#a lot of the edits i want to make of them require scenes that dont exist yet (but probably will)

[man-destroyer]

tell us about ancient spanish?

Yeah!

so. In the beginning of my comic (I'm assuming you havent read it, if you have I'm sorry) the main character is getting established as sort of a "master bullshitter" and very lucky. He's not stupid, the reason he's alive is because he reads situations quickly and lies very well... and at this point my editor had been repeatedly treating him with this sort of bumbling idiot trope, so I was already a bit frustrated.

He's caught as a stowaway on a pirate ship, and is bullshitting a treasure hunt so the pirates keep him alive long enough that he could escape. So, he makes a fake treasure map in Spanish, hoping that the pirates won't know any... because if they can just kill him and take the map, they will. And one of them knows Spanish!

So, the joke I put in to resolve the situation (which I kept) was "but can you READ Spanish?" where he's banking on the pirate's illiteracy, and he lucks out because she can't read.

but my editor wanted him to say "but do you know... ancient spanish?" which makes no sense and isnt funny LMAO to me.

There were a lot of instances like this, but this is the one I remember the most because my editor like. argued with me on putting ancient spanish in there... It was a back and forth for a good bit.

[im-out-of-it]

part 12 of season 2, episode 20 continued “beside still water” Alec being fine for no reason

146. Alec: aren’t I fantastic?

147. Alec: my everything

148. he’s high warlock for now so he’s got this. MAN IT MAKES ME SAD EACH TIME HE SAYS THIS BECAUSE MAGNUS THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU GET THIS TITLE (until the end)

149. and I know some are like Magnus overreacted but he just went through the body switch, the trauma that came with that, telling Alec things he never told anyone, and then he comes to find out that Alec knew about the sword, didn’t tell him when he was about to. he felt betrayed but I don’t think people realise all that Magnus has just gone through.

he doesn’t ever want to be too much to handle and worries at times that Alec couldn’t handle him. from the start of the season, he says “I get it Im a lot to get used to” and this is something Alec doesn’t correct because he’s worked about jace being gone for unknown idiotic reasons.

and the problem with the writing is that while show malec is an improvement from the books, we don’t get to see them have full on conversations. the body switch episode had Alec say I’m sorry and tell me what to do with Magnus saying that agony rune made me live centuries and it’s left at that.

and then he shares a little about his trauma later but their conversations seem to be cut short a bunch. they should have talked more instead of having their conversation being cut short. and that’s something I feel the writes really messed up on. while they do communicate, things seem to be unresolved

150. I for one wanted them to talk more after their breakup and also before. I wanted more spotlight on Alec instead of turning it back to clace. it’s like they say one thing and the writers stamp RESOLVED. EXCUSE ME BUT THIS IS NOT RESOLVED. but at least Matt and harry did everything they could for malec

151. high warlock but in black and white

152. Alec: that’s my man everyone

153. my fav trio

154. every time I see this scene, I think of that fucking blooper where they look below and all laugh. don’t ever watch bloopers because you’ll never look at the real scenes again lmao (ones that end me: I can do this I’m a shadowhunter (lock), the pentagon instead of pentagram, Matt messing up with Alans handcuffs, harry drinking orange juice that was not prepared well, harry saying French crepes and Matt ending him (and pretty much all the times harry had to apologise to Matt lmao), harry flipping dom off with the body’s switch, and so much more)

155. that’s Alexander Gideon lightwood being perfect

156. the way Alec hops to Magnus real quick. petty boyfriends no more. egos aside, Alec has to save Magnus if opportunity presents itself

I would have loved to see a scene where Magnus was seriously injured and Alec spent that time freaking out and doing everything he could to save him (kind of like how when Magnus lost his powers)

imagine him meeting Catarina for the first time and being like save Magnus please I’ll do anything I’ll pay anything

I DONT KNOW I NEEDED SOMETHING DRASTIC IN THIS EPISODE WITH MALEC INSTEAD OF JACE

157. I just really love the edit of this

158. Alec and Magnus saving the day

159. I also love the way Magnus says this as if he’s trying to calm himself down and give himself the confidence he requires

resuming 160 for the next part

[kosmicdream]

What does your planning process look like? You mentioned not usually doing a full script, do you do something like page 57) knives get stabbed page 58) knives stabs the other guy page 59) intense backstory reveal or is it structured in a different way?

(replying to old ask, hope you dont mind!)The way I structure my scripts is in a very different way. For starters, I’ve never broken down it by panels/pages, as that comes when I am finally sketching them to give me more flexibility with pacing. It also just doesn’t make sense for me to, as I haven’t drawn them yet. The way I have constructed my scripts has changed a lot over the many years or making comics, but that hasn’t ever been part of the process. My scripts are written scene by scene, and broken down by character action/dialogue, sometimes including both and are written in script style. Sometimes I include notes for lore or something to keep in mind for myself, that might be a visual detail or something about an expression I want to remember. I don’t always write dialogue but I usually keep a rough draft of the dialogue exchange or purpose of what might say so i understand the goals intended, or include jokes I want to remember. The dialogue usually changes the most even if the end result functions more or less the same, just because of how the panels end up being drawn in the end usually changes up the flow and I will have to accommodate that. I break down the comic script scene by scene, then section by section, and usually end up with about 8-10 parts to a comic script and each of those parts can vary in page number of script. Its not exact, but usually 25 pages of script is about 250-300 pages of comics. FFAK comic scripts have been, when I write them, over 50 pages. But I chapter 16 is going to hopefully be the last of these, as its 47 pages long and I have made the other chapter scripts in arc2 around 20-30 pages long instead. Most NRD scripts barely reach 20 pages, but those sometimes have been even shorter as I tend to prioritize slow paced scenes, which don’t really require me to write a lot in script format.  They read more or less like a script for a screenplay for a movie but a lot rougher since I don’t need to polish these more than what i need. When I finish a scene I will grey out the text to make it easier to find where i left off. When the scene is done, I mark a date when it finished so i can see my progress at a glance. I slowly transitioned into writing scripts around chapter 10-12 but only fully was writing them by 13. I also only had a rough outline for NRD before I started to full scripts, although I can’t remember when that process also happened. It was probably chapter 2 or 3 though. Now, all of NRD/FFAK are written out this way until the end, but I still make edits along the way (mostly for FFAK, as its so long) to change up the pace of chapters and make things more compact.

(example of the top of the script to track progress, this ones for chapter 16! i have hidden the titles for parts 10-12 lol)

[identity-theft-101]

Not sure why and not going to think more about it but maybe Lilia would like to hear stuff about cinematography? I feel like it's a maybe with Vil? Definitely with Rook as I feel like Rook would listen to anyone about anything because he

Heck I bet talking about cinematography to Grim, Ace, and Deuce may get them wanting to make a short film.

I do think I'd find random info about cinematography interesting. Any random tidbits ya want to share?

Lilia would probably enjoy my bullshit!

(Vil and rook scare me lol)

Random knowledge:

Framing of scenes can be super important for the story! Making the choice to have certain items or a certain POV for a shot can complete change the intended energy for a scene.

The vertigo effect was invented in the 1940's and used for the movie 'Rebecca' but it didn't get the desired effect right until 1958 with the film 'Vertigo'.

It is created by rolling the camera AWAY from the Focus and simultaneously zooming IN. It is used to create an air of dramatic unease!

My least favorite equipment piece is a crane due to the annoyance of setting up and moving the sucker.

My favorites are the gimble and shoulder mount!

Gimbles are used to create a steady-cam while the camera has to move a lot. This is really handy for action scenes if you want a POV that's kinda IN the action!

They are basically good for anything that requires the camera to be moving frequently to maintain certain shots and you DONT want the camera to shake artistically.

