#and it took a couple hours of troubleshooting and making faces at my screen but i GOT IT and Base Filtering Engine can KISS my ASS

[bonestrouslingbones]

crawls away from my keyboard covered in blood and pissed off but satisfied at the fact that i finally enabled windows firewall

[macabr3-barbi3]

CTRL ALT DELETE- Task Manager (Vox/Reader)

Something's up with Vox and you offer to help troubleshoot- it both does and does not go how you're expecting it to.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/54688282

The least serious thing I've ever written: inspired by the time i started a timer in class one day to see how long my teacher talked about her son instead of teaching us; i ended up realizing 4 months later that i never stopped the timer and it was just running in the background and making my shit slow that entire time lmao there's a screenshot in the ao3 notes

Tags: Stress Relief, Sexual Tension, Chair Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Begging, Computers. Dirty Talk, very basic knowledge of computers

<3<3<3<3<3<3

Your new boss seemed stressed. 

Not in the usual way that he was stressed, either- the note from the assistant you had replaced was that usually when Vox was having an off day he would call for Valentino or have you pull a list of low earners for the month, banishing you from the room in either case. But he hadn’t spent any time with Val in months, basically the entire time that you’d been working with him as a personal assistant after getting promoted from a stage grunt for the news channel.

You had thought for a bit that he might make a move- that maybe that was why he promoted you, that he was charmed enough by you to end the on/off thing he had going on with Val, which made sense based on the timing. But when you tested that theory recently- made double entendres, brushed your hands against his arms or leg or back, blatantly invited him out for dinner and drinks- he didn’t seem interested. He declined your invite, allowed you to touch him without being overcome with lust, and the sex jokes just seemed to go whoosh. 

Right over his head. 

He was on edge and twitchy. He took longer to respond to things than he normally did, his processors slow, occasionally getting a ‘buffering’ message that flashed across his screen when someone asked a question. His hypnotic eye seemed to be suffering as well, the swirls having slowed down now to the point that they were no more mesmerizing than watching paint dry. It was frustrating and enraging him, and in turn frustrating you- he was fucking hot when he was angry, which didn’t help your attraction to him that he was ignoring. 

He was sitting at his desk in the control room when you entered, head in his hands as he stared at a piece of paper on his desk. The monitors were all lit behind him, showing recorded footage of the Tower throughout the day- you spotted a short recording of yourself talking to some of the marketing team a few hours ago. Like a Valentino caricature he read the paper, blinked his eyes a couple times, read it again. Picked it up and pulled it closer to his face like that would help, and his screen scrolled the words along the bottom like his internal system was trying to transcribe it so something he could understand. He finally dropped the paper with a groan, letting it flutter to the floor where it slipped under his chair and stopped just before you. 

“Are you okay, sir?” The question is out before you can stop it, and as was the normal recently it took a few minutes for him to answer. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he muttered, swiveling around to look at you. He clutched the sides of his screen, eyes narrowed and mouth delayed in its movements as he spoke. “I feel like I can’t focus on anything. I can’t process anything. My- just, fucking everything is slow and useless in my head right now! How am I supposed to be a master media manipulator when I can’t fucking concentrate for more than two minutes at a time?”

“You have seemed more… stressed than usual,” you agree. “Are none of your usual relaxing activities helping? Or have you done any troubleshooting?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“Troubleshooting,” you say again, and at his blank stare you chuckle a little. “You know, doing a couple ‘quick fix’ things to see if that’s what’s causing the problem. Do you have like, a cache or something that you have to clear? An archive dump to get rid of old files?” You let your eyes track his body from top to bottom. “I’m not super familiar with how your… anatomy works?”

God, but you wanted to be.

He blinks a couple times. “I think I used to have someone that did that for me,” he says. “Years ago. I fired them because it didn’t seem necessary, I was running perfectly fine.”

“Yeah, well, that might be what the problem is.” You offer him a soft smile. “Sometimes stuff will work in sub-optimal conditions for a while before it starts causing issues. I used to do programming customer support when I was alive- it’s been a while but I could take a look if you want?”

His mouth twists in a frown. “I guess so,” he agrees. “I’m desperate enough to try anything. I need to be able to fucking concentrate if the Vees are gonna stay on top, everyone fucking knows that Val is hopeless with the business aspect of everything.” He gets the buffering symbol on his screen for a few seconds, groaning and shaking his head as he clears. “What do you need access to?”

“Do you have a way to access your… system? Externally,” you clarify. “I’m not a surgeon- I don’t plan on cutting into you to get to anything.”

Vox gestures behind him. “I can hook up to the monitors,” he says, “but we’ll have to be pretty close, doll. I have to be sitting here to be hooked up, and since this is the only chair, looks like this will have to be your seat.” He pats a hand on his thighs, not so much an invitation as a statement.

You fucking wished. You know this isn’t him trying to initiate anything though- you’d been trying for long enough that you’re ready to give it up and just accept that your hot, overlord boss didn’t want to fuck you. Helping him out felt more important than that anyway, so you would do your best.

“You got it,” you say, and cross the remaining space to perch yourself gracefully on his lap. You push the inappropriate thoughts about how firm his muscles are underneath you- how exactly did this man’s body work? Was it really just his head that was not organic matter?- and let him rotate the chair back to face the monitors.

The sight is intimidating, as is the position- you’re surrounded by reflections of yourself from every angle, Vox’s lithe frame seated behind you. This is where he does most of his business, the background site of everything that VoxTec handles. And he’s trusting you to help him fix whatever is wrong with him so he can get back to handling all of that, free of distraction.

You watch as thick wires come up from the floor to plug into the back of his head, the sharp hiss making you wonder if it was painful or intrusive. You won’t ask though, not when you’re getting ready to try to restore him to his usual ruthless self; he might consider that to be prying.

He pulls something up on the main monitor, the one that sits directly across from you, and waves a hand to it. A little keyboard and mouse emerge from the desk as the monitor powers on, and when you glance back you can see the same thing reflected on his face. “Have at it,” you hear him say, even though you can’t see his mouth moving.

Ignoring his open programs for the time being in case he needs any of them, the first thing you do is go in and clear his archived files. He’s got entire terabytes of useless information; employee records for people that have been dead or fired for decades; funny videos that he saved; resources for old news stories that are no longer relevant. Some of it you help him upload to a cloud server- after explaining to him what a cloud server is- and create files to designate for actual important shit.

You find the internal browser that he uses to pull information on the fly and help him clear the cache and cookies.

You help him sort security footage from Vee Tower and get rid of stuff that wasn’t actually necessary, like the short bits of static and dead air that happened whenever he used the cameras to teleport around the building. Everything that he has saved about mentions of that fucking radio demon also goes into the garbage. There are some files you can’t access, things like his memories and day to day recordings of conversations and things that he personally is part of. 

You delete what you can and empty the recycling bin.

As the process has gone on, Vox has relaxed more and more behind you. “I still don’t feel completely back to normal,” he murmurs, “but this is already loads better. It’s like a massage directly on my brain. You know, if I still physically had one.”

You hit the keys to open his task manager- CTRL ALT DELETE. “Unholy fuck- Jesus, sir, if you thought that was good this is gonna feel orgasmic,” you say absently, scrolling through the opens apps and programs that he has running. Has this man ever closed anything? You hadn’t realized a person or device could even have so many things going at once. “Do you just leave everything open in the background?”

He peers around your shoulder, bracing his hands on your hips as he sits up a little straighter. The movement causes your stomach to drop, arousal threatening to make itself known, but you push the notion down as he sets his hands back on the arms of the chair. “I guess so?” He watches you scroll through the extensive list. “I guess it just never occurred to me to close them. Opening the programs to use is just like my stream of consciousness I suppose.”

“Kay, well, that’s stopping now.” You click on the first item on the list- VoxtaGram. “I recommend closing non-essential stuff out at least once a month. More, if you have the time to go through everything. For now, just in case, there is something important we’re gonna go through some of the more recently opened things, set them up to open automatically when you start up, before we reboot your system- wait, can we reboot your system entirely without killing you?”

“No worries there, dear. I can, I just haven’t done it in years because it can take a while to start back up afterwards.” He sneers at the social media page. “You can close that shit. Any of Velvette’s crap she can handle on her own. Same with any of the fucking games that Val loads up when he’s bored- can I delete those entirely? Or block them? Fucking moth and his blue-light addiction…”

You get through a lot of the list, Vox kind of dozing off and only passively participating in the process. You’ve got the gist of it; things like his news sources, contacts list and phone, and the notes app are staying open and set to automatically launch when he does reboot and start back up. Pretty much everything else is closed out, things he pulled up for two seconds weeks ago to check on something or another before abandoning it. You’re making excellent progress when the next thing on the list gives you pause.

“Vox? Why is this- oh my god.” You can’t help it- you start laughing, throwing your head back to rest on his shoulder as you look at what’s now displayed on the screen.

A stopwatch had apparently been started and never stopped. The elapsed time was over three thousand hours, which came out to something like four months if your mental math was correct. He had had this running constantly in the background since you had started working for him, possibly even before. “I think I found the problem,” you chuckled, and his eyes were narrowed as he looked at the timer continuing to tick. “What is this?”

“What the actual fuck?” He buffers for a second- and you’re pleased to note that it’s already much faster than it has been lately- before you hear a dinging sound coming from him. ‘Fucking Hell, I should have known this was all Valentino’s fault.” He drags a clawed hand down his screen in an imitation of a facepalm. “I was timing him. He was fucking ranting about Angel Dust again while we were in a strategy meeting with Velvette- I had the stopwatch going to see how much of the hour session he wasted talking about that whore. I must have forgotten to turn it off.” He barks out a laugh, throwing his head back with the force of it while you look at him with amusement. “I’m gonna owe you big time for this, doll, you’re a lifesaver.”

You close the app out with a smile. “Just trying to help,” you say. “I think that was probably the worst of it- do you want to just try rebooting now?”

He lets out a groan when the app closes, and the sound shoots through your body straight to your core. “Go for it, hun,” he says, eyes closed as he leans back against the chair. “I think I’m good to go now, but it can’t hurt. You were right, sorting this shit out feeling fucking good.”

You’re suddenly very aware of the dampness of your panties as you bypass ‘kinda horny’ straight to ‘fuck me on this desk.’ You scold yourself mentally: Don’t jump your boss. He’s trusting you to help him right now- do not take advantage of that. Do not ride his leg like you very clearly want to because his voice is fucking hot. Fucking focus.

You clear your throat, closing out the task manager and hitting the button to restart him. “See you in a bit, sir.”

You stay seated on his lap just in case- he might still have something he wants you to do when he comes back online, some settings you could apply to close out things that are used for more than a week or so. It’s definitely not because you like the feeling of his strong thigh underneath you, tantalizingly close to your cunt if you, by chance, decided to tilt your hips forward and start grinding down on him. 

After just a few minutes get a message on the main monitor telling you to wait a moment- things start popping up on the other screens surrounding the central one, and it takes you a moment to recognize the pattern.

Its all videos of you- shot from Vox’s perspective, and a mortifying blush takes over your face. They’re all the moments that you had tried coming onto him. The innuendos and subtle entendres, the times that you touched him, pressed yourself against him in a tight space despite having another way to get to the copy machine, when you had invited him out for dinner. There’s also videos where he had just been watching you, apparently, taken from a distance as you spoke with Velvette or passed instructions along to a member of the team or discreetly tried to hide behind a vending machine when you noticed  Val coming into a room. 

There’s a satisfied grumble behind you, and before you can turn to look at him Vox has settled his claws onto either side of your waist and shifted you over a bit, to rest directly on the erection straining his pants. 

Which is a surprise, albeit a pleasant one.

“Thanks for the reset, doll,” he says, and his voice is a quiet growl as he lets his hands wander from your waist to your hips and back again, claw tipped fingers catching on the fabric. “I got a chance to look at some files while I was under and found quite the treat in your logs.”

This could either be very bad or very, very good. “Sir-”

“You know, I’m usually pretty good at picking up what a woman is putting down. Imagine my surprise when I realize you’ve been coming onto me for weeks and my shit was so fucked up and bogged down that I didn’t even notice. Like that?” He uses one hand to point to a screen in the far left of the central monitor, while he snaked his other hand down to rest on your thigh, his hand large enough to encompass the muscle at the edge of your skirt. On the screen, you had come to his office to drop off meeting notes for something you attended on his behalf. You had dropped the stack as you came around his side of the desk, and got down fully on your knees to pick them up, glancing up at him through your lashes. You blush watching it now- it had seemed obvious to you even then, but watching it now, the way that Vox had seen it? When he didn’t say anything about you being face level with his prick you had used a hand on his thigh to brace yourself to stand up, letting your fingers run along the inner seam of his trousers when you rose back to standing. Still no reaction, and you had left his office equal parts turned on and irritated with yourself. Him not having acted on it had been the final nail in the coffin cementing the fact that he was not interested in the slightest.

You let out a weak exhale as the Vox sitting under you gets his other hand in the same position as the first, using his grip to ever so slightly spread your legs on his lap. He lets his fingers skim your inner thighs and you shake with the effort of not begging him to just touch you. This was delicious, agonizing torture.

