#been so long since i giffed i forgot my vs settings

[kimuramasaya]

HANA_花 (231019) ✧ Masaya

[jimines]

2021 Year in Review - post your favourite and/or most popular posts of 2021

Tagged by: @kimtaehyunq, @blooodsweatandtears, @jeonjcngkook, @min-boongie, @hobeah, @jiminswn, @hyunsung, @gimbapchefs, @kithtaehyung, @taeyoonge and @bisexualrapline thank you lovelies❤️

Looking back on all of my gifs and such from this year made me feel... a range of emotions, baha. For one, I was shocked to see I had posted more than like 100 sets😂, I almost cracked 300 this year and it really didn’t feel like I’d been that active asdfghjkl. I also felt a bit nostalgic coming across certain sets that reminded me of past times, both the good times and the bad. There were a lot of bad times this year that bts and creating helped me cope with and escape from, and I’m very grateful to that. And above all, I was oddly really proud to see my works evolve from what they were when I first came back to present. I used to really hate my own content, and I mean I still joke about it a lot, but this year in review made me realize I actually do have some nice thoughts about most of them. I’m glad I pushed through and worked hard to improve my knowledge and skills to the point I’m mostly content with my creations. However, I will continue denying the existence of any of my sets before VS, even if a few are listed here. I believe i deleted the worst one’s though, lmaoo, which means that from January to March I don’t have any sets to put down👀. 

And as a special little note, I want to thank anyone who has ever supported my content, sent asks or left tags/compliments on my sets. some of you leave the sweetest, most simp-worthy words on my sets I could cry. It really makes me so happy that my content is enjoyed by you guys. this whole bts tumblr community is so kind and welcoming and encouraging, I’m so glad I came back to tumblr and discovered bts and all of you lovely people. I love you guys.❤️

I’m going to put the list of sets I actually do have under the cut since it’ll be quite long, I think.😗✌️

🌻 - January ↳ Most popular: N/A ↳ Favourite: N/A

🌻 - February ↳ Most popular: N/A ↳ Favourite: N/A

🌻 - March ↳ Most popular: N/A ↳ Favourite: N/A

🌻 - April ↳ Most popular: jimin & jungkook being cuties (1.4k notes)  this is one of the sets I pretend doesn’t exist, so no comment💔 ↳ Favourite: jimin being a hot bitch in shades  i only chose this one as my favourite because it was the first jimin comp i ever made and i remember slaving on photoshop for the whole day because it kept shutting down on me. so it’s a traumatic set for me and worthy of being mentioned i guess.😭

🌻 - May ↳ Most popular: jimin in the MOTS ON:E concept shooting sketch (2.5k notes) i think this is one of the first sets i made with vs and with a little more education on colouring. i’m pretty proud of this set and i’m happy it was well received. i kind of mark it as the turning point of my content. i stopped completely loathing my gifs after this point, lmao ↳ Favourite: jimin giving me an aneurysm in the butter mv  ok so, i think this is one of my favourite sets i’ve made in regards to colouring. took me a lot of trial and error to get the yellows to cooperate but I was really, really happy with the outcome. i miss these times tbh, butter era was fun :(

🌻 - June ↳ Most popular and Favourite: ahhh the jimintonin set, my beloved (2.6k notes) this is definitely one of my favourite sets, it just makes me really happy. he’s just so darn soft and cute, i look for this set when i’m really sad and it makes me feel better. call it an emotional attachment, if you will. 

🌻 - July ↳ Most popular: jimin in one of the xylitol advertisements (2k notes) ok this is one of the popular posts that confused me asdfghjkl. i’m not really a fan of this set anymore, the colouring in particular aksalsklkas i lowkey forgot about it until now bahah, but i’m glad y’all liked it regardless of my personal opinions dhsgkjlsdhg ↳ Favourite: tae in 5th muster japan  this colouring is just sexc, what else can i say. very proud of this one considering i usually suck at concert gifs, i try to avoid them like the plague.

🌻 - August ↳ Most popular: jungkook being the sexy beast he is (2.5k notes) dang, i seriously went for the kill with this one. i remember a lot of the tags on this set were just pain and suffering from those so unfortunate to be smacked in the face with it, so you’re welcome. 😗✌️  ↳ Favourite: jimin’s vlive (210830)  listen, when i tell you im so emotionally attached to this jimin i want to break something, i mean it. this vlive is one of my favourites, the audacity of this man. i can’t even put into words how much i love this set and his stupid cute face💔. anyways my fave gif is 6th one, it makes me want to bang my head against the wall, bYE.

🌻 - September ↳ Most popular: yoongi from memories of 2020 (2.2k notes) all i’m gonna say is i’m glad cute n’ squishy yoongi made ya’ll happy.❤️  ↳ Favourite: hoseok being adorable af in memories of 2020  this one was an easy favourite to choose. sometimes my adjustments just sit so perfectly on a clip and i gskdljgkjdh i just really love how these turned out.

🌻 - October ↳ Most popular: jimin being adorable as usual (2.8k notes) this set is actually my second favourite of the month, very close behind my true favourite. i’m really proud of the colour isolation i did with this set, it took a lot of time and patience with my old nemesis camera raw filter. it’s not my usual colouring style I don’t think but i like it a lot. ↳ Favourite: jimin’s birthday set  i really like the colouring and consistency of this set. of course it’s not perfect, but i feel like i did better on this set than previous ones? Idk. it’s also one of my biggest comps, or my biggest comp, i’m not sure. it took a lot of effort regardless and i’m very happy with it and all the pain it caused my followers.❤️

🌻 - November ↳ Most popular: osaka live jimin (1.7k notes) i think i squeezed this set in in-between aggressive note taking and several mental breakdowns lmaoo. the quality is poopy bUT he’s still hot so i like this set. osaka jimin has a special place in my heart. ↳ Favourite(s): jimin from the 211128 vlive // jimin giggling and hurting my heart  the vlive set would be my #1 favourite if the dark times of tumblr grain hadn’t come for it, i did quite like the colouring of it before posting😭. the butter set though... the audacity, really. for him to look like that and still manage to be adorable. i think the balance of red and yellow i accomplished with this set is why it’s my second favourite. usually reds and yellows are the bane of my existence but i feel like i did well on this set.

🌻 - December ↳ Most popular: jimin gq korea photoset (5k notes) this isn’t a gif set or even an edit, but it’s my most popular post of this month so decided to include it. i will say i was shocked to see it get so much attention👁️👄👁️. it’s valid though, that photoshoot came for all of our throats and i will think about it until the day i die.👍 ↳ Favourite(s): jimin’s deep af thoughts // jimin in that fit for vogue again, i really like the colour isolation i did with that 7fates set, his lips be poppin’, and for once i have a font i actually like for captions bahaha, only took me 9 months to find. but the vogue set though....😳 i could talk about that look for hours, my gosh, he was so stunning... but anYWAYS, i love how the reds came out in that set and i really like how dark and saturated the gifs look. it really was a hassle to colour isolate and make them somewhat consistent, but it was worth it and i’m very proud of the final product overall. 

fini

Dang, that was a lot, lmao. OK tagging: @taehyungq, @taejinnies, @intokook, @suga-ssi, @namgination, @filmsout, @kkulmoon, @boyswthluv, @honsool, @jung-koook, @eternal-bangtan, @kimtaegis, @userjiminie @introtae @vjimin @seokjinite @m0ontaeil + anyone else that wants to do it! (feel free to ignore this though if you don’t want to or if you already have)

Let’s all hope for an amazing 2022, haha

[theofficefantasyfootball]

WEEK 11 - Wrap Up

Pickleball Anyone?

I have been researching for a new sport since my fantasy season is basically over and I am thinking Pickleball is the answer?   Anyone play it already?  It seems like something that Brett, Gabe and Gully already have a team put together for and they have already won the Nashville region championship a few times!  Maybe you guys will let me play on your team?  I know this is a Fantasy Football league and I should be talking football,  but here we are in week 11 and if I am being honest, at the start of the season I thought that at this point, I would be deciding who I needed to stash for my week 16 match up, but that is not the case.  Instead I am texting this weekend with Krippayne about who finishes lower this week.  2020 - Am I right!?  For those still in it...stay focused...Just two more weeks left and then PLAYOFFS!  Happy Thanksgiving everyone....here are the match ups.

I SUCK vs LONG LEFT BALLERS

I know that Bebo is a PA not a full on doctor,  but I am pretty sure at Williamson Medical there has to be a autistic doctor and if there is, I bet Bebo helps him through each shift - teaching him about medicine and human interaction.  Bebo is such a good guy.  They should make a show called “The Good PA” starring Bebo Norman.  Listen, here’s the deal...was Bebo going to have a great week this week...of course...he was playing against me.  It’s my destiny at this point to lose and to lose big.  You can’t fight with destiny.  Bebo’s week started strong on Thursday with 24 from Murray and 15 from Hyde....add to that Cook and Hill and Ridley matching up against my piece of shit team and you get a win...everytime.  Nice Win Bebo...you are on your way to greatness!  Keep healing the sick! 

TREE HUGGERS vs MOOSES ON THE LOOSES

The Moose starts a new week.  He’s number one in the league.  The Moose puts up another solid score.  He wins again.  He remains number one in the league.  Meanwhile Scott Krippayne, spends his weekend prepping for a colonoscopy. Drinking god knows what in order to clear his bowels so some can “bebo wanna be” can lube up a tube to insert into his rectum.  And on top of that Scott  “enters” Monday night with a total of only 37 points.  Two guys.  Same league.  Very different weekends.  Personally, and I can’t believe I am saying this - I would much rather be Scott.  Because at least Scott is going to heaven.  Mitch White obviously sold his soul to the devil to be having a year like this.  Satan himself has come to our league everyone.  I believe that.  Sorry Scott - for many things. 

LANAKILA vs TRADE WITH ME

Cliff was on fire this weekend.  Kicker with 15.  Defense with 21.  But, the real reason for his success was the Minnesota Vikings - and the fantastic play of Cousins and Thielen.  They put up almost 60  points between the two of them.  And when you are playing Brett Rutledge (even when he has a good week) and you have those Vikings on your team, you walk away with the win.  I will admit I am writing this at 2:00 pm and Brett still has Henderson and Woods to play but Cliff still has running back Ronald Jones...so with a 30 point lead and this situation - I think I can be like Fox News with the State of Arizona and call this one early!  Nice win Cliff....Brett seriously let’s play some Pickleball!

BOOMER SOONER vs HOWARD

The Howard’s are doing some construction next door.  Lots of hammering and trucks coming and going, port-a-potty in the yard -  stuff like that.  When it’s finished it will be amazing but for the next 3-24 months we might be watching some of Rob’s top construction guys at work like the above GIF.  But, all that racket hasn’t deterred Howard from putting up another 122 points and grabbing another win.  He is on his way to another playoff and potentially to a 4th championship.  Insane.  Meanwhile,  Stu is trying to get his new business off the ground and is in a playoff points battle with Kyle and Cliff.  And when you are in a points battle and you only put up 84 it’s not a good thing.  Good thing Medical House Calls is going well for you buddy!  Sorry again for your loss...but when you go up against a Fantasy Football GOAT you have to bring all you got!  Nice win Rob.

BACKDOOR BANDITS vs TuPADRE 

Like a mighty kitty cat -  Backdoor Bandits (Kyle Allmendinger) with his #10 ranking, sneaked up on the #2 ranked and very tough to beat Tu Padre (Andy Gullahorn) and took him down!  Hard!  Kyle who has his sights set on finding a way to  get into the playoffs had a great week from Rodgers,  Gibson, Jefferson, Drake, Hunter Henry and even the Chargers Defense.  Gullahorn had his normal Russell Wilson numbers but everyone else -  aside from Diontae Johnson was a disappointment.  With Howard’s win and Gully’s loss that moves Tu Padre down into 3rd place for now.  A lot of things have to shake out for Kyle in the next few weeks but mainly he has to score a hell of a lot of points and keep winning!  What a great match up.  Nice win Kyle.

FUNK GUY vs MR. AWESOME

I’m sure Dana was a bit nervous going into Monday Night.  Down by 12.54 with Mike Evans yet to play.  I mean it’s Mike Evans - he’s good for that right?  Oh, yeah I forgot, Brady has Godwin and Gronk and Antonio now to throw to also....hmmmm what will happen?  Gabe had a solid week with 125 points and King Henry / Tannehill leading the way for him once again.  But all that doesn’t matter when you have no one left to play on Monday Night.  As the night went on Dana brought the Gabe’s lead down to just 1.64 points with 2:36 left in the game.  Tom Brady had one more drive to get a win and maybe give Dana a win as well.  But Tom on his two minute drive threw an epic interception early in the drive to end the game for the Bucs and for Dana.  He falls to the mighty Gabe Scott by less than 2 points.  Tough loss Dana.  Maybe next time!

SURVIVOR

Both Brett and Gabe picked Chargers.  Chargers won.  We move on to week 12.

HIGH POINT WINNER!

This week a few players were trying to grab this.  Funk Guy, Lanakila and Long Left Ballers.  But in the end it was my opponent this week Long Left Ballers - Bebo Norman who grabbed the win with 131.56.  $20!

This weeks picture prize is Soo Yeon Lee.  Who you ask?  She is a South Korean Table Tennis player, actress and coach.   For those of you not very educated Table Tennis is also known as Ping Pong. 

[corbo-florbo]

Fantasy Booking: John Cena & Elias

Tagging the awesome @mith-gifs-wrestling and the amazing @adriennegabriella for this one, since they seem to enjoy my fantasy bookings so far!

So as of writing this, John Cena is coming back to Friday Night Smackdown on February 28 of 2020, and I’ve got a couple or few ideas of what I’d like to have done with him. I figured, why not start with one that seems like a continuation of a recent subtle ongoing feud with The Drifter, Elias?

Are you ready for a good time? The episode of Smackdown opens with a bang, as fireworks go off and fans cheer. Then the hum of John Cena’s music blasts through the arena, and he looks as happy as ever when making his way to the ring. 

