#anyways! trying to get into this! and also get back into photoshop!

[dekariosgf]

actress extraordinaire (not real) (trying her best) (soooo broke)

[icewindandboringhorror]

I love all of these goofy product photos where the water bottle is extremely obviously just photoshopped onto a stock image of someone pretending to hold something or whatever.. very convincing..

[robo-dino-puppy]

i Attempted Something to go with some out-of-bounds video i collected

(does it look any good? similar enough vibe to horizon’s intro?)

[lorillee]

im really normal about them <- lie

[simplydnp]

WAD: Cover Art

dan is still working on selling the distribution rights for We're All Doomed! so i decided to make some DVD/Blu-ray disc jacket art!

this is my attempt at a traditional jacket design! none of the images used are mine, but i did create the concept and design:

as i was making the first one for myself, i was struck by the fact that 'well, it's for me, so it doesn't have to look like a stereotypical jacket cover' which led me to be more artsy in my approach for the next one:

i was really enjoying the creativity and space to explore, so i went looking for more inspiration for a third design. this led me to dan's favourite Muse album: Origin of Symmetry, which i paid homage to:

after the first Muse album, i looked at their catalogue to see if there was more inspiration there. i was just thankful dan's favourite was easy stylistically to mimic, unlike say, 2009's The Resistance...

thank you @danielhowell for the inspiration!

nerdy stuff & reference pics below the cut!

General notes

i don't know how to use photoshop! i entirely brute-forced my way through the whole project, and the only tutorial i looked up was for the gradient text in the 4th cover

this wasn't even the original project i was working on! you'll eventually get to see that though

and this one also inspired art for the disc itself so stay tuned 👀

i will do anything for authenticity so these are Full of intentional details

matching fonts is a nightmare

the traditional cover

took the longest, as it was the first.

the barcode numbers are the date of the first video he uploaded on dinof, and the last tour show date (in m/d/y)

i changed 'iceland' to 'poland' on the front cover, as he never actually went to iceland, and poland wasn't ever on the list even though he did go there

the orange may look a little off-center in the front, but these designs need to include space for a spine between the front and back cover, i promise it's right 😂

the black and white cover

inspired by the 'i want to believe' aliens poster

the cover art comes from his metal band merch shirt design

i had to manually shrink the text, line by line, and ensure it all lined up on the back!

i even made the logos on the back greyscale

the Muse: Origin of Symmetry cover

a shockingly perfect style for a WAD cover. i'm so glad i used the cubes, even if they couldn't be orange.

there's some versions of the art online where the sky is even more orange and it baffles me how i haven't seen any parallels like this before

the Muse: The Resistance cover

this cover was never supposed to see the light of day! i meant it when i said i was grateful i didn't have to try to adapt this complex design... and yet, i tried anyway.

i did all the grid lines by hand, including the jagged/broken edge parts, shading each section, and then drawing every star.

the hardest part was getting the gradient on the back text to cooperate. photoshop's gradient settings are surprisingly limited

gotta shout out @amazingphil for being the reason i knew what this cover looked like--it's the only muse album i knew the art of before embarking on this quest!

obligatory sob story:

i've been extremely and suddenly ill for 6 months. it is difficult to function moment to moment, but especially in doing little things just for me. this is the first and only art project i've been able to feel inspired to not only work on, but to finish, and despite the pain and long hours, i enjoyed every minute of it. thank you, dan, for creating this space for me to explore, and thank you, everyone here, for being wonderful support during this time 💞

[steftastan]

Carian Stroll

“Tell Blaidd, and Iji…I love them.”

Before this piece, I had been wanting for a long time to create my own piece of Elden Ring fanart featuring Ranni. I had tried several sketches unsuccessfully, just wasn’t particularly feeling the ideas I had sketched up until that point.

One day of usual internet scrolling, I stumbled upon this gorgeous piece of art by Shimomura Kanzan.

I knew immediately I wanted to do something like this for my Elden Ring fanart. In fact, if you look at this piece, there is tons of inspiration that I drew from the original artwork, such as the style of the yellow leaves and the main subject matter being a prominent silhouette of the brightest value, placed at approximately the bottom third of the image.

The main character is cleverly shrouded amidst various layers of trees and foliage, giving us the impression that we're peeking into candid moment of their life. In the case of the fox, we caught it during a mid-day snack. In the case of Ranni and her party, we caught them in a leisurely stroll, while Iji outfits the dreaded Fingercreepers with their iconic rings.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to capture a happy moment, but Ranni goes as far as to ask us to deliver to Iji and Blaidd the message that she loves them dearly as her quest draws near its end. I would imagine they all must have had fun moments together as a family. Hey, maybe even the hands liked to be around them?

The process

I started this on my iPad using the procreate app. Sadly the full process is not captured on video, as I switched to Photoshop for the rendering phase of the illustration. This video is a fun window into my chaotic process and how I iterate on the fly on the same canvas. I probably wouldn't do that in a professional setting where you often need to have color keys and iterations to be reviewed and analyzed. I like to I cut myself some slack when doing personal art to keep things fun.

Trying and failing some more

This illustration was not a straightforward path. I haven’t been very diligent about personal art, and at some point I started deviating too much from my reference by adding too many levels of depth to the background and suffocating the piece. I got into a weird loop where I would randomly open the PSD, play around with the values, pushing Iji to the back, then bringing him back, cranking all the levers on Ranni, etc., decide it would look horrible, then begrudgingly determine I’d never complete this image and go on with my life.

As artists we likely have unfinished work sitting everywhere, be it in our sketchbooks, canvases, or hard drives. But it’s a different kind of sting when you feel like you can’t even nail the fundamentals.

Anyway, so a couple weeks ago, I decided to give it another go, but this time I would get rid of all the unnecessary stuff, even stuff that I had been trying to render for ages. I would not hold on to anything, I would try and recapture what drew me to Kanzan's beautiful painting to begin with.

After it became a matter of pushing and pulling pixels until the image was finished!

That’s about it. I didn’t go crazy in depth but lately I’ve been enjoying reading into artists’ processes and I’d be remiss to not share my own thought process also.

Thank you for viewing!

[arcanegifs]

On Gifmaking:

So season 2's coming soon, and I wanna reflect on making gifs ever since I came back to Tumblr. I can't believe it's been 2 years of making gifs for this show!!!!! Look at how large my folder is lmao

And those are JUST gifs lol

Anyways, over time, my style has changed, especially how I color edit Arcane gifs. I kind of strayed away from a stylized filter color into just something that looks a lot more "natural" and works with the original scene.

Initially, I thought I'd save time, but I ended up not using my old arcane preset PSDs and resulted to coloring almost every scene manually. So in the end, it takes even longer to make them HAHAHA. It takes around an hour and a half for me to make a 10 gif set, basically. It also helps that I have a photography background, so coloring/editing is a lot simpler for me.

Here's a lil before and after of a dark scene (hiiiii viiiiiii <3)

Arcane is a REALLY dark show, but it goes for most of TV shows. Many of them are darker and harder to bring up the lights to make stuff look nice as gifs. Some people don't like to color their gifs, and that's okay. I personally just like color edited gifs more.

