#didn't know how to fit them in the last gifset

[patovpran]

#pain

[marciabrady]

If you don't want to it's perfectly fine, but you also love Aurora and make good gifsets. Would you consider making one of why Aurora IS a good role model? 🌹

Hi there! I don't know if I'll be returning to giffing right, but I can definitely right out some reasons here 💌

Honestly, this might sound too obvious or simplistic or whatever, but Mary Costa is her voice and the way that woman's lived her life and the contents of her character and the example she sets daily is a standard everyone should aspire to.

I think Aurora has an appreciation for the world around her that's not generally noticed by others, but is necessary for anyone who wants to have a fully realized life.

Aurora exhibits such a respect and love and reverence for her elders and, while they have some faults, she doesn't resent them in any way and adores them and values them.

Aurora has a heart of gratitude! Raised as a humble peasant, she couldn't be more enchanted or delighted with the cake and dress her Aunts made her.

Aurora is fascinating in how she listens to the rules that are set, and abides by them, but also knows when it's valuable to break them in order to still live a life as opposed to being a chess piece?

Along with the last bullet, when Aurora does break the rules, she does it safely. She wasn't allowed to speak to strangers, and does so with Phillip- however, she doesn't give him her name and she invites him to her home so that he can meet her guardians formerly which is beyond responsible.

She makes choices and decisions, while taking fully into accountable who will be impacted and how her actions could negatively or positively influence a situation. Once Aurora discovers she's a Princess, she could have pitched a fit or ran away or refused to return to the Kingdom, but she doesn't. She understands the importance of her kingdom and her duty to her parents and as a princess and places this above her personal feelings, even leaving behind her true love in the process. This is perhaps the most noble and unselfish action I've ever seen.

Aurora trusts her feelings and instincts and intuition! When she first meets Phillip, she runs away and is very hesitant to accept his advances- until she sees him for who he truly is and he's more tender.

In the cottage, we see her doing chores, so she's responsible, but she's also autonomous. She grew up with three fairies who don't know much about living as a human, and we see Aurora being particularly keen- she understands they're throwing a surprise for her and she knows they're hiding something, etc, but doesn't say anything. She has a fascinating and complex mixture of being raised by much older people but having to be the parent for them, in a sense. She also contributed to the household- they send her picking berries, so she probably was the gatherer and supplied much of the food. She's also just generally self-sufficient in her walk in the woods.

She's so connected to the life around her, enjoying the performance of nature and being so connected to the animals. Remember, she doesn't know people as Briar Rose, so she responds to them as if they were human.

She's perceptive enough to observe life around her and make connections- like how the birds have all found love, and relating that to what she's observed in nature and the longing she feels in her own heart.

I love how highly imaginative she is! She didn't have technology or even many belongings of her own, and so for her to have such a clear vision of her dream prince and be able to dance and sing with the animals the way that she does is very endearing.

She doesn't begrudge her parents! Some characters might have felt that their parents gave them up or would've been bitter that they hadn't known they had parents, but Aurora is so very loving- once she sees them, she runs straight into their arms, with a hug.

Aurora is so caught up with the emotion of life, which is so valuable. In our increasingly technological and antisocial world, it's so easy to see people as numbers instead of individuals, to grow apathetic. But there's something genuinely so sweet and heartwarming over how upset she was that this boy she liked so much would be coming to the empty cottage that night and felt that she would've abandoned him or played some type of a prank on him to let him down. She doesn't even think about being a Princess. Likewise, for all the things she could've wished for- for material belongings or to advance her position or something selfish or, again, material/tangible, she wishes for love.

I love how, in Sleeping Beauty, the Three Good Fairies bestow Aurora with gifts of song and beauty. I think we all have gifts that are unique and individual to us and a formative part of our development and who we are, at the core, is identifying those gifts and making good use of them! Aurora uses her gift of song to communicate with the world around her and to live out her fantasies and to comfort herself and I love how connected she is to what makes her uniquely her!

[thegeminisage]

IT'S TIME FOR. a star trek update. and BOY am i behind. wednesday we watched tng's "frame of mind," friday we watched ds9's "progress" and tng's "suspicions," and last night we watched ds9's "if wishes were horses." i am so thrilled to announce that despite the high amount of episodes including tng episodes i have almost NOTHING to complain about this update. like a little, but not much.

frame of mind (tng):

first of all we must acknowledge this gifset, which according to the timestamp i saw with my eyeballs near the end of january which (and i checked) was right after the episode where picard is like yeah worf should kill himself. IN the course of the episode worf asks riker to assist with his suicide which is both the most horrible and romantic thing that's ever happened with them. so i went into the ship tag. found it most bereft except for this gifset. i have been DYING to know for a MONTH AND A HALF what's going on in this ep. i finally cracked recently and read the summary which only made me more excited.

so. drumroll. DID THE EP DELIVER..............???

yes.

yes, with VERY minor caveats.

i think my only real complaint about this episode is that it was a me problem. like i was picturing some scene where worf tenderly (for him) talks riker down from a fit of madness and also he was the real worf. i built it up too much in my head. that's not what happened. in my mind palace it is. i'm a little tempted to do a rewrite of it to make it happen but i barely have time to breathe so that will remain a wistful thought for now. like, i knew the enterprise setting wasn't real, but regardless of the amount of worf/riker (e deanna) ship content it was just kind of disappointing to learn that the mental facility was ALSO not real because the worf and data that rescued riker were not real and the beverly that snuck in to see him was also not real and his experiences there also weren't "real" in the physical sense, even though he very much did still experience them. very "it was all a dream!" of them

OTHER THAN THAT. i was really into it. i loved everything about it. i loved riker's break from reality. i loved that crazy lady with the spoon. i loved how even data got weirded out at riker's antics. i love that the part of riker that is his feelings is represented by deanna and the part of him that is action is represented by worf WORF E RIKER E DEANNA REAL! i didn't like picard being his logic. spock should be everybody's logic. get that guy outta here

also, what a great touch to have very chill very normal very laid back riker be like yeah if i don't tear this set apart with my bare hands before i sleep i really WILL go crazy 🙃

side var didn't beverly say people were coming to clean it up in the morning...what happened to the ship cleaning itself smh. justice for the invisible janitors and housekeepers of starfleet

also, why did this episode make me slightly into riker and beverly as friends with benefits...the whole trill boyfriend situation adds so much fun complication to that as well depending on a multitude of varying and equally valid interpretations of that event. like, girl, forget picard's two-timing ass. what's he ever done for you except knock you up with an affair baby. join the worf e riker e deanna polycule. they could make better husbands. shit, i could make a better husband. forget him girl! you don't need him

progress (ds9):

holy fucking shit.

this episode BLEW me away. easily a must-see on my spreadsheet, when i (eventually?) catch up. every single thing they do with kira is AMAZING.

the old guy was so instantly likable. he was likable even when he was being sexist BECAUSE he was being sexist specifically to wind kira up because kira was playing bad guy. their chemistry was so good. i was just as worried about him as kira was the whole episode long

what a brilliant way to discuss war, not by showing the violence or the gore or the death but by simply showing us this guy who won't leave his farm and sleeptalks during his nightmares and these other two who can't speak but WILL kill you with pitchforks. like, you have "chain of command" with picard and the four lights and then you have this, and both of them are so important in our understanding of the cardassians and what they do.

sisko was so absolutely kind to kira. like, he outlined her struggle perfectly - she's no longer the underdog, and in some ways that sucks, because she now has no idea how to behave. her morals and her logic and her heart are all telling her different things.

