#cabronallorona

[tamras-shieldmaiden]

I was going over the subject of Kuvira’s childhood with @redcatmusings , and this scene came to mind:

and it made me realize that Bruce’s line also applies to Kuvira. After all, this is a child who was reeling from several traumatic events that, as we know, led to the abandonment complex that influenced many decisions in her life. This is not to say that because of her tragic upbringing, her decisions later in life are justified; rather, it provides us with context regarding her mental and emotional state. The burden of unresolved issues from childhood can shape a person, and if not properly addressed, it can continue to affect them throughout adulthood.

IMHO, in Kuvira’s case, as she went through the struggles of adapting to a new household, she learned to become quite adept at masking her anger to gain her new family’s acceptance and affection. At some point, she must’ve realized that her unruly behavior had already cost her biological family. This is a little girl who was already made responsible, not only for breaking up her family but for almost killing her mother and she carried the guilt and shame of those actions. Anger became a reflex, a defense mechanism for a child unable to properly understand or manage her emotions. This anger had an unfortunate effect, and it’s because it isolated her from the other kids, like we saw with Opal in ROTE. We can’t know for sure for how long this went on, but we also know that the Kuvira we meet in Book Three successfully overcame this because we were introduced to a capable, courageous, and obedient young woman who had proven herself to be dependable and trustworthy enough to be given the reins of the Zaofu Guard. 

So how and why did the almost feral little girl with trust and anger issues transform into Suyin’s trusted protege? I believe there are several reasons. One of the main motivators and driving forces behind this change was the existential fear of being abandoned. As an orphan myself (and this might be more than a bit of projection, lol) feeling abandoned is quite scary, and in Kuvira's case, the reason for her abandonment made it more hurtful and terrifying. If it happened once, it could very well happen again a second time, and in her eyes, the fault would be hers and hers alone. That's pretty heavy stuff for a kid to contemplate 😭. The other motivator was praise and positive reinforcement. Her biological parents had emphasized discipline, but through Suyin, Kuvira finally learned she could earn the praise of the adults when she behaved as they expected from her, and she realized it felt very good. She could be more than a disappointment, more than a burden that could easily be discarded. She could be deserving of praise, affection, and acceptance after all, and this made her feel safe. If she behaved, she wouldn't be given away again. So she sought Suyin’s acceptance by emulating her mentor and striving to become the best at everything she did (as we can see illustrated in these parallels). But with time, she realized that even that wasn’t enough to become one of them, a Beifong. Despite her best efforts, she remained an outsider within the family, and the frustration and anger this elicited finally came to a head when in open defiance, she broke away from the family and from Zaofu to seek a noble purpose in aiding the fractured Earth Kingdom in its moment of crisis. The mask came off, and it revealed that the anger had never truly gone away.

NOTE:

Since for some reason the hyperlink formatting won't stick, the links to the parallels referred are these:

https://www.tumblr.com/cabronallorona/112798537765/you-thought-you-were-there-to-guide-me-you-were

https://www.tumblr.com/elemelon-s/111927744706/she-was-like-a-daughter-to-me-kuvira-suyin?source=share

[loveaos]

Sending love to @cabronallorona because she's nice and I adore to witness her love for Natalia and Elena

[apathbacktoyou]

17: “ Are you upset with me? ” for Elena and Hope in the framework au 🙈❤️

the au i lowkey pretend was canon! thanks for the prompt :D

-

Elena’s heart is in her throat, her hands shaking even as she clutches Hope closer.

It’s their first outing with just the two of them.

She can’t believe she already fucked up.

The park’s supposed to be safe.

And it is - Hope just got a little too far ahead of her, a little too close to the teens racing their bikes without paying attention - and Elena jumped in to grab her before she could get hit.

The little girl doesn’t seem to notice it all happened way too fast.

Elena can only pray everyone else is as oblivious.

Hope looks up at Elena, brow furrowed.“Are you upset with me? I didn’t mean to run off.”

“I know that,”Elena says. She kisses her forehead, calms Hope’s worries like she can’t calm her own racing heart.“I’m not upset, just got a little scared.”

“You don’t have to be,”Hope says and buries her face in the crook of Elena’s neck.“I’m safe with you. Daddy says so.”

Elena swallows around the lump in her throat.“Of course you are, mijita.”

And she swears to herself that she will spend the rest of her life making sure it is true.

[aosdrunktexts]

cabronallorona replied to your photoset “”

I’m dying for some more mack/may brotp �� that scene where they beat up a dude together? A+. Hopefully we get some in s6 now that he’s Director haha

yoooo sameeee if we don’t see these moments in canon, imma be so mad: 

mack and may sharing scotch after a long day 

mack not being surprised may can hold her liquor really well 

sometimes when mack feels stressed, he’ll cook at like 3am, and first elena will wander in (steal a bite), then daisy (also stealing a bite), then may (she’ll actually help), and it will become a full dinner 

mack giving may a new quinn jet 

i dunno fam, just them bein buddies! 

