the partners that have already made the switch. But when you get to a reply that it just won’t work for, toggle back to the legacy editor and use Editable Reblogs just for that thread. It’s a bit annoying, but it could be the middle ground needed to help people start making the switch. And once the majority of the RPC is on the new system, then this won’t be an issue anymore.)

[kairithemang0]

Yknow what, I might as well see what happens

Gonna do the notes game, just gonna see what happens I dunno (I have a lot of stuff I need to do and no motivation so I’ll use the internet to force me to)

25 notes - I’ll finish reading Good Omens

50 notes - I’ll finish pulp musicals (I started it and got distracted, came back an hour later so damn confused I HAD MY EARBUDS IN AND EVERYTHING)

100 notes - I’ll draw more (both traditionally and digitally, I want to improve)

150 notes - I’ll continue writing a coffee shop au I started last October and never finished (it was like 75 pages and I just stopped :()

200 notes - I’ll listen to Starry

250 notes - I’ll try to get at least a 70% in Spanish this quarter

300 notes - I’ll clean my room

350 notes - I’ll work on eating healthier

500 notes - I’ll spend more time with my friends outside of school

750 notes - I’ll finish listening to all the musicals on my musical watch list (there are so many of them…)

1000 notes - I’ll get back to doing taekwondo

1500 notes - I’ll take a walk every day

2000 notes - I’ll spend more time with my family

2500 notes - I’ll rewrite my really bad Xehaqus fic from 2 years ago and try my hardest not to just delete all of it (I’d be rewriting 183 pages, I dunno I wanna see how I’d write it now without changing the entire plot)

3000 notes - I’ll actually start to study for school and not just wing it

4000 notes - I’ll stop being such an asshole to my parents Jesus Christ how do they deal with me

5000 notes - I’ll come out to my mom as trans

Try and reach the goal before uhhhhh I dunno April 16th

I may add more later, depends on how fast yall go through the goals, I have a lot of things I need to do (mainly because I need to start caring about my health and how I treat other people). I dunno, let’s see how this goes

Edit kinda did the “come out to my mom” thing soooooo idk I’ll figure something out for 5000 (maybe)

[kingofthering]

how to make a gif : the very basic steps

Hello, I've been asked about advice on giffing lately and I am by no mean a Photoshop expert but I think I can still show the basic steps I go through every single time I make a very basic gif (essentially, everything I create throughout a race weekend).

I am using Photoshop 2024 and unfortunately for the non-French speaking people, the texts in the screenshots are in French. However, I have translated everything in text so you should be fine. I decided to still include the screenshots because no matter the language of your Photoshop, things should be in the same place.

Overall, giffing is very much a trial & error activity, in my experience. There are several ways to go about things and with practice and fiddling around with options, you will figure out what works best for you.

This will be our end product today :

I'm going to start this tutorial assuming you already have a video to use. When I do MotoGP gifs I end up with .mov videos from screen grabbing and when I download tiktoks and reels, I end up with .mp4 videos, which work just as well.

We're going to go File > Import > Video Frame to Layers. You pick your video and then use the sliders to pick the moment you want to gif. Don't worry, you don't have to be extra precise as you will be able to trim that later (obviously your life later will be easier if you get it right the first time but it's not a big deal, better to take more just in case if you're unsure).

That last line is asking you if you want to import one in every two (or more) frames. I tend to not do it but it's honestly a preference thing. I will say, it can help when you're trying to gif a long moment (less frames for the same length of video treated).

The next three steps (choosing the frames, setting the speed, cropping) can be done in any order. I myself sometimes change things around depending on what I'm doing. The way I'm going to present is the one I use most often.

Now that the frames are here, you're going to play the gif to make sure you got the exact moment you wanted to gif.

[OPTIONAL] This is also the moment to delete frames if :

You don't want the first/last frames (can easily happen with longer videos because obviously it makes the sliders less precise),

There are frames you simply don't want in your gif (for example, I dislike seeing the flashes from camera when I gif press conferences so I tend to get rid of those),

Your have too many frames.

There is no absolute rules about that last one. As of now, you need to keep your gif under 10 Mb for tumblr to accept it. Obviously, the number of frames and the size (in pixels) of your gif are two factors that will largely impact the size (weight) of your gif.

This might be the biggest thing where experience and trial & error will help you. With my 540x386 gifs, I tend to be able to keep around 80 to 100 frames. When I do the 268x268 square ones, I'm more easily in the 200-250 range.

Once you're happy with your frames, you can set the speed of the gif (essentially how much time there will be between each frame).

To do so, you need to select all of your frames (select your first one, hold shift and select your last one) and then click on any of the current speed, if you choose Other, a window will pop up and you can choose the speed you want.

Again, very much an appreciation/try and see what you prefer thing. I tend to just double the length I was given when I imported my frames (so in that case I went up from 0.03 to 0.06).

For some reason, the speed when you play the gif in Photoshop is always slower than it ends up in real life (or it's just mine but I'm just saying you can't always exactly trust that to make your choice).

Once I'm done with that, I tend to take care of cropping next. Technically, this is something that you can still do at a later time.

Cropping is where you decide which physical part of the video you actually want in your gif.

Photoshop has some basic ratios registered but you can also set up your own preferences, which will make your life easier/faster. My usual race weekends gifs are 7:5 but sometimes when I want zooms/bigger gifs I go 540:442 or 540:415, I also have a special ratio for my cards series.

Next step : click on the three little lines above your line of frames and then click Convert to Video Timeline.

If you have deleted frames before turning your frames into a video timeline, this is the moment to be careful.

You will go check all your layers (on the bottom right of your screen) and you'll see that every deleted frame (turned layer) is missing the eye symbol (which make them easy to find). You're going to delete all of those layers.

Then, select all of your layers, right click > Convert to Smart Object.

And now we move onto the fun part, I named : coloring.

I will honestly be the worst at giving you advices on that because I am still very much learning and not exactly always understanding what I do to get the results I get. Every coloring tutorial I have saved can be found here.

The one thing that matters is to make sure your adjustments (coloring) layers are above your smart object.

If you hadn't cropped your video before, now is the last time to do it. Or, well, I've seen people do it after sharpening their gifs but I always have doubts about whether or not it has an impact on the quality of the gif. Anyway, this is the last moment where I would do it personally.

Note : if you are happy with the size of your gif but want the video to be a little more to the right/left/top/bottom, select your smart object and use Move to move your video around (quick Marc apparition because I thought of this when writing the tutorial).

I personally have an action set up for the next steps. I click on one button and it takes care of resizing my gifs and sharpening it. I will go into the detailed version of things (how to do it without an action) below. A bunch of people have also made actions ready to use downloadable. You can find some in my big everything photoshop related tag and a tutorial on how to build your own here.

If we want to post this on tumblr, we're usually going to want this gif to be 540px wide or 268px (two gifs side to side).

Let's go to Image > Image Size.

For sharpening, I'll admit that it should depend on the quality of your video but I always do the same things. Here is a tutorial on sharpening if you want to understand how things work better.

Make sure to have your Smart Object selected and go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen.

And we're finally done. Time to export this bad boy.

To do that, we're going to hit File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy).

Here, there are a couple of things you can touch, a couple you shouldn't (compared to the image below).

The main one is going to be the number of colors you will accept on your gifs. 256 is your maximum and the lower you go, the more the quality of your gif will decrease but so will its size. This is where you can spend time trying to find a compromise to get under 10 Mb (a second solution to diminishing the number of frames, often times those two options go hand in hand).

This is a great post to explain the different options of the other settings.

And were we go, a pretty decent gif :)

If I didn't make sense at all and think you need a tutorial by another person, you can find a bunch of resources here and I personally (re)learned with this one. I've already link my general photoshop & coloring tags but I also have some dedicated to : typography & blending.

[llatimeria]

God imagine how funny history would be if we got some early european explorers showing up in the Americas and trying to settle down and do things the way they did back in Europe and immediately finding that nothing worked the way they expected but instead of just brute forcing the square peg through a round hole into the eternal torment nexus nightmare that is colonialism they just said "you know what? actually fuck this!" and just gave the fuck up. and it just became a funny little blip in history textbooks like "wow europeans tried to colonize america but sucked at it so badly that they just gave up and went home/joined up with the locals/died badly". but no we fucking live in the bad timeline where we somehow threaded the camel through god damn needle and not only survived but nearly annihilated everyone and everything else in the process, and that fucking fluke still affects and harms all of us every single day of our lives HUNDREDS OF YEARS LATER

(finally catching up on my history class)

The line between recognizing the power of native societies and appreciating the cool parts of their cultures and being weirdly fetishizing like native americans are funny little nature fairies is Very thin, and I'm consciously avoiding it because I know that ultimately does more harm than good, but man it is hard to not fall into the trap of just reducing it to "America Good. Europe Bad" sometimes when learning about this stuff. Some of the things native cultures were doing before colonists showed up is just so obviously . an objectively better way of doing things . And it's absolutely dumbfounding that colonists just did not see that until we started thinking of native americans as little nature fairies that have the Magical Nature Wisdom. I can't believe more early settlers didn't just immediately bail on the shitty disease-riddled deadly freezing cold colonies and go live with the people who actually seemed to know what they were doing and were thriving in the really complicated environment of what is now known as New England

[sokacoke]

Compiling some questions and information regarding indigo park from unique geese's live streams.

