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johannesviii · 5 years ago

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Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2017

Not a very good year for hit songs. Still better than the next one, though.

And a very satisfying #1 that launched an entire infodump about a specific band. I’m not even sorry.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

2017 might not sound super distant, but it’s already distant enough to analyse what started to happen to me that year with some clarity. This is when I started to lose some of my energy and motivation. A lot, in fact. Everything suddenly felt exhausting and this whole “what’s even the point of anything” mentality started to fall on my shoulders. And you know what, at first, while making these recaps, I had no idea what started it all. Was it that super rare infection I caught in early 2018 and almost made me lose a part of a finger? Was it both my grandfathers dying in mid 2018? Was it the general state of the world? But no, I did some digging and noticed this general exhaustion actually started right during summer 2017 and I was like what the f█ck happened in summer 2017? That summer was fine?

And then it clicked. I know exactly what kickstarted my spiral into about 18 months of depression, and it’s got nothing to do with health or family. It’s something that shouldn’t have affected my life in any way, and that I kinda tried to ignore at the time, and some of you might even find me overdramatic or cringy for letting it affect my life. But yeah, as I’ve realised while making these lists, Linkin Park was actually a super important part of my life, so it makes perfect sense: what started it all was Chester Bennington killing himself. Clearly, someone who had contributed so much to convince me that life was worth living and who suddenly decided it wasn’t worth it, that had a huge impact on me, whether I wanted it or not.

Aaaand now I’m crying again. Great.

Anyway. Uh. Important albums that year! Yeah so uh. Depeche Mode made Spirit and it wasn’t good, and so I kinda lost faith they would ever make a great album again, but I did realise one of my teenage dreams and saw them in concert in the Stade de France in July 2017 (it was huge. Going home after that felt like waking up from some sort of hypnotic trance. They even played Walking In My Shoes, one of my absolute favorite songs from them, along with a video featuring a trans person going to work and I started to bawl my eyes out in the middle of the f█cking crowd). Nine Inch Nails also made Add Violence and continued to be super good, and Indochine made 13, and while it wasn’t nearly as good as Black City Parade, it was also better than La République des Météors, so I was pretty happy about that. EDIT: Forgot about Under Your Spell by The Birthday Massacre, which blew my goddamn mind, but still not as much as the next album I'm gonna talk about.

But the defining album of the year, to me, was Mike Oldfield making a sequel to my favorite album from him, with Return to Ommadawn. Of course it’s not as good as Ommadawn. But still. If Ommadawn felt like discovering a new strange country full of weird folklore and forests and mysterious buildings, Return to Ommadawn feels like going back there half a century later and seeing things in ruins and wounded people, but still trying to seek beauty and joy in a partly destroyed landscape. It makes perfect sense considering the circumstances that surround the making of this thing, and it was the only way to make a good sequel to such a legendary album.

Unelligible songs that piss me off... uh, actually there’s only Cut to the Feeling by Carly Rae Jepsen. Why wasn’t it a huge hit. Come to think of it, why hasn’t any Carly Rae song been a huge hit since Good Times. This feels unfair.

Time for some honorable mentions, then.

Feels and also Slide (Calvin Harris and a lot of other people) - Got nothing to say about either of these songs, but they’re both pretty good.

Katchi (Ofenbach) - Nice little earworm.

No Roots (Alice Merton) - Super surprised this was a hit. Good.

OK (Robin Schulz ft James Blunt) - That’s a James Blunt song in the year of our lord 2017 and it sounds actually good??

What About Us (Pink) - Really caught my attention and made me wonder if I should listen to Pink again after a long streak of mediocre Pink songs.

Congratulations (Post Malone) - I find the song mostly boring but the guest verse ending with “uh, Malone... I gotta play on my phone...” is the stuff of legends and that got a chuckle out of me every time I heard it.

Glorious (Macklemore) - I’m glad this was a hit here but at the same time it’s not my favorite song from him. The music video is adorable, though.

Fly (Odyssey) - Nothing to say about that one.

XO Tour Life (Lil Uzi Vert) - The fact that I was regularly humming this is either a sign of quality or yet another sign I was depressed as shit.

Devil in Me (Purple Disco Machine) - What a great artist name.

Symphony (Clean Bandit) - Nothing to say here either, just good sound all around.

Attention (Charlie Puth) - 2017: The Year Charlie Puth Made A Great Song.

All Stars (Martin Solveig & Alma) - The last cut. It was on the list at some point. I really like it a lot, though.

And now, the list. The stuff I genuinely love starts at #6 and things that are still on my mp3 player to this day start at #4.

10 - Chained to the Rhythm (Katy Perry)

US: #73 / FR: #10

I just love the concept of a Katy Perry song about how Katy Perry songs are happy nonsense distracting you from actual issues. What can I say, I’m a sucker for meta stuff.

9 - Water Under The Bridge (Adele)

US: #88 / FR: Not on the list

An Adele song projecting actual positive energy!? That automatically goes on the list.

8 - Praying (Kesha)

US: #67 / FR: Not on the list

You know I mostly dislike slow emotional songs regardless of how good they actually are. I will, however, make an exception for this one even though I very rarely listen to it considering how emotionally taxing it is. That’s definitely a fantastic song, though.

7 - Viens On S’aime (Slimane)

US: Not on the list / FR: #53

“Listen, we love each other, f█ck it, f█ck their words and their decorum, listen, we love each other, f█ck it, f█ck their ideas and what they’re saying”. Well said, dude, well said.

6 - There’s Nothing Holding Me Back (Shawn Mendes)

US: #23 / FR: #91

That’s a very good song for running and that is becoming increasingly rarer, so I’ll take what I can get.

5 - Paris (The Chainsmokers)

US: #42 / FR: Not on the list (that’s irony for you)

Unlike Closer this is an unrelatable song about rich young people that can afford to live in Paris just “to get away from [their] parents” but honestly that’s the only negative thing I have to say against it. It sounds fantastic.

4 - Castle On The Hill (Ed Sheeran)

US: #40 / FR: #50

We’ve now entered the realm of songs that are still on my mp3 player to this day. This is the only Ed Sheeran song I’ve ever liked, and I love it. It sounds like a lost U2 song. Maybe from a strange dimension where U2 became more fragile and emotional instead of more pretentious.

I have no idea why this guy keeps making such boring stuff when he’s got that kind of song in him. I have no clue.

3 - Something Just Like This (Coldplay & The Chainsmokers)

US: #5 / FR: #19

Hey so Coldplay is still on my lists, apparently. It’s a bit too slow, some lyrics about superheros don’t make much sense, and the drop isn’t super good, but my god, that guitar near the end makes everything worth it. Just amazing colors and textures all around.

It’s not even my favorite song on that EP! I think Miracles (Someone Special) is even better, but eh, this one is a close second.

2 - 24k Magic (Bruno Mars)

US: #16 / FR: Not on the list (#13 in 2016 but I put it on the 2017 list instead)

Am I the only one to like this more than Uptown Funk? It’s so much fun to sing along to it. And unlike Uptown Funk, it’s making me feel nostalgic for an era I actually (vaguely) knew, the super colorful and ridiculous early 90s. My s.o loves it too and when it comes up on the radio or on our playlists you can bet we’re both going PUT YOUR. PINKY. RINGS UP. TO THE. MOOOOOOOON like two idiots.

This is the song I could have put on the previous list but elected to put on this list instead since it was elligible for both years, by the way! Since 2017 was less good than 2016, I thought it would be more interesting to save such a great song for later.

It would have topped the list too, if it wasn’t for something I didn’t expect to be elligible before reading the French year-end list.

Strap yourselves in, because I had no real opportunity to talk about this band at length in the posts made for the years when it was the most relevant in my life, so this is going to be quite long.

1 - La Vie Est Belle (Indochine)

US: Not on the list / FR: #44

As you already know if you remember some of my previous lists, Indochine is a band I started to love right in the middle of the absolute worst years of my life. These guys had been around since the 80s as a super successful new wave band, then became very unpopular and went underground for about twelve years in the entire 90s, then one of them died, then every member except the singer basically rotated, and then they suddenly re-emerged in 2002-2003 with Paradize, a monster of an album, full of energy, sinister themes and weird provocative songs, and an entire generation of angsty teenagers (me included as you can guess) embraced it wholeheartedly.

And all of a sudden Indochine was the favorite French mainstream band of local young punk/goths! So many kids with the Indochine logo in highschool. Nowadays the band is mocked and well-loved in equal doses by just about everyone, but I suspect it’s just because we’ve all grown up.

Placebo, Linkin Park and Indochine were the bands that ruled my entire world in 2003/2004. My mother hated all three of them, because of course she did, but especially Indochine, because according to her it was partly their fault if I was gender non-conforming. See, she used to say, they had put all kinds of bad ideas in my head and now I was all messed up.

...Holy shit, that’s a lot of blame to put on a ridiculous new wave band who’s first hit song from 1983 is just a long nonsensical list of shitty old Bob Morane pulp novels.

But here’s the problem. Even if Indochine kept having hit song after hit song, those were never the best songs on their albums. Here I am, 31, making these top ten lists since last December, and becoming more and more frustrated to see none of my favorite modern Indochine songs are elligible. My favorite Paradize singles were Mao Boy, Popstitute and especially Marilyn (god, this song rocked my entire year alongside Placebo’s The Bitter End. 2003 was such a fantastic year for dark energetic hit songs)? Too bad, the biggest hits were J’ai demandé à la lune and Le Grand Secret. Alice & June had four fantastic singles? Too bad, none of them is elligible! Same thing for the entirety of Black City Parade. Oh, but that song I hate from La Republique des Météors is elligible, I guess!

So we’re in summer 2017, and my life is completely different now, and Indochine releases La Vie Est Belle (I’m linking the album version and not the music video because it has some violent themes in it). I’m in my car doing some errands and the local radio goes “hey new song from Indochine” and I’m like “oh shit, gotta hear this” and then two minutes later “oh wow, that is super good. Won’t be a hit though”.

And yet, it was a hit! It became huge, even! And at that point I was already loving that song even though I thought it was just a super good but tragic love song about a significant other dying too young.

And then, about a month later, the wordplay of the first line finally hit me with the force of a semitruck. It’s not a love song. It’s a song about the singer’s dead twin. Who died in 1999.

It’s such a devastating, beautiful song, and yet it’s full of energy. I. adore. it. It’s exactly the kind of song you need to continue to fight and to live and to help other people in this day and age. “Life is beautiful and cruel, it looks like us sometimes” indeed. And it’s one of the best on the album, too!

So yes, 15 years after I first fell in love with this band and after they helped me during super dark times, finally, I can put one of their songs at the top of one of these lists, hands down, no debate whatsoever.