Cena grabs a mic, and waits for the cheers to die down. “Boy, y’all sure did miss me huh? I gotta admit, it’s been a while. I left y’all behind while I pursued my acting career, but it’s okay, it’s fine, The Leader of the Cenation is back baby!” *cheers* “But it’s not all about to be sunshine and rainbows, I’m afraid. See, I gots some things to share with y’all, and I dunno how y’all are gonna feel about it.” John then turns his hat around to where the bill is facing behind him. “Y’see-”

A guitar strum silences John as the arena goes dark and the spotlight flashes on one sole figure making his way to the ring. That figure ladies and gentlemen, is Elias. “John, John, John. Oh, this is so us. I interrupt you, you interrupt me, it’s a whole thing! Sometimes I beat your ass, you beat my ass, you know how it goes! Why, last time you threw a package of nuts at me, and quite frankly, you said some mean things at me. When was that? Oh, uh... Wrestlemania! But it’s all good, John. I’m glad to see you back! Maybe this time we can duet, because I”m tired of playing with myself.” John grins at this. “Oh, you like that one don’t you, John? Yeah, that was pretty funny. Now, I’m not sure why you tilted your hat backwards, but I thought maybe we can show it’s all water under the bridge and have some honest to God fun! It’s Wrestlemania season after all!”

Elias steps in the ring and John leans on the turnbuckle opposite Elias’s end, with a Cheshire grin on his face. Elias strums and plucks at his guitar. “Hey John, why don’t you start us off with a rap verse, maybe? I think that’ll get the people of Boston in the spirit! What do ya say, Boston?” Obviously, cheers.

John nods, puts his arm around Elias’s shoulder, and as a melody emanates from Elias’s guitar, John opens his mouth, as though he’s about to rap, until a quick turn and Drift Away! Ladies and gentlemen, John Cena has taken down Elias with his own move! Why, John, why?!

The next week passes and there’s a new episode of Smackdown. Neither man is to be found until the main event, advertised earlier in the day as an explanation from John Cena. People sit, waiting for the familiar “My Time Is Now” but instead are met with “Basic Thuganomics”. Cena comes out, decked in the same wear befitting of someone dressed in early 2000′s hip-hop clothing style. 

“Word Life” brass knuckles wrapped around his fingers, microphone in hand, the Doctor of Thuganomics speaks. “Now, since I was so RUDELY interrupted last week by that weak, punk ass jobber, allow me to lay down the line right here, right now. Y’all cheering me were the same ones booing me all them years. No matter what I did, it wasn’t good ‘nuff for ya. It wasn’t until I used my profile to elevate others, you seemed to care. 2006. One Night Stand. Manhattan. Hammerstein Ballroom. I came out to toxic, nuclear heat and my shirt being thrown right back at me. Said I ain’t got no moves! I gave them moves! They boo’d that shit too! I’d give my all, yet I was so hated. Yet the children loved me. Guess what? Those kids grew up. Y’all even popped loud as hell whenever someone mentions my failed relationship with Nikki Bella? Y’all so easily worked it ain’t even funny! She and I are still tight, life just pulls us in diff’rent directions. Y’all hated me, now ya want me back. Now I’ve been gone so long, y’all miss me? Well, John Cena don’t forget, no he don’t! I remember clear as day, y’all as fickle as Daniel Bryan always said, but he back in the Kool-Aid now, talkin’ bout the Yes Movement comin’ back. Now he fickle too, but that’s okay ‘cause Cena here to collect. Talk about my golden shovel, talk about burying talent, well guess what? Anyone in my path gon’ wish they was dead. Cena out.” 

Cut to next week’s Smackdown, things seem to have gone back to normal. Elias is back, and is in a match with Mustafa Ali. Of course, he is a little paranoid of John Cena, which Ali takes advantage of, easily getting in the win. Elias doesn’t seem to even care or process the loss. He just...leaves. Like someone who left a haunted house, but the haunted house hasn’t left them. 

Main event time, and the Dirt Sheet is dunking on everybody. They continue to talk smack to The New Day in their ongoing feud. John Morrison dunks on Elias for his upset state, while Miz derides the outdated nature of John Cena. On the Titantron, John Cena calls them out via satellite, as he sees himself above fighting anyone on the roster on a measly episode of Smackdown. “I mean, I’m John F%#^ng Cena!” Miz and Morrison then challenge him to a 2-on-1 handicap match, now he’s got them too heated to go after Kofi Kingston and Big E of New Day, that they MUST beat Cena. And they must do it at the upcoming Elimination Chamber pay per view.

The night of the match, Cena dominates. He takes both men out with ease. Miz, perhaps the easiest, but Morrison’s parkour gives him at least a sliver of a chance. Cena is the victor. 

More Smackdowns, more of Elias being afraid. Miz and Morrison act like nothing happened, pretending they didn’t just fight and lose to John Cena. Elimination Chamber didn’t happen in their eyes. They continue to emasculate Elias, who on the fifth Friday night, grows tired of them mocking him and takes them down, accusing them of being in cahoots with him. He’s greatly losing it, as is evident when he plays his guitar out of tune, or messes up lyrics. 

Roman Reigns, however, is tired of it all. He calls out Cena, challenging him at Fastlane, which Cena accepts. Not before he chastises Roman about how he had to elevate him at No Mercy 2017, about how while he isn’t as hated by crowds anymore, he’s still just “a guy”, and will never reach that level. That Roman’s 2017 win was just a fluke. Yet another nut joke by the Doctor of Thuganomics  before a low blow and an F.U. lays Roman out at the end of the night.

Fastlane 2020 approaches, and the two put on a 30 minute classic. Roman gets more vicious, and Cena becomes more dastardly. He constantly taunts and goads Roman most of the match, and at one point even HEADBUTTS HIM. That’s something you don’t do to Samoan pro wrestlers, yet Cena evades it all, wearing Roman down until he runs out of steam. Roman, staggering, falls victim to another F.U. before being gifted with Cena’s Five-Knuckle Shuffle, and goes for the pin. Cena wins, but his victory is shortly celebrated after Elias slams a guitar on Cena’s head, the last visual of the match being Elias glaring down at his handiwork.

Elias is not to be seen the next several Smackdowns leading to Wrestlemania, at least not live. In pre-taped segments, in front of chain-link fences, Elias rambles on about how John Cena lives rent-free in his head. In the final vignette of his ramblings, Elias declares at Wrestlemania that he will get his groove back, as he plays a new percussion instrument, one he calls John Cena before declaring the match needing to be No DQ. Meanwhile, Cena hosts mini-segments where he freestyle raps about how trashy a lot of the wrestlers signed to WWE are, along with old legends. Last Smackdown, he raps about how easily worked Elias got, that he doesn’t stand a chance because Cena declares himself the master of psychology, adding to his resume, added along with being  a doctor of Thuganomics.

Wrestlemania time, and Elias is easily dominated early in the match. It’s almost like Cena vs Lesnar at Summerslam all over again, until Elias goes in for a Drift Away and hammers on Cena. He even grabs his head, “slamming” it down on the mat before stomping and kicking Cena. Elias manically grabs at his own hair, before bringing chairs into it. 

Elias slams Cena with chair after chair, but like a superhuman, Cena rises again and again. He can even be heard that no injury, no chair could hold him down. Elias doesn’t stop though. He hits like he has lost his mind. It’s as though his brain is now the one drifting in and out, not him. There’s almost a rhythm to Elias’s shots. Then he sets it up for a con-chair-to. And another. And another and another, you get the picture. Cena’s lifeless body is rolled over and Elias covers him for a pin, and you see his hand move, but he does not kick out. Elias gets the win, and is tearing with joy. His first Wrestlemania win, and it’s one not for a title, but a peace of mind and a reclamation of his lost sanity. 

Almost as if knocked into his senses, Cena rises, clutching his head. He removes the “Word Life” armbands and wristbands and shakes Elias’s hand before raising it. Cena has reclaimed his own soul, seeing everyone cheer for Elias. The sight of what he missed was enough to wake him up. He had grown cocky of having won the world of wrestling, music, and film that he forgot what it was like, being someone looking to make a name. He remembers that same John Cena that made an impact after beating Kurt Angle and winning the respect of the locker room back in the early 2000′s.

Elias is able to move on to other feuds, no longer feeling the need as a drifter to bash other towns he rolls into, and even finds himself in main events every now and then. Cena reflects the night on Raw after Wrestlemania that he is done with wrestling now, but the WWE Universe will see him again from time to time. He leaves with letting everyone know the three most important words to him: Hustle Loyalty and Respect.

The end.

I hope you guys enjoyed it! I got two more Cena fantasy bookings, then I hope to jump into some fresher ideas later!

[fortunatelylori]

Why the Jon/Daenerys romance doesn’t work (Part 1)

Are D&D really idiots?

Disclaimer: So ... my experience with Tumblr is veeeery limited ... as in this is my first post on here so if I fail to link things properly, give credit for gifs, caps or other people’s creations in an appropriate manner, I apologize in advance. Please let me know if you notice something like that and I will change things accordingly.

I have been scrolling around the site for about a week now, after having revisited season 7 of GOT. I will freely admit in advance that I ship Jonsa. However, for what it’s worth, when season 7 first came out, I was more than ready to abandon my Jonsa dreams and get on board with the Jonerys love fest, since everyone around me assured me that it was the end all be all of romance. After seeing the episodes for the first time, I was completely underwhelmed but I ignored my gut feelings because well ... everyone assured me that Jon and Dany were oh, so meant to be. Who am I to fight fate, I thought?!? So I just shrugged and moved on with my life.

However, part of the problem with this ship is that the more time passes, the more people like me, who actually enjoy watching and rewatching the same thing over and over again, start to see the cracks in it. I don’t mean to offend anyone that ships Jonerys, even though I probably will or anyone who likes Dany. Personally, I’ve had a whole host of problems with her character but I will refrain from commenting on my issues with her in this series and just give an opinion on why this story has the deepest scent of red herring since the invention of red herrings.

Before I get into it, I will keep these metas mainly focused on the story from a scriptwriting POV, since that was my job for a time. This series will be less focused on visual cues, camera angles and such. People with far more patience and experience have already done this so I will focus my observations around my area of expertise, such as it is.

In this first part I will try to dispel a few notions about  David Benioff, D.B. Weiss and their writing crew.

One of the common defenses for Jonerys, is that the creators of GOT are simply not every good at their job. They are unable to craft a decent love story for these two characters.

So the guys who created the most popular TV show on Earth, a show that HBO has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into, are hacks. Ok … 

Why do people believe that? Well, for a number of reasons:

1)      The show does not have the thematic scope and wealth of characters that GRRM included in his series

This is true. From the direwolves, to the missing characters, to entire plot threads, prophecies and themes upon themes, D&D have significantly simplified GRRM’s work.

But I would argue this is not because they don’t know how to do their jobs, but rather because they do know how to do it.

GRRM’s himself has said that he started writing ASOIAF out of sheer frustration with being a scriptwriter. Writing a book IS an extremely liberating experience after writing scripts. Why? Because words on a page cost nothing, aside from time and creativity. The sky is the limit.

The sky is absolutely not the limit when you’re a scriptwriter. You are constrained by all sorts of things like: money, sets, weather, daylight vs. night time, actors ‘availability etc. You’re always looking at what you can condense, tighten up. You’re always cutting words out of lines to make them sharper, regrouping scenes so you can maximize your locations, cut out all the fat so you can get an episode that is the required length.

And then there’s the all important element: the audience. People have different reactions to reading something vs. watching something. You read to get lost in a world, the journey is the main entertainment. In contrast, you come back week after week to watch a TV show to see what your favorite characters are getting up to.

Considering all of this, is it really surprising that they would cut out things like the young Griff or fArya from the show? Does anyone believe that the general audience out there cares about them? No. They want to see Jon, Arya, Tyrion, Dany … And they also want to see progression. A season of Tyrion on a boat thinking about stuff is not an option.

Also, GOT has quite a reputation for having a hellava lot of characters. Just watch the honest trailer that Screen Junkies have done:

At around the 3:20 mark they point out all the characters whose names you remember and all those you don’t. And it’s hilarious. Why? Because it’s true.

By season 3, people were still struggling to remember Littlefinger’s actual name. How do you think they’d fair with all the Greyjoys that pop up in the books like mushrooms after the rain?

So yes, D&D and their team cut out themes, characters and storylines for the sake of brevity. That’s what scriptwriters have to do, as sad as it may sound. That’s not to say they do everything right but by and large they’ve done a decent enough job for me not to assume they can’t write a proper love story for 2 characters that they’ve been working with for 6 seasons.

2)      Emilia and Kit have chemistry in real life so if that didn’t translate on screen, it’s because the scriptwriters were doing a terrible job at tapping into it

See, I would almost buy into that if it wasn’t for the fact that their scenes aren’t poorly conceived but rather are actively undermining the budding romance. You never get a sense of completion, of certainty from any of them. I will go through every scene in my next post, but for now, I’d just like to draw your attention to this moment:

(source: @dreamofspring )

We’ll leave aside character motivations on this for now, but if the script writers put that line in there to further advance the Jonerys romance, then they shouldn’t be in charge of writing commercials, let alone multimillion productions.

Are we to assume they simply forgot the other two instances where this line was used?

They revisited the Tower of Joy this season but apparently no alarm bells went off in the writer’s room at this:

(source:  @dreamofspring​)

They paralleled Jon’s arc this season to Mance Rayder’s but nope, simply forgot about this:

This script went through a dozen rewrites and probably 100 hands by the time it made it to the screen and yet at no point did anyone think: “Hey guys maybe we shouldn’t have Jon say good bye to his lady love by quoting Mance right before he was burned alive.” Those silly, silly writers.

3)      The show has taken a dive quality wise since they can’t follow GRRM’s source material any longer

There is some validity to this, I will admit. This season we’ve seen the likes of Tyrion, Varys and Littlefinger lose some of their vital energy and characteristics that have made them such interesting, fun characters to watch.

The Littlefinger plot, in particular, was poorly executed. In their desire to leave us in the dark about what was happening in order to have what amounted to a cheap twist at the end, we were given a convoluted, clunky mystery plot where everyone was playing everyone else but not really. While I’m glad, on principal, that the show established the Stark sisters coming together as a unit against a common foe, giving Littlefinger such a stupid ending left a bitter taste in my mouth. Not a worthy completion to the arc of one of the best players of the Game of Thrones at all. So yes, they dropped the ball on that one.

Tyrion and Varys are a different matter. The main reason why they’re rather ineffective and sidelined is because they probably shouldn’t be there in the first place. That’s because their entire vision on life, justice and good kingship comes directly at odds with Dany’s “Fire and blood” policy. They are just now starting to worry about this predicament but they’re both far too smart not to have noticed until now. The woman brought 3 dragons and a Dothraki horde into Westeros. What did they think she was going to do with them? Play boggle?!?

If I try really hard, I can find an explanation for Tyrion. I think, probably, he’s still reeling for the trial and murdering dad so he’s not in the best state of mind.

