#finally getting around to giffing my footage

[macktism]

will&mack at the end of warmups together

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF THE NORMANDY SUMMIT

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, Primarch Adrien Victus, Dalatrass Linron, and Urdnot Wrex With: Comm. Specialist Samantha Traynor Commander, you need to keep Cerberus at bay- I can't overstate what a victory a treaty between the Turians and the Krogan would be for the Alliance. We need all the help we can get... Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

[freak-accident419]

playing cards

Derek Danforth x GN!Reader

(gif by @joshfutturman) Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | More parts coming soon

Summary: When his mother hosts a party and expects him to bring a proper date, Derek is obligated to comply. Not wanting to disappoint her any further (mainly driven by the rumor of her cutting him off), Derek recruits his best friend to pose as his fake partner. However, the two have to keep up this lie when a series of constant, luxurious events are held, causing several shenanigans to ensue.

Word Count: 3.7k

Content: gender-neutral reader, swearing, reader is his best friend, Derek’s mommy issues, fake dating

Ao3 Link

(A/n: this is my first miniseries!! I will also be posting this on Ao3, so please show your support there as well. Thank you to everybody who showed me love and support. Special thanks to Skye especially :) enjoy!!)

-

“Uh, yeah, I’ll have a flat white with oat milk. You know, the usual.”

For the most part, Derek would go about his usual schedule, which deprived of responsibility and stress. In fact, his recent routine invariably consisted of privileged luxuries, little to no work tasks, and drunken parties every night.

Phone in hand, Derek skated through the office on his skateboard as he waited for the drink that he ordered at the coffee bar. He checked for any texts until he swiped out of the Messages app to surf through his social media. And as he tapped through his friends’ stories on Instagram, video footage that caused Derek to reminisce the events of last night’s party took over his screen.

It was a typical night out for him, actually. He would invite his group of friends to clubs or venues and indulge in the colorful strobe lights, bass-boosted music, and alcoholic drinks. You had always tagged along with him, as you were his best friend, getting drunk and partying together. Every night, he would get abysmally wasted and driven home by his employees. Ultimately, “reckless” was nearly an understatement to describe Derek Danforth—alongside irresponsible and hedonistic.

He smirked at the Instagram stories that his friends had posted of him taking a body shot off of a skimpy stripper. Ultimately, you took the best video of the scene because unlike the other posted videos, the camera was much clearer and barely shaking. Chuckling to himself as he hears your voice chanting for him in the video, he tucked his phone back in his pocket and skated back to the counter to retrieve his coffee.

“Flat white with oa—”

“Beautiful, thank you,” he replies dismissively, grabbing the cup that the worker handed him and continued to skate along the hallway, past several other employees.

Expecting the next hour to be full of pampering and Tibetan singing bowls, a stern, yet familiarly lavish voice suddenly stops him in his tracks.

“Derek.” The young billionaire stiffens at the sound of his name being called. “May I have a word?”

An irritated sigh left Derek’s lips as he stood still on his skateboard, neglecting to turn his head around to face the older man. He then rolls his eyes and finally got off of his skateboard, kicking it up in his hand.

***

“You have to clean up your act, young man,” Westwyld states as Derek slouches pettishly in his chair.

Great. It was just another one of his needless lectures again. Why did he even bother? From the moment Derek walked into Westwyld’s dreadful office, he already sensed that he would be given another ‘serious talk’ from the man who tries to act like his father after having a romantic past with his mom.

In response to his useless demand, Derek scoffs with a smug curl on his lips, taking a short drag from his vape pen. It was almost amusing to him that Wallace believed his lectures would give him the slightest motivation to ���do better.”

“Isn’t your job covering up my ‘fuckups’? Keeping me out of the tabloids and the headlines, keeping my reputation clean?” He sneered, impatient with the predictable redundancy that Westwyld brought onto him. “Isn’t that all you’re good for?”

Westwyld sighs, not very keen on having to explain himself for the thousandth time. “Derek, my job is to keep Danforth Enterprises safe, to keep your mother safe. Her reputation, her name. For thirty-five years, I worked as the director of the world’s intelligence agency, but I chose this job as a favor to your mother.”

Derek rolled his eyes carelessly. It was the same, bothersome routine when Wallace would scold him and then run his mouth about how he could have had any other job, but chose security for Danforth Enterprises for the sake of President Jessica Danforth.

“Yeah, I’ve heard you tell me this for, like, a billion fucking times,” Derek retorts with a harsh scoff, “You know what, I don’t have the fucking time for this.”

He stood up instantly, storming off until Wallace’s next words made him freeze, bringing a chill up his spine.

“Your mother’s thinking of cutting you off, you know that?”

Derek processed Westwyld’s words for a second, sensing the threat behind it. His own mother wouldn’t do that to him. She completely adores him. Right? It was just another empty threat—everything had always worked out for Derek in the long run. So he kept his cool as always, scoffing in disbelief with a breathy chuckle. “Um, no. No, she’s not. She wouldn’t.” He turned around to face Wallace, walking back up to him.

“Everybody’s talking about it, Derek. A rumor, you would call it, but she spoke to her advisers. Money may play a big role in the grand scheme of things, but public image as well. I cannot keep covering for you, Derek. The endless social media posts of your immature, juvenile actions, the soirées, the strippers, it’s getting out of control,” Wallace spat sourly, evidently sick of Derek’s shenanigans and recklessness. “Even the tiniest information can spill, and your reputation will grow rotten. And your reputation is your mother’s. I won’t let you take this risk, Derek, you need to clean up your act now.”

***

Derek left Westwyld’s office slightly pissed, sipping his coffee as he rode through the hallway once again in his skateboard. Suddenly he felt his phone buzzing, so he grabbed it out of his pocket to look who was calling him.

Well, shit. Speak of the fucking devil.

It was his mother.

Taking a deep breath, Derek stared at the contact name and gulped nervously before finally clicking ‘accept’.

“Hi, Mom… What’s, um… What’s up?”

For the first time ever in Derek’s life, one of Westwyld’s lectures actually intimidated him.

Jessica Danforth was an incredibly busy woman. Hell, she was the President of the United States for fuck’s sake, there was no way she would call up her son for something casual. It had to be for something urgent, which inevitably provoked fear in him—all he could think about was getting disinherited. “Hi, Derek,” she says into the phone, sort of in a disappointed sigh. “I was just checking in, making sure you are able to attend the party on Saturday evening. You are able to come, yes?”

Derek let out a soft, gratified breath, relieved that his mother wasn’t calling him to discuss his reputation and financial situation. But either way, it seemed that he was still in deep shit; Derek forgot all about that party.

His mother spoke about it several times in the past, inviting him almost an entire month ago. She made it very clear about how important it was to her, but Derek was completey oblivious to it. It was either some kind of gala or charity event, but he’d been too baked recently to even remember.

“O-oh, um, party, right, that party…” he replies dubiously, the information barely coming back to his mind. “Yeah, um, yeah, of course.” He blinks for a moment, trying to remember the information about the party. Right. It was some kind of charity auction. Raising money for a good cause. Extremely tasteful and elegant, the kind of boring parties that Derek was never a fan of.

“Alright. Good,” she says briefly. Jessica bit her bottom lip hesitantly. “Derek, there’s something I also need to mention.”

Oh shit, here it is. The slight panic returned to him once again. He wasn’t sure how he was going to take it.

“Oh, and, um, what’s—what’s that, Mom?” He asks, raising an eyebrow and trying to sound calm.

“Your… your public image has been in a very rough state lately, especially with all of the partying posts that your friends shared online. The hard drinking and the strippers, Derek, it’s just… It’s affecting how your investors and all these businessmen perceive you. They won’t take you seriously with all of your recklessness. Just… Settle down or something. Find a really nice girl, or boy, or whoever, and take them out to dinner,” she urges. “I want you to stop partying and… hooking up with strangers so much. Please be presentable at the party, Derek. I’d—I’d even be pleased if you were able to bring a date.”

Derek didn’t process the words the moment they left his mouth abruptly, blurting out a blatant lie. “Actually, that’s what I was going to bring up. I actually have a date to the party.” Shit. No. No, you don’t, you fucking idiot.

“What?” She asks curiously, completely taken aback. “Are you serious, Derek?”

“Yeah! And, um, we’ve been serious for a long time, but uh… yeah, they are helping me become a better, uh, man, and I will no longer be reckless. My reputation will be restored, so no drastic measures have to be done,” he says, digging himself in a deeper hole as he tries to indirectly convince his mother that she shouldn’t cut him off. If those rumors were to be true, at least.

“Well… Derek, if you’ve been seeing them for a long time already, then what was that scandalous video clip of you and that… that stripper, posted everywhere online?” She questions, thinking to herself about the logistics of Derek’s situation.

“Oh yeah, that was—see, that was an old video. People have just been reposting it recently, you know the algorithm. I—Actually, I, uh, I met my partner on the day after that video was taken, and they, uh, yeah, they convinced me to be a better man, donate to charity, all that… philanthropy shit—uh, stuff.” Derek had attempted to simultaneously make his mother believe he had a respectable date to the party, as well as being a much better person than he was before.

“Which was when?” She raises an eyebrow.

“Uh, like.. gotta be a few months ago, give or take,” he answers briefly.

“Alright, and who is this date of yours?” She finally asks.

“Oh, right, that would, um, that would be my partner,” he answers in a mumble, nodding to himself with clarity.