AND LIKE. SISKO. KNEELING DOWN. TO BE EYE TO EYE WITH HER. i cannot possibly express how important that is. HE IS SO GOOD!!!

i'm actually really glad she got teary eyed but DIDN'T cry. we just watched her ugly cry in that episode with kai opaka and i think to do it twice together so soon would have been too much. but it DID need that emotional beat, and they struck the perfect balance.

the through-line of the fucking kiln. every time i saw them building it. wah.

the ending was so shocking and so horrible...actually, my one tiny nitpick with this ep is that there wasn't really the proper setup for it. the air will be poison if those guys tap the moon, but surely the ostensible utopian starfleet is not gonna tap it with even one holdout...? though i guess bajor isn't in starfleet proper? tng often has too MUCH technobabble and exposition but this didn't have quiiite enough - i feel like forcefields or masks or other scifi tech might have solved this problem and i didn't REALLY believe the only two solutions were to let this guy die on the moon or forcibly relocate him, especially when kira brought up a slower way to get the energy they needed - but maybe that's the point, that she ended the fight before it could become one, idk. i also wish he had said "as long as this house is still standing" a little earlier - having him say it right before the end sort of gave away what kira was gonna do before she did it, though i DIDN'T expect her to start with the kiln.

other than though it was so good. it says so much about the nature of the cardassians as a group, and bajorans as a group, and about kira herself.

also, sorry, jacket coming off hot.

suspicions (tng):

THERE WERE SO MANY WOMEN IN THIS EPISODE??? let's count

beverly, and it's a beverly-centric episode

hot klingon lady who threw beverly around like a sack of flour (again: beverly is bicurious)

VERY snooty vulcan lady with the human??? husband????? sorry but doesn't he have a refractory period how do they get BY during pon farr? ok. none of my business. moving on

nurse ogawa who helped commit women's wrongs

guinan, beverly's confidant and pretend tennis elbow haver...

deanna also had a few lines which i'm choosing to count in the spirit of things

also, that green alien guy? long feng from atla.

anyway, i was tickled with this episode. not only because they finally wrote a ferengi who isn't racist, showed another vulcan/human couple, included a bunch of women, AND gave beverly the main role, but also because the mystery was perfectly done. it gave us just enough information to stay interesting, and i figured out long feng faked his own death RIGHT before the reveal - not early enough to bore me but early enough to make me feel smart

i didn't really understand why beverly chose to end ferengi racism in a field that she wasn't even in but i support her so much. also, she got to do an illegal autopsy and steal a fucking shuttle. GOOD for her

again i want to state that this klingon lady TOSSED HER AROUND it was so fucking sexy. get it beverly. i so rarely have so much fun with a tng episode and we got two good ones in a row!!

if wishes were horses (ds9):

this is a sequel to an episode of tos i mostly don't like, "shore leave." tng also had a "shore leave episode" (the one where picard's mom showed up and i think some ensign got spliced into the floor) so we have done "our thoughts manifest as reality" twice now and i assume will continue to do it in every star trek series going forward. so far i have not liked any of these episodes because of the redundant and irrelevant nature of them (oh look! a random tiger!) but ds9's is probably my favorite out of the three

i just feel like you have the potential to get so real and do such character work when thoughts are manifested as reality and instead it's always this crazy shit. i think tng tried to do it with more gravitas, but it's tng and early tng at that, so i've yet to see star trek do one of these successfully and i doubt i ever will.

ANYWAY. number one complaint with this is of course the fake dax. i think it's really funny that she keeps gently but firmly shooting julian down, and while julian is a likable cringefail loser i NEVER saw him as a creep, not even with repeated attempts to ask her out...and then this happened, and it was very touch and go for a second there. i'm glad his instinct was to fight dax when she was compromised, really horrified when he "gave in," and then was extremely relieved when they were interrupted. he tried i guess. i'm gonna try not to hold it against him. if i can forgive geordi i can forgive julian.

we ALMOST got it working right. dax was like you know julian in a way i kind of feel like we invaded YOUR privacy it's not as though you can help having fantasies and they should have been safe in your head which was like. ok great take actually! we are being adults! but then the fake one showed back up and tried to pick a catfight with the real one and SSSSIGH

keiko and o'briens little daughter is SO cute. i mean she is SO fucking adorable. rumpelstiltskin was easily the dumbest part of this episode but that little baby is so adorable it was almost worth it to see her. i also didn't like that obrien didn't immediately say no as a kneejerk reaction to selling his daughter. girl what's wrong with you

i DON'T like that there's no baseball in the future. number one i refuse to believe americans could ever fall out of love with baseball even if it's only in a "let's bring back this vintage game" kind of way and number two it's one of the only sports i kind of like and understand. sisko being a nerd about an ancient dead sport is so funny though. good for him.

THAT SAID. i was kind of hoping sisko would see his dead wife. we got a great little moment where kira imagined an explosion and a guy on fire, which touched on something she probably actually has seen, and it was a fun way to give a stupid and silly concept some gravitas, but when everything got quiet there at the end i was expecting sisko's wife and no, it was just mr baseball again

shoutout also to odo running around with two real live birds on that set, quark fucking the birds after they turned into ladies, and then odo imagining quark in jail. truly a series of events, though given quark offering to make him a changeling lady friend in the holosuite (refreshing that at least in ds9 they acknowledge it as a sex toy), i kind of expected a serious moment with him too where he got his wish unwillingly.

and finally, i had SUCH a hard time following the plot of this episode.

the ending of this...eh. the power of positive thinking got rid of the rift = funny? the power of positive thinking is why a bunch of aliens showed up to wreak havoc = ehhhhh. the closest we came to having that serious moment i wanted was kira's .5 second scene and it JUST wasn't long enough. probably my least favorite ds9 episode yet, if we don't count the one with q, but still not as excruciating as some of tng's duds - it was entertaining enough not to make me hate existing for a single watch.

TONIGHT: tng's "rightful heir" (worf episode???👀) and ds9's "the forsaken" (deeply not looking forward to this...the summary says LWAXANA TROI is supposed to be mencing my best boy odo. please save him please get the tng out of my ds9 please please pleeease)

[freuleinanna]

trials (and errors) - masterpost

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | AO3

Exiled from the public's eye, young Marisa Coulter is preparing to go and stand trial for adultery. On the other side of Oxford, young lord Asriel Belacqua is preparing to go and stand trial for murder. A lot has been said about how 'as soon as they met, they fell in love'. That is exactly what made the rest of it so hard.

I've posted excerpts from it here, here, here, here and here.

gifs by the absolutely bonkers incredible @tragicotps because i am still in awe you would even do something like that! 💛 | the whole gifset here |

Behind-the-scene stuff includes:

I wanted a scene where, at trial, a question is raised about whether or not Marisa has ever furthered her crimes by trying to get rid of a child before it was born. I had a flashback scene in mind where Asriel offer to go north, for witches have many practices men consider heretic, while Marisa hesitates, but ultimately refuses. I thought it was neat that she had a chance, but didn't take it, because it's her and Asriel's baby that was in question. In the end, I cut it because yikes progressive much, also it just didn't fit in the general flow very well.

I LOVE Marisa and Thorold's interactions. One of the drafts for the last chapter was that they kept meeting by chance, with scarce chances to talk, but that Thorold was Marisa's last thread to Asriel and she kinda missed the old man himself. Thorold's affection for Marisa is !!!!! in my head. It didn't work out, but Thorold became that fateful person to bring Marisa Coulter to life - and to her path.

Another draft for the last chapter included Marisa returning to the Institute OR the Council meeting where she proposes the 'silver cages' and their bullshit benefits. It didn't work out because I never knew what gave her an idea in this case.

I desperately wanted to get Masriel one last meeting. It wasn't too realistic cause their feelings got really rough & hard over the years with blame and stuff, so a softer goodbye wasn't working out. If it was, it would be Marisa also returning to the Institute and taking Asriel's office while he's up north. She'd found the first of Lyra's photos. Asriel would have to come and take them upon his return, yada-yada, conversations, but it would be linked to the way she looked at Lyra's photos in Asriel's journal in the series. le sigh

I love the monkey? And the kind of relationship Marisa has with him? It's especially interesting in their youth because the rules haven't been formed yet. Anyways, it's way more fascinating in my head than in the writing but just know that it's good :D

[mister-eames]

1/2 Recently you’ve gotten a few asks about Eames & the first time he sees Arthur doing [insert something salacious or ridiculously innocent] & i’ve been loving it! But let’s turn the tables on arthur now! What about the first time Arthur sees Eames after he’s had to bulk up for something, the first time Arthur gets a full view of Eames’ tattoos rather than just a peek, the first time he sees Eames in a fitted suit or with a beard?? (Think Tom in the drop. Soft bearded eames ftw!)