Extreme Close Ups are a good way to make the scene feel claustrophobic or like it's closing in

My favorite film in a cinematic sense is "The secret Life of Walter Mitty"

Other bullshit:

Audio is the make or break with many films. If you have shit audio and it's not artistically intentional, restart.

You can get the best sound effects by doing the weirdest thing!! (Tree fall down? Break/eat celery next to the mic)

This is called 'Foley' and its one of of my favorite things!

I was often in charge of soundtracks becuase I loved keying up sound effects and music tracks! I also have big ass Audiophile style headphones.

Horror films aren't scary to me because I am too busy looking at the camera angles and giggling like a fangirl

My favorite silent film is Nosferatu

I have hearing loss from being the designated sound guy- People always yelled into my mic as a prank (I would have a headset plugged into the mic to make sure i got good sound)

I also often doubled as a "SCRIPT SUPERVISOR" which is in charge of continuity between shots, (ie I made sure your hat didn't change to a diffrent hat between scenes)

My film team hated me as script supervisor and storyboard manager because I was "too ocd about it" and would correct things "too often"

I still want to fucking fight them over that

They also cut a lot of my audio effects from the final version of the short film and that made me even more pissed

I used to "Lone Wolf" a lot of my projects becuase everyone hated to work with me due to my work style (or just hated me lol)

I often let actors improv dialog becuase it felt more natural and I was horrible at story-telling! It was a pain to edit, but the reactions and emotions were GOLD

I really like dramatic lighting! I would often use lighting that would give harsh shadows, one of my favorite lighting sources was actually bonfires.

Fucking love horror films, they go absolutely HARD with soundtracks and specific shots (Extreme Close Ups my beloved ♡♡♡)

[softness-and-shattering]

Purimgifts 2025 letter I did put in a lot of fandoms so I think Im gonna keep this general.

Hi! (Firstly as a precaution, hoping that this doesnt need to be said at all: do not use ai, meaning llm's, chatgpt etc. in making this work for me. Thats a hard limit. Do not, at all, at any step in the process, including the artwork. Something like a spellchecker is absolutely fine. )

Basically what Im looking for is fun/excitement/fluff/meaningful in you want to go in a more spiritual direction. Its for chag, and while it is a "they tried to kill us, we won, lets eat" kind of chag, I dont want too much focus on the "they tried to kill us" vibes, more on the victory and good food and celebration. Villains can be villainous and characters can face obstacles and tension, but I dont want to be enraged or devastated. Im not looking for an angst-fest, thats not personally my vibe of a fun time here. . DNW omegaverse, pregnancy, childbirth, no intense bigotry, no intense gore please. It doesnt need to be squeaky clean, but I dont want multiple graphic sentences about injuries. Also no real-world contentious politics.

What do I enjoy. Found families or sweet families by birth. Characters able to express all part of who they are in complex ways. Fun group dynamics, loving teasing, community involvement, friendship and or romance and or QPRs. Im here for queer headcanons, Jewish headcanons, any other fun headcanons. I like when characters get to be more Jewish (or queer etc) in fic than they were allowed in canon.

If you dont want to go super into the Judaism for any reason, just like, fun, adventure, maybe some worldbuilding, a glimpse behind the curtain into what didnt make it into canon kinda vibes. Smut is ok, of any genders, doesnt have to be monogamous, though Id prefer if all three works arent pure smut, just for some variety. I hope this is enough to convey the kind of vibe I am and amn't..aren't lol looking for. If you want to do something I havent mentioned at all, go for it. Have fun! I cant wait to see what you come up with. :) Edit: I do like fashion a lot. If you've read Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, the scene where they go shopping for Yumi is 10/10 one of my favourite scenes ever. Also sewing and crafting and that kind of thing. If you put that in especially in a meaningful/knowledgeable way Id be delighted, but thats just an extra, not required at all.

Edit 2, RE SPOILERS. As Im looking through the fandom list and guessing what I mightve been matched with theres two fandoms Im not totally caught up and would like to not be spoiled on things Im not up to . CRITICAL ROLE: Ive seen most of campaigns 1 and 2 (1 I started at the trial of the take and im at theyve just defeated raishan, 2 theyre in eieselcross somewhere, theyre looking for the gate glyph mcguffins, they know Essek is nearby), c3 Ive only seen the beginning, theyre in Bassuras about to do the like, drag racing? And I havent seen season 3 of vox machina yet. Ive seen all of Calamity, and almost all the first Exandria Unlimited. re COSMERE: I think Im mostly caught up. I havent yet read Sunlit Man or Wind and Truth. If there have been short stories or novellas in the past year or so I might not have read them.

[thumbtack47]

Neptunia Cartooncore story-related stuff

I'm on vacation and kinda unable to draw stuff for this au rn (I have my tablet w me, but i dont have 1. a good desk to put it on and 2. the actual file where I have all the other designs stored) so this is the most I can do 4 it rn could probably accompany it w doodles in the future and I probably should but uh. fuck you take my wall of text

For All Games:

story is largely the same per game, with small tweaks on the side

focus on minimizing fanservice and tired, dated jokes

text ver under cut

Nep RB1 (ok this is a bit weird cuz this game isn't canon and has a lot of parts that would be difficult to write out but im gonna try to make it canon anyway)

use the main map from RB2 onwards

forget about the Maker characters (aside from IF and Compa), they don't really add much to the story

forget about the main goddess, Histoire + Arfoire plotline

Celestia exists as a floating island that each goddess strives to take control of, contains valuable resources and acts as a status symbol

Celestia falls to the earth after the final battle with Arfoire + Momus, losing its power (eventually becomes the Gamindustri Graveyard and rises again in RB2)

nix the CPUs turning into humans thing for the ending, Celestia falls and they all agree to stop fighting as much

Histoire is the only Oracle to exist, acts as a neutral traveling advisor to each goddess and knows how to best utilize Celestia's power

leads to her being kidnapped by Arfoire who wishes to use Celestia for malicious purposes

Celestia requires the Bridge Disc to be able to access it-- Arfoire breaks it and the pieces scatter throughout the 4 nations to serve the same purpose as the key fragments

game opens with the 4 goddesses fighting on Celestia-- Neptune's idea to fight for it fair and square

meanwhile Arfoire kidnaps Histoire, hitches a ride on the Bridge Disc's bridge, and hides to subtly influence the fight from afar

others are too focused on the fight to notice that there is a new voice, convinced to target Neptune (Neptune is not convinced)

after Neptune is kicked and the others realize, Arfoire knocks everyone off and destroys the Bridge Disc (everyone else is fine, though-- they catch themselves while Neptune doesn't)

Underling exists in this game, carries out the word-spreading of Momus

Momus is created with Celestia's power instead of just """""fear""""""-focus on minimizing the game's misogyny problem (remove the fuckin basilicom member distracting bit, rework the brothers to only be weird ab tall people and have no character want anything to do with them, have less side characters being really weird ab the main cast in general, etc)

Vert and Blanc's rivalry is now instead about height instead of boobs

HDD still exists, I need to figure out designs

IF was previously very enamored w Vert, this is cute but we need to connect it w the other games

IF is still enamored w Vert but like in a distanced way. Doomed romance, or at least she thinks. Meets up w Neptune and Compa, IF and Compa really hit it off. End up in a relationship but then they actually go to visit Vert, and Vert is enamored w IF. Now has internal struggle of choosing between longtime crush and current partner. Current partner wins, of course, but the conflict still exists (along with the internal conflict of being convinced to kill Nep. Just a lot going on for IF in Leanbox)

Noire is the most invested in getting Neptune's memories back, poorly tries to hide it but also frequently checks in on Neptune despite everything, takes time off from CPU duties, etc

im probably forgetting some things cuz it's been a while but that's the big things(edited)

Nep RB2

THE CONQUEST AND HOLY SWORD ROUTES

Throughout the game, there will be dialogue options! Possible actions for Nepgear to take (say, for example, scene where Nepgear has to comfort someone, say, Uni. 2 possible options would be 1. Asking them what's wrong, or 2. Vainly attempting to cheer them up). The correct choice would be fairly obvious, but still. The point is to showcase Nepgear's indecision and issues with self-confidence, as she learns to believe in her own abilities and grow as a person throughout the story. Unless you keep choosing the wrong options. With each incorrect dialogue option, Nepgear starts to doubt herself more and more-- her ability to console people, think tactically, etc. while also distancing herself from, and worsening her relationship with, the other main characters as a result.