“Derek,” she sighs exasperatedly.

“Oh. Their name? Their name, you mean? Their name is, uhh, umm… Actually, I would love to surprise you, Mom!” He answers immediately.

“Seriously?” She scoffs with a disappointed sigh. Jessica knew her son like the back of her hand. Hell, she birthed the kid, having to push out his dumb, big head out of her snatch. The point was, she could always sense when he was lying, or at least when there was something fishy. Sadly, she frequently expected very less of him, unbeknownst to Derek.

“Yeah, Mom! Trust me, they’re really kind and they’re a good person, and I am—I am just thrilled to introduce the two of you,” he exaggerates pridefully, hoping to eventually sell it.

“I worry about you, Derek,” she sighs softly. “Fine… Fine, whatever, Derek, I’ll see them at the party. Please promise me that. Just… Just be good, okay?”

Derek smiled to himself. “I will. And I promise. I won’t disappoint you. I love you, Ma.”

“I love you too.”

***

“I am so royally fucked,” Derek states bluntly.

Later on in the evening, Derek was hanging out with you as always, at the club you two would habitually meet up at. You were his best friend for many years already and earned the position of being his right-hand man ever since you first met in college.

“Why? What did you do this time?” You reply lazily, sipping your drink. You always expected bullshit from Derek. He always got himself into trouble that he would make other people fix. It wasn’t very bothersome to you, personally. You enjoyed hanging out with him and his privilege was just a big bonus.

“Well… So, I was speaking with Wallace—”

“Ew—”

“Yeah, I know,” he scoffs. “As I was saying… The guy pulled me into his office and, get this? There’s a whole fuckin’ rumor that my mom is going to cut me off.”

“What?” You perked up, sitting up from your previous slouching position and looked at Derek seriously. “No way. That—No, that’s not true. You’re—You’re a full-time Mama’s Boy, the fucking suck-up of the century, there’s no way she would do that to you!”

Derek shrugged as he sipped his bourbon, the blue lights in the bar beginning to give him a headache. “Yeah, well… Remember that… that super dope video of me drinking a shot from that one stripper’s belly button? What was her name?”

You bit the inside of your cheek in deep thought. “Vixen?”

“No, she was last week’s. Was it Trixie?”

“No, that was way back during the New Year’s Eve party,” you recalled.

“Candy? No…”

Enthusiastically, you slapped the wooden surface of the counter with your palm. “Tiffany!”

“Yes, fuck, it was Tiffany!” Derek exclaimed. “Okay, well, you recall all those videos of her and me posted everywhere, right?”

“Hell, yeah! I had the best fucking recording, man,” you chuckle softly, thinking about the wild night before.

“Yeah, you did,” he slightly smiled, “but, uh… It’s getting viral and well… I don’t fuckin’ know why Wallace can’t do more cover-up shit for me, but because I’m ‘ruining my reputation’ with this, it’s gonna give my mom a bad reputation too? So, like… Wallace said there was talk about her… cutting me off the inheritance or whatever.”

“Shit…” you blew a low whistle, raising an eyebrow. “That’s… That’s really tough, man. Look, I’m sure that there’s a reason why it was solely a rumor and she’s not actually thinking of that. She loves you, you’re the last physical form of proof of your dad, and ultimately, you’re a manipulative suck-up. You’re not getting cut off anytime soon, dude.”

Derek scoffs, pinching his eyebrows together. “Well, its too late because I sorta fucked up a bit more.”

You raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Really? How?”

“My mom was so insistent about me getting a date to the party this weekend and I think she believes that me being in an exclusive, healthy relationship or whatever would improve my reputation,” he explains, humming a small mutter of gratitude as a bartender walked over to refill his drink. “So… I lied and told her that I had a date already. And that I’ve been dating them for a few months already and they’re helping me improve so that she would have no reason to cut me off.”

“But like… the video of you and Tiff—”

“I know the video of me and Tiff!” He exclaims in frustration. “I told her that video was filmed a long time ago and people are just reposting it, or something.”

“Okay, right,” you nod, trying to get a sense of his train of lies. “So, what, did she believe you?”

“I don’t… I don’t fuckin’ know,” he mumbles, “I can’t tell. But I told her I would bring them to the party as a surprise and I couldn’t even come up with a name or anything.”

You groan, putting your head in your hands before taking another sip of your alcohol. “Derek, you are a total idiot. What are… So—so, who are you gonna pull up to the party with? A fuckin’ cardboard cutout of fuckin’… Margot Robbie and call it a night?”

“No, I’m not a dumbass, Y/n. I’ll just tell her that they couldn’t make it because they were sick or something. Better yet—they were doing some kind of modeling job in Europe,” he replies, wanting to give the impression that if he would have a romantic partner, they would be incredibly successful and beautiful. He had a reputation to uphold, after all.

“That’s rich,” you scoff, wiping an eye with your finger. You were absolutely done with him. “You really think she’s going to believe that? Seriously? She’s your mom, Derek, I’m sure she can tell when you’re lying. And—and at one point, she’s going to ask for proof of photos and to actually meet them in person, and I’m sure that when she gets the news that you lied to her, she’d want to cut you off even more! Derek, you’re just digging yourself in an even deeper hole than before. You’re practically digging your own grave,” you argue.

“Fine, fine, then if she asks again, I’ll just say that they broke up with me,” he shrugged dismissively, leaning back and drinking from his glass.

“I thought the whole point was to improve your reputation, make you seem like a goddamn saint?” You retort, wiping your hand over your face in exhaustion.

He frowns. “Okay, you do have a point. Fuck. Then what do you suggest I do?”

“Why’re you asking me?” You whine with a frown.

“Because you keep correcting me on shit, clearly you must have better ideas than me,” he shrugs, looking at you expectantly.

“Well, I don’t. If I were you, I’d just cut your losses and accept that your fucking consequences have actions!” You reason fairly. “Might as well just get kicked out to the streets, having to con people for their money—oh wait, that’s exactly what you’ve been doing for the past few years! That’s all you do, man, I’m sorry, I can’t back you up! All you do is trick and deceive with all your lies, using people as pawns, it’s ridiculous!”

And after all that calling out, there was only one thing that the arrogant bastard got out from your outburst. His eyes lit up and you could tell that he had another stupid idea.

“Wait, Y/n, that’s it!” He exclaims brightly. “Using people!”

“Dude, I really fucking can’t with you—”

“I can get someone to pose as my fake partner for the night!” He grins.

“Yeah, I am really not liking the sound of this—”

“And get this,” he began eagerly. “You can do it.”

You feel your eyes widen as you hear Derek’s proposal. “Oh, no. No. Hell no. No, no, no, not in a million fucking years.”

“Y/n, come on,” he whines childishly. “It’ll only be for a day. You can pose as my partner at the party, impress my mom, deceive the press for a bit, and boom, I won’t even be considered getting cut off.”

You let out a prolonged groan, rolling your eyes and gulped much more of your drink than a regular sip. “Derek, she knows me. She knows I’m your best friend, she’s met me, there is no way—”

“That’s the point! I can pull some strings and shit, saying that we were friends until we, like, fell for each other or some other cheesy fuckass story. And if we want this entire charade to end after the party, a few days later I could just say that we broke up because we were more compatible as friends! No bitterness so that neither of us seem like the bad guy in the breakup. It’s the perfect fucking plan,” he explains, somehow more intricately than you would expect from him.

You pause, pondering deeply about his plan.

“Hell no.” You finally say, drinking more of your beer.

“Aw—come on, Y/n. Please. It’s only for a day. Look, my life is at fucking stake! I could lose all my fucking money, and—look—you won’t get to take advantage of my rich, privileged ass anymore. No more luxuries, no more rich parties. Come on, Y/n. Please.” His voice was pleading and you could tell he was heavily desperate. He wasn’t wrong. If the rumors were true and his mother was going to cut him off due to his recklessness and immaturity, he would lose so much money that you can’t leech off on. And of course you cared about him more than the money, he’s been your friend for years. But this whole thing seemed so complicated.

However, you were his right-hand man. His best friend since college. He relied on you. But hell, if you had to humiliate yourself for one night as Derek’s romantic partner, you should at least get something out of it.

“I wanna get paid,” you blurted.

He looked at you with an almost offended expression. “What?”

“Look, if I have to spend a night at a boring ass party, shaking the wrinkly, sweaty hands of old, ancient fucks, and having to pretend I’m your partner, I expect to be paid,” you reason, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re fuckin’ kidding,” he scoffs distastefully, rolling his eyes. God, you wanted to stab a fork in them.

“No! This whole plan is so complicated and I hate you for involving me in it!” You growl, pointing at him accusingly. “What am I getting out of this? Nothing! So you might as well just pay me to do this stupid acting job.”

“You’re—You’re not serious—” he glances at your obstinate expression. “You’re fucking serious. Well, okay! Fuck, fine. How much are we talking?”

“How long is the event?” You ask, grabbing your glass up to your lips to indulge in another sip.

“Probably a few hours, I don’t know, it’s a whole fancy live charity auction event,” he shrugs carelessly, grabbing his vape from his pocket and taking a quick drag.

“Okay, then. I won’t burden you too much. Two hundred dollars,” you answer confidently.

“That’s it? Oka—”

“However,” you began with a small smirk. “If we have to be all couple-y and gross and romantic with each other, I may consider raising the price. Like, if we have to hold hands or I have to look into your eyes for more than five seconds.”