2/2 even better if all these instances happen pre-get together or prior to them becoming coworkers/friends with benefits. I think Eames has suffered enough in his pining and thirsting; it’s time for Arthur’s turn 😏

Okay so I took a hot second to answer this one because your ask really inspired me to make a gifset based off of this, but the last couple of days have been a bit of a shitshow so that is on the backburner for now.

Okay, okay - so, Arthur first seeing Eames all bulky and hirsute - like Arthur didn't even know that was a thing that he was into. He's always dated clean cut men and suddenly here comes Eames of all people, beefy and thick and hairy and looking as if he could pick Arthur up and throw him across the room. It's a regular Tuesday morning, Arthur is nursing a lukewarm coffee when he has, for the first time in his life, the sudden urge to be manhandled. He wants to tussle like a schoolboy. He wants to know how wide his knees would have to spread if he were to straddle Eames' waist, his thighs.

And Eames is just standing there, on the other side of the warehouse, stroking his (surprisingly ginger and very well-maintained) beard absent-mindedly, talking to Cobb. Somehow Eames looks incredibly soft and firm at the same time and it's doing things to Arthur. This is his first crisis of self.

Maybe it's the height of summer and Eames has taken to walking around in a muscle tee (thank u tom hardy) - maybe he unbuttons his shirt a bit and fans himself with Arthurs paperwork and has the audacity to be competent at his job while he's doing it (the worst part of it all!), meanwhile Arthur's entire world has been narrowed down to a few simple words like beard and soft, and i like bicep, and they rotate around in his brain like a rotisserie chicken while he's trying to do his damn job. Second crisis.

Does Eames cotton on that Arthur is having his entire world flipped upside down? Probably not. I think he's great at reading people but when it comes to Arthur Eames cannot look at him objectively, can't read him without his own wants, desires and hopes clouding his judgement. Is Arthur licking his lips more often? Yes, but it is summer and Arthur may be parched. If Arthur is attracted to him he's never said it, and Arthur never has a problem telling Eames what he thinks (right?).

[laufire]

I was thinking about the last gifset and. first of all, please contrast it with marper's first meeting with echo earlier in the season asldkfasjf (they're all going to love each other SO MUCH). second of all, it's reminded me of the discussions about echo maybe being hostile in the ark towards emori, due to anti-freikdreina prejudices. now, I'm not saying echo wouldn't have those and thus wouldn't need to overcome them, but it always struck me as both ignorant of not just echo as a character, but of how bigotry works in general.

echo is not exactly the sharing OR the impulsive type. she's an strategist and someone who clearly analyses her environment and adapts to it (she's a spy), planning for any eventuality. this means she'd look around and see people who a) don't share that prejudice; and b) are more likely to trust and welcome emori (marper if just because they're likely to distrust echo, and ofc raven. bellamy knows echo better which is both positive and negative).

not to mention there's MURPHY. in this very episode he made it clear that he's willing to kill echo to save emori (that he's willing to kill and die for her). this means emori has someone on her corner unconditionally, without reserve, and in a high-stakes show like this, something like that is not to be scoffed at. I mean, I always mention how clarke didn't kill emori in part due to ambition, but I think witnessing and realising and feeling how much murphy meant this made clarke, at the very least, uneasy.

p.s. another detail with echo I liked in this episode but only distantly fits the theme of this post is when she tells clarke "I only wanted to save my people... is that so wrong?" and gives her this... shifty look lol. and clarke looks down, clearly thinking back on how she just tried to take the bunker for skaikru. she had access to the bunker while echo only had access to the arena; both were caught. but clarke has a guaranteed spot and echo, who would've been #1 in azgeda hiearchy at this point, lost hers. ironically, unlike her fans, clarke has always been self-aware of how she is, in no fucking way, a better person than echo lmao.

also, the whole thing reminds me of how emori maneuvers clarke in 4x07. echo is just bolder and clarke more coignasant of what the conversation is actually about. because they're weirdly ~simpatico lmao. in another timeline where clarke was better written (and maybe her fans less annoying), I would've been a clecho gal, methinks xDD

[werewolfnat]

3 7 10 14 22 34 50

3: Pick your 5 favourite creations and explain what you love the most about them!

🖤 ok I know I bring this one of Max and Steve to the table every time I'm asked about my fave gifsets but I still just look at it in awe sometimes I love how it came out so much.

💜 this one of Dustin featuring Eddie, when I first got this song on the Spotify requests I didn't know how I was going to make it fit but I think I pulled it off (even if it hurts lol), I loved the effects of the film strip overlay and also how the colours came out on it.

🖤 this one featuring Nancy because the minute I discovered this song I knew it fit her to a tee.

💜 this yellowjackets gifset the song fits perfectly for them, the blending possibly someone of my finest and I love how the black white and red colours compliment each other.

🖤 and finally this Steve set, because who doesn't love a bewildered babygirl?

7: What is something you want to develop in your future creations?

I'd always say colour because it never feels like I get it as good as others sometimes but also maybe transitions and layouts more too.

10: An old creation that will always have a special place in your heart

see that's a tough decision right there because I've got 11, actually wait I think maybe 12 years of gifmaking under my belt and I can barely remember the gifsets I made in the last week lol, erm let's see (*spends forever scrolling through phone because I'm not on my desktop*) ah here we go, the year was 2014 and this chick just discovered how to use the selective colour layer in Photoshop to make her GIFs bright and bold and she had just got into the walking dead, I've come a long way since this gifset lol

14: A fandom you want to create more content for!

At the minute yellowjackets seeing as I'm rewatching it, I feel like me giffing stranger things though always outweighs everything else I try to get into giffing (hence why the other day I asked for requests outside of it lol)

22: A creation that was difficult to make (but worthwhile!)

I'm gonna cheat a little here and say the entirety of my 4k celebration GIFs, because it took me roughly 6 months to complete it, some of them taking up to a week to individually make because Photoshop hated me making these lol

34: Favourite individual gif from a set you’ve created!

I've got 2 faves that currently come to mind both from yellowjackets;

The first is from one of my five faves above, I love how the water ripple effect came out, and second from my latest yellowjackets set I just really love how I managed to blend her face almost perfectly like that

50. Self-loving time: show us a creation you want your followers to see

if you haven't seen it already check out my latest gifset, a Steve parallel depicting just how smart our fave boy really is 😘

Ask me some creator questions 😉✨

[thebreakfastgenie]

This is a true fandom story and idk if it will make sense if you don't know the source material but it BAFFLES me but I Think also sheds a bit of light on the whole "fandom doesn't know what platonic means" thing.

I was discussing in a discord (a fandom discord, in fact, but for a media property than the one this story is about) a book that had recently been adapted to film. The central character of the book has a close male best friend whom he canonically routinely had sex with while intoxicated which they then do not acknowledge in the sober light of day. When they parted ways, thinking it was to be for the last time, one of them kisses the other goodbye, and the other has mixed feelings about this, wondering if this makes him "a queer" but also, a part of him wanting to say he loves him.

This person on the fandom discord was saying how the book was "a bit gay" but that the movie was "even gayer". What the movie did was strip most of that out. They impulsively kiss goodbye but there's absolutely none of this other context around it - certainly not the sex, but also none of the confusion, the mixed emotions, etc.

Suddenly in that moment I realised that this flattening of the idea of a storyline between two men being "a bit gay" kind of had the same root as attributing "gayness" to two men interacting casually/platonically. It isn't really about what is happening in the storyline for any of these men. It's about how easy it is to take screenshots and make gifsets that fit a preconceived idea. The actual content of the story could be different in either direction and for certain kinds of fan engagement that does not matter.