Varys however? He definitely shouldn’t be there. He should be with young Griff which makes much more sense since it’s very likely there is a deep, personal connection there that would make the usually cynical and skeptical Varys trust that the person he is actively supporting is actually best for the realm. But alas, young Griff doesn’t exist so he’s stuck with Dany, until he finally turncoats and gets burned alive. So brevity is at fault here.

All that being said, I think it’s unfair to assert that the show runners have dropped the ball. That’s because the more I think about it, the more season 7 looks like a part of a whole, instead of an arc on its own. There are too many open ended questions, too many character choices that don’t make sense (particularly Jon who is, by far, the central character this season) for it to feel complete.

Season 7 is like the Infinity War part 1 of Game of Thrones. You can analyze it on its own but you can’t really determine its true quality or meaning until you see Part 2.

I know this got very long so thank you to everyone that had the patience to read until the end. J

[rainbow-squirrels-7]

!!ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD!! Since I did it last year with Infinity War and now that I’ve seen Endgame twice here are my ramblings:

But before we begin apparently I accidentally predicted Endgame’s title during my IW ramblings and then completely forgot about it...

-so like that friggin beginning tho poor Clint like the entire movie. Agreeing with a favorite YouTube movie reviewer of mine, this was really Clint’s shining movie despite his uh- downward turn for a bit there -but on the bright side I’m glad his older kids’ names are canon now; like legit I thought those (Cooper and Lila) were made up by the fanfictioneers. Maybe they were and the writers were like ‘huh okay less work for us- yoink’ -then Nebula and Stark playing table football that was adorable. The shiny paper reminded me of that one Chris Hemsworth gif you know the one of him making a face at his reflection? -and heck yes Carol coming in hot to save the day what a legend -woohoo go get Thanos time -and he’s just in a frickin farm in a T-shirt (a T-SHIRT?!?) collecting some fruits and starting a new YouTube cooking channel -“what’s up half of the universe today we’re making weird bumpy fruit stew” -but heck yeah Thor cut off that guy’s head -and then just like whoa five years later. I usually can’t stand time jumps but it’s alright. It really gives a perspective of ‘yeah the world isn’t better with half its population. Everyone’s so sad’ -good job of Steve starting a therapy group tho even if he doesn’t take his own advice -I can’t believe a rat saved Scott talk about lucky -unless that rat was actually Loki -just sayin -and the bike kid: “wouldn’t you like to know weatherboy” -I forget how old Cassie was in Antman and the Wasp but +5 years to that I guess. She looks a bit too old to me but what do I know. I’m very glad she didn’t disappear though cuz I love Scott very much and I don’t want him to go through that -tbh Scott saved everyone cuz he had the time travel idea in the first place. I love an optimistic boy -UHBUHH I HAVENT TALKED ABOUT CAROL’S HAIRCUT YET UM HECK YEAH -it’s very good I’m very gay -anyway -I liked Nebula’s prominence in this movie she’s growing on me but of course it doesn’t take a lot on account of me loving robots (cyborgs?) so much -getting the band back together! -baby Morgan Stark/Potts was Very Good -ohmygod Thor -so chub -I was annoyed being without beefy Thor the first time, but rewatching it though I thought his Look was maybe not only reflecting his depression (cuz yeah) but maybe mythological Thor? Like I’m just throwing spaghetti at the wall but maybe in actual Norse myth Thor was (well, actually a redhead) that chub/beef combo but he did have the fluffier beard that MCU Thor had this time. Idk, like I said- spaghetti -Valkyrie’s back! Love her -they call her that though? Isn’t that what she is- like her job? Does she not have a name? Could have sworn it was Brunhilda or something -and Korg and the sharp bug guy are back too! Love them -friggin playing Fortnite -jokes aside though I do love that deep look into Thor’s guilt throughout the whole movie. Like he thought killing Thanos would just make everything better but it didn’t and just couldn’t deal and would rather drink to forget -Clint’s guilt was also interesting, like showing that ‘oh god he could really go there, he could get this bad given the circumstance’ -just Blade Runner-ing all around Tokyo -I haven’t seen Blade Runner but it has neon lights and rain right? -but yeah I do like the “the Snap took away good people and bad people but like it could have just took bad people and since it didn’t I’ll have to instead” -sad boy -he was very uh ‘Magnus rushes in’ if you will, during this movie. Not caring for a lot of it if he lived or died cuz he’d lost so much -god he was good in this movie -anyway -I also called the time travel:

-it still doesn’t completely make sense to me though? Like time travel is confusing enough but adding in a multiverse just makes it even more so -I loved the revisiting the old movies! -low key wanted an Age of Ultron revisit so we could have OMG we could have seen Pietro again -still on the #bringbackpietromaximoff train guys -but anyway we could have seen some good Wanda scenes and also my boy Vision again -but it did make more sense to get the three in NY at the same time -it was real cool to see the bald wizard lady (Minerva from TAZ Amnesty) defending the wizard building during 2012 Avengers- like that is so believable and now we can watch 2012 Avengers and be like “oh hey the wizards were there” -“that is America’s a**” I love how much Scott hero-worships Steve like we saw that in Civil War and yes it’s so funny and I love it its great -Steve vs Steve fight?? Great -“I can do this all day.” “Yeah yeah I know.” -And again, we can totally watch 2012 Avengers again and be like ‘yes meeting with Secretary Pierce and the other Shield guys- this is totally believable, it’s exactly what would have happened we just didn’t see it.’ -the elevator scene! I thought for sure Steve was gonna do the “now before we begin does anyone want to get out” but the “hail hydra” was just as good -“they’re hydra but we don’t know that yet” “they Look like bad guys!!” -and I guess Loki using the Tesseract to escape during that scene is setup for a... tv show? He’s gonna be wreaking havoc through time and space I guess?? Glad he’s back though -anyway revisiting more movies -friggin Guardians 1 -Quill singing Come and Get Your Love really badly cuz all we heard was the actual song and OhmyGOD that was hilarious -I’m glad Rhodey and Nebula got on a team cuz they can be prosthetic buddies -but did Nebula just not tell Clint and Nat that one of them would have to die for the Soul Stone? Or did they know and just not wanna talk about it till it came up? -TBH I though the ‘lose someone you love for the stone’ requirement would have been filled by both Clint and Nat already cuz Clint could have been like “um my dude do you even know how much I’ve lost already??” -apparently not though -Nat’s hair was great for the time travel parts I liked the red fade to white -though it was a sad and intense moment with Clint and Nat deciding who of them had to die it was also sweet cuz you can see how much they care for each other -and I was- well not glad but I really wanted Clint to see his family again -not that The Avengers weren’t his family -that friggin line “did she have family?” “Yeah. Us.” GOD -and then there’s that whole rigamarole with double Nebulas and oh Gamora’s back too -again time travel/the whole multiverse thing apparently doesn’t make sense to me so I’m just gonna gloss over it as much as I can until I can get more into it later -anyway the other time travel to the 1950s! -cool callback to Winter Soldier like you could see Zola going into the bunker -like So many people were there at the Camp Lehigh (idk if that’s how it’s spelled) like Everybody was there -good good moments with Tony and his dad -I thought it would have been cool for Tony to have given his dad the inspiration for his own name but oh well. Maybe that wouldn’t have even worked with time travel and all -Steve’s prank call to Hank Pym that was funny “um the box is glowing” -but oh geez the scene where Steve finds Peggy oh god when he goes in the room with her name on the door my roommate and I were watching it together the first time I saw it and both of us went “ohhhhhhh oh nooooooo” -cuz like that’s the first time he’s seen her since he went in the ice! Or at least seen her how he remembers and not old in Civil War hhhhhhhh GOD -I think seeing her there was a factor in his decision later but I’ll get to that later this is a long heck movie -oh and the OG human Jarvis showed up! I like him, I only saw season 1 of Peggy’s show but I remember liking him a lot -but yeah back to the present unless- well I’m sure I missed something -OH FRICK THOR’S BIT -I can’t Believe they went back to The Dark World -tbh I actually like The Dark World I think it’s a good movie but it’s not universally liked -callback to the scene with Loki tossing the cup in the air ahaha that one was always good -so if they had Rocket’s pokey device during that movie the whole plot of that movie could have been avoided? -anyway um Frigga?? What a queen. Literally -I loved “I was raised by witches I can see with more than my eyes” -she’s really what Thor needed there but god the “she dies today” poor boy -she’s so good though -I loved that ‘measure of a hero is being who you are not who you’re supposed to be’ Yes -and the “I’m still worthy!!!!” Thor needed a win -“eat a salad!” -Now back to the present -Stark-Tech can apparently channel Infinity Stones? And doesn’t need a special heart of a dying star and giant dwarfs to forge a special gauntlet um okay -“what do I have flowing through my veins right now?” “Cheese whiz?” -Bruce is so good though so strong I loved the “I was made for this” -so sweet when Laura called Clint! Yes! Everyone’s really back! -and double Nebula just Had to ruin everything tho -before I get into the final battle- I wonder how much of the time travel scenes were reused from old footage and how much was reshoots with the same actors/costumes/sets? -anyway -um rude blowing up the compound -and god the water scenes were so stressful the first time. Water/specifically-about-to-drown scenes always freak me out. Also trapped under ice and squished under something scenes -Clint finding the gauntlet and getting away from Thanos’ cronies! Every time anyone was running with the gauntlet all I could think of was that one goof from TAZ Balance in Petals to the Metal- Taako’s “Grab the Gauntlet and don’t look back” friggin

-also when Steve, Thor, and Tony all go to confront Thanos who is waiting for them, there’s a specific song playing in the background: https://youtu.be/H_9mnO_NOjk?t=120 (it starts at around 2:00) and you’ll hear this series of deep bell sounds? For the life of me- that specific sound sounds SO FAMILIAR and I can’t friggin place it. I can’t decide if it just reminds me of the Wind Dance song that plays in TAZ Balance whenever the Hunger shows up (which is fitting tbh)? Or if it sounds like some boss battle music that I can’t place? Maybe from Pokémon or Mystery Dungeon? I just can’t remember. It sounds real cool tho -but uh yeah UM -STEVE!! WORTHY!!!! -I mean we all be knowing but! -such a cool scene. I started clapping the first time I watched and others in the theatre joined in -not as cool as when Vision lifted the hammer but I’m biased -but things look dark at this point and I can’t remember if it’s at this part or one one next but there’s this real cool wide shot, this real nice tableau of Steve on a hill or something and this light behind him as he faces Thanos’ army and yeah it just looks real good. Like a good computer background I’d like to have or a poster -but yeah then! -“ON YOUR LEFT!” -Yay!!! Portals open and ‘oh yeah! Everyone’s back now! We have friends to help us fight!’ -gave me some good TAZ Balance episode 68 vibes. Could have called for a cool Lup-esque speech tho from Steve since he’s so good at that- “You see this? This is scary. But we can do this.” -EXCEPT -now we reach the part of my rambling where it turns into somewhat of a rant -because I’M annoyed but only for a specific reason that won’t affect the average moviegoer since Apparently not everyone’s a fan... -cuz Literally the only person who doesn’t show up -is my boy Vision -I mean Yes -I Know he was one of the people who died before Thanos snapped -but my hopes were Way Way Up that he’d come back somehow -and UHHH APPARENTLY I WILL JUST HAVE TO BE DISAPPOINTED -everyone Else came back??? Why not my boy?? -he wasn’t even mentioned despite being So Important in IW -except vaguely when Wanda pulled a real Taako in Balance episode 67 “You f**king took everything from me!!!” -she could have took out Thanos on her own for sure like he had to call in the big guns just to stop her from doing just that -strongest Avenger heck yeah -and Carol came too! -friggin Star Wars Episode 8-ing up in here shooting through Thanos’ spaceship that was So Cool -and the Girl Squad! Girl Squad! part!!!! Yes!!!!! So good!!! Protec small Peter! -somewhere, Nat smiled -Spider-Man’s instakill that was great -I loved the ‘pass the gauntlet’ part though -when Clint handed it off to T’Challa, T’Challa called his name and that was good cuz callback to Civil War when Clint said “we haven’t met yet. I’m Clint.” And T’Challa was like “I don’t care”. He does care now! Lol! -Carol just friggin Beast mode Thanos can’t even touch her he had to pluck the Power Stone from the gauntlet to even knock her back! We stan! A legend! -and oof Tony to Stephen Strange “14 million and one we win? Is this it?” “If I tell you it won’t be” -cuz oof -it really was a good ending for Tony though -he started it all way friggin back in 2008 -and the “I am Iron Man” Yes -and also I think it was in Age of Ultron that part when Tony was talking to Fury and it was like “I saw them all dead and that wasn’t even the worst of it” “the worst was that you didn’t” -so it’s very fitting and so so good -lining up with and going against Howard’s earlier “the greater good rarely outweighed my personal interest” and proving that Tony really was so heroic -so like it’s sad but it’s fitting and not like an unsatisfying end for his character -and it’s not like he won’t be friggin mentioned ever again or anything he’s friggin Iron Man he’s already in the new Spider-Man trailer -(no shade at all in the ‘not begin mentioned at all’ category...) -anyway oh wait -oh god Peter Parker tear my heart out again sad boy he’s so good at making us sad when he’s sad about Tony -yeah anyway again -loved the “proof that Tony Stark has a heart” disc from the first movie that was good -oh and so like the camera is moving through all the different groups of people on the dock and moving towards the house -(just an interlude but CAROL IN A SUIT UM YES) -there’s a shot of some random kid! And I didn’t know who it was until I was leaving the theatre and another guy heard me and my dad talking and he told us! It’s the kid from Iron Man 3! Now That was a nice throwback -but yeah then it gets into the I guess TAZ Balance Rebuilding Year-esque scenes -which were all Very good! Good family scenes; Hope and Scott and Cassie, and T’Challa and Shuri and their mom, and that scene with Wanda and Clint was very good BUT -would it have been So Hard to do just a small scene of maybe somewhere in Wakanda like Shuri helping to rebuild Vision with all that vibranium while Wanda was there watching? Maybe even from his old body?? Would that have been so hard?? Just Something to give me hope?? -why are all these movies So Against Wanda being happy??? -but yeah almost to the end -more time travel with Steve going to return the stones! I’m glad Sam and Bucky got more lines I love them both -but what I really loved was that Steve got his Magnus ending -not in a “how does Magnus die” way but a “how does Steve live” way -love me a good happy ending esp if it involves dancing like that’s All he wanted -like I said earlier, I think just seeing Peggy again was enough for Steve to be like ‘oh it doesn’t matter if I can’t live without war action (a la what Ultron said in AoU) i do really want that life with Peggy and I can do that now’ -it was just Good -but it does raise a few time travel questions -like if Our Steve went back to the 1940s (he did go to the 40s right?) does that mean that there’s another Steve still stuck in the ice? I would say there can only be one Steve at a time but that was proven wrong in the very same movie. There’s gonna be something to do with multiverse in the next Spider-Man which will of course just make everything all the more confusing but still... I guess if I don’t think about it too much it’s not such a big deal -it was also very fitting that there weren’t any after credits scenes. It reminded me of the end of TAZ Balance with the announcer (Junior) not announcing the final episode since he said in 68 that we’d have to see what happens in the last one together. Idk but I liked that -and I liked the signatures of all the OG avengers! That was like them signing off on this huge thing they did, which is really what happened! This huge friggin 12 year thing! -wait was that what the 12 meant all along?? The 12%, the 12 minuets? We may never know -but anyway back to the most important part to me -my boy Vision