“Had I been in my right mind for that display, baby, I would have fucking ṛ̣̬̫̍͌ͩ͟ụ̴̴̾̀͟͡i̧̻̻͉̜͑ͪ̾͟n̫̫̘̗͕̲̲̎ͥḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧd̶̵̯̯̼̘ͨ̓ y͙͙̪̰ͫ͌́o͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞ụ̴̴̾̀͟͡.” His voice crackles and glitches on the last words, and the sound of it forces a moan from your throat as you let your head fall back. You clutch your hands to the arms of the chair as his tongue- and who even really knew he had a tongue, what the fuck?- licks down the side of your jaw and at your exposed neck. “I would have had you choking on my cock before getting a taste of that sweet cunt and fucking you into the desk for hours.”

One hand finally slips under the edge of your skirt and you shiver when his fingers make contact with your soaked core. “Is that what you want now, babygirl? You want me to give you my cock as thanks for helping to set me straight? To make up for lost time?” He slides a finger under the thin material of your panties, groaning in your ear at how slick he finds you. “That’s what I want, doll. I want you to ride me so hard you go stupid with the feeling, and you never feel whole without some part of me in your cunt for the rest of for-fucking- ḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧv̹̹̘̼̞̻͆ͩ̓ͪ͢ḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧṛ̣̬̫̍͌ͩ͟.”

“Fuck, please,” you gasp out, the word devolving into a cry as Vox finally slides a finger into you, mindful of the claws as he pushes in and quickly follows the first with a second. He uses his free hand to hold your hips still as you try to grind into his digits, keeps you held firmly against his erection as you squirm in pleasure.

His sharp fingertips angle to prod gently at a spot inside of you that has you seeing stars; your eyes are clenched shut as you ride the feeling, so close to the edge you feel like you’re going to implode with the force of it when you finally tip over. “Fuck, sir, please, so c-close,” you mumble, and his tongue is back to licking at whatever parts of your skin it can reach.

“You wanna come like this, sweetheart?” The main monitor in front of you glitches out, and when it comes back into focus you see yourself on the screen- like a mirror, you’re reflected, and you can see Vox’s grinning face behind you. Your skin is flushed, sweat dripping down your face, the hint of tears along your lashline as your mouth drops open when he adds a third finger. “Look fuckin’ beautiful, baby, you were made for this- maybe we give Valentino a call, he could-”

“No!” You release the arms of the chair to grab onto his wrists where his hands meet your body. “No one- no one but you, sir. Vox, please, l- let me come. Please?” You let a little whine into your voice, and you can see the way his mouth goes lax and his eyes laser-focus on where you’re grabbing at his hands.

“I didn’t mean to join us, dollface, just to record- but you’re right, you’re right.” He pulls his fingers from your pussy, slicing the center of your panties in the process before he brings his digits to his mouth- you watch on the screen as he curls his tongue around each one, licks the flavor of you from his skin and glitches out at the taste. “How could I possibly share such a fucking vision with anyone else?

He shifts you to one side so he can get his dick out, and the sight of it in the monitor, his own arousal beading at the top and rock hard, has you whimpering before it’s even inside of you. He carried himself like a man with a big cock, but Christ.

“Hope you like what you see, hun, cause it’s all yours.” He scoots forward in the seat, tilts his hips forward for the right angle, and moves you back into your previous position with ease- this time, the tip of him is pushing inside you, and you watch in the monitor as you sink inch by glorious inch onto him.

Once you’re fully seated, Vox seems to lose capability for rational thought. “Fuck me, you’re perfect,” he moans, bracing his feet more firmly on the ground to thrust up into you, getting a firm grasp on your hips to pull you down into it. The result is a beautiful stab at that sweet spot inside of you that makes you clench and cry out, watching Vox’s hypnotic eye start spiraling at its normal speed on the screen, and you can see backwards scrolling text of his stream of thoughts- a bunch of nonsensical letters and cuss words interspersed with your name. “I want to fucking- chain you to my desk so I can have this perfect pussy whenever I want it. Fuck, I can’t believe we- we could have been doing this for weeks.” He punctuates his sentence with a hard thrust.

“A-all the more reason to regularly clear your task manager, sir,” you say, so caught up in the feeling of him railing you from below that you can hardly believe you formed a coherent thought. He feels so fucking good and you’re a hair trigger away from collapsing and wringing him for all he’s got.

With one quick movement he’s shifted, and there’s a hand on your throat arching you backwards at the same time that he gets a couple clawed fingers rubbing at your clit. The shock of the combination makes you flutter around his length, a choked noise escaping your throat before he tightens his grip- not enough to really cut off your air supply, but enough that your brain starts going soft and mushy and the vice grip your cunt has on his cock gets impossibly tighter. You can see the shine of your slick arousal coating him every time he pulls out to rut back into you, and the sights and sounds are threatening to rip you into the chasm of ecstasy that you’re flirting with. 

“Vox,” you whine, “please, I’m so fucking- please please please-“ 

“Christ, babygirl, whatever you fucking want.” His eyes are wide and frantic as they watch the place you’re joined, his mouth set in a snarl as he fucks into your pliant body. The cry you release is nothing short of agonized- it’s so fucking close you can taste it, nearly overwhelmed with the tension.

“You wanna fucking cum on my cock? Do it, angel, let me see it- come on, baby, cum for me-“

Your walls clench down hard as you reach your orgasm, Vox’s grip on your throat making your vision and mind go fuzzy with the force of it as you choke on a moan that tries to escape your tensed muscles. You’re distantly aware of Vox thrusting hard into you, more praise and curses falling from his lips as he hits his peak as well, pressing his screen to the side of your face when he relinquishes his handle on your throat to clutch at your hips and grind into your cunt as he spills inside of you. The aftershocks of your release leave you twitching, milking his cock of everything he has to offer before he collapses into the chair behind you, a boneless pile of a man now simply running his hands over any bit of skin he could reach. 

It’s truly a testament to how helpful the reset and reboot had been that Vox’s system doesn’t simply crash. “Fucking Hell, I haven’t felt this good in decades,” he mutters in your ear, and you shiver at the feeling of his tongue brushing the sensitive skin.

“Ha, you think that’s the reboot or the mind-melting orgasms?”

He hums contentedly. “Jury’s out on that, doll. Guess we’ll have to do a re-run on both and see how it stacks up to this one.”

“I’ll make sure to schedule some time out for it,” you chuckle before fixing him with a stern glare through the monitor. “I’m serious about clearing your apps and shit more frequently though. Christ, you had decades of backed up shit open-“

“Don’t berate me while my dick is still inside you, fuck.” He leans you forward far enough to pull out, and you grimace at the feeling of his cum starting to spill back out of you. He notices the expression though- “Whoops, sorry,” he says, and after a quick second during which he tucks his softening prick away he scoops you into his arms, standing from the chair and stepping away from the desk. “Let’s get you cleaned up at the penthouse, angel, what do you say?”

“If you’re carrying me then lead the way.” You gesture towards the door out of the control room. “Just don’t start any timers to see how long it takes to get there or anything and we should be good.”

The glare he fixes you with shouldn’t be hot, but it fucking is. “Hardy har,” he deadpans, and rolls his eyes while he stalks towards the elevator, control room door closing behind you; but there’s a small smile on his screen despite his ire and he’s functioning normally, and when you see the little stopwatch icon pop up in the bottom right corner of his face and start counting, you can’t help but laugh.

[pateldevs]

Hi! I hope I'm not bothering you, but I love your mood board edits and was wondering if you could explain how you go about making/colouring them? I see lots of places to find gifs but turning them into a set is so hard. Thank you in advance!

hi! first of all thank you so much and second of all it’s not a bother at all! i am happy to give some of my own tips even if my explanation probably isn’t super helpful. i won’t give like a ps tutorial but below the cut (since i included example gifs, it’s VERY long) is my process for my latest jily aesthetic:

i keep track of all my ideas/sets in a spreadsheet (which i won’t show bc there’s a lot of info i’d have to blur/black out) but i always have a list of what scenes i need to gif/what gifs i’m editing and where i’m getting them from. i also include a couple extra ideas in case the gifs i have planned end up being too hard to color or don’t fit in the set. i’ve found it’s best/easiest to start w the list bc there is literally nothing worse than spending hours on a set and then not being able to complete it.

as for actually finding the material, i have a pretty healthy number of scene packs saved in my giffing folder, esp. for things i know i will gif frequently. most of the time i will peruse youtube, vimeo, and instagram for any aesthetic scenes. i also have a lot of gif packs saved specifically for the purpose of making mbs (usually i mix my own gifs w gif packs), if you msg me i’m happy to direct you to some gif packs i use regularly or you can check my #resources tag. a couple tips for finding material: 

always opt for download when possible, i used to screen record and the difference when i switched to downloading was astronomical. (it’s easy to lose quality and esp if you’re on mac, quicktime duplicates frames so either you have to manually delete those extras or you get sort of choppy gifs when you load them into ps.)

always use 1080p or better, 720p will work in a pinch for 268px or 177px gifs since you can make up some of that resolution loss with sharpening, but don’t go any lower than that, just love yourself. 

for pale sets, look for the right colors. i tend to look for scenes w high color contrast especially if it features poc so it’s easier to color without whitewashing, ie if the subject is a person then i look for light colored or blue/green/violet/white backgrounds. it’ll make your life wayyyyy easier. this also means if you’re making a set try to find scenes with already similar lighting bc you won’t have to work so hard to make it look cohesive.

here’s a quick rundown of what i do before coloring:

import all frames and save all the files in a folder together!!

play around with frame delay so all the gifs are moving at about the same speed, usually keep it between 0.03-0.05s

crop and resize gifs (i use 268x145 most of the time)

convert to timeline

when it comes to coloring it can be really hit or miss, i’ve recently gotten back into my groove but i was having sooo much trouble earlier this year. in general, don’t stress yourself out!! sometimes it’s easier to just find a new scene/gif (hence my list of extras!) than to try too hard to fit a gif into your set. i color all my gifs by scratch (ie no psds) but i tend to follow the same pattern, i’ll explain using these gifs/psd as an example since then i can also explain how to fix white-washing:

first off when you’re coloring gifs with poc always always always make a layer mask so you can compare the edited and unedited skin tones directly! i use the marquee tool to make a selection in the middle of the character’s face, select the folder of my adjustment layers, and hit ‘add vector mask’ (the third button from the left on the layers panel, it’s a white rectangle with a circle in it). 

i almost always begin by using hue/saturation layers to highlight and delete certain colors. here i highlighted red and raised the lightness on yellow by a lot since it’s a very yellow scene. then i use a combination of brightness/contrast, levels, and curves layers to brighten the scene. here’s what i have now:

i add a gradient map set to black/white, change the blending to exclusion, and lower the opacity to between 5-10% (depending on the scene) to lighten the contrast further:

then i add back a little depth with selective color in neutrals and blacks:

now i have two main goals: 1. add contrast between the background and the subject, and 2. brighten the scene into a pale gif. to do this, i use color balance to tweak the color of the background, taking out the yellows. this step works best if there’s at least some shade difference between your subject and background, otherwise isolating the two will be impossible. here’s what i have after adding color balance:

i use hue/saturation to selectively highlight the background color. in this case i chose to adjust magenta and used the color picker (the first eyedropper on the left) to identify the exact shade i wanted to lighten. now i have a fairly neutral background and a colorful subject, which gives a sort of pale effect:

and now i use a curves layer and a selective color (white) layer to brighten further:

before i go further, i start fixing white-washing. keep in mind that some variance is normal since you are naturally changing the lighting of the scene; this gif shows it rlly clearly bc of how yellow and dim the lighting is, so some lightening is to be expected. however, both because the vector mask shows a lot of whitening and because i’ve giffed dev patel before and have a general idea of what he looks like in this type of lighting, i know what needs to be fixed, so i go back in under the psd/adjustment layers with a combination of selective color (red and neutral) and hue/saturation layers to darken his skin again:

now that some more contrast has been added in, i can go back to working on the psd and use curves and selective color to play around with the background again:

i use another hue/saturation layer and a black/white gradient to tone down oversaturation:

usually i leave those layers on top, so if i want to make any adjustments (like lightening the background more), i go in under those two. in this case i tweaked the whites and reduced the contrast a little to get this:

again, you can see his skin tone has changed from the original, but variation is to be expected given how much brighter the room is, the fact that i took out a lot of yellow lighting, and the brightening effect of the computer screen in front of him. some other things to keep in mind when coloring:

when you add layers to correct white-washing, you’re likely to end up with overly red/orange skin tones (red-washing). this can be fixed by upping cyans in the reds, desaturating/darkening the reds, or adding b/w or desaturation later on.

when in doubt, it’s better to be darker than lighter (the issue with white-washing is that it promotes colorism, and there is nothing inherently wrong with a darker skin tone) but really. just put in the effort to color poc correctly.

when changing the lighting a lot it helps to look at pictures of the subject in natural/bright lighting, since you get a better idea of what their normal skin tone is. 

don’t try to squeeze all your selective color layers into one. you’ll get less grainy gifs if you separate them out and work one by one. 