I've started learning how to upscale scenes myself, so that I have a better resolution and leeway to make things look "HD" more.

If you're wondering why my stuff look so "crisp", it's a combination of the scene's lighting, my sharpening settings on Photoshop and knowing how to upscale everything into 4k resolution. Of course, doing this needs an extremely beefy pc, which I am very lucky to own one.

Here's another before and after of a nicely lit scene. These are much, MUCH easier to do than all the darkly lit scenes because of shadows and lighting (caitlyn kiramman truly the rizzler <3)

I've been very lucky to be able to essentially take a nice, long break for like a month doing nothing after being so damn busy for the last year and a half, so it's nice that I was able to make a ton of gifs and be chronically online for a short while LMAO.

It's been so fun! But it's time to go back to reality lmao. I closed reqs for a bit because I was just so swamped with them the last few days, and I wanted to gif scenes that I like this time. I've done like 2 weeks worth of gifs. And you will see Vi a lot bc she's on my mind a lot heehee 🥰what can I say, she's such a babe <3

Here's a lil sneak peek, just look at herrrrrrr 🥰🥰🥰 and yeah, 4k upscaled resolution really helps making these tight crops, it's why i never went back to 1080p lol. It's how I’m able to make zoomed in gifs look decent (like the kirammountains gifset lol)

Thank you so much for all the support, likes, reblogs, and the nice tags you guys give. Yes, I can see and read all of them (both the nice and nasty ones lmao). If you have nothing good to say about the characters or my editing style, or anything related to the edit, please I beg you, just write a separate text post about it <3 If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it in my edits.

Lastly, thank you to the people who share my stuff outside the site and credit the blog and link them back here. I see you and appreciate you <3 You guys don't know how much I appreciate shoutouts and link backs, because people stealing my gifs is something that I've dealt with after making them for like a decade.

Tumblr is sadly not what it used to be in the 2013-2015 era. There’s definitely less activity as time goes by, so I appreciate all the people who credit and link back to this sideblog. Unfortunately, there’s more people who just repost them and it gets wayyy much more traction in other soc med sites. Yeah, ofc I get a lil jealous, but eh what can you do 😞 can’t really stop em.

I also don’t like putting watermarks because it personally looks tacky to me, but I understand why other people do it.

Anyways, if you reached at the end of this lil rambling of mine, thank you! I sadly might be busy during November because that's usually busy season, but I'll try to make time for making gifs of Season 2! Thank you and enjoy your stay on this lil sideblog :)

[sunglassesmish]

I hope you don’t mind asking but you consistently have some of the best 911 gifs. How are your gifs so sharp? And the coloring so good? Could you do a little tutorial about your giffing?

omg thank you!!! this gets pretty long so i’m putting the tutorial under the cut

so firstly, i use kmplayer to screencap. the most important part though is the quality of the episode you have. you always want to work with 1080p, and my file is around 2gb. that is how my gifs always turn out ‘the best’ as you say 🤗 of course, colouring and sharpening help a lot, but if you don’t have a good download, your gifs can be helped but won’t be the best possible.

this is the gif i’m making having only been cropped and sharpened. i’m gonna show you how i make a gif and my colouring process (which, for this one, is admittedly pretty short and simple compared to what i usually do.) as you can see, it’s dark and pixelated and doesn’t look that appealing, no matter how handsome they both are.

also, i forgot to screenshot this before i started but the screenshot below shows the action i use to basically get all my screencaps organised to make one gif. this is after you’ve got the screencaps into photoshop in a stack.

i can’t find the original post with the action, and i’m not sure how to share it on this post… but if it’s not that important in the scheme of this post, there are many other posts out there with actions you’ll be able to easily find and download.

anyways. so this is gonna go through the process of making a gif assuming you’ve done the process of importing the frames and sharpening. (i would normally cut out my taskbar but there are so many screenshots, it would take foreverrrr)

the next step would be cropping. this is the original:

and i’m doing a 540 x 500 gif. i like mine to be bigger so i can only get the person/people i want in the gif (sorry eddie) but sometimes if i want that it’ll be smaller, usually 540 x 400.

anyways, i crop from the edge and make it a little smaller so i don’t get the white border around it. and then i move the gif away from the top and right edge of the gif just by 3-5 pixels. which i already did here and then zoomed in:

next, image size. i honestly didn’t know about cropping it and then using image size for a few months when i started giffing (i don’t even know what i did back then not knowing that.)

then as you can see, it’s 540 x 500. if you’ve cropped it to the size you want beforehand, it’ll be automatically those dimensions.

next, we’re finally starting on colouring. i always tend to start with curves and use the middle brush on the left. the top one you use to make it darker, and the bottom you find the whitest point on the gif to make it a lot brighter. but i find the middle one colour corrects too, so it’s not too bright or dark, and is less yellow or whatever colours you don’t want.

it depends on where you click to get this result, i’m not sure how to explain what i do but i just click all over and try to get the yellows off and the skin colour to look generally the same as what they have. most of the time, if i get this accurate enough, the rest of the colouring process is just to brighten up the gif.

so, then after i got my desired result, we’re brightening it up because you can’t really see them all that well. i use brightness/contrast but i tend to use exposure the most.

as you can see, i am at +2.78 exposure which is crazy high (imo). but as that and the curves layer did a lot of the work for me, i mostly have the colouring i want.

although i think it could be a little lighter, so i add a new layer of brightness and contrast this time. i don’t brighten it all that much after that. i want to make it so that either one of their faces aren’t shining, and with too much of the exposure, it can make that happen.

next, i notice that tommy is kinda green/yellow, so i want to fix that up and make him more natural. i go to colour balance for that this time. most of the time i go to selective colour -> yellow or red, depending on how much i want to change. with selective colour, it gives you a few options in shades: cyan, magenta, yellow and black to alter, all for your specific colour.

meanwhile, colour balance changes the whole thing. since i wouldn’t mind that in this instance, i just go with colour balance.

tommy is looking less yellow and green, but still, he’s not where i want him to be. (plus oliver’s scruff area is naturally ginger so it shows up as yellow, and i want to decrease that a little.) so i go to hue/saturation, choose yellow, and decrease it a little more.

now, after this, i messed around with selective colour as i mentioned earlier and with the colour yellow and red specifically. but after comparing where i was at before, vs with those selective colour layers, i just liked that previous one more. so my last layer is the hue/saturation one. and i’m done colouring!

next, i go to my trusty camera raw filter to make them stand out more and be a little crispier.

i tend to stick to + 10 up to 30, somewhere in that range. sometimes the texture and clarity match, sometimes they don’t. it’s all up to you, but for this one, i knew it would end up a little too crispy so i didn’t go too high.

i also like to add some grain so that it’s less pixelated (it admittedly annoys me a lot when it’s got those visible square pixels all over.) i never go higher than 5 in grain, it does the job well.

after that, i’m finished with my gif!

next, we want to export the gif.