That probably sounds ridiculous but it’s genuinely making me feel extremely emotional.

Next up: I thought music sucked that year because I was depressed but I relistened to it and no it wasn’t just me

#Johannes’ bad not good pretty terrible music lists #music #long post #eye contact tw #suicide mention tw #I can't believe I'm almost done with these lists #that was a wild ride guys

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bretthowden · 6 years ago

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hi il your gifs! can you give a tutorial??

Wow thanks so much! 💖💖Under the read more, I managed to put together a gif tutorial that I (hope) makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions. I rambled a lot in this and wrote most of it at like 1:30 in the morning, so apologies in advance if it gets weird lmao.

Keep in mind, I have been using photoshop for years, but I really have only been making gifs for like, 8 months and I still think I can improve in soooo many ways. But, that being said we all gotta start somewhere!

Let’s make a gif!

Alright, y’all. Let’s make a fucking gif. You will need:

Photoshop. Kind of a given lol. I use Photoshop CC 2018 and I pay 9.99 a month for the photoshop/lightroom package that you can get online from Adobe. I used to use a downloaded version that I found on tumblr for the longest time as well. So if you don’t want to pay monthly, there are free versions out there that work. Just download at your own risk!

A basic knowledge of photoshop. In this tutorial, I’m just gonna assume you have used photoshop before and know how to use its basic features. If not, I’d recommend finding some beginner photoshop tutorials to help you out! Also you can totally feel free to shoot me any questions if you need me to clarify anything, and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Patience and practice. Making gifs can be frustrating and tedious sometimes. If you don’t love what you’re making or aren’t having fun with it, it can be really difficult. I literally love making gifs for some weird reason, which is really the number one reason why I make them. Also, remember that every gif isn’t gonna come out perfect. I make so many gifs and then look back and think ugh that coloring was awful wtf was I thinking?? But it’s important to keep practicing and keep at it because that’s how you’re gonna get better!

Alrightyyyyy let’s get started!

STEP ONE: Download your video. You’re gonna need the video of whatever you’re trying to gif saved to your computer. If you’re giffing a video from youtube/social media or something, there are a bunch of different websites out there that will download videos for you. However, I’m a fucking weirdo and usually just screen record whatever I want to gif because I just think it’s easier. I use Quicktime to screen record which is included on Macs!

We’re gonna be making a gif of my angel rookie Brett Howden for this tutorial. I just screen recorded his postgame video that I wanted to use and saved it in 1080p.

[PRO TIP: Keep in mind, if you want your gifs to look nice and HQ, it starts with a high quality video, and that means, using videos that are 1080p. I very rarely will gif anything in 720p, unless it’s something I really really want to gif, and I def won’t use anything below 720p because it just looks really low quality no matter how much you try to edit it, imo.]

STEP TWO: Open photoshop and go to file -> import -> video frames to layer and this window will pop up

These are the settings I use. I choose selected range only so that it will only select what I want it to, and not the whole video. I also limit to every 2 frames because for the most part, using every frame is unnecessary. See those little toggle icons at the bottom of the screen that I’ve circled in red? Drag those around to select what part of the video you want to gif. Then click ok.

Here’s what you’ll get once you hit ok.

As you can see, your timeline with all your frames are on the bottom. On the right are all the layers!

STEP THREE: Select all the frames, and set your frame delay. The frame delay basically just controls how fast or slow your gif is gonna move.

Select all the frames and click on the bottom of one of the frames (where i’ve awkwardly circled in red) and you should get the dropdown menu shown above. Click other. I almost always choose 0.07 for my delay because it’s not too fast and not too slow and that’s how we want our gifs to look, right? 0.07 is a good starting point and you can always adjust slightly if need be. I wouldn’t recommend going below 0.05 because it’ll look way too fast.

STEP FOUR: Convert that shit. We’re gonna convert to a video timeline by clicking the button in the lefthand corner of your timeline window. I’ve circled it in red. Make sure all your frames are still selected!

Then we’re gonna convert the layers for smart filters. This makes it easy to edit and color the gif because it’ll basically condense all the layers into one. Select all your layers and go to filter -> convert for smart filters. Bam, converted.

STEP FIVE: Crop and resize your gif!

Tumblr has specific dimension sizes that are pretty important when cropping your gifs, so you’ll have to decide what kind of gifset you’re making. If you’re making a gifset with just one gif across (example), the width needs to be 540px. If you’re making a gifset with two gifs across (example), the width needs to be 268px. The height doesn’t matter and can be whatever ya want!

For this gif of Brett I’m going to be cropping it to 540x270 (my personal standard gif size that I use for gifsets with one gif across). After that, go to image -> image size and adjust the width and height to 540x270.

After all that crap, we’ve now got a very basic, unedited gif!

This gif looks okaaay, but looks kinda flat and plain and dull. Which brings us to……

STEP FIVE: The most important step, sharpening and coloring.

To sharpen your gif, go to filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen

I use the same settings as everyone on this website which is this:

This is what the gif looks like now. Brett is looking SHARP.

Sharpening is so important and it’s literally the best like look at how much better this gif looks already!! But we still gotta color it.

Coloring is a different ballgame than sharpening. Everyone has their own preferences on how to color and what they want their gifs to look like. There’s no right or wrong way to do it imo, as long as you like the way they look! Some people like really bright, vibrant gifs with whites so bright they’ll blind ya, and some like gifs with more muted colors. My personal preference depends on what I’m giffing and the lighting. If you look through my gifs you’ll see that my coloring changes depending on if it’s an on-ice video, a locker room interview or something else.

When I first started making gifs, I downloaded different psds from tumblr, which are basically just colorings you can download and use on your gifs. They’re a really great starting point if you have no idea what you’re doing and also just super convenient. A quick google search “tumblr psds” “tumblr photoshop resources” or even just searching “psds” on tumblr, will give you tons of stuff to choose from.

Anyway, if you’re not gonna use a premade psd, the two biggest settings that I use to color (and as a beginner they’re really the only settings you need to use) are brightness/contrast and selective coloring.

First, we’ll add some contrast. Go to layer -> new adjustment layer -> brightness/contrast. For the most part, my brightness/contrast settings stay the same and look like this:

My contrast almost always is set to 60. I’m all about high contrast in my gifs. My brightness setting is set to 0 in this gif because it’s already bright enough (just look at the light reflecting off Brett’s forehead lmao) Oftentimes I’ll set the brightness to 10 or 11 if the gif seems too dull or dark, but I usually won’t go higher than that. Just play with the setting until it seems right to you!

This is what it looks like now:

Looks good! But it still looks pretty yellow and Brett’s face is still too bright. This is where selective coloring comes in. Selective coloring basically helps you enhance or change specific colors in your gifs. It comes in handy a lot with videos that have shitty or weird lighting (looking at you, Rangers video department).

Go to layer -> new adjustment layer -> selective coloring. Like I said before, every gif is different so there’s no one specific way to set your selective coloring settings. My biggest thing with selective coloring is making sure the subject doesn’t look too yellow/red and enhancing the darker colors to create more depth/contrast. Play around with the colors until you like what you see!

And this gif is done! Brett looks beautiful and so does this gif. But we have one final step

STEP SIX: Save your gif.

To save your gif go to file -> export -> save for web (legacy) and this window will show up.

For your gif to work on tumblr the file needs to be under 3M otherwise when you post it, your gif will be frozen and won’t move and uh, that’s not ideal. The lower left hand corner will show you how large your gif is. Mine is 2.817M so we’re good.

Finally, please, please PLEASE make sure your looping options (found in the lower righthand corner) are set to forever.

If you don’t have your gif set to loop forever it literally will stop moving, so it’s real important you remember to check that it’s set to loop forever. One time I forgot to do that and now there’s a dumb gifset of Nolan Patrick that only loops once and then freezes and I didn’t notice it until it already got a bunch of notes and it’s just out there on fucking tumblr dot com and it drives me crazy and makes me so mad that I forgot to loop it. So don’t be like me and remember to loop your gifs! lol.

Anyway that’s the tutorial! I hope this helped! Again, sorry it’s so long and full of rambles. Remember you can ask me ANY questions you may have and I’ll do my best to help!

#asks #anonymous #gif tutorial #photoshop tutorial #i really hope this helped!#i probably rambled too much #long post

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3rachad-archive · 6 years ago

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Could you do like a quick tutorial?

yes ofc (sorry i didnt understAND THE FIRST TIME LFMAMFOAIFWNAWI) itll be under a cut- which doesn’t work on mobile so u know :~~) sorry to my followers !!!

edit: THIS GOT KINDA VERY LONG- I KNOW YOU SAID QUICK BUT FOAIWNOAWINAWO ; ________ ; theres no quick way for me to explain this fjawefaoweifawnoe :~~( i didnt want to make you confused so i included pictures and i tried my best afhfhwoeiawo so it got Pretty Long and i APOLOGIZE HAHFHAOFWINAFOw

EDIT AGAIN: OK I FORGOT!!! I HAVE A WINDOWS COMP!!!! SO !!! MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THAT THE ‘ALTS’ AND STUFF ARE A LIL DIFF ON MAC (IDK WHAT THEY ARE BUT JFJAJFOAIW YEAH…….. i cant…. help u there…..)

EDIT AGAIN AGAIN: i proofread this once. and its. 3;30 am so … if i said smth dumb or didnt make sense pls pls telll meeee…!!!! and like. i apologize if i missed any spelling mistakes or anythign ajfjjjawfjowaei im just a Fool!!!!

oki dokey! its honestly p simple one u memorize the Steps! (if there’s anything you’re still ?? abt pls pls message me! im bad at typing out instructions so like jfjajfhgowigowa im scared i’ll leave u MORE confused mfmmgg) !!!

i’ll use my lil red riding chan gif to show you!!!

1) open up the video

open up whatever video you plan on giffing !! (”file” > “navigate” > open up whatever video it is you want to gif!)

2) cutting to the scene you want

using the snipping tool, you’ll cut the video where you want to start the gif. then you’ll let it play till where you want the gif to end! and hit the scissor icon again. now you’ll have the desired clip.

now you’ll have 3 ‘layers’ in the layers tab. you can go ahead and delete the top and bottom layers so you only have the middle layer (the one i have highlighted)!

(side note: if you’re trying to get it PRECISE and down to the frame, using the toggles that allow you to go from frame to frame is helpful!

this’ll let you get it down to precisely where you’d like!)

3) getting the frames

(make sure the layer is highlighted)

so you see the four lil lines? you click on those and you’ll get a drop down menu.

so as i’ve highlighted, you’ll click on “convert frames” and then “flatten frames into clips”

you will now have the frames from the video! ok, now you click on the “convert to frame animation” button! (the one i’ve circled)

now your timeline should look like this:

now going back to the four little lines from earlier:

you’re going to “make frames from layers”

your timeline should now be filled with all the frames from your video!