Some clips might not be long enough for the full answer due to YouTube only being 60 seconds so just keep that in mind.

A bit of the older ones could contain stuff that aren't up to date that I forgot to remove because I was making this in my notes for like 3-5 weeks so lets uh. ignore those!! (ill delete them later maybe)

IF I SCREAM THE STREAM ENDS

'I think comparing Issac to fucking Willam afton is such a sad comparison'

Credits to @lunozapp for the clip

INDIGO Q&A 

“Will there be any boss fights?”

‘That’s a hard thing to say. I’m gonna say no.’

“How old are Rambley and his friends?”

'They’re all over 18. Probably around there early 20s at oldest.  They’re younger but I don’t really have set ages for them.'

“Would Indigo park be rated M?”

'I would argue indigo park chapter 1 could get away as teen but I’d like to rate it up as a M by chapter 2.'

“Is chapter 2 going to take place under the park?”

'No. There might be parts under but chapter 2 won’t.'

“Rambley has been left alone since the park closed. Has he practically sat alone for that long?”

'In all technicality, he was sitting there alone and abandoned for many years. He’s not fully aware of what’s going on, but he is you know?” 

“Do you have any plans for future chapters?”

'The entire greater story has been set in stone for months and we don’t have any plans to change it.'

'There’s stuff in chapter 1 that people won’t realize are important to the plot until chapter 5.'

“Is mollie macaw an antagonist?”

'Depends what you’re saying when you say mollie macaw. Antagonist is a strong word.'

LAUNCH STREAM

“Is the raccoon evil?”

'No. You guys just buckle up. you’ll see.'

REACTING TO YOUTUBERS 

“Did you expect for Rambley to be popular with the furries?”

‘I made a joke that it would be popular within it but nothing in the game was designed to be furry. It was just like “hey we need parody’s of Mickey Mouse and Disney characters” ending up creating characters I really liked.'

“Do you know that there’s already NFSW art of Rambley?”

'It’s the internet sorry. If you make NFSW stuff I just ask you don’t send it to me or inject it to the rest of the community. Keep it separate, these are like my children.'

“How many versions of the railroad did u go through?”

'It took quite a while. We would get to a point where we kind of liked it and then be like “oh I don’t really like this it doesn’t flow really well.” I think the great thing going into chapter 2 we have a better understanding of what we want the game to look. Chapter 2s going to be mainly a lot of the rides. It was kind a deal where I wanted you to feel claustrophobic but it was hard to deal with those open environments. I’m not gonna announce anything crazy but chapter 2 will start in the queue and lobby for oceanic oddesy'

“How many chapters will there be?”

'The game plan is five.'

“Is this the last time we will see Mollie? Her death screen mentions she can copy voices but that wasn’t shown. Will be shown again to do that mechanic?”

'The voices were less of a mechanic and more of showing going on when she’s talking throughout the game. All the dialogue is something she’s heard during game,behind the scenes of the park or something that a guest has said.'

“Is Rambley the bad guy?”

'What part of the game made you think Rambleys the bad guy? No.'

“I trust Rambley with my life. If he betrays us I’ve already forgiven him.”

'Yeah, you don’t need to worry about that.'

“Whys the main character so jacked?”

'It’s just the character model I had I was using. We might change it.'

Critter cuff

'I was big against the idea of having one mechanic. They saw poppy playtime and instantly thought “every mascot horror needs a mechanic.” The critter cuffs important but I also want different fun mechanics that can be worked into it.'

“Do you plan to add more characters?”

'There will be more characters added into chapter 2. There may some returning characters. Obviously Rambley will be the focus of every chapter he’s ur buddy through ur journey. We do have a new set of characters.'

“Will there be another credits song in chapter 2?”

'We don’t want to start planning stuff until we know for sure how much money is there budget wise.'

“Where’s the cat?”

'There originally was just a regular ass cat that was in the and was in the game for quite a while. The model we had didn’t look like it fit the world and the animation looked stiff. Maybe we bring it back.'

“What were the stealth things in the files for?”

'Originally there was a section where Lloyd would follow you and you’d hide. I definitely want to do some stealth stuff where you have to hide under stuff I think that’d be a lot of fun.'

“Will Mollie return?”

'Do you think Mollie will return?'

“Is Rambley sentient?”

'He’s fully aware of everything around him but he’s programmed to behave a certain way. The best comparison would be GLaDOS or Wheatley from portal. Programmed to act a certain way, but also aware and able to see stuff around them and react.'

“How long will chapter 2 be?”

'We’re aiming chapter 2 to be just a little bit longer then chapter 1. We want each chapter to be a bit longer than before. I’d say for chapter 2, two and a half

'The only character that won’t have much influence is clearly Mollie.'

“What about Lloyd?”

'Lloyd’s cool and Lloyd will be important. That is all I can say.'

“Will there be other AI companions?”

'No. It’s just Rambley the main mascot.'

“Is there a possibility of a major overhaul of chapter 1?”

'There’s room to improve it a bit. In the future, I can see us doing a full on remaster of chapter 1.'

“Never make Rambley a creep I will not forgive you for it”

'You got it.'

“What’s the estimated gap between the chapters?”

'Year to Year and a half, maybe two. Chapter 2 is definitely 2025.'

“Don’t be fooled?”

'There was a lot more potential do something with that. If we had more budget then it would be really cool where you’re running through the pipes and you have to listen for Rambleys voice through the pipes and sometimes it would be mollies voice. It would be Rambley guiding you and then you hear Mollie trying to sound like Rambley.'

“It hurts Lloyd”

'That’s the funny thing. I don’t wanna get TOO deep into it but this was kinda just random text. I’ve seen 5 or 6 different interpretations of what people think it says.'

'Without spoiling anything I do think multiple ending’s for the final chapter would be kinda cool.'

REACTING TO MATPAT

“A lot of sexual tension between these guys”

'Shout out to the furries because I’ve seen every combination of characters being shipped and it wasn’t until today that a single female character was involved that all. Not mollie not Nonbinary with Salem it was literally just the 3 men'

“Does Rambley canonically sing Rambley review?”

'Yes he actually does. It’s in between chapter whenever ur going into chapter 2. The player could turn around and find a way out now but he actively wants to keep going with Rambley.'

TALKING ABOUT INDIGO PARK,FNF AND MORE

“The voice and creator of indigo park”

'I don’t voice anyone expect for Jackson and another character that no ones found yet.'

“Are you ever going to get a console support?”

'So we will eventually but to be honest with you I don’t want to do that until we have like chapter 3 out. At earliest if chapter 2 becomes massive then maybe as a bundle, but I don’t know.'

“Is chapter 2 free?”

'No it won’t be.'

FUNKAST THEN FNAF

'Other then a few minor tweaks we have the first few minutes of Rambleys dialogue at the beginning of chapter 2 written out.'

'I don’t think we’ll ever do a fox character. We were brainstorming some of the characters in chapter 2 and thought “oh maybe a fox would be cool” but we were looking at the role that this character would have to play if they were a fox and thought “at some point we’re just making knock off foxy from fnaf”'

“What the species”

'I cant disclose that sorry chief. There are other animal based cartoon characters in chapter 2 if that satisfies you. Furries rejoice I guess? I feel like it’d be harder to do a human villain.'

“How hard is it to make an idea of a character?”

'All of the characters we make need a purpose. It’s layers of talking through stuff and ideas to get stuff we like. The designs for them aren’t done but the idea for them is there and i am in love with them.'

“So the character design isn’t finished but have you made actual development of the game?”

'No. We’re working on chapter 1 right now. Again we’re looking at a year and a half or two years until chapter 2 cuz I’m not gonna rush it or my team. We’ll have little animations stuff and between yeah we’re not gonna do anything with that.

“Update is bug fixes, trying to get controller support working,revamping some of the environments and I’m bringing on a new modeler for some of the monster designs. Not confirming but i think Finley is going to get a full on redesign for chapter 2.”

“What chapter are you most excited for?”

'To be honest with you, i think chapter 3 is where we’re going to start doing the crazy shit possible and then chapter 4 is planned to be the most bad ass chapter i could ever think of. The story gets moving chapter 4.'

NEW FNAF GAME + INDIGO PARK NEWS

'It turned out that jakeneutron who’s my head animator, was going to Disney at the same time I’m at Orlando. We met up and we took so many pictures for reference. We went to universal studios and it was my first time we ever went to universal so I took so many pictures'

“Refs for what?”

'For indigo park bro. Dude I needed anything theme park and I got so many ideas for the future of indigo and stuff.'