[sunalsolove]

“I know I say this a lot, but…I love you.” + mackelena :)

Elena narrowed her eyes at Mack. 

He stepped closer to her, and she had to tilt her head back to keep her eyes on his face. “I know I say this a lot,” he rumbled, putting a hand on her arm, “’but, I love you.” 

She sighed. “You still are not buying a set of thousand dollar headphones.” 

“But...” 

“No buts. What are we at the store for?” 

“A new television.” 

“Why?” 

Mack looked heavenward. “Because I screamed and jumped when I saw a spider, knocked the TV off the wall, and it broke.” 

Elena nodded. “And then what.” 

“And then--” Mack grinned. “I had my very attractive and amazing superhero girlfriend kill the spider.”

“You’re still not getting the headphones.” 

“Damn.” He looked longingly at the box. “And I knew I shouldn’t, but I needed you to be my willpower.” 

Elena stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I know. Now come on, I saw online there’s an eighty-five inch, curved screen, ultra HD model I have my eye on.” 

Mack’s mouth fell open. “Damn, I love you.” 

She was already walking down the aisle. “And I love you, now come on, turtleman, we have a TV to get because of your very expensive spider.” 

[agentsoflove]

[justanalto]

:O you changed your icon!

It’s so funny, because I didn’t remember doing it until you sent me this ask, LOL!

I lub you!!

[bobbiamorse]

Happy birthday al! Hope you have a wonderful day 💖💖💖

Thank you Jen! I will try my very best.

[reginamillls]

could I request some mack/elena icons? :)

my other icons

[eggytoast2]

*hugs* I hope you find your motivation babe 💖

Janelle, you sweet summer bean you jelly cutie you deserve so many snuggles and hugs you are a gosh dang delight and your sweetness abounds and i love you

[madisonrooney]

What’s Jersey boys? I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned it before.

its this really niche musical i recently discovered? i think it ran pretty long and won a few awards but i could be wrong. i really like it but i dont think id see it more than 1 or 2 times.

[theclaravoyant]

hi! :) if it's not already taken could I request the neighbors au fluff bingo square for mackelena? you got an excellent card btw!

thanks! it is a great card, looks like so much fun! 

and I would be happy to reserve the Neighbours AU square for Mackelena! I can’t promise when I will get around to filling it, but consider it on its way and watch this space!

(or maybe, watch this space, since I’ll post a link in the masterpost when it is up - I will also mention and tag you :) )

[jemmafitzsimmons]

HOW do you keep your gifs so high quality?? It seems like no matter how HQ the video is my gifs always come out a little grainy :/ yours look so sharp and nice!

sorry for the delay in replying! thank you for this ask, that’s really nice of you to say :) this got extremely long, and I wanted to make it as clear as possible. so, here it goes…

first things first - PRACTICE. I’ve been giffing for almost two years now, and I’ve learned sooo much in that time just from giffing so much and learning from my mistakes. You said you’re using a HQ video, so you already have a good start there. As far as how to make your gifs look less grainy, here are some tips that will hopefully help you out. This isn’t a detailed coloring tutorial, but if you want that, I can look into making a tutorial of my general process, or you can DM me with specific questions. These are simply some techniques that work best for me. 

Note: I use Photoshop CC 2018 to make my gifs. 

1. Use every frame. I used to skip frames when I imported them into photoshop bc that’s how I first learned and it was mainly just a habit, but it will seriously improve your gifs so much if you don’t skip frames (this applies to whatever method you use to gif - capping or importing video frames to layers). One time, I used the exact same coloring on two gifs of the same scene, with one of them having all the frames and the other skipping frames, and I could notice a considerable difference between the two in terms of quality. Making this switch probably helped improve my gifs the most. 

2. Don’t rely on other people’s PSDs. I color all my gifs from scratch bc using PSDs used to stress me out. PSDs provided by other gif makers can be great when you’re learning how the adjustment layers work, but relying on them to color every scene isn’t going to work, especially with a show like agents of shield where it’s really dark and the lightening and color schemes tend to change from season to season. What PSDs can teach is you is that everyone colors differently. seriously. Learning what works best for you and what works for the show/movie/video you’re giffing is the best way to improve. 