TURN OFF NIGHT SHIFT/NIGHT MODE! yes i KNOW it’s bad for your eyes (especially if you’re like me and gif at night, when the lighting outside isn’t changing every 20 seconds) but your gifs will look VERY different under f.lux or night mode compared to daytime screens. especially if you’re giffing at different times of day, blue light filters can really change the way your coloring appears. best to keep it consistent.

my sharpening settings vary depending on what i’m giffing but in general i do two layers of smart sharpen (500% with radius between 0.2-0.4, 10% with radius at 10px) and then gaussian blur at 2.5px and adjust the opacity so it’s somewhere between 15-20%. i try to strike a balance between smoothing out the graininess from selective color, and sharpening details like clothes and hair. here’s what i ended up with for the gif above:

then i rinse and repeat for the rest of the gifs in the set! i tend to start with the gifs that i know will be hardest to color, which is usually the darker ones (coloring is limited by how much i can brighten the scene) and those that include poc (again, limited by how much i can brighten and adjust the scene’s lighting without white-washing). then i check set cohesion as i go, using those first few gifs as benchmarks. once i have all 8 (or 9 or 10) gifs, i play around with composition and try to balance and vary the subject, colors, and composition of gifs next to each other. i go back and make a couple of adjustments here and there according to what i observe and what i think might improve the overall appearance.

and that’s pretty much it! i hope this was helpful, if you have other questions feel free to message me and i’d be happy to help/troubleshoot. happy giffing!

[gukyi]

for you, anything (post-script) | ksj

summary: in the midst of all of the coworker chaos over your newfound relationship, you and seokjin make a deal. 

{established relationship!au, friends to lovers!au, enemies to lovers!au}

pairing: kim seokjin x female reader genre: fluff word count: 2k warnings: bts being annoying coworkers a/n: shoutout to @aurawatercolor​ for being so wonderful and for commissioning this drabble’s monster predecessor: for you, anything!! thank you for being so patient with me and overall being a good friend of mine. much love!

Here

“Back off, he’s mine!” You shriek, furiously mashing your keyboard buttons as your eyes zero in on your computer screen. Maintaining as much of a grip onto your mouse and keyboard as possible, you push your office chair towards Seokjin’s in a desperate attempt to get him to lose his hold by crashing into him, bumper-car style. You hear the scratchy fabric collide, a soft thud that ricochets you forward, almost like you had crashed into a fuzzy rock. 

Naturally peeved, you turn around to find your boyfriend completely unbothered, having moved barely an inch. And yeah, you weren’t great at Physics when you took it in high school, but you have a feeling that that’s not how Newton’s Third Law works. 

Unfortunately for you, the split second you spend glaring at the back of Seokjin’s head means that he can go in for the killing blow, sword stabbing through the warrior king on the screen until he collapses in a pool of video game blood. The sound of a death cry and a cheer echos from your computer speakers, and you groan. 

“Not again,” you say, exasperated. You toss your head back against the chair, eyes rolling upwards, just enough to make out Seokjin eyeing you, a smug expression written all over his face. “I told you I had him.”

“You just weren’t fast enough, I guess,” Seokjin says casually, bouncing out of his chair to gloat to you all up front and personal. 

“You better share all of the money and rewards you got from that kill,” you demand, poking a finger against your cheek. Seokjin kisses you gladly, wrapping his arms over the chair and around you as he rocks your office chair side to side. The benefit of working together in Kingdom is that you always have backup you can trust (unlike some other MMO games, one of which rhymes with Meague of Megends), but Kingdom was designed for loot to be collected by whoever delivers the death blow, and not split evenly among all parties. 

Lucky for you, your boyfriend happens to be both good at the game and willing to share all of his treasure. 

“Ew, gross, PDA at three o’clock,” Jungkook says loudly, his whiny voice interrupting you and Seokjin’s lovers’ quarrel. 

“Ugh, just because you guys can have a successful and empowering relationship doesn’t mean you have to rub it in all of our faces,” Taehyung adds with a huff. At least nobody’s singing playground nursery rhymes about the two of you anymore. Since when last did people actually sit in trees, anyway?

“Get a room,” Yoongi deadpans as per usual. His attitude has not changed even though the state of you and Seokjin’s relationship definitely has. You know you can always count on him to give it to you straight. 

“Hey, no making out on office premises,” Namjoon says, barging into the room with his glasses tucked into the collar of his sweater, one of those pastel cream ones that dads who golf wear (though Namjoon is neither a dad nor plays golf). He’s switched to an iPad in recent weeks, which, despite being much more environmentally friendly, is still not Namjoon-friendly, and he often has to troubleshoot basic things like the functionality of the Notes app. Not to mention, his place of employment is filled with twerps who love doing things like spamming his camera roll and locking himself out of his own iPad. You think the record is three hours, but give the device to Hoseok and he’ll get it up to a couple of days with ease. “You guys agreed to that when you signed the employee handbook.”

“You always think so lowly of us, Joon,” Seokjin chides, and since he’s everybody’s best friend, he’s the only one who can get away with doing that. “We were just talking.”

“And playing Kingdom,” Yoongi pipes up, quickly switching away from his Haikyuu!!! tab. 

“If there’s a rule against Kingdom in the employee handbook, you’d have to fire all of us,” you remind Namjoon pointedly. Not even Yoongi would be spared, even if he’s terrible at the game itself. 

“But if you did, maybe Jungkook could finally live out his dream of being an E-sports gamer,” Taehyung adds, sending Jungkook into a tizzy. 

Seokjin scoffs, “He’d have to knock me and Y/N out of first and second place first, though.” 

“But please don’t fire us,” Taehyung pipes up weakly. 

“Nobody’s getting fired. You guys just better be doing your work,” Namjoon says. “Hey, it says that my iPad is going to be updated later tonight, do I need to do anything about that?”

Everyone groans. 

“Hey, what if we got married?” Seokjin nudges you with his shoulder. 

You sputter out the water you had been drinking all over your desk. “Married?” It dawns on you that shouting out that word in an office filled with nosy coworkers may not be the brightest idea. 

“You guys are getting married?” Taehyung shrieks excitedly. “Oh my God, I call being best man!”

“You don’t get to make that decision, idiot!” Jungkook shouts. “Besides, Seokjin would totally pick me over you anyway.”

“Who says?”

“Guys, we’re not getting married,” Seokjin says before the whole office breaks out into a brawl. Taehyung’s expression falls, sinking back into his chair, defeated. Yoongi had even quirked up for a moment before immediately turning back to his anime. “At least, in real life, we’re not.”

“Oh, you meant in-game?” You ask, the realization dawning on you. You notice everyone in the office eyeing you and Seokjin. Glaring at each and every person, you say, “He meant in-game, mind your own beeswax, you nosy freaks.” 

“Obviously,” Seokjin says with a roll of his eyes. “I love you, Y/N, but seeing as how we started dating three months ago, I think that marriage is pushing it. But in Kingdom, yeah, why not? We’ll get a lot of buffs from being married.”

Seokjin’s got a point. Being married in Kingdom means that the two of you will share wealth, property, and have the option of combining special powers during battles. It also means that the game will split boss and player rewards evenly amongst the two of you without you having to do it manually. Besides, isn’t it only right for the top two players in the game to get married? Assert their dominance? Remind Jungkook that he’ll never be an E-sports gamer for Kingdom? 

“Sounds like a plan,” you say, easily convinced. Besides, Seokjin could ask you to hand over all of your coins in the game, leaving you penniless, and you wouldn’t bat an eyelash. “We can do it later tonight.”

“My place? We can order takeout.”

“Only if we can get some cheesecake as well,” you say. 

“Done.”

Seokjin plants another kiss onto your lips before returning to his own desk, your office chairs facing away from each other as you get back to work, the promise of a nice meal and some quality time together keeping you motivated. 

Out of the blue, you say, “I would have said yes, you know.”

“To what?” Seokjin asks, not even turning around. 

“To asking if we could get married,” you tell him. He rounds on you, eyes wide. “I would have said yes.”

Seokjin seems frozen in place before he caves, body relaxing as his entire face begins to glow, red and orange and pink. “Tell you what,” he says. “I’ll ask again later, and if your answer is still the same, then we can.”

“How much later?” You ask. You don’t like to be kept waiting. Especially since the both of you know that your answer almost definitely won’t falter. 

Seokjin grins. “You’ll see.”

There

“I never liked fancy dresses,” you comment, pulling at the collar of the white dress lacing your features, hugging your body like a bedsheet. It’s scratchy and uncomfortable and restricting, making you feel like you can’t eat a single apple without popping open. There’s a veil with a train the size of the castle behind you, and the tiara on your head is so heavy and sharp that ti feels as though you’re about to topple. All this for a wedding?

“Good thing you’ll never have to wear one again after this, right?” Jin whispers back, the two of you facing the officiant before you as a crowd of onlookers watches the two of you. 

“Is that a promise?” You ask. “We’re making a lot of promises today, aren’t we?”

“And I will keep every single one of them with honor,” Jin says dramatically. It almost makes you reach out to punch him in the shoulder, but you don’t for the sake of publicity, hands wrapped tightly around the bouquet, filled with roses and tulips and carnations. You can’t believe you’re saying this, but you think you prefer your knight’s garb. At least it comes with flat boots. 

You even tune out what the officiant is saying, an old, monotonous advisor who oversees all military weddings, waiting boredly until you are prompted to respond. Time usually goes by rather quickly in the Kingdom, whether you are strolling through the market or on the battlefield, but here, it feels as though it’s taking forever and a day. Discreetly, you turn to look at Jin, who notices your gaze and rolls his eyes, just to make you laugh. At least the both of you feel the same about this whole thing. You wish there were an easier way to do this, perhaps just going to a courthouse and signing some papers and making a vow or two. Does the entire kingdom have to watch? 

“Do you promise to uphold these values, Jin?” The officiant asks. 

“I do,” Jin says. 

“Do you promise to uphold these values, Y/N?” 

Relieved that it’s finally coming to an end, you nod. “I do.”

“Then, by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss.”

Immediately, Jin turns to you, reaching an arm out to hold onto your waist as he pulls you towards him, your faces pressed up against each other, breaths hitting each others’ skin. 

“I’ve been waiting all day to do this,” he whispers softly. 

“Then don’t hold back,” you challenge. 

In one fell swoop, Jin presses a kiss on your lips, soft and warm and gentle. It’s filled with more promises than the officiant could even dream of making, filled with more vows than any wedding ceremony could produce. What this is is more than a silly pledge, a matrimonial technicality. It is an oath. To protect each other. To care for each other. To love each other.

And you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that for the rest of time, until the sun collapses and the moon vanishes, that you will.

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget i’m still taking commissions!

[katemarley]

Priority One

Fandom: Mó Dào Zǔ Shī /Chén Qíng Lìng/The Untamed Pairing: XiYao Characters: Niè Huáisāng, Jīn Guāngyáo, Lán Xīchén, Niè Míngjué Rating: T

Summary: Whenever the vice president of the student union has a task for the union’s secretary, it becomes his top priority. The president’s younger brother notices.

Also available on AO3 (see the link in my profile).

*

Note: The student rep system in this story turned out vaguely British, I suppose… Anyway, MDZS is set in a fantasy world, so why not keep this Modern AU in sort of a fantasy setting, too?

*

“Oh, hello, Huaisang-xiong. Break between lectures?” Meng Yao entered the room with a cardboard box on his hip and his characteristically dimpled smile on his face. The trousers and waistcoat he wore were cheap but elegant, Nie Huaisang noticed with a practised eye as he looked up from his place on the sofa.

Huaisang was painting a fan for the theatre group. There was never enough time to unpack art supplies and get something done in between university work and performances, but his big brother was the president of the student union. That allowed him to use the union’s office rooms, leave his art supplies on the table next to the sofa and work in between lectures.

“Yep. Making a prop for our next performance.” He turned the fan in his hand, showing the ferns and flowers he had drawn. Meng Yao put the box on his desk and stepped closer to admire the decorations in more detail.

“Beautiful!” he exclaimed. His dimples became even deeper. “Seeing this, I’m sure all the props you have made will be extraordinary once again!” Huaisang acknowledged the flattery with a smile. Meng Yao’s words didn’t mean much. They were often casually flattering.

Returning to his desk, Meng Yao started to unpack the contents of the cardboard box.

“Forgive me if I don’t stay here to chat,” he said, “but I’ve only got an hour in between lectures, too. I needed to pick up these posters from the university print shop and will try to put up as many as I can now.” He took one of the posters from the box and unfolded it so Huaisang could see what was on it.

“Oh, it’s the next performance of Lan Xichen’s ensemble!” Huaisang exclaimed. What he didn’t say was Now I know why you’re so eager to sacrifice your off-work hours to some student union-related task again. He was in the union’s offices often enough to be familiar with Meng Yao’s schedule, and squeezing in an hour of extra work in between lectures was not his normal way of handling things. Meng Yao’s usual planning was too meticulous for last-minute troubleshooting to even become necessary.