Both the Conquest and Holy Sword Routes are only available if you chose every single incorrect dialogue option. Probably include a sound cue to let you know you've chosen wrong

At the end of the game, then, Nepgear will be too scared for the team to take on Arfoire and ASIC, lamenting that they're too weak. The CPUs protest, saying that they haven't even tried yet, but Nepgear doesn't budge-- they already spent all this time getting the main CPUs and Nepgear doesn't want to lose them again, so her anxiety spirals. So they, reluctantly, listen to her, and try to find ways to strengthen themselves. Nepgear herself does research and finds out about the Gehaburn, which would practically guarantee a win. Everybody else knows it as the Cursed Sickle, but, still apprehensive, follow Nepgear to find it.

at this point before the dungeon the Gehaburn is located in, the game will warn you that it's about to get a lot harder. Every enemy will become Viral, and there will be certain boss battles with special, difficult conditions (mostly just the fact that reviving characters is disabled). This is to prepare the player for the difficulty spike that is to come.

The Gehaburn's dungeon turns out to be a dungeon type all its own-- an overgrown, underground labyrinth. Viral enemies lurk throughout, and there are 3 sections to it instead of the max of 2. Just to sell the long, doomed journey for the cursed sickle.

Upon Nepgear touching the Gehaburn, the sickle will freak out and instantly take control of her. This starts a boss battle where your performance will dictate the ending you'll receive. (Win = Holy Sword Ending, Lose = Conquest Ending, renamed to Ruin Ending)

RUIN ENDING

Killing Order changes, first of all: Neptune > Vert > Noire > Blanc > Ram > Rom > Uni

Nepgear goes berserk during the battle and is too much for anyone to handle. Murders Neptune and Vert in the process, and then goes back to normal.

whatever Nepgear did while berserk completely shatters her-- in this state, the mere notion that she killed her own sister is too much to handle. Everyone else scatters.

Nepgear hides away somewhere else, not wanting to be close enough to anyone to be able to hurt them. The problem? She can't let go of the Gehaburn. Physically.

Due to having no CPUs at this point, Planeptune and Leanbox fall to ruin. This will happen to every nation in due time, hence the "Ruin" part.

Nepgear eventually succumbs to the Gehaburn's control, and becomes naught but a killing machine. She's going for the other CPUs first. She's conscious enough to be eternally crying, though, unable to stop the ensuing chaos and left to stew in her own guilt and anguish. This breaks her in due time, leaving one unable to tell the difference between Berserk Nepgear (Gearburn?) and normal Nepgear.

The game ends with every nation left in ruins. Arfoire and ASIC have been taken care of (by Nepgear), but at this point it doesn't really matter. People go about their lives with uncertainty-- the Fallen CPU could be just around the corner (think the same vibes of like-- undertale Neutral Ending where you've killed most major characters)

HOLY SWORD ENDING

the gang successfully snaps Nepgear out of it, causing the Gehaburn to get tossed aside in the process

Nepgear, understandably horrified that she just tried to kill everyone, tries to run away but the gang stops her

an intervention takes place. Due to Nepgear's actions she's led to think that nobody actually likes her, and that she can't do much of anything. They tell her the opposite

NG: "But, why would you even want to talk to me? I can't even help anyone. I almost killed all of you, and went after some stupid thing that would probably do more harm than good. I'm not even cut out to be a CPU Candidate..."

B: "Ugh, would you quit it with the self-deprecating crap?! You're a CPU, whether you like it or not! Same as us. You damn well better start ACTING like one!"

V: "Uh, what she MEANT to say was... we all have our own little hangups, okay? None of us are perfect."

NR: "It was a high-stress situation, you weren't ready for it. It's not like we blame you or anything."

NP: "Yeah! If I had a nickel for every time I pissed off ol' Noire for having no friends, I'd be rolling in it-- yet we still hang out. Makes ya think, doesn't it?"

NR: (Distant) "THAT'S NOT EVEN THE POINT! IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE!"

U: "Gear, I hate when you talk about yourself like this. I wouldn't have stuck with you for so long if I thought you were useless. We can do this; we'll be alright, okay?"

NG: (Blubbering) "But... what if I actually killed you? What if I black out, and the next moment, you're gone?"

U: "shhhhhhh, don't worry. That thing can't hurt ya now. Can't hurt any of us now. Trust me: if that happens again, we'll just beat it outta ya like we did just now."

NG: "Okay."

or something like that

The CPUs attempt to destroy the Gehaburn; however, after hitting it, it glows and the soul possessing the Gehaburn apparates and then flees to the base of the Gamindustri Graveyard

A special, secret boss battle ensues once the player tries to enter the Gamindustri Graveyard where you fight the Gehaburn itself

Revives are prohibited in this boss battle

Failing the boss leads straight to the final ending cutscene of the Ruin Ending. Winning however purifies the sickle, making it unfurl into a proper sword named Excaliburn that can only be equipped by Nepgear

Wields the power of the Gehaburn with none of the drawbacks, best sword in the game

Arfoire and ASIC are defeated with ease, leading to a much happier alternate ending

[djtangerine]

Yo i saw your tags on a post saying you want to start writing but dont know how. I wanted to say that writing is really fun and I highly recommend it!! I totally know it can be a struggle to start out sometimes between trying to come up with ideas and trying to, you know, execute them, but once you get a hang of it it really does get easier.

If you're looking for an easy place to start, one of the things that's helped me in the past is messing around with writing prompts. Whether you like one-word prompts, picture prompts, longer prompts, or whatever else, there's a ton of them out there to look through for inspiration. If you find one that has a fun vibe you can use it as inspiration for some practice or get some brainworms out by putting your favorite characters in situations or other things like that. Personally I started with writing fanfiction using prompts (or using canon as a prompt lol) and went from there, but if youd prefer to start with original stuff it allows for a lot of freedom and is definitely just as fun.

You don't have to start out trying to write anything long or complicated or super detailed, you can always just fuck around and find out. If you only write a paragraph that's still writing! And if you're not having fun you can always stop and start again, or pick a different prompt, or pick a different setting, etc so you dont end up frustrated or stuck in one place. You can always come back to things later!

Even with prompts I know it can be intimidating to stare down an empty word document. A way I like to combat that is to either start by writing some nonsense or whatever random thoughts I'm thinking. As weird as that sounds, it gets words on the page and makes for a good little warmup to get the words flowing. It helps with not getting too in your head about it, too. The start of your writing never has to be perfect- none of your writing does! You can always go back and edit it later.

Also, remember that you don't have to start with a proper introduction. You can start in the middle of a scene or conversation, or describe the scenery, or anything else you want. Explaining what's going on can come later- you dont even have to know what's going on when you start! Outlines and things are definitely helpful if you'd prefer to have a plan, but they aren't a requirement and you can elect not to make one or even make one after youve already started if you want to.