3. Use a sharpening action. This will help tremendously bc it makes sharpening simple and you don’t have to convert to timeline to smart sharpen. I got my action here. When I first started giffing, I would convert my frames to timeline, and then smart sharpen. But when you export a gif in timeline mode, the frame delay speed changes on you, so you have to reopen the gif and resave it if you want the correct speed. When you resave it, it can sometimes lower the quality a little bit. Using an action allows you to avoid converting to timeline so you never have to resave gifs and lose any quality. 

4. Use adjustment layers sparingly. When I say this, I don’t mean don’t use too many of them. I just mean that when you’re making adjustments, don’t use any one layer too much (aka - don’t add a brightness or vibrance layer and max it out). Making little adjustments at a time can help you figure out exactly what is making your gifs look grainy. 

5. Be careful with vibrance/saturation layers. This is usually where you can run into trouble when you want to make really bright and colorful gifs, but they turn out pixelated. My go-to for bringing out colors is selective color bc you have a lot more control. I still use a little vibrance or saturation here and there, but it’s never something I rely on bc it lowers the quality of your gifs so easily. Also be careful whenever you’re adjusting anything in selective color bc adjusting a color too much can make it look pixelated as well. 

6. Embrace the darkness. :) Over-brightening a scene is usually where a lot of grain comes from as well, so like I said before, using adjustment layers sparingly can help you avoid this. obviously, agents of shield is a poorly lit show, so trying to brighten up scenes can be a pain in the ass (and sometimes impossible lol), but you can actually use the darkness to your advantage when you’re trying to make gifs less grainy. When I gif, I usually brighten the scene first and then worry about colors later. When using adjustment layers to brighten my gifs (curves, levels, brightness, exposure - it all depends on the scene), I always go back and darken the darker parts of the gif to bring back some of the contrast that sometimes gets lost when you brighten a scene. Usually, I’ll do this by increasing the blacks in selective color like this:

You can also do this with levels, exposure, and gradient maps adjustment layers. It’s really just your preference and what looks best for a particular scene. If you need more clarification about this, let me know. 

7. Choose export settings that work for YOU. I originally used diffusion when I first started giffing and didn’t know the difference. Then I switched to pattern bc everyone and their mom on tumblr swore by it. Now, I’ve found my gifs come out a lot cleaner using diffusion. This is usually just a personal preference, but I noticed it improved my gifs a lot since switching. Here are my export settings if you don’t know what I’m talking about. 

If you have any specific questions or want me to explain something else, please let me know (you can send asks or DM me). The last thing I’ll say is that everyone has this own techniques, formulas, and styles for how they make gifs, so finding what works best for you is gonna help you the most. There isn’t a single “correct” way to make gifs, so take any advice (including my own!) with a grain of salt bc there are so many different ways that work, so it’s about finding what you think looks best and go with it. 

[apathbacktoyou]

"Can I kiss you right now?" for mackelena ;)

first of all: happy belated birthday!!secondly, please enjoy:

-

Elena glances from her sketch to the real deal, smiling when she catches Mack watching her.

There's two dozen other students also drawing him, yet his eyes are on her almost every time she looks up.

She lowers her gaze back to her work and shades his abs. She takes another look rather sooner than she needs to get it right.

The lesson is over too soon.

Once again, she and Mack are the last two lingering.

Once again, she doesn’t want to leave.

For the first time, she does something about it.“Do you think you could do another pose for me?”

He looks a little flustered but smiles.“Yeah, sure.” He gestures to the shirt he just put on.“Do you want me out of this?”

Dios, of course she does.

But she’s a professional artist, dammit.

“No, you’re perfect.” Were she the kind to blush, she would.“Uhm, maybe pop your collar a little?”

“Like this?”

“Little more?”

He adjusts it again, looks to her; she shakes her head.

Mack quirks an eyebrow.“Maybe you should just do it?”

Elena moves in and does just that. Her hand lingers. Her eyes dip to his lips, just for a second.

“Tell me if I’m totally off-base,”Mack says.“But can I kiss you right now?”

She answers with a press of her lips against his.

Later, with sweat cooling on their skin and Mack’s fingers tangled in her hair, Elena cuddles up closer and mumbles,“I really did want to draw another pose.”

He chuckles, warm and soft, making her heart swell, making her realise this is not just a crush.

“Sorry for distracting you,”he says.“Promise I’ll be a better model tomorrow. If you still want me?”

She smiles.“Yeah. I do.”

“Then I’m all yours.”

[aosdrunktexts]

cabronallorona replied to your photoset “”

love this lmao

you, fam

i have such a fondness for you 

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

cabronallorona replied to your post “sunalsolove replied to your post “anyone know how to unsubscribe...”

if you have xkit they have an extension called notification block that will take it off your activity page, I use it whenever a post gets too popular and clogs up my notifications

god bless xkit! Thank you!!!