“Fine, that seems fair,” he sighs softly. “Do we have a deal?” Derek, like he always would when he’d negotiate, took out his hand in front of you.

You grimaced at it. “I really don’t wanna shake to that,” you whine, groaning to yourself. “Just one night, right?”

“One night,” he confirms.

“Staging a break up right after?”

“Yup.”

“Little to no PDA?”

“Hopefully.”

“And you’re gonna pay me five hundred bucks?”

“Yes. Wait, wh—”

Before he could protest, you shook his hand immediately, completely sealing the deal.

Having to pretend to be Derek Danforth’s romantic partner for a whole night?

Yeah, there was no way in hell that this was going to end well.

[otomiyaa]

nice.png

(literally how I named the image, couldn't think of something else)

Hi guys :') To my followers and tumblr friends, I'm really sorry if my sudden disappearance scared or upset you. It wasn't quite... planned. And today was a busy day and I needed some time to consider what I wanted to do.

Short version of the story:

My tumblr account got terminated for copyright infringement. A certain Mr. Green got me in unlucky trouble (ref 1, 2).

I won't get it back, or try to get it back. It's gone.

Needed a moment to consider 2 options: ask Mia to extend my dramatic farewell letter and stay gone, or make a new blog.

Not planning to post new writing here. I won't be using words like 'never' or 'forever' because I'm a known clown with things like this, but the intention is to no longer post fics. I will finish Tickletober on AO3 and then take a break from writing. So yes, I cancel the swiftscribbles event too, sorry!

When I opened my laptop, I could see my old blog in its final hour lmao (I found out about the loss on my phone). So that's what the snap is from on a fitting grave. It was fun while it lasted!

Long version of the story:

Losing my blog(s): My Tumblr account with main blog + sideblogs got terminated overnight, it was quite the surprise! I've either been reported or tracked by bots. The posts are a bunch of numbered URLs I can't open, but the message is clear: for including anime content, genshin impact or media from other sources (whether it's videos, screenshots, official art, gifs or even fanwork) you technically can get a strike. Upon googling the claimer I quickly found this first, and knew it was a lost cause. Although it feels shitty and unlucky, I am in no place to appeal. It's like when I used to make AMVs in the past, you never knew whether a song or even anime footage was going to give your YT account a copyright strike or even a ban, it was a gamble. I have lost YT accounts before, and now I lost the Tumblr one. With 7+ years of tickle trash content and a bunch of sideblogs. But oh well, moving on!

Starting a new blog: It was a serious consideration whether this was my ultimate chance to do what I've always said I wanted to do eventually - quit my blog. My first thought was to ask Mia to share my explanation and literal goodbye with you guys, and stick to my chaos of a Twitter account to indulge in fandom stuff. But then I thought of how happy Tumblr made me, even without the fic writing, but just.. reblogging things, getting random asks, shouting about life and of course, about tickles. I decided to make a new blog after all, but also decided the following:

The 7K+ milestone swiftscribbles event is cancelled, for which I apologize! The follower milestone, together with the motivation to write the fics, and even the asks with the requests I got, all died with my former blog.

I will see how long I can survive without posting a new fic or drabble. A loose headcanon or two might fly around sometime. And if necessary, a link to a new fic on AO3.

Tickletober? Hell yes I'll finish it, I would cringe in bed for 49 days at least if I would stop. I just won't post the fics here, but on AO3.

Reposting/reblogging my old works? Undecided at the moment but I'm tired and lazy. I don't feel too upset since most of my fics are still on AO3 at least and not completely gone.

Anyways, I'll see what happens and how long I can enjoy this nerfed version of blogging.

Surprisingly I'm not upset about losing my other blog, there were a lot of memories but it was also very cringe. I'm gonna be just as cringe here, but at least I feel cleansed.

For those who choose to follow me again, thank you, but please know that there won't be much original content coming from me, for now!:)

[kitnita]

hi! i love seeing your gifs in tags and how you make the reds pop! could i ask about how you approach your coloring process? :)

sure!! sorry that it took me so long to get to this, anon. disclaimer that most of my Fun Coloring comes from me saving every PSD i've used for a gif before & then re-using them and putting them with other PSDs and then saving that combo as a PSD and then combining that new PSD with a different one but maybe messing with opacity or which layers are visible this time, etc. i'm not coming up with the coloring 100% from scratch every time i make gifs and usually the only thing i do new is the base coloring; i talked a little about that here, but i also put together a quick video on the process that goes into my base coloring!

i used the mav media availability from this gifset as the base as that was my most recent gifset when you sent this ask.

so, in the middle is a gif made with just my base coloring (+ with my usual gif actions; you can see the settings for them in a screenshot in the post linked above) compared to a gif made from the unedited footage (left) and a gif with the base coloring + the coloring i used in the posted gif (as far as i remember 😭 it looks a little different from the posted gifs but that could just be down to the base) (right).

even just doing some simple adjustments to the base helped greens and warm tones stand out in the middle gif — it really doesn't take take a lot to pump up the colors! i'd be perfectly happy posting that middle gif as-is. but if you want to see some of the other steps i add when doing more 'fun' coloring, i go through a little of that process under the cut!

the coloring i used on the original mav gifset was the same coloring i used to make this oskar gifset; i've been using it or a variant of it on most of my media avail gifsets recently so it should generally be a good representation of what my process to enhance reds looks like, generally.

when i say that most of my 'fun' or stylized coloring comes from layering a bunch of different saved colorings from gifsets past, i mean that this particular coloring looks like this:

of those ten (!) folders, three aren't even visible, and four have their opacity set below 100%. there are subfolders within those folders that also have their opacity set to something weird. this is not a super teachable coloring because it's just something ........ built up? from over the years?? but i'll walk through it a little more regardless.

something that i add to pretty much every gif i make is combo of two gradient overlays that flatten or soften the overall appearance of the gif. on this gif, the folder with the two gradient overlays was set to 50% opacity; the gradients themselves are the default black & white gradient set to reverse (white to black vs. black to white) at different opacities — one at 36% and the other at 14%. those numbers mean almost nothing as i'll usually play around with the 'flatter' folder every time i move it onto a gif. the big thing is just making sure the gradient is set to overlay!!

this is what the gif (with the base coloring) looks like with the flatter folder added vs. without it.

this just softens & brightens the look of the gif, smoothing out harsher colors while maintaining the amount of contrast achieved through the base coloring.

then i moved over the next folder from the psd from the oskar gifset, which is a million other folders in a trenchcoat, all of them set to a different opacity.

the final gif uses this folder at 25% opacity which makes like. a negligible difference to enhance greens & warm tones, as seen in the process gif below.

the further i get into explaining my process the less convinced i am that this is actually helpful 😭 i really do just save every coloring i do for a gif and then take bits and pieces and add it back and mess around, over and over again. when giffing the stars, i tend to like to enhance both warm tones and the color green, but with different lighting & backgrounds i have a billion variants for doing that, and then i come to decide later that i liked the way the skin looked in this gif + the way the background looked in this gif + the way clothes look in this gif, so i pick each saved psd over for spare parts and add them back at my leisure.

a lot of this looks like the process i did for the base coloring; just instead of focusing strictly on color correcting, i'll look at using hue/sat and selective color adjustments to enhance or shift the way green looks. and then i'll need to go in & adjust the color balance, and then i want to do something to the vibrancy, and then i want a subtle gradient so that it's slightly darker in the corners & brighter where the guy's face is, etc.

for every folder i add that's a million subfolders, like that 'robo dramatic' psd pictured above, there's a couple like these two, with minimal adjustments just grouped together for organization's sake:

everything i do is very much trial & error and just seeing what looks right with what kind of footage. just play around in photoshop & figure out what works best for you!! save the colorings you like so you can use them (or parts of them!) later!! so on and so forth.

if you have any other questions please feel free to come back to me with them but also please be prepared for me being just as bad at answering them as i was at answering this one 💖

[secretswiftymarvelfan]

The Kind Of Love You Only Find Once In A Lifetime - Steve Rogers x Reader

A/N: This whole fic is dedicated to the wonderful @anika-ann because she was the one who reblogged the wartime footage gifs that inspired all this and I promised I'd write it 😉

Summary: After Tony finds some old Wartime footage of Steve, Steve starts reminiscing about his past.

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: Angst! Flashbacks! Fluff! War Time!

Dividers by @firefly-graphics​

Masterlist

Steve let out a shaky breath as he sat down on the edge of his bed staring at his TV which was still a black screen. He stared at his own reflection seeing his heartbroken expression staring back at him. He was desperate to turn it on and rewatch the footage of you but at this moment he couldn’t bring himself to.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but the cuts on his knuckles had clotted and were halfway to fully healed. His body finally took over from his brain as he picked up the remote and turned on the TV ready to watch the footage.

As soon as your face appeared on the screen he let out a watery chuckle as the weight he felt on his chest listed. The rest of the world disappeared around him and it was just you and him, just the way he wanted it to be.

1943

“Do we have any information on where the watchtowers are?” Steve asked as he looked down at the map in front of him.

“Intel says there are here, here and here” Bucky says pointing at the map “but I would expect a couple of unofficial ones here and here”

“Right, what position are you planning to take?” Steve asks looking over at his best friend.