You explained this very well and I think you really got at something! I was just thinking about the abstract, vibes-based meaning of "gay" in fandom that may or may not have anything to do with two people of the same gender being in a sexual or romantic relationship. In my opinion, the recent popularity of "gay sex" as a phrase was a response to this, but it's undergoing the same abstraction process. The same thing shows up in "this too is yuri."

With m/m shipping in particular, it's often more about fitting stock gay narratives than interpretations that fit the story or anything to do with the specific characters. One of the best parts of Gonchrarov was watching the Goncharov/Andrey ship evolve around a set of very popular beats when the movie didn't even exist. You don't need the source material! Screenshots and gifsets tell the whole story!

I personally find this flattening in all its forms kind of devastating. It's the exact opposite of what I want out of gay content! I want all kinds of different, richly textured stories!

Also I'm obsessed with people declaring the adaptation where two men didn't have sex more gay. That's so incredibly online.

[khaotungthanawat]

it’s your secret santa again 🎁💞 the holidays really are always a season right between nice and really stressful, but i hope the nice part is lying ahead for you and your week has gone well so far <3

loved what you said about nct (127)!they’re one of my favourite groups too and doyoung is one of my biases too, i sooo get what you mean. at first i only listened to their music without watching any videos or content, so his voice stood out to me first and i was like … damn, who is that … and here we are now! he has a fantastic voice and is really hilarious dhhdhehje. and your song choices! ahhh, i loved seeing those! your blog title made me think of time lapse right away and seeing you mention it i was like, well, that’s clear now (what a good song whew). overall, i just love how nct always has some stuff going on and you can just sort of pick what you want to enjoy and see from them 👌

loved your character list, i feel like these are so very you and fit what you’ve told me about the shows and stories you go for (and dw i would find it difficult to seoerate jwds and vegaspete too, they are so intertwined in each other). your taste really shines and i love how your gifsets always are an extension of that. the way you see your favourite media and characters and give them room in your stuff and your creativity is so cool! ☺️

i know our time is coming to a close, but some last questions bc i still love reading what you have to say: are there any dramas you are looking forward to in 2023 or any on your watchlist? any movies you really loved this year? and any show or movie that took you completely by surprise or was just a fun watch for yourself?

sending you good vibes and thoughts! 🌞

hello my mystery friend! i'm a little sad that our time is coming to a close--i've had such a nice time "chatting" with you!

this got kinda long, so i'mma put this behind a cut!

i'm trying not to freak out about the holidays--this was a rough year for us and frankly i don't need to compound my stress, y'know? it'll be okay. my family is relatively healthy and happy, and that's more than i could ask for.

right??? doyoung's voice is so good! doie, release a solo mini album, i beg 🙏 my friend pointed out once that my biases tend to skew toward the singers and when i thought about it, i realized she's right. doyoung from nct (also taeil!), kihyun from monsta x, onew from shinee, baekhyun from exo... there's definitely some merit to that lol

i was reviewing that list and wow i do have a type, don't i? i like my men slutty and/or emotionally stunted. 👌

you're so kind 💕thank you for saying that about my gifsets. i'm enjoying making them and stretching myself creatively. honestly, i haven't felt this creative in years. i didn't realize how much i missed giffing until i started doing it again on a regular basis. i thrive on engagement, and i'm so happy that people seem to enjoy what i do.

hmmm. dramas i'm looking forward to... i don't have a lot of new dramas on my list but there's a lot of already-released stuff waiting for me. 'prison playbook', 'under the skin', and 'big bet' are a few that come to mind. there are A LOT of dramas that i need to get back to (that adhd brain baby!): 'tomorrow', 'extraordinary attorney woo', 'the guest', 'flower of evil' and 'my country: the new age' come to mind. despite having lots of shows to resume, i've delved into a couple of new ones--'bad and crazy', 'somebody' and 'connect'. i'm enjoying them all so far. 'bad and crazy' is so much fun right now (i suspect it will get less fun as the series goes on) and the chemistry between lee dong wook and wi ha joon is great. 'connect' is interesting (and kinda gross, but it is takashi miike so). and 'somebody' gives me the chills. love it.

as far as movies, i really liked 'incantation'. i finally saw 'the handmaiden' this year--amazing. i also watched 'mother' and 'memoir of a murder'. both very very good films. i hope to continue my journey through shin ha kyun's filmography 😍 (god that man makes me insane)

i'm trying to think if anything took me by surprise, and honestly it would be 'beyond evil'. i realize i'm a broken record at this point, but that series really changed my life. i went into it anticipating a murder mystery and what i got was this beautifully told story about love, loss, death, greed, companionship, loneliness, found family, and flawed people. i think about it literally every single day, i've watched the whole series three times so far, and i feel like i'm due for another one soon.

sending you good vibes and positive thoughts!!! i hope you're safe and well, mystery friend! 💕

[psyga315]

Tell me you missed the point of the hallucination scene from Volume 9 without telling me you missed the point of the hallucination scene from Volume 9.

First and foremost, they are just that: hallucinations. If we're being charitable with the interpretations here, this version has them be hallucinations of broken pedestals that are representing their own broken moralities.

Weiss has Winter, who are both tied to the SDC and the family name, and Winter was someone Weiss looked up to until recently when she found she couldn't rely on her.

Blake was Adam's mentor and ex who she once idealized his justice before she saw what a monster he was, tying that to how she views her own version of justice.

Yang's relationship to Raven is natch and obviously was broken by the time they officially met in Volume 5. How it reflects with Yang could be her own devotion to protect her friends and family.

Ruby genuinely wanted Ironwood's plan of activating Amity to go off without a hitch and only opposed the whole "going into space with the relics" plan because it meant leaving a city to rot, which obviously was her broken pedestal moment, with the morality being questioned being her duties as a Huntress.

In the original scene, each of them were quizzed on what they wanted out of their life the same sort of question they got from Volume 2, though now with them having their answer (it's not a straight 1:1 question, but it's close enough to the question that enough fans made gifsets comparing them).

It's to symbolize how much they've grown compared to when they got their question before. Weiss has grown past the need to "redeem" the family name. Blake has grown to settle down into a life she can call her own without needing to fight for it, and Yang has accepted that just because she's missing something in her life doesn't mean she's empty. (Ruby is the exception because she's grown to realize she doesn't know what she is without her role as a Huntress).

So, you would assume that the above scene would be similar. That WBY would refute what WAR call them out on and it's Ruby who struggles to figure out a good counter for Ironwood.

But instead, we have what is basically a "no u" response from RWBY that barely refutes any of what the group had brought up at best and a thinly veiled rant at the characters masking as lines of dialogue at worst.

And keep in mind, these are supposedly hallucinations... So this scene becomes even more fucked. Why? Well, let's break it down.

Winter's statement is that Weiss has nothing now and that had they just stayed within the SDC and not broken out, they could have changed it for the better instead of now being purposeless people.

Normally, "I will not be defined by my name because I will be the one to define it." would still fit here, since the theme is trying to impress people.

Weiss' response is to instead yell at her for not doing anything to save Whitley and Willow from Jacques and being Ironwood's second in command.

Hey, uh, you remember that exchange in Volume 7 where Willow and Weiss meet up? This bit?

Willow: No matter what happens, Weiss... please don't forget about your brother.

Weiss looks at her mother.

Weiss: Whitley wants nothing to do with me.

Willow stops at the door and turns to look at Weiss.

Willow: Of course not, you left him alone.

She looks at the portrait of Jacques behind the desk, and Weiss looks at it too.

Willow: (sadly) With us.

So, what you just implied is that Weiss is projecting the fact that she outright abandoned her brother to be abused at the hands of Jacques... Onto Winter.

And just to remind you all, the last time Weiss saw Winter, she was trying to save her life, even if it meant that Cinder could get the Staff of Creation. She risked everything just to save her sister, and yet when seeing a hallucination of her...

She basically tells her "why didn't you go save our mom and brother?"