“The printing process took a little longer than estimated.” Meng Yao rolled his eyes. “I already filed a complaint with the administration, but it’s likely nothing will come of it. Anyway...” The polite smile was back on his face, dimples included. “I’m off now. Will you be here this afternoon, too?” During your regular work hours, Huaisang added in his head.

“I guess so,” he said out loud. “This isn’t the only prop I need to make.” He waved Meng Yao goodbye with the painted fan. “See you later then!”

*

“You put up all the posters already?” Lan Xichen exclaimed incredulously. “How—” He paused and a frown appeared on his handsome face. “Wait. A-Yao! You didn’t skip lunch in the canteen for this, did you?”

“Don’t worry, Vice President,” said Meng Yao with a smile that was just that tiny bit wider when he looked at Lan Xichen. “I had lunch.”

Huaisang looked up from the forest he was painting on canvas. He knew he was the only one in the room, apart from Meng Yao, who had seen the box of cheap noodles in the bin. His brother was sitting behind his desk, too focused on his work to notice such things, and Lan Xichen was too honest to realise that his question about “lunch in the canteen” and Meng Yao’s answer didn’t necessarily match. Meng Yao, Huaisang had noticed, was a master in the art of not exactly telling the truth while simultaneously avoiding an outright lie.

“Still,” Lan Xichen insisted, “you shouldn’t have done this all on your own. Putting up posters is so much easier with a second person and I wouldn’t have minded helping you. After all, these were the posters for my ensemble.”

That, Huaisang thought, is exactly why he did this for you. Don’t you see how he’s looking at you? That soft glow in his eyes?

But Lan Xichen, the ever chivalrous, seemed to be oblivious to acts of chivalry done for him. And that, Huaisang pondered, even though it had been him who had started this by being pointedly kind to Meng Yao where others were not.

It had gone around that Meng Yao was the illegitimate son of the university president, Jin Guangshan, as soon as he had started his first year. Huaisang had only heard it from his brother, but there seemed to have been some nasty attempts at bullying Meng Yao, mostly by those of the rich folks who tended to look down on scholarship boys anyway. These attempts had all failed spectacularly, however, after Lan Xichen had made a point of sitting next to Meng Yao during lunch … and after Nie Mingjue had yelled at the bullies, telling them he’d break every single bone in their bodies if they didn’t stop. (That, Huaisang was sure, was also the reason why no one had ever attempted to bully him. His brother could be quite scary if he towered over you and yelled.)

From that moment on, Meng Yao had been part of the in-group. Some people were still talking badly about him, but never within earshot of his protectors, the two most popular students at the university. And when Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen had run for the student council, the ever well-organized and hard-working Meng Yao had managed their election campaign. When they had won, it had only been natural for him to apply for the position of student union secretary – and get chosen not out of familiarity or favour, but because he was actually the applicant with the most credentials.

Meng Yao treated both Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen with the utmost respect bordering on devotion, but with Lan Xichen, there were certain … differences.

Unlike his younger brother Lan Wangji, who was Huaisang’s age and seemed to hate any sort of physical contact, Lan Xichen would occasionally put his hand on Nie Mingjue or Meng Yao’s arm when he was looking over their shoulder at a computer screen. It was almost imperceptible, but whenever he did that with Meng Yao, Meng Yao would lean into the touch.

The moment when Huaisang had become convinced Meng Yao had a thing for Lan Xichen had come when he had seen them practice the guqin together. Lan Xichen had put his hand over Meng Yao’s to show him some finger movement, and the flush on Meng Yao’s face had been unmistakable… Had Lan Xichen looked up in that moment, he would have seen it, too. But he had only had eyes for the instrument.

While Huaisang had been pondering over his observations, the conversation between Lan Xichen and Meng Yao had moved on.

“…need to consider how to arrange the seating this time,” Meng Yao pointed out. “There are some new staff members – I sent them an invitation already, but since I’m not in the arts department, I don’t know their exact hierarchy and who gets along with whom.”

“Don’t worry, A-Yao!” Lan Xichen gave him a reassuring pat on the back – and again, Meng Yao leaned into the touch. “We can look over the seating arrangement for the invited guests later this afternoon.” Lan Xichen took his phone to check his schedule. “Well, early evening. There’s a meeting I have to attend at five, but after that, I’m free. It shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

“That would be perfect,” Meng Yao said with another dimpled smile. “I’m just going to wait for you in the office then. There’s still plenty of work to do anyway.

“Speaking of meetings,” Nie Mingjue made his presence known for the first time during their conversation. “Xichen-xiong, shouldn’t you be on your way to the master class now?”

“Oh dear…” Lan Xichen glanced at his phone again. “Thank you, Mingjue-xiong. You’re quite right.” He grabbed the bag with his xiao in it and rushed out of the office.

“As for you…” Nie Mingjue stood and strode to Meng Yao. “You shouldn’t say ‘yes’ to each and every task someone gives you,” he scolded. “The number of your overtime hours is already higher than what we can pay you. Take a day off, Meng-xiong.”

“Thank you, President,” Meng Yao said with a polite bow. “I will follow your advice. However, please allow me to help Vice President as promised.”

“You already confirmed the appointment.” Nie Mingjue nodded. “That means you must keep it.” Then he glared at Meng Yao. “Still, stop taking on so many chores. You don’t have to prove to us that you’re capable. We know that.” Saying this, he gave Meng Yao a friendly pat on the shoulder that almost brought him to his knees. Huaisang winced in sympathy. He knew how that pat felt.

*

Huaisang kept Meng Yao company as he waited for Lan Xichen’s meeting to be over. It hadn’t been a conscious decision – it was just that it took very long to thread the beads for a tiara on the metal frame he had made for this purpose.

“Huaisang-xiong, don’t you think it’s enough for today?” Meng Yao asked after Huaisang had yawned for the second time. “I think you should go home and rest. You’ve made a lot of props on one single day.”

Look who’s talking, thought Huaisang, but when he yawned for the third time, he admitted to himself that Meng Yao was right.

“Fine,” he said, almost yawning once again. “I’ll leave everything as it is, alright? Let me just collect the spare beads and put them back in the box, and then I’ll be off.” He gestured at the beads he had taken out of their box because he had expected to use them up within the next couple of minutes.

“Sounds good to me.” Meng Yao nodded. “Meanwhile I’m going to check if Vice President’s meeting is still going on. It’s past six already. Have a nice evening if we don’t see each other anymore today!”

“You, too!” Huaisang waved again, this time without a fan in his hand.

When Meng Yao had left the room, Huaisang picked up the beads he had put on the table, throwing them back in the box. And then it happened. He might have been too inattentive or too tired – in any case, the box tipped and most of its contents spilled across the room.

Oh no, not that!

Huaisang accepted his fate with an acquiescent sigh and kneeled down on the floor, picking up the spilled beads and putting them back in the box.

It took a while for him to clean the linoleum floor as best as he could – Meng Yao didn’t return in the meantime – but just as he thought he had finally found all the beads, he noticed one of them half hidden under the sofa. He pushed the sofa from the wall, collected the beads underneath, and pushed it back.

Then he realised that there might be even more beads under the roll cages beneath all three desks in the room. He checked them quickly – but then he noticed a bead that had found its way behind the partition that sectioned off the large printer and a small desk with a cutting machine, a punch, a stapler and scissors on it.

With a sigh, he took the bead box and checked under the small table. Sure enough, he found two beads and spotted another that had rolled in the gap between the floor and a part of the printer that didn’t carry its weight.

Huaisang was fishing for the stray bead when the door opened. He lifted his head to tell Meng Yao about his mishap – and immediately ducked. Then he had to look up again or, he thought, he would forever doubt what he was seeing with his own eyes.

Meng Yao had pulled Lan Xichen inside and was now pushing him against the door, kissing him with what Huaisang could only describe as hunger. He was standing on tiptoe, fingers digging in Lan Xichen’s shirt both to pull him close and to make him stoop enough for Meng Yao to reach up to him.

Lan Xichen’s eyes were closed and he responded to the fierce kiss with an expression of reverent abandon. One of his hands was wrapped around Meng Yao’s shoulders, keeping him close; the other still held the bag with his xiao.

After a while, Meng Yao broke the kiss. Huaisang ducked again, mind whirring. He had thought Meng Yao’s yearning was unrequited – or unfulfilled, at the least – but this…

“My apologies,” he heard Meng Yao whisper. “I … just couldn’t wait any longer. Being close to you without being able to touch you is torture.”

Lan Xichen gave a quiet laugh. Then there was another lapse in the conversation.

Huaisang peered over the partition – and ducked his head once more. Now Lan Xichen was kissing Meng Yao. He had put his xiao on the nearest desk – Meng Yao’s, as it happened – and was holding Meng Yao’s chin in his fingers. From this angle, Huaisang couldn’t see Lan Xichen’s face, but he had never seen Meng Yao with such an open and vulnerable expression.

Huaisang clenched his fists, staring at the floor with burning cheeks. He had to find a face-saving way to get out of this situation. Nothing of this was meant for him to see. Especially this expression … Meng Yao would kill him if he knew Huaisang had seen it.

“Now, A-Yao,” Lan Xichen said in a teasing tone, “we’ve still got work to do, don’t we?”

“As if I could ever forget!” Meng Yao replied with false indignation. Lan Xichen laughed.

When there was another silence, Huaisang dared to take another look over the partition.

They were sitting on the sofa now, far too close to leave any room for doubt about their relationship. Lan Xichen had wrapped an arm around Meng Yao’s shoulders, who leaned into him, a tablet in his hands.

Meng Yao’s tablet.

Huaisang remembered his surprise when Meng Yao had come to the office with that tablet the day after his birthday. His brother had told him he and Lan Xichen had gifted Meng Yao the economics textbooks he needed for his finals that year, so the appearance of the tablet had been mysterious… Until now, that was. If the tablet was a special present for Lan Xichen’s boyfriend, it all made sense.

The following conversation was incomprehensible to Huaisang because he didn’t see the tablet screen. There were murmured sentences like “How about seating them here?” – “No, I think over there would be better.” – “Then what do we do with… Ah, yes, good idea!” and “No, no, better place another person in between…” Huaisang inferred that Meng Yao had a digital seating chart on his tablet and probably a list of the invited guests as well. He made a mental note to ask Meng Yao about it for the theatre performance … if he made it out of the office without embarrassing himself.

“…and that’s it!” he heard Meng Yao exclaim in pleasant surprise. “That’s really it, isn’t it?”

“It’s the best we can do,” Lan Xichen replied. “We’re finally done, so…” There was a hint of uncertainty in his tone. “Will you come to mine tonight? Stay with me?”

“We shouldn’t do this too often…” Meng Yao said uncomfortably. There was a short pause. “Yes – yes, I will. And believe me, I want to – I’d love to stay with you forever! It’s just that…” He paused again.

“I know,” Lan Xichen said in the gentlest tone. “You want to gain the recognition of your father and everyone around you all by yourself, and I admire you for that attitude. Still…” His tone changed again, turning emphatic and almost pleading. “Please let me help you at least a little bit. Let us help you – Mingjue-xiong and me.”

“You’re already helping so much,” Meng Yao replied. His tone was gentle and fragile as glass. “But you must understand … If people knew about you and me, they would accuse me of sleeping my way up to the top of the social ladder. They say that about my mother, too. I don’t want…” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t bear it if they talked about you as if I was only using you. Them talking badly about me – I can take that. But not about you. Never about you.”

“Oh, A-Yao…” There was a rustle of fabric, and Huaisang didn’t need to be a genius to figure out that Lan Xichen was taking Meng Yao in his arms. “I still think we should tell the Nie brothers about us,” Lan Xichen said. “They won’t spill our secret.”

Huaisang’s heart started to pound in his chest at the mention of his own name.

“I,” said Meng Yao in a muffled voice. “I don’t want to burden them with the knowledge. I’m already selfish as it is, because…” There was another pause. Then Meng Yao whispered: “Because I want you for myself. The sensible thing would have been to keep my distance from you, but I can’t. I can’t…” His voice cracked.

“And that is a good thing,” Lan Xichen said earnestly, “because I couldn’t keep my distance from you either.” He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was raw and vulnerable. “Now let me be selfish, A-Yao: I want you. I’ve wanted you since I first laid eyes upon you, carrying on as if it was nothing even though everyone was saying such bad things about you. I would be an unhappy man if you hadn’t reciprocated my feelings.”

Huaisang inwardly rolled his eyes. He hadn’t known Lan Xichen could be this soppy.

When there was another pause, Huaisang didn’t check what was going on. He was glad about his decision when he heard someone moan – he forbade himself to think about who it was – and was about to put his fingers in his ears when he heard Lan Xichen laugh.

“If we continue like this,” he said, “we’re not going to make it to my flat today.”

“That would be a pity,” Meng Yao said in an equally amused tone. “Your bed is far more comfortable than the sofa.”

“Then take my hand!” Lan Xichen laughed again. “Let’s go home!”

“Let’s go,” Meng Yao repeated. There was a timbre to his voice, a slight waver. “Home,” he continued eventually.

At last, Huaisang heard the door open and close again. He didn’t move.