(side note: try to keep your gif less than 80 frames. the bigger your gif the bigger the file the more trouble you’ll have saving, uploading, etc. tumblr has a limit on size for gifs so ! be very wary ! )

4) timing

so every frame has a lil time code on it!

as you can see, the first one is 1.27 seconds, the second is 0 seconds- i can’t speak for every gifmaker, so i’ll just say what kind of speeds i personally use. i really prefer a little bit of a slower gif- to me it feels a little smoother and is easier on the eyes, and if you’re adding text to your gif, then the reader has a bit more time to read (if your subs change in the middle or smth)

so going back to our four lil lines

you click on “select all frames” (or you can click on the first frame, scroll to the end of the frames and while holding your ‘shift’ key, you click on the last frame; has the same result!) now, you go to the lil drop down arrow next to the time code on any of the frames, and input your time settings!

i use the setting of 0.07 seconds! its a little slower. some people do ‘0.05′ and some people will leave the gif at its original speed (which is ‘0′ second delay) !!!

and now you hit ‘ok’ and your times should all be the same! at this point, give the frames a once over and see if everything is running fine and you have all the frames you want, by clicking on the play button and seeing how it looks.

(side note: make sure that your looping times is set to ‘Forever’!!!)

if everything is fine then you can move on! if you think that you’d like to remove some frames then you can select those frames individually (or by the clicking and shift method from earlier) and using the lil trash icon. you can delete those frames! now you should have all the frames you want!

5) cropping + resizing

from your tools sidebar, you’ll pick the crop tool

in the bar along the top of the screen, you’ll see a lil drop down menu

okay, this is also another preference thing? so like, depending on the set you’re making, you might want like a different size!

in the first gif, i used ‘W x H x Resolution’ option, whereas the second gif i used the ‘4:5 (8:10)’ ratio! so like, its v dependent on what kind of gif you’re making. for 2x2 or 3x3 sets i tend to use 4:5 while single sets i use a free ratio so i can crop how i’d prefer the gif to look!

so with the red riding hood gif i used the ‘4:5′ ratio!

when you choose an option, you’ll get this sort of screen

if you click once, you’ll be given a grid and the ability to now resize!!!

when you’re happy with your selection, you can click the checkmark i circled in the first picture, and it’ll crop your image!

yay!! okay! now you have to resize the image! so you go to the top of the screen and you choose: ‘Image’

from here you’ll choose ‘Image Size’ or alternatively hit ‘ALT + CTRL + I’

you’ll get this dialogue box !!! where you can now imput your width (the height will automatically resize!)

alright so for sets, i’m not too sure about other ppl, but i resize my gifs following this usually!

500 pixels == 1 gif

245 pixels == 2 gifs side by side

160 pixels == 3 gifs side by side

those sizes usually look fine on tumblr and also work well with the image size limit!!!

(i resized this gif to 245px because i was putting 2 gifs side by side!)

after you’ve imputed the size, you can now hit okay! you’ll get this dialogue box:

go ahead and tick the ‘don’t show again’ and then click ‘Convert’

6) sharpening

okay, normally, you’d have to go through frame by frame and sharpen, but ; v ; your time gets eaten tf up so like… this is just the way i sharpen all the frames at the same time!!

so go ahead and select everything in your time line, either by the shift++click method or by going to the ‘select all frames’, and then go over to the layers panel and click on the bottom most frame, then scroll to the top and while holding shift, click on the top most frame.

everything should be selected like this!

go the four lines again and click on the convert to video timeline

your timeline should now look like this:

okay, now, going back to your top bar, you’ll pick ‘Filter’

and then click on ‘Convert for Smart Filters’

(side note: you’ll get another dialogue box i believe, so just tick the do not show and go ahead and continue)

clicking on filter again, you’ll go down to ‘Sharpen’ and then ‘Smart Sharpen’. you should get another dialogue box

these are the settings that i use! and once you put them in, you can go ahead and press okay, and your gif will be sharpened

(side note: there’s only SO much that sharpening can do to your gif. the best scenario: you have a video thats 1080p and the sharpening will add. but if your video quality isn’t the greatest then be understanding, ps can only do so much… also !!! some ppl sharpen twice, if you think it’ll look good you can go ahead and do that!!! i prefer to sharpen once, so that it doesn’t get too grainy!!!)

your gif is now sharpened!!!

7) colouring

uhh this one i can’t give you too many instructions for?? bc every gifmaker tends to have their own colouring style. it’ll really be up to your discretion and preference on how you colour things!!!

these are the tools when it comes to colouring!!! you can like… go to town and test different colourings! i shit you not… this is what takes me the LONGEST during giffing now.. like once i had the process down?? i was like ???? what should i make the colouring???

this is without colouring ^^

this is with my colouring ^^

this is what i had on this specific gif- every video will vary and you’ll soon figure out what colourings suit what videos or lightings or etc !!!

8) watermarking (optional)

this is optional but like………. in this day and age…………………….

so you select the text tool and you just type your url in whatever font you want???

these are the settings i use!!! and then i set the ‘Opacity’ at however much i think is suitable. (darker gifs, i might make the watermark a lil less visible, whereas brighter gifs i’ll make it a lil stronger!)

9) saving to the web

YAY! we’re done! you made the gif! pat your back!!!

mm okay now you have to save it !! so you can either do ‘CTRL++SHIFT++ALT++S’ or!!!

‘File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy)’

your gif will take a moment to render, but when it does you’ll get this screen!!!

these are the settings you should adjust to !!!

(side note: pay attention to the size !!

above certain mb your gif will be too big to upload !!! and tumblr will give you an error and tell you to try sizing down!!!)

also make sure:

that it says ‘Forever’ !!!!

and finally !! give your gif a play by clicking on the play button! make sure everything is fine and that your gif loops, and everything looks how you want it!!!

if you’re happy with how everything looks!

click save !!!

you can chose where you wanna save it and name it aptly !!!

10) BASK IN YOUR AWESOMENESS!!! (AKA: uploading your gif)

i wont explain this but now u get to upload your !! gif to tumblr!! eee :D

and there she is!! isnt she BEAUTIFUL??? :~~) hehe !!

anyway, i hope i helped explain this as CLEARLY as possibelf jfjfjaowiefnaweoia lmaooo this was ridiculously long so i apologize for that :~~( but i hope i helped you out! eee happy giffing angel!!!

#anon #answered #long post #gif tutorial #g.mine #oof.#OOF....#sorry this was so long dude #i ... i should've just made a video or smth #i aoifnwoifenawofi awoeifn awoei awe #RIPPPP #sorry :~~(#i tried to be as clear and concise as possible #ihope i made sense ahffjjagjoag

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sleepyskunk · 7 years ago

Text

Deconstructing the 2017 Movie Trailer Mashup

Why deconstructing a mashup? Because these videos are often perceived as a random mess of pretty images from movie trailers. While that’s absolutely true, there’s an opportunity to explore themes and also pay a few obscure tributes to elements that don’t belong in the video itself but that are generally widespread within pop culture. These montages have been going on for a few years now, and it’s hard to edit the footage in a way that won’t feel reminiscent of one of the many great retrospectives put out by other talented editors in years past. I have to say that trying to build a narrative with all that footage has now become more enticing to me than to highlight the moments that made the year in cinema within their proper context. Let’s get right into it, shall we?

Someone on Reddit commented: “starting off with GEOSTORM, that’s a bold move!” and it didn’t even cross my mind. The shot was exactly where I wanted to go right off the bat - a blend of childlike wonder and eerie caution reminiscent of earlier Tim Burton films. The track was composed for a television spot called “A Wonderful Day” from IT and it showcases major Danny Elfman influences. Thus, this was my small tribute to the Burton/Elfman collabs happening under snowfalls like EDWARD SCISSORHANDS or BATMAN RETURNS. I loved the contrast in dialogue from PERSONAL SHOPPER which was such an under-appreciated indie film this year. Every mashup has its horror section, but I am gently sneaking you in by the supernatural door this time around. It’s just innocent enough to deceive those who hate horror.

Childlike wonder flawlessly captured in one shot, from the lens of Matt Reeves. I can’t say I connect emotionally with his APES movies, but the quality control on every frame, CGI or otherwise, it pretty much above and beyond all industry standards. That facial expression is exactly what I needed, you can tell she’s not too sure whether she’s safe or not but without feeling properly scared either. This is like the part in the original POLTERGEIST where kitchen chairs are moving on their own and the family still thinks it’s kind of fun. Kind of.

KING ARTHUR is the best type of release when it comes to trailer mashups because 1) it had a fantasy undertone 2) it was tracking poorly and 3) it went way over budget. Big studios know months in advance if they have a major bomb on their hands, and they have two choices at that point: either stop spending a penny on it and dump it for a quick theatre run and VOD release (more common if the movie didn’t cost that much) or, like in this case, spend extra millions of dollars to sell the shit out of that movie on opening week-end before everyone realizes it’s bad. Those extra millions go towards CGI money shots like the one above, which is really meant to make the marketing more attractive and oh dear lord, did KING ARTHUR have some last minute money shots to offer or what? It was a joy to pick and choose from its nine trailers.

This is where I put my cards on the table, whimsy never happened and I am taking you all to creepytown. That shot from ANNABELLE: CREATION is one of the many that upstages the featured evil doll in that wonderful movie and the film’s cinematographer Maxime Alexandre reached out because he was happy so much of his work was featured. You never know in front of who your videos can end up and industry people are keen on celebrating the year in film, especially if their own works are included. This is just a top notch unsettling shot clearly inspired by THE SHINING (the girl’s dress and the way her arms look lifeless.) On a side note, I always manually add all sounds including that floor cracking. If anyone reading this is starting off editing mashups, I promise you one thing: using professional, isolated, studio-recorded sound effect packages such as BOOM library is much superior to the original trailer track (unless you get a clean sound within the trailer.)

Another random insight (if you’re interested in making your own movie mashups) is to try as much as possible to avoid that one marketing shot everyone recognizes. You can revisit a memorable moment but going straight to the most oversold shot of a film hurts you. While you’re eager to make everyone relive the most epic imagery of the year, some value gets lost when a studio bombarded the same shot over and over and you go for it. Two quick examples: Giant hologram JOI pointing at Ryan Gosling in BLADE RUNNER 2049. I wanted that moment, but the original side-scroller shot was so overused that I went with her from a closer angle (see video thumbnail). Another example is that uncomfortable sniffle from Daniel Kaluuya in GET OUT which I favored over the super overplayed mouth open crying paralyzed shot from every marketing piece. In both cases, I assume you know which shots I am referring to without having to show them. Trying the alternative makes us relive the moment without its obviousness. It gives that other shot they didn’t choose its moment to shine (and more often than not, it’s just as effective.)