as you can see, the gif is less than 10mb, is set to loop for forever, and is made with selective diffusion. admittedly, i don’t think about that setting that much, but sometimes if it’s a lower quality gif, i’ll change it to selective/adaptive pattern instead. but that’s not relevant here.

after that, we open our gif that we just made into photoshop again. this time we want to select all frames:

and change the frame delay so it’s not as jumpy. for some reason, it automatically changes so that they alternate in frames from 0.03 to 0.07, but i want them all to be 0.05.

now that’s the last step and you just export the gif again!

this is the final gif!!!

i hope this was easy to understand! thank you for the kind words, and for asking me about my process because i’ve honestly always wanted to make a tutorial. if you have any more questions, or want to see my process colouring something more difficult to work with, let me know! 🫶

[tamacatleen]

Alluka + Nanika (again) 🎀

Okay so last time I posted my Alluka/Nanika drawing (in January) I said that I wasn't satisfied with it and that I wanted to do another version. Well I started to draw said version in February (I wasn't satsified with it either) and here I am today finishing and posting it (even though I said yesterday on Instagram that I cancelled it...anyway 💀) but this is all thanks to my sister watching the 2011 anime and getting to Alluka's debut, which caused my motivation to come back!

This version is a good excuse to draw a brown eyed Alluka, because I'm a "siblings-who-don't-look-alike-at-all" advocate, but I also really wanted to try a different way of drawing her with different colors and a more dynamic pose and I'm never satisfied with what I draw these days so I decided to finish it anyway because that's the best thing I could do!✨

I was supposed to draw Gon and Killua since like last year so maybe my next post will be them!

(color variations/Photoshop filters below + sketches and base/sketch at the end)

Hope you like it ! 💕

[dotmander]

How To Get Your Character Models Out Of A Game: Tips And Tricks For Bitches That Have Never Used Blender

(it's me, i'm bitches)

(also ignore how messy that lighting is it's 1am and i should have been asleep hours ago. he's there for proof of concept 💕)

a couple people (specifically @forsaken-constellation and @ratasum) asked for a tutorial on how to rip models out of the game. this is not that, but it is a compilation of resources i used to learn about ripping, blender, and 3d modeling in general. i desperately wanted a post like this to exist when i was trying to figure this out, so here we go! all the resources below are completely free, with the exception of a link to the patreon of the person that created ninjaripper.

disclaimers:

there are probably more efficient ways to do the things i am doing. i watched a tutorial to learn shortcuts and then skipped to character models. if you have tips to add, corrections to make, or other thoughts, please feel free to share! i'll link to your post here. ^^

i do not know if any of this will get your account banned. i've ripped several models, so i'm going to assume it's fine as long as you don't try to make money off of it. use your best judgment, be an adult, etc etc etc

last updated: june 30, 2024

PROGRAMS & WEBSITES

ninjaripper 1.7.1 - there's a newer version on the creator's patreon, presumably with support for newer versions of blender and fewer bugs, but i haven't tried that

blender 2.79 - the import addon that comes with ninjaripper 1.7.1 is outdated for the current version of blender (3.5 as of this post), so 2.79 is needed to combine the .RIP files into a .BLEND (blender) file

noesis - ninjaripper saves your textures as .DDS files, noesis lets you view them and export them as .PNGs

blender 3.5 (optional?) - i just like it better than 2.79. if you're completely new it might not matter to you. all of the tutorials linked later are for later versions, though.

mixamo (optional) - rigs your character for you and lets you put them in Situations (like my guy above.) there's a whole library of free animations and poses you can try!

TUTORIALS

how to use ninjaripper - most of what you need to know about actually ripping the files and using ninjaripper is covered here. do not skip this one.

how to use blender 3.5 - full disclosure i haven't finished this series because it's uhhhh many hours long. but if you are a complete newbie to blender, i do recommend at least the first few videos; you'll learn about shortcuts that will make your life easier, how to unfuck your model when it fucks itself for no reason, and different terms that will help you google things you don't know later on. possibly he even covers some of the things i'm about to link! anyway.

what's a uv map?

how to apply textures

how to apply bump maps (note: for our purposes, you wouldn't add a color ramp node, you would add an image node with your bump map, and attach it to the bump node as the person does in the video)

there should be stuff here about weight painting, cloth physics, emission maps (makes your sylvari glow), and other stuff, but um. i haven't figured those out <3  

TIPS

TURN UP YOUR GRAPHICS BEFORE YOU RIP - if you don't, you might end up missing certain textures/glows/etc. HOWEVER, you should turn animations down, because apparently high animation can make your meshes misplace themselves

rip from the character select screen, rather than an instance, because you will have 100 meshes to sort through instead of 1400. i am not exaggerating either of those numbers. if you are new to blender, please love yourself and start with character select.

your textures will be fucked up the first time you try to apply them. this is because the UV maps (the things that tell your textures where to go) of your models are flipped upside down in relation to the texture image. you can flip them back over manually, ooooor you can just flip the entire texture file in something like CSP or photoshop.

for some reason all eyes are red in the texture files. i have not figured out why. i recommend editing the .PNG to have the correct eye color before applying the texture.

that's all i can think of for now - if you have other questions, feel free to shoot them my way, although i can't promise i'll have a straight answer ^^;;

mixamo only works for humanoid characters with tight clothing (or without clothing at all). if you try to use it to rig a charr or asura, or someone with a skirt or big sleeves, you will most likely be disappointed.

2024 edit: sometimes parts of hair meshes just...disappear. i have no idea why. if you can figure it out please let me know LMAO

information from bookahlogy about character proportions, fixing normals, and other fun tips

[bcacstuff]

Ok so my take is it's some kind of meeting, interview, getting to know you, whatever you wanna call it. His body language is screaming I'm here I'm listening like he does in interviews, the focused look down, his phone on the table suggests not a date at all he usually has it in his jeans pocket, she has a laptop or something in front of her which idk any date that brings that. This could've been right at the start, no drinks on the table. Still acquainting with each other.

She's not dressed as a young girl in LA on a first or second date, their legs are also not touching as another blogger is trying to suggest, he's actually clearly keeping his away from hers by crossing his legs, and just because that trash site posted she's identified but not public person means nothing. They clearly state they don't post all actual facts. It's whatever people send them. Could be someone said it to stir up more discussion. Honestly everything lately from him has felt like a scream for attention. For a bit of discussion about him. To make him seem a little more important than he is. Even the cinema post. Who on earth would randomly spot him if not organised by publicity??? This entire LA trip has felt like all PR. And maybe she's an interviewer who doesn't want to be put out there maybe they aren't gonna throw her under the bus but want people talking (when I say they I mean Sam's PR people)

You know Anon, I just sit here and most of the time shake my head over all the Anons in my inbox as well as all the 'suggestions' and 'maybes' in the comments.

People jumping to conclusions, people saying things they read somewhere else and make it sound like it is already a fact...

Seriously, where one sees he's smiling and having a good time with 'his date' the next one is claiming their legs are close together and people that do business or have an interview don't sit that close together... the other side sees nothing romantic and it must be business or an interview. And people get all worked up...