“Salem news or I’m not here”

'Do I wanna put out Salem news..Salem is important 👍'

'I’ve kind of teased it a bit but we are working on some minor chapter 1 before chapter 2 just so there’s a bit of a quality jump so it’s a little bit more in the realm of where we want it to be.'

'We are working on some environmental updates. Working on some new assets to put into chapter 1. Which should make stuff feel cooler in my opinion? '

'To accompany that one thing we didn’t have a lot of is that environmental music in regards to what they would have in a real theme park. Like if ur waiting in a queue in a theme park there’s a lot of music and stuff that they play that is custom to that. Let’s say you were waiting for Rambleys railroads, what would that sound like? So maybe a little bit of new music?'

New potential song in clip link

FINISHING INTO THE PIT & NEW INDIGO PARK PLUSH LAUNCH PARTY

“Character hints?”

'I think you will be soft introduced or at least see the character designs before chapter 2s out. Right now at this point of development there are four new characters planned.'

“Is there gonna have a obby theme?”

‘Probably not really. I’ve talked about a little about a mechanic that we started to workshop and figuring out how it’ll work in the lore and gameplay elements but I probably won’t talk about it again.'

“Will there be a haunted house ride or a dark ride?”

'I want to do a haunted mansion parody hopefully chapter 4 or 5. Not in chapter 2 it wouldn’t fit.'

“Space mountain?”

'I have ideas for a space mountain and I can’t tell you what chapter that one will be in.'

'It’s funny cuz I’m reworking all of the chapter 1 environments and I’ve been thinking about it. There’s a fair enough of stuff that theorists haven’t caught onto yet that I hope will be super obvious in the future. I’m super excited to see what people do with chapter 2.'

HORROR GAME NIGHT & TALKING INDIGO PARK

“Will you be selling art prints maybe with posters?”

'We might do posters. There’s some new poster art coming for chapter 2 and I’m gonna leak, the (chap 1) update.'

“Now will they all have villain roles?”

'I dunno. I’ve already told you guys about some of them actually you guys just haven’t figured it out yet'

Talking about the 4 new characters

'I will say the chapter 1 update will have new secrets for you to find and some of it will help you figure out stuff in chapter 2. We are cooking is all I can say.'

“Whats ur favorite out of the 4 originals we know about since u said 4 new characters”

'Yeah let me just reveal one of the characters. No. You guys won’t- actually? You guys will know about some of the characters WAY before chapter 2 comes out.'

BACK FROM PAX! - WATCHING JACKSEPTICEYE PLAY INDIGO PARK & CATCHING UP ON FNF MODS

'there’s a little bit of the new queue! A little bit of a step up. I mean hot take but. Looks a lot better I think.'

Queue in clip

'We’re still working on it but this is what Mollies landing pad looks like now. This feels more themed.'

New mollies landing pad in clip

“Can you make an update trailer for the indigo park update so people know it exists?”

'Yea we will. We’ll change it.'

Extra notes worth mentioning:

it’s been said that there will be a meme ending for chapter 3 though I’m not able to find the clip at the moment so if anyone somehow has it u should tots send it my way

When he's talking about the 'Other character he voices that no ones found yet' it might be possible he’s yapping about the reverse Llyods Limos line Context:

Video is from forgottenstudios1987 on YT

The cat been brought back!

Another part of the new rambleys railroad queue song.

More of the New Rambleys Railroad Third link is just a very subtle railroads gift shop but it counts i think

Other landing pad clip

FEEL FREE TO ADD ANY OTHER CLIPS I MIGHTVE MISSED!

[boromirswife]

How I Make Gifs ~ For Anon ❤️

An anon asked me if I would ever consider doing a tutorial for how I make gifs! It's very flattering that you like my gifs enough to want to know exactly how I make them, so here is a little tutorial using my favourite character from my favourite movie ❤️

I might also make a separate tutorial for giffing dark scenes later 😌

Here's a download of my gif in PSD form if you'd like to get a better look at the settings I used.

Programs used: PotPlayer, Photoshop.

First, you need to get your screencaps. I would suggest using a high quality recording of whatever movie/TV show/video you want to make gifs of. My recording of Fellowship is in 1080p, and the quality looks incredible!

I use PotPlayer to get my screencaps. To do this, open the video file in the program and find the moment you want to gif. It's probably best to go back to just before that particular moment, and then press Ctrl + G. This will bring up the consecutive image capturer window. Below are the settings I use to get my screencaps:

Then, press start and wait for your moment to be captured! Once you've got everything you need, press stop and navigate to the folder that you indicated under storage. Here you will find all of your screencaps! You probably ended up with way more than you need (I know I certainly did 😅). Now, delete all of the screencaps that you don't want in your gif.

For the actual gif making, I use a cracked version of Photoshop. I don't exactly remember where I found it unfortunately, but I'm sure that there's people out there who might have some links handy if you look around! Once you've got PS open, navigate to File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack... and click on it! That will open the Load Layers window.

Now, change Use to Folder. Then, click browse and navigate to the folder that contains your screencaps. Click select folder, and after a few moments of loading your window should look more like this.

Then, press OK, and wait for your layers to load. Depending on how many caps you have, it could take longer. Once it's finished loading, you need to decide on your gif dimensions! For this, I decided on 268px x 225px. Once you've chosen your size, use the crop tool to get your gif to that size. Now, you should have a smaller image, like this:

The next step I do is to use this Photoshop action by @maziekeen. They have a little tutorial on how to use this action there, so I'll just say that once you've loaded it into your program, use part 1 / load into stack. Press the play button, and then the OK button on the two windows that pop up. Now, your gif will be nice and sharpened, and you'll be able to see it move for the first time! Here's what mine currently looks like, without any other edits:

Now, it's time to start on colouring. Every gif (or scene, sometimes you can reuse the same colouring if you're giffing an entire scene) is different, so it will have different needs. However, I tend to always use the same layers in the same order for all of my gifs — it's just the settings that change. I think the colouring of this particular scene is lovely, so I don't want to change it drastically, I just want to enhance it.

First, I create a Curves layer. At this point, I also like to make a group to hold all of my adjustment layers. This makes it easier for you to switch your adjustment layers on and off if you want to compare with the original colouring!

Going back to your curves layer, pick the little white eyedropper tool in the Properties tab. You want to find and click on the whitest area in the gif and make it a bit brighter! I picked the white in one of Boromir's eyes.

This is what my gif looks like now with the Curves layer:

Next, I use Levels. It's a very subtle change, but you can notice a slight darkening of the blacks in the image. Here's my settings for this layer:

And here's the gif with this step applied. Like I said, it's a very subtle change:

Up next is Brightness & Contrast. This layer is just a case of messing around with the settings until it looks right for you. You don't want to make it look too bright or too contrasted, though, because it will make the colouring look weird.

A bit more of a change this time! We're getting there:

Next, I like to do Colour Balance. Sometimes I wait and do the Selective Colour layer first (it'll still be above Colour Balance though), but with this gif, I decided to do it first. I want Boromir in the foreground to contrast more with the watery background, so I upped the Red in the Midtones. I think Midtones is the most important part of Colour Balance, so the Highlights and Shadows are more minor adjustments here.

Here's the gif with the Colour Balance layer!

Now, we have Selective Colour. Like I said before, I sometimes like to do this layer and then go back to the Colour Balance to make minor adjustments. For this gif I mainly focused on slightly reducing the cyan in the reds and yellows to add a little more colour to Boromir's tunic and hair.

I'm a big fan of bright, vibrant gifs, so I like to use the Vibrance layer copiously.

I upped the vibrance to max, but it's left Boromir's face looking a bit too red and his neck is a little pink, so I went back and did some minor adjustments to the Colour Balance and Selective Colour layers to fix that. Then, voila!

Now that we're done with colouring, go back to the beginning of the timeline at the bottom the screen. Then, go back to Actions and scroll down to the bottom, and look for the action called part 2 / finishing. Just like with the first action, press the Play button and it will work its magic!

Press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + C, and try playing your gif from there. Sometimes, the gif will be too fast and you'll need to slow it down, and you can't always tell until you play it in the 'Save for Web' window. I ended up slowing mine down from 0.05 to 0.07.

Once your gif is looking just right, press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + C again. These are the settings I use to save my gifs, and I think it makes them look really nice! Then click Save, and save your gif wherever you want.

Now, once you've saved your gif, you can post it to Tumblr (if that's what you're wanting to do) or simply keep it to yourself! But I'm sure that others would love to see your creations :D

***

A little extra info - this gif doesn't have text because there's no dialogue, but these are the settings I use for gifs with text (the text size depends on the dimensions of the gif):

Sometimes I use white text, sometimes I use yellow. And if there's more than one person talking I use both!

I hope that this tutorial was helpful, and if you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

[aashiqeddiediaz]

Hi!