“This position here would offer me the best-” Bucky starts before he gets interrupted by Colonel Phillips walking in with a small group of men and a woman.

“This mission is going to have to be postponed for today gentlemen” Phillips says as he comes to a stop by the table.

Steve’s brows furrow as he looks over at the Colonel “What? Why? This Hydra base is vital, we have to take it down” he argues.

“It can wait for another week, in the meantime, we have a more pressing issue to attend to” Phillips explains, he glances over his shoulder and beckons the woman over “This is Y/N Y/L/N from London, she will be accompanying you on missions recording footage of them for propaganda material”

“No” Steve states crossing his arms over his chest “I am not having a civilian accompanying us on mission”

“Don’t forget your rank Captain, if I say Y/N will be accompanying you, Y/N will be accompanying you” Phillips states fixing Steve with a hard look.

“It’s not safe” Steve argues.

“Hence why the more dangerous missions will be saved for when Y/N will not be accompanying you” Phillips explains.

“Not that I wouldn’t be able to hold my own” you muttered with a small scoff.

Steve glanced over at you for the first time and properly took you in. He could see fight and fire in your eyes as you held his gaze and didn’t baulk. If anything you tilted your chin up and invited him to back down instead.

Steve returned his attention back to Colonel Phillips “What is the new mission” he asked.

“A sweep through a small village in France” Colonel Phillips.

“Fine” Steve huffs turning his attention back to you “I want you to follow my orders exactly, i will not have your death on my hands”

You arched a brow at him “You don’t need to worry about me sir” you state.

Steve held your gaze for a second longer before turning and storming out of the room.

Steve refused to look over at you on the ride to the small French village. Instead, he kept his gaze on the floor as he pretended to go over the plan in his head once more. What he was really doing was resisting the urge to look over at you, and watch as you cleaned and prepped your camera.

“When we get there, I should go on ahead so I can capture you from in front,” you say grabbing his attention.

“No, you stay behind me where it’s safe” Steve states.

“Footage of the back of your head is not as inspiring as the front… people wanna see you’re pretty face” you smirk.

Steve could barely stop the growl that passed through his lips “I am the Captain, I am leading-”

“She can film from inside one of the buildings” Bucky intervenes “She’ll be escorted forward and into position and then will be behind cover should something happen”

Steve looks over at you and watches as you throw him a questioning look, goading him to fight back against it even though it was a perfectly good plan, a good compromise.

“Fine, Buck I want you to escort her forward” Steve relents leaning back.

“Thank you Sergeant Barnes,” you say smiling over at Bucky, a shot of electricity shoots through Steve as you smile at his friend.

Steve’s fist clenched as he looked down at the floor. For years he’s watched girls fawning over Bucky and ignoring him and while it wasn’t fun it never really bothered him. He just got used to it, it was just the way the world worked. But now he hated it. Even though he hated that you were here right now, he wanted that smile aimed at him.

Thankfully a good distraction came along as the truck came to a stop and it was time to get on with the mission “Buck go on ahead with Y/N” Steve orders.

Bucky threw him a small salute before guiding you ahead into the small village. Steve watched the entire time as you and Bucky walked further into the village before disappearing inside one of the buildings. Bucky returned a few seconds later before gesturing that they were good to go.

Steve nods in understanding before looking back at the rest of the howling commandos “Let's get going”

To begin with the mission was going smoothly, they swept through the village finding nothing of concern. However just as they were about to make their way out a rogue Hydra agent appeared and started shooting. Steve shouted for you to take cover as he went to attack but you didn’t instead you stayed exactly where you were and started filming.

Thankfully Steve was able to take down the agent but as soon as he dealt with that he spun on his heel stormed over to you, grabbed you by the arm and dragged you back into a nearby building.

“Hey, what the hell get off me!” you shout trying to pull your arm free of his grasp.

“If I order you to get down you get down! Some stupid footage is not worth your life!” Steve growls as he shoves you back into a wall.

“I had it covered! I was safe!” you argue scowling up at him.

“There was an active shooter! You could have been shot!” Steve shouts.

“I can handle my own” you growl stepping forward and getting in his face “I am not some weak pathetic girl with a camera, I am here to do my job because I am the best person to do it, because I can hold my own” steve let out a small scoff shaking his head “don’t believe me? Fine,” you say suddenly pushing him aside.

Quicker than Steve could react you whipped out a pistol and shot 3 bottles that remained on a shelf in the far corner of the room. Steve blinked as he stared at the shelf and the shattered bottles. The rest of the howling commandos rushed into the building expecting a fight only to find you glaring up at Steve as he stared at the far wall.

“Believe me now?” you state putting away your gun before storming back out of the building towards the jeep.

Silence fell in the room after your exit, Steve cleared his throat a couple of times before looking back at his friends “Back to the jeeps” he ordered.

Most of them leave except for Bucky who just smirked as he shook his head “You really need to get better at talking to girls” he chuckles.

That evening Steve sat stewing in his tent. As soon as they got back to base camp Steve went straight to Colonel Phillips to try and convince him that it was a bad idea having you around and the mission today was the perfect example. However, Phillips was having none of it and already had the next mission planned.

“What is your problem!” you demand as you storm into his tent.

“I have no problem” Steve states refusing to look up at you.

You scoff shaking your head at him “You lie worse than a politician” you state crossing your arms “If you have no problem with me why did Colonel Phillips just tell me how you demanded to have me removed!”

“Because you aren’t needed here! I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re fighting a war here we don’t need to waste time on pointless missions just so you can get some footage!” Steve snaps standing up from his bunk, gesturing to the outside “I am here to do a job! I have wasted enough time prancing around like a circus monkey I do not need to do it here too when I could be saving lives”

You baulked slightly, your eyes scanning his face as you went silent for a moment “I’m not trying to make you a circus monkey” you say calmly, holding your hands up.

“You don’t think setting up shots for the best angle, or going on fake missions constitutes a circus monkey” Steve scoffs shaking his head.

“No, I think I’m capturing hope” you say your voice still calm, although the edge of frustration was bleeding back in.

“Hope? How is this hope? This is war” Steve states.

You take a deep breath closing your eyes for a moment before finding his cool gaze once more “Look, I don’t know how aware you are of the morale back in the United Kingdom, but it’s pretty poor” you state “my people are getting bombed nightly, they had to send their kids away so they were safe, they live on rations, they see posters that just tell them to keep calm and carry on but how the bloody hell are we supposed to do that when this war has gone on for four years!” Steve blinks in surprise as emotion fills your voice and eyes.

“Y/N” Steve muttered quietly.

“You have invigorated the small shred of hope that we have, knowing that we have this super soldier on our side gives up hope, you give us hope!” you shout pointing at him hard in the chest “So I’m sorry if you don’t enjoy having a camera shoved in your face, but I don’t like watching my people, my family, so close to breaking point and if shoving a camera gives them some hope that maybe this war will be over soon then you will be bloody damn sure that I will do it!”

Silence fell for a moment, the only noise being your shuddered breathing. Steve stared down at you, even with tears rolling down your cheeks you refused to back down, to drop your gaze from his. Steve takes a small step forward, your breathing hitched as he did so, but you still didn’t back down. Instead, your expression turned to one of surprise as he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you into his embrace.

“I’m sorry” he whispered.

You let out a shuddering breath as you sunk into his embrace allowing Steve to hug you tighter “If it helps it wasn’t personal” Steve says quietly earning a small snort of laughter from you “I just…. I didn’t see the bigger picture”

You pulled away enough to wipe away your tears “I know, and I’m sorry if I made you feel like a circus monkey, it was never my intention” you say shaking your head.

“I know…” Steve sighs before holding out his hand “Truce?”

A smile pulls at the corner of your lips “Truce”

From that day onwards Steve built a good rapport with you, he would even go as far as saying you were a close friend. In fact, to say that would be a lie because the way Steve felt with you was something completely new and addictive. He wanted to spend every moment he could with you, he wanted to see you smile and hear you laugh because it was his favourite sound.

Some evenings he’d spend his time with you in your tent, he’d listen as you told him about what you dreamed of doing once the war was over. How you wanted to become the best cinematographer in the business. You’d ask him what he’d do but he never really had an answer, the closest he came was something to do with art.

You’d show him how to use your camera and he’d then spend every opportunity he could filming you instead. He wanted to capture your smile, your laughter, you’d try and push the camera away but he was nothing but persistent. He’d tell you that you looked good in front of the camera too, maybe it was his way of telling you how pretty you were when he was still too scared to do it.

He was too scared to admit how much of his life and heart you occupied. He was so scared that he didn’t think he’d ever admit it to you. However, the universe worked in mysterious ways and clearly the universe wanted Steve to admit his feelings and did so by creating a surprise attack on the next mission.

Steve had felt off about the mission before it even started, it felt like the universe was holding its breath. It put Steve on edge and maybe that edge was what helped him spring into action when he needed to. He trusted you to handle yourself and you had proved time and time again however that didn’t stop him from stepping in when you did need his help. Not that you would admit it and you didn’t, in fact, you snapped at him telling him that you had it covered.

Steve didn’t believe you though, so that evening he made sure to seek you out and make sure you were okay. He found you in your tent, your back facing the entrance but he could tell by your slumped shoulders that you were not okay.

“Y/N,” he said softly as he made his way over to sit beside you.

“I’m fine” you whispered, quietly sniffling.