-I was so naive  

-like I’ve been told there’s gonna be a tv show or something but like -come on -you could have given me Something -I feel like Griffin in the Fallout 4 Monster Factory after Roachie despawned “nothing?!? You leave me nothing!?!” -so like all in all it was a good movie a Really Good movie I liked it a lot -that Time Heist- I love time travel plots. I already had some of my next DND campaign planned with time travel being a big part- I hope my players don’t think I’m stealing lol -it was very enjoyable and so so good to wrap up this huge thing and put a bow on this story arc. Which I guess can open the door for experimentation now? Which would be kinda cool -Scarlet Witch movie maybe and my dreams can come true??? I can be happy??? Please -I just- one little scene could have left me less disappointed and given me just a little hope but anyone who’s not in the ScarletVision boat will not be disappointed by this movie (cuz the deaths [Tony and Nat] are heroic and satisfying to me, so I’m not not satisfied by that) -it wasn’t Their movie but still. Let me complain -It really was really good though -And I guess I only get motivated to write fanfic like once a year (or whenever new ScarletVision content is in a movie though um the Vision part of that was uh nonexistent) so like my Complements fanfic is in the process of growing a fourth part so look out for that I guess -and if you’re still here reader, I hope you enjoyed my long long ramblings

-and in conclusion:

[surviveatitlan]

Episode 3 - I’m Literally Googling How to Protect Myself From Hexes - Francie

Francie

I'm literally googling how to protect myself from hexes

Yep!! Two tribes of 9!! I know a ton of ppl on this tribe so that should help but like, I still gotta be careful lmao. I'm gonna try not to work too closely with Emily because I don't want to hear any bs about "premades" like the last game we played together

i am literally hosting/was hosting (in tim's case) half this tribe + emily is my cohost rn wtfffff omg

Tim

So everything was going goood in my old tribe and all of a sudden we SWAP? I was not readyyyy. Like we were gonna rule the game as a tribe of 5. Tolimàn was robbed by one point yall.

Francie

the original acatenango peeps (the aca tacos) are trying to get tim and autumn to work with us rn so lets hope we can get this group together and have it be solid. autumn has no og tribemates left so that might help us. people to be wary of: heather and emily, both individually and as a duo bc I know that they adore each other so I can totally see them being a duo I gotta downplay my attachment to the aca tacos, esp my ride or die olivia

Allan

I'm really glad this swap happened. I really didn't feel accepted by my first tribe and I know if we went to Tribal, I'd most likely be out. Now I have the chance to make new allies. My strategy is to tell them that I didn't bond with my old tribe at all and hope that they see me as an opportunity for an alliance.

Tim

Me after seeing this challenge: https://confsnavarino.tumblr.com/post/171111635506 ITS ACTUALLY FUNNY GO CHECK IT OUT LOL

Francie

yep. tim/autumn/sammy/olivia/me alliance is a thing now. fingers crossed

Tim

Fill me up will alllll your propaganda. This is my second chance and I'm ready to get to the end.

Jay Bee

Honestly I think this swap has put me in a good position. I know enough people well enough to have options, but not well enough that I think I'll be targeted because of it. I have no idea who the fuck I'm going to align with though. The idea of Rebecka/Madison is scary, and Timmy says Rebecka/Dan is also a thing. I trust Timmy for some reason (I'm a meninist #exposed). OKAY so here's a swap assessment night 1: Timmy - Like I said, idk why but I Trust Ha. Hopefully he's not secretly a rat Bryan - A grade a Good Boy. Would definitely like to align with him. We just called for like half an hour so I'm hoping to nail down a relationship there. Brian - Um? I guess he's pretty new, which I think is good. I think he's really the only person on this tribe with no preconceived notions of me or other people Rebecka - Love her to death but SCARED of her relationship with Madison Madison - Same Dan - Seems okay, but I know he's friends with Rebecka so we love a core trio AnnMarie - please work with me Nick - Nobody seems to like him. I think he'll go if we lose, which is at least convenient if not good. Debating if I want to work with him just so that I'm not on the bottom. Rebecka proposed a me/Rebecka/Madison/Timmy/Bryan alliance but honeslee? I think in that formation I'm on the bottom, unless I can get Timmy and Bryan to want to work together with me. Anyway as usual I'm screaming.

Autumn

Me coming home to a bunch of strangers in my tribe https://media.giphy.com/media/nLhdSinRtaL2E/giphy.gif Y'all snatched my whole family and I should be pissed but like I'm really here for this new group so I won't turn up (maybe). Tim is my son, I love Francie, Olivia, and and Sammy already, Heather and Allan seem cool, and then Emily and I are on good terms again lmao. No comment on Jacob. So I come into tribe with all these new people, I'm juggling 7 conversations, and then Francie was like hitting me up for an alliance. I say yeah I really trust you and less than a minute later I'm in an alliance w/ Francie, Tim, Olivia, AND Sammy aka everyone I love? Nut the admins did me a favor https://media1.giphy.com/media/OTbo92zetdsha/giphy.gif

Timmy

This tribe swap is the best thing to ever happen. I actually know where I stand with Rebecka which is great. I know she will always have Dan's interests over mine so that is something I need to think about long-term, but for now it is okay because we are working together. Right now my number 1 is still Jay, I just have a really good feeling about Jay. Bryan worries me because he is an amazing player and I did vote him out in Alaska so who knows if he is bitter about that but we're talking right now so that is good. The second I saw Madison on the cast reveal I knew that I wanted to work with her because we did not get to in Himalayas and I knew ever since then that I wanted to work with her. She is messy and consistently messy but that could be good for me. Might as well have her on my side because if she isn't then I could go fast. But this tribe is amazing, best tribe swap ever!

Jay Bee

I honestly have no idea where the balance between cracked and inactive is!!!! Do you just.,.,.,..,not talk to people? I don't understand. I'm screaming. Help.

Francie

we're towards the end of this challenge i swear to god if jacob doesnt come online in time and fucking costs us this challenge.......

Jay Bee

We're doing the challenge right now and I'm SO DAMN STRESSED. I have a very hard time trying to let other people handle things and trusting others in general, so this is a special kind of hell. I can't believe this season supports underage binge drinking AND I can't believe I wish I were actually drunk. Send help.

Autumn

Candle king walking into Atitlan tonight? Sounds A-lit-lan https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2015-01/7/16/enhanced/webdr08/anigif_enhanced-20692-1420664628-12.gif https://em.wattpad.com/f6983ef619f199370692a5d6aa61048004415cc4/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f5a6e503033794868705a68795a673d3d2d3437393237303538382e313465626162373863366266356435353733373138343330393837362e676966?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280

Tim

So I FORGOT TO CONFESS HAHAHAH But this tribe swap puts me in a seemingly good spot my tribe seems strong and capable! An alliance was formed by Olivia that consists of her, me, Francie, Sammy and Autumn.  I doubt that it will last simply due to the fact that it was based on absolutely nothing game wise. Im looking forward to working with Autumn closely as well as Emily so theres that! The 99 bottles challenge was intersecting as Jay would say. IT FUCKNG STRESSED ME THE FUCK OUT. It felt like I was micromanaging a little Ceasers or something. Making the lists AND posting at the same time?? Allan messed up but it was no big deal at all. JAKE DISAPPEARED ON US which sucks heavilyyyyyyy. Hes prob going if we lose again. Hopefully. ANYWAYS THAT reward challenge is giving me multiple strokes and gastreoarthritis or some shit like that lmao. I lieterally fel like Cirie in that one episode where she kept falling of of that balance beam. Im such a comp flop I mean the only comp I can win is Mastermind and thats if im lucky.

Nick

ABOUT TRIBE SWAP so we get into our new times and ONCE AGAIN all the people im close with exception for madison and timmy IS ON THE OTHER TRIBE AHH. Dan and Rebeckka hate me for the drama we had a month ago or so. Timmy is good friends with Dan and Beckka from what I know so like im probably screwed if we dont win the challenge. SO yeahhh this will be interesting I want my old tribe back LOLOL

Tim

So I forgot to mention that Em and I were sharing letters and so that at least lets me know that she is interested in working with meee. Also im gonna lie and say I didnt get a letter because I didnt attempt fhjksk s (Reward challenge that is)

Nick

CHALLENGE so we lost the semi live challenge .. kind of embarassing like too We had this whole plan set up and it got ruined Now i am going to tribal and welll if im voted out then i wont be surprised. Hopefully I have been proving myself helpful in challenges so hopefully im kept around longer #prayfornick

Jay Bee

This tribal is gonna be batshit!! Literally twenty minutes ago everyone was like "let's just go nick" but now I'm really Thinking About It and. That would be stupid. If you look at Madison/Dan/Rebecka as a trio (with Rebecka/Madison as a core duo OR Rebecka/Dan as a core duo) and with Bryan as kind of a gentle soul sucking their teet (love u bryan), then that's a solid group of 4. If Timmy and I (I guess I'm a meninst now bc we're f2 or some shit) go with that group, leaving out Brian and AnnMarie, to vote out Nick, that puts the two of us on the bottom of a 6-person alliance. The next tribal could be 4 vs. 4. If we save Nick, however, and vote off Rebecka - therefore voiding both the madison/rebecka duo and the dan/rebecka duo, thus destroying the trio - the next tribal could be 5 vs. 3 and we won't have one of the biggest social threats still in the game with two of her closest allies up with her. I think that would put me in a much better position long-term because I really need a core group of people who aren't ingrained with Emily/Francie/Heather/Olivia come a merge situation where it's my kids vs. me. Timmy, Brian, AnnMarie, and (unfortunately) Nick could be an integral part of that. Especially Brian, since he's new. I can use new. I need to keep around players who don't know me that well.

Timmy

Jay is cracked and I love her for it. We are playing so messy and are in alliances with literally the entire tribe. Love being a swing vote. Splitting up Rebecka and Dan is going to be a great move, it will suck personally and Dan will give me a lot of shit for it (and Rebecka might too) but it is just a game so have to have fun and being a mess is fun to me. Might as well be toward the top of a group than knowing I'm at the bottom of the group of 4 (Dan/Rebecka/Madison/me). I'm really just hoping this doesn't hurt me having a relationship with Madison at some point because I still want to work with her. The only worry in the plan is Brian because who knows what goes on in his head but I know he isn't controlled by Rebecka who is just telling everyone her plan and adding people to alliances without asking. Like I never said I was okay with her/dan/madison (I was happy to have a group, but a better one came along). All in all though, Jay is my number one so whatever benefits us both is what I am here for.

Brian

Its still eh. Some people are fake and there is so much pre-season relationships that i'm so oof. BUT i dont wanna be in the minority and if joining a make shift alliance helps, i'm down for it. 

Bryan

Woo ok so we lost. That sucks. But I’m in an alliance with rebecka, dan, jay, Madison, and Timmy. And our goal is to vote out nick. I’m fine with that operative. He already talked about wanting to go against me rebecka and dan so like oops. I also love Annemarie. I need at least one person outside that alliance and that is her. 

Allan

THANK GOD WE WON THAT CAUSE I FUCKED UP. But like seriously, I was so scared that we were gonna lose and I was gonna be at fault for it. Tbh I'm a little annoyed cause it really feels like Tim and I did all the work and when we asked other people to take over, no one offered. It really makes a bit dubious about trusting my tribe.

Olivia

Woohoo! We won immunity! I am just so happy about that. I have a nice sweet little alliance going with the three aca tacos and another one with us three and tim and autumn. Autumn is all alone and idk Tim's relationship with Allan. Tim Allan. Ahahahahhhaha. Anyways. Jacob's ass was GONE if we hadn't won. He is still my target should we lose the next one. I also did Pancreas and got a 29 minute score which I am assuming is terrible but who knows. I love Emily and Heather but I know for a fact, without confirmation, those two are working together. Emily has fawned over Heather since isle of skye and I just know they're a pair. I love both SO MUCH  but i can't fully trust either. I thought for sure that being on a tribe with heather and tim, two close friends of mine, we'd immediately bond and become our new ride or dies. lol. but i think i can still work with both maybe but i like the 5 i already have so i guess we will see. how is it i have two idols, an extra vote, and i won immunity in another org but this one i got THIRTY MINUTES at Pancreas. oh well.

Heather

I have not confessed about my new tribe yet. I am now on the Atitlan tribe which is fun, and I have Emily who is a queen. Plus now I have some of my Isle of Skye people. I've missed playing with Olivia so  much, ughh love of my life. And Tim is such an iconic king. Also Jacob from my other tribe, who has been inactive recently. Gotta do other impressions too Francie: I love them with all my hort. What a perfect bean. Allan: Seems super chill but immediately went into game talk Autumn: A sweetheart ughh my love. Saved our ass in the challenge like 5 times. Sammy: He likes musical theatre so I love him. nuff said AND WE WON OUR FIRST CHALLENGE TOGETHER WHICH IS FUN SO YEET

Dan

So this is a damn mess, I really want to trust that Nick doesn't have a secret majority alliance against me and Beckka because I don't know why literally everyone would just lie, ya know? But I wouldn't be surprised if it happens honestly. I think Beckka would go over me???? But like that's the ugliest thing ever. I don't know why Jay would make an alliance with most of the people in the game if it wasn't a solid thing, but like I'm still paranoid af. IT'S SO EARLY TO FLIP. 

AnnMarie

I am so glad we didn't have to complete the full challenge because that was something I did not want to do at all (sorry Cameron). The only.nad part is that we have to go to tribal. Nick's name has been flying from all directions, and it's the obvious easy vote, but Nick is saying that Dan and rebecka are a powerful team. Jay has said that as well, so I don't really know what may go down at tribal. What I do know is that Nick will probably be the person voted out, as long as nothing super dramatic happens in the tribe. I'm super close to Jay and she's just amazing, Dan's super nice, and I LOVE BRYAN OK HE IS SO NICE AND I HOPE HE DOESNT END UP BEING A JERK in the long run. I'm so happy that I get to play with these people, and I can't wait to start a good alliance in this game with them.