Someone’s not getting much sleep. A CURE FOR WELLNESS is a gorgeous-looking film no matter what you think of its bizarre plot points. I spend much of the first segment flirting with the creative key points from IT. One I tried to play around with is the idea of Pennywise as a half-real/half-fiction monster, and how similar to Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET his realm of terror extends. A few winning concepts in both films: 1) He isn’t real but he can really hurt you so you have to stay on your guard at all times and 2) Only a select few have been cursed with having to deal with him, adding a psychological layer to an already spooky premise. Dane Dehaan looks like a kid from Derry, or Elm street if you prefer, whose mental focus seems affected by the fact that he saw something, and his friend saw him too. Meanwhile, I throw in a completely out of context quote from Vanessa Redgrave which ties in that mysterious “sickness” from Verbinski’s film.

A shot from PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN from a trailer edited by Kees van Dijkhuizen Jr. for Annapurna Pictures where he works as an in-house editor now. In 2015, I talked about Gen Ip’s storytelling approach and last year I praised Matt Shapiro’s famously epic crescendos, so this year, let’s talk about Kees a little bit because I find all their influences fascinating. My first observation is how far his much-adored Cinema series has taken him, and that one of the top production houses in the business (if not the top, sorry A24 and Fox Searchlight) hired him so he could bring his own distinct style onto their major features. The whole trailer mashup craze started off only a few years back and so many editors were recruited right off YouTube to turn their passion into a livelihood down in Los Angeles. I can think of at least six editors whose names you’d recognize and who are now living the dream, and I consider this to be really inspiring because none of them initially got into it thinking something like that was ever possible. (side note: I also moved to L.A. and was poached by a trailer house but prefer to keep things on the low-end until it’s been long enough. I wouldn’t want to jinx it.)

The second observation about Kees is how much influence he’s had on every mashup that gets uploaded on a daily basis every December (me included) - I will link his Cinema series below. Instead of pairing clips into a horror bit, an action bit, a laughing and dancing bit, a kissing and crying bit, Kees was always out to create new feelings and nothing ever seemed more important than proper flow. Many shots would pop-up that you would never expect thematically, images of moving objects like a breaking glass transitioned with a girl’s hair waving through the wind (also see the lie detector in the previous shot.) He would connect nature documentaries right along with major superhero blockbusters and the movements flowed so perfectly that nothing ever felt out of place, quite the contrary. He was the best shot curator we’ve ever seen, and the order in which he put them together was beyond logic and predictability. Imagine “One Perfect Shot” but with 275 perfect shots back-to-back. If you want a prime example of what I’m referring to (random objects and flow), check out 2:49 - 2:52 from his Cinema 2011 (links below). Kees set the bar so high that attempting an end-of-year mashup certainly felt foolish at times, but hoping to improve made the editing process all the more inspiring.

CINEMA 2008 | CINEMA 2009 | CINEMA 2010 | CINEMA 2011 | CINEMA 2012

So apparently, they have the internet and flat-screen TV’s in RINGS but landline phones are still a thing. Quite frankly, I haven’t seen RINGS and I bet it’s aggressively ordinary, but how retro horror is that shot? Paired up with the voice of THE SNOWMAN saying “Mister Policeman” it’s a throwback to Nancy being terrorized by Freddy in the original Nightmare of Elm Street (minus the tongue.) I was also pleased with the aesthetic of HAPPY DEATH DAY, clearly the product of horror fans who grew up during the low-budget slasher craze of the early ‘80s. It’s got MY BLOODY VALENTINE written all over it (meanwhile their poster was paying homage to APRIL FOOL’S DAY.) Retro horror, in all its disturbing practical gore glory! Rick Baker, Tom Savini, how much we missed you in our modern times where only a few major productions have enough VFX money to escape the uncanny valley (and even then... *cough* JUSTICE LEAGUE.)

I always tend to edit right on tempo, which means switching shots at the exact moment the music beat tells you to. But over here, I thought this elevator drop from FLATLINERS looked so frenetic and out of control that I started it half a second before as if the beat couldn’t keep up! Like in cartoons when the car accelerates so fast that it takes off but their eyeballs are standing still for a little fraction. This whole mashup sequence is meant to be a little cartoony and tongue-in-cheek. To anyone who found this to be disturbing (and yes, I heard from a few viewers who said it was too much) I must admit that it wasn’t my intention. I won’t apologize for my work, people choose to watch if they want to or not. But if I really tried my best to scare the crap out of you, I can assure you THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE wouldn’t have made the cut.

Now channeling a CHILD’S PLAY vibe thanks to this retro television shot from the highly underrated BRIGSBY BEAR. A kids program works well as an element of fear because it’s supposed to be a safely protected zone of positivity and care, just like a doll or a clown for that matter. Once that turns on its head and begins to attack, you basically have nowhere else to hide. It also makes for great contrast, and Andy Muschietti must have had an absolute blast this year incorporating this component into his remake of IT. The bear costume was one of the many shots that wasn’t from a horror movie and yet I used to great effect in this section. I know there was a new CHILD’S PLAY movie this year but sadly, it didn’t hold a candle to the Hitchcockian original.

“At the end of the day, people are out for themselves.” That’s not true, and only people who are out for themselves could believe that. Because if you’re weighing low on the morality scale at some point in life, you still wanna go to bed thinking you’re a good person. So if you can’t justify what you did, the best logical next step is to convince yourself that human nature is to blame, that everyone else would have done the same as you. Ask people who were charged with insider trading on the stock market, they’ll always say “everybody was doing it.” I could refer to a certain World War to keep hammering that point but instead, I’d like to point out the interesting contrast between this and Part 3. I try to disprove that very statement by showing in the finale that everything we do that matters is for others, and others are the only thing that matters once everything else has come and gone.

The KING ARTHUR studio spending extra millions of dollars to sell the shit out of that movie on opening week-end before everyone realizes it’s bad money shot festival continues. EPIC! In fact, that shot is so gorgeous, you could place it anywhere in any mashup ever and it would probably work.

Having a bit of fun giving a more literal visual cue to IT’s “We all float down here” with Guillermo Del Toro’s hypnotically beautiful THE SHAPE OF WATER. However, it’s not the tudum tssshh, get it? movie connection that works here. It’s the underwater sound effect and the incredible sound mixing by trailer house Buddha Jones so that Georgie’s voice seems to come from the bottom of the ocean. This is likely the best sound work you’ll hear in the entire mashup, and I didn’t mix it, the editors behind that teaser trailer did. In fact, their work was so effective at scaring people that it earned twice the amount of views on YouTube than what Avengers: Infinity War received. A fact Kevin Feige will likely never admit.

That moment when you realize your manic pixie dream girl wears white socks! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I've used vulgarity in the past but not every year, depends whether it brings value. Some of you may remember “Game on, c***suckers” from KICK-ASS 2 in 2013 or “Nap time, motherf***ers” from COOTIES in 2015. Perhaps there’s another guilty pleasure at play here, however, which is that feeling of pure creative freedom. As mentioned earlier, not everyone digged the horror undertone of this year’s Part 1 and that’s okay because it went exactly where I wanted to go and no compromise was made. No client notes. No studio revisions. No censor beeper (which makes it worse because we seek to find out what the word was.) If you get into professional careers that are creative in nature, you’ll find that teamwork, compromise, and not taking anything personally are all essential components for success. But when the movie trailer mashup comes around, I report to no one. And that moment from THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI is one I wanted included as soon as the red band trailer came out.

This shot comes from a small movie you should seek out called MY NAME IS EMILY starring Evanna Lynch (aka Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies.) The film was directed by Simon Fitzmaurice who was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (ALS) a few years ago, the debilitating disease for which the viral ice-bucket challenge was based on. He wrote the screenplay for this movie while his body was entirely paralyzed, and the only way he could communicate with the cast and crew while shooting the film was through eye gaze technology. There was a documentary following his brave journey that played Sundance called IT’S NOT YET DARK. Check it out if you need some real work ethic motivation and want to feel truly inspired about overcoming challenges. Much better than THE DISASTER ARTIST which is a spoof about a millionaire with no talent who mistreated the people who worked on his film. Okay, it’s still very entertaining and James Franco is hilarious but I don’t get a ‘never give up’ vibe from it, more like ‘maybe this isn’t for you.’

With the second segment, I was going for a British Gangster film vibe, hence the music cue Main Offender by The Hives. No movie captured that feeling better than Ben Wheatley’s FREE FIRE this year. I find the criminals in British movies are equally as clever in their quips as they are dangerous and often have the appearance of fair, well-behaved citizens until they have a reason to go mad. Jon Hamm’s performance in BABY DRIVER was also a textbook definition of that archetype, because all the build-up scenes where he acts friendly and discusses music with the titular character only bring an element of surprise at the end of his arc (spoilers: he’s not that nice in the end) I am aware that BABY DRIVER takes place in America but it’s directed by a Brit so it counts!

If Kubrick only knew his famous jump cut from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY that connects a flying bone to a space shuttle would lead to this fifty years later. What a shit show jump cuts have become! But they’re fun, and let’s be honest here: 7 minutes of serious quotes about life would get a little heavy. The way you edit jump cuts is the same way to solve a puzzle with over a thousand pieces. Extract dozens of short action clips onto your timeline and try to make them fit with one another over and over until you’re entertained. I mean, the music stays the same in the background, all I am doing here is deciding which projectile this pair of underpants from CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS will become. The answer was a tranquilizer from the underground mall chase sequence in Bong Joon-ho’s excellent OKJA. Maybe we should try one really long domino of jump cuts one day. Should take forever to edit, but how much fun would it be?

Did you know that Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander was a professional ballet dancer before she started acting? Work ethic applies in everything you do. When you hear about successful actors, you often discover people who are world-class at delivering under pressure and dedicating themselves to their craft with an insane amount of work. Acting is hard and yet so many people think they can do it, which makes it even harder. At least ballet puts constraints right off the bat, you need flexibility and a specific body frame. Part 3 is about finding your passion AND putting in the work. Just finding your passion is hard! It’s not always the bottomless pit one could hope for, especially when it becomes a real job with hours upon hours of work. Many people don’t even know what their passion is, they know what they’re good at but don’t love it. “Without your passion, it’s very hard to find our place in the world.” I don’t think you need your income to come from your passion in order to find said place, but I wish everyone that many of the limited hours they have each day goes towards their passion, and not towards something that feels like a waste of time. Wanting to wake up has everything to do with what happens after your first cup of coffee. Put your time towards something meaningful to you, even if it’s only on evenings and week-ends and you’ll never make a penny from it. If you love animals, volunteer at a shelter. If you love to travel, just GO!