I know this is super long winded and probably too much information and I'm sorry for that, but I hope at least some of it is helpful!

tl;dr writing is fun and to get into it you can do whatever you want forever :D

this is so sweet thank you !!!!! i think i will try tonight <3

[altairtalisman]

lets go with ✨️ ⏰️ 🔥 🔎 🎨, look dont side eye me, u hv so many hot ocs tht gale n i thirst for, surely u hv some 🔥 right

✨️ Out of the comments you’ve received on your fics, what are two or three of your favorites?

Well I don't want to out them, but I can tell you that the comments I really love the most are those that are lengthy and really goes in depth about the story/chapter that I've written

Just to be clear, I love all sorts of comments, I just really like lengthy comments that really talk about little bits that I've mentioned in my works a lot more

⏰️ Do you like to post fics on a schedule or at random?

Hmm... really depends on the kind of story? If it's a birthday story, a multi-chapter story or something I'm writing for an event, then it's scheduled. Otherwise, it's mostly random in the sense that I don't have a specific day but I would post at a specific time (basically times that ends in o'clock or half an hour in between the hours)

🔥 Have you included any sexy scenes in your fics? If yes, do you find them easy or difficult to write?

Yes, I have and yes, I find them difficult as these require elaborated descriptions... that's never my strength

🔎 Does anyone beta read or edit your fics?

Nope

🎨 If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

Oh you really shouldn't have asked me that... because I do have a few:

Winging It With Sayo: All the SayoLisa parts especially Chapter 18

Kindergarten Girlfriend: The raw emotional Duke/Martha parts

Repeat, Repeat, Rewind: I would love it if it was art about Rook's descent into vaer breakdown at the end

Faulty Relationship: Any part of the story works with me

I Don't Know Love, Teach Me Love: The SayoLisa ferris wheel scene close to the end of the story

Blockhead: The last part out of the three parts of the story

To The You In My Lens: Specifically, the part at the end where Lisa and Rinko discuss about whether or not they should date after they affirmed that they both like each other romantically

[which-hospital]

sah, teddy and paige // cool about it by boygenius

[latibulesims]

Hey Lati!

I’m so sorry to press you for more information, but I’m so fascinated by your filming process and I have some additional questions if that’s okay. Specifically around your sets that are just individual rooms, are these just multiple secular room sets on one lot, or do you use a different lot for each set? Like with the River’s house when any family member is coming downstairs, is Tresor or Raign’s room not on that lot? The living room and kitchen? Lol I’m just so fascinated by this if that’s the case, and if so it’s extremely impressive because they look like they all could actually be one complete set. Sorry if this makes zero sense, I’ve just never thought to try this and now I really want to! ☺️ Thanks so much!

Haha no you make total sense!! First of all thank you for watching my series, and don't worry at all about asking questions! I know filming with The Sims 2 can be difficult bc of how often it crashes and its loading time, so any tips I can give to help the game crash less, im happy to share 💖

The sets are actually on different lots entirely! So, when Tresor "comes downstairs", or the characters go from the living room to the kitchen, I load an entirely new lot! I think the only exception I make is with bathrooms because they're so tiny haha, but any time you see the characters going from one room to the other, it's usually a different lot all together. :')

It may sound exhausting to some, having to jump from one lot to another, but over the years (I've been doing this since 2017, at least!) I've managed some tips that help, for those that are interested:

1) I make multiple sims of the same character, so that every sim belongs to every lot! So, if Tresor for example needs to be in her bedroom, the living room and Simons bar within the same episode, I create 3 Tresors (TresorBED, TresorLIVING, TresorBAR), and that way I don't have to move her around.

I should also note that I change neighborhoods every episode (more on that in tip #3), so it might sound like a lot of sims over the episodes but really it's usually just 3 versions of the same character in one neighborhood at a time.

You might find it's easier to just move the sims from one lot to the other, but in my experience moving the sims around (or using the tombstone to extract them) always ends up crashing my game so this is a really good way to avoid it all together!

2) I don't film chronologically, but by sets! This is my #1 tip. I basically gather up all the scenes I have in 1 set and I film them. That way i dont have to go back and forth between lots, instead I just finish off all the scenes I need using a lot and move on to the next! Sometimes a set has so many scenes I end up filming in one set for weeks at a time (usually Simons bar, haha, that S2E1 Christmas episode needed like 3 sets (Simons bar, Simons living room, The Rivers living room), and I spent two months just filming in Simons bar).

The only time I won't recommend this, is when you havent yet found your own style. Then you might risk something like this happening: You're just starting to film, and you have the 1st and last scene in the episode in the same set. So, you film them both. Then you film a couple more scenes after that, and then you reach the final set and by then your filming skills have changed (if you haven't found your style and take months filming an episode - which is completely valid, BTW - this could mean a drastic change). Then, scene #1 (which you filmed at the very beginning) could have a completely different filming style than scene #2 (which you filmed at the very end), and so on. You wouldn't want that.

I had something like that happen to me, where I discovered reshade mid-filming an episode, so the scenes I filmed at the beginning of the episode didnt have it, and then the scenes I filmed at the end did it. It made the epsiode look incosistent, which is something I don't really care about (and neither do my viewers, really), but you might so letting you know as a heads up! Some of these tips do compromise the "professionalism" of the episodes, but it's how i manage to film and pop out episodes with (relative) quickness :').

Thats why for many reasons, including should you want to film by set instead of chronologically, I suggest you find your style before filming an episode or starting a series all together. This can be done through creating small machinimas, filming tests, music videos, etc. Take it from someone who can't even handle sitting through the first 8 episodes of my own series because of how much my style back then. The way it drastically changed from one episode to another irks me so much! 😅

3) And this is my most controversial one, LOL, but I always build sets + new neighborhoods from scratch with every episode. As I mentioned above, I change neighborhoods with every episode because, in my experience, neighborhoods get corrupt with time so starting with a fresh neighborhood every episode helps avoid crashing. Previously, neighborhoods would get so corrupt, they'd stop loading at all mid-filming an episode, so im forced to interrupt my filming streak and build the sets and characters all together which absolutely wrecks any motivation I have to film afterwards. Once, this happened mid-filming a scene and so I had to rebuild, and let me tell you: Theres a difference between sets looking a bit different because I had to rebuild between episodes, and sets looking different within the same scene. At least when you rebuild the set with every new episode, you can blame minor changes on the fact that time passed from one episode to the other.

Also: I make sure to build all the sets I need for the episode before I start filming, because I dont want anything to interrupt my filming once I start it. If Im forced to build when I'm motivated to film, I end up losing that motivation in the time I spend building, if that makes sense. As u probably already know as a machinima maker, we do the work that is usually required of a team (writer, director, editor, and also stylist and set designers), so I like to do things one at a time so I can have a clear understanding of my schedule and timetable. So, I dedicate 2 days to style all the sims, a week or so to build all the sets, usually months to film the episode, then another week to edit and audio edit. I try my best not to have all of those parts overlapping, otherwise it gets too overwhelming.

The reason I rebuild from scratch, as opposed to just extracting the lot and installing it in a new neighborhood is because, again, I prefer a fresh start and have found that lots are less likely to get corrupt if they're "new". A lot of people think im crazy for it LOL, or that it's a colossal waste of time, and maybe it is! But it's the process that works best for me, and I end up filming really fast with much less crashing and hiccups because of it!

Hope that helps!!! :') Let me know if you have any other questions about my filming process or any other tips 💖💖💖 I'd love to help!