I just had my laughs last night, when the pic was posted by DM. Firstly because obviously no flight to catch after his TCA appearance as some blogger claimed she knew from her 'sources'... and I don't see that blogger addressing that in her next posts!

Secondly, all the ones claiming he was sitting behind Ashley in Washington at the rugby game. Do people fail to see how that SS cap was clearly photoshopped on the woman's head? 🤦‍♀️

And when I post he's still in LA, I get a shitload of Anons saying how would I know, well... because I use logic. Plain and simply logic. If I post things, I checked things, otherwise I wouldn't post it. But it seems some people are so terribly suspicious that they need evidence and proof for all, yet at the same time they seem to believe everything posted elsewhere without any shred of evidence.... even the weirdest narrative is taken for granted, rather than wait and see if there wil be more info, and if not so what, do we always need some explanation for everything? Or can we live with, we don't need to know every bloody detail? Oh and btw. he's still in LA today, so the ones claiming he's back in Glasgow... without any evidence and logic, sorry.... stop throwing things out there you would like to see, just see what really happens. You just get embarrassed all the time that when more details and facts surface.

Anyway, back to your summary of events. I agree, it looks like they just arrived, given there are no drinks on the table, just the 'fancy chips' they serve at that Beach restaurant at Shutters on the Beach.

No drinks (yet) on the table, or anything else for that matter, just his sunnies, his phone in front of him and in front of her something that looks like a tablet or laptop

So yes, I agree, if that is a laptop or tablet, that's not what you would bring a date. It gives me a bit the idea of the pics in NYC with the journo of Departures.

But then again, we do not know who the woman is. And there is no easy way to find out, as to me, she looks like millions of other blonde women. That said, the names now thrown out thus far, I don't think any of them match. And to the Anon thinking Ava as she was at the screening of Cinespia as well, please, the woman has tattoos all over her arms...

The pics are quite clear though, so it suggests someone close by took them, not even grainy or vague. Would they not have seen that a pic was taken? 🤷‍♀️

And as long as there are no other details known, I just keep all options open. I can lean more to one or another option, but I rather wait and see if there will be more known in the future. (just see how we found out about Lauren in NYC a year later!)

So that's what I do right now. If you want to do else, have a firm opinion about something, that's totally on you. What I do care for is that you don't come to me later on claiming I said this or that, or another blogger said this or that. I wont entertain that.

PS. I don't like to post the same things over and over again, when there is nothing new or more info about it. So don't expect countless posts about the woman, about who he was with at the screening on Saturday. If I find anything more, you always know I post it with the proof.

[watercolorsam-arts]

Why the Minecraft Movie looks so bad

Okay, let’s see if I can make this work

Hi, I’m Watercolor, currently a student learning animation and visual effects. I’ve got some more technical explanations for why exactly the trailer looks god awful

I’m gonna do my best to explain this in simple terms, but if I don’t explain something very good, let me know and I’ll explain more. Alright, this is gonna be a long post

Starting off with the obsession with backlighting. See how it doesn’t really match the environmental lighting? That’s one of the major things that makes it look so weird to a lot of people. It could have been done to better distinguish the actors from the background, but it does that a little too well and makes them look way too out of place. The environment has a very nice constant (most likely singular) light source, which is most likely an HDRI.

An HDRI (or high dynamic range image) informs the animation software on how the scene should be lit, and is often a weird panoramic image of whatever physical area you want to replicate.

In a reverse case, adding a CG character into a real set, you could take an HDRI of the physical set, and use it to apply similar lighting. Adjustment will most likely have to be hand adjusted by the lighting team (and tbh they add a lot of extra lights in anyway. It just needs to look right) but it’s a fantastic starting point for the compositing and lighting teams.

However, the McM’s live set has way different lights set up then what is seen in the environment.

Here, for example, the live set is most likely being lit by standard 3 point lighting, which are not only the wrong color (the lighting on the environment is much more yellow) but also washes out any shadows that would help define the actors. If this movie wasn’t obsessed with backlighting, you could fix that by lighting the actors and environment from the front, but because the sun is in the back, they have to make the front of the actors unnaturally brighter to see them more properly. I have a slight idea on why the kid in red looks especially “photoshopped” in, and it’s mostly because his hoodie doesn’t have a similar reflectiveness to everyone else’s outfit, and his hair is a more neutral color, causing the highlight to be even more washed out. Also, while we’re here, the cube is a physical prop, but it was not lit up during filming, and all the light output was tossed on after. And it’s really inconsistent and honestly, lazy. For the most part they just hit it with a blue blur effect in post, it doesn’t actually cast any light.

Another major issue is the color difference between the actors and the environment. The color balancing on the actors is particularly garbage, they’re somehow desaturated while also being too saturated, I don’t know how they managed that. But the technical issue on why it looks odd, is because the physical camera cannot physically pick up the same vibrancy as the “camera” in the CG world. You might have seen an example of this when trying to take a photo with your phone, especially of a very colorful event like the sunset. It’s also why “ugly sonic” looked particularly out of place, he was 10x more saturated than anything else around him.

Having the actors on a very low effort green screen stage also completely ruins any chance of getting the proper ambient light or ambient occlusion.

Ambient occlusion is basically the bounce light from other objects in your scene, gamers might know this as a form of ray tracing (ray tracing is live changes in ambient occlusion, games without ray tracing bake in ambient occlusion to get a similar result)

When everything is CG, (again art style aside) looks pretty darn good actually!

I attempted some edits to see if anything could make it look better (left is original, right is mine), and I don’t think proper lighting or anything could actually fix what this movie has wrong with it. They should have made the whole thing animated, I don’t think any amount of bullying would fix this, the studio basically has to scrap the actors, and make new CG characters from scratch in the same style as the rest of the world.

All of this is not the fault f the animators, or any of the vfx team, they did their absolute best with what they had, this is 100% the fault of the higher ups on this project. I have no idea how this good this far into production without ANYONE saying that it was a bad idea (Either that, or a lot of people got fired, which is unfortunately a likely possibility)

[13a07s]

My Everything #2

(Shoyo Hinata)

[Artwork is not mine! Credit to seranlynx]

Requested by: @l1l14i

Word Count: 3,275

Warnings and/or Pre-Notes:

Cyber bullying (?)

Slight fighting

Weed (Fun fact, as of 2023 weed is still illegal in Japan but we're going to ignore that)

Alcohol

———————————————————————

I looked at the comments. I know Akaashi told me not to, but I did anyway, and it was the dumbest thing I could have done. Since looking, my eyes have been constantly scrolling over the thousands of comments.

     They look so cute!

     She's so lucky! I would kill to have @Hinata._.Shoyo on me like that!

     Do you think this is the mystery girlfriend?

     No wonder #21 never shuts up about her. I wouldn't either!

      Omg, there's a new hottest OTP in the volleyball world. @Bokuto.Koutaro and @Akaashi_Keiji better watch out

     Despite all the good comments praising the glimpse of our relationship, all the compliments thirsting over Shoyo and me, even the upright vail sexual things people wish to do to one or both of us, all I can focus on is the bad comments.