Jay Bee

Loyalty? Who's she?

I told Nick EXPLICITLY last night not to tell Madison about our plan or alliance because she would tell Dan and Rebecka. Today, I wake up to the intel (from Dan) that Nick told Madison about everything. And guess the fuck what!! She told Rebecka and Madison. I'M NOT DUMB, NICK! Thankfully they all thought Nick was trying to make a power play and they don't believe I'm with Nick. NICK DO YOU NOT REALIZE HOW CLOSE I AM TO SLITTING YOUR THROAT!!! If you're gonna be loose-lipped I'm going to have to vote you out! Ugh. This is such a prickly position. I would much rather work with Brian/AnnMarie/Timmy just because they don't know me as well as Rebecka and Madison (and to an extent Bryan through Emily) do. I'm trying to figure out who the most disenfranchised people on the tribe are and use them because if I can be their only source of trust, they're always going to be loyal to me. The problem is that I don't want the next tribal to be 4 vs. 4. That gets messy really fast. If I do vote for Nick in the big group of Madison/Rebecka/Bryan/Dan/Timmy, that puts me in an alliance with all the power players and leaves out AnnMarie and Brian, who would be much smarter to have on my side in a merge situation, unless I want to go meat shield tactic in this game. I don't know Ugh. Timmy, please come online so I can talk through all of this.

Rebecka and Dan

https://youtu.be/AUDFxIjAuZM

Amanda (Guest)

Hello! So I know I'm not playing this game, and Cameron probably won't post this, but I was SUPPOSED to play this game so I'm leaving a confessional anyway. Just here to say that Rebecka and Emily are the true icons of the season for having me in their host chats and that's all. Also Cam. I love Cam.

Sammy

I’m so glad that our team won woooooo

Emily

Omg I'm such a FLOP! I didn't realize I hadn't confessed so hey I'm in public speaking pretending to do my work! Anyways, super happy about our tribe winning the challenge. I really was thinking we were going to lose because of FUCKING JACOB! He like. Was not here. At all. Total flop. Major flop. I haven't even heard from him in like two days. WHY PLAY A SKYPE BASED GAME IF YOU DONT CHECK SKYPE REGULARLY??? Anyways, I recorded a cast assessment but it's a mess because I'm really sad in it and you can tell im a mess so im gonna type it bc you can't tell im upset when im typing!!!!!!!!!!! ALLAN: Really helpful in the challenge so I'm a stan! Hard to talk to I think but I'm really vibin him. I think he's gonna be a good asset to our tribe! Yay! I don't really have much to say about him right now AUTUMN: I'm going to PRAY that she's not bitter from All Stars. That was like a month ago and honestly get the fuck over it. You made a stupid move and it backfired on you! That's it. Don't make a stupid move against me this game and I'll work with you! I really like Autumn and I like how she plays but reading her Navarino confessions I can tell she's just someone that holds onto grudges for far too long and it's annoying. All Stars is not a good representation of my game. WORK WITH ME PLEASE FRANCIE: love of my life.... I said in the beginning I didn't want to work with them but I realized that if I want to work with Tim.... Francie is probably also gonna have to be my ally. Francie and I were also talking about how, if we lose, Jacob would be an easy vote because he's inactive! I know that a lot of people would be fine with that. Also, he hasn't competed in Pancho so I don't think he has any letters? Like he didn't even get the one from the rules? So no idol for Jacob. Easy vote. Bye bye. HEATHER: I'll sell my soul for Heather. My queen. I love her. Honestly I can't wait for her to snake me. Fucking queen. I just love her. If anyone targets her I'M COMING FOR THEIR ASS. STAY OFF HEATHER BYE BYE! JACOB: Inactive. Bye OLIVIA: I REALLY want to work with Olivia. I plan on making her my number one in this game. I just get such a good vibe from her. She seems intelligent, stealthy, and fun... that's what I want in an ally. She also has some good connections with other people and she's got a good social game. Definitely someone I want to work with and go far with. But, not too far because she'll win the game, but... I'm also trying to be loyal this game. Loyal to a fault makes people upset. So. I'm gonna have to decide. SAMMY: I played with him and Indonesia and led the charge to vote him out right before merge so like he could hate me? But he also voted for me to win the game. SO. I don't think he's bitter, but he knows I think he plays messy. He's super sweet though and I'm a stan. I gotta be careful what I leak to him, but I like him and can see myself working with him in the future. TIM: MY KING! I love Tim and want to work with Tim high key. He's such a sweetheart and I'm really hoping we can go far. I'd be so down for a little group of he, Olivia, and I. Is that proper grammar? I don't care. Anyways, I love how he plays and he's very well thought out and stuff so I'm really hoping we can go far together. I'm a Tim stan. A major Tim stan. It's still too early for me to for sure tell you who I'm working with (I usually go from round to round, but I don't want to do that this game. No flip-flopping this time unless it genuinely will be better for me AND others.) I'm really trying to refine how I play. I'm trying to be more honest. More social. More logical and strategic, but at the same time, not as PURELY strategic? I need to make sure my social game is phenomenal before I start going off and being a strategic mastermind. People won't listen to people they don't like, and they won't vote for them either. Whew. Okay I hope this super long confession makes up for my lack of confessing. Goodbye!

Jacob

I was asked to make a confession so here it is. I'm glad we won or I'd be screwed for falling asleep after inventory bleh.

Timmy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OolhMHA3F0o&feature=youtu.be

Emily

Finding out all these people's zodiac signs is very inch resting... I y'all I really do. Capricorns? Gotta go next. I don't stan. Bye bye.

Madison

WHOO okay last minute confessionals lemme hear you say WAYYYY HO!!!! Nick is the vote which like awk bc now we’re in another game together so sucks I guess. Also he came to me trying to vote puts rebecka though so like wtf bye bye. 

Rebecka

Me if I get voted out tonigt: Thank you dan and jay for being loyal. Thank you also the the people who voted me out now so I don't have to go through a bunch of other rounds of drama and lose xoxo 

[pparkchimin]

I ’m making a tutorial for @victuuri-moonandsun on how I downloaded the YOI episodes and how to make a basic gif. I decided just to make a tutorial for everyone else who wants to learn? I’m like hella basic at making gifs so ill be providing resources in hopes it will help! 

The tutorial includes:

How to download

Capturing Method: VLC vs KMPlayer

Importing + Making the gif (Timing, Cropping, Sharpening, Saving)

Ill teach u how to go from:

to this:

+ A shit ton of screencaps to make up for the fact i’m bad at explanation. ++ what is grammar n spelling? +++ cursing a lot of it

its like legit 3 am and this tutorial is so bad good luck

You will need:

Vuze

Photoshop (I use CS6)

VLC Player or KMPlayer (I will later discuss the difference usage of these programs)

I. Downloading

Sup yo! Okay let’s start with downloading the actual episodes! I usually use torrents when i’m downloading the episodes. This is what Vuze is for. Like most things u wanna be careful when you download shit off the internet but idgaf i’ve been downloading shit off the interwebs for a while. 

So you wanna either google “yuri on ice 1080p torrent”, but im gonna use HorribleSubs for my example. You wanna make sure you download the 1080p version of the episodes so you can have the clearest/more HQ gifs.

If you’re using the horriblesubs site then you wanna click on “1080p” for whatever episode you want and right click the magnet link.

Yay! Now we gonna wanna open Vuze. First you gonna want to click the “add” folder > Add Magnet > Paste URL > Then hit okay.

Okay. So once you hit ok this should pop up:

Then hit ok again! You can also change where you wanna save it at this stage too. Okay now your file is downloading and now we wait! The more seeds the faster the download. 

Once the file is done downloading we can move on to actually capturing for gif making.  

II. Capturing:

OKay. SO I personally use the VLC capturing way because it’s easier for me. With VLC you;re basically recording the scene you want so you can import it into Photoshop. With the KMPlayer you’re taking a shit ton of sceencaps and you’re importing each image into Photoshop. I used both methods and they both get the job done. The only time i use KMPlayer is when VLC is acting wonky. Ill show the VLC method first then the KMPlayer (cringes).

Yay VLC. My fav bby right here. OKay So you’re gonna wanna open that shit up. Okay, so the first thing you wanna do when you open the program is go to view > advance controls. This gives you the option to record!

Hell yeah bro now we in business. Okay you’re gonna wanna open the episode you wanna be gif-ing. Since I showed how to download episode 12 i’m just gonna use episode 12 for this too cause fuck it man. You’re gonna wanna decide what scene you’re gonna want to make a gif of. I think for the purpose of the tutorial i’m just gonna do the scene where yurio finishes his program and creys cause hella yeha bro.

okay so for myself, i tend to start recording couple seconds (like 5-10 *my computer is really wonky ) before the actual scene because I want to make sure I record the whole scene without cutting anything out.

You also notice that the record button is red now. So you’re basically just gonna click it once and let it record until you want it to stop!

Where i began to record (actual a couple secs before becuz i forgot to screencap):

Where I ended:

***note: Notice how the record button changes while you’re recording vs not recording! (i’ve done the dumb thing where i forgot to stop recording and watched the rest of the episode .-. )

Now that short clip will be saved. my video was saved in my video file im sure you can change where you want it saved but idk how. This is where it is saved on my computer. Probably can search “vlc” on your computer if it is absolutely lost (sorry I can’t help much in finding the file).

Basically after this step you’re done deezy. You can skip the KMPlayer and go directly to the gif making portion of this shit tutorial.

OKAY FOLKS HERE’S THE KMPLAYER TUTORIAL ON HOW TO DO GIFS HAHAHAhahaha *sobbing*

I need to explain this program a bit more. So unlike VLC you’re not recording or anything like that. This captures screencaps into jpg or png files. When you do the VLC method, photoshop will make the screencaps for u. This method you’re gonna have to load the each photo (This usually takes photoshop longer to load for me, but than again my computer is old as shit so it may not matter to you).

OKay u gonna wanna open that satan spawn and open the episode u wanna do. Again here im gonna do the same scene cause yeah. Basically just go to the scene you want. 

Okay here the annoying shit happens. SO unlike VLC for me, I don’t have to a big gap of recording time. I can get closer to the actual scene and want and start capturing (ctrl+G).

When you hit ctrl+G, this window pops up and this where all the settings happen. 1. You decided where you all the pictures will be saved! 2. You can pic the image quality. I go for JPG because my computer just cant handle doing png. If you’re computer can do the png go for it. 3.) Seconds refers to how long you want the program to capture for. I just put 5 seconds to make sure i get the whole scene. You also want the images to be in the original size. 4.) I WILL DISCUSS THE TIMING THING MORE INDEPTH LATER, but for the time being i’ll do every 1 frame. 

When you click start on the small window your video has to be playing to actually capture. I just hit start and hhit play cuz fuck it.

When the program finish capturing this will pop up in the corner. *note: I ended up doing 10 seconds because my computer hates me. So there’s a lot more caps than i needed. this is what you end up with!

A shit ton of fucking photos! YOU READy TO GO TO PHOTOSHOP.

III. IMPORTING-VLC

*if you need help downloading photoshop send me an ask and ill try my best to help you. I downloaded ps cs6 a long time ago and the link i used to download it doesn't exist anymore. 

THis step is gonna be different depending on what method you used for the capturing. I’m going to begin with the VLC method. So you’re gonna wanna go to file > importing > video frame to layers.

Find the clip file and hit open. a window will open and now you can select what part of the video you want to actually gif! the two point thingies on the bottom are adjustable. FOr example maybe you recorded too much in the beginning? drag the 1st arrow thing to where you want the gif to start. Same with if you recorded to much at the tale end of the video. You can adjust the right one.

Make sure to have frame animation box is check.

And now we’re at the frames part.This is where I feel conflicted and you will see why when I get to the timing part of the video. (I use to make a lot of gifs for real action tv shows and this is the first anime I ever edited and I just feel like i haven’t found the best timing yet?). For this screencape i left the limit box and just do every frame.

So my video was too long at the end and decided to cut that unwanted shit out. (you can hit the play button just to make sure you’re happy with what you got. Hit ok when u done deezy

THEN BOOM THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. THAT BOOTIFUL ASS YURIO’S FACE HELL yeAH. Okay. So on the right hand side you have all your layers. but we missing the timeline bro. SO you go to window> timeline

DAMN LOOK AT YOU YOU’RE READY TO MAKE A GIF. You can skip ahead and learn about timing. Keep reading for the KMPLAYER way.

III. IMPORTING- KMPLAYER

oKAY. You’re gonna wanna go to file> scripts > load files to stacks

A window will pop up and basically you’re gonna select all the screencaps you want for the gif and hit okay.

This shit takes my compouter f o r e v e r (compared to the VLC method.) to load and even longer afterwards when it’s being uploaded as layers. This method took my computer to load the files 3 minutes compared to the 5 seconds the VLC method took me. Like i’ve mentioned before it might just be my ancient ass computer’s fault. But this it what it looks like when it’s done loading

Okay you;re gonna wanna do the same step as VLC to create the timeline (Window>timeline).

But because this was loaded in differently the the stacks will not automatically have frames. You’re gonna want to click create timeline and you will notice you have one frame only.

So on the top right corner of the timeline you will have the option to make the layers into frames.

Now you maybe noticed that the frames are fucking backwards son like wtf man. a simple fix to that! in the list of options where you made the frames from layers, you can reverse the frames.

NOW YOU’RE DONE DEEZY. WE CAN MOVE ONE.

IV. TIMING 

OKay this gets really iffy for me. I’ll just basically show you the times I use and what it may look if you capture every frame of you choose to do every 2 times (anything else isn’t recommended). In this section it’s what I use and probably not the best, but you can play around with photoshop and you can do whatever the fuck you want yo!

Anyways as you can imagine if you decide to do every frame youre gonna get a shit ton of layers(i’m gonna be working with the vlc method from this point on. any kmplayer question can be sent my way!). But it may look smoother! *will make a note on this*. Downside, the file is prob gonna be WAY bigger.

For ex: Every frame. 103 FRAMES FUCK MAN.

Every 2 frames: 53 frames

So it’s basically about half cuz u know math

OKay. so when i do gifs I usually set the time to “0.06″ but I put “0.07  for every 2 frames. To change the timing make sure you have all the frames selected (click the first frame then go to the last frame and Shift+click it). Now that all the frames are highlighted you want to hit the down arrow and click other. This is where you set the time and hit okay.

every frame @ 0.06  (No cropping/no coloring/no sharpening)

every 2 frames @ 0.07

So it’s really personal preference. I just have it so ingrained to do every frame at 0.06 since i started making gifs years ago, but i feel like the every 2 frames at 0.07 looks smoother for anime? Really guys experiment and see what you like better!