[thecandlesticksfromlesmis]

My sister's college's theater group decided to FILM their musical one person at a time and edit it together(!!) and I'm in engineering grad school, and am aware that art school is a v v different experience but this made me think: how are you guys doing this? Are you ok? How do you learn to direct if there can't be two people on screen together? Is it like the Tom Holland thing where he didnt know who was in scenes with him? Are the editing students happy about this? If you dont want to answer I totally get it but I'm asking because engineering not in person kills me so I just. Can't fathom what you're doing. I wish you the best 💙

HEY omg yeah it’s a mess. It’s been a mess since this all started and I think it will continue to be a mess for the rest of this year. 

Rest of post under the cut cause I’m just ranting.

So when everything first hit, all filmmaking was stopped completely, which for me as a screenwriter was fine because I am not required to be on set unless I wrote the script (or have been bamboozled into script supervising ugh) anyway. But I know it hurt literally every other discipline, especially cinematographers because they need to touch cameras in order to learn and the school provides all their tech. 

Towards the end of last year, the school started back up with productions, making it mandatory for all the films to be shot on our big sound stages (usually we have free rein of all of LA and a little outside it in shoot in) and to include a COVID safety supervisor. Our sound stages were upgraded with new air ventilation systems and the school also rented out other stages to accommodate the huge number of shorts that needed to be shot. 

In order to be on set you had to have proof of a negative COVID test and have isolated in your home for two weeks before shooting. On set was a big production of face shields and masks and sanitizer and staying six feet away from each other---except for the actors. The actors could be in scenes together, provided they did all the steps above and agreed to be close to someone in a scene.

No one is happy lmao. It’s pushed back thesis schedule SO MUCH, that lots of people in my class will still be having to shoot and finish thesis after we technically graduate this year. Technically, I’m still responsible for writing a script for a project that was cancelled and removed from the “you need to do this to graduate” list. It’s been rescheduled to shoot in August when I will be rigorously prepping for the huge event where I pitch all my project to industry execs. I don’t wanna do it, but my whole team still wants to so ya know 🤷🏼‍♂️

I have no clue how the fuck the production designers are functioning. I hope they’re still able to go to the school to access the building stations and literally all their materials. Editors have to go into the school to do their work because AVID costs so much money and no one is gonna buy it personally and that’s what they edit on! Directors are being dramatic as usual (lol I love some of them but goooood the shit they’ve put writers through y’all). 

Basically, it’s all around absolutely NOT what we signed up for to earn our masters. This school’s big selling point is hands on, collaborative work, and it’s really tough to do that now. Writers have less to deal with, but what I wouldn’t give to be sitting in workshop, giving notes to people in conversation form, rather than trying to have a natural dialogue over zoom. It sucks! And I miss my friends. 

There was this beautiful room on campus, that was a “no talking zone” in the library, that I used to work in every day. It was a room full of screenplays--like stacked shelves top to bottom of bound screenplays, some original behind glass doors, some signed by writers. It was really good place for me to focus on what I came here to do. I really really miss it. It made me feel a part of something! I have barely left my house for a year and now all the words I’ve written are trapping in our one bedroom apartment and it’s so stifling. The stories are blending together and GOD I can’t wait to get a break. 

I’m burnt out and tired of the one thing I know how to do. 

But I’m going to end this on a bright note! Mike and I are getting our second shot soon, we’re working on a film project right now, I’m finishing drafts of stories I’ve been working on for so long. If everything was the way it was before all this, the things I’m accomplishing would feel so small and not impressive. But now I’m realizing just how hard they really are to finish, and I should be less hard on myself in the future! 

Anyway, thanks for asking! Hope engineering grad school is going well. I’m sure it’s hard with all this going on too! Wishing you the best 💚 

[daggery]

Gif Maker Appreciation Tag

rules: answer the first half of the questions with gifsets of your own, then answer the second half by tagging gif makers you love!

@iridescentides @deweyduck tysm for tagging me! ❤️❤️❤️

LINK A GIFSET...

Link a gifset you’re really proud of:

definitely the malvie gifset. i feel like if i could solidify this type of gifset as my Style tm i would be satisfied but unfortunately that requires making more gifsets like this one lmao

Link a gifset where you tried something new:

this huma set i tried out channel mixer and i like how it turned out on the individual harry and uma panels esp

Link a gifset that features your favorite character or celebrity:

not a gifset but a little graphic for inej ghafa love of my entire fucking life!!!!! hoping to gif her more from the show in the future when i have more time!!

Link a gifset that you want more people to see:

glowy eyes mal gifset, even though it’s simple it was a gifset i had tried to make several times before but wasn’t happy with for whatever reason until now. gifmaking has rly exposed the way im a perfectionist help. but i do feel like i’ve improved!

Link a gifset that you had fun making:

LOTS of fun making my halloween descendants set, i made it in one day which almost never happens. usually finding the scenes to use is so boring but it was fun to find clips that matched the halloween theme

Link a gifset that you created as part of a meme, challenge, or series:

haven’t made one yet. i did make a simple descendants giffing meme for myself some months ago, but i haven’t posted it yet because i. dont want to commit to it

Link a gifset of yours that makes you smile:

jay eyebrows >:) and i’m still unapologetically obsessed with my xiaohei and wuxian gifset bc it makes me smile but also want to cry in a good way they’re just so found family

Link a gifset that you made for someone else:

the malvie and huma ones^^

TAG SOMEONE WHO...

Tag someone who inspired you to start making gifs:

gonna go out on a limb and tag a non mutual to say i love @wespers jamie’s creations!! they were one of the first gifmakers i followed and even though i havent tried out pale coloring yet, you can probably see a bit of the pale gifset format insp in my first(ish) gifset. so yeah they were an inspo for me to start making gifs and i rly love their recent shadow and bone sets!!! (currently in my queue) <3

Tag someone who makes great vibrant gifs:

@moorsgrimhilde / @malviesbitch sofia is singlehandedly keeping the descendantsedit tag alive with her gifs not to mention how bright and vibrant and pretty they are and i just think thats iconic of her

Tag someone who makes great pale/pastel gifs:

@deweyduck i associate her with like, bal, barbie and ALSO!!! this one ducktales gifset whose colors really stood out to me, it’s so pleasing to look at

Tag someone who gifs for a fandom you love:

@mobei-juns making xiaohei and wuxian sets (latter one currently in queue!) for legend of hei <333 the best shifu-student duo.

@oretsevmal kat’s shadow and bone gifs i adore them, the coloring and text on the malina one is so pretty. also descendants gifs!! i get so happy when i see them

@inejkazjesper the CUTEST jayvie roadtrip au gifset ever. i love gifsets that use clips from videos other than the original movies to create something unique

Tag someone who uses text/typography really well in their gifsets:

@hersilentlanguage i love the text on this jaylos edit with the placement and colors and just nailing the vibes overall, all of their graphics are a+++

Tag someone who motivates you to step up your game:

@iridescentides the way i reblogged this gifset again and almost immediately others also reblogged it to reminisce abt everyone collectively freaking out over it as well.. this gifset was literally a community bonding event. also need to mention your colors i literally dont understand how you do it!! 

Tag someone who you have taken inspiration from:

@hersilentlanguage i haven’t actually posted anything yet BUT i do have an idea or two for future things hopefully :)))

Tag gif makers who you admire and appreciate! (Put as many people here as you want!): 

i can count the number of gifmaker mutuals i have on two hands so everyone’s tagged above :)if you’re tagged do this if you want (invitation extends to you too sparrow for your graphics!) ❤️❤️

[thevoidcannotbefilled]

Its been a while and I dont remember it well, what happened with the w359 finale?