And, this is going to be a recurring theme, but notice how Weiss never refuted anything Winter said.

Adam's discussion with Blake is that she foisted responsibility onto a child (something that Volume 9 clearly shows wears on Ruby's emotions) and then brings up how bringing the civilians to Vacuo is a bad idea.

Blake has like one line that refutes this and then proceeds to yell at him about how he's not a real hero of Faunus like that has anything to do with whatever he said. It's funny that both he and Ironwood are the only responses that are multi-paragraph while Raven and Winter's are just one paragraph...

Almost like it's biased or something...

Which is funnier because in the original scene, WBY only had about a few sentences to respond to their hallucinations, not entire paragraphs of a thinly veiled filibuster.

But back to the one line that refutes this: "We sent the people of Atlas and Mantle to the only kingdom with enough Huntsmen to protect them."

I'm going to cut krypti some slack because they at least tried to give a response to what Adam said before Blake flew off into her multi-paragraph rant on why he's the worst person ever.

The debate on whether Vacuo is the right choice is hotly discussed and while it's a good shortcut for RWBY to get to the next spot Salem's hitting next, dragging Atlas and Mantle's people to it has its own problems because of Vacuo's philosophy of people needing to look out for their own.

And that's mainly because of how the OG Mantle fucked it over years ago. No one really brings up this problem when discussing Vacuo so I just guess the World of Remnant really is non canon.

But back to Vacuo, it will now need to divert its resources between quelling the truth bomb Ruby laid on an unsuspecting populace (something Ironwood had accounted for with his original plan), stopping Salem's inevitable forces, and now this recent refugee crisis, plus whatever sort of Maiden + Relic shenanigans will ensue (because you know that's bound to happen), so there's definitely a lot of risks that outweigh Blake's "it's the only kingdom with enough Huntsmen to protect them" reason, because they're not gonna be the only thing they're gonna be protecting, honey.

Raven's hallucination tells Yang that Salem can't be reasoned with and that she should just give up and run before more of her friends and family are slaughtered by Salem. This is an interesting point where what Krypti wrote does tie back to how it's a symbol of Yang growing past her character...

Except it feels more like a regression.

Let's pull up Yang's retort to her canonical hallucination for comparison's sake:

My losses, my failures. Those more than anything are what have shaped me into who I am, showed me how I need to grow. If there’s something I’m missing, it’s not because I lost it. It’s because I haven’t found it yet. And the only way to do that is to keep going.

Note how calm and rational Yang is being here. Even when Yang was confronting her actual mom in Volume 5's infamous finale, the only time she was outright angry and confrontational with her was when Raven was boasting about strength, because at that point, she had lost her patience with how she can just calmly talk about murdering an innocent kid and passed it off as mercy and she was (once again) dodging her questions by cryptically saying how strong she was.

However, she doesn't let that anger get the better of her and instead rationally convinces Raven to hand her the Relic. And this works. That's why Yang is in the Ever After in the first place! It was all because Yang managed to convince Raven that she could handle it.

So, let's now read what Krypti had written for Yang once again:

You know Raven, Ozpin should have given you the power to turn into a chicken rather than a raven. That’s all you’ve ever been!

A roast that barely refutes the point Raven made.

The moment anything gets too tough for you you just leave! Oh no I can’t be bothered with a child! Oh no this fight isn’t going my way!

Which is now becoming more petulant.

My mother was Summer Rose, not you!

A quick refresher that this isn't actually Raven, but rather a mental hallucination of Raven and that this is supposedly the moment of WBY's character arcs where they renew their vows of being Huntresses.

And it's instead being used for Yang to instead yell about her mommy issues into the void.

I’d rather die on my feet knowing I gave it my all than die in fear.

It's amazing that this is the only line of dialogue that has any right to exist, so I'll do you a solid and actually rewrite this:

Yang: I’d rather die on my feet knowing I gave it my all than die in fear. You say I wouldn't want to do this, but that's not true at all. I will do this, if not for the sake of my friends, then for the sake of both my moms... for I am a Huntress!

There. See how much better flowing it is?

And then... There's Ruby.

So, here's the interesting thing about Ruby.

Her entire character arc for Ever After is that she's the most broken of Team RWBY but the problem is that she can't ever outright say she's broken because everyone else sees her as the "smaller, more honest soul" that they fling their hopes onto. All so that she can fight a never-ending war against a monster that, as far as she knows, killed her mother who was in that very same war and failed.

When she faced her hallucination of her past who outright brings this fact up to her, she couldn't muster a response and Curious had to step in and stop it before things could have gotten worse.

Ironwood's is the simplest: two sentences that ask Ruby if she thinks she's a better hero than he is. The appropriate response here would be still hesitance or despair since by this point, Ruby was beginning to have doubts of whether their actions were worth it in the end, not helped by the fact that they risked everything for Penny and she still died.

But, of course, Krypti decided this is the perfect time for Ruby to have the longest rant out of the four members. To break down exactly what she says to him, she:

Accuses Ironwood for arresting them for the crime of protecting people.

Accuses Ironwood of looking for an excuse to cut Mantle loose long before the evacuation attempts.

Takes credit for Ironwood's "warn the world" plan.

Rambles out a laundry list of crimes Ironwood did throughout Volume 8.

I'm interrupting this list because most of the stuff she says is stuff I don't even think Ruby is even aware of:

Did Oscar tell Ruby about him getting shot?

Does she know about Sleet getting shot?

Does she know that Ironwood was working with Watts specifically?

This is a minor detail, but put a pin in it because I don't think Ruby'd just suddenly call people she had worked and trained with "goons".

And to top off her spiel to Ironwood:

Says how Ironwood stopped them whenever they tried to save people (name one time in Volume 8 that wasn't Whitley using the SDC ships)

Says how Ironwood's pride and arrogance was his biggest crime... While proceeding to have pride and arrogance by saying she's a better hero than him.

Pins the blame of the fall of Atlas entirely on him.

You know what?

I applaud you.

You've written a perfectly in character response here that is appropriate for the story context.

Because it would be in character for Ruby who, just a few episodes after this encounter, would end up flying into an outrage at her own friends after she gets a PTSD attack.

It is petulant, accusatory, paranoiac, egotistical, basically all the hallmarks of someone who clearly isn't right in the head and had just realized their plan to risk it all to fight for every life might have gone to shit and they have no way of knowing or even caring if it's even worth fighting for anymore.

Oh, wait? You mean to say that's just her being defiant in the face of Ironwood? The hallucination that was made based off her own psyche and hangups?

So... you basically had Ruby scream "NO, IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!" into the metaphorical void because things didn't go her way and expected that to be the good route?

This post is dragging long enough so I gotta wrap this up.

The concept of having RWBY's four toxic influences be the hallucinations rather than the past versions of themselves is a neat concept, especially if done in a way where it references how they've grown past who they are like in the original.

However, the retorts by Krypti barely work because of one primary reason that I'm sure you've noticed.

The main point that is brought up by the hallucinations is barely mentioned and is instead just lip service before they get roasted by what is clearly a mouthpiece, as evidenced by the random use of the word "goons" by Ruby, out of character knowledge being used, random tangents the characters go on, and the obvious bias against Ironwood and Adam having more words in their rants about them than Winter and Raven.

If anything, this serves as a great microcosm of RWBY discourse where one person brings up a problem that the characters will have to face and rather than talking about the problem, the fans will respond by saying how everything is someone else's fault or just resort to ad hominem attacks.

You’re No Better.

Okay but what if they confronted the people they’ve hurt/impacted the most? If you got better dialogue or alternatives for this scene let me know! This is just my version, wish I had Adam say more about how Blake just screwed around partying with FNKI than help the Faunus in ATLAS of all places!

Also… yeah I wish maybe RWBY faced WTCH but that would require a full rewrite to make sense. Heaven forbid the main villains interact with the main heroes.