I was just wondering if you have a tutorial on how you created this effect in your gifset, it's something I'd like to try but have no idea where to start. Your set is so pretty! Any helps appreciated x

https://www.tumblr.com/tawaifeddiediaz/712911415428743168/ill-take-you-with-me-then-well-both-die-you?source=share

Hey Nonnie, thank you! This is super late, but I don't actually have the psd for this set anymore (I delete them as soon as I post them), so we're just gonna wing it with a gif I made the other day. I think this ask is about the text, but if it's anything else, just drop me another line and I'll get to it when I can!

I'm pretty sure I got this tutorial from the wonderful @eddiediaaz but I then turned it into Lazy Girl Hours :)) anywho, here we go!

We’ll be making this gif:

This tutorial assumes basic knowledge of gif-making, Photoshop, and coloring. I’ve only described the typography tutorial in this, but you can reach out if you have any questions.

Tutorial under the cut:

Couple things to note beforehand:

There is a lot of trial and error involved when doing any sort of effect, and this is no exception! You might have to play around with the colors and the settings before you find something that looks good and readable and that fits your set!

This text effect works better on big gifs (540px width).

For this, I find that a simple font works better than a fully-cursive one, but play around with what you like. The boxes may need some adjusting if you use a font with too many tall or tail letters (i.e. text where all the letters aren't on one uniform line - that's why capital letters work so well.)

Movement works really well with effects like these, but again, it depends on your gif + readability. If you have a blended gif, it may take a little more trial and error.

I work in frame animation for all my text effects, but this works just as well in timeline as well.

We’re going to start with this gif:

First, I like to put my text on the gif. You can obviously move this around later so don't worry too much about how it looks right now.

The dialogue is "Just don't feel it." "Feel" is one of those Big Words for this quote, so I'm going to emphasize it with cursive text.

I am using Moon for the sans serif text, and Santa Fe Spring for the cursive text. Keep both of these in white for now:

Next, we're going to use the rectangular marquee tool to draw our rectangles around the capital letters (we're not touching the cursive text right now). I just eyeball this, and then try to center it as much as possible.

(The rectangular marquee tool has a keyboard shortcut of M, and it's the second tool in that little toolbar on the left of most people's Photoshop.)

This is what that'll look like:

Next, we're going to go down to the icons at the bottom right of the layers panel and select the half-black half-white circle > Color Fill.... You should get a color dialogue box. Choose your color - I'm using #8d0000. Then, we're going to move that layer below the corresponding text layer, and set its blending mode to Difference. This is what that looks like (click the image for better quality):

I'm going to repeat that with the other two boxes as well, using the same color. The boxes will look different with the Difference blending mode because of the shadows underneath.

For example, the box with "it" looks like a solid red square because it's against a completely black background, while the other two have some blue shading to them since there are some highlights behind them.

This is what my gif looks like now:

Next, I like to go The Lazy Girl™ route and put all three color-fill layers into one group underneath all the text layers. This just lets me edit the drop shadow of all three of them at the same time.

Right-click the group and open up the Blending Options. In Drop Shadow, these are the settings I'm using. The drop shadow color is #0c6477:

(Note: uncheck "Use Global Light" especially if you're working in frame animation to make sure all the drop shadow has the same angle on all frames.)

This is what my gif looks like now:

Now that we've finished that, time to move on to the cursive text.

I usually match the cursive text to the palette of the rest of the text, and since the drop shadow is our "accent" color, so to speak, I'm going to use a lighter version of that color. I am also going to add a drop shadow for readability.

The color I used for the text is #acfffe and I actually ended up adding two drop shadows, just because I needed something subtle that doesn't overwhelm the text, especially since it's a delicate font. Here are the settings for both layers:

And here's what my gif looks like now:

Now, before we move on to the lines, just check the adjustment of all these text layers, see if there's anything you want to change. It's easier to change now than after the lines are added, since you'll most likely have to redraw them if you move the boxes after the fact.

To draw the lines, we're going to use the Line Tool. I just freehand all of this, and I try to go from center to center of the boxes when I can. It all depends on your angles.

My lines are 2px thick, but you can change these depending on your preference. Here's what mine look like right now:

We're going to do the same lazy hack that we did for the color fill, and put all three line layers into a group. Move this group below the text layer and the color fill layers. The reason for this is so that the lines look like they're coming seamlessly from the box, rather than from on top of them or something.

Then, set the group to opacity 50%. I like more subtle, simple looks in my gifs, so I don't like super high opacities.

And that's it! This is our final gif:

Some final notes:

Absolutely play around with the blending modes of the color fill layers for this effect. These two gifs are the exact same color we've been using, just two different blending modes. You can see how drastically different they look. The first one is Linear Dodge (Add) and the second one is Vivid Light:

It can change how your gif looks in a BIG way, so play around with it, see what you like, especially if you don't really like the "two toned" thing going on.

Sometimes, I also like playing with the width and height of the text in the font settings, making it shorter and wider, or making it taller and more compact. You can play with the letter spacing as well. The world is your oyster, etc etc.

One other thing I've started doing is erasing the lines with a big brush, just to fade them from his face a little, like this:

To do that, use a layer mask on the line layer folder, and a brush that's 0% hardness, and at least 200px big. For this gif, I also changed the opacity of the lines back to 100% so the fading effect is a little more pronounced:

(this gif isn't the best example for this, but oh well. Anywho, hope this helps, Nonnie! Let me know if you have any questions.

Enjoy!

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence:💙Choice exploration + finished scenes💙

Hello and welcome new followers, here's an update on how things are going with the game! Firstly a big thank you to the sudden influx of support I got this week, I'm happy knowing people liked the little meme video I did! :,]

This post might be a little long since I had to rewrite a few things, I was trying to upload a picture of one of the new areas you can go in but I got an error and couldn't save what I wrote. :,S

Anywho, I mainly focused on quality of life changes and continued working with the one of the endings you can get at the start of the game.

I don't really know where to start but this ending took a lot longer than expected to really hit what I've been trying to go for. At first, it was going to have two different endings. I took out one of them because I didn't have much of a connection with it and I liked the idea of it being straightforward instead. When I went back over it, everything happened too quickly for my liking. To fix this I went back and added a few choices to at least give you an idea of what the area is like and how it effects the player(Y/N) while making sure the dialog transitioned correctly with what you see on the screen. It's nothing too wordy but I do like it a lot more than I did before. Even though this is still considered one ending there is a alternate version you can get depending on a certain choice. Towards the end I fixed up all the spelling errors I could find and happily enough, there wasn't many. For right now I'd say this ending is finished! Yay! x]

Here's one of my favorite CG's I drew for it:

I love how it turned out because I really want to do different angles and perspective through the terrain, I think this one is my favorite so far! :,,]

Here's a evening time version of it:

It's suppose to be raining in this image but I still need to practice getting the angle correct. :,,]

I'm also fixing/brainstorming up the second/third ending. This one will have two different areas you can navigate through to get an idea of where you are and a few hints of lore that will be referenced later on in the game. Those that have played the [Extended Demo] you probably know which ones I'm talking about. >;]

I already like the idea of them but for one of the paths, I didn't have enough time to branch it out and make backgrounds for it in the [Extended Demo] so here's a peek of a placeholder since I'm still sketching stuff out, nothing is finalized yet. :[]

Super close to the cabin section, yay! I actually miss writing/drawing out the segments in the cabin a whole bunch so I really can't wait to fix up that part once I'm done with the swamplands. :,,]

I said last week I'd post some of the new backgrounds/areas so here you go:

Kofi update:

I also had a small talk with my play testers and one of the things they brought up is that I should be promoting my ko-fi better so from now on I'll have little mini doodles doing so at the end of every game development post as a way to promote it! :] All donations and tips help tremendously while I work on the game. If you like what I create, please consider supporting what I do here! I was able to use previous tips to get a new wrist support brace when I'm drawing so a very big thank you to everyone who gave a tip! :,,]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here or on itch.io please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

I enjoyed answering the asks I got recently this week! I'm trying to finish the rest when I can including the ones I remember that got deleted. There were some I genuinely couldn't answer because it would require me to mention major spoilers/the questions have spoilers in them. :,]

This post is getting really long now so that's all I have to discuss, thank you guys very much for all of the encouraging support this past week, I appreciate it a whole bunch! :,,]

[lucascsinclairs]

I got an ask about my gif making process, and my reply started getting way too long so I figured I'd make an updated gif tutorial/a rundown of what my giffing process looks like today. I hope this is helpful!

The anon mentioned how they really want to start making gif posts but they don't know how to, and I really was in that same spot three years ago, seeing all the pretty gifs people were making and wanting to do the same thing but just not knowing how.

I taught myself to make gifs from many different tutorials I found on here, and now years later my method is a mix-match of all of them. In this post I’ll go through my personal process but first I will link some great resource blogs that have more in-depth tutorials and resources on all different aspects of gif-making.

Both @usergif and @completeresources have great organized tutorial pages that I check all the time for different techniques. They’re so helpful! For beginners I’d recommend *these * *tutorials* for example.

For a walkthrough of my giffing process, keep reading!