But what happens when your family conflicts with your passion? Would you leave them behind to pursue your dreams? We all remember the tragic scene from DEAD POETS SOCIETY where a young scholar gets forced by his father to become a doctor instead of his passion and commits suicide. And then we have this year’s COCO, Pixar’s big comeback, where music is prohibited in Miguel’s family but it’s all he dreams about. But that conundrum doesn’t even have to be confrontational in nature. What if you wanted to work in a low-paying field like online journalism because it’s what you love but your single parent (who always took care of you) became sick and needed you to take care of their treatment. What happens then? What comes first? I humbly try to answer that later in the segment, of course.

We always told you Daniel Radcliffe... you’re special. That’s why you have a scar on your forehead that looks like a bolt... Just kidding, poor guy. I look at Mark Hamill in THE LAST JEDI and keep thinking that if studios are still a private enterprise in 40 years, some new Harry Potter movie will come out in which an old bearded Radcliffe will be teaching at Hogwarts. (PS: he keeps making bold choices, so much so that I am willing to watch anything he’s in.)

A man’s reach... (or woman, btw) should exceed his/her grasp. Words from a poem by Robert Browning, suggesting that, to achieve anything worthwhile, a person should attempt even those things that may turn out to be impossible. The downside with attempting the impossible is two-fold, however. 1) You may spend your life trying and never succeed. 2) If you do get there after so much sacrifice and effort, the world will expect you to do it again, or to keep doing it at the same level or better. If you won a Gold medal at the last Olympics, what are the expectations for the upcoming Olympics? That’s where passions and dreams enter a darker road, one many people choose to avoid altogether. But whatever happens, it’s worth the risk as long as you have the one thing along the way that’s a hundred times more important. And that thing is...

...people who love each other! Look at this guy, he just figured it out!

Kate Mara in MEGAN LEAVEY really seems to be the one thinking out loud in this shot while we hear a quote from THEIR FINEST. I had a blast with the Freddy Krueger references earlier but this is my favorite part. Audiomachine make the best tracks to bring that crescendo to its proper peak. You can say this part of the mashup is more in my comfort zone. And the influences from Kees that I discussed earlier can be felt here. Some shots of objects and landscapes that aren’t thematically connected but keep a nice flow. I also handpicked the best cinematography of the year all at once here. MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS was a damn pretty movie, then SHAPE OF WATER, then THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS, then OKJA. Every shot looks like a million bucks. Notice the use of paper, letters and ink. I want to see you again, a character from EVERYTHING EVERYTHING writes on a sheet.

Family comes first is nice, but along with family comes conflict and distance at times. Things we said that we regret. Times we let each other down, or weren’t there when we needed to. All the papers dropping from the bridge, all the shots that refer to letter writing, that’s where I was going with that. Not always obvious because it moves so damn fast which is why I do this deconstruction blog post every year!

The final big lift from Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST! Also, the first frame I added onto my AVID timeline. This is how I organize my work basically. I pick the right songs, then I identify the exact moments in that song where a big moment should happen - if you use trailer music, it will be crystal clear what those are. And then I try money shots in each of these spots over and over until one really, really fits. Then, I ask myself how did we get here, how can I get to that point? And build around these big moments. The second shot I added into the mashup was the little girl in Part 1 under the bed who points to another version of herself sleeping in her bed and says “Shhh! That’s not me.” I put that in right when the music stopped, it became a big moment, and then I built around it in order to get there. Every editor works differently, but I am just sharing how I personally prefer to do it. Back in 2012, the first clip I added onto the timeline was “I have an army. We have a Hulk.” from THE AVENGERS which means I’ve been editing this way for five straight years.

Those letters of reaching out to people you care about. Apologies or wondering how they’re doing. Flying everywhere around Winston Churchill (that’s my dog’s name, he’s a Pembroke Welsh Corgi!) I guess you should always be the one to reach out in difficult situations with important people. The mistake is to not reach out, or convince yourself that they were dragging you down and you’re better off without them. That’s rarely the case, and you’ll never get over them when you know that’s not the case. Maybe they will reply someday, maybe they never will. But you swallowed your ego and you decided to give it one more shot. That’s the bravest thing we can do in this life, and I hope you’ll see it that way if the time comes. Happy New Year! Achieve your passions, take care of the ones you love and make it a wonderful day! (Halle Berry: “Aaaarrh!")

- Sleepy Skunk

#2017movietrailermashup

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ponyregrets · 7 years ago

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Is there a Bellamy pov for 'I frankly would've liked to stay'? Coz I really want to know what prompted them starting to make out, like, did Clarke say something? He made the move, but I can't read his side of things as well in this one so I'm mighty curious. I bet you'd come up with something amazing!

tbh the explanation is mostly “he wanted to make out with her” but you know

original fic here on AO3 and alt POV here!

The thing about Clarke is that she's like no one else Bellamy has ever had in his life. She likes him without any obligation to like him, and apparently with no misconceptions or ulterior motives. She enjoys spending time with him, doesn't get intimidated or annoyed by his moods, and seems to appreciate when he stands up to her, even when she's very determined to get her way.

She is, of course, also intelligent and beautiful and makes his whole chest feel warm, and he would like, very much, to figure out how to make it work with her. It being however far he can safely get on the sliding scale from friends to lovers. If all they ever are is good roommates who are fond of each other, he'll live, but he'd be much happier if he could at some point make out with her.

And he's pretty sure that should not, in any way, require his addressing the TV thing.

Honestly, nothing should require his addressing the the TV thing, because the TV thing is just not a big fucking deal. Every time he thinks about it, he tells himself that. Everyone else tells him that too, but they never make it sound believable. After all, it's hard to believe when every time someone finds out that he hasn't seen whatever thing he'd just love, and he says he's not interested, and it's always just--weird.

In some ways, it's become a test for him. He thought Miller would be a dick about it, but Miller just said, "Fuck, if you want to deprive yourself of cool shit, that's your call. You still play video games?" and that was it.

With Clarke, the biggest problem is that she makes him want to like the things she likes. He's at that stage of his crush where he wants to know everything about her, and she's the kind of person who likes having the TV on. And, from what he can tell, she has pretty good taste in her media.

So he starts asking about it slowly. If she has something he doesn't recognize on, he asks what it is, and she tells him, and that's about as far as he's gotten. Which is sad, and he's more than aware of it. But he'll come up with a second step, at some point. It really shouldn't be that awkward.

But he waits too long, so it is.

It's not strange for him to find her on the couch in her pajamas on a Saturday morning; when they first moved in together, she asked if he minded her hanging out in the living room with the TV on while he was around, and he said no, and she told him to just let him know if he ever wanted to watch something else.

Which, of course, he never has.

He goes into to the kitchen to pour himself a mug of coffee, leans against the counter to watch whatever is happening on the screen. It looks like fantasy, which isn't something he sees her watching a lot, and he takes a sip of his drink before he asks, "What are you watching?"

Instead of answering, she twists around to frown at him, which is not her usual reaction. "What do you mean, what am I watching?"

He frowns right back. "I'm not sure how that question could be clearer. You even repeated it."

"Fellowship of the Ring," she says, and he doesn't wince, but that explains that. "Extended edition."

He keeps his voice casual as he pushes off the counter to lean over her instead. "Oh yeah, they made a movie of that." Whoever's on the screen is short and kind of dirty, so he makes an educated guess. "Is that Frodo?"

"That's Gimli," she says, amused.

"Oh, yeah, that makes way more sense."

He pushes off the couch, and heads to the kitchen, thinking he's escaped from the awkwardness, but then he hears, "How have you not seen this? I know you have the books. I've seen the books on your shelves."

"I just never saw them," he finally says, knowing she's not going to let it go at that. He remembers when they came out, and it was all he heard about at school for weeks. He knows the guy who plays Legolas is, like, really dreamy, and that even jock kids liked the movies, which he told himself was a sign he wouldn't have.

But he really had wanted to see them. He'd done the math over and over, making sure he really couldn't afford it, and he really couldn't. So he didn't.

He hears the movie stop, and he doesn't let himself turn around. Not even when she says, "It really just started. You should watch with me." When he still doesn't respond, she adds, "Fellowship is definitely the best, but you can get mad about how they screwed up Faramir in Two Towers."

It's not what he was expecting her to say at all, and something in his chest relaxes. She doesn't think these movies are perfect. She's probably not even going to be offended if he complains about them. "They screwed up Faramir?"

There's a smug note in her voice that says she knows she's won. "Totally. Come on, Bellamy," she wheedles, for good measure. "I was in this fandom for a while. I can tell you all about the slash fanfic I read about Legolas and Gimli making out."

"I don't have to actually watch it for you to tell me about that," he points out, like he's not already a lost cause. She's never asked him to watch anything else before, and apparently he's not good at resisting her. "Isn't it like ten billion hours?"

"I'm sorry, did you suddenly grow a social life? Did you make plans for the weekend?"

He puts his coffee down on the table. "I need to get a book. So I can pretend I'm studying."

"Uh huh. I'll start it over."

He gets a book and sees that she's moved from the middle cushion to the left one, so he takes the right, leaving a good couple feet of space between them. The last time he watched a movie with someone, it was "watching a movie" as a clear and unmistakable excuse to make out. Which he's used to.

With Clarke, it's friendly. She puts her feet up on the coffee table and has her sketchpad in her lap, and aside from the anxious flutter in his chest, it feels like the kind of thing he could get used to. That he'd like to get used to. It would be nice, being good at watching movies with Clarke.

It still takes him a while to get there.

They blaze through The Lord of the Rings over the weekend, and it does go well. Bellamy has some trouble actually relaxing, but Clarke has a knack for putting him at ease. And she doesn't seem to care that he's not thrilled with the way they did Eowyn's storyline and thinks that a lot of the better speeches lost some of their impact going to screen. She has her own complaints, and there's plenty to like about the adaptation too.

It's fun, and he wants to be happy about it, but he can't help waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Because this is not something Clarke is letting go. She's not exactly subtle about it, but she is--well, she's cool about it, thinking about what he'll like and why he might like it. He assumes she talked to his sister, which is weird, but flattering, and it comes across as something she wants to share with him.

It's nice, it just feels like only a matter of time before he hits something that makes it awkward.

"I've never seen a Mad Max movie," he tells her, in line for Fury Road. Just to test the waters.

"Neither have I, but assholes on the internet are boycotting this one because it has too many women, so how bad can it be? And I don't think there's a ton of plot we have to follow."

"Wait," he says, holding up his hand. "That's a thing?"

"Which part?"

"People boycott movies because they have too many women?"