     Ew, that's the mystery girlfriend? I excepted... better

     She's chubby, for an athlete's girlfriend

     No wonder @Hinata._.Shoyo is so dedicated to his sport. If I had to go home to that I'd drown myself in volleyball too

     Gold digger if I've ever seen one

     @MSBY_Black_Jackal maybe get #21's eyes checked??? That is nowhere near the hottest woman alive. Even from the glanced photo, I can see a million needed improvements.

     What the hell is up with her hair???

     My hand jumps up to my head, tugging on my towel hat so it comes unraveling. Right after, my fingers run through my hair, working out some of the wet knots I haven't paid attention to since getting out of the shower. Shoyo likes my hair... I think. He likes it, right?

I haven't talked to Shoyo about the post yet. We were alone long enough for him to drop his bags before he and a few other Jackals went down to the hotel gym for their workout sessions. With me being alone in the room it's given me plenty of time to check the comments, unpack, check the comments, shave, check the comments, shower, and check the comments.

Since he was in such a rush to meet up with the team, he left his phone behind. That has given me time to ponder going on his phone and scrolling through what he's been tagged in that I haven't seen yet. I know the password, it's my birthday, and it's not like Shoyo would care. It still feels wrong doing it without asking, even if I know he doesn't mind.

     The girls' - and Akaashi's - group chat has been dinging every ten minutes or so. They've all been telling me to not look or reply to any of the comments, asking what room we're in so someone can sit with me until the boys get back, telling me I'm beautiful, that Shoyo loves me more than anything in this world.

     I've been ignoring their texts - and the occasional call - as much as I can, barely sparing them a glance. I know Shoyo loves me, that he thinks I'm beautiful. I also know he's a man and that he finds other girls beautiful too.

     I've looked at the profiles of some of the commenters, mostly the ones commenting on my weight or openly slutting themselves out to my boyfriend. A lot of them have been supermodel pretty. Supermodel skinny too. I keep trying to remind myself that those photos aren't natural. That they are photoshopped or filtered. That my photo with Shoyo hasn't been touched up. It was snapped and posted.

The hotel door beeps the click of the door opening following the approved key swipe. "Ya, ya, I'll ask the Mrs. I'll let you know. Ya, see you soon," Shoyo rambles to one of his teammates, slowly sliding his way into the room. "Hey baby," he greets, tone instantly softening and his face relaxing at the sight of me.

     "Hi," I snip back, casting my eyes to my phone again, rolling over a comment made of a line of throw-up emojis and the words 'His humbleness isn't the only thing he took from the Karasuno dirt fields'. Maybe I'm reading into it but I'm pretty sure they're trying to call me hick without actually saying it.

Shoyo shifts his body weight, eyes glancing around the room before they're set on me again. "So, Atsumu and some of the other guys and gals are going down to the bar around seven. He invited us to join... you want to go?"

"No."

Concern flickers across his face, quickly drowned out by a smile. "Alright," Shoyo answers, shrugging his shoulders before making his way toward me. "A night in with you and a movie sounds good too," he tries, kicking his shoes off before crawling onto the bed.

I spare him a glance before fixating on the post again. 'How the hell did THAT bag @Hinata._.Shoyo???' rolls across the screen, adding another drop of emotion to the puddle collecting in my chest.

"You're my everything," Shoyo coos, nuzzling his nose against my neck, the tips of his hair tickling my skin. "You know that, right?" He asks, pressing a gentle kiss to my jaw.

"Ya."

"Do you?" He asks again, arching up so he can lock his sight with my eyes, his nose brushing against mine. "You've been... I don't know. Not you since we've gotten here. Bokuto said Akaashi is worried about you," he slowly pushes out, his fingertips on my thigh, toying with the end of the towel I'm still wrapped in.

"I'm fine, Shoyo," I mutter, moving my legs away from him. When his hand grips me tighter instead of falling off, I push it off myself.

Sadness flickers in his soft eyes for a moment, quickly replaced with concern. "Is this about the picture of us?" Shoyo asks, using his grip on my leg to pull me back to him. He snatches my phone from me, glancing at it for a moment before throwing it on the bed.

     "You know about it?" I ask, a bit dumbfounded. There's no way he knows about it. There's no way he knows about it and hasn't told me about it let alone talked to me about it. I haven't talked to him about it because I haven't had the chance to yet. Not because I just haven't.

     "Of course I do. I've known about it since, I don't know, less than five minutes after it was posted. I was tagged in it and I've gotten a new mention in the comments every ten seconds."

     I sit frozen, staring at my confused boyfriend. He's an idiot, right? Like, legally an idiot. He has to be. "What the fuck, Shoyo?" I mutter, my words coming out slow but heavily.

     "I didn't want you to worry about it. I figured - "

     "You figured what? If you didn't say anything about it I wouldn't find out about it?"

     Sho stays quiet for a few moments, a loose smile on his lips as his eyes wander across my face. "I figured sooner or later the public was going to get a picture of us. You look sexy as hell in the one they got, so why freak out about it?"

     "Have you not read the comments?"

     "I have," he hums, head tumbling downward so his lips can crash against my bare shoulders. "'Damn number twenty-one is lucky'. 'If that's the type of girlfriend volleyball players have, sign me up'. 'No wonder Hinata never shuts up about her'. 'Shit man, if my girlfriend looked like that I'd praise her with every breath I had to offer'. 'If I had a girl like that, I'd make her my everything too'," he quotes, little kisses being littered across any bare inch of skin he can get to.

     "Those aren't the comments I'm talking about," I whisper, quickly losing hold of my anger, on my sadness.

     "Baby," he whispers in my ear, nuzzling the side of my face as his hands rub my thighs, his tight grip closing on my flesh every few seconds. "You are my everything, do you know what that means? It means to me you're perfect. I love your hair, I love how it catches the sun, I love how it feels, how it smells, how it looks."

     "I love your curves, I love the dips and twists and every inch of your body. You could be a hundred pounds heavier or a hundred pounds lighter and I'd still love the shape of you."

     Shoyo's kisses fall toward my neck. He nudges at my chin until I tip my head backward, giving him more space to run his lips over. "I love every birthmark, every scar, every inch of your skin. I love your smile, your eyes, your soul, your laugh. Every second possible I spend thinking of you. Thinking of this gorgeous body, of your loving personality."

     His praises are dripping with his admiration of me, drips that fall into the puddle in my chest, slowly but surely eating away at all the negativity that's been building up. "If you ever left me, if you ever decided we were done, that would be it for me. I would never be with another person again. I'd simply play volleyball until I couldn't anymore and then spend the rest of my days wallowing in Rio, waiting for you to want me again."

     "You're my everything, baby. You've been my everything since the first day I saw you since my eyes fell on the pissy girl with braids in her hair that tried fighting the frappuccino machine because it wouldn't work. You are my everything. You know that. I make sure you know that, and if you don't, I need you to tell me you don't. Tell me you don't feel like my everything if that's what's happening. Tell me so I can remind you, so I can fix it, do you understand?"