[austennerdita2533]

I know you don't really ship Logan/Rory though it makes me really happy that you don't hate them either! I just feel like so many Taylor songs apply really well to them: Champagne Problems, Mine ("a careless man's careful daughter" is so Rory!), Starlight, Gold Rush, I Bet You Think About Me (like in the context of Logan being with the well-bred heiress Odette and the Huntzberger parents looking down on Rory as lower class even though she's in the DAR and her grandparents are multi-millionaires and she's a freaking debutante and don't get me started on the way this show sloppily mishandles issues of money and class lol!) I Know Places, Red and probably others! I'm not even a huge Rogan stan, they're more of a low-key OTP for me, but I always felt like Taylor has a surprising amount of songs that could easily fit them. Then again, the beauty of Taylor's songs is that so many of them are so relatable that they could fit many, many different ships :)

Yeah, I wouldn't call myself a Rory/Logan shipper, but I do lowkey like them! They're interesting to watch.

More than that, I can appreciate the depth and complexity of their relationship, the formative impact they have on each other's lives. There's genuine love and affection there. They go through a lot together. I mean, they navigate their first real adult relationship through all its ups, downs, and family interferences; they confront questions about who they are, what they want to be; and they both have to decide on the direction or the shape they want their lives to take in the future.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't root for them at times.

Rory and Logan's relationship is significant, but also tragic, to me in a way, too. What I mean by tragic is that they seem to represent that "love isn't always enough to make it work, to make it last" trope and that's almost as gutting to watch as it is to experience. I relate to that so much because I've been there myself. I know how that feels. It sucks to say goodbye to someone you're in love with, to someone you'd hoped to have a future with, all the while knowing that the directions you're headed in are too different now, you're no longer who you once were, and what you want or need are things that person can't provide for you anymore. So you have to let them go.

Like--OUCH! That's some seriously scarring emotional hurt! It breaks my heart when I think about it too deeply. 😢

You're right about there being a lot of TSwift-applicable songs for Rory and Logan, though! "champagne problems" and "gold rush" are the two I attach to them the most, thanks to all the gifsets, but the others you mentioned work as well!

I'd argue "White Horse" could fit, too. Mostly when Rory's up in her feelings about Logan sleeping with all of the bridesmaids. Oh, and "illicit affairs." Perfect for everything that goes down between them in the revival. "happiness" is full of angst/nostalgia that'd pair well with what I described above, particularly the "there'll be happiness after you/ but there was happiness because of you too/ both of these things can be true."

"Midnight Rain" could be a good Rory/Logan song, too. "He wanted it comfortable/ I wanted that pain/ He wanted a bride/ I was making my own name."

[the-real-zhora-salome]

I hate to see the TROP hate too. I admit I was highly skeptical myself at first, esp after the first promo pictures and I was undecided if I even wanted to watch it but after seeing yet another gifset of Elrond and Durin making heart eyes at each other I caved lol. And I'm so glad I did! Yeah there are things I'm not crazy about but there are far more that are actually perfect. Like Khazad Dum or Númenor which just took my breath away. Or everything to do with Durin, Disa and Elrond. It's probably controversial but I even love the Halbrand-Sauron twist. At first I thought he was another generic looking dude being made into Aragorn 2.0 and then the last ep hit me like a train and I loved it. And he was downright creepy in it so I'd say he definitely fits.

So okay what I actually wanted to ask is do you think the negative reactions could derail the show in any way? I actively try to avoid seeing the hate so I don't know if it's just the butthurt population of twitter/tumblr or the general public too. I've read there are 5 seasons planned and I'm afraid that with all the negativity they could shorten it or god forbid stop after season 2? Please tell me I'm being paranoid.

As always with streaming, it's not easy to get really accurate numbers. The streamers themselves only release numbers like "X amount of people watched the first season" without much more detail.

I have seen numbers from that Nielsen site, though. According to them TROP even beat HOTG in total viewing numbers. Where TROP lacked a bit was attracting a younger viewership. They seemed to lean toward HOTG more. (I don't have any links handy, sorry).

What I mean to say is that TROP didn't do nearly as badly as the haters would want you to believe. It may not have been the overwhelming smash hit that Amazon had hoped for, but it certainly didn't "flop".

So I think as always, there is a very vocal minority on social media that scream and rant, but the general public just quietly watch and enjoy without making much of a fuss about it.

Still, there's not guarantee that we will really get all five planned seasons. It certainly depends on how the next seasons will be received. It probably depends on how the second season will be received, for starters.

It's hard to look into the future. I very much hope that we will get all five sesaons, but we will just have to wait and see.

But, you know, as annoying as it may be because they are clogging up the tags with their negative shit, I hope that the haters will continue to hate-watch. They are only bigging up the shows' numbers this way. Heh.

As for what you said about the show itself:

I liked the first ep, but it was rather laden with exposition. The second ep however had the first scene with Elrond and Durin, and I fell in love with that dwarf (and that friendship) faster than I could say "Elendil!" I had to rewind and watch that scene in the elevator several times because I couldn't believe how they had managed to make me bawl my eyes out in the second effing episode already.

This was the moment that I said "okay, I'm fully on board with this"

I agree that Khazad-Dûm and Númenor are two of the highlights of the show. That's where you see every last penny of the budget on your screen. But I've honestly come to love all the plot lines and characters.

The Sauron-reveal was a wee bit spoiled for me because I had seen so much speculation about it. So when it happened, it wasn't much of a surprise to me anymore. I thought they handled it really well, though. Vickers was very creepy, indeed.

[vicsdeangelis]

i am Upset

i said in a recent post that "no one gives a shit about my gifs" and i'm gonna explain what i meant

here's the thing, giffing is the only thing i know how to do. i might not be the best at it, but most of my gifs are pretty damn good. so when i see that on average my gifs struggle to get 50 notes when other gifsets that don't have any effort at all put into them get 100+ notes, it makes me feel like shit

here are two screenshots, one i took straight from the måneskin on the road vlog, and one of a frame of one of the gifs i'm talking about

can you tell which is which? genuinely, can you? because i wouldn't be able to tell if i didn't have the name of the file to tell me

the second one is the gif, if you're curious

now, here's a screenshot from if i can dream and one from a gif i made

this one, can you tell which is which?

like, fuck. i spend time choosing frames, cropping the gif so it looks better, sharpening and brightening and coloring it, adjusting its size to fit tumblrs format so the gif will hopefully not look blurry. i check if the coloring looks good both on the desktop and on the app, because for some reason the colors look different in each of them, and if they don't, it's back to photoshop for me

this ethan set i chose is one of the outliers in terms of notes. it's at 100 and something last time i checked. but most of my gifsets don't even make it to 50. they stop at 60 if i'm lucky. and fucking christ, i have almost 1k followers. 50 fucking notes? y'all can't even give it a like? am i actually doing that bad of a job and deluding myself into thinking i'm good at it?

this shit genuinely makes me want to stop giffing because i put the same amount of effort into every gifset i make, but it doesn't fucking matter, does it?

this is what i mean when i say no one gives a shit about my gifs. because they don't, and it's fucking disheartening

[inessencedevided]

(You can find the set that this gif belongs to here 💙)

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours

I was tagged by @aheartfullofjolllly. thank you so much Pat! it was really fun to reflect about my own process 💗 You can find her post here and @lan-xichens' post that started it all here :)

Also thank you @huigusu 🥰 (who tagged me for my nie brothers set) I'll get to that one in a few days!

Now Pat gave me two sets to chose from to show my process, so obviously I chose the more complicated one :P

I only work in Photoshop CC 2018. I know that there are programs out there for easier cutting and sharpening but I have only just figured out how to do that in PS and I am too lazy to figure out any other programs right now xD

1. Idea and Planning

This set, like most of my sets with lyrics started with me reading the poem, clutching my heart and going "oh shit this fits my favourite characters!!". The idea actually started with me thinking that the first stanza of the poem would go really well with wwx during the burial mounds arc. Then I realized that the last stanza fits lwj better than him and from there came the idea to contrast the both of them next to each other. This is when I realized I wanted to do a dark-light contrast set, though I did not know that I would go with red and blue at that time. My idea in the beginning was just to do a black and white set

I was really impressed by how Pat said that she plans her sets around exact timestamps. Because I don't do that at all ^^ I just get ideas for which scenes would fit (in this case the wwx burial mounds scenes and lwj's kneeling and punishments scene) and then I watch the scenes to narrow them down.