First steps

Alright, let's start with the basics: I make my gifs on Photoshop and I currently have the 2023 version, so keep that in mind when looking at the screenshots I included, since there can me small differences between versions.

There are really two main ways to start out the giffing process on Photoshop. You can take consequent screenshots of the scene you want to gif and then use ‘Scripts’ and ‘Load Files into Stack’ to load them into Photoshop. I used to use this method before, and my previous giffing tutorial explains all the steps for it, as do the gif tutorials I linked. 

But these days I use the other method, which involves making a shorter clip of the scene you want to gif and then using 'File' > ‘Import’ > ‘Video Frames to Layers’ to import the clip into Photoshop.

The difference between the two methods isn’t really that big, just up to personal preference and what fits your workflow best. I think the reason why I switched over was just cause I found it annoying dealing with all the screenshots.

My current process starts with opening a clip I want to gif with ‘Video Frames to Layers’. In the window that opens, I use the little arrows to select the exact shot I want to use. Here it's good to include a couple frames from before and after the exact shot you want to gif. That way you can make sure to get the whole shot included.

When the frames load up, this is what my set up view looks like. It might look different depending on the version of Photoshop, and also depending on your personal customizations, but this is what my workspace looks like. In order to get this view, make sure you have 'Timeline' selected from the 'Window' menu from the top bar.  

Real quick to help make the tutorial more clear even if you’re not that familiar with Photoshop yet, the three main views I’ll be talking about are the frames, the layers and then the adjustments. Frames are the little film-reel-looking horizontal row on the bottom, and the layers are the vertical stacked row on the right. I have the adjustments on the right above the layers.

To start off, we’ll be working with frames. Since I selected some extra buffer frames from the clip in the import phase, now I'll first delete those frames that I don’t need by selecting a frame and then clicking the little trash can icon under the row of frames. When you are left with the shots you want to use, go to the menu of the three little lines on the top right of the frames view and pick ‘Select All Frames’.

Now that they’re all selected, you can set the frame delay. This basically just means how “quick” your gif will be. There are different preferences to this, but generally you’d want to pick a delay from 0.05 to maybe 0.1 for really short gifs that you need to be slower. My go-to is a frame delay of 0.07.

Whichever number you go with, you’ll chance it by clicking the tiny downward arrow on one of the frames (with all the frames selected). From the window, pick ‘Other’ and then type in your number.

Resizing and cropping

After this it’s time to resize and crop your gif. Here there are again some different methods you can use, in my previous tutorial I used the Crop tool and then resized the image. But these days I do this in a different way. Again, what way you use is all up to preference.

So what I do is make sure that all the frames are selected, and then from the menu I pick ‘Copy Frames’. After copying the frames, I make a whole new file from ‘File’ and ‘New’. This will be the canvas where I’ll make the final product of the gif, making it the exact size I want the gif to be. I prefer this method because with it you can alter the cropped area easier to see what looks best. Also this way if you’ve initially loaded a lot of unnecessary frames that you deleted previously, this way only the layers that are left transfer over and it’s less bloated in the layers panel.

In the "New Document' window pick your gif size (keep in mind the Tumblr dimensions of 540 pixels wide for big, all-across gifs, and 268 pixels wide for side-by-side gifs). With today’s gif I went with the dimensions of 540x450.

When the new file opens up, select ‘Create Video Timeline’, then from the bottom left corner click ‘Convert to Frame Animation’ and then from the three-line menu select ‘Paste Frames’. After your frames load in, you can delete the first blank frame.

Now you will resize and crop your gif. Make sure to select all frames again and then press CTRL/Command + T to activate the Transform tool. Use the guide lines that appeared to drag and resize the gif to fit your canvas. Play the gif by clicking the play button under the frame row to test how it moves within the canvas and move it around until it looks right. You can also go and change the canvas size from ‘Image’ and ‘Canvas Size’ if you want to.

At this point my gif looks like this:

When you’re happy with the cropping, it’s time to start adjusting the gif!

Lighting

For coloring and lighting the gif, we’ll move over to the right to the Layers panel. Make sure you have the top layer selected. We will be using Adjustment Layers to change the appearance of the gif, and they will change the layers below them, so this way we make sure the changes apply to all layers. 

There really are so many ways you can edit and adjust your gifs, these are just the methods I use the most. So, open up the Adjustments view and let’s get started!

(side note: Lighting dark scenes is a whole different topic, so for this basic tutorial I picked a well-lit shot so we won’t have to worry about all of that when lighting it.)

I usually start with the Curves layer. Pick the bottom eyedropper tool on the left, with the white tip. With this, click on the brightest part of the gif to set the white point. This is especially useful with gifs that have some kind of a color tint (for example the green hue in the Hawkins Lab flashback scenes). By picking the white point, it will adjust not only the lighting but also the hues of the gif.

After picking the initial white point, you can go in and adjust. From the RGB dropdown menu, pick the individual color channel (Red, Green, Blue) and drag and adjust the curve until the colors and lighting look good to you. Here again, it’s all up to your personal preference. I personally prefer coloring that is more on the warmer side, so in this phase I usually strengthen the reds in the gif and tone down the greens. Remember, this is just the first phase of coloring, it doesn’t have to look perfect right away. 

Next, go back to Adjustments and make another Curves layer on top of the first one. This time pick the top eyedropper tool with the black tip. Then click on the darkest part of the gif to set the black point. I don’t always do this, especially with dark scenes, but in neutral lighting like this, it can help with the contrast and make the coloring more vivid. Here you can once again adjust the RGB curves individually until you’re happy with the result. Oh but don’t think we’re done with the Curves layers just yet! After the white point and black point layers, I usually open a third Curves adjustment layer for lighting the gif. Here I usually stick to the overall curve, not going into the individual color channel ones. I drag and adjust the curve to make the lighting of the gif look good. And here’s what my gif looks like with all the Curves layers:

The brightness is starting to look pretty good now, but I’ll just add a couple more adjustment layers that I usually use. Again, this is just my process, all the layers aren't always essential and their usefulness really varies depending on the specific shot you’re working with. My advice, especially when starting out with adjustment layers, is to try out different adjustments to see what they do and how they make the gif look. If it looks bad, no worries, just CTRL/Command+Z it away!

So at this point I usually apply a Levels layer to brighten a little and then to deepen the shadows a bit to up the contrast. Then a Brightness/Contrast layer and maybe an Exposure layer to help do the same thing. I find that by using the different tools and making small adjustments in each one, it makes the lighting look nice. After these layers, here’s what the gif looks like:

Coloring

Now it’s time for the actual coloring! My favorite part! There are a billion different ways to color a gif and a billion different styles to go for. Here I’ll be doing a pretty neutral, natural coloring, but I also love my exaggerated, color-themed sets. Let me know if you’d like to hear my tips for those in another post!

With my workflow, I usually begin coloring with a Selective Color adjustment layer. And on there, I tend to always go straight for the Yellow view. There my go-to is to drag down the Cyan slider, since like I mentioned, I usually go for a warm-toned look. Here again my advice is to just mess around with the different sliders, see what they do, test them out to find a coloring you like. You can do the same thing with the Hue and Saturation layer, picking different colors in the gif and adjusting them to how you want them to look. The shot we’re working with doesn’t need a ton of color manipulation, so I won’t be doing too much with these layers, but they allow you to make some really cool colorful stuff! 

The Color Balance adjustment is up next, and it’s great at unifying the colors and also making the color shades look nicer after lighting. Especially with dark gifs, brightening a scene can make the darks look a bit muddy, so editing the Shadows of Color Balance can help with that. 

And lastly when I’m done with all the coloring layers, I apply a Vibrance layer on top, usually to up the Vibrance and Saturation, since I love my bright saturated colors. This shot is pretty bright on its own so I won’t have to tweak it a lot. 

Once I’ve got all the adjustment layers in place, I’ll usually group all of them together. You can do this by selecting all the adjustment layers and then pressing CTRL/Command+G to put them into a group folder. I like to have it organized like that and it also makes it easier to look between the original gif and the adjusted one by toggling the little eye icon on the left of the folder. This way you can check if there’s something you still want to change, or if you want to tone down some adjustments. With today’s gif I went and lightened the shadows a little. But after that I was happy with the coloring, and the gif looked like this:

Sharpening

It’s almost time to export the final product! But before that I'll sharpen the gif. I know many people like to sharpen their gifs before coloring them, that’s a pretty common way to do it. This is just the order I learned to do this in. I think it’s fun to sharpen last so that it’s kind of like a final polish to the gif! 

To prep the gif for sharpening, go to the bottom left of the frames and select ‘Convert to video timeline’. Now go back to the right and select all the layers in the layers view, the adjustment layers and all. Then with all of them selected, right-click to open a menu and from it, pick ‘Convert to Smart Object’. Now your layers are all in one object.

From the top row menu, pick ‘Filter’ then ‘Sharpen’ and ‘Smart Sharpen’. In the window that opens, pick these settings:

Then repeat the same thing, with the Smart Object still selected but now apply these settings:

(I have made these steps into an action, so I can do it with a simple click)

Exporting

With the sharpening done, our gif is ready!