He was … shocked. Yes, that was the right word for it. Meng Yao’s love for Lan Xichen … it was so obvious because Lan Xichen was the only person he treated differently. Lan Xichen’s love for Meng Yao, however … it was literally hidden in plain sight, Huaisang decided. It didn’t attract anyone’s attention because Lan Xichen was kind to everyone. That was what had fooled him. But now he knew, and he was bursting with that knowledge.

Please rethink your decision, Meng Yao, he pleaded inwardly. I don’t think I can keep that secret from my brother for long.

[rose-red-ink]

Shadows and Thrones, Chapter One

Hey everyone, thanks for showing interest in my book! I’ll be adding a link to this and subsequent chapters on my masterlist page. Hope you all enjoy. 

Chapter 1

Everything began to fade away; the bed beneath me, the press of the metal headset in front of my eyes, the quiet birdsong outside my window. The world faded to black as my mind was teleported to somewhere far away and nowhere all at once.

The world of Shadows and Thrones, the newest VR game on the market. The darkness around me started to swirl with muted color, consolidating into a generic female avatar standing a few feet in front of me.

Dozens of menus popped up, offering height, weight, hair color, race, skin color, fighter class, and more things to choose from than my overly-excited brain could settle on. A grin on my face, I set to work.

My boots touched down with a soft crunch in a beautiful pine forest. The trees stretched tall and green above my head, swaying gently in the breeze. The sharp scent of pine needles touched my nose, and I couldn’t contain a tiny gasp. Full-dive virtual reality really was amazing. A thrill rushed in my chest, a familiar ache to run and climb and explore every inch of this new world.

‘And then what?’ a little voice whispered in my head. ‘You’ll explore this world, it’ll be all fun and exciting for a few months. It won’t make you happy.’

I shook my head. “Shut up.”

I was here, the sun shining in a dappled pattern over my avatar’s skin, a whole new world stretching out before me. I didn’t have to be thinking about all that, I shouldn’t.

I took a deep breath through my nose, taking in the scents of pine and damp earth and freshly baked bread, somewhere off in the distance. Probably a town, one with a tavern.

I could find some other players, try to join a guild, or even just a party for a few days as I got used to things. Maybe people might want me in their guild, if I didn’t mess up too much.

Squaring my shoulders, I walked towards the direction of the smell. As the trees thinned out, I could see a village across the fields of grass, chimney smoke rising into the clear blue sky. Perfect.

The tavern was filled with players of all races crowded around tables. An NPC barmaid pushed past me, delivering mugs of mead to a drow and some kind of water spirit race, before bustling back to the bar.

Everyone seemed to know everyone else, groups of friends and old guilds meeting up. A girl in low-cut armor lounged in the corner, hitting on whoever walked by, and acting super friendly to any girl players who wandered past.

I steered clear. I’d played enough video games to know who those kinds of players were.

But as the tavern filled with more players, my hesitation grew. My eyes drifted to the notice board. I could put up a sign, saying I needed a guild to join, but that could yield...uncomfortable results.

So I sat on a bar stool, picking at my long fingernails, for what seemed like forever.

After nearly an hour, I sighed and resigned myself to just making a notice board post and hoping whoever picked me up wasn’t too creepy.

Looking for guild!

My name’s Risty Blackburn, I’m a level one shadow rogue, leaning towards a DPS role.. Looking for a guild to join. No spam or roleplaying guilds, please!

ID contact number: 78349375841

‘You really think anyone’s going to be interested with that? Just log out and stop wasting your time.’

I winced, tearing down the notice. I mentally called up the menu screen, reaching for the logout button.

I tapped it. Nothing happened.

I frowned. Tapped again.

The tavern still bustled around me.

Maybe the headgear took a couple minutes to shut down? The instruction manual said it was supposed to be instantaneous, but this was a new game. They probably had to work out a few bugs.

I waited five minutes. Ten. Fifteen.

Then, my stomach flipped. An elf player stood, reaching for his menu, and disappeared in a flash of light.

He was logged out instantly. Was something wrong with my VR gear? Or the game?

I hurried over to the table he had just left. A dwarf man and some sort of cat woman looked up at me expectantly.

My stomach dropped. “H-hello.” I managed. “I, uh, have either of you had a problem logging out? I saw your friend did, but mine isn’t working.”

The dwarf rolled his eyes. “It’s not that hard, noob.”

He pulled up his menu, pointing to the logout button. “See? Right here.”

Frustration boiled inside me. “I know.” I snapped, pulling it up. “But it doesn’t work.”

I demonstrated, the button still yielding no results.

The cat-woman frowned, looking at my screen. “That’s weird…”

The dwarf sneered. “Go figure it out yourself.”

The cat-woman smacked his arm with a disapproving glare, before looking back to me. “I’d go to the city hall. There are some friendly NPCs who can help with any glitches.”

I nodded, thanking her.

So I just needed to get bug sorted out. That was all. Everything would be fine. But I couldn’t shove aside the sinking feeling in my chest as I left the tavern and into the coming sunset.

Something was off.

“What the hell do you mean?!”

The enraged roar was what greeted me as I walked into the city hall. An elf man was yelling at an NPC with a politely blank expression.

“You do not meet the requirements to log out right now.” the computer-generated man said calmly.

“If you say that one more time--”

“You can’t log out?” I interrupted. Which I immediately regretted as he whirled on me, green eyes blazing with anger.

“Figure that out all by yourself?” he snarled. “The stupid logout button doesn’t work.”

I shrank back. “Mine doesn’t work either.” I managed. “That’s why...why I’m here.”

He looked at me with narrowed eyes, before moving aside.

“Talk to him,” he ordered.

I hesitated, before walking quickly past him, in front of the NPC.

“Hello,” I said quietly.

He smiled politely, his settings reset to talk to me. “Good evening, adventurer. How may I help you?”

“I can’t log out.” I explained.

He smiled. “Alright! I’ll pull up your profile and see what I can do. Please stay patient.”

His expression went blank again.

“This takes a while.” the elf explained. He kept fidgeting, picking the sleeves of his long cloak. From his clothes and the starter’s bow slung over his shoulder…

“You’re a ranger, right?” I asked.

He looked down. “Oh...yeah.”

I nodded. “It looks...nice.” His avatar did look good, it was clear he had spent lots of time on it. His skin was light brown, with long black hair loose around his shoulders. His eyes were dark green, like the pine forest I had spawned in. But his eyes kept darting around impatiently, never settling on anything for too long.

“Did you need to log out for something?” I asked.

He grimaced. “I...yeah. I just got a message from my sister a few minutes ago, she went into labor. I’m gonna miss the birth of my new niece or nephew if this bug doesn’t clear up.”

I winced. “Ugh, I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault.” he scratched the back of his head. “Sorry I was yelling.”

I smiled. “It’s alright, I understand. You’re probably freaking out a bit for your sister, right?”

He gave a tight, stressed laugh. “Yeah. But I mean, her husband’s taking her to the hospital, and my mom is with her...she’ll be okay. It’s just irritating.”

He shook his head, as if trying to clear out his intruding thoughts, and held out his hand. “Anyway...I’m Lorson Clearwater”

I shook it. “Risty Blackburn.”

He grinned. “Okay, that’s a cool name. And a neat avatar.”

I couldn’t help my smile. “Yeah, it took me an hour,” I admitted.

My avatar had long, dark red hair, turning to golden blonde as it reached the tips. Her skin was dappled with freckles, and she wore simple black leather armor under a reddish-brown cloak. A couple simple daggers were strapped to her belt. But the best parts were the ears and tail. They were those of a fox, and the same red-brown as the cloak, tipped in white.

“Kitsune is a pretty cool race. I figured I’d go classic, though,” he admitted, looking down at his avatar.

“Nothing wrong with classics.” I reminded him cheerfully.

He smiled, some of the tension seeming to leave his face. “Right? Elves are awesome.”

“Ms. Blackburn, I’ve finished your scan.” the NPC interrupted.

I turned, heart pounding. “Thank you. What did you find? Can I log out?”

The NPC smiled. “You do not meet the requirements to log out. Thank you.”

Four hours later, Lorson got a message from his mother that his sister had given birth to a healthy baby boy. She was annoyed he hadn’t been there. He told her something had come up, that there was an accident, but he was okay.

Lorson and I couldn’t get any more answers out of the NPC, so the two of us had gone out of the hall, and sat on the marble steps. He’d halfheartedly suggested we go try out the combat system, but I’d just shrugged. The excitement I’d felt for the game’s release had been replaced by a cold, leeching dread.

What if I tried dying?

“You can’t log out either, can you?”

A voice made him look up. Two more players stood in front of him. A girl with short, dark purple hair plopped down on the steps, visibly fuming. Her long staff and dark blue robes meant she was a mage or some kind of spellcaster.

“This is BS.” she snapped.

The other player with her smiled apologetically at Lorson and I, before sitting down next to her.

“We’ll figure it out, Kaia,” he said gently. His heavy armor, golden hair, and broadsword marked him as some sort of tank, probably a paladin. “We’ve already sent a troubleshoot request, we just need to wait.”

He sat down next to the girl in the blue robes, giving them an apologetic smile.

I glanced above his head, the name there was “Edun”.

“I was supposed to video chat with some friends tonight, but the stupid NPCs say I can’t log out!” Kaia snapped. “What the hell are the “qualifications for logging out”? What does that even mean?!”

“I’d be happy to explain, miss.”

We all looked up to see a generic human player standing a few feet away. I frowned. His player name and HP bar weren’t visible, which I didn’t even think was possible.

“And who the hell are you?” Kaia sneered.

The man smiled. He had a kind, if not generic face. “My name is Adrius. I’m the reason you’ll all be staying in this game, for the foreseeable future.”

[josieswrk]

My Father

In a writing flow, keeping it going. Cleaned all the gross things in my house I’ve been procrastinating - the bathroom, the stove, and some leftover soup stock that went bad. Taking a writing break to clear my nose. I feel like gagging.

The last father-daughter date I remember having with my father was in 2018, the week my grandfather died. We were in Seoul, two days after we had interred my harabujee’s ashes in a hillside far outside of the city, somewhere close to the DMZ.

My grandmother’s house is simple and warm. A small crucified Jesus hangs from yellowing wallpaper, over a flat-screen television set warbling the news. Family members dressed in black are spread out across the heated ondol floors. Some lay on their sides, propping up their heads up with their hand, some are seated upright, peeling fruit. Two slim candles from my grandmothers seongdang, or Catholic church, burn quietly next to the television in front of my grandfather’s chosang photograph, encased in a thick wooden frame. In the photograph, my grandfather appears reserved, dressed in a black suit jacket, his grey hair combed neatly. In the photograph, he almost imperceptible smile on his lips, his eyes staring straight at you through large wire-rimmed glasses.

In my memory the scene is quiet but tense. My family must have hit a lull between fights, everyone restoring their strength before the next battle to come. My father, wanting to get a break from his family, had been suggesting for days that we steal away for an afternoon to run errands and get coffee, our shared love language. 

My father announced to our family members that we were leaving, as we put on our shoes and bundled up for the Korean winter in the foyer. My grandfather passed in January, right around New Year’s. The cold was such that it sliced at my legs with an icy knife even if I was wearing pants. I don’t know how my old great aunts and uncles managed to climb up the trail to my grandfather’s grave, the freezing cold biting at any unprotected skin. 

My father and I stepped into the cold apartment stairwell and called the stainless steel elevator. Our shoes echoed against the grey granite floors as we waited for the elevator window to appear. We took the narrow elevator down to the ground floor and began to make our way down to the main street, where the shops were. My dad’s side of the family lives in Donam-dong, in a village of tall apartment buildings on top of a hill. We walked for a ways before reaching “the shortcut,” a covered stairway that took you straight down the side of the hill to street level. From there, we walked a couple blocks to the cell phone servicing store. 

I’m not sure if there is an equivalent in America. It was a store dedicated to repairing and troubleshooting cell phones, not selling them. The small office space was filled with nine or so desks, each with an IT man or woman. When you arrive, you get a number and wait for your number to flash over the attendant who was ready for you, the way you would wait in line at the deli. 

I sat on the waiting chairs until my dad finished what he needed to do, and then we walked back out into the cold together. We found the nearest coffeeshop (I think it was a Tom N Toms) and stepped inside. My dad ordered two large coffees for us and we sat together at a small wooden table, each of us in a comfortable black leather chair. 

This date stands out in my mind, not only because it was our last one but because it reflected a shift in our relationship. Something about my grandfather’s death had tipped the scales. As soon as I landed at Inchon airport, I knew that I wasn’t arriving as a spectator. I was here to support my father so that he could grieve as a son. I have seen my father cry before, albeit not very often. But this was the first time I saw him sob with his whole body, kneeling in front of my grandfather’s grave. This time, when my family fought, I was no longer a timid spectator, sensitive little Jungah stressed out over conflict. This time, I stepped in and defended my parents when the accusations against them crossed the boundary into the ridiculous. For the first time in my life, the adults were looking at me with new eyes, asking me for my opinion, saying that my arguments made sense. 