Ooof okay. To you and the other anon here’s my answer. I’m not blind myself, so if I say something out of line, please tell me and I’ll make correction. But here we go: 

Dr. Miranda Pryce was introduced in the final season as one of the main big bad villains of the show. She’s an AI specialized who created Hera, who we already know put the thought of “You’re Not Good Enough” in her head in order to control her. As we hear more of her, we learn that 1) she has a habit of punishing/abusing AIs in order to control them, even revels in it, and 2) she is willing and for the fun of it, used her technological abilities in order to essentially turn the crew on her ship into brain-dead soldiers, not quite dead but only living bc of her machines like human puppets. She also uses said technology to 1) torture information out of Eiffel’s brain and 2) turn everyone else into puppets. 

Overall the impression we get of her: She is a scientist who uses technology in order to control people in whatever means necessary because she finds the ability to control and change people both satisfying and amusing. 

Now, I set this background up to 1) remembering what happened in W359 and 2) the impression we get of this character. She is not sympathetic nor is she trying to be. And that’s fine! You don���t need those type of characters all the time, especially since W359 is FULL of characters that join our side after realizing they’re being used or help the team in one way or another because of sympathy. 

But then, we’re also told that she has cybernetic eyes. And at one point, she losing full sight in them after they were destroyed in an explosion that Eiffel caused. I won’t analyze up to this point how Pryce’s blindness was treated in universe. Again, I’m not an expert and there would be a lot of more subtle nuances I would be missing if I tried to analyze the writing. The only questionable part is having a blind villain when no other character other than arguably Hera are disabled. But also, again, I’m won’t make a fuss for the writing up to that point. 

HOWEVER WE GET TO THE FINALE AND OH BOY. 

The finale starts with a speech from Pryce. Summed up? Pryce was a blind orphan girl who was treated badly because she was blind and was creepy for making “dolls”. She then was recruited by Cutler in order to make AIs and eventually, get the technology to copy people and to change humanity in a way that in their eyes is “better”. IE: turning people into perfect puppets for them to control. 

Okay, lot to unpack there: 

1) In the speech Pryce repeatedly calls herself broken. In fact, describing herself as a “broken girl” when she was picked up by Cutler. Yes, the speech wasn’t literal and was meant to be like she was telling a story, but that doesn’t mean that it makes it any less ableist. No, it does not matter if the blind character is the only who is calling herself broken, 1) there are no other blind characters to counter that, 2) none of our heroes countered her, and 3) may I remind you she is 100% a villain. This means “I was blind and treated awfully for it. I wanted to change the world bc I was mad about I was treated and then went full dictator on things with less power than me” is one of our VILLAIN’S backstory. Idk if they were trying to have some humanity in her or what, but it does not work. This character is too far gone to make sympathetic especially in your finale episode. And if they weren’t trying to make her sympathetic, they were straight up saying, “This character felt so broken by how she was treated and her blindness that she used her skills in order to manipulate and hurt others for my own gain”. That just straight up demonizes blind people. It’s bad writing at best and straight up ableist at worst. 

2) This one is more subtle, but the general idea of technology being used to make people’s lives better, especially enhancements to the body being framed in a negative light has ableist elements in it. Because you know, technology isn’t the issue, it’s what people use technology for that’s the issue. For example, there’s a scene where Pryce is working on her eyes while someone else is in the room. The other person found the idea of talking to her while she didn’t have both eyes in unsettling. Ergo, the message is “cybernetic eyes are creepy”. In reality, technology that can be used to replace body parts, especially tricky things like eyes is so good!!! It shouldn’t be required to have, of course, (Some blind folks don’t mind being blind and people should always have control in regards to what happens to their body if it only affects their body!!!) but having the choice to repair your vision if you’d like is AMAZING. But the show sort of frames any sort of technology as invasive and inhumane. Another example, only the main villains have body modifications. Cutler made enhancements to his body to make it faster and stronger (which makes sense in character), but also with it, the implication that having body modifications makes him less humane. 

There’s a running theme in the show that humanity is a choice, a messy choice with messy lives, but one you make. With that, while the villains are human, they lose their humanity by not caring about others. Which good!!! Excellent theming!!! But, in Wolf 359, the villains also make body modifications to themselves, and only the villains. This builds on the long and tired trope of things like canes, braces, artificial limbs, and other similar things are a sign of villainy or inhumanity, as if adding these elements to yourself modifies your humanity. Which, just isn’t the case. This is especially strange in this series because we have an AI main character who struggles with being treated as human because she’s an AI, but definitely sees herself  and wants others to treat her as a person.

This is especially disappointing because the villains’ plan is to reshape people and make them “better”. Cutler’s plan is to turn humanity into mindless puppets for them to control. It’s a natural conclusion from “being utterly disposable when necessary” to “you’re being kept around because you’re useful” to “you’re useful, but we don’t care about your humanity, so we’re taking away all your humanity to control you”. You didn’t need the other stuff with the blindness and the implication that body enhancements at all to make this point. 

So, I won’t go on for longer, but TLDR: Wolf359′s finale has a blind character not only call herself broken but also has her be one of the main villains. A villain who doesn’t care for other’s boundaries and repeatedly uses her technological skills to modify others without permission. There are also undertones within the series that physical modification in general is creepy and invasive without nuance.  This could have easily been avoided within the narrative because most of this was added either within the final season or within the finale itself. That’s why parts of the final season and especially the finale are ableist. 

(If I’m overstepping, please tell me, and I’ll reblog additions/edit the post as necessary. This is meant to be an explanation because I got a few anons about it). 

[patientfocusly]

major canon divergences 

( i don’t expect anyone to read this because it’s a lot lmao. this is more so for me to have a reference because i forget things about my own muse / canon rip. if we’re rping together we’re probably also talking ooc so anything important from this post will be mentioned to you at some point. )

( please note that by canon, i’m referring to my general main verse which includes no interactions with other muses. each interaction with a muse is put into its own verse. new interactions can come into the main verse at any point of the timeline and then diverge from that point. )

does not marry curtis. they noticed each other because they worked closely as part of the atlas crew and maybe if the time and place were different there might’ve been a chance for them to get to know each other and form something but for shiro, there is a lot weighing on his mind that he needs to wade through

( a ) shiro has been thru Sum shit and he has an endless list of reasons to be sad but i just want to make it known that shiro’s no. 1 source of guilt and just general mind-anguish is the fact that he is living in a borrowed body, that he took from someone who had to die for him to live. 

( b ) at this stage he is also coming in touch with his feeling for keith which have been with him for a while, so even if he was aware of other potential interests . . . he’s not actually interested back.

adam is alive. he was critically injured in the first wave of attack by sendak and recovered enough only to provide ground support for the second wave. he remains an officer of the garrison and heads training and recruitment. he does not fly again. he’s happily married and reaches out to shiro. they’re amicable, but not close friends. maybe eventually they will be. ( this will obviously not be the case if i’m writing with an adam. )

allura is alive – i need to rewatch the end of season 8 to figure out how, but she’s alive.

after a year or so of captaining the atlas, the need for atlas to be an offensive military ship decreases and shiro consults sam and pidge for their thoughts on deweaponising his prosthesis. The new arm is still powered by allura’s crystal but looks more similar to the galra arm ( except it starts at the shoulder since his bicep??? disappeared magically ), but it’s coloured white and light grey, and the lit up areas are aqua ( same as the crystal. )

speaking of the crystal . . .  the original arm was designed to operate via a balmera crystal, because that’s what most of altean designs are based off of. however they didn’t have a crystal to use, and sam says the remaining energy required for the armto work would be drawn from shiro’s own electromagnetic field. he tries it for the first time and . . . his body rejects it, in what looks like an incredibly painful and potentially fatal way, if it hadn’t been for allura stepping in and replacing the original energy source for the arm with the crystal from her tiara. we don’t ever find out why shiro’s body rejected the first energy source but here are 2 theories:

( a ) shiro’s body is actually kuron’s body, a clone, manufactured by haggar, using ~space science~ and likely some form of quintessence. the electro magnetic field coming off of the clone’s body would vary to that of a human’s, which is what sam would’ve based his calculations on. balmera crystals have incredible properties that aren’t really explained in great detail but we know how powerful they can be, regardless of size. 