“It’s okay if you’re not” Steve said putting a hand on your shoulder.

“I… I just…” you stutter before letting out a long sigh “I would have died today if it wasn’t for you” you admit quietly.

Steve lets out a long sigh as he wraps his arm around your shoulder and pulls you closer “I never would have let anything happen to you”

“I know… it’s still scary you know… I mean, we’re good now but would it have been the same before?” you ask him.

“Yeah, even when you infuriated me I wouldn’t have let anything happen, not just because it's my job, but because it's you,” Steve says softly “Even then I knew you were incredible, I wanted you to smile at me instead of Bucky, I… the way I feel has only gotten stronger”

“Steve… I…” you whisper looking up at him with wide eyes “I really like you too”

A wide smile grows on Steve’s face as he gently cups your cheek and leans in. The kiss was soft in nature but it felt like fireworks, the whole world faded away into a blur and the only thing that existed was him and you. The magnetic force he’d felt all this time was at his peak now and he couldn’t pull away even if he wanted to, his hand moved into your hair as he pulled you closer. His honour as a gentleman was the only thing that stopped him from taking it any further.

“I want to take you out somewhere, a real, proper date, I want to do this right” he whispered as he pressed his forehead against you.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed we’re kind of at war at the moment” you point out making Steve laugh as he kisses you once more.

“Trust me I noticed, but you deserve the best and I’m willing to wait if you are” he says.

“I can wait” you smile softly “I don’t have to wait to kiss you again though do I?” you add as your lips twist into a smirk.

“No, I would be insane to say that” Steve grins as he pulls you closer once more and kisses you as deeply as he’d dare go.

2012

Steve hated hindsight. He hated how crystal clear it was. As he hit replay in the footage of you he hated how he knew he’d never see or hear that laughter again. He hated that he now knew he never got the chance to take you on that date, to tell you that he loved you, he hated that plane from taking him away from you, he hated himself.

There was only one thing he knew, and that was if someone told him they’d invented a time machine. He wouldn’t hesitate to jump right in and go home to you.

Sharing is caring so please reblog if you enjoyed this and maybe even leave a comment to make my day!

Masterlist

I don’t have a taglist so follow @secretswiftymarvelfanlibrary​ and turn on post notifications to be kept up to date!

[heybaetae]

hii i love ur gifs so i have been wondering if u know how to low down the size of a gif without losing its quality?? i hate when i want to post a certain gif and it being 13MB but if i cut it it's ugly 😔😔😔 sorry for my english 😔

hi, thank you 💕 i think i have answered similar questions before in my gif help tag, but i can offer some more (hopefully) helpful tips and things you should consider to help keep your gif under 10mb.

1. crop size & amount of frames

the two go hand-in-hand. big cropped gifs with a large number of frames will result in a big file size. if you're making a 540px wide gif, you're either gonna wanna make the gif shorter in height or use fewer frames. for a square gif, i try to keep it between 50-70 frames, but sometimes i still have to trim it down depending on how bright or colorful the gif is (i'll get to that in the next points).

however, making the gif a shorter height like 350px or 400px might give you a little more room for more frames without having to delete any. i like big gifs if i have a great quality file. 600px tall is as far as i'll go (though it's rare) and in that case, i try to keep it limited to 40-50 frames.

basically:

540px wide gifs = fewer frames or shorter height

268px wide gifs = more frames, more potential

tip: for the sake of convenience, i really recommend making presets of all your go-to crop sizes by selecting "save preset" in the drop down menu next to your chosen dimensions. note that mine are all set two pixels more than i need because some photoshop versions leave a transparent border around gifs. when i use my convert to frames action, it deletes those two extra pixels for me and my gif will have the proper tumblr dimensions before i export.

more tips to get rid of extra frames:

delete frames with camera flashes, you will rarely notice a difference.

always check for duplicate frames.

original footage is slow motion? it's got duplicated frames. delete them.

2. sharpening

your sharpen settings can also increase the file size. here is a great post with examples of when to know when your sharpening is crossing into unchartered territory and how to avoid it. manually adding noise effects can also increase file size, so keep that in mind when you're doing it for aesthetics (i personally love noisy gifs too!).

3. brightening

adjustment layers that handle the "light" in a gif such as curves, levels, and exposure can all affect the file size in different ways. darkening the black points using these tools in your gif helps reduce grain as well as the amount of colors in the final product.

curves: use the white and black eye droppers to find the lightest and darkest points in the gif, thus adjusting the white balance of the footage if needed.

levels: move the left and right sliders inward to balance them out even more and bring back more details.

exposure: my favorite trick EVER to lowering the file size if it's over 10mb when i go to save for web is moving the "offset" slider of an exposure layer slightly to the left. it will darken the black points even more and add some contrast to your gif and it can minimize the file size by quite a lot.

3. coloring

you want to be able to save your gif with 256 colors without reducing the number manually in order to get it under 10mb (we've all been there). sometimes you can get away with doing that without losing much of your quality, but it's always ideal to NOT have to do this. selective coloring and color balance are your friends when it comes to enhancing and/or getting rid of tones you don't want. i can't give you a whole course on coloring alone, but i can say that ONCE AGAIN, darkening the blacks under the black tab in selective coloring will help. i usually go up to about +5 or more if i need to. neutralize your reds and yellows for skintones, especially when giffing idols. don't go too overboard with the vibrance if you use it. be conscious of colorwashing. experiment with photo filters or gradient maps if you're aiming for a cooler or warmer look.

i hope this helps, i am not a magician but i do think a lot of these key details help me a lot when my final gif is over 10mb and i need to go back and make adjustments.

[bluebudgie]

Oh hi. I heard it's gifs tips'n'tricks time.

View this as a little addition to this post I made a while back.

This time I thought I'd take you through my gif making process. It'll be very specific to Photoshop CS6 but maybe some of you will find parts of it helpful regardless.

And since our biggest nemesis appears to be ~The Tumblr 10MB File Size Limit~ I decided to go for the absolute worst premise for a gif: Lots of stupid wobbly particles and gw2 bloom and transparency effects. Because huge gifs love these.

Aah, a horrifying amount of those in this single scene. Perfect!

Let's start with a little timelapse video, and I'll get into the details with screenshots below then.

So this actually went smoother than expected? Not super much fiddling needed in the end, but here's how it went in detail:

Load the raw footage into photoshop.

You can do this in two different ways: What I do is simply drag & drop the video file into the program and it'll open with a video timeline and some rudimentary video editing options.

What you can also do is File -> Import -> Videoframes to Layers and select your source video, which will give you a timeline of separate still image frames instead.

It comes down to preference, I used both methods in the past but nowadays I find the video timeline more intuitive.

Cut the footage to roughly the right length.

From experience I know that most of my gifs are around 3-4 seconds long. This can of course vary depending on different factors. Don't get too attached to the exact seconds you selected, you might have to shave off a bit depending on how evil the file size decides to act.

Optional: Change footage speed

Depending on the gif and its purpose, I slow the footage down. I usually do this for the visual effect (especially nice for showing off animation details) but it also has the practical side effect that it can help with file size. Say you want a gif that loops after 4 seconds. At 100% speed your gif will move at your original framerate (in my case 60 fps); if you slow it down but keep the same length in seconds it'll logically use less frames. That's less data to blow up the size! Yey.

Crop the image.

Now this is probably one of the most crucial parts when it comes to your final file size, and your gif looking nice on tumblr. Since the tumblr dashboard displays images at a width of 540px, you want this to be your absolute minimum image width to ensure a crisp image. If I can, I'll make the gifs larger (I like starting at a minimum of 600px and then reduce the image dimensions if needed).

With that in mind.... choose your image crop wisely.

A "widescreen" image like this will be the most merciful in terms of file size, but might not always be what you want in terms of composition.

Given tumblr's very vertical nature, this kind of approach will look great in posts (if it fits your image composition of course), but at 540px minimum width tends to be a file size monster.

For the gif I'm attempting to make here I opted for a more square approach. The subjects of the scene fill out the image's space nicely, and it's still a nice size for tumblr posts overall. Let's see what the file size will say about this.

Replay your footage after cropping to make sure you didn't accidentally cut off any motion you didn't mean to cut.

Next up: optional colour corrections

I tend to crank up the saturation for gifs way, way more than I ever would for regular screenshots since I find that often the limited web palette can make them look fairly dull. But like everything else so far, this greatly varies depending on the scene you're showing.

Note that colour correction can increase or decrease file size depending on what exactly you're doing. The more different colours you have, the larger your file size will be.

Reduce image dimensions

Since my original video footage was fairly zoomed out, the cropped area only left me 575px of width to begin with. In an earlier attempt (that I absolutely did not fail to capture and therefore had to record the whole thing a second time) I tried to leave it at these dimensions, but the 10MB size limit did not like that so now I knew better and immediately reduced the width to 560px.

Note: After you've changed the video's dimensions it won't let you edit the speed anymore (for some reason), so make sure you've got that settled.

After all the adjustments are done it's time for the moment of truth...

File > Save for Web...

This beautiful window will open and...

Aww almost.

But honestly? That's not bad at all. I've had completely different disasters to deal with in the past (starting somewhere in the mid 20MB, good luck trying to make use of every size-reducing trick you've got up your sleeve).

Before I do any adjustments to shave off the last few KB though, I preview the gif to make sure it loops correctly. I want the Chak to sway seemlessly. Turns out it didn't, so I back out of the window to remove a few frames from the footage. And when I open the "Save for Web" window again....

Well that's anticlimatic. Apparently those few frames were enough to get the file size where I need it. (Note: Sometimes Tumblr likes to be a little b* and pretends your file is too big when you're this close to the 10MB limit. It be like that.)

While my gif journey theoretically ends here, I want to at least show you a few more things that could have helped if I had needed to get the file even smaller.

So this dithering thing I keep making a big deal of...

It can make or break a gif. In my experience this is so, so crucial to the final file size and quality of the gif.

In my own very amateurish words, dithering is a way to emulate colours that aren't actually part of the images colour palette. This is especially needed for in-game transparency effects like fog, glowy stuff, or smooth gradients. And that is part of why I chose this hell scene of all the ley line glow and the typical gw2 bloom that's particularly bad in this area.

PS CS6 offers you three different kinds of dithering techniques: Diffusion, pattern and noise.

My go-to is diffusion dithering, which has adjustable quality levels.

In my opinion it's generally the type of dithering that's often the least noticeable and creates the smoothest looking images. Unfortunately, it's also the one that creates by far the largest file sizes. Another downside is that it doesn't work super well with heavy DoF/fog etc. effects and is prone to really ugly banding, especially visible the more you decrease the quality. It looks awful for this particular scene. (Look at the glow around my asura's headpiece if you don't know what I'm talking about. Or... just the entire background.)

Both noise and pattern dithering will get you smaller file sizes, luckily.

I've never used noise so far (it tends to look messy in my opinion), but pattern gets the job done! Especially for gradient heavy gifs it's a lifesaver. It's definitely more noticeable than the diffusion dithering on static parts of the gif, but it absolutely makes up for it by not having any ugly banding effects. This is also what gave me the neat little 9.99MB file size in comparison to the diffusion dithering's 15.31MB.

Last but not least, if fiddling with the dithering or image dimensions doesn't help you get below that magic 10MB mark...

Limit the colour palette

You can either manually colour edit your image to use less colours for a more artistic approach, or you can let Photoshop limit the palette to its best abilities.

Additionally you can double click each individual colour to replace it how you see fit. (I've done that in the past when Petthri's yellow eye colour got erased and I had to bring it back manually.)

In this gif's example, reducing the palette from 256 to 128 colours has brought the file size down from 9.9 MB to about 8 MB. It can have a big effect, but doesn't always in my experience.

SHOW US THE GODDAMN GIF ALREADY!!!

Not the best quality gif we've ever seen on tumblr, but given the extremely unfavourable source material I think it turned out alright. I have to admit I'm actually surprised it worked at all.

Oh well! This got long (once again). I hope this was at least a little bit helpful to someone out there. Happy gif making!

[felixravinstills]

gif/photoset for my fic, All That You Can Do which is an AU of my other fic, Close Your Eyes

unusual fic-specific prompts ask game (still open!)

Gifmaker's Notes: (spoilers for my oc fics below)

I love the prompt being like "a picture's worth a thousand words," and then I just… explain the main theme with text.

I did try to also explain the theme through visuals too! The pictures/gifs try to focus on the idea of butterfly effect ripple that happens.

Artemisia mentors Brandy instead of Arachne which causes Artemisia to feel more empathy towards the Districts. (Also she tries at that and fails.)

Festus, well, I had a hard time coming up with what to put for Festus. His involvement in the story was very relationship based. He mediates between Felix and Artemisia and indirectly helping mediates between the Creeds and Diana (Ravinstill, my other oc). Focusing on the latter idea, I paired him with money, because Diana's whole beef with the Creeds in the main timeline is over her inheritance.

Felix gets paired with the Capitol to symbolize his complicated relationship with the his family and the city they (namely his great-uncle, built). Also being paired with "even if you don't succeed" because the Capitol/his family failing him in a way but in some ways, he feels he's failed them too. Felix and failure go hand-in-hand in my head (I had to bully him in the aesthetic too apparently)

Teapot and cup are meant to symbolize Diana Ravinstill (and her poisoning of Coin). Annie and Finnick at their wedding and Prim and Katniss being the gif in color is meant to work around having to find a faceclaim for Diana around 50-60 years old but also pull away from the Ravinstill-Creed family drama and the final murder of the fic. Instead, we focus on the good that their choosing to try be better does! (Finnick and Prim getting to live. I just used the wedding footage, because I have to work with what I have if giffing Felix and Festus in their Academy outfits didn't make that obvious.)

Overall, I did my best, but I'm unsure how I feel about it, need more distance from me making it to decide. (But I suppose according to this very thing, all that I can do is my best so... haha)

[fascinationstreetmp3]

hi sorry if this has been asked before, but i've been looking on your faq page for aska regarding your gifs? especially how yo make them - I'd like to create some too but it's so complicated😅

i use photoshop (not paid for lmao i downloaded a version off here years ago from like. 2016) + kmplayer + if it's game gifs, i use nvidia shadowplay to record

i'll put this under a cut because of images/length

i open my footage in kmplayer, and use the frame extraction function over the timespan of the clip i want to gif. these are the settings for that:

normally for games, i record in 60fps and extract every 2nd frame, but sometimes i extract every frame and scroll through to delete duplicates made from stuttering etc. for everything else like movies/tv, i extract every frame. normally, i try to go for around 100 frames, but you can have more or less depending on your final gif size, and also you can always trim your gif down when you're in photoshop, but more frames = longer import time

then in photoshop i go to file > scripts > load files into stack and select all the frames i want to go into the gif i'm making

for the method i use, you need a version of photoshop with timeline animation, and make sure the timeline i displayed (window > animation)

now the next part has a lot of little steps, but they're fairly easy to get the hang of once you've done it enough. it's basically muscle memory for me now but i still do sometimes do things in the wrong order lmfao

anyway. the steps are as follows:

click 'create video timeline'

click the 3 little boxes in the bottom left

in the right menu, choose 'make frames from layers'

when thats loaded, open the menu again and choose 'reverse frames'

click the last frame and change from 5 seconds to no delay

make sure you choose 'forever' instead of 'once' in the bottom left

select all frames (you can select the last one, then scroll back to the first and shift click to select them all, or just click 'select all' in the menu, i'm just used to doing it the first way for some reason lmao)

in the right menu, choose 'convert to timeline'

then select all the layers (can use shift click again)

and finally go to filter > convert for smart filters

here's a very small shitty gif of the process for a visual aid (a gif of a gifmaking guide... wow)

now you have a gif, basically! but you still need to resize and sharpen and edit, etc. i've posted about some of the things i do before but not really in detail because i mess around every time and don't always do the same things. and you don't have to do much! just do whatever looks good to you :')

tumblr's gif dimensions are 540px width for wide gifs, 268px width for two small gifs, and three small gifs are 177px for the two outer gifs, 176px for the middle one (don't ask me why they did that)

once you're done with that, you can export the gif by going to file > export > save for web (legacy). these are usually my settings:

but i might change the colors to 264 if it's a smaller gif, or even to 64 if there are less colours and i can get away with it. for example in these gifs, i only used 64 colours since they were pretty brown/monochrome anyway, but something a lot more colourful would look terrible with 64 colours

the gif needs to be max 9.99MB, but if it goes over, you can always adjust it in the next step. once it's exported, i open it again

select all the frames and click the little arrow on one of the frames, then change the timing. i almost always use 0.05, but you can experiment with what you like the look of

then if the gif's over 9.99mb i just delete frames from the beginning and/or end until it's under the limit. then export it the same way as before (overwrite the old one or save it as a new file if you like) and you're done!

[ilkkawhat]

I can't believe it's almost been a year since AW2 was released. It really changed my life. For better or for worse? Who can say, but I've been having fun.

lol it's so surreal to me that it's been less than a year that I bought and played Alan Wake 2 (one month past release, in November) purely on a whim because I saw people on the silent hill subreddit talking about it and someone even made a meme about "friendship ended with silent hill now alan wake is my new best friend" and I kid you not within just a few days my life just...changed entirely.

I have a lot of depression and anxiety and somewhere in 2023 things just...went wrong and I stopped creating. stopped giffing, never thought I'd write again and drawing lmao forget it, that shit's been hard for me to do ever since a very discouraging experience back when I was maybe like, 11 or 12. stopped going on tumblr, had given up on discord a long time before then and became a miserable ghost doing nothing but burying myself in work in what i will admit is a toxic, overwhelming and stressful environment. I still played games, still watched shows but nothing was like. Sticking with me, I guess? Not like to obsession levels and minus some good vacations I was just...empty.

And playing Alan Wake 2 for the first time was a legit terrifying experience for me--not on the levels of the first time I played Silent Hill 2 maybe (legit locked myself in my room and put on my lamp in the middle of the day cause of the sound of footsteps behind me in that game lol and my dishwasher at the time sounded like that one chugging sound in the apartments) but the dread I was feeling as I got legitimately lost in the woods of Cauldron Lake and turned around in Coffee World (having basically explored it all before triggering the parts where the enemies spawn in) and the basement of Valhalla Nursing Home was thrilling and I was excited to be playing something that was so disturbing and mind bending and emotional, too. Not even knowing the story of Alan and Alice, my heart broke during Alice's final tape. Not knowing Alan's character outside of what I saw in the second game, his "fuck it" moment where he went back into the Dark Place felt so heroic. I felt an odd sense of nostalgia watching the Koskela brothers commercials, like I had known them my whole life. Alex Casey (both the FBI agent and fictional detective) is my favorite kind of wise-cracking guy who has a heart of gold, the old guy who I wish could be my dad. Tom Zane was that mysterious wild card that you know under the surface has something sinister, unsettling esp with his manipulation of Alan but is just so fascinating to watch. Of course I saw so much of my obsessive self in Rose with her shrine for Alan. Saga's time in the dark place felt so real to me, I cried and still cry every time I read that note from her mom at that part of the game (I know you can read it sooner but it packs a bigger punch with Saga's fight to get out of her own mind.) All of the characters quickly stole my heart and ran with it and maybe it was over a few days, maybe it was all at once the floodgates just...opened within me.

I started writing again. First with a character that I never thought I'd write for again because at the time, even just thinking about him legit hurt me. Then I started scheming up fics for Alan. Then I started giffing even from self-captured gameplay footage that I don't think I've ever done before. Then I started drawing in my Alan Wake journal--a journal which, I had not done since the peak of my CSI obsession during my teenage years and even then it wasn't to the extent of what that journal is now (which admittedly, has not been filled out in quite a number of weeks and maybe that's partially cause I tend to journalize myself on here too) And then one day I couldn't contain it anymore. I started sharing again. I don't talk to anybody really like, ever outside of these asks and occasional replies but I truly never thought I'd be part of a fandom again. I worried I'd fuck it all up again (still worry about that) for myself, or others. Or both. But all the kind messages, the kind tags, the awesome people I've started following because of Alan Wake, I wouldn't give any of that up.

And of course things branched off, crushing so hard on him I got obsessed with Ilkka. I played some of Remedy's other games (still working my way through Max Payne 2 and Quantum Break very very slowly) and went back to the first Alan Wake, of course which if I had known about earlier or had an Xbox I'm sure I would have loved it back then as much as I do now. Hell I even platinumed that and Alan Wake 2 and as someone who is notorious for not finishing games other than like. The Legend of Zelda series and playing some other endless games...think it says something that I've managed to beat and complete (I always do the rhymes, stashes, lunch boxes, every playthrough) Alan Wake 2 almost 10 times now.

I was happy. I'm still, for the most part when I'm not at work, happy. Call it what you want, a delusion brought on by a distraction of obsession, a dangerous escape threatening the part of me that is still rooted in reality in the way that like, what if I become too crazy about it where it blinds me to certain things or experiences or chases people away from me because I'm too weird about it (a very real thing that has happened before)

But damn with all of that...I'm having fun with it too.

[kaiowut99]

GX Finalized-Subs!111 and 121 (WIP): Drizzling Details - For Clicks

Reprising the edit I worked on here while finalizing my 106 subs, I wanted to go ahead and knock out adding this updated translation edit into 111 and 121 as I get ready to work on 110. This gets used in 111 as Manjoume tries to look Amon up, and in 121 as Amon looks to delete it while on that submarine, and while I did previously translate these in my last run through Season 3, as I'm going with "Garam Conglomerate" and not "Garam Finance," along with the other updates I made in the 106 version, I wanted to update this accordingly for consistency. And still having the Photoshop files handy from my 106 edit, this was a relatively smooth process all told. I also went ahead and made dub versions of these, since of course 4Kids not only removed the text (they amusingly just slapped a card back where his info is lol), but they also cut the one shot of the Garam Conglomerate article Manjoume clicks onto. (I may use it for reasons at some point hehe)

All in all, I think it just took me a day or two to do since I had a relatively calm weekend; final products in gif form below (to keep each gif at 35 frames, I split the second 111 clip into two gifs; sub-intended edit on the left, dub-intended on the right)--and a breakdown under the cut for the interested 🙂 I did choose to leave the HTTP 405 error screens Manjoume gets as-is like I did before, partly the English text already there works well enough (the Japanese message is more "This page cannot be loaded"), partly Manjoume's raging thunder later would make it a bit annoying, lol.

Effectively, for the 111 version, working off the full version of the bio I mocked up before, I first tweaked the bio text up top to color the originally-link-colored text accordingly, then saved that, cropped to what's shown in Manjoume's screen. Then, from there, I worked on the first clip it's used in, first cropping out the top portion of the text (from Amon's name to the "Goa Garam" line) and using the CC Power Pin effect in AfterEffects (also how I apply my card fixes) to pin that cropped image into place as the text expands outward for the first few frames; after that, I used Sony Vegas to keyframe the screen's scrolling for the rest of the shot, masking in the monitor's borders on top for blending.

For the second shot in 111, where we see a close-up of the text as Manjoume clicks into the Garam Conglomerate article, I first wiped the text in Photoshop, then copied over the needed text layers from the full bio, making sure to space the lines at roughly how they were spaced in the full bio. I then copied out the "C" in "CEO" on the second-to-last line to hold it in place, then duplicated the "Garam Conglomerate" line and recolored the copy to a clicked-link purple, recreating a purple outline around it--both the unclicked and clicked versions come into play once I throw them into Vegas, where I then masked in the cursor arrow and hand as Manjoume moves his mouse. For the Garam Conglomerate article, a simple text wipe and translation placement happened in Photoshop, then I took that and threw it into the footage in Vegas.

Finally, for the 121 version, since it uses the full no-link bio, I first recolored the blanking I did to the bio in Photoshop to match its color here, then used the CC Power Pin in AfterEffects to pin it as it expands for a few frames, masking in the edges of the bio box and the new Amon photo this screen uses. After I did that, I just did some positioning checks against the original, and then it was good to go without popping into Vegas.

For applying the dub edit to each instance, since I'd already done the video keyframing work for the sub-intended full bio image, once I adjusted the text layers with the dub references and saved that new dub-intended image, I just needed to copy/paste the keyframes and effects I applied to the sub-intended image in both AE and Vegas, so it was a pretty easy swap, lol.

[princemick]

Hi! Can you pls explain how you can do red lips on your gifs? Your colorizing is so vivid always especially on lips. I'm so impressed!

HI! yes, I for sure can explain this to you because its actually really easy. so under the cut I'll make a tutorial on how to get this lip focus effect on my gifs.

I'm going to be using oscar because he is the most naturally blushy person on the grid but I'll also quickly explain things you'll have to watch out for with different skintones.

so, the big trick to this is to make sure your lips/blush are a contrasting colour in comparison to the rest of your gif.

(think about the colour wheel, green is the opposites side of purple)

lips tend to have a more purple/red hue to them while skin tends to be more orange/yellow in undertone. so what we're gonna start with doing is adding contrast and making sure greens and blue's are heavier then the yellow/red is.

I prefer using curves and colour balance for this as you can play around a lot and use the dropper tool in curves to make your life easier

now, I like adding a few more layers of colour balance and channel mixer to try and neutralize the colour even more but this all depends on the raw footage and on the skintone.

now that we're happy with our neutralizing colour we're gonna be grabbing hue/saturation which is THE big trick to this colouring

you're gonna grab the lil hand tool at the top left and click on the darkest part of the lips

now this is what your hue/saturation should look like. we're going to focus on the little bottom part and we're going to expand the little tabs and slide it to the more puple part of the colour line.

then, we're going to slide UP the saturation so far as it looks natural, you should be able to instantly see a difference (if you dont, slide around the little tabs until you do see the lips brighten up) I like to darken the lightness too to make the colour a bit more neutral.

with this part you have to watch out with different skintones.

every person has different under tones, people with white skin tend to lean more pinkish while darker skintones especially lewis has more yellow skintones, because of this you will probably make lewis's skin FAR to yellow which is obviously NOT good.

you can still use this style with those skintones you just have to watch out more, neutralize better and get the sliders more purple as their lips also tend to have more purple tones in them.

here's a fantastic tutorial how to get rid of yellow tones in black skin if you do run into this problem with your colouring.

now, you have your basic lip blush, from this moment on you can do whatever you want with the colouring, I like to neutralize more after this, so adding another few layers of colour balance.

then I tend to go into the red and yellow of selective colour and manually play around with making the lips/blush more coherent with the rest of the lighting.

to simplify this I'm only going to show yellow and red but I normally use all colours on selective colour.

and then I just add my normal colouring which can be whatever you like to do. I like adding more contrast and highlight spaces to add more depth to his face and I almost always add one more layer of hue/saturation which will make his blush and lips pop out even more.

which makes this my final colouring result

I hope this was coherent and logical and ya'll understand what my thought process is with my colouirng. if it's not or you want some more explanation on something please dont be scared to ask!!

if yall do use this style and colouring please do tag me I'd love to see what ya'll make!!!

[parttimesarah]

💜 My immediate takeaways from WWDITS 5x1&2 💚

First off, I LOVE how much we are seeing the production crew of the documentary so far! I love the mockumentary format and acknowledging it more just adds to the comedy for me!

Ending that first post-Derek-bite scene with Guillermo saying "There's no turning–" !?! I mean, that has to be foreshadowing!

I know we all said we want to see more jealous Nandor, but him not knowing that he should be jealous is going to be SO delicious!

Introducing the idea that Nandor has been trying to get in touch with his feelings and acknowledging the work that others do as "OK" is a lovely first step towards him genuinely appreciating Guillermo.

The face Nandor initially made when Guillermo said he wasn't going to be around all the time! 🥹 Reality is going to breakthrough for him, I can feel it!

The look of the vamps is on fire! Laszlo's hair is a bit longer and he is wearing the hell out of those clothes. Nandor is looking slightly tan, which is nice, and his beard looks a bit fuller. Nadja is gorgeous, as always! Guillermo without glasses was cool, but I'm also kind of glad he will be keeping the fake lenses.

POOR GUIDE! She is such a sixth wheel in the vampire residence, but I am so glad she's there as a female presence alongside Nadja again. And she got a picture in the credits!

Seeing Nadja get energized by reconnecting with her heritage was awesome. I'm not sure I'm totally onboard with the hex subplot, but Nadja focusing on kindness to get rid of it will be enjoyable and makes sense as a character motivation for a number of episodes.

I'm not sure where the doll subplot will lead outside of the information we can glean from the teaser footage (something to do with helping the doll lose her virginity?), and I'm not sure exactly how much I'll want to keep returning to that plot.

Colin is back on form with his adult energy-sucking ways. I particularly enjoyed him with the other vampires. I missed that dynamic last season. I do hope the election sub-plot doesn't feel too forced when it shows up.

The idea that Guillermo can heal himself, be out in the sunshine, eat regular food (especially tons of protein), and maybe have other elevated senses, could actually make him the most powerful character in the whole show and I'm all sorts of here for him realizing that!

I LOVE The Barren/Baron and the Sire being introduced already, I hope we see them again. Using them as the sages who have the most vampire lore but are essentially an old retired couple is such a sweet idea.

Derek being a friend of Guillermo's throughout more of this season would be so great. Guillermo hasn't really had a platonic friend so far in the show. I think Laszlo and he are getting there, but their relationship is SO much more complex.

Seeing just how in touch with his own emotions and vulnerabilities Laszlo has become is lovely. Seeing him holding hands with Nadja on the couch was so sweet. It makes him keeping Guillermo's secret that much more believable. Guillermo confessing to him (even though he believed Laszlo knew already) shows that Guillermo feels like he can trust Laszlo too.

Laszlo saying that he might be able to convince Nandor to bite Guillermo?! I'M SORRY, WHAT?!

And finally, can I just say, LASZLO ALL ANGRY AT GUILLERMO AT THE END BUT STILL CONCERNED FOR HIM WAS SO FLIPPIN SEXY!

That's all I got for you for now! Two rewatches tomorrow when I stream it for my friends who don't have cable, then GIFs to follow! Let me know if you have GIF requests!

Here's to theories and imaginings for the next week! xx

[daydreamgoddess14]

Landslide pt. 3

MASTERLIST

Songs used in Chapter 3:

Taylor Swift - … Ready For It?

Warning: C-bomb is dropped 😅

Chapter 3

You watched that gif numerous times, and you're not ashamed to admit it. In fact, you even told Jason as much, which he'd thought was hilarious. You were now caught up in watching footage from the cast appearance at the White House. The actual White House with the actual President and First Lady. You couldn't fathom how that must feel. Fame had a weird scale with Tik Tok stars and Reality TV personalities often ranked much higher than those with real-life influence and talent. In a way, you felt that you owed those seemingly Z list stars a debt of gratitude - they sought out fame and photographers in a way that you definitely didn't. As long as they were happy to fill tabloid pages with pictures of their dogs or vacation homes, you could fly under the radar and largely away from scrutiny. You'd reached the point where your fame could be on your own terms. While you knew Jason and his castmates knew they had to be everywhere and everything for at least the next couple of months, they also knew that they could pretty much disappear again afterwards. 

It was another couple of days before you got to see Jason again, the craziness of his schedule was a stark contrast to your own for once. It meant you were able to concentrate on the song. You'd finally caved in on sending him a snapshot of what you had so far. A single, very short voice note you'd recorded in the kitchen while you waited for your coffee to brew. You were a little stuck on the first couple of lines, but Tom was working on something. You knew what you had planned for the chorus but you wanted it to be a surprise, so all Jason was getting at the moment was a handful of lines out of place, out of context and with no backing track. You'd also had a flurry of inspiration for your next album so you were certainly keeping busy. You sat at the piano working on a new earworm which hadn't left you alone since the basketball game. Jason was on his way over, he'd offered to bring lunch.

In the middle of the night, in my dreams

You should see the things we do, baby

In the middle of the night, in my dreams

I know I'm gonna be with you

So I'll take my time

Are you ready for it?

"When'd you write that one? I haven't heard it before." You spin around on the seat to find Jason putting a large bag on your kitchen counter. 

"How did you get in?"

"Your housekeeper let me in on her way out." You visibly relax. "Security issues?"

"There have been. Only while I've not been here."

"I'm sorry, I should have called through."

"No, it's fine, I knew you were coming. So how was the White House?"

"It was good, we had fun. How have you been?" 

"I'm OK, it's been a quiet few days actually. I've done plenty of writing, nearly ready to show you what I've got so far." He comes to sit on the bench next to you. You're not sure if he'd go straight for a kiss, but he seems content to just sit next to you. You'd stopped playing in order to talk to him, but continued once he was settled in the seat. You played the same few lines a few times at different speeds and with varying emphasis on different sections. "Do you have your phone? Or could you grab mine and just record this a sec please before I forget it?" He slides his out of his pocket but rather than a voice note or audio recording, he begins videoing you. You roll your eyes, "Really smooth."

"Hey you asked."

"For audio."

"Ahh well then you weren't specific enough. Again. C'mon, let's go." He motions for you to get back to playing, so you do. Once you finish the bit you need, he stops recording and pockets the phone again. 

"You'd better send me that. I don't want to see that as your first tweet."

"I'll send it to you, but otherwise that's just for me. So when did you write it?"

"I haven't yet. I've started, but only just-" your stomach decides to interrupt with a rumble, "and now I'm starving."

"Good job I came with food then."

"Sure is, or this would be yet another non-date."

"Dates don't have to involve food."

"They usually do. They should."

"They should." He agreed, getting out plates from the drawer you pointed out, while you got sodas from the fridge.

"So how's the reception been for the show?"

"So far so good."

"It's torture waiting for it weekly. You couldn't do a Netflix and drop it in one go?"

"That would require it actually being finished, which it is far from. You're enjoying it?"

"Absolutely. The last one, with the ex and the therapist? I had no idea soft, drunk Ted could look so cute." 

"Ohh, is this a me crush or a Ted crush?" He gestured between you both. 

"Well you see, you emailed me? And I basically jumped on a plane just so I could meet you. So…" You trailed off with an embarrassed shrug. He's sat up on one of the barstools while you're still pottering around. He reaches out and wraps his hand around your wrist, pulling you closer. 

"If you're wanting super honesty like that, then I should probably tell you that I refreshed my email every couple hours for nearly a week waiting for your reply. And I was trying to play it very cool when I wrote back, but if you'd said no, I would have gone to New York to change your mind." 

"Ohh, so this is a you crush and a me crush?" You lightly tease, mimicking his phrasing and the gesture between you both. With no distance between you now, your jab his chest gently.

"Looks like it, I mean, at least I'm not alone."

"That would be pretty awkward." You step closer between his knees, taking away the remaining space.

"No pressure but it would also be a little awkward if you didn't kiss me now? Just, y'know, so you know."

"Thanks for the warning. Hey, why is it on me to kiss you? Shouldn't you kiss me?"

"Nope, I want this to be up to you." You stop to look at him, really look at him, and those eyes once again are crying out for you to trust him. There doesn't seem to be anything false or untoward about him in any of the meetings or conversations you've had with him. The sincerity is utterly new to you. Previously, conversations like this would have been laced with underhanded, derogatory and calculating comments which left you treading on eggshells. To be actually enjoying the back and forth, the carefree teasing, was refreshing. As if he could see the past re-living itself in your mind through your hesitation, he squeezed your hand. "We should eat. You were hungry?" Another thing you'd previously have been berated for. You nod, shaking the old thoughts away and reaching for some food. 

As unplanned first dates went, you had a great time. You'd watched a movie after lunch and then proceeded to talk each other's ear off for most of the afternoon. Given the mark your last relationship had left on you, you'd wanted to continue the honesty policy and by the time you'd opened a bottle of wine late afternoon, Jason had pretty much an overview of the important things there was to know. Aside from a couple of the harder topics and the finer details of everything, he'd taken everything in and was still angling to stick around for dinner. 

“I must say, I’m amazed you haven’t been scared off.”

“I’m not easily scared. I’ve had my fair share of bad press the last year or so.”

“Difference is, you actually stayed quiet. I don’t see why I should sit around and let these rumours ruin my reputation.”

“I stayed quiet because I don’t want the kids to read it all when they grow up. I want them to judge me by my actions, not whether or not I defended myself in the press.”

“That’s fair.”

“Anyway, you haven’t said anything specifically. Nothing outright anyway, it’s not like you're going on camera doing an interview. And no one would blame you if you did.”

“Tell that to the tour promoter, the record label, everyone else who has a financial interest in me. Next time they come around, I’ll let you speak to them for me.” Noise at the front door stopped your conversation. “Hello?” You call out. 

“Hey, just me!” 

“Jason, this is Lily, my assistant. Lil, this is Jason.” Your tiny, barely out of college assistant looked dumbstruck first at Jason, then at you.

“Dude, you haven’t had anyone visit here for months! Proud of you babe!” While