To export it, go to ‘File’ and ‘Export’ and ‘Save for Web (Legacy).

A window opens up showing you the export settings. The first thing I do in this window is check the size of the gif, which can be found in the bottom left under the preview image. The Tumblr gif size limit is 10MB, so you need to stay below that. If the gif is bigger, I go back and make it shorter by deleting frames from the start or end of the gif. There are other ways to reduce the file size, but this is usually what I do. With today’s gif the size is around 5MB so we’re all good!

If you want to preview the gif in a moving form, click ‘Preview’ from under the file size, and it will open in your browser.

On the right of the preview image in the Export window you can see a bunch of different settings. In the screenshot you can see the settings I use, you can test them out and then tweak them to your liking. I usually keep them the same, though sometimes if there’s some pixelation in areas of the gif I test switching out ‘Adaptive’ to ‘Selective’ or ‘Diffusion’ to ‘Pattern’. But these are the settings I use in 99% of my gifs, and what I have found give the nicest end result for me.

When you’re all set with the settings you can save your gif into its folder and then you’re all done!

So there we have it! A basic rundown of my giffing process. I tried to keep it as clear and informative as possible, but I know I can get rambly so I hope this was helpful! For more details and tips, please refer to the tutorials I linked. There really are so many useful tutorials on here to learn from.

Lastly I'll add that making gifs is a creative art form and a skill like any other. You aren't going to be perfect at it on your first try, it takes practice and trial and error. When I look back on my first gifs I can see a hundred things that I would fix now that I have more experience. And the same will for sure be the case if I look at my current posts a couple years from now.

Figuring things out, learning what you like to gif and developing your style is what I find the most fun about the whole gif making process. I've been making them for three years now and I can say that I've developed a style that feels my own. And I swear, every time I see someone leave a tag to my post saying that they like my coloring and the style of my gifs, it always makes me so happy.

If you're thinking of starting to make gifs, I say go for it, give it a go, and have fun with it! 💛

[bucks-daddy-issues]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

tagged by @neverevan @made-ofmemories and @diazsdimples thank you!

How many works do you have on ao3?

6! I only started writing a little over a year ago and I am a very, very slow writer.

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

68,008

3. What fandoms do you write for?

9-1-1 only at the moment.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos:

I got a bed but I’d rather be in ours tonight (6.7k, Buddie, Explicit) Thighs and Eyes (3.7k, Buddie, Explicit) Kiss your lips blue (7k, Buddie, Explicit) I'll Be Your Gift, Give You Something Good To Celebrate (6.4k, Buddie, Explicit) Sweet Nothing (37.8k, Buddie, Teen and up)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes!!! Every time, comments absolutely make my day and I don't feel like my responses ever do justice to just how giddy I am when I get a nice comment!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't think any of my fics are even remotely angsty (though maybe some in the near future might be idk idk) but I don't think I could ever write something with an angsty ending. Happy endings only over here.

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

I think all of my fics have very happy endings but I'll go with Sweet Nothing maybe, as it's super happy with also hints at even more happiness in their future too. :)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

So far no, thank god.

9. Do you write smut?

Most definitely, four of the six fics I have up are smut but I always like to put a lot of plot in there too!

10. Craziest crossover?

I don't write crossovers, it's just not my thing personally.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of, I really hope not.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, put people are welcome to as long as they link my fic :)

13. Have you co-written a fic before?

No but I hope to soon!

14. All time favorite ship?

Buddie buddie buddie buddie buddie

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I have a few I started when I first got into 911 that would need some crazy reworking to still make sense but I'm still hopeful lol. The hangover au is really hanging on by a thread because the 911 writers blatantly stole my idea to steal the hangover movie's idea (jk) I'll definitely still write it but it's kinda been put on hold.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at writing descriptively? I also get some lovely comments on how I write emotions which makes me very happy :)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I think my pacing could use a lot of work. Sometimes things feel a little too fast and other times I go on for too long. My dialogue can also be hit or miss depending on the character.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I can't speak any language other than English and like super basic Irish so I just don't trust myself to write in another language well. If I had someone's help I would be open to it though.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

I think I wrote one direction fics back when I was like 12-15 but I only actually posted one fic before I started writing for 911 and that was destiel about a decade ago (and it was deleted like 6 months later)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Ahhhh I'm not sure, I have things I both love and hate about all of them, but I think I have to pick Sweet Nothing because I put my heart and soul into that fic for months and it inspired me to keep writing longer fics.

I feel like most people have already been tagged so sorry if you've already done this, but tagging: @wikiangela @watchyourbuck @spagheddiediaz @thewolvesof1998 @rogerzsteven

@jesuisici33 @sunshinediaz @daffi-990 @rainbow-nerdss @theotherbuckley

+ whoever else wants to do it!

[astroninaaa]

hi thanks for your explainer posts on the legal stuff, they're super interesting! i'm currently studying for the exam you have to take to get into US law schools (since theyre graduate programs here unlike in most places where law is an undergraduate degree) so its really interesting to learn a bit about how the law functions differently in other places!

one thing i'm curious about -- when i first saw the info about cellbit being able to get the twitter info for these accounts, i assumed that he wasn't actually going to go through with suing ALL of them, and it would be more likely that most of them would simply get some sort of cease-and-desist letter instead, with maybe just a couple having full legal processes to use them as examples. However, I saw people on twitter saying that the process is actually a lot more simple than i had assumed and also takes place mostly online, so suing all of them would actually be more realistic than it sounds. do you know anything about that? how likely do you think it is that he actually sues all of these people (and also the other batches of accounts that probably just aren't public yet that hes also gonna go after later lol)

hi anon!!! good luck on your exam, i really really hope you get in!!!! law is So Cool.

yes it is a LOT more simple than that. he wouldn’t need to sue them individually, and in brazil nowadays we do a LOT if not almost all of court/lawsuit work through the internet. mediation meetings are done through zoom. oral sustentation as well. it’s preeeetty chill

if he wants to, i’m absolutely sure he can sue all of them at once pretty easily. it depends on what his strategy is tho. i think sending cease-and-desist letters could also be a good call and probably way easier than suing hundreds of people, because even tho it’s simpler than it sounds, it’s still fucking hard /lh

even tho the crimes committed are basically the same, the degree of fucked up shit said throughout the many accounts and tweets varies quite a bit, so even tho he could sue everyone in the same lawsuit, it would still be 😭😭😭 a MESS and the judge might think the situations are too different bc of that varying degree and ask him to do different lawsuits anyway. so, like, how worth it would it be?

i don’t know how likely it is for him to sue everyone because that depends on him and his lawyer and what they think will work best, but i think he did the most important bit already — which was getting twitter to delete all the tweets, which they already have (they actually turned in to court with all the proof that they deleted everything like, this week, iirc). if he wants to sue everyone, he can, but i think he also can just sue the worst ones and that’d be wayyy easier. there’s also the whole discussion on whether or not he can sue the foreigners. so while he technically could sue everyone, can he sue the non-brazilians? the judge still has to decide that

so yes like technically he can and if he really wants to drive home the point of “you’re not free of consequences for what you say on the internet” he def should, but i think it depends on his strategy here.

[mirasmirages]

Scars (part 8)

first previous masterlist

Has: platonic co-sleeping, texting, pizza, nightmares, scar reveal, torture mention, trial mention, fluff

James and his family belongs to @starliight-whump

~

James awoke after a night with no nightmares to find Henry climbing over him to get out of his bed.

"Hey," Henry said when their eyes met. "You're awake. I'm sorry I'm leaving, I have to get to work. Do you want me to come back later?"

James nodded, not yet fully awake. He stayed in bed for a while after Henry left, staring at the ceiling, taking in just how calm he felt. When was the last time he had slept like that?

He sat up and found his phone that he had turned off however many days ago. When he tried to turn it on it was out of power, so he plugged it in and waited for it to power up. When it did, the screen filled with missed calls from Julia, and messages from Henry.

Good morning :-)

Someone brought a service dog to the library today! A very good boy!

We got another penguin book today :-)

A picture of the penguin book.

Is everything okay?

Let me know if I'm bothering you.

I'm getting a bit worried. Did something happen?

Did I do something?

Met this little guy on my way to work.

A picture of a grey tabby cat.

Seriously, James, are you okay?

I'll give you some space if that's what you need.

Please text me so I know you're alive.

Henry had really worried about him. It made him feel guilty that he hadn't even taken the time to look at his phone.

Sorry, he texted.

It only took a minute for Henry to reply.

No worries! Thanks for talking to me.

James typed out several replies and deleted them before settling on a simple, Thank you.

-

Taking advantage of this unusual calm, James took a shower and washed his hair, shaved, and brushed his teeth for the first time in too long. It made him cringe to think how bad his breath must have been when Henry was there.

He went downstairs to find his mom in the kitchen, cleaning up after breakfast.