"Have we talked about the Ghostbusters reboot?" she asks, sounding thoughtful, and maybe that's why this thing is working for him. It's not just that she wants to share this stuff with him, it's that she knows what he's going to be interested.

She's working at it, and it's hard to feel anything but grateful and happy about that.

"You haven't," he says, shifting a little closer. "Do we have time?"

"Not for all of it. But I'm not going anywhere."

He bites the corner of his mouth. "No. So, tell me about Ghostbusters."

He actually really likes the anime. Not just because it's cool, but because Clarke hasn't seen a lot of it either, so he feels less pressure. If he was watching Clarke's favorite movie and hating it, he'd feel bad, but he likes forming opinions with her, or seeing her rediscover something she'd largely forgotten, enough so that when she says they're on their last Ghibli movie, he's honestly disappointed.

"I don't know anything about this one," Clarke says, making a face. "Grave of the Fireflies. Watch or skip it?"

"We've got it, why would we skip it?"

She looks so happy that he wishes he could just be normal about this. That he could just forget his random spikes of anxiety and watch things as casually as she does.

But he's still kind of a weird anxious mess, so that's all he's got.

"Yeah," she agrees. "I've heard it's good."

And part of Bellamy can recognize that it is good. Quality isn't the issue. But Clarke has been sticking, largely, to fun, somewhat fantastical stuff. Most of the movies were at least a little emotional, but Grave of the Fireflies is a war movie, and it's a war movie that starts with a little boy dying after he fails to save his younger sister's life, and that's nothing like any of the other things they've watched together.

It's not an unfamiliar feeling, recognizing himself in media. He does it in books and in songs, in the things he interacts with on his own. He likes it, even when it hurts, the familiarity, the assurance that he's not alone.

But, left to his own devices, he might not have experienced it with Clarke. He's not one of those people who thinks that guys crying is bad, or damaging to their masculinity, but there is something awkward about crying in front of another person, even quietly. They feel obligated to react in some way, and he wouldn't have put that burden on her. It's awkward, and he's never thought of her as someone who feels very at home with comforting people.

Then, she reaches over and takes his hand, making his heartbeat spike. Her palm is soft on top of his, her grip gentle, as if she just wants to remind him she's here. He swallows hard, unable to take his eyes off the TV, and lets his hand turn over so he can squeeze her back. Part of him wants to say something, to explain himself, but Clarke probably understands.

For the first time, he feels sure: she's on his side. She's going to stay on his side.

He doesn't have anything good to say about the movie, nothing that feels right. He liked it, but the words feel inaccurate and inadequate all at once. It was like watching another version of himself, a life he might have had, the life he beat. He and Octavia survived. He kept them alive.

So he clears his throat to get the tears out of his voice and asks, "Do you have easy access to that cop show?"

"Cop show?"

"The one with the hot angry latina." She watches it a lot in the background, and he always likes what he hears. One time a guy actually said the word transphobic. He didn't think that happened on TV shows.

Her smile isn't patronizing at all; if anything, she looks glad there's something she can do. "Yeah, it's on Hulu."

"Could we watch an episode of that? Just--"

She squeezes his hand when his voice gives out. "Sounds good."

Then she lets go, which kind of sucks. He's excited for the show, but he'd be more excited without the cushion of space between them, if she were curled up into his side. It would make him feel so much better.

When she's done, she puts the remote aside and lets her hand fall back on the cushion between them. It could be a coincidence; it could mean nothing. But if she can have a campaign to get him familiar with pop culture, he can have his own, private counter-campaign, one where he tries to figure out how to, someday, date her.

So he reaches back, takes her hand, and sees her smile a little.

Maybe it won't even be that hard.

Of course, the thing about his plan is that it involves a lot of risk. If making a move on Clarke goes wrong, his whole life is kind of ruined. He has other friends, of course, other people he cares about, but--he adores Clarke, like he's never adored anyone else. If it works out, it's going to be amazing. If it doesn't, he'll still have to live with her, and with the knowledge that she doesn't want him.

"Or you could, you know, get a girlfriend," Miller says. "I hear that's good, if you're into it. And she's cool and likes all your weird shit. It's been long enough she's probably not even just into you for your body."

"I'm not worried about that. I'm worried she's not into me at all."

"Dude. You've had other roommates, right? You get that this isn't normal."

"It's not about roommates. It's about her. She could be like this with all her roommates. She finds out something is weird and has to fix it. That's how she is."

"She can do that and still be into you," Miller says. "Which, again, I'm pretty sure she is. Her signals are not subtle. She looks at your mouth a lot."

"Why do you know that?"

"Monty and I have a drinking game. Once you're dating someone, the stress about them not liking you goes away and you have to make your own fun."

He rubs his face. "I'm going to tell her. I can do that thing where I yawn and put my arm around her, right? That's what people do during movies."

"How do you know that but not what The Terminator is?"

"I assume it's a guy who terminates things," he says. "Is it going to help me hit on Clarke? If it doesn't, I don't care."

"It probably could. You need all the help you can get."

He leans back, closing his eyes. "I'm going to figure it out any day. Just wait."

"I'm not holding my breath," says Miller, and Bellamy inclines his head without straightening it up.

"Yeah, I wouldn't suggest it."

When he's still working on figuring out how to subtly shift into Clarke and put his arm around her during a movie, they hit the Star Wars issue.

It's weird to think of Star Wars as an issue, but lots of people love Star Wars, and he knows Clarke is one of them. She doesn't make a huge deal of it or anything, but she has a Darth Vader mug that her dad gave her before he died, and she actually owns the DVDs, which is pretty rare for her. She usually just streams things.

It seemed pretty unlikely that he'd be able to avoid it coming up ever, but he hoped he'd be able to avoid it coming up until he was sure she liked him. When he didn't think it could ruin things.

It's so stupid. He knows it is.

He's at the stove, working on dinner, when it finally comes up, and he doesn't even notice. He did know May the force be with you was a thing, but his primary association with the word force isn't the Star Wars franchise, so he runs through a list of things it could be and finally guesses, "Is that a band?"

He'll maintain it's a good guess. They don't usually buy movie tickets that much in advance. And she seems to expect him to know what it is, which isn't usually how she acts about movies. Plus, he knew there was a new Star Wars coming at some point, but he thought it wasn't for a while, and he didn't know the name.

But then Clarke says, slow, "It's the new Star Wars," and he tries and fails not to wince.

"Huh," he says, careful.

There's a pause, and then he feels her by his side, so close he could hook his arm around her waist if he wanted to. Which, he does, but--not right now.

"You know I don't care, right?" she asks, because she does know him. "You haven't seen movies, big deal. It's kind of nice. I get to show you all my favorite stuff and you've never seen it before. I get to see you seeing it for the first time."

He's heard that before, but he does believe it from Clarke. She seems equally delighted when he enjoys things and when he complains, but--he wants to love the things she loves. He wants to have these things in common.

"Octavia told you," he says, mostly to see what she'll say. Of course she talked to Octavia about it, but--he doesn't know exactly what Clarke thought was important. Or what Octavia assumes about why he's so stubborn about these things.

"Just that you guys didn't have a TV when you were kids," she says, with an easy shrug. "And that she gets annoyed with people asking her why she hasn't seen stuff."

He nods, looks at her sidelong. "I know all the spoilers."

"For what?"

"Star Wars. Darth Vader is Luke's father. Luke and Leia are siblings. The prequels are shit. Jar Jar Binks is the worst." He scrambles for any other knowledge of the franchise and comes up wit, "Uh, Yoda," which at least makes her laugh.

"You think Yoda is a spoiler?"

"He's not? I feel like once I saw him, there wasn't much point in anything else."

"Yeah, we all feel that way about Yoda." She nods, as if this was a discussion, and now they're on the same page. "So, this weekend, right? You and me, Star Wars marathon. You were a space kid. I bet you haven't seen Star Trek either," she adds, perking up again. She sounds gleeful, and all he really wants is to make her happy.

He wants this to be as fun as she thinks it will be.

"I thought you weren't allowed to like both," he says, wary.

"I'm a rebel." She taps her jaw. "I think you'd like DS9, that's the one that's got, like--it's the one that's good if you don't have the benefit of nostalgia."

"You're making this sound great."

"I try to be realistic," she says, and he knows that's true too. She's been working so hard at this. She's been so careful.

And now she wants to jump in the deep end with Star Wars.

"I might not like it."

"We don't have to watch DS9."

"I meant Star Wars," he says. "Is that going to be a problem? You going to have to move out?"

Her smile is a little patronizing, and he has to admit he deserves it. "I'll live. But I think you're going to like it."

"I had this girlfriend in high school," he lets himself admit. It's one of those stories that he feels hurt him more than it should have, that he doesn't like caring about. But she was the first girl he'd ever really dated, instead of fooling around, and he'd liked her. He'd thought they had something good. Now, he knows that it wouldn't have lasted anyway, but--it was easy for him to get attached back then. He was so greedy for affection. "She found out I liked the Harry Potter books, but I'd never seen the movie, and she was--like you, I guess." It's not true, not really; he doesn't think Clarke will be anything like Roma was. But he needs to hear her say she's not. "She was really excited she got to show them to me. And I fucking hated the first movie," he admits, with a wry smile. "I always kind of saw Harry as, uh--I thought he'd look more like me, and no one else looked like I pictured them either and it just--I thought it was shitty, I didn't want to watch the rest, she got pissed, and we broke up. Over a stupid Harry Potter movie. And it's not like I really cared," he adds, which isn't exactly true either. He wants to not care, but everyone else always makes him feel like he has to. Just because Clarke does it in a nice way doesn't mean he can stop fretting. Fretting is what he does. "But I did get sick of it. I haven't seen some stuff. Who cares?"

She leans her forehead against his shoulder blade, warm and affectionate. "I kind of like it when you hate stuff," she tells him. "It's fun."

"Yeah, I've noticed. But--you like Star Wars."

"Yup," she says, without a trace of worry.

"I want to like it."

"Maybe you will." There's a pause, and then she adds, deliberate, "I'm not going to break up with you if you don't like Star Wars, Bellamy."

"We're not dating," he says, voice a little dry. It doesn't even feel true, right now. It feels as if he could kiss her, and she'd slide into his arms and not leave. "So that would be tough. Do we have to watch the prequels?"

"I'm going to do some research," she declares, because of course she is, and he loves her.

"Research?" he asks, and lets himself hope it's going to be okay as she walks him through her plan.

Star Wars is really long, after all. He can definitely stretch and wrap his arm around her at some point.

He blames his actual excitement about the whole thing for his slip-up with Octavia. They're on their weekly check-in call, and when she asks him if he's doing anything special over the weekend, he tells her, "Watching Star Wars with Clarke," without thinking about it.