Back when I made this set, I still used a screenrecorder (AceThinker Screen Grabber Pro to be precise. They have a test version that allows you to record up to 3 minutes) and recorded the scenes I needed from Netflix. This worked well enough but now I have the entire show saved on an external drive and it makes a world of difference when it comes to gif sharpness

Now, in this case I had to repeat this step once because when I was almost finished, I realized that I wanted a gif for the lwj corner but let's pretend I didn't do that and that's the way this gif was always going to look because otherwise this post will be way too long ^^

2. Creation

Short disclaimer: The creation process for this gifset was anything but linear. Multiple effects I used here were things I had never tried before. I just had a vague idea and tried to realize it through trial and error. So whenever I say "then I did xyz", it is implied that I ultimately went back to that step several times and changed stuff ^^

I started with the Wei Wuxian part of the gif. I usually use a frame rate of 0,06 (with some variation depending on gif length and size). I work in timeline so I converted all the layers to a smart layer. Then I resized the gif into a square, leaving big chunks of the gif empty (as can be seen below.) I flipped the gif horizontally, so he is looking inwards. This was simple because I felt it fitted the composition better. Then I imported the Lan Wangji part of the gif, again with a frame rate of 0,06. (Image 2)

After that I created a layer for masking in a separate PS document by rotating a square until it was point down (is that a rhombus?). I sized it to match my gif (540x540 pxl) and copied it over. (Image 3) a bit of masking magic and ta da! There's the basic layout (Image 4)

I put a layer of solid black behind wwx to get rid of the transparent bits (Image 5) and then started adding more white and black to both sides by adding solid whit and black layers that i put masks on and changed the opacity as i needed (Image 6)

("reading" direction: from the upper left to the lower right corner)

Then I fiddled with the colours a bit. The first thing I always do is using the curves layer to get more contrast. Then I use the colour balance tool and the selective colouring tool to get rid of that cql-typical cyan tint after that it's just trying to have it look "natural" while the colours still fit the overall scheme. This was difficult here because wei Wuxian’s side of the gif was very dark and when i turned up the saturation to see which colour dominated it was a very weird mixture of multiple colours. That's when i decided that I'd just go with red on his side, since lwj's side was already so blue and those to look great as contrasts.

After that just came a lot of fiddling with selective colour layers and brightness and contrast unti I has happy. There really wasn't much to it ^^. (Image 1)

After that I added the text. I knew I wanted the two lines to for a square of some kind. So I tried different fonds until I arrived at the one below. The two lines are in seperate layers so I could move them around and change the spacing between the letters until I was happy with the layout. I also changed the layer mode for the text to "difference" (is that what it's called in english? my PS is set to german sorry ^^), keeping their colour white. (Image 2)

I originally hadn't planned adding anything else but I felt like the gifs (plural because I switched between the gifs of this set) was still kind of empty and lacking, so I added the tear down the middle (a tutorial for that is either coming up later or already posted. I recently got an ask for this :)) (Image 3)

It still felt empty after that, so I tried different overlays. Okay no, first I wasted a lot of time on different free image sides but then I tried out different ones until I chose the one you can see in the finished gif. I liked that one because a) I felt the round shape was a nice contrast to all the straight lines already there and b) because once I applied a black and white filter to it and switched the layer setting to "difference" (again, i hope this is the correct translation) it looked a bit like a moon. (Gif at the top)

("reading" direction: from left to right)

And that's it! :)

Although in general, these gifs took so much fiddling! I went back and forth between them a lot and sometimes almost redid the entire thing because I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning and by the time I noticed an error, the only way to fix it was ti redo everything. So yeah, this set definitely is the the one that took me the longest out of all the ones I've posted so far.

3. Posting

I save all my gifs to my drafts first to see what they look like put together and to check if they look any different on mobile. Usually i do this several times and change stuff until I'm happd enough with it to hit post. Once i am happy enough, i can't hold back. Doesn't matter if it's at a time when nobody is online, i hit post 😅

And that's it!

Tagging:

@lanwuxiann for this gifset (I adore it so much. I've looked at it and read it severat times since you posted it and the poem just kills me every time!)

@suibianjie for this gifset (The combination of static images and gifs in your gifs is always absolutely perfect! This one is only my favourite of yours because the light coming from behind wwx is just so pretty!!! ^^)

@sweetlittlevampire for this piece (It was soooo hard to pick a piece of yours because I have so many favourites! But this one is just so out if this world, I want to know how you worked that magic :D)

@wei-gege for this set (sparkling shijie! 😭 that set is so incredibly beautiful! I love how you matched the colour of the overlay with her dress!)

@purplexedhuman for this set (your gifs are always incredible! I chise this one because it showcases both your colouring skills and some really intricate effects)

If any of you have already been tagged or don't have the time or energy for this, obviously no pressure to do this at all! 🥰

(btw, I originally tried to place the actual text of this under a "read more" cut but somehow it always messed with the order of the images, so this ended up as a rather long post. sorry!)

[gossipgirls]

oh i totally agree with you on chair and treacherous, it fits them insanely well. i feel like begin again really only works when the couple join the show later (like brulian in oth) so it would be really hard for any gg ship to fit. would you do the same thing with ships/characters for folklore (or any other album lol)?

it's in my s1 chair playlist! the entire second verse is so crazy for them. and begin again is so cute for brulian 🥺

sure, i'll do folklore!

the 1: serenate (i made a gifset of this), but MAJOR rufly vibes too. a bigger dair fan than i would understandably love this song for them, and i do think this feels like how dan would always think about her. "i guess you never know, never know, and if you wanted me, you really should've showed."

cardigan: chair (again, made a gifset), especially imo in light of her s5 arc. but this song mainly screams van der baizen to me, because she knew him, leaving like a father, running like water... ugh. "you put me on and said i was your favourite."

the last great american dynasty: i edited this in response to one of the most galaxy brain requests that anybody on this website has ever gotten––the rhodes women! "free of women with madness, their men and bad habits, and then it was bought by me."

exile: serenate 3x22-s4. it really suits serenate's "right person, wrong time" angst and that dull, anticlimactic, disappointing way in which they ended (which was... pretty on-the-nose for serenate, as far as s3 goes). i also think of danessa with this one, but it would be more them if dan had actually like... seemed to care at all when they broke up. also, rufly? "it took you five whole minutes to pack us up and leave me with it, holding all this love out here in the hall."

my tears ricochet: chair in 3x17... "cursing my name, wishing i stayed, you turned into your worst fears."

mirrorball: this song is so serena it hurts. i also made an edit for this. this makes me soooo l3k2;423ljr2orj2lrl. "i'm still on that trapeze, i'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me."

seven: i think the nostalgia of this is so blair; that feeling that you peaked long ago, that you've been as good as you're ever gonna get. which is so tied up with her relationship with serena in ways i'm too tired to express, but... it's a blairena love song on some level. "i used to scream ferociously any time i wanted."

august: serenate and nobody but serenate ever. there has never been a more accurate, more perfect song for serenate. every word is them. for so long, nate was really just... SO CONTENT TO LIVE FOR THE HOPE OF IT ALL. a year and a half later and it still makes me go UGGGHHHHHHHHHH. i made a gifset for this too. "wanting was enough, for me, it was enough to live for the hope of it all."

this is me trying: this song could be from the perspective of literally any character, honestly. blair (i was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere), chuck (could've followed my fears all the way down), nate (maybe i don't quite know what to say), dan (my words shoot to kill when i'm mad, i have a lot of regrets about that), jenny (i got wasted like all my potential)... but mostly, i always think of serena. and i always think of this as her song to blair. "i didn't know if you'd care if i came back, i have a lot of regrets about that."