"James! You're up!"

She opened her arms in offer, and he let her give him a hug.

"You need to eat, sweetie. What do you want?"

James didn't really feel like eating, but he asked for cereal to make his mom happy. She sat at the table with him, looking hopeful and worried in equal amounts. He stirred his cereal with the spoon.

"Um, Mom?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Can we call the lawyer? I have to ask something."

Mom texted the lawyer, who called them not long after for a fifteen minute chat. At the end of it, James was exhausted, but less worried about the trial. The lawyer had promised Harrison wouldn't be there, and said James could record most of his testimony beforehand, so he would barely have to talk in front of people. It was still a lot, that he would have to talk through everything on video, but nowhere near as bad as if he'd had to do it in front of people, especially in front of Harrison.

He went back to bed after the call ended and stared at the wall for a few hours.

-

There was a knock on the door, and before James could answer, Henry let himself in. He was holding a pizza box in his hands.

"Hey," he said, and did a double take at James's cleaner appearance. "Wow, you look nice. I thought you might be hungry, so I brought food."

James sat up, and Henry placed the box between them on the bed and opened it.

"Does this count as more or less adult than frozen pizza?" James asked, taking a slice after Henry did.

"More," Henry said. "You need adult money to pay for takeout."

"I'm pretty sure you can buy a pizza with kid money too."

Henry shrugged. "Depends on the kid, I guess."

They ate together--Henry ate half a pizza and James managed two slices--and as it got late, James started worrying that Henry would leave. Would it be too much to ask him to stay over again? It would. But … he did say he wanted to help.

"Could you … could you stay? Tonight?"

"Of course I'll stay." Henry didn't even hesitate. "Just tonight? Or should I think about bringing a toothbrush and some extra clothes next time?"

James blushed. "Um. It's just … I didn't have any nightmares. Last night. It helped. You don't have to, if--"

"I'm not making fun of you," Henry said. "I'm happy to stay. I just like to be able to brush my teeth in the morning."

"I think we have extra toothbrushes."

-

When Henry came back the next day, he brought a bag with clothes and toiletries, and for the next few weeks, he was always there when James went to bed. Sometimes they spent the day together, and sometimes Henry was gone until the evening, but he always made sure to be there when James went to sleep and when he woke up.

James started going to therapy again, and gradually he spent more time out of bed. His nightmares weren't completely gone, but diminished enough that he usually woke up feeling like he had gotten some rest. The exception was the week he recorded his testimony, when he woke up every night kicking and screaming, trying to climb out of a too deep grave while Harrison filled it with dirt, trying to break out of the coffin, trying to get away while Harrison broke his bones and cut his skin and burned him.

"James."

"No, no, please! No more, stop, please!" James twisted, trying to break loose from the ropes holding him.

"James! Wake up, you're home!"

James flinched when the room filled with light, and squinted in confusion as the room turned out to be his bedroom, and not Harrison's basement. The person talking to him wasn't Harrison, it was Henry.

He didn't let Henry touch him at first, just sat on the edge of the bed staring at his shaking hands while he tried to remember how to breathe.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Henry asked.

James shook his head. He closed his hand around the point on his right arm where, under his clothes, Harrison's initials were burned into his skin. He didn't know if he could talk about it. There was too much to tell. Henry hadn't even seen his scars, always hidden under long sleeves and high necklines.

After a while, the shaking calmed, and Henry was able to sit next to him and put an arm around his shoulders. James leaned against him, letting himself feel safe and protected.

"Can I show you?" The thought was out of his mouth before he could decide if it was a good idea or not.

"If you want."

Without giving himself time to change his mind, James pulled off his sweater. He could feel Henry go tense beside him, could hear the quiet gasp.

"James--"

"He liked knives." James ran his fingers over the scars covering his chest. "They were his favorite. He kept comparing it to me being a surgeon operating on people." He turned his arm so Henry could see the brand. "This is where he burned his initials, so everyone who saw it would--would know who I belonged to. And these," he pointed to the dark scars ringing his wrists, "are from when he decided to destroy my hands. He would tie them up too tight for hours, and then he made me play the piano, to see how much less I was able to do with each time. He broke my fingers too, but that didn't scar." He had scars on his back, too, but didn't point them out. Henry could see them well enough on his own. "A lot of it didn't leave scars." He didn't look at Henry. Wasn't sure he could handle seeing the pity on Henry's face.

"Shit, James." Henry moved as if he was going to touch James, but then thought better of it. He pulled up his own sleeve instead. "It's not the same, but … I started getting my tattoos to cover these." He showed James a series of small, puckered marks on his underarm. "My dad used to put out cigarettes on me when he was drunk. I kept doing it myself too, just so I could pretend it was no big deal."

James glanced up to meet Henry's eyes, then reached out to run his fingers over the colorful skin. The scars were old and faded, and with the limited sensation in his fingers, James could barely feel them at all. It made him angry to think of someone doing that to Henry. "How old were you?"

"Ten," Henry said. "At least I think that's when it started, after my mom died. He kept doing it until I came out at eighteen, and he threw me out."

Eight years. James had only had to get through one month. And when it was over, he had his entire family to take care of him. "That's horrible," he said.

Henry shrugged. "It was a long time ago. I didn't mean to make this about me, just that, you know. You choose what happens from here." He looked at the brand on James's arm. "It's your body, not his. You don't have to keep them like that if you don't want to."

James hadn't really thought about covering his scars in other ways than clothes. It wasn't as if a tattoo could hide the massive amount of scars he had. Laser treatments were an option, but again, he was covered in them. It was too much to ever get rid of completely. Still, doing something about the brand with Harrison's initials wouldn't be a bad idea. He didn't belong to him, so he shouldn't have a mark saying he did.

"Did it hurt?"

"Getting the tattoos? Yeah," Henry said, pulling his sleeve back down. "But it was worth it."

-

Henry came with him on the day of the trial, along with Julia and James's parents. They waited outside the courtroom until the videos were done playing, and then they went in, so James could tell the jury about his lasting injuries, and how he was unlikely to ever recover enough to go back to his job.

It went better than he had expected, and while he was a bit shaky at the end, he didn't feel the need to spend the rest of the day in bed. They wouldn't know the result of the trial for a few days yet, but the lawyer was confident Harrison would be found guilty.

That night before they went to bed, James took Henry's hand.

"Thank you for being here," he said. "I don't know how I would have managed without you these past few weeks."

Henry smiled. "I think you would've found a way even if I wasn't," he said. "You're stronger than you think. But I'm glad you chose to let it be me."

"Can I ask why? I mean … you have to have better things to spend your time on, right?"

"Because you're cute."

James's eyes flew to Henry's, surprised by such an open admission.

"I mean, that's not why I stayed. We're friends, and I like to help my friends. But at first? You were cute, and I had fun texting you, and I haven't figured out how to meet people without alcohol being involved."

"Oh," James said, not sure how to respond. Henry thought he was cute. And he thought Henry was … cute wasn't quite the right word for it. Hot, more like it. Fascinating, funny and attractive, and he made James feel safe in a way no one else did. "I … huh."

"Don't worry, I'm not trying to pressure you into anything. I'm happy staying as friends with platonic benefits, if that's what you want."

What did he want? James's eyes flitted around Henry's face, down to his lips, back up to his eyes. It felt like forever ago that he decided he wanted to do something about his crush, before the letter came and the trial took over his life. Now that the trial was over, he might actually be able to think about other things going forward. And Henry was very nice to think about.

"I think … that's not what I want," he said, testing out the truth of it as he spoke. "I like you. Like that. But … maybe we can take it slow?"

"Yeah?" The look on Henry's face was a mix of hopeful and happy that James had never seen before. "How slow are we talking?"

"Um … is it okay if we keep doing what we've been doing? For a while longer?"

"Yeah," Henry said. "Of course." He threw an arm around James's shoulders and pulled him close.

James closed his eyes and soaked in Henry's warmth, that solid body and unquestioning acceptance. Henry nuzzled his face against James's hair.

"Not that I mind waiting," Henry said after a minute, his voice almost too-casual. "But how long, do you think, before I get to kiss you?"

"Oh." James looked up. He didn't mind the thought of that at all. "I think … kissing is okay."

Henry's face broke into a grin. He cupped James's cheek in his hand "Yeah?"

James couldn't help but smile too. "Yeah."

[meetinginsamarra]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I've been tagged by @totallysilvergirl and @calaisreno TYSM!!

1. How many works do you have on A03?

51 in total

12 "real" fics and 21 ficlets and 18 covers (I didn't know how to embed on AO3 back then)

2. What's your total A03 word count?

271.977

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Sherlock BBC

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Mutual Attraction , Learn My Scars, The toe that didn´t belong, The embers still glow when I´m sober , Gravity is missing from everything

The last three are in fact a series called Here I Am

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

Of course! Always and quickly. I love comments, they make my day and fill me with happiness for hours. Not kidding!