During the long pause, he remembers that his sister has tried, on multiple occasions, to convince him to watch Star Wars, for his own edification. Half of his refusal to see those movies, specifically, was just to piss her off.

If anyone had asked him, he would have said he assumed Octavia knew he was in love with Clarke. He sort of assumes everyone knows. It's a both minor miracle and annoyance that Clarke seems to have missed it. So it doesn't really feel like this should be a surprise for her. She should be able to figure it out.

"All of them?" is what she finally asks.

"You didn't think I had a social life, did you?" He shrugs, even though she can't see it. "Might as well get it over with. She wants to go to the new one, so--"

"So that is a thing."

"I don't know what you were expecting, you had your hot friend move in with me. Obviously I have a thing for her. I thought you knew."

"You're such a mess, Bell," she says. "If you like Star Wars, I'm never going to let you live it down."

"Cool," he says. "I'll deserve it."

Despite his best efforts to sleep in, he wakes up stupidly early on Saturday. At least the problem isn't really nerves about not liking Star Wars; he's basically fine with however that turns out. But the event feels significant, and he's got his mind half set on today being it. He's going to make a move on Clarke, somehow.

But she's not even awake yet, so if his brain would just shut the fuck up about it, that would be great. He gathers some of his thesis stuff to work on to distract himself, getting set up on the couch fairly happily. He's going for cool and casual, but of course as soon as Clarke comes out, she calls him out on it, which is fine. He wasn't really planning to keep the books once she was awake, he just needed something to do with his hands.

He gets the stuff put away and is settled back in by the time she's ready with coffee and cereal, and he can see her thinking for a second before she sits directly next to him, close enough that he can feel the heat coming off her side.

So they're on the same page. That's good.

"Okay, so," he says, shifting so he can get more comfortable, putting his arm behind her on the couch, but not really around her shoulders. "What's the plan? Did you figure out the optimal order to watch these in?"

"Machete order, basically," she says, like this will mean something to him. His expression must give him away, because she counts off on her fingers. "Episode four, episode five, episode two, episode three, episode six. And instead of watching The Phantom Menace, we just listen to the Weird Al "American Pie" parody song, which is way better."

"Cool. Which one is your favorite?"

She flashes him a grin. "Why, do you want to be nice to it?"

"Kind of, yeah."

Apparently it's the right answer, because she actually starts snuggling with him, which is the best kind of alarming. She's warm and smells like day-old shampoo, and it's the kind of perfect, comfortable morning he'd like to have every weekend.

"Return of the Jedi," she says. "I think the Ewoks are cute. Apparently this is a really unpopular opinion on the internet." She flashes him another bright smile. "I got in some fights while I was looking into this, so you better appreciate it."

"My hero," he says, getting his arm around her shoulders. "Are people against cute things?"

Clarke trades her cereal for the remote. "Not exactly. Just, you know. Star Wars is at its best when it's all serious and about a lack of hope for the future or something. Which is bullshit, especially given the first movie is called A New Hope. That's setting an optimistic tone."

"The first movie or the fourth movie?"

"Fourth movie."

"That's definitely needlessly confusing, for the record."

"Yeah, I think it was supposed to be kind of exciting? The ultimate in media res. But it gets weird to talk about."

He lets himself rest his cheek on her hair. "What's the one coming out soon that we have to see? What episode, I mean. Negative five?"

"Seven," she says, fond. "Okay, first disclaimer."

"Jesus, already?"

She ignores him. "These are the new versions, so I'm going to yell at the screen about how George Lucas is a hack any time one of the new scenes is on."

"Perfect. This is a lot of text. Do I need to be reading it?"

"No, you're fine. Evil empire, no hope, the usual."

"Is Yoda the new hope?"

She laughs. "No, Yoda is his sled." There's a pause. "You get that reference from just being alive, right?"

"Citizen Kane?" he hazards.

"Yeah. Which I've never actually seen. We should watch it. Grow as people."

"That sounds awful. The ships are pretty cool," he adds, hesitant. Effects don't always work for him, but he can imagine how cool the opening would look on a big screen, how all-consuming.

"That's a Star Destroyer," she says. "Evil empire ship."

"Evil empires get all the cool ships." He slides his arm further down, around her waist, and she finishes up the last few bites of cereal and puts the bowl down so she can curl against his chest.

He could definitely get used to this. And he even thinks he'll have the chance to.

He misses Yoda's first appearance, but it's definitely not his fault. He's trying to figure out when he should be tugging Clarke into his lap to kiss her, and it's hard to plan that when he's never seen the movie. And he is enjoying the movie. It's just that the girl he's in love with is tangled in his arms and they're holding hands and he's not sure there's a movie in the world that could distract him from that. Especially given what a great angle he has to look down her tank top right now.

"I was expecting more of a reaction," she says.

He starts, guilty. "What?"

"Yoda. I know he's your top priority."

He squints at the screen. Luke is on some kind of weird gray swamp planet, and everything seems bad.

Then he sees the weird green thing.

"Holy shit, is that him?"

Clarke is laughing. "I thought you knew what he looked like!"

"I thought he'd be bigger. And brighter green. And--wow. That's a lot."

She squeezes his fingers. "Everything you dreamed?"

"Honestly, yeah. What's he made out of? Is there an actor in there?"

"I think he's a puppet."

"Wow. That's awesome."

"I'm glad he lives up to expectations. He and Luke are going to do a training montage."

"He's a teacher?"

"Jedi master."

"Huh."

"See, you didn't get spoiled for everything."

"Not everything," he agrees, turning his focus to their linked hands. "I didn't see this one coming."

"Fun fact, Weird Al actually wrote that song before the movie came out based on Internet spoilers," Clarke tells him, once they're finished with the musical recap of the first episode. If it's really accurate, he doesn't feel like he's missing that much. He has yet to develop any emotional attachment to Anakin Skywalker.

"And I'll never know how accurate it is."

"You can watch the first one. I won't stop you."

"What's the point if you're not watching it with me?" he asks without thinking, and he's rewarded with a smile and slight flush.

"Suffering is better together," she agrees. "Okay. Episode two?"

"Sure," he says.

He'd like to say he gives the movie a fair try, but he honestly just doesn't. Clarke doesn't like it, and it's not like he's doing this just to impress her, but if she's not engaged, he isn't going to be either.

Besides, she just keeps getting closer to him, and even if he didn't basically want to marry her, he'd be dealing with some noticeable physical reactions.

"Do I need to care about this?" he asks. Pre-Vader and his girlfriend are flirting. Maybe. It's probably supposed to be flirting, but Han and Leia were a lot more convincing.

"Yes, this is--" She makes a face. "Honestly, I can't even think of a fake reason to care. I honestly have no idea what happens in this--"

He catches her jaw and tugs her mouth to his, swallowing the end of her sentence. She laughs into the kiss, this bright, pleased sound, and repositions so she can reciprocate without hurting her neck. He mouth is soft and warm and perfect, and she's pressing in close, like she wouldn't have been able to wait much longer either.

"This is because I'm bored and you're all over me," he tells her, trying not to grin too hard. "Not because the movie is romantic. I just want that to be clear."

"Because you're bored?" she asks, amused, and he nips her neck.

"We need to be dating by the time we're watching Return of the Jedi so you can dump me when I don't like it," he teases. "So I was working on a pretty short timetable."

Clarke looks like she's going to say something, but she leans in first, and he can't help kissing her again, and it turns into making out basically instantly, warm and perfect, making his whole chest light up. She's so warm and eager on top of him, so perfect.

"That's probably not going to happen," she murmurs, and there's a split second of total panic before she laughs softly and noses his jaw. "I meant dumping you, not dating you. I don't think there's anything you can say about Return of the Jedi to make me stop liking you."

He wasn't actually worried, not with any conscious part of his brain, because he knows her, and he knows she wouldn't be doing this if she wasn't serious. So it's easy to laugh and let his hands find the hem of her shirt, pulling it off when she obligingly raises her arms. "Sounds like a challenge." he says, giving her another kiss. "What if I hate the Ewoks?"

"I'll live."

"What if I think the entire franchise is a waste?"

"You like Princess Leia, so I know you don't."

"What if I--"

"What if instead of talking about Star Wars, we had sex?" she suggests, grinding down on him with a wicked smirk. "Don't get me wrong, it's fun and all, but--come on, Bellamy. It's just a movie."

He laughs, sliding his hands up her back to unhook her bra. "Yeah," he agrees. "Just a movie."

#Anonymous

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serenagaywaterford · 6 years ago

Note

1) Okay, I'm late (bc rl sucks), but I'm back and I'll gradually address everything. "Also do not feel any pressure to respond to my multiple essays! I understand completely!"The same goes to you, bc I feel like I'm bothering you too much. That being said, I truly enjoy talking to you. Not only you offer fresh/perceptive insights into the characters' minds (which made me a. reconsider scenes and motives, b. wanna rewatch S1 --some scenes you're commenting on are SO fuzzy in my head-- mind you,

2) 2) I’m already rereading the book), but you also provide such hilarious, sarcastic lines (some of them are absolute killers).

3) personalities” I know you have an inkling of who’s who. :D But damn, that ‘lesbianing’ bit had me giggling. Kudos, fellow anon. Since we’re on the subject, I have another question about your fic (if you don’t mind): is it post s2 or s1/s2 canon divergent? b) “Add horrid fangirls to that and it’s a big ass no lol.” Ugh. Fandom smh manages to sour my opinion of characters/ships/series I personally like. Especially when fans start pestering the creators to cater to their whims or harass actors

4) or start ship wars. Double ugh. c) “So, that’s the Mass Effect connection!” Two more similarities: i. Mass Effect’s Miranda Lawson got a lot of fandom hate back then (even though she was a famous character), just like Serena. ii. She has a back-and-forth, bickering (hateful but not THAT complex) relationship with another female character. d) “I have seen Westworld! Well, okay, just the first season. I got too tired/confused to get past the 2nd season premiere.” Oh, sorry. I shouldn’t have

5) assumed. Believe me when I say it’s a good thing you stopped watching when you did. The overall quality of the series remained pretty much the same (e.g. acting, cinematography, direction), but, oh boy, some new plot twists (which I usually like) are SO OVER THE TOP in order to impress (?) the audience. It’s reached a point where some characters are unrecognizable, bc they’re servants to the plot. Maeve has a lot bigger arc in S2 and Newton is thriving (imo, S2!Maeve >> S1!Maeve), but so is

6) Strahovski/Serena. :D e) “don’t go around bitching at people who say shitty things or stuff I don’t agree with, or blocking anybody who doesn’t like her."Ah, another thing we have in common. There were times I’ve been blocked by fandom people (with beautiful edits) that I NEVER interacted with (except for maybe reblogging from each other). That’s not me complaining. Like I said, each to their own.I just find this phenomenon funny at times. Story time. Once, an out of nowhere anon (whose msg I

7) didn’t publish, bc drama is SO not my thing) said they’d block me, bc of an uploaded gifset for a canon pairing (which wasn’t to their taste apparently) that was tagged as #[series]edit (although the ship!portmanteau was right there, too, so that people could easily block it). I remember being like: "Okay. Good for you, anon!” LOL. f) “I dunno if you see spoilers but there’s one about them.) She needs therapy so much more than a cutesy feelgood storyline.” I did NOT actually, but feel free to8) enlighten me.