     "Ya, I understand," I murmur, my mind foggy from the mix of Shoyo's praises and the feeling of his lips leaving my skin on fire.

     "Good," he whispers against my jaw, a line of kisses leading up to the delicate kiss laid on my lips. "You are my everything, baby. Without you, I'm not even sure I can breathe. I am lucky to have you in my life, and I am thankful for every day I wake up next to you."

     My eyes sting with the threat of tears, a threat that's fulfilled quickly. "Oh, baby," Shoyo coos, kisses instant back in action to brush away the water leaking from my eyes. "Don't cry. I hate seeing you cry."

     Giggles slowly spill out, mixing with my tears as I replay the last line of his love speech. "Sho? What the hell are you going to put in your vows that could top that?"

     "I'll just reuse it," he teases, his laughter easily mixing with mine. "Now, drinks with the gals and the guys?"

     "Drinks with the gals and the guys," I agree, stealing another kiss from him.

                      ————————————

Shoyo's arm is around my shoulders, keeping me pressed close to him as he coats my hair in kisses. With every ding of a passing floor, my heart seems to beat faster. I'm always nervous going out in public with my boyfriend, but with the recent shining light of the public on me, I'm more nervous than usual. Pair that with the fact I'm sure every hotel in Shizuoka is swimming with fans and you have a disaster waiting to happen.

     I don't like the attention or the million cameras or the public in general, which is why Sho usually goes to these things alone and I show up the day of the game. At least for away games. Home games are easier to deal with. But, he begged me to come with him this time so I gave in. That was a dumb decision.

"You're fine, baby. Paparazzi and such aren't allowed on private property. Fans are all we'll have to deal with and most of the time they're too star-struck to notice much. You'll slip into the bar as easy as usual." Blind optimism at its finest, but I can't help but hope that he's right.

     When the final ding comes, Shoyo tugs my hood up for me, helping to hide some of myself. His arm falls too, his fingers instantly finding mine and sliding themselves in place. My heart races with the sound of the elevator doors opening, my stomach turning in tone with the two noises.

     Instantly, a million clicks and cellphone flashes go off, the crowd of fans yelling his last name, asking a million questions. Some are simple questions asking for photos or about the game tomorrow, others are centered toward the recent photo of us. Shoyo simply smiles, stepping forward to block me from the crowd as he answers some of the simpler questions.

     Slowly, he leads me out of the elevator, trying his best to inch around the crowd toward the bar. Within seconds, Bokuto appears situating himself next to Shoyo and in front of me too. "Hey, hey, hey. Don't forget Hinata isn't the only spiker on the team," the bigger man booms, glancing behind himself to send me a smile.

     The two beefy men in front of me continue the slow and stretched-out walk to the bar, the three of us shuffling like penguins to get to the entrance. Sadly, the bar has an open construct; no door, just an open wall with a velvet 'fence' to close it off for the Jackals to use tonight.

     "Hey," Akaashi greets, nodding at the worker to unclip the makeshift gate.

     "Hey," I greet back, stepping through before glancing at Shoyo. Bokuto and him are still taking pictures and answering questions, only two or three steps away from me. "I don't like coming to these things."

     Akaashi shrugs, watching our goofballs with me. "It's a lot at first but over time you get used to it. Just don't do anything stupid, like have dry sex in a car," he teases, a soft grin on his face as he spares me a glance. "And you'll be fine."

     "Ya, that was pretty dumb of us."

     That gets a laugh out of him, and a bigger smile. "If it makes you feel any better, Kotaro's and my first 'scandal' happened because someone got a photo of me helping him button his shirt as we left a restaurant bathroom. He spilled red wine on his shirt so I helped him clean it but of course, the media turned it into us having a quickie." That does help, a lot more than I thought it would.

     "Shit happens. Scandals happen or get fabricated. There's no point hiding in the dark forever because that just leaves more for the imagination. The hard part is done. The world has proof of you. Hot ass proof." That makes me giggle, a few soft chuckles leaving Akaashi as well. "Hey, even the coach's wife said she'd leave him for you."

     "She did not," I manage to get out, more laughter mixing with my words.

     "She did too, which you would know if you answered any of our texts."

     "I was busy wallowing in sadness and self-pity."

     Akaashi shrugs again, his grin falling from his face, his usual resting bitch face back on. "That happens too. Half the world will love you and the other half will hate you regardless of what you say or what photos they get of you. Just got to roll with it."

     "Did you smoke a blunt before coming down here?" All the partners of the players have different ways of dealing with the stress of publicity they and their player have. Some smoke, some use weed like Akaashi, and some just enjoy their partner's hefty wallets and use retail as a means to cope. I'm not sure what I'm going to use to cope yet, but at the moment a few hits of what Akaashi is on sounds like a nice and quick way to chill out.

     "I had an edible. I don't have anymore so you're going to have to be sober or drink."

     "Drinking it is then," I mutter, letting my eyes scan over the growing group of Jackals paying attention to their fans right outside the bar.

     Akaashi and I stand inside the entrance, still blocked from the fans' view by the team members. If this is how people act at the hotel, the gym is going to be insane tomorrow.

"Alright, alright, I promised my everything a drink so I got to go guys. I hope to see you all tomorrow," Shoyo's voice rises above the chaos, the ginger starting to back up from the crowd. Being cut off only makes the crowd louder, the rest of the members quickly follow to avoid the uproar.

As soon as he's through the cloth fence, Shoyo's arms are around me, burying me into himself as he drags me further into the bar. My head pops out from his arms when I'm no longer forced into movement. "There's my everything," he coos, pecking my lips as he loosens his hold.

We - and the rest of the team - are tucked away in the furthest and darkest corner of the bar, safe away from the crowd still at the entrance. Greetings are thrown around, a few "you two looked sexy in your picture" mixed in. Everyone answered with a "damn right" by Sho.

Shoyo's hands are on me at all times, even as we sit with everyone else. Hand on my thigh, in my hair, toying with my fingers, anyway he can touch me he does. "You're beautiful," he whispers, his hand jumping up to push my hood off.

     "Thank you," I answer, taking his hand in mine before resting it in my lap. He's antsy, like always, but more so than usual since he's still worked up from my meltdown. Having his hands wandering over my body isn't going to help much with our scandal.

His movements stall for a moment, his brain ticking at what to do before his soft touches are replaced with butterfly kisses. My cheeks heat up more with every kiss he litters my skin with. "Honey, we're with people," I murmur, trying to shrug him off.

"So?" He whines, shaking his hand out of mine so he can wrap his arms around my waist, pulling both me and the chair closer to him. "You're my everything. With so many people around, so many people having proof you exist, I want to remind everyone that you are my everything. Always have been, always will be."

     "Gross," one of the older members tease, fake gagging until his wife smacks him upside the head, paired with a whispered lecture and an ear pull.

     Shoyo giggles, nuzzling my head until I turn it enough for him to kiss me. Slowly I let myself give into the gentle kiss, letting my adoring boyfriend melt away all the stress of the day. "My beautiful, perfect everything," he sighs, pecking my lips once more before pulling away from me. "Anyway, we should get a round of shots to drink to our future victory over EJP."