V. CROPPING

Yay lets get to cropping! These are the current dimensions for tumblr

one picture/gif: 540px width two pictures/gifs: 268px three pictures/gifs: 177px, 178px (middle), 177px spaces: 4px

-itsphotoshop

I always crop my gifs. I just think they look nicer when they’re crop.To start cropping you either wanna hit “C” on your keyboard or clip the crop tool. Afterwards you can put a value of the dimensions (i tend to do 268x165 or 268x170 when I to he gifset with 8 different gifs). Now you can drag the box over the gif to position it where exactly you want the focus to be. You either double click the box or hit enter when you wanna crop.

You might not want to have it dead center. so yeah this what it looks like if you just dragged it:

Damn yurio is looking good dead in center, but you noticed the 2nd half yurio isn’t in the middle no more. When you’re cropping you wanna keep this in mind. (you can always make two separate gif to have it all centered but i can make a dif tutorial for that).

This what it looks like if i decided to keep the cropping in the center:

Overall both scenes are more centered.

BUT WHAT IFF YOU JUST WANNA ZOOM IN ONTO YURIO’S FACE?? i got chu bro. I’m goning to delete the 2nd half of the gif for the purpose of this example. So what you’re gonan want to do is drag a side of the square until you’re happy with what you want.

Here i just dragged the bottom. Since I have my measure inplace from before, no matter what side i drag it it’s always gonna be the same ratio of 268x170 so no need to worry !

Regular crop:

Crop to zoom in on the face:

THE MORE YOU KNOW ABOUT CROPPING :D!!!

OKay. Once you’re done cropping you’re gonna want to resize that!

I’m going back to the original gif with both scenes.

To resize an image you either can hol the CTRL+ALT+i or go to image>image size

a window will pop up and youll type in what size you wanted. Because i had the dimensions typed in while i was cropping it will basically do the ratio for u

the original size was 1702x1080. Once i typed 268, the program kept the ratio and changed the height. SORRY IM NOT EXPLAINING THIS WELL I REALLY DONT KNOW HOW. 

We went from this:

to this:

it’s not a HUGE change but there is a change!

VI. Coloring *bonus

I have no authority on color tbh It takes me to forever to color shit and i’m h o r r i b l e at it. so i aint gonna discuss this much but here what coloring can do for u!

original:

to this garbage:

I don’t really like it but i just did it quickly for the sake of this tutorial. If you wanted an idea of what I did

The best way I learned to color was from PSDs others made or just fucking around in PS. Here are some resources:

PSDs:  x x x Tutorials: x x

VII: Sharpening:

Oh man okay so i use an action for my gifs but the thing is i downloaded a long ass time ago. It may be this, but im not entirely sure. This hella easy yo!

so you wanna select all the layers:

then you wanna convert the frame animation to a timeline (make sure you changed the time you want the frames to be before you convert!)

You will notice the frames changed on the bottom. Now you wanna go to filter>convert to smart layer

Now you only have one layer!

With this one magic layer you can sharpen all your goddamn layers all at once.

If you don’t have the action you can do the basic sharpening. Okay now go back to the filter tab>Sharpen>smart sharpen. I have use this option in YEARS but i believe the kinda go too was this:

and hit okay!

Before sharpening:

After sharpening:

the lines are more defined in the 2nd gif, If you were able to download the action this is how you use it. 

GO to Windows> actions.

WHere the red circle you click, and find the option for load actions. Once you load it you wanna make sure you selected the smart layer and hit th eplay button and the action should sharpen it for u

BOOM. your gif is sharpen. So lts compare all three now.

No sharpening:

Smart sharpening only:

Action (Smart sharpening + blur)

I like the action th most because it’s not as intense as the smart sharpening only. WOW U FINISH A GIF CONGRATULATIONS NOW YOU WANNA SHOW THIS BABY TO THE WHOLE WORLD RIGHT? WELL IMMA SHOW U HOW,

VIII. SAVING THAT SON OF A BTICH

So basically you either hold alt+ctrl+shift+S or file>save as for web 

and a window aPPEARS. These are the settings i use to save:

BE CAUTIOUS OF THE SIZE OF THE GIFS: I BELIEVE THE MAX SIZE IS 2MB

this gif is under 1mb so im safe yo! Some tips if gif is too large is to add a selective layer>black> then +5-10 

another tip is to use optimize tool if yOU HAVE TO: go to the top right corner

now u done deezy

u save that shit

and cry 

send me an ask if you need shit cleared up.

[abrilstevens]

gif coloring tutorial

tutorial for this coloring under the cut because this got super long.

i use PS CC 2017.

before i start, idk how great i am at explaining my process and reasoning so feel free to message me with questions about anything! also i started this with the assumption that whoever’s reading this knows how to screencap/make a gif, so i just go straight into the coloring. since i color everything individually, i’ll do a couple of examples, one dark scene and one light scene. so, first scene. we’re going from this

to this

first things first: sharpen. i always sharpen first because it makes coloring so much easier. at this point i’ll already have converted my frame animation to a timeline and made them into a smart object. so click filters >> sharpen >> smart sharpen. here are the settings i use:

i know a lot of people recommend using 0.3px for the radius setting, but in my opinion that’s not sharp enough. the problem is that for most gifs, 0.4px is too sharp. to fix this issue, i just change the opacity of the smart filter. to do this, click this button on the smart object layer

and reduce the opacity. i usually use around 70% but it really depends on the gif and the resolution of the screencaps you used. for example if i’m using 720p caps, 70% would be my max opacity, but with 1080p caps you can sometimes use 80% opacity or maybe higher. just go with what looks best! for this example i stuck with my usual 70%, as you can see below. (these screencaps are from a 1080p video, btw)

just so you can see what i mean, here’s the gif with 100% opacity vs the gif with 70%. the difference between them is pretty subtle without the coloring, but if you look closely you can see the increase in color noise in the lighter parts of the gif (especially around cheryl’s face).

but with the coloring it’s easier to see the difference. if the second one is still to sharp for your taste, all you have to do is reduce the opacity even more. i always play around with the opacity after i’ve completely finished coloring to see what looks best.

next step, add a curves adjustment layer. i always use white/black eyedropper method for curves because it seems to work the best when you’re coloring scenes individually. here’s what i mean by that:

so you’ll click on these eyedroppers one at a time and find the lightest and darkest points of your scene. click the bottom eyedropper and find the point of your scene that is closest to pure white. in this case, it’s the candle. sometimes you may need to zoom in so you can get the exact point you want. for my computer and version of photoshop, turning the caps lock on turns the pointer into a crosshair, which makes selecting an exact point a lot easier too.

clicking the top eyedropper and find a point that is closest to pure black. there are a lot of dark points in this gif but i picked this one:

and that’s all you have to do for curves. in my experience, the middle eyedropper has virtually no effect. as you can see from the graph in the curves layer above, this scene didn’t really need a lot of adjustment. but in other scenes where things are overly bright/dark/blue/green/whatever, the eyedropper tool is magic, i promise. by far the best photoshop tip i’ve ever been given. anyways, onto the next adjustment layer: levels. this is more variable depending on your scene, but just go with what looks good. here are my settings for this scene.

this scene is obviously very dark, so i didn’t increase the shadows (left number) very much, but i made the midpoints (middle number) brighter by moving the slider to the left, and increased the highlights (right number) quite a bit. you really just have to go with what looks best for the kind of coloring you’re trying to accomplish. this is what the gif looks like so far (already a lot better than the original).

next, add a vibrance layer. (tbh, this is mostly just habit because my method for coloring is always sharpen, curves, levels, vibrance, color balance and/or selective color, exposure and/or brightness/contrast. i follow this order almost always even when the adjustments don’t do much lol.) in this case, i added vibrance with the setting of +25 and didn’t change the saturation at all. with more colorful scenes, i’ll add way more, up to +75 vibrance and often will add some saturation too (generally not more than +10). anyways, this layer didn’t change the coloring much. it mostly added to cheryl’s skin tone and dress.

next, selective color. this is where most of the color change happens. i had already decided i wanted a reddish/purple/yellow color scheme. to do that, look at the colors you’re given and decide which ones you need to change. in this case, the background is green/cyan/blue and (importantly!!) changing those colors isn’t going to screw up cheryl’s skin tone or dress, which i want to stay the same. remember that the default setting for this adjustment is relative (the two buttons at the bottom). i almost always check absolute instead because the changes are more dramatic. here are the selective color settings (i only changed green, blue, and cyan, the rest stayed the same):

there isn’t really a good way to explain these exact numbers. if i’m changing the original colors, i usually just start out by decreasing the main color (so for blues, decrease the cyan) then increase the color i want to see (yellows, magentas, etc). if you don’t have a color scheme in mind, moving the sliders around until you find something you like is a solid strategy. if you want to keep the original colors but make it pop, increase the colors you’re given (so boost the cyan number in both blues and cyans, for this example).

note for my example: when increasing the magenta tone, adding more yellow makes it more red, whereas less yellow makes it more pink. i wanted more of a red tint. here’s what i ended up with:

i added two more selective color layers because i wanted to add a little more red to the background/make the dress pop and darken the background, respectively. settings for the first one:

note that i split this layer into two halves, one for cheryl facing forward and one where she’s facing left. i did this so i could put layer masks and erase over her face because this layer turned her skin bright red. i’m assuming that you know how to apply these layer masks, but feel free to ask me if not! this is what it looks like now:

the last selective color was simple. i picked black and increased the blacks to +8. again, i split it in half and used a layer mask on the second half so cheryl’s face didn’t disappear into the background. the difference it makes is subtle but i think it definitely makes gifs look better by adding more contrast. i use this step in almost every gif i make, although the amount of black i add changes. here’s what it looks like:

last step! yay! add an exposure layer. i do this to add contrast and light, since the gif above is a little too dark for my personal tastes. this is totally up to you though. a lot of people prefer darker gifs. i also prefer exposure layers over brightness/contrast layers just because the effect is less um.. rough? in my opinion, because you can adjust highlights/midtones/shadows separately. here are my settings:

so the exposure setting adjusts the highlights. i want to brighten things without brightening the whole gif, so that’s perfect. offset pretty much leaves the highlights alone and adjusts the shadows and midtones. i increased the exposure and decreased the offset value. gamma adjusts midtones, which i thought were fine, so i left that value alone. be careful with these settings because small adjustments can have a huge effect (clicking ctrl and hovering over the number fields then dragging left or right lets you make smaller adjustments). and here is the end result! you can see the exposure makes a pretty dramatic change like i said, so use with caution, especially with brighter scenes.

here are my save settings. if you make a lot of gifs, making a preset for these settings like i did can make your life easier. i circled the things that i think are the most important (i forgot to circle colors but i’m too lazy to fix it so don’t reduce your color number!! 256 always). if your gif is over the 3mb limit, you can try checking the transparency to reduce the size, but i usually leave it unchecked.

this bright scene example is going to be very quick because i used the same overall method to go from this

to this

sharpen >> curves >> levels >> vibrance. sharpen settings are the same, and i used the same eyedropper method for curves. here’s what the curve layer and rest of the settings look like. note that the levels layer is very different because this scene is so much brighter, and i used a lot of vibrance because the original scene isn’t very colorful.

the entire gif is way too blue to go with my color scheme, so color balance is the best tool to fix it. color balance > selective color when you want to change the overall color/tone. i only changed the midtones here, but you can also change the shadows and highlights if you need to. i added a lot of red and yellow to make it look warmer, and it makes a huge difference.

i could be done there, but there’s too much green and not enough purple for my color scheme, so i added two selective color layers. the first one was to make the greens more yellow and make the flowers more purple, and i added a layer mask so cheryl’s face wouldn’t be affected. the second one again made the greens more yellow and also changed the blue sky to a purple color.

this has the colors i want but it’s a little lackluster, so i added an exposure layer. i completely erased over her face with the layer mask because too much exposure would wash her out, but i decreased the mask’s density to 50%. basically that means her face gets 50% of the layer’s effects, while the background gets 100% of the effect.

i then added another vibrance layer (layer masked so it only affects her face), and finally a selective color layer to increase the blacks. here are my settings and the final result:

whew. done. hope that helps out!! and again, let me know if you have any questions!

[fictionchronicler-blog]

Prince Charming: A Historical Romp Through Masculinity, Marriage, and Bad Haircuts

“And then he realized the doll wasn’t completely inflated.”

NOTE: Illustrations and gifs do not belong to me.

Ah, the perfect man, riding gallantly on a white horse, cape billowing in the wind, armor blinding in the sunlight—and he's on his way to find you, gentle reader!  This is supposed to be what we want, and I don't just mean women, but I mean general audiences.  The handsome prince saving the day is one of the oldest and arguably most satisfying endings there is.

While the term “Prince Charming” itself wasn't coined until 1889 in an English translation of the French fairy tale The Blue Bird, the idea of a noble man rescuing a damsel (usually a princess) from some unholy terror is as old as time, categorized as “princess and dragon tales” by folklorists.  Andromeda in Greek mythology has to be saved by Perseus from the kraken.  Sita in The Ramayana has to be saved by Rama.  In a Norwegian tale, not one but three princesses have to be saved from a troll, the youngest getting the guy in true fairy tale fashion.

This was...a very broad concept, I'll admit, and I almost decided not to do it, but the idea of the ideal man coming along and giving the heroine her happy ending has adapted over time like anything else, and your reliable ol' folklore researcher is here to guide you through it!

As True a Story as Fargo

“I rang the dinner bell fifteen minutes ago. Are you two still fighting?”

The tale of Saint George and the Dragon has been around since at least the eleventh century telling the story of a town needing to feed the nearby lake dragon two sheep a day to keep it from destroying their village—a scaly, supernatural Mafia situation. When that no longer appeases the dragon, the village assumes this means it wants the taste of human flesh and starts a lottery, the “winner” getting to sacrifice one of their children. Well, one day, the lottery winner is the princess. Dressed as a bride, she is led out into the forest to wait for the dragon.

In the first version I read of this, the princess volunteered to sacrifice herself for the good of her people, but I digress. We'll talk about women's agency here and there. Saint George comes across the princess and subsequently the dragon. Ordering the princess to give him her girdle, she does so and Saint George places it around the beast's neck. From here on out, the dragon follows the princess around like a dog on a leash. Saint George takes his new, unique entourage back to the village and offers to kill the dragon if the townspeople convert to Christianity. Fifteen thousand men convert. Take that, modern evangelism.