Safe within the walls of Tom N Toms, a hot cup of coffee in each of our hands, my dad and I could pretend for a couple hours that things were normal. We talked about many things, including his thoughts about his relatives. I think growing up I was always an 애늙으니, a child with an old soul, because my parents were always sharing stories of their relatives with me. “This samchon has this fatal flaw and that’s why he failed at his business.” “You have to be thankful when things are going well and don’t get too greedy - that’s when things start to go wrong.” “This cousin was unhappy in their marriage because they married someone who was not right for them.”

My dad and I have an interesting relationship. We’re both passionate brainiacs with poor communication skills. Sometimes we’re bouncing off ideas and theories like two jazz musicians adding layers of complexity and nuance as we riff back and forth. Sometimes, our chests are puffing up for a fight, usually based on misunderstandings and leaps in logic that we think the other person should be able to easily follow. Sometimes, my dad makes me so frustrated with his aggressive projections and assumptions about my arguments that I’ve shredded up napkins to keep my cool. 

When I was growing up, his anger was more explosive. I hated it the most when he exploded in the car, a small, enclosed space. He would, by all accounts, lose it. The car would fill with his angry voice and sometimes his hand would throttle the gear shifter (wow, what is that stick called?) 

But the dad I have now is so different from the dad I had then... a testament to God’s work in his life. He also learned how to better love me. “I learned from Dr. Lea [my therapist] that it’s not necessarily a good thing when you always do what I say and never fight back,” he once told me. “So I’m trying to see you arguing back as something healthy.” 

It’s weird to think about my dad’s most explosive moments. Now he’s such a chill guy... he has his moments of anxiety, sure, but not anger, not toward us. When he gets drunk he always, always says “You know that I lub yoo right?” his eyes closing and lips curling in an annoying smile. And yes, he says that he loves me even when he’s sober too. 

These days when we talk, he always reminds me not to worry about my future. Once, he reminded me of the lyrics to a famous Christian song: “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know-ow-ow He holds the future. And life is worth the living, just because He lives.” “Life is worth living, Jungah-ya,” he said in the car, me sobbing in the passenger seat next to him. “Just because He lives.”

A date with my father in Seoul seems like an impossible occurrence now, with the pandemic who knows when either of us will be in Korea ever again. But for a few hours that day, we got to sneak away from the rest of our family and be ourselves over cups of steaming hot coffee. How often do I get to have my father to myself, to pick his brain and study his face? His salt and pepper hair, his wire-frame glasses, his small eyes and button nose. It’s a memory I know I’ll be thinking of in the future, when the time comes for me to grieve my father the way he grieved his. 

[nahoo883]

The Rodecaster Pro is a perfect centerpiece to a home podcasting studio

My podcasting rig is simple: Two microphones, a Tascam recorder, two XLR cables. I’ve upgraded things a bit in the past year — improved the mics, bought some foam windscreens and bought a pair of tabletop, foldable mic stands. But the principle is the same: take nothing I can’t fit into a laptop sleeve.

It’s served me pretty well in the five years I’ve been doing my show. While friends were building soundproof posting studios in their homes, I went with a rig I could take with me. It’s a lot easier to ask someone to be on your show if you’re able to go to them.

Here’s a picture I took of comedian Hannibal Buress after recording an upcoming episode in my hotel room in Lagos, Nigeria. That’s my setup right there. It’s sitting atop my rolling luggage, which is turned upside down on a small hotel coffee table. Improvisation is key.

There are trade-offs, of course. Sound is a big one. The mics themselves are pretty crisp, but ambient noise is an issue. I’ve recorded a bunch of these in cafes, bars and restaurants. I tell myself it’s part of the charm. And, of course, with a Tascam, you don’t have the same sort of sophisticated control you get with a board.

Perhaps I’ve always secretly fantasized about what a home studio might look like. Cost has always been a factor, of course. These things add up like crazy. Also, the barrier of entry is needlessly complex. A handful of companies have looked to capitalize on the increasingly profitable world of non-professional podcasts. Blue has produced some pretty compelling USB-based stuff. For those who want to record multiple guests in the same room, however, things start to get much trickier.

I jumped at the chance to try out the Rodecaster Pro. From the looks of it, it just might be the ideal product to help home podcasters scratch that itch. The product is essentially a six-channel soundboard with self-contained production capabilities. The idea is to just record everything live to a single track that can be uploaded directly to your podcast server of choice.

That includes everything from live mixing to an octet of sound pads you can use to trigger music beds and sound effects. Better yet, you can patch people in remotely by connecting a smartphone via hardwire or Bluetooth.

It’s a really lovely piece of hardware. I showed it to a few folks during setup, and everyone was impressed by the look of the thing, from the pro knobs to the brightly illuminated sound pads with customizable colors.

There’s a small touchscreen display at the top of the board that serves both as a way to gauge levels and navigate various settings. Essentially it serves as a way to bypass the computer entirely, once you’ve finished the setup process. The Rodecaster operates on a similar principle as much of anchor.fm’s offerings, giving users the path of least resistance to bringing a podcast to life.

It’s an admirable goal, especially in the world of podcasting, where content democratization is supposed to be a guiding principle. And certainly setup is painless, so far as mixing boards go. I had to fine-tune and troubleshoot a few things to get it up and running, but within an hour or two, everything was perfectly set up and running.

The downside to that level of simplicity, however, is that it removes the ability to fine-tune some key parts of the process. The most glaring omission is multi-track recording. Sure, you can record four people on mics and a fifth on a phone call, but it all records to the same track. That’s fine and dandy if you want something quick and dirty (as, granted, some podcasters do), but I’m a proponent of editing.

If you’re trying to make it sound professional, you’re going to want to cut it down. Even as someone whose podcast often runs in excess of an hour, I still find I spend much more time chopping the show up in Audacity than I do actually recording. It sucks, but that’s what you need to do if you want it to sound half decent.

Even if you’re not editing for content, at least cut the “uhms” and “ahs” and all of those bits where everyone talks over each other. That’s a hell of a lot easier to do when you’re operating with multiple tracks. I realize not everyone feels that way, but the option would be nice.

Setup mostly consists of unboxing and plugging in cables. Rode sent up a deluxe edition in a giant backpack that also included a pair of its Podcaster microphones and large, heavy stands. You’ll need to go through a couple of screens to set up odds and ends like time and date and to pair it to your phone, if you plan to go that route.

I tethered the board to my laptop during setup, in order to customize the sounds. It comes preloaded by default with applause, laughter, a rimshot and the like — it’s the Morning Zoo Crew package. I tossed in an intro and outro song and a couple of custom effects for good measure (Reggaeton air horn and Nelson from The Simpsons, naturally).

There’s a total of 512MB of storage, so you can add longer tracks as well, associating them by dropping them onto the corresponding pads on the desktop app. Check the levels, pop in a microSD card for recording and you’re off to the races.

I’ll admit that I ran into a couple of hiccups with things like phone audio through the board. Also, the rear headphone jacks require an adapter if you want everyone to hear themselves and the sound effects. Seems like an odd choice, given the novice target audience. Especially since the front cans use a standard jack size.

Original Content records its weekly episode on Fridays, so the timing worked out perfectly to test the thing out. Anthony and I set up mics across the table from each other and we beamed Jordan in via phone.

I hit record, tapped the intro music and we were off. Somewhat annoyingly, the buttons can only trigger the sounds, but not turn them off. That’s great for something like the air horn (for ironic comedic effect only, I swear), but less great with music. You’ll want to edit that down to the length you need it, otherwise you’ll end up potting down the fader, effectively losing that channel until it’s finished playing. The ability to see how much time is remaining on each track would have been a nice touch, but it’s not crucial here.

Once everything was up and running, we didn’t run into any issues for the hour and change we spent recording (aside from me riding the sound effect board a little too hard, perhaps). We finished recording, popped out the card and transferred the files. Boom, podcast.

The sound quality on the Rode mics is really terrific — borderline studio-quality stuff. The episode will be up in a few days, so you can judge for yourself. The sound on Jordan’s phone connection isn’t great, but you can’t really fault Rode for the poor state of cellphone call quality these days.

The Rodecaster Pro does exactly what is says on the box — and does most of it quite well. As someone who operated a board back in my radio days, I got back into the swing of things almost immediately. I’d forgotten how much I’d enjoyed going through those motions in the intervening years. And the ability to actually do a show face to face brings a level of energy and understanding you lose when relegated to Skype.

Bottom line: $600 for the board alone is going to be prohibitively expensive for many novice podcasters. But for a select few looking to start down the path to serious podcasting, this will really hit the sweet spot and up your game with the press of a button.

from TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2EIlKgz via IFTTT from Blogger http://bit.ly/2T6RdMx via IFTTT

[williamsjoan]

The Rodecaster Pro is a perfect centerpiece to a home podcasting studio

My podcasting rig is simple: Two microphones, a Tascam recorder, two XLR cables. I’ve upgraded things a bit in the past year — improved the mics, bought some foam windscreens and bought a pair of tabletop, foldable mic stands. But the principle is the same: take nothing I can’t fit into a laptop sleeve.

It’s served me pretty well in the five years I’ve been doing my show. While friends were building soundproof posting studios in their homes, I went with a rig I could take with me. It’s a lot easier to ask someone to be on your show if you’re able to go to them.

Here’s a picture I took of comedian Hannibal Buress after recording an upcoming episode in my hotel room in Lagos, Nigeria. That’s my setup right there. It’s sitting atop my rolling luggage, which is turned upside down on a small hotel coffee table. Improvisation is key.

There are trade-offs, of course. Sound is a big one. The mics themselves are pretty crisp, but ambient noise is an issue. I’ve recorded a bunch of these in cafes, bars and restaurants. I tell myself it’s part of the charm. And, of course, with a Tascam, you don’t have the same sort of sophisticated control you get with a board.

Perhaps I’ve always secretly fantasized about what a home studio might look like. Cost has always been a factor, of course. These things add up like crazy. Also, the barrier of entry is needlessly complex. A handful of companies have looked to capitalize on the increasingly profitable world of non-professional podcasts. Blue has produced some pretty compelling USB-based stuff. For those who want to record multiple guests in the same room, however, things start to get much trickier.

I jumped at the chance to try out the Rodecaster Pro. From the looks of it, it just might be the ideal product to help home podcasters scratch that itch. The product is essentially a six-channel soundboard with self-contained production capabilities. The idea is to just record everything live to a single track that can be uploaded directly to your podcast server of choice.

That includes everything from live mixing to an octet of sound pads you can use to trigger music beds and sound effects. Better yet, you can patch people in remotely by connecting a smartphone via hardwire or Bluetooth.

It’s a really lovely piece of hardware. I showed it to a few folks during setup, and everyone was impressed by the look of the thing, from the pro knobs to the brightly illuminated sound pads with customizable colors.

There’s a small touchscreen display at the top of the board that serves both as a way to gauge levels and navigate various settings. Essentially it serves as a way to bypass the computer entirely, once you’ve finished the setup process. The Rodecaster operates on a similar principle as much of anchor.fm’s offerings, giving users the path of least resistance to bringing a podcast to life.

It’s an admirable goal, especially in the world of podcasting, where content democratization is supposed to be a guiding principle. And certainly setup is painless, so far as mixing boards go. I had to fine-tune and troubleshoot a few things to get it up and running, but within an hour or two, everything was perfectly set up and running.

The downside to that level of simplicity, however, is that it removes the ability to fine-tune some key parts of the process. The most glaring omission is multi-track recording. Sure, you can record four people on mics and a fifth on a phone call, but it all records to the same track. That’s fine and dandy if you want something quick and dirty (as, granted, some podcasters do), but I’m a proponent of editing.

If you’re trying to make it sound professional, you’re going to want to cut it down. Even as someone whose podcast often runs in excess of an hour, I still find I spend much more time chopping the show up in Audacity than I do actually recording. It sucks, but that’s what you need to do if you want it to sound half decent.

Even if you’re not editing for content, at least cut the “uhms” and “ahs” and all of those bits where everyone talks over each other. That’s a hell of a lot easier to do when you’re operating with multiple tracks. I realize not everyone feels that way, but the option would be nice.

Setup mostly consists of unboxing and plugging in cables. Rode sent up a deluxe edition in a giant backpack that also included a pair of its Podcaster microphones and large, heavy stands. You’ll need to go through a couple of screens to set up odds and ends like time and date and to pair it to your phone, if you plan to go that route.

I tethered the board to my laptop during setup, in order to customize the sounds. It comes preloaded by default with applause, laughter, a rimshot and the like — it’s the Morning Zoo Crew package. I tossed in an intro and outro song and a couple of custom effects for good measure (Reggaeton air horn and Nelson from The Simpsons, naturally).

There’s a total of 512MB of storage, so you can add longer tracks as well, associating them by dropping them onto the corresponding pads on the desktop app. Check the levels, pop in a microSD card for recording and you’re off to the races.

I’ll admit that I ran into a couple of hiccups with things like phone audio through the board. Also, the rear headphone jacks require an adapter if you want everyone to hear themselves and the sound effects. Seems like an odd choice, given the novice target audience. Especially since the front cans use a standard jack size.