     The team cheers at the offer, one of the members flagging down a server to take the order. A smile plays on Shoyo's face, his hand enveloping mine again to raise it, kisses being peppered across my knuckles. It's hard to believe just an hour ago I was convinced I was nothing to him. Even in moments where his focus is on the team, on volleyball, I'm still at the forefront of his mind. I'm still his everything.

———————————————————————

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for calling somebody out for trying to pass AI art off as original art?

So, I (16F) am a fanartist. Somebody I follow reblogged something that looked like AI art to me, but OP described it as an original gauche painting. I saved the photo and ran it through several AI art detection websites that all came back positive. This pissed me off, so I decided to take action: 1.) I screenshotted the entire post and reposted it with a caption along the lines of, "This is not original artwork. This is stolen AI art." 2.) I direct messaged the five people who reblogged it with a similar message and 3.) I replied to the original post with the same thing.

Of the five people I DMed, one person (the person I'm following) deleted the reblog and expressed similar suspicions, one person blocked me, and three people took no action. And the callout post I made didn't get any traction, so (as far as I'm aware) this was entirely between OP and me.

Anyways, OP pretty quickly replied to me and called me a troll and insisted it was original artwork. I replied to them and said I'd run it through AI art detection websites that came back positive, but if they could take a photo of the "painting" in another angle, I'd issue a full public apology. OP replied again and said they'd sold the painting at an auction in the 1990s, but they'd try to contact the buyer to give me the proof. I went to bed and did not reply again.

The next morning, I discovered that OP had deleted all the "paintings" off their account (I believe it was all AI), so I deleted my callout post and decided to let it rest. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that OP had also released a statement (I think it was about a thousand words) about internet policing where they said they wouldn't post art online anymore because of harassment. They claimed that the painting looked weird because they'd adjusted the color gain in photoshop since the photo was taken in the 1990s. (If you know what color gain is, then you'll know that this doesn't make sense.)

I still felt fairly confident that it was AI art, but I started to feel guilty in the off chance that I was wrong and had singlehandedly convinced somebody that their art was bad and undeserving of being posted online. I cried for a while and talked it over with my dad who sided with me. (My dad is a philosopher so he's very knowledgeable about ethics.)

Then, I went to camp for two weeks, and when I returned, OP had still not provided any proof, so I blocked them.

Additional information:

OP uses their "real name" on Tumblr, but I couldn't find evidence of an artist using that name anywhere else on the internet, which seems strange since they've apparently been working professionally since the 1990s.

OP's oldest art post on Tumblr was from September 2022, which would've been in the height of the AI art craze.

OP has also posted property labeled AI art.

And, this is the real kicker, I later found out that the AI art detection websites aren't always accurate.

What are these acronyms?

[weabooweedwitch]

Most women your age are getting married and starting their families and you've never even had a bf 🤡 it's so over for you better get used to coping with ur crippling loneliness with maladaptive daydreaming, yandere asmr videos, drugs and self-insert fanfic because that's all you'll ever have now. Your youth is gone and you're still fat af even after you lost weight (probably gained it all back by now lmao). You could have made something of urself whem you were 20 by losing weight and going to college but instead you laid around and wasted all of your youth and now it's too late. No man will ever want to deal with your baggage of being poor, old, unwanted, uneducated (lmao how do I have more education than you and I'm 10 years younger? dumbass doesnt even have her GED), cringey age-inappropriate hobbies, mentally ill and not even having the decency to go to therapy and take meds, fat, ugly face, loser and loner with no irl friends, crazy family, looking old for your age, whored yourself out on a sugar daddy website, rotten teeth due to your own laziness, thinning frizzy hair and gross bulky glasses, drug addicted alcoholic who's probably going to be homeless for the majority of her life, mean person attacking minor aged rape victims like jesus christ you're so fucking worthless SO many red flags so much baggage no-one will ever want to deal with that. You don't even know how worthless you are

You know, every time you send me a message like this, I think of the person from your friend group who came forward a while back. You know, the one you don't like to acknowledge tried to apologize on your behalf. Anyways, every time you insult my appearance I just think of what your friend said

So i get it sweetie, youre mad at mommy and daddy and you're lashing out. That's why half the time you're repeating things i previously said back to me and parroting shallow insults with a very small vocabulary. The second i call you fatherless, you call me fatherless. I use thw word maladaptive and, suddenly you know that word too and juat HAVE to use it as well. I get it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

You're honestly just making yourself look so pitiable. You realize you've already painted yourself as such a dumb jackass that every single time you do this I basically just laugh and ignore you, and then people who know me and are friends or WANT TO be friends with me see how you treat me publicly and they all say "yeah wow who's this absolutely demonic little cunt acting like this without any reason". Like. What is the end goal here. Making yourself look as petty and stupid as possible. Meanwhile, what did someone else in your friend group say? The ones you lied to? Including Callie, the actual victim whose trauma you're basically trying to appropriate for yourself

Anyways yeah I just wanted to like show you the actual screenshots of the conversation I had with your friend back in June, which also to everyone else, yeah June, that's when she lied to her own friends and said she would stop doing this. She lied to her friends because all of them told her this was making them massively uncomfortable, so now she's. Being an internet troll in secret behind their backs 😂 they were going to tattle on you to your mom so you lied so they wouldn't check tumblr anymore because you're such a weird angry little freak that this has become a hobby for you

I'm sad? I'M sad? I don't even know your fucking name meanwhile you've scrolled through all of my blogs repeatedly for months cataloging details about me for the sheer purpose of trying to poorly insult me.

Like genuinely 90% of the reason I'm answering this is to basically wave a flag saying "hey everyone if you've ever seen or received weird asks of photoshopped porn of me or pictures of my actual family taken from their facebooks or saw the transphobic racist fake dating profile she made with one of my selfies or you ever received a bitch lasagna or Zalgo text, it was this cringey little lolcow right here"

But I also wanted to show you screenshot proof that you make your own friends super uncomfortable and that they started talking about your personal business to defend me over you. So. Yeah I guess that stings huh?

[staybabblingbaby]

Felix Tinder AU (First Date Part) A2 D3

[Caution: These are not full fics, or even full parts of fics for some, these are part of my writing progress archive!]

Concept: You match with what you think is a Stray Kids fan account on Tinder. You get along great with the account's owner, and think it's probably your most successful match to-date. Little do you know who's actually behind the screen...

Word Count: 1,580

Notes: So this will probably be the actual beginning. Maybe. Some version of it, anyways. idk, the formatting for this one is a bit... And I still have to figure out how to make fake Tinder stuff without photoshop. I do not own adobe products. This may actually end up being the first writing part in a hybrid SMAU, so it might not be the first part at all. We'll see. I didn't read this one back for any editing notes bc This entire fic is fighting me rn and I don't wanna look at it lol

Warnings: None as far as I'm aware

Leave me comments or questions or anything! Love hearing from folks <3

Masterlist | Next Part (Coming soon!)