While Saint George and the Dragon is largely allegory, it falls in perfectly with the big medieval trend of courtly love. In a nutshell, courtly love is a way to make love both passionate and disciplined. Romantic love hadn't really been covered in literature up until now, Beowulf not really having to deal with having to juggle two prom dates.

It's hard to explain what courtly love is without saying “emo.” Think of love the way a teenager might see it. Not seething with jealously? It's not love. Your feelings aren't ruining your appetite? Not love. This was more or less a series of rules and concepts that dictated how romantic love was supposed to be. A man's good character makes him worthy of love. You should turn pale when your lover is around. Women should grieve for at least two years before allowing themselves to love again. It is not proper to love a woman you would be ashamed to marry, etc. Perhaps the most noteworthy thing about courtly love is that there isn't that big an emphasis on love being returned. When a man falls for a woman, he should do nice things for her and just hope that one day she'll love him, too. Unrequited love was pretty romanticized. You can get a really nice feel for it in The Cantebury Tales' “The Knight's Tale.”

No.  That’s something else.  “The Knight's Tale” is much more long-winded and has no Queen songs.  That, and it's one of the least funny tales.  Thank goodness for the Miller and his story that involves farting in people's faces. Anyway, the tale is all about two imprisoned knights who fall in love with Princess Emily at first sight and spend the rest of the time fighting over her and praying to Roman gods to marry her...while she prays to Diana to either stay single or marry someone who truly loves her.    It's not as fun as other tales, mainly because the Knight has a tendency to get off-topic, but if you want textbook courtly love, read that.

So what do these stories tell us about people's version of the ideal man in the Middle Ages?

1. Competent.  A real man gets things done.

2. Decisive. A real man does not stew on the morality of killing dragons.

3. Protective. Sombody’s gotta look out for these women who are inferior to men in every way, amirite?

4. Upper Class. Peasant men might not have had much time to rescue damsels. And the Peasants Respond!

Just a tad predatory looking. All he needs to do is sit on her chest while a random horse watches...

While fiction in the Middle Ages really enjoyed its daring sword fights and unrequited love, peasants in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries told tales to children with a far different purpose—don't go into the woods.  For the love of God, don't go into the woods, don't make deals with the devil, and don't run afoul of the fairy folk.  This might seem funny, but for peasants living in or around the Black Forest of Germany, this was no laughing matter.  Think how many fairy tales are more about being suspicious of suspicious-looking people than romantic love.  Keep in mind, too, that there is little to no chance of upward mobility in this kind of society.  If you're a peasant, your kids are going to be peasants, marry peasants, and produce little peasants of their own.  It's even worse if you're a farmer and your family's prosperity depends wholly on how well your crops do.  How can you get ahead in life?

1. Go off the grid and become a pirate/bandit/thief

2. Learn alchemy and hope for the best

3. Join the church and live in a cubicle for the rest of your life

4. Marry up.

The stories collected by the Brothers Grimm took royalty and made it the ultimate reward.  In most of their stories, if the protagonist (male or female) is clever enough to outsmart the villain and/or kind enough to listen to cleverer people who know how to outsmart the villain, they are usually rewarded with a prince or a princess at the end.  There really isn't much disparity in how often the reward is a princes vs. a princess.

I won't go into much detail in what all these stories are about, but if you haven't ever heard of “The Three Spinners,” “Cinderella,” “The Six Swans,” “Snow White,” “Snow White and Rose Red,” or “The Peasant's Wise Daughter,” you might be surprised to learn that the protagonist(s) is a plucky, kind-hearted, usually skilled maiden and her reward is a prince. For all the crap fairy tales get for being chauvinistic, it's jarring that the most memorable characters are all female.

So jarring, Charles Perrault decided to make a few changes.

In the late 1600s, fairy tales started becoming appealing to the rich, and like all good things the poor come up with, the rich people took it over and added a bunch of rules.  Many upper class French men and women had heard these peasant tales and saw them as potential for witty conversation in the salons. I like me some stimulating conversation, but I also know when not to mess with the original.  With courtly love also coming back into vogue, the stories evolved into elegant, romantic tales with a heavily-hammered-in moral at the end.  Less blood and fewer trees. The forest became a more pastoral setting, or even a city.  The peasant protagonists became gentry or displaced royalty.  And marriage became a big, big deal.

When in the Middle Ages, the prince figure was usually a knight a man of action, these were unquestionably princes, their refinement and sophistication as highly valued as their masculinity.  Beauty and the Beast started as sort of a fable for arranged marriages, that the guy you end up with may not fit your definition of handsome, but if you look deep enough, you'll find something lovable.

“Forgot my keys--oh.”

Okay, so you might not find something lovable, but the Beast is no less an extremely romantic (read: emo) character.  He asks Beauty every night to marry him, gives her his estate and possessions and invisible servants with no questions asked, and literally cannot live without her as he begins wasting away when she leaves to visit her family.  And of course, he's a prince that pissed off the wrong fairy.

It is in this same era that Perrault tweaked the Cinderella story.  The Grimms told a story of Cinderella's dead mother supplying her a gown and other ball-related necessities via tree, but Perrault creates a “fairy godmother” who pops in at the last minute to help Cinderella go to the ball—a place where she might be able to catch a husband and escape her bad home life—but never appeared before to use her benevolent magic to stop the girl's stepmother and stepsisters from abusing her. Perrault also cut out the stepsisters cutting off parts of their feet to try to fit into the slipper, preferring to have Cinderella turn the other cheek and find desirable husbands for them instead.  

We're going from the clever, talented heroines in the Grimm stories to waifs who are damned if they do, damned if they don't.  If you're pure and sheltered like Sleeping Beauty, you'll still fall into a hundred-year coma.  And if you're naughty...well, this time a woodcutter has to come cut Red Riding Hood out of the Wolf's stomach...then fill said stomach with stones. This kind of undoes Perrault's moral about not trusting strangers since this woodcutter never appears in the story at any other time, but we can't have a morally susceptible female rescuing herself, can we?  Even Bluebeard downplays the heroine's character to uplift the prince's/nobleman's. Bluebeard's a freakin' serial killer and yet Perrault's text blames the wife for the situation, that if she just had refrained from being too curious, her husband wouldn't be trying to kill her for finding out about all his previous wives.  

“Princes went from chivalrous to serial killers?”

Not quite, but the heroines were rarely given personalities and the princes were the rescuers, the real movers and shakers in the story. Princes went on adventures and rescued future brides.  In 1706, the first English translation of One Thousand and One Nights told the West the story of Prince Ahmed, who a nifty magic tent that could expand to the point where it could hold armies and contract to the point where he could put it in his pocket.  He also happens to buy a magic healing apple and saves a princess with it.  There are a number of strong, three-dimensional female characters, but the princes all get to be active and go on adventures.  There is also a robot.  I'm not joking. But a huge double standard is that women are foolish and selfish and cheating on their husbands with a Moor is the worst thing ever, but the men in the story (princes included) sleep around, hit women, and even Sinbad murders a bunch of innocent people for food, but the male characters are rarely punished in these stories.  The whole fictional reasons these stories exist also lauds men; the Sultan is worried about being cheated on, so he kills every wife he has.  Scheherazade, the newest wife, is creative and clever and tells stories that always leave the Sultan wanting more, so he spares her life, choosing to keep her after a thousand and one nights.  The Sultan lives happily ever after, madly in love with an intended murder victim.  

So let’s see how things have changed?

1. Competent?  Check.

2. Decisive?  Check.

3. Upper Class?  More check than ever.

4. Protective?

Protection adapted, didn't it?  Protection stopped being more about keeping women away from beasts and more about providing for women.  The men in these stories are not only filthy rich—which is its own kind of protection—but they are also morally guiding these women and keeping them alive.  Bluebeard's wife is rescued by her brothers at the end, but Perrault says the moral of the story is that curiosity can lead to deep regret.  He then goes on to talk about how “clearly” this story takes place a long time ago as, “No husband would be so terrible as to demand the impossible of his wife.”  How the hell is that the issue when the man's a serial killer???  What does curiosity have to do with the very first wife???

We're going to throw in another value here.  Wise.

Think about it. Cinderella's prince immediately seeks her out, seeing her as no one has seen her before, as appealing. The “Marquis” in Puss in Boots is in reality a simple miller's son, but the Cat is so worldly and clever that he more than makes up for it. The woodcutter is a fatherly figure who heard Red Riding Hood's cries for help and knew exactly what to do and took her home to her mother. Even Bluebeard, who sets his wives up for failure and has a room full of tortured corpses is entitled to test his wife and keep this horrendous secret, his only crime being that he “asked the impossible of his wife,” which translates to, “asked his wife not to be too curious about her own home, lest she find the room of tortured corpses.”

Yin and Yang

Hamlet: I said I wanted the grave to be dug under a weeping willow tree on the edge of a cliff perpetually surrounded by mist!  How hard is that?

Gravedigger: But this is where the cemetery is, sir.

Hamlet: (to skull) Can you believe this guy?

Hamlet, first performed in 1605 is not anything all that special, but so many tote it as Shakespeare's masterpiece.  My theory is that that is all propaganda on the part of actors.  Getting to play Hamlet is like being written a blank check—the actor can do with the role whatever he wants because it is sooooo ambiguous!  You don't even know how old Hamlet's supposed to be, as he's a student in medieval Denmark, which would put him in his late teens, but the gravedigger says Hamlet's 30.  Hamlet seems slightly more upset about his mother remarrying than having learned his father was murdered, but he also goes berserk a few times at people who aren't involved in his father's murder at all, and while Claudius, the villain, murders one person (in back story) and angsts about it for the rest of the play, Hamlet himself gets quite the body count and shows little to no remorse about it.  

Does the fact that Hamlet is a prince have to do with this role often being the peak of an actor's career?  Why do we think an actor who can play Hamlet well can do anything?  Hamlet's not really enough of a jerk that it's Villain Sympathy.  In fact, Hamlet is one of the least proactive protagonists in literature.  The majority of the play is him wondering what he should do.  Should he listen to this ghost that claims to be his father?  Should he tell any of his friends what's going on?  Should he kill Claudius when he finds out that, yes, the guy did kill his dad?  Should he leave his mom out of it, or was she involved?  To be or not to be?  

But to the mainstream, Hamlet is the guy who holds the skull and waxes poetic while sword fighting in period dress.  Somehow, him just sitting on this supernatural order to avenge his father's death has been twisted to where we've decided it's the role of a lifetime.  Shakespeare wrote other characters who were princes, but none of them were as prominent or as over-analyzed as Hamlet.  

Does Hamlet have any good qualities?  Well, of course, or the play would have been a complete flop.  He's magnetic.  He's smart, snarky, and unsure of himself.  But then you have Ophelia, his love interest.  Whereas Hamlet is defined by his struggle to be decisive, Ophelia just lets her father and brother make decisions for her.  She is dutiful, she has no idea that Hamlet is pretending to be crazy for some of the play (or maybe he is crazy.  So much ambiguity), and when her brother leaves, Hamlet seemingly rejects her from out of nowhere, her father is killed and her lover banished, she goes off the deep end.

Therefore, it seemed like what was going on is that women were losing more and more of their credibility while royal men could afford the luxuries of indecision here and there so long as they still fit all the other criteria.

Hammer It Further In, Victorians!

The Victorians might just be my favorite historical group of people. They're a psychological delight.  Not that they were as repressed as pop culture makes them out to be, but they were all about restraint when it came to deviant behaviors and ideas, often disguising them. In the Victorian era, the hero stopped being the centerpiece of the story.  Most of the care, detail, and time went into the villain. Dracula, Sweeney Todd, Spring Heeled Jack, Frankenstein, Dorian Grey, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and just about the rest of the cast of Penny Dreadful were the ones driving the plot of their respective stories, the ones the authors paid the most attention to.  Often, they were pitted against an innocent heroine, like Christine in The Phantom of the Opera and Mina in Dracula, but there was an edge to them.  Both Christine and Mina might surprise readers in how deadpan and genre-savvy both these women are, and while they don't physically vanquish their beasts, they play key roles.

So where does this leave the prince?

The role of the home in the Victorian era became more significant than ever before.  A man's home was his castle.  His job was to make it a safe haven; his family's job was to make it a domestic ideal.  Again, the ideal man was a protector, someone who could keep his wife and children safe from beasts (poor people, people who didn't speak English, Irishmen, etc.), but also protect them morally.  It's kind of easy to be seduced by the list of villains I put on here, isn't it?  They're just as rich as princes, sometimes handsome, often decisive and passionate...and maybe therein lies the problem.  The ideal man was not yet passionately in love with the heroine.  

“What do you call all that courtly love business?”

Isn't that more in love with the idea of being in love?  Honestly, you pick a random woman, say you'll do great things for her whether she loves you or not, but at the end of the day, you're the one getting the credit for doing those brave deeds and she'll be seen as ungrateful because you've never even had a conversation with her to tell her how you feel.  Loving a woman in the sense that you physically desire her while still desiring her friendship wasn't happening yet.  In a society that didn't encourage women to be open about their own passions, the men also weren't really allowed to do much that wouldn't result in a scandal.  He was supposed to treat his wife more like an employee than the object of his affection.  He could praise her skills at mothering and running a household, and maybe she could play a mean tune on the pianoforte, but none of her skills were supposed to be superior to his own.  The princes and heroes of the Victorian age were as bland as all get-out because everybody wanted to live vicariously through the more passionate villains.  

Well, film changed how we view the devil.  Did it change how we view Prince Charming?

Who Would Have Thought Melodrama was Boring?

Now, to be fair, not all these guys are princes, but I would be remiss if I was going to talk about princes in film and omit Disney's contribution.  For a long time, Disney animators had difficulty animating human men, and it shows.  Remember that short, Goddess of Spring?  Even though her arms are boneless, she looks like a passable female human. The god of the Underworld, though?  It looks like an old-time Mardi Gras mask.  

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered in 1937, the same year that the Prince Valiant comic strip did, and both princes are given next to no personalities.  Snow White's prince doesn't even get a name!  Please stop saying Snow White is objectified when it's her prince that is treated as nothing more than a goal and subsequently a reward.

“But his heroism is just supposed to be accepted because he's a man and he's royal!”

Is it?  Disney animators tried to work around the lack of princely influence in the Grimm version by writing a subplot about the Evil Queen capturing the Prince and him escaping...but animating a realistic-looking man was just too hard for them.  We don't care about him or look at him like a person.  He's Snow White's reward.  Nothing more.