Original Content records its weekly episode on Fridays, so the timing worked out perfectly to test the thing out. Anthony and I set up mics across the table from each other and we beamed Jordan in via phone.

I hit record, tapped the intro music and we were off. Somewhat annoyingly, the buttons can only trigger the sounds, but not turn them off. That’s great for something like the air horn (for ironic comedic effect only, I swear), but less great with music. You’ll want to edit that down to the length you need it, otherwise you’ll end up potting down the fader, effectively losing that channel until it’s finished playing. The ability to see how much time is remaining on each track would have been a nice touch, but it’s not crucial here.

Once everything was up and running, we didn’t run into any issues for the hour and change we spent recording (aside from me riding the sound effect board a little too hard, perhaps). We finished recording, popped out the card and transferred the files. Boom, podcast.

The sound quality on the Rode mics is really terrific — borderline studio-quality stuff. The episode will be up in a few days, so you can judge for yourself. The sound on Jordan’s phone connection isn’t great, but you can’t really fault Rode for the poor state of cellphone call quality these days.

The Rodecaster Pro does exactly what is says on the box — and does most of it quite well. As someone who operated a board back in my radio days, I got back into the swing of things almost immediately. I’d forgotten how much I’d enjoyed going through those motions in the intervening years. And the ability to actually do a show face to face brings a level of energy and understanding you lose when relegated to Skype.

Bottom line: $600 for the board alone is going to be prohibitively expensive for many novice podcasters. But for a select few looking to start down the path to serious podcasting, this will really hit the sweet spot and up your game with the press of a button.

The Rodecaster Pro is a perfect centerpiece to a home podcasting studio published first on https://timloewe.tumblr.com/

[theinvinciblenoob]

My podcasting rig is simple: Two microphones, a Tascam recorder, two XLR cables. I’ve upgraded things a bit in the past year — improved the mics, bought some foam windscreens and bought a pair of tabletop, foldable mic stands. But the principle is the same: take nothing I can’t fit into a laptop sleeve.

It’s served me pretty well in the five years I’ve been doing my show. While friends were building soundproof posting studios in their homes, I went with a rig I could take with me. It’s a lot easier to ask someone to be on your show if you’re able to go to them.

Here’s a picture I took of comedian Hannibal Buress after recording an upcoming episode in my hotel room in Lagos, Nigeria. That’s my setup right there. It’s sitting atop my rolling luggage, which is turned upside down on a small hotel coffee table. Improvisation is key.

There are trade-offs, of course. Sound is a big one. The mics themselves are pretty crisp, but ambient noise is an issue. I’ve recorded a bunch of these in cafes, bars and restaurants. I tell myself it’s part of the charm. And, of course, with a Tascam, you don’t have the same sort of sophisticated control you get with a board.

Perhaps I’ve always secretly fantasized about what a home studio might look like. Cost has always been a factor, of course. These things add up like crazy. Also, the barrier of entry is needlessly complex. A handful of companies have looked to capitalize on the increasingly profitable world of non-professional podcasts. Blue has produced some pretty compelling USB-based stuff. For those who want to record multiple guests in the same room, however, things start to get much trickier.

I jumped at the chance to try out the Rodecaster Pro. From the looks of it, it just might be the ideal product to help home podcasters scratch that itch. The product is essentially a six-channel soundboard with self-contained production capabilities. The idea is to just record everything live to a single track that can be uploaded directly to your podcast server of choice.

That includes everything from live mixing to an octet of sound pads you can use to trigger music beds and sound effects. Better yet, you can patch people in remotely by connecting a smartphone via hardwire or Bluetooth.

It’s a really lovely piece of hardware. I showed it to a few folks during setup, and everyone was impressed by the look of the thing, from the pro knobs to the brightly illuminated sound pads with customizable colors.

There’s a small touchscreen display at the top of the board that serves both as a way to gauge levels and navigate various settings. Essentially it serves as a way to bypass the computer entirely, once you’ve finished the setup process. The Rodecaster operates on a similar principle as much of anchor.fm’s offerings, giving users the path of least resistance to bringing a podcast to life.

It’s an admirable goal, especially in the world of podcasting, where content democratization is supposed to be a guiding principle. And certainly setup is painless, so far as mixing boards go. I had to fine-tune and troubleshoot a few things to get it up and running, but within an hour or two, everything was perfectly set up and running.

The downside to that level of simplicity, however, is that it removes the ability to fine-tune some key parts of the process. The most glaring omission is multi-track recording. Sure, you can record four people on mics and a fifth on a phone call, but it all records to the same track. That’s fine and dandy if you want something quick and dirty (as, granted, some podcasters do), but I’m a proponent of editing.

If you’re trying to make it sound professional, you’re going to want to cut it down. Even as someone whose podcast often runs in excess of an hour, I still find I spend much more time chopping the show up in Audacity than I do actually recording. It sucks, but that’s what you need to do if you want it to sound half decent.

Even if you’re not editing for content, at least cut the “uhms” and “ahs” and all of those bits where everyone talks over each other. That’s a hell of a lot easier to do when you’re operating with multiple tracks. I realize not everyone feels that way, but the option would be nice.

Setup mostly consists of unboxing and plugging in cables. Rode sent up a deluxe edition in a giant backpack that also included a pair of its Podcaster microphones and large, heavy stands. You’ll need to go through a couple of screens to set up odds and ends like time and date and to pair it to your phone, if you plan to go that route.

I tethered the board to my laptop during setup, in order to customize the sounds. It comes preloaded by default with applause, laughter, a rimshot and the like — it’s the Morning Zoo Crew package. I tossed in an intro and outro song and a couple of custom effects for good measure (Reggaeton air horn and Nelson from The Simpsons, naturally).

There’s a total of 512MB of storage, so you can add longer tracks as well, associating them by dropping them onto the corresponding pads on the desktop app. Check the levels, pop in a microSD card for recording and you’re off to the races.

I’ll admit that I ran into a couple of hiccups with things like phone audio through the board. Also, the rear headphone jacks require an adapter if you want everyone to hear themselves and the sound effects. Seems like an odd choice, given the novice target audience. Especially since the front cans use a standard jack size.

Original Content records its weekly episode on Fridays, so the timing worked out perfectly to test the thing out. Anthony and I set up mics across the table from each other and we beamed Jordan in via phone.

I hit record, tapped the intro music and we were off. Somewhat annoyingly, the buttons can only trigger the sounds, but not turn them off. That’s great for something like the air horn (for ironic comedic effect only, I swear), but less great with music. You’ll want to edit that down to the length you need it, otherwise you’ll end up potting down the fader, effectively losing that channel until it’s finished playing. The ability to see how much time is remaining on each track would have been a nice touch, but it’s not crucial here.

Once everything was up and running, we didn’t run into any issues for the hour and change we spent recording (aside from me riding the sound effect board a little too hard, perhaps). We finished recording, popped out the card and transferred the files. Boom, podcast.

The sound quality on the Rode mics is really terrific — borderline studio-quality stuff. The episode will be up in a few days, so you can judge for yourself. The sound on Jordan’s phone connection isn’t great, but you can’t really fault Rode for the poor state of cellphone call quality these days.

The Rodecaster Pro does exactly what is says on the box — and does most of it quite well. As someone who operated a board back in my radio days, I got back into the swing of things almost immediately. I’d forgotten how much I’d enjoyed going through those motions in the intervening years. And the ability to actually do a show face to face brings a level of energy and understanding you lose when relegated to Skype.

Bottom line: $600 for the board alone is going to be prohibitively expensive for many novice podcasters. But for a select few looking to start down the path to serious podcasting, this will really hit the sweet spot and up your game with the press of a button.

via TechCrunch

[fmservers]

The Rodecaster Pro is a perfect centerpiece to a home podcasting studio

My podcasting rig is simple: Two microphones, a Tascam recorder, two XLR cables. I’ve upgraded things a bit in the past year — improved the mics, bought some foam windscreens and bought a pair of tabletop, foldable mic stands. But the principle is the same: take nothing I can’t fit into a laptop sleeve.

It’s served me pretty well in the five years I’ve been doing my show. While friends were building soundproof posting studios in their homes, I went with a rig I could take with me. It’s a lot easier to ask someone to be on your show if you’re able to go to them.

Here’s a picture I took of comedian Hannibal Buress after recording an upcoming episode in my hotel room in Lagos, Nigeria. That’s my setup right there. It’s sitting atop my rolling luggage, which is turned upside down on a small hotel coffee table. Improvisation is key.

There are trade-offs, of course. Sound is a big one. The mics themselves are pretty crisp, but ambient noise is an issue. I’ve recorded a bunch of these in cafes, bars and restaurants. I tell myself it’s part of the charm. And, of course, with a Tascam, you don’t have the same sort of sophisticated control you get with a board.

Perhaps I’ve always secretly fantasized about what a home studio might look like. Cost has always been a factor, of course. These things add up like crazy. Also, the barrier of entry is needlessly complex. A handful of companies have looked to capitalize on the increasingly profitable world of non-professional podcasts. Blue has produced some pretty compelling USB-based stuff. For those who want to record multiple guests in the same room, however, things start to get much trickier.

I jumped at the chance to try out the Rodecaster Pro. From the looks of it, it just might be the ideal product to help home podcasters scratch that itch. The product is essentially a six-channel soundboard with self-contained production capabilities. The idea is to just record everything live to a single track that can be uploaded directly to your podcast server of choice.

That includes everything from live mixing to an octet of sound pads you can use to trigger music beds and sound effects. Better yet, you can patch people in remotely by connecting a smartphone via hardwire or Bluetooth.

It’s a really lovely piece of hardware. I showed it to a few folks during setup, and everyone was impressed by the look of the thing, from the pro knobs to the brightly illuminated sound pads with customizable colors.

There’s a small touchscreen display at the top of the board that serves both as a way to gauge levels and navigate various settings. Essentially it serves as a way to bypass the computer entirely, once you’ve finished the setup process. The Rodecaster operates on a similar principle as much of anchor.fm’s offerings, giving users the path of least resistance to bringing a podcast to life.

It’s an admirable goal, especially in the world of podcasting, where content democratization is supposed to be a guiding principle. And certainly setup is painless, so far as mixing boards go. I had to fine-tune and troubleshoot a few things to get it up and running, but within an hour or two, everything was perfectly set up and running.

The downside to that level of simplicity, however, is that it removes the ability to fine-tune some key parts of the process. The most glaring omission is multi-track recording. Sure, you can record four people on mics and a fifth on a phone call, but it all records to the same track. That’s fine and dandy if you want something quick and dirty (as, granted, some podcasters do), but I’m a proponent of editing.

If you’re trying to make it sound professional, you’re going to want to cut it down. Even as someone whose podcast often runs in excess of an hour, I still find I spend much more time chopping the show up in Audacity than I do actually recording. It sucks, but that’s what you need to do if you want it to sound half decent.

Even if you’re not editing for content, at least cut the “uhms” and “ahs” and all of those bits where everyone talks over each other. That’s a hell of a lot easier to do when you’re operating with multiple tracks. I realize not everyone feels that way, but the option would be nice.

Setup mostly consists of unboxing and plugging in cables. Rode sent up a deluxe edition in a giant backpack that also included a pair of its Podcaster microphones and large, heavy stands. You’ll need to go through a couple of screens to set up odds and ends like time and date and to pair it to your phone, if you plan to go that route.

I tethered the board to my laptop during setup, in order to customize the sounds. It comes preloaded by default with applause, laughter, a rimshot and the like — it’s the Morning Zoo Crew package. I tossed in an intro and outro song and a couple of custom effects for good measure (Reggaeton air horn and Nelson from The Simpsons, naturally).

There’s a total of 512MB of storage, so you can add longer tracks as well, associating them by dropping them onto the corresponding pads on the desktop app. Check the levels, pop in a microSD card for recording and you’re off to the races.

I’ll admit that I ran into a couple of hiccups with things like phone audio through the board. Also, the rear headphone jacks require an adapter if you want everyone to hear themselves and the sound effects. Seems like an odd choice, given the novice target audience.

Original Content records its weekly episode on Fridays, so the timing worked out perfectly to test the thing out. Anthony and I set up mics across the table from each other and we beamed Jordan in via phone.

I hit record, tapped the intro music and we were off. Somewhat annoyingly, the buttons can only trigger the sounds, but not turn them off. That’s great for something like the air horn (for ironic comedic effect only, I swear), but less great with music. You’ll want to edit that down to the length you need it, otherwise you’ll end up potting down the volume, effectively losing that channel until it’s finished playing. The ability to see how much time is remaining on each track would have been a nice touch, but it’s not crucial here.

Once everything was up and running, we didn’t run into any issues for the hour and change we spent recording (aside from me riding the sound effect board a little too hard, perhaps). We finished recording, popped out the card and transferred the files. Boom, podcast.

The sound quality on the Rode mics is really terrific — borderline studio-quality stuff. The episode will be up in a few days, so you can judge for yourself. The sound on Jordan’s phone connection isn’t great, but you can’t really fault Rode for the poor state of cellphone call quality these days.