( b ) because it’s kuron’s body, maybe the connection to haggar didn’t completely shut off when keith cut off the arm. that flash that happens when the arm connects and shiro’s body starts rejecting it is very similar to the flash that happens when haggar starts controlling kuron earlier ( better explained in this headcanon piece. ) my only issue with this headcanon is that it implies haggar may still have some degree of control over shiro, and I just………….it’s been so overused, i just don’t want that for shiro anymore, so i’m most likely sticking to theory a !!!!!

still on the subject of the crystal, let’s talk about what shiro says after allura places the balmera crystal in his arm ; “i feel strange . . . i feel – great !” strange, as in he’s feeling something he’s never quite felt before. this is in contrast to what he feels when the first energy source is used in his arm ; “i feel . . . good,” but he sounds hesitant, like he doesn’t feel good at all, and obviously we see why moments afterwards. the great part is emphasised. he almost seems excited, like he really does feel great, and the scene cuts off with him trialling his arm by making a fist, and smiling. again, the properties of the crystals are pretty much undefined, but they are an immense source of power – what allura’s tiara contains is likely more than enough required to power shiro’s arm, and going back to how allura operated the castleship, and how shiro is able to operate the atlas, i’m loosely headcanoning that the crystal acts as a link between “captain” and “ship”, though obviously, allura herself channels quintessence and has so much more capabilities as a “captain.” 

what does the crystal providing an energy source for not only the new prosthesis, but also shiro’s body mean for shiro? an external boost of energy and human-compatible quintessence is probably the first dose of anything resembling treatment shiro has had since the kerberos mission. i don’t see the balmera crystal nor altean healing pods having the power to edit genes but as far as healing goes, it must have some effect in alleviating pain and / or fatigue for shiro to exclaim, “i feel great !”

( a ) sometimes it’s difficult to write in a universe set in the future because things of our current reality ( social injustices, shit politics, technological limitations etc. ) may not be a reality say 100 years in the future, and add space and alien technology to the mix and you’re sort of left with a lot of potential for creation and imagination and progression but also hindered by the reality of present day and representing present day. i wouldn’t want to “magic” away shiro’s disease or magically come up with a cure, but at the same time i don’t want to take away the possibility for him to be potentially cured ( which is what the “i feel great !” line hints towards ) just because of the limitations of today ???????? i’m just having an inner conflict over this - i will update what i decide when i decide !! 

major fanon divergences

does not qualify as space dad. it simultaneously infantilises the other paladins and takes away from their own journeys of being forced to grow up too quickly and take on the responsibility of fighting in a war, and puts undue stress on shiro who is only ~25 himself responsible for his team only in the role of their commanding officer at best

his prosthetic arm is not a sex toy, it’s a prosthesis ( refer to this post on arm related bed time activities )

shiro did not have a romantic connection with keith pre-kerberos. if anything the earliest signs of anything resembling a romantic connection would be late into season 2, but that is pending heavy plotting

shiro came from a happy family . . . he just lost almost all of it very early on. he grew up loved even though he learnt about loss too quickly ( please refer to this headcanon. )

shiro cannot sing lol . . . i dont know where this headcanon came from, but it’s sticking

i think it’s popular headcanon for shiro to have a little sister, or a big family; i wrote his backstory with his older sister before i came across this, so i’m sticking to my original headcanon because his bond with his sister is so strongly formed in my head  

shiro is not afraid of death . . . but he doesn’t want to die. i feel like his relationship with death needs its own post but the tl;dr version of it is that he had a timer put on his life when he was around 17 years old. life goes from seemingly endless to suddenly very very short ( not just in the sense that his lifespan is predicted to be shorter, but that his body will soon restrict him in movement and opportunity. ) and then kerberos happens, and the arena happens, and voltron and zarkon and he’s reminded that life is short regardless of whether they give you a timer at 17. any moment could be his last and shiro has had a long time to come to terms with this. it makes him incredibly grateful for the present, and of what he’s had in the past. it also is potentially why he prioritises a mission that will take him to see the stars, over a relationship with adam ten years down the track.

if anyone makes it this far . . . ur the real mvp, thank u for reading my brain ramblings <3

[moonguilt]

Voltron MMORPG AU: Chapter 2

alright here’s the next segment of overly elaborate headcanons. we’re finally getting some real klance lads

side note for people who dont RP: double parentheses ((like this)) indicate that the real person, i.e. lance or keith, is the one speaking. proper grammar is used for when they are making their original characters speak.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 3

finally, f i n a l l y, they are all playing voltron together

coran and pidge are still caught up in raiding and player-versus-player, but coran makes time on the side occasionally to act as dungeon master for the others, when they want to go on a particularly epic quest

meanwhile pidge adamantly proclaims they are all dorks, and when she attends their roleplaying sessions in-game, she insists that she is “only here to keep the high level elite creatures in this zone from killing you all while you're singing campfire songs like a bunch of camp rock dweebs”

when she eventually starts joining in on the roleplay here and there, under the guise of doing it “ironically,” no one comments on it

matt kind of gradually integrates himself alongside shiro. he shares absolutely none of pidge's qualms with the concept of RP, and in fact played a lot of dungeons & dragons as a teenager, so he manages to acclimate fairly easily

allura and keith both have a hard time getting into the idea of roleplaying. it strikes them as silly and they have trouble letting go of their dignity a little. lance whinges about them both having “major party pooper sticks up your butts come ONNN” but all the while, he is gently steering them in the right direction and subtly teaching them how to loosen up a little and immerse themselves in the fantasy world he has grown to love

sometimes they decide to hang out in heavily populated in-game cities together, where they can people-watch and build casual camaraderie among their characters. and perhaps interact with the occasional random player brave enough to approach their group's table in the tavern

“its not really OUR table” shiro points out one day when they walk into the tavern to find their usual seats occupied by other players

“YES IT IS” -keith and lance, in unison, approximately 29 seconds before their first RP bar fight

they decide eventually to create their own adventurer's guild so that they can easily connect with each other when they are online

shiro wants to name the guild “the paladins of voltron,” but pretty much everyone protests on the grounds of “shiro, you're the ONLY paladin in this guild”

the only exception is hunk, of course, who assures shiro that it is a very cool name, but perhaps they could just edit it slightly? maybe change “paladins” to something more class-neutral? like, “lions” perhaps?

yeah. yeah, “the lions of voltron” seems to work with everyone. whether that's because it's a good name, or because hunk is the one suggesting it, no one could tell you

as they all grow more comfortable with RP, their characters start developing bonds with each other

allura and matt, the guild's healers, hit it off swimmingly. they enjoy making their characters dramatic and exasperated with everything the others do. matt jokingly gives his character an enormous, embarrassing crush on allura's character just for the laughs

keith and pidge's characters both have dark, edgy pasts. pidge made hers extra dark because she wanted be funny, but keith seems to really enjoy the way their characters can bond over their shared trauma. she suspects there is an underlying reason for that and decides to never reveal that she intended for it to be a joke

the most interesting of all is, of course, the relationship between keith and lance's characters

everyone expects them to be rivals, to bicker constantly, etc

partially as a prank and partially because they think it would be fun to RP, they decide behind-the-scenes to make their characters the best of friends

“Oh, Keith, you are so strong and heroic!”

“I would be weak if not for the strength you gave me, my one true friend in this cold, dark world...”