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

None of my fics end angsty. Some of my ficlets might, possibly Time

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

They all end happily.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

There had been a few very weird comments on "Mutual Attraction" that were rude or offensive. Some had been deleted by the cowards who posted them later.

9. Do you write smut?

Yes, I have written porn and enjoyed it. I also write gen and everything in between. Depends on the story.

10. Do you write crossovers?

No, because I define "crossover" as a mix of two existing universes, like Sherlock x Star Trek for example. I have written several AUs though. Alternate Universes with the same characters of my show but placed somewhere else.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have been offered three times but declined because I personally am not comfortable with it.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No.

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

Johnlock

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

I have this fairy tale AU sitting in my drafts for literal years. 20k written and several attempts to take it up again, it is mostly plotted but just resists being finished. *sigh*

16. What are your writing strengths?

Learning by doing, I guess? I think of myself that I am versatile. Maybe writing movie-like action scenes. I remember that's been said in comments.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I honestly do not know. (Which is not me saying I can do everything perfectly!! I just try whatever I want.) Finishing the above mentioned fic possibly.

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

If it fits the story, why not? I write in English which is not my native language, so I could do German and some French and Italian, too.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Sherlock BBC.

I've actually never written anything before I started with Sherlock fanfic. I got this idea and it grew and I began to write it down just for me so that I would not forget it. Then I thought, why not write it into a fic? I've been reading a lot fanfic already. Over the course of two years (writing on and off) the idea had turned into a 94k fic. I only started posting "Mutual Attraction" when it was completed on AO3.

I still think it's funny because just imagine this. Never wrote a word of fiction before, not even in my native language. Then, first thing I produced is a novel-length fic written directly in English. Still seems surreal to me.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

I love all of my babies and will not choose a fave one. There are only faves in categories.

"Mutual Attraction" was my first and longest fic.

"Wretched and Divine" was the one that made me find my dear friend and beta @peageetibbs

Technically, I am most proud of pulling off "Learn My Scars" because it is 38k written under a huge amount of pressure due to daily posting for Whumptober 2022. Five weeks of intense writing madness but very rewarding, too.

AU and plot-twist wise it would be "The 13th Book ".

---------

So many people have done this but I think @shiplocks-of-love @shelleysprometheus @cumbercurlygirl have not been tagged yet. And anybody else who wants to share, please.

[wasyago]

I would like to know what your boundaries are when it comes to interacting with you.

are you ok with requests or questions that don’t have to do with your works

are you ok with receiving headcanons that are not relevant to or may contradict with what you already have 

how many asks are you comfortable with receiving at one time.

Are there other things that you want us to know about fan interaction that I didn’t think to ask about

hmm oh man no one has really asked this before... i think as a disclaimer i need to say that im pretty bad at replying to asks, and half of them get ignored and deleted because i either forget about them and get too anxious to reply, or just don't know how to reply and never do.

i dont really do art requests, so if anyone sends one it will most likely be ignored, and if its not related to what im posting it'll be ignored 100%. there are some exceptions of it, but i still don't appreciate people asking me to draw anything for free. i suppose i don't mind questions about stuff outside of my work! no one really asks anything so i don't have a good example of it, plus it all really depends on the context, but if its good I'll reply and if its something i dont like I'll just ignore it. so, same as with everything i guess, so those are okay 👍

about headcanons hmmm... not sure? i dont know how to properly reply to them if its not something im into apart from "oh thats interesting" and "nice". like, i don't really wanna say stuff like "that cool but i personally think that you're wrong and here are the reasons--" and take someone's headcanon apart? it just feels rude? even if i do process the headcanon in my brain and there's a thought process of how it fits or doesn't fit into my beliefs, i don't really want to say it out lound to not upset anyone? but saying all this, it is still nice to see headcanons from different people and different perspectives, to have some variety of views and opinions and more diversity. because you never know what you might like. so, i think all headcanons are good, if i know how to reply to them i will, and if i don't then i won't!

how many asks am i comfortable receiving umm, well, i don't have an exact number picked hsghd. i guess as many as you want if you really have a lot to ask? i do appreciate it when people keep asks topical tho. so, if you're asking about one particular thing, it'd be nice if it was all in one ask that is easy to reply to. and if you're asking about multiple different things it's better to send multiple short asks instead of a big one. because its hard to reply to billion unrelated questions in one post. so for example your ask is good because all the questions are on the same subject, but if you asked me about the weather halfway through and then swithed to an ask about jrwi, that i wouldn't reply to, yknow?

for other things... i already said about the art requests, which are like the main thing i really don't like. i guess some things are better asked in dm's than asks, if that's anything? especially if it's something more personal to you or requires an actual dialog, but i can see why it might be easier to send an ask first and move to dm's later, so its not a problem. hmmmm and i suppose just the general stuff, like don't send suggestive asks if i don't know you or you weren't clearly prompted to, don't be mean to me or others, even as a joke it doesn't feel good, remember that im just a random guy on the internet, im not a robot i have feelings, so talk to me like a person, don't spam the same question if i didn't answer it, etc.

i think that's it? thank you for asking!!

[firstelevens]

👀 🤗 🧠 (the latter for sam)

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

A lot of my headcanons are hobby-adjacent, I'm realizing. My favorite one for Sam is that he's the kind of person who likes to work with his hands, and particularly enjoys tinkering with mechanical things. I know we canonically see him working on Redwing and the boat, but I firmly believe that if he was unable to channel his energy into superheroing, he'd be taking apart toasters and wall clocks trying to make them work better. I've worked it into lots of fics and I firmly stand by it!

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

I'm gonna be honest, bud; it has been a rough time for WIPs around these parts and that's not likely to change, given that Ramadan is coming up and I usually don't have the energy to write then.

All I can offer you is this excerpt from a silly installment of the Formula 1 AU, which has been put on pause until my ability to write returns from the war

“There’s finally a real bed here and you have to leave for the airport at 6 AM tomorrow,” Bucky says, shucking off his t-shirt and flinging it towards a random corner of the room. “Take your pants off already, Wilson; the clock is ticking.” But Sam does not, in fact, take his pants off. He doesn’t even stand up. He stays exactly where he is, surrounded by an objectively stupid amount of throw pillows with his reading glasses perched on his nose. And then he smirks, reaches for the hoodie that Bucky abandoned a little while ago, and puts on an extra layer. Bucky blinks. Sam blinks back. The reading glasses are crooked from how quickly he pulled on the hoodie and it’s kind of adorable. “Seriously?” “Oh, was I supposed to be wooed by that?” asks Sam, straightening his glasses. “Efficiency is supposed to get me going?” “You made out with me in the backseat of the truck just for streamlining a grocery list.” “That was forever ago.” “That was last week.”

Third answer is under the cut because it got kind of long!

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

I think useful writing advice is SO dependent on what type of person/writer you are, but here's a few things that I think would be broadly applicable.

Save your scraps! An issue that I had when I first started writing and still deal with to this day is the impulse to just delete everything when a piece of writing isn't working out the way I want it to. I've learned now to just move that writing into a separate document where I keep all the fic scraps I've written that haven't really fit into a story. It's made me a better writer because now I don't spend all my time trying desperately to make a section of the story work with the rest of my idea, just so the time I spent writing it won't go to waste. I'm much more willing to cut something and if I know I won't lose it forever, and a lot of the time those extra bits of writing come in handy later on.

Trust your instincts. Write about the characters and emotions and experiences that interest you, no matter how wildly self-indulgent they are or how many other people have written the same thing. It's not magically going to mean you have no issues while writing, but it's a whole lot easier to work through a roadblock in your story when you care about what you're writing. (And the truth is that if you write about something you feel lukewarm about, all the kudos and comments in the world aren't going to make you feel less lukewarm about it. It'll always just be kind of meh, so you might as well chase the concepts you care about.)

Read widely. I was a mimic before I ever figured out what my own writer's voice sounded like, and I still shamelessly lift structures or turns of phrase from my favorite authors. I know we all go through times where it's just hard to get through books, but there's always poetry or essays or articles or even narrative podcasts if that's more your thing. Seeing other people do things with words is a really helpful way to mine information or inspiration, but it also helps you figure out what you like and don't like in writing, which makes it easier to figure out how to write things in a way that's satisfying to you.

Set aside a regular time for writing or thinking about writing. This is a skill I literally just picked up last year and it's the only reason I've managed to write the fics I did. Every chapter of the Bake Off AU was worked out during a little chunk of time that I had on Tuesdays where I would sit down at a coffee shop and outline things (by hand, because working with my computer was distracting) or make notes on dialogue/write up sections for the media interludes. Before that, my writing time used to be in bed before I went to sleep, making notes or adding a sentence to a doc on my phone. Even if it's just five minutes at a set time just once a week, if you do it enough, your brain will get into the habit of it. I still feel the itch to sit down and write on Tuesdays at 11, even when I'm in a slow period for writing. It's a nice way to remember that writer's block and packed out days don't last forever, and I'll find my way back to storytelling when my brain gets the time.