illicit affairs: i mean, serena and tripp is the obvious answer, since they're the show's only big, full-fledged affair plot, and the condescension mentioned in the bridge definitely fits. but i don't really wanna give tripp this song that i love so much, so i’m gonna give it to s1-2 rufly! "it's born from just one single glance but it dies and it dies and it dies a million little times."

invisible string: okay, so similar to what the ask here says about begin again, this song only really works with couples that meet later in life, so serenate, despite being the main ship that imo has the truly sweet, easy vibes that this song demands, is out. dair can suit this one nicely. and rufly, maybe. "were there clues i didn't see?"

betty: nate and blair is pretty obvious here (especially with august being serenate), but there was some discussion last summer about this as a 2x01 chair song. my favourite interpretation would be blairena. :') regardless, baby blair is clearly a certified BETTY. "i'm only seventeen, i don't know anything, but i know i miss you."

peace: there's something to be said here for chair's whole "we could never be boring thing" for sure, but that's not really the core of the song. i really see this as a potential serenate song, not really because we actually saw them deal with topics like this (though we did see the roots of this in 3x14), but because i feel like if they'd gotten back together and been endgame, this would have been the most compelling and mature direction in which to take them. nate being so easy and sweet and loyal and serena feeling so... Not That and coming to terms with her self-destructive instincts and the fact that she is way more a hurricane human than she likes to think lol. BLAH, IT JUST WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE IS ALL. "your integrity makes me seem small, you paint dreamscapes on the wall, i talk shit with my friends, it's like i'm wasting your honour."

hoax: chair, big time. "don't want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do."

the lakes: this is kind of serena's lifelong dream, finding the right person to run away from it all with. so, van der baizen. "i don't belong and, my beloved, neither do you."

[theintentioncraft]

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES - When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag up to 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours.

I've been tagged by @lordbelacqua (thank you Dea! <3) to talk about Backlead aka: that one Masriel fic I wrote where I got massively carried away...

Rambling/essay under the cut - fair warning, it's a long one!

Okay so first of all just a little disclaimer that Backlead did not follow my usual writing process - the idea was 110% borne out of self-indulgence and it was also both my first foray into HDM fanfic and my return to fanfic as a whole after a long hiatus from writing, so for me this was really a chance to just get back into the swing of things. Everything from Heavenly Guard through to Swansong and all of my current WIPs follow a more structured process and I'm happy to discuss any of them in a separate post!

PLANNING: I tend to find with my fics that I either have a nice little timeline of events planned out pre-writing or I have a very specific event in my head and I just take that and see how things unravel from there and Backlead was 100% the latter.

All I had in my head initially was the ballroom dance scene and so a lot of my admittedly-minimal planning was around the technicalities of that particular section, as well as some of the more general details e.g Marisa's outfit, the setting of the ball, etc. Planning the dance was the most fun part because it was a chance for me to put a lot of my dance knowledge to good use and think up something that fits the back-and-forth way in which Marisa and Asriel frequently navigate their encounters. In a way though I'm actually very glad that a lot of this fic Just Happened instead of being planned out, sometimes it's nice to just run away with an idea!

MUSIC: This gets its own section because this is one of the most important things in my process. Every single fic I write is written to various pieces of music that just help me to put myself in the right headspace for whatever I'm writing at the time - sometimes its just a single piece of music (I wrote Swansong in one hour with just one track from the Unforgotten - a TV show in the UK for those of you not familiar with it - soundtrack on repeat) and sometimes its entire playlists. I do love geeking out about my music choices for fic writing so happy to talk more in a separate post about music for some of my other fics if anyone's curious!

For Backlead I found a couple of playlist-vids from the lovely raviolae on youtube that really worked wonders for my writing. This comes with a disclaimer that I did not necessarily attribute any of these specific songs to either dance scene and I wanted to leave that open for people's imagination - but it's still brilliant vibes for thinking about two once-lovers-now-enemies trying to one-up each other whilst ignoring how much they still find each other attractive.

The two playlist-vids in question are here: you're stuck on the dance floor with your rival and find out they're an annoyingly good dancer and you're dancing with your rival and both of you want to lead

WRITING: First step every time is to figure out who's POV I'm going to cover because that makes a major difference in the way I'm going to write. Characterisation is the big thing for me and there's nothing I love more than to really get inside a character's head and basically think like them, and figure out what makes them tick and how they'll react to the story I'm putting them in. With my initial idea for Backlead being basically about the subtle power dynamics of a ballroom dance, Marisa felt like the natural go-to for this one and I found it much easier in this instance to write in her headspace than in Asriel's.

I wrote this fic in a very out-of-order fashion. The first dance (the slower, waltz-style dance) was the first part I finished, then I did as hinted at above get very carried away and move onto the section in the hallway, then I went right to the start and covered the entire section leading up to that first dance. Then I revisited the hallway scene because I wanted to rework it (the initial version was planned to be more explicit and involved less dialogue - but I wasn't comfortable with writing out the former at that time and the latter got changed by way of me having a sudden burst of dialogue-themed inspiration). The second, more set piece style dance came last in terms of the 'major events' that I wrote purely because I spent a lot of time racking with my dance knowledge to try and make it work in a way that didn't feel forced.

My final major writing stage is to write the 'transitions' between each major part - small pieces where nothing particularly noteworthy happens but it helps the fic to flow from one conversation/event to the next and also sometimes allows me to sneak in a bit of characterisation that I couldn't fit in elsewhere.

Along the way I often leave sentences half-finished with a bracket indicator so I know to go back to it later or I make little notes if I've added something in that needs explaining earlier in the fic, and I make sure to sort those parts out before I jump to the self review/beta reader stage. A couple of examples are below:

Although sometimes this method does also annoy future me too 😂:

SELF REVIEW/BETA REVIEW: Whenever I finish a fic, it gets put away for a day or two and I stop thinking about it completely - if I'm using a beta reader (usually @thatlavanderbard but I sometimes enlist help from friends on discord), I'll send them a copy of my draft at this point so they can start going through and leaving comments for me to work on, but the idea is that when I go back to my work a few days later I'm looking at it with semi-fresh eyes and can properly sift through each sentence to make sure things make sense.

When I'm self-reviewing I generally tend to follow this order of operations: spelling/grammar check (via docs') -> flow check (making sure any deliberate time skips/POV changes/etc in my fic flow smoothly from one part to the next) -> address beta reader comments (because they almost always pick up on things I myself would've picked up on anyway) -> general detailed final read through to make sure I'm happy with every single line and it all makes sense.

Backlead didn't get a full beta read because I had hit a point with it where I just wanted it up ASAP and my impatience got the better of me, but the rest of the above self-review stages still happened and I still spent a fair few evenings going through it properly and also running the occasional sentence or two by some helpful discord friends if I didn't like the way it flowed but couldn't quite figure out how to remedy it!

POSTING: First step was to reset my AO3 password because I forgot it yet again whoops

On a more serious note this part is pretty straightforward - once I'm ready to post a new fic I generally just go on autopilot for this part of the process (other than when I get to 'additional tags' and immediately get brain freeze...). As soon as it's up on AO3 I swing by here to make a post about it, then swing by discord to drop the link to friends who may be interested in reading it and then I normally nervously scuttle away from my notifications for a while out of fear that people hate it lmao.

That last part was especially true for Backlead because of it being my first trip into HDM fanfic and I always get extra nervous when posting my first fanfic for a new show/game/etc. Thankfully I got quite a few nice comments both on here and on discord that provided good motivation to stick around and post a few more things!

I always panic when asked to tag people lmao but I'll tag @fortheloveofwii for any part of the Onward, Onward series, @lyracordelia for any chapter in Hiraeth or the fic as a whole, and @glassrunner for this absolutely gorgeous gifset of beautiful game soundtracks. Please don't feel like you have to do this if you don't want to though!