——–

I am sort of back! (RL does get in the way of incredibly lengthy essays about fictional TV shows!) NO APOLOGIES NECESSARY!! I am just so happy I get to read all these excellent thoughts, analyses, and feelings you have! (and that we clearly share lol, including the sheer amusement of your writing!). I really want to write more at the mo but my hands are doing that weird old lady thing where you can see the veins popping out and it makes me v uncomfortable to look at. Especially since I have little baby hands. I hate it.

Ok, I’m now kneeling on the floor and the computer is on the kitchen island. This is better. I cannot see the top of my hands.

SO. Where was I? OW. my kneeeessss. This is a bad idea.

I’m so lost. Fic question. right. It’s post-S2. Like… quite post-S2. I didn’t even deal with HOW or WHY June is back in the Waterford’s house tbh cos I can’t be bothered to sort that out. (Thanks, show.) So, it just assumes that for some reason, she’s back. Which, if the BTS pics/video is to be believed, that’s the case anyway.

Fangirls (and boys ofc) ruin so much for me. Even if I like the same thing initially. Ugh. Then sometimes they’ll annoy me so much that I end up liking the complete opposite of what they like. Dunno why.

No worries about Westworld! It’s a reasonable assumption! Please don’t apologise, my friend. I do agree that Thandie was very good in S1. IIRC, her character was my fav (other than Clementine lol). Yvonne S2 was just next level shit to me. Like, what you’re saying makes me wanna give S2 WW another shot but when shows get overcomplicated, they’re not much fun anymore when I’m like “BUT WHAT IS HAPPENING LOL”.

>> “There were times I’ve been blocked by fandom people (with beautiful edits) that I NEVER interacted with (except for maybe reblogging from each other)”

EXACT SAME. It was actually in THT fandom most recently lol. Like, I reblogged one of their pretty edits once. Ever. I didn’t even say anything snarky or bitchy or rude in tags. I don’t think I added any commentary at all. Next thing I know? BLOCKED. Never interacted with them in any way whatsoever. (Typical N/J fangirl lol.) It’s the strangest behaviour and it’s that kind of thing that sours me towards sects of fangirls, and sometimes even the characters they like. Maybe that’s just petty but I think it actually just reinforces pre-existing feelings I had towards the character or pairing.) The only blogs I block are ones that are gross, RP, or spam. (RP blogs is a long history of them stealing and spamming and adding awful commentary to my posts way back in the day, so I just… block em. lol.)

>> “they’d block me, bc of an uploaded gifset for a canon pairing (which wasn’t to their taste apparently) that was tagged as #[series]edit (although the ship!portmanteau was right there, too, so that people could easily block it). I remember being like: “Okay. Good for you, anon!” LOL.”

Oh. My… WHAT. There’s a very odd sense of entitlement here that seems so peculiar to me. Like, that’s what the blacklisting feature is for? I’ve put every version of my most despised pairings, characters, etc. and it works? Very rarely does it miss on. I guess we’re just dramaphobic, mature old fandom farts. Like, “Kids, let me sit you down and tell you about this site before you could block things. Before even XKit was invented…” Not to mention every other website ever lol.

HOLY GROSS… I just got up and a centipede fell off me!! WHYYYYYY. THIS IS WHY I DON’T SIT ON THE FLOOR. (we live near the beach/woods so we get lots of bugs no matter how clean we are…) no more painful kneeling for me i guess…

OKAY. Spoilers. It’s not much but other than the June in Martha costume (which was shown in the teaser Superbowl trailer anyway by now)… there were set pics of Emily, Sylvia, Nicole, and Luke all happy and smiling. IIRC. I can’t find the post anymore. So it may not have been in character. But I dunno… it all seems… too easy? Like, I’m glad Emily is safe but omg. She’d better not be all hunky dory “I stabbed a lady and threw her down the stairs, murdered another, and ran a dude over with a stolen car, but now I’m Canada, I’m all healed!” (Not including the heart attack/crotch kicking here cos that was fair play to Emily. She deserved that.) Like, honestly, as much part of me was like YESSSS at all of those, still… that’s grievous bodily harm with intent to kill, flat out murder, and vehicular manslaughter. For Emily to do those things, you don’t do those crimes without being really broken and damaged. And… yeah. That doesn’t magically disappear when you hop over a border.

#spoilers #Anonymous

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starliters-blog · 8 years ago

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[SPOILERS] my thoughts on pd101 + jelpi’s yoon heeseok

aight here’s a lil rant.

i’ll start right off the bat that this is just a personal opinion and one not based off much at the moment. this is just my commentary and criticism of yoon heeseok, jellyfish’s trainee for broduce 101, and an overall opinion of pd101 in general.

long post in lapslock ahead.

i have watched the season 2 ver of pick me, their cute attempt of season 1′s pick me, the raw of episode one, a few of those special clips released before ep1 (all of heeseok’s and a few of samuel’s and daehwi’s) and a few performance evaluations (heeseok’s, samuel’s, fnc’s (sorry), and i think bnm’s) i’m stating this, because i have not watched everything-- this opinion is based on what i have seen, what i speculate may happen, and comparing it to semina.

OKAY SO TO START THINGS OFF i’m a lil disappointed. i don’t think sending heeseok on his own was a smart move on jelpi, but i think its a) they don’t have enough male trainees, as seen with the recent call for male auditions and b) they’re not here to win it like in season 1

i’ll explain b) a lil more-- when jelpi debuted gugudan, they got a bunch of backlash because “””apparently””” sejeong, mina and even nayoung deserved “”””better”””” more specifically sejeong because her akgae fans are ridiculous. the group is really talented, but judging by the production quality (not the song, because i liked it) of wonderland’s mv, it was super rushed. they could have rode the hype train along with pristin and possibly fantagio girls but they chose to debut in 2016 and jelpi... it wasn’t a smart move. jelpi is probably aware that the backlash is a result of their immense popularity (again, more so sejeong). the best line to tread would be sending a trainee who may not grab everyone’s attention, but company power will allow them to sit comfortably (evident by heeseok’s position of 26th despite barely aNY SCREEN TIME) and allow them to gain exposure and a steady fanbase-- but not to the extent of god sejeong.

there’s also rumours that mnet is forcing companies to join else they would be blocked, so perhaps they sent heeseok for the heck of it. don’t get me wrong, i love heeseok from what i’ve seen in those special clips-- he’s got a beautiful ballad voice, quirky, determined in small things (like makin meringues), a lil sneaky (where in that guess the item game, heeseok grabbed the bottle of soju to his side so his competitor couldn’t touch it) and a lil awkward like hakyeon-- they even look alike. he’s got the visuals and height too. heeseok is the kind of guy who would do well in a group or would compliment another person well in a duo. i just don’t think that sending him on his own was a good idea, even if it was for the reason b. he reminds me a little like kim nayoung-- the full package but just isn’t sure of themselves.

... which is why i still think he’d be a good addition to bro-ioi ahaha.

i’ve seen some people compare him to SeMiNa but you just can’t? all the girls had approximately a year experience, with nayoung at starship (edit: sorry i meant star empire) for more i believe. they absolutely slayed nikki yanofsky’s something new (proud canadian, proud jelpi stan). they even arranged the phrases differently so it would flow better, allowed nayoung’s rasp to come through, mina’s solo dance, and the MICROPHONE PASSING I MEAN fam. indeed, they were most definitely something new. they were on top of their shit. heeseok, however, has 6 months of trainee experience. 6 months, 1 year, it all looks potato potato no? but those 6 months really do make a difference and heeseok choosing chained up as his audition song is endearing but absolutely generic. how many times have you seen people sing their company sunbae’s songs? doesn’t it get boring? moreover, while vixx doesn’t have your typical “hype” choreo like bts and exo, it’s sharp and precise and moves in motion with the song-- and most definitely awkward without a group.

[big spoiler] and thus, baby fish was put into f group. dun dun dunnn.

[another big spoiler] people were disappointed-- i know i was. i was expecting a lot from heeseok, not just as a follow up of SeMiNa, but jellyfish in general is a talented company. not to worry (?) though-- i’ve been looking through the wikipedia page and apparently [here comes dat spoi] heeseok jumped to b group, which is the second or third highest jump in group for season 2? (with vibe’s taedong jumping from f to a and yuehua’s hyeonseop jumping from d to a)

so this just further’s my previous comment about heeseok being hard-working-- it shows here. albeit, i haven’t watched the re-evaluations episode (if it’s even out) and this could be completely wrong, but if its true then this is very... spotlight worthy.

...

how much do you wanna bet that mnet’s barely going to show shit

here comes my rant on how a) how i see things panning out and b) why mnet is the biggest gentleman’s pickle. i can already tell heeseok isn’t going to make it to the final line-up. if we’re lucky, he might survive until the 35 boys 5 concepts episode (though who knows if they might change it to 30, or 25 even) and he gets enough exposure like the s1 cube trainees before being outed. but look: he’s barely got screentime. jellyfish’s intro was short, they didn’t show his whole performance (and somehow is pitting him as a comparison to fnc), i don’t think got a SINGLE solo shot in either pick me version (i saw him once in the s1 retake behind someone else).

mnet is picking favourites but what else is new.

they’re hyping up the fact nu’est is joining but gave like... one nod to the fact hotshot, topp dogg, and jjcc members are joining, samuel is being touted as the new somi, daehwi as the new yoojung, mnet is using the same ol tropes to rope people in. don’t get me wrong, i’ve been rooting for samuel and nu’est before it starting airing, but this blatant show of favouritism pretty much decides who’s going to be a part of the final line-up.

update: just watched heeseok’s re-evaulation video and yes, [spoiler] he has been bumped to b. was i right about him barely getting any recognition? yeah, kind of.

overall, i just wanted to voice my frustration at jellyfish’s choice in not sending more trainees (though there might be none who wanted to join/in the company atm), why you shouldn’t compare heeseok to SeMiNa and why, despite being a good choice to add to the bro-ioi line up, he’s probably not going to get in.

this is a mess

#jellyfish entertainment #yoon heeseok #jelpi #produce 101 #broduce 101 #pd101 season 2 #kashi shut up #don't take this too seriously i just wanted to make a point #and rant

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