You nervously tap on your steering wheel, anxious gaze glued to the side door you were parallel parked directly in front of. You felt sketchy as hell, but this was the manager-approved pick-up method apparently. Or at least leader-approved. You weren’t really clear on the details.

You were still sort of processing that this was your life, actually. Details were a bit secondary to the big picture here, you thought.

At last, the door creaks open and the blond head you’d been waiting for pops out. After a brief cautious sweep of his gaze, his eyes lock on your car. You roll the window down to offer him an awkward smile and a little wave.

Then, with a bright smile that made your heart do stupid little summersaults, Yongbok Felix Lee is sliding into your beat-up little jeep. You’re shamefully distracted by his (very) pretty face for a solid 10 seconds before you roll up the window and start moving to a proper parking spot.

You may be dazed by his presence, but by all things good in this world you were not carting off a (sort-of) stranger without talking to them first.

“Hi!” He’s the first to break the momentary silence, sunny grin on full, blinding, blast in your passenger seat. Your brain stalls a second time as your (again) realize that Stray Kids’ Felix is in your car. Like right now. Currently.

“Wazzup?” You greet back with a cheeky little smirk. You feel a bit bad for Felix. Making light of things was your one and only coping mechanism. You hoped he hadn’t been expecting a serious candle-lit dinner from you.

Well. Candles, maybe. Depends on how late the two of you ended up staying out.

Luckily Felix seems delighted by your overly-casual demeanor, bumping your arm with gentle playfulness. It almost feels like you’re two close friends meeting up after a long time instead of (sort-of) near-strangers.

You know that if he spends enough time with you the shell of confidence you’re currently wearing will become transparent, but hopefully the façade would carry you through tonight.

“We’re just moving so we can talk without being in the way before we head out.” You explain, pulling into a shaded parking spot in the corner of the lot. You’ve pulled hopefully far enough away to not attract attention from the doors, but also not far enough to be creepy.

Felix nods, tilting his head curiously at you. “Sure, what are we talking about?”

You put the car in park and laugh a bit at his cuteness. “Just expectations and whatnot,” You say, unbuckling so you can turn and face him properly.

“Before all that, though, are you a hugger?” You hold your arms open a bit, not enough to actually touch him, and making sure you’re not leaning forward, letting him take the reigns of contact.

You worry you may be being a bit too forward, but you were trying for normality with all of this, and you really did open most interactions with hugs when you could. You were touchy like that.

Fears once again unfounded, Felix grins widely and quickly reels you in for as tight a hug as the two of you can manage whilst still seated. He reels you in so quickly, if fact, that your arms become trapped between the two of you and you struggle for a moment to wiggle them free and wrap them firmly around his waist.

As you settle in, you rock the two of you to-and-fro, and Felix lets out a content little sigh that has you melting into the embrace.

You sort of feel like giggling madly and tearing up at the same time. You feel a bit like you need to vomit, as well, but you hold all three urges back. It’s just that Felix holds you so warmly and delicately, you feel a bit like you might shatter before the night even begins.

You reluctantly pull back before you cross the bounds of appropriateness for a first meeting, skootching around so you can bring your legs up into your seat in a weird pretzel and start the conversation properly.

You want to coo at Felix as he imitates you and gets himself comfy as well. You’re down bad for this man already, unfortunately. IT’s best that you don’t let on quite how badly if you can help it. You don’t know if you can.

“So!” You start with a clap, “First of all, allow me to welcome you to our humble city.” You do an awkward showman’s bow, gesturing as grandly as you’re able when you’ve crumpled yourself into the world’s cringiest ball.

You’re so damn lucky that Felix seems so charmed by you so far. You’re begging with everything you can that your innate silliness will guide you through tis interaction without you panicking too hard.

“I’ve been here for several days now, first of all,” Felix starts, eyes twinkling with amusement and mischief. You play right into his hands, squawking with offense and playfully swatting at him.

You both dissolve into giggles as he tries to catch your hands to keep them from hitting him, and you loudly begin to complain, “Oh well, I’m sorry someone was too busy playing two fabulous shows to come see little ol’ me before now!”

“Oh, come on now, you wouldn’t let me get you seats, you deserve this ribbing!” He retorts back, finally catching your hands and putting a stop to your flailing. He pauses then, and you can practically see the gears in his head turning.

“Wait.” He tugs you forward by your hands, staring you down with an expression of delighted disbelief. “Fabulous show? Were you there?”

You quickly turn your head to hide the mirthful smirk on your face, replying only with a drawn out “Maaaaaybe.”

Felix gasps loudly, letting go of your hands only to lightly slap your knee, “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have gotten you backstage or something!”

You wave your hands in front of you, both warding off Felix’s playful attacks nd waiving off his words.

“No, no!” You deny him, continuing on to confess, “I actually had the tickets before we even started talking, I got them right as they went on sale.” You pause and duck you head a bit to hide your blush, “Besides, our first real meeting should be our first date, right? That’s how this works.”

To your slight mortification, you can very easily tell that Felix is trying his hardest not to coo at you, so you quickly rush to move on before he can interrogate you further.

“But we’re getting off track!” You exclaim, pointing at him in gentle threat. He holds up his hands in surrender, but you can tell by the smirk on his face that he wouldn’t let it go that easily. Still, he lets you move the conversation forward for now.

“So, I’m a bit paranoid,” You suddenly confess. Felix’s brow creases with concern, but you continue before he can get any weird ideas into his head, “I just wanna make sure we’re on the same page before we actually go anywhere.”

Felix makes a noise of understanding and gestures for you to continue.

“So I just want to make sure we’re both expecting this to be a romantic date and not, like, a platonic one.” You explain. Felix tilts his head a bit in confusion but nods along.

“Yeah, we’re on the same page there.” He agrees. His gentle smile feels a bit like he’s humoring you, but you plough on regardless.

“And I know we’ve already talked about this, but I don’t put out on first dates. I’m not into hookups, so even if you’re leaving tomorrow I’m expecting this to be the first of many or the first and last date.”

Felix seems to be cottoning onto the intended severity of the conversation, despite its relatively light tone. He nods along, seeming pleased about something. You pause to let him interject, but he just gestures you to continue.

You hesitate a moment, but then finish with, “That’s all, really, I just want both of us to be happy with things at the end of tonight.”

Felix smiles so fondly at you that you think you’ll combust, so you quickly reach across him to open your glove box to pull out a couple of papers, to Felix’s utter bafflement.

“Moving on!” You exclaim, pretending that your ears aren’t burning with the force of your blush, “I also have these!”

You present to Felix a paper with an address and your vehicle details as well as a map with a certain area circled.

“Ok, so, keeping as much a secret as I can,” You begin to babble as Felix examines the papers with confusion painted over his delicate features.

“But I was thinking about what we could do that didn’t involve being in public much and wasn’t expensive or anything, and I came up with a plan. A friend of mine owns some forested land with some nice hiking trails, so I thought we’d start there, but it’s a bit rural and I know it’s weird, so I brought both the lot address and coordinates and my car details so you can tell your people exactly where you’ll be and if phone service dies or anything no one freaks out and-”

You cut yourself off, realizing that you’d probably said way more than you needed to