Cinderella's prince, officially the “Prince Charming” of Disney canon, is also objectified.  He has maybe three lines?  He isn't even there when Cinderella puts on the slipper?  His dad is given more screen time than him?  

Notice that, in keeping with the Victorian melodramas and silent movie traditions, the movies that have the most boring princes have very engaging, very passionate villains.  The Evil Queen, the Wicked Stepmother, and Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty are given richer animation, more distinctive voice actors, and a deliciously evil charm, that, so far, the princes just can't top.  They remained fairly quiet with their heroism just a given.  Around this same time, Laurence Olivier won an Oscar for 1948's Hamlet, the only time an Oscar was given to someone playing a Shakespearean character.  So it seemed like the prince was still relatively unexplored.  “He's a prince!  Must be a great guy.”

Not all princes in early Hollywood were bland, but there was a kind of leading man that got a lot more action, both in the cinematic and romantic sense—the rogue.

In the 30s and 40s, it was more common for the hero of a movie to be anything but a prince.  He was a hard-boiled private detective, a thief (usually of the Robin Hood variety), or a pirate, as swashbuckling dramas were big back then. Princes, therefore, started becoming a little buffoonish.  The ideal man in the 50s was, oddly, the family man.  The prince had changed to the ruler of a suburban home, still retaining all the traits we've mentioned before, only Ward Cleaver (Leave it to Beaver), Steve Douglas (My Three Sons), Ozzie Nelson (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet), and Andy Taylor (The Andy Griffith Show) all upheld values most of Middle America agreed with and added a truly positive item to our list:

1. Competent

2. Decisive

3. Upper Class-ish (rise of the middle class!)

4. Wise

5. They Want to be Dads

Parody Ensues

The 60s changed a lot of things, how princes are portrayed among them. While the Prince Valiant comic strip was still going strong, people began wondering if this Prince Charming ideal was really a positive thing.  Wasn't the upper-to-middle class white guy the enemy of the Civil Rights Movement?  Wasn't the patriarchal figurehead oppressing and dismissing women?  Were these guys—gasp--just like everyone else in that they're fallible and sometimes do stupid or misguided things? Jeez, these Prince Charmings (Princes Charming?) must all be doofuses when you peel back the veneer.  Isn't that how princes are in real life?

When Royalty Smiles...

In 1973, Jay Williams wrote the children's book Petronella, and it fit right in with the Women's Movement.  Eager to seek her fortune, Petronella sets out into the world like her brothers and learns about a prince held captive by a wizard named Albion.  Albion says she must prove herself by completing certain fairytale-esque tasks, she does so through kindness and wit, and—spoiler alert—she and Albion fall in love.  Turns out, the prince is just a house guest that won't leave.  I can't find the cover art for the back of the book, but the prince looks like a Monty Python character.

In this same year, there was another book out there with a prince who was deceptively appealing.  William Goldman wrote The Princess Bride and later adapted it for the screen in 1987.  The only person who starts out as royalty in the book is Prince Humperdinck, and that name alone should tell you this isn't someone to take seriously.  Sure, he's competent, noted in the film for being an excellent tracker, and he's quite the mastermind, but he's also the villain!  The whole reason he plans to marry Buttercup is so he can kill her on their wedding night and frame another kingdom for it so he can get a war!  Buttercup's True Love is actually a former farm boy named Westley who is doing a stint as the Dread Pirate Roberts.  Humperdinck doesn't stand a chance.

I do like Chris Sarandon's performance.  He brings such dignity to it, which actually makes it more fun.  

As if pop culture wasn't dropping the anvil fast enough that Prince Charmings weren't all they were cracked up to be, Stephen's Sondheim's Into the Woods gave us Cinderella's Prince and Rapunzel's Prince, and the line, “I was raised to be charming, not sincere,” says it all.  Who would have thought a musical about interconnecting fairy tales would have so much innuendo (it's pretty uncomfortable seeing certain parts of this with children, let me tell you), adultery, psychological abuse, and character deaths?  It was finally filmed in 2014 and satirizes these angst-ridden overly-masculine types with the song “Agony:”

We're going to talk about one more before we get an interesting counterpoint to all this parody. Ladies and gentlemen, Prince Charming from the Shrek universe:

Forget the fact he looks like Jaime from Game of Thrones.  Rupert Everett's Prince Charming is a spoiled, prissy snob whose mother is none other than the Fairy Godmother, the brains behind the operation. Seriously, the movie where Prince Charming takes the lead as the Big Bad is terrible.  There isn't much to say about the role even though it's entertaining except that it just goes to the other extreme.  Prince Charming is decisive about not letting an ogre be with the woman that was promised to him, and he does seem competent at horseback riding and doing the tango, but he's whiny, preens a little too much for traditional manly men, and, most importantly, is okay with forcing Fiona to be with her against her will.  

“But, but, but, if the Prince Charming archetype is just an illusion, what kind of man can we have faith in?”

Well, I would say the rogue as in most movies, he proves to be a hero underneath the snark and scruff, but that's another meta (see The Unscrupulous Hero meta).  This brings up a good point—at least these parodies of princes are characters.  They have personalities and arcs.  You can call them a lot of things but you can't call them bland.  Prince Charming up until now has been a construct, a goal, a reward. Everything but a real person. 

Evolution!

Bringing it back to the Disney princes, 1989 responded to all these unworthy princes with Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid.  I consider him the prototype prince since he is substantially given more to do and emote than the previous princes ever were, but he's still kind of vanilla.  Eric likes being out on a ship, longing for a life at sea while Ariel longs for a life on land.  Hmm.  He plays the flute, totally doesn't mind doing the messier tasks a crewman on a ship would do, and the film goes out of its way to show that he is brave and not one to be messed with.  He saves his dog from a fire and harpoons a giant octopus woman.  He hangs out with Ariel, has fun when she’s around, and this was one of the first Disney movies that introduced some chemistry between the human leads.

After Eric came the Beast, Aladdin, and Simba, and while Aladdin is by far the most fleshed-out of these characters, these prince figures were given something Eric didn't have—pain.  Disney's Beast isn't proposing to Belle every night like in the original fairy tale.  We don't meet him as a romantic lead, but as a broken chimera despairing that his entire life seems to be defined by one bad choice.  Simba may not be the most interesting character, but there is a moment in the movie where he starts yelling at the sky (read: his dead father) about Mufasa not being there for him and then just breaks down in tears and cries, “It's my fault.”  Good lord, you feel for him there as much as you do when he's a little cub shaking his dead father in hopes of awakening him.  

Prince Naveen in The Princess and the Frog is not your grandmother's prince.  It's almost a full-out comedic role as Naveen is...kind of a bum.  He's a prince, but he's lazy, so his parents have cut him off, leaving him to either get a job and work for a living, or marry a rich woman.  Ha ha, Naveen just wants to play the ukelele, enjoy New Orleans' night life, and pick the richest of his many admirers to marry.  After he falls for Tiana, he doesn't change all that much.  He is willing to work for something and can buckle down, but he's still that funny, enthusiastic guy you want to be friends with.  He isn't diminished in his relationship with her. Nor is she.  Naveen can get Tiana to loosen up, and while the plot of The Princess and the Frog is needlessly complex here and there, the romance is very strong and their banter is right up there with all the great movie romance banter.

D’awww!

Counterpoint to a Counterpoint

Oh, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, I'm onto you, what with your romantic-comedy shtick.  To this day I am torn as to whether or not the twist to make him the villain was a good one or not.  On the one hand, it gives his character a reason for being in the story, and it's a realistic lesson that trusting everyone is just as bad as trusting no one.  However, what's the goofy little smile at the end of the clip all about?  Does he genuinely like Anna but still plans to somehow take over the throne?  Is that just how he smiles when he tweaks his own schemes?  His original plan was just to marry Elsa, but now it seems like, “Well, I can marry the cute, funny girl instead and just kill the aloof one.  Win-win.”  

“Psychopaths don't wear t-shirts saying 'You're with Psychopath' on them.”

Very true, and a commonality many psychopaths share in real life is that they are, you guessed it, charming.  They know how to attract people to them.  Unfortunately, though, things like empathizing with those people and putting those people before themselves are not really feasible things for a psychopath to do.  But then again, we are talking about film here, not real life, so is it a cheat that they made him the villain seemingly out of nowhere?  Weren't we supposed to be given some hints about his true nature since this is a story?

If you ask Disney, they did disperse clues here and there that Hans was not what he seemed.  He wears gloves, for example.  Did you know gloves are a visual shorthand for villain?  Never mind that most of Hans' screentime is either at a ball in which gloves would have been fashionably appropriate or when it's, you know, cold outside. Another thing they refer fans to is that in the song “Love is an Open Door,” Hans' lines about “finding his own place” and agreeing that Anna's “sandwiches” response to his “We finish each other's ____” was what he was going to say are indicative that he's stringing her along.  Okaaaayyyy.  

“But if you were taken in, isn't that the point?  Nobody knowingly gets involved with a psychopath.”

Yeah, but this is all so vague.  Consider that while Elsa is the queen and Anna is the princess, they are way too busy dealing with their own problems to actually rule Arendelle or do anything to help all the innocent people suddenly plagued by an unexpected winter.

Look at this!  Doesn't this just muddle things more?  Hans is the one handing out blankets and inviting the subjects to the castle where he makes it a point to say it's warm there and they've got plenty of hot food for everyone.  We're making the villain the only character in the entire thing who does any damage relief?  I'm sure this is probably a “catch more flies with honey than vinegar thing” as the truly logical person would conclude that Hans is just trying to win over the peasants so they don't revolt when he takes things over, and I know that being homicidal doesn't necessarily preclude anyone from being a great ruler, but come on!  

I guess the point the movie is trying to make with Hans is that you can meet a guy who seems great on paper and fits all the items on the checklist we've been keeping track of, but he can still turn out to be a jerk.  And I will say that Disney has tried the “surprise villain reveal” thing in a few of its other movies that came out after this, but this one handled that the best.

The New Wave

I can't say 2015's Cinderella is better than the 1950 version, but one thing it did that I admire was that it made Prince Charming a person. Prince Kit (I would have named him something else, but I digress) has his doubts that he can be as good a king as his father. Richard Madden gets to actually act as he not only has to be a little restless in his role, but also gets to express grief. He had said that the challenge of playing the Prince is to make sure that Cinderella is not seen as being lucky to get a prince, but that this prince is lucky to have found her.

We have an earlier example of this with 1998's Ever After. Prince Henry (Dougray Scott) is a very reluctant prince and shirks his duties whenever he can. It is Danielle (Drew Barrymore) who changes his way of thinking in that he can do so much good with the power that he has, and it is his obligation to do so. He listens to her, respects her, it's clear that he also physically wants her, and the two get plenty of time to get to know one another. His reaction when the princess he's betrothed to starts wailing is priceless because it's so in-character and there's even Leonardo DaVinci thrown in the movie for fun...a very charming movie indeed.

Artie Hammer is also a good prince, Prince Alcott in Mirror, Mirror. About the only good thing in that, actually. I didn't feel it was dark enough to be a Snow White story, but Snow White and the Huntsman didn't have enough joy to be a Snow White story (or enough actual dwarves playing the parts). Again, the Prince gets to be funny, gets to be a bit political as his whole reason for going to this kingdom in the first place is to meet with the Queen (Julia Roberts being horribly miscast). I don't appreciate the amount of ogling this otherwise children's movie does to the poor actor, but for the most part, he's a character in his own right. Maybe soon he'll pick some better projects that don't have him upstaged by a guy pretending to be a Native American like in The Lone Ranger.

But my all-time favorite Prince Charming has to go to Josh Dallas' David “Charming” Nolan on Once Upon a Time.

“Attention, everyone!  I know magical shenanigans are ruining all your lives, but you have to be in the background while the show focuses on my family's drama! For goodness sake, pull yourselves together and be the comic relief!”

Charming is pretty much everything we've covered so far, and you can see the historical detail they put into developing his character.  This prince started life as a shepherd, a commoner who, by some magical deals that don't merit this meta, must pose as a prince.  He gets to be one for real after he marries Snow White, but the crafted him to be a farmer-type guy.  He drives a pickup truck.  He wears a lot of flannel.  He's sometimes old-fashioned with his flaws as he can be overly protective and quick to judge, but he's also quick to change his opinion when he's proven wrong.  

Charming is deceptively easy to understand, and I don't mean that he's an airhead or a parody of what he represents.  I mean that his goals in life are simple. His likes, his morals—they're all simple, even his fears.  The man's greatest fear is that he isn't a good dad.  That's so relatable since every parent has wondered that about themselves, but it's fresh and unique when it's applied to Prince Charming, a “character” far more defined by offscreen heroics than being a member of a family.  In the very first episode, he's taking on three swordsmen while holding his infant daughter.  That's the character in a nutshell. 

It's a role that's a little underwritten, but like Hamlet, that sometimes means you can do some amazing things with it.  OUAT is full of polarizing characters, but Charming is not one of them.  He's universally loved, and that has everything to do with how convincingly Josh Dallas plays him, especially that he is able to play a father to an actress technically older than him playing his daughter.

Even when he doesn't have much to say, Josh Dallas brings so many fatherly gestures and facial expressions to the part.  That might be why the show has given him more and more to do as it's gone on.  It's a new take on the Prince Charming construct, isn't it—that all the sword-fighting, arrow-shooting, horseback riding, face-punching, and villain-confronting this guy does is for his family?  

His relationship with Snow on this show is sort of the measuring stick to which all other romantic relationships are compared to, and I wouldn't even say “Snowing” is the main romance.  While Snow gives Charming some much-needed direction, he gives her confidence. There are so many moments when Snow is doubting herself that Charming is the one to build her back up.  His belief that his wife can do anything is the foundation of True Love, and I don't mean that he sees her through rose-tinted glasses.  They are partners. One gets the sense that they rule together, whether it be in the flashbacks in the Enchanted Forest, or how they handle the town's problems in the present. 

So I would say our checklist is looking more like this:

1. Is a complex human being with positive (competent, decisive, wise, willing to parent) and some flaws to stay interesting

2. Has respect and admiration for his love and their relationship has a healthy dose of friendship in it

But if I were to just list all of Charming's traits—good and bad—or anything other well-written character in any medium—the list might just go on and on.  It's that way with real-life personalities, and opinions will vary on what the ideal man or woman is like.  Prince Charming is no longer an archetype or a plot point but a person, a real person who is inspired to do his best for love at the same time he inspires the person he loves to do their best.  Life is hard, and it's hard to find someone to share it with, but the fact that fiction is emphasizing these aspects is so positive.