“I am so glad I have a great warrior like you by my side...”

“You are my rock.”

“... even if you have a weird name.”

“((for the last time get off my case about the name, lance))”

“((literally never gonna happen. die mad))”

it starts to affect their relationship in the real world too, slowly, at first in the form of jokingly mimicking their characters' dynamic:

“oh, mighty keith, i require the salt on the other end of the table. would you please bless me with your aid”

“but of course, noble lance, i hereby entrust you with my sacred salt and place it in your skillful hands”

“illustrious keith?”

“yes, immaculate lance?”

“thats gay”

“fuck you”

R O M A N T I C  T E N S I O N in the R E A L  W O R L D

nobody fucking addresses it but everybody knows it's there. way worse than it ever was before somehow, which is saying something honestly. and it only gets worse as the days and weeks pass

“if I may say, good sir keith, you look particularly dashing today in this black ensemble of yours”

“why thank you dearest friend lance, i chose this specially to please you”

“then you may certainly consider yourself successful in this endeavour”

are they complimenting each other as a joke??? why do their eyes go half-lidded and their lips quirk lopsidedly when they shower each other in praise?? nobody knows

thats a lie. everybody fucking knows

no i never learned how to format tumblr posts. you will have to deal with my absolute trash aesthetic sorry

tune in next (and final) time for the most elaborate ridiculous speech i have ever written

[mobpsycho100]

a semi thorough coloring gif tutorial cause i get asked this often enough

Anon asked me to cover what I think are the best adjustments to use for making anime gifs. Short answer: Levels and Selective Colors are the only adjustments you need. In that order. I wont be going over Selective Colors in this tutorial because its very easy to use.

I went over this briefly in my first tutorial when I brought up Levels but now I will go more in depth into how to use it as I think it’s pretty much the only adjustment you need and you can make do with just levels alone a lot of the time. Its the only adjustment I’ll be covering today because its the most important one and if you take away anything from this tutorial I hope its the knowledge that you can achieve great colors through levels alone. I want to be thorough so this is going to be kind of long so... get relaxed.

Before the tutorial begins, I encourage everyone to get 3 different anime screencaps or at the very least, 3 anime screencaps with very different lighting to follow along because the last example will make more sense if you do so.

Theres no easy way to explain what the R/G/B in Levels does without opening up like 50 images and editting them yourself to see what each one does. It would require me going into color theory and I dont think thats something that can’t be easily explained, and really you just need to get a feel for it yourself. You click the ‘auto’ button at the right corner to achieve almost similar results, but I think doing it manually is better because it lets you have more of a feel for how each Red / Green / Blue levels works on its own and gives you more control.

Before I get into it, what does auto or R/G/B levels do? Well, it allows you to remove the filters anime usually have on their scenes to pull out the natural colors from underneath the filters. It sounds confusing at first but it’s easy to understand once you see an example and do it yourself.

Here’s the original image I’m working with for my first example. As you can see theres a slightly blue filter all over the entire image, the dirt on the ground is brown but theres still a faint blue color fill all over it. Our aim when using Levels this way to color it is to remove that filter.

First you go to ‘Red’ and see these two levers at the right and left? You pull those two in until they hit the edge of where the graph starts.

Repeat this process for ‘Green’ and ‘Blue’ as well.

And thats it.

End result:

The dirt is much clearer now, theres no blue filter on it so we can finally see the red and purple undertones that werent clear before. The sky is a lot more dynamic as well now that the blue filter is gone. Here’s a side by side comparison to make it clear just how much the image has changed

It might seem like it only has contrast to the untrained eye, but you cant achieve the same result with just contrast. It added contrast by taking away the blue filter on top of the image, but if you used the normal RGB levels instead of going in manually changing the Red, Green and Blue

this is the result you get.

While theres contrast, the blue filter is still there. Here’s another side by side comparison with the method I showed here vs. the ordinary way to use levels.

If you’ve been following along using your own screen caps you’ll notice the levers on the very right change the whites / brights / highlights of the image, while the levers on the very left change the darks / blacks of the image.

Thats the jist of it, it’s main purpose is to bring out the natural colors in the image. When you do this method and all the colors come out and theres decent amount of brightness and contrast as a result, it makes it much easier to work with the gif because now you can tweak the colors more easily when you use selective colours.

Recap: Using Red/Green/Blue individually gives you the control you need to bring back the natural colors of an image and remove the filters anime tend to usually add everywhere which tend to make scenes look very dull.

Here’s another example but with a tweak.

Original image before neutralising the scene using Red/Green/Blue individually instead of the basic RGB. Notice the yellow filter on top of the boys to help them blend with the background more.

Add Levels. Change the Red/Green/Blue.

Result:

It looks pretty great all on its own and gives you a lot more to work with when you get to selective colors since all the colors are popping now from the pinks in the background to the blues and even yellows.

For example if you tweak the yellows in selective colors in the original image, it would have affected almost the entire image as it’s almost fully yellow. Here’s how the image looks when you brighten it using RGB.

Say if I wanted to boost the yellows here and make them more vibrant and a little more orange-ish. I opened up selective colors and tweaked the yellows like so.

and this is what happened to my coloring.

It’s not great. Because the filter on this entire image is yellow, when I tweaked the yellow in selective colors, it changed the characters skin tones, hoodie, hair quite drastically. Theres no control over the image because theres not many colors to work with. So when you go to change individual colors through selective colors, half the image ends up being changed like this.

Now this is how the exact same selective colors looks on top of my edit of this image using Red/Green/Blue.

Heres a before and after of the selective colors.

The yellows are vibrant without drowing out the entire image now. This is what I mean by having greater control for when you go to edit individual colours. Levelling your image out this way allows you to have greater control over the image because the natural colors pop so much.

However as great as using Levels to make your image more neutral and remove all filters is, it doesnt mean you have to stick with neutral look 100%. What I mean by this is, as you can notice when you remove the filters, all the natural colors in the images become more vibrant and pop, which looks fantastic but when your making gifs is not that great because more colors means more noise and grain for when you save for web. But keeping the natural filters on doesnt look good either so what I like to do is strike a balance of sorts.

This might be a little confusing if you havnt been following along with the tutorial editting your own images.

Example:

Mostly neutral, just a very slight warm yellow tone to it, his uniform is a little yellow as are the whites of his eyes.

And here’s the image after I add Levels and to the magic

It’s a little blue-ish now. The image was mostly neutral to begin with so not much has changed but it’s fully neutral now with no filters. Theres a nice contrast but I want it to be look even more dynamic and I want to bring the colors together without removing the Levels we added to the image.

I decided I wanted to add a bit of a purple tinge on top for two reasons. Firstly, because the image already had a yellow brown tone to the background, I dont want to add more yellows to it, I want it to stand out. Secondly, the aura around the character is pink and I think purple will make those colors look more intense so thats why I decided on purple.

This is where the middle lever that we hadn’t touched before comes in. Changing the middle changes the neutrals / middle balance of the image. I went to ‘Green’ and move the lever a little bit to the right from 1.00 to .95

Result:

Everything is slightly more purple, but image is still mostly neutral from removing the yellow filter. It looks clean and the colors pop but by adding a bit of purple the entire image comes together as well.

There’s no tips or tricks when it comes to figuring out what lever does what color change unfortunately but theres only 9 levers in total meaning 9 colors so trust me when I say you get the hang of it really fast if you do it often. My advice is save about 25 images from various different anime and open them up and turn them neutral using Red/Green/Blue, and then try to bring the colors back together again a bit using the middle lever for every single image. Once its ingrained into your memory, your coloring experience will be so much easier. I hope that wasnt too tricky to follow and you learned something here.