The Rodecaster Pro does exactly what is says on the box — and does most of it quite well. As someone who operated a board back in my radio days, I got back into the swing of things almost immediately. I’d forgotten how much I’d enjoyed going through those motions in the intervening years. And the ability to actually do a show face to face brings a level of energy and understanding you lose when relegated to Skype.

Bottom line: $600 for the board alone is going to be prohibitively expensive for many novice podcasters. But for a select few looking to start down the path to serious podcasting, this will really hit the sweet spot and up your game with the press of a button.

Via Brian Heater https://techcrunch.com

[iamthebarefootone]

Fitbit Charge 3 tips and tricks

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Getting started with the Fitbit Charge 3 may be straightforward, but there's plenty of features that lie within the company's latest fitness tracker that are waiting to be discovered.

And while it may not be as feature-packed as Fitbit's two smartwatches, the Ionic and Versa, the third-generation fitness band still has plenty of new features to take advantage of. After two years out in the cold, the Charge has been upgraded with waterproofing, contactless payment support and an improved battery life.

Read this: Which Fitbit is best for you?

But how do you get the most out the Fitbit Charge 3? Well, luckily for you, we've rounded up some top tips to help you out. Read on below for everything you need to know.

Change your Clock Face

On the Charge 3, you have less options than the mountain of Clock Faces developed by both Fitbit and third-party developers on the Ionic and Versa, but that doesn't mean there isn't still a healthy selection of monochrome options to choose from.

If you want to mix things up from digital to analogue, want to emphasise a different tracked metric or simply want to change your look, Fitbit currently offers seven faces on the Charge 3.

We expect more to drop as the tracker grows older, but, for now, you can change things by heading to the Fitbit app. From there, click the device icon in the top left, tap through on Clock Faces and toggle between the My Clock and All Clocks tabs and decide how you want to customise the screen.

Adjust your notifications

Whether you like having your wrist gadget act as a second screen to your smartphone, or you want to turn off all notifications, we've got you covered.

Head to the Fitbit app, tap through the Notifications tab and begin toggling exactly what you want buzzed through to your Charge 3. As shown above, this can be done to give the green or red flag to all your calls, texts and calendar pings, and you can also select from all your list of apps, too.

Improve step tracking accuracy

This is really more of a general Fitbit tip, as opposed to a Charge 3 one, but it's essential for receiving the best accuracy.

Now, there's plenty more to focus on with this tracker, but steps will no doubt be at the core of most people's daily tracking picture. However, Fitbit estimates what each step looks like based off your height and gender, meaning those with naturally big or small strides may be seeing inaccurate information.

Essential reading: We try Fitbit's Female Health Tracking

To edit this, tap the card in the top right of the Fitbit app, scroll down to Advanced Settings and tap through on Stride Length. As we say, this is automatically set by Fitbit, but you can manually enter the centimetre equivalent of your walking and running strides.

Wondering how to work it out? It's simple - just head down to a running track or somewhere that you know the exact distance of, count your steps as you complete that distance and then divide the total distance taken by the number of steps to get your stride length.

You're also going to need to tell Fitbit which wrist your device is sitting on, in order to improve accuracy. To do this, head to the Charge 3 icon, select Wrist and then whichever wrist your device is strapped to.

Set a silent alarm

If you're anything like us, you'll find great satisfaction in replacing your alarm clock with a much friendlier buzz on the wrist from the Charge 3.

Sure, you can always use your phone, but that almost always leads to you spending 45 minutes every morning catching up on Twitter, Instagram or, heaven forbid, work emails, before you even make it out of bed.

You can set alarms through the Fitbit app, though you can also toggle your list on/off from the device itself. If you're setting up a new alarm, you'll want to head to the Charge 3 settings section, hit Silent Alarms and then choose your time and which days you want it to sound on.

Save some battery

The Charge 3 already boasts week-long battery life out of the box, but, as always, there's ways to extend this even further with a few neat tricks.

The first thing to consider tweaking is how often you sync your device. This can be turned off through the Charge 3 section of the Fitbit app, though it does mean you'll have to manually sync the device in order to see your progress how up in the app.

Notifications, too, can also be reduced in order to save some life. The good news is that you don't have to go into the Fitbit app, either, with a double press of that side-button allowing you to toggle them on/off.

Read next: Fitbit Charge 3 v Fitbit Alta HR

The same goes for the heart rate - perhaps the biggest gobbler of battery you can alter. To simply turn it off, swipe across to the Settings menu of your device and scroll down to Heart Rate. The downside of this is pretty mammoth, as you won't be able to properly track your activity, sleep or resting heart rate, but very handy for keeping the Charge, well, charged.

You don't have to do all these things to help save a bit of juice, but toggling a couple of these settings will definitely see the tracker go for longer.

Turn off raise-to-wake

We're not the biggest fans of Fitbit's Screen Wake, with it too often failing to pick up our wrist raises. However, if you want to add an element of control to when the screen flashes up, simply hold down the side-button and tap the Screen Wake tab.

This will mean you'll have to tap the screen or press the side-button in order to wake the device - a great feature for when you're sleeping, or you just want to kill the tracker's light in the cinema.

Edit your exercise shortcuts

By default, the exercises listed on the Charge 3 may not be your go-to options. However, if you want to track your tennis, yoga, or anything else shown in the list above, you can create a shortcut through the Fitbit app.

Simply head to the Charge 3 section from the top-left icon, tap Exercise Shortcuts and toggle the order you want the current six options in. You'll have to get rid of one or two if you want to add more, since six is the limit, and we recommend adding Workout (which is set as a default option on the Ionic and Versa, but not here) for any activity you want to track that isn't listed.

Also remember that you can change the type of activity you've performed in the post-workout. All you need to do is click on your exercise, and tap Categorize Exercise at the top of the screen in order to toggle.

Quickly check your stats

As we've just alluded to, you can edit your exercise shortcuts and the details surrounding your exercise through the Fitbit app. However, if you don't want to open up your phone just to get all your daily stats, the Charge 3's Quick View lets you do so on the wrist.

Of course, the Clock Face you select will already give you some of those tracked stats, but getting a base look at the bigger picture can be achieved by swiping up from the home face.

From here, you'll be able to scroll down and get a look at your battery percentage, steps taken, active minutes, distance, current heart rate, calorie burn, stairs climbed and how many hours of sleep you recorded.

Restart your Fitbit Charge 3

The Fitbit Charge 3 is a pretty unflappable tracker, but that doesn't mean it isn't prone to the odd hiccup. We've not had any great issues with this tracker, but there have been instances with other Fitbit devices that have required a hard reset in order to get things working again.

If your Fitbit isn't syncing properly, or it's crashing consistently, you can give it a reset through the device itself or through the app. This isn't completely foolproof, and there's naturally a chance you just have a faulty device, but the off-on rule should always be your first act of troubleshooting - after, of course, you've checked you're running the latest software.

To do so means you're going to lose any data that's not yet been synced that's being held on the device, and you're also going to have to spare a bit of time to set it all up again.

On the Fitbit app, click the top-left Charge 3 icon and scroll down all the way to the tab in red that reads, 'Remove This Charge 3'. Or, on the tracker, head to Settings > About > Clear User Data.

As mentioned, you'll then have to set up the device just as you did when you first took it out the box. Make sure it's plugged in and wait for the Charge 3 to reboot, before following along with the instructions for setting up a new device in the app.

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https://excellentsmartwatches.com/fitbit-charge-3-tips-and-tricks/

[fiendishthingee]

“Having said that…”

Glynn Beard, who at various times throughout my college experience was a teacher, sounding board, (admittedly eccentric) voice of reason and friend who gave as much encouragement as he did grief for all of the ways in which our very specific tastes diverged, always said that I was full of shit. At the time he was right, of course, but at least he took mercy on my fledgling adult soul by saying so from behind one of those (for him, characteristic) thin brown cigarettes with the kind of caustic wit that puts a person in their place at the same time as it pushes them to go further than they think is possible. Glynn was quick to knock the illusions out of those who came to film school with stars in their eyes, serene and clueless in the assumption that wealth and fame waited for them at the other end of those few years where creativity grew in inverse proportion to the attention given to either sleep or physical health.

My own introduction to Glynn came with the first class I attended at the motion picture campus (really just a tiny former bank across the street from an IHOP) of Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, after months trapped amongst the effete cognoscenti of the still photography department. Everyone was settling in to our seats when a tall, wiry figure in an X-Files “The Truth is Out There” t-shirt sauntered in looking like a refugee from some B horror film you might see on Job Bob Briggs’ “Drive-In Theater.” His gift as a teacher was to seize, almost immediately, on what was unique about the individual personalities of his students and coax that out of the work we’d submit for each assignment. In the time that I knew him, Glynn’s affections vacillated between things that were highbrow and others that were more disreputable. He swore by Sam Peckinpah and Gustave Flaubert but just as easily spoke in a key that fans of Sam Raimi or Jack Ketchum would recognize.

Since living in Santa Barbara at the time (or ever, really) wasn’t cheap, I took on a couple of jobs to make ends meet. One of those was as a TA at our State Street campus, checking out gear and troubleshooting for other students but more often making use of the flatbeds to edit my own projects. I saw Glynn often during those shifts, both in the classroom and in the editing room during the wee hours (where I’d alternately be cutting or catching a nap under the flatbed). Initially, he wasn’t the easiest person to warm to, unless you took the time to endure the near constant cigarette smoke out on the back stoop in the middle of the night and get to know him. There were talks about Peckinpah, of course, in particular of my affection for “Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia” and “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” as well as what to make of Jim Jarmusch (Glynn was a fan of “Stranger Than Paradise,” while I was more of a “Mystery Train” guy) and John Cassavetes (Glynn was for “Faces,” I for “Minnie and Moskowitz”). At a certain point I got hooked on Terrence Malick (“The Thin Red Line” had just been released), and there were lots of opinions thrown back and forth about whether his languid style was something that could remotely be emulated (as I was stupidly keen to try in a short I was set to make). Sometime later, Stanley Kubrick passed away, which of course led to endless talks about irony, morality, symmetrical composition and the virtues of Kabuki acting.

In addition to an unabashed love of film and the possibilities each new work held in store, it was obvious that Glynn also had deep emotional struggles going on inside from time to time. He did his best to cover them with a certain sense of academic aloofness, but he could no more hide them away than disengage from an argument over films he thought were garbage. These were issues, with family, with filmmaking, with the effect of what he called “the costs that we pay to live in the modern world” might have on his child, that fueled his creativity, and were the motivation for putting the care into articulating his thoughts through his art that he did. All of this is to explain why the fact that he left us, with so much still to say, makes me so profoundly angry. Among the long-term projects he worked on was a series of autobiographical short films. Because of a long-term estrangement from his father, Glynn had conceived these films as a way of exploring the effects of that relationship on his life, as well as carrying on a conversation with his own son and imparting the wisdom and experience he had collected up to that point. In the film “Son,” there is a scene where Glynn offers suggestions about the works of film and literature he would insist his son explore when he was old enough. Among the books he mentions is the aforementioned Flaubert’s “Sentimental Education.” He cops to the story being a pretty brutal read, noting that “you’ll wanna give up a hundred pages in,” but then he adds, “if you can just get to the ending, it will all make sense.”

As I write this, I am deeply saddened and frustrated that Glynn was not able to make it to the ending, that he may not have been able to trust how life itself (and those you share it with) is as much a work of art as anything he (or anyone else) puts in front of a camera. In all fairness, having not seen him in years, I can’t speak to his state of mind in the days before he passed. Trying to process the sense of helplessness felt in the face of all this, or come to terms with the fact that someone whose intelligence I trusted, who advised me on so many levels and who told me as I graduated that I was “gonna be just fine” as a creative artist, feels completely futile at this moment, and probably will for some time. In the midst of that, though, I have a lot of work to do. Thoughts and feelings to express, stories to tell, and many films to make. Ultimately, Glynn’s impact on my life was that he recognized my worth creatively and empowered me to do something about it, and it is with respect for his memory that I get back to that. I’ve faced many demons of my own, some of which pushed me right to the place that Glynn ultimately couldn’t get beyond. I am deeply saddened for his son, and for those of my friends who had experiences similar to mine under his mentorship. In the midst of our grief, a number of us have reconnected, to share our shock and sadness, to laugh about certain memories, to pay our respects to someone who affected all of us. 

Glynn’s passing has been more destabilizing than I would have imagined, which is why I’m trying to focus on the good memories, of which there are many. Whenever we got into some heavy talk, whether it was about Bush-era politics, screen violence or a particularly heady episode of “Star Trek” (original cast) that one of us was passionate about, Glynn would laugh, diffusing the situation and bringing the chat to a close with his usual “on that light and cheery note…” I wish him peace and owe him a great debt of gratitude, which I hope to repay through the work that I do. Though I had always imagined we’d talk again, I’m thankful for the times that we did, and for what he gave me both personally and creatively. 

NOTE: Photos of Glynn by Nate Eckman on the set of Jacob Strunk's 2004 film “A Shadow Before Sunrise.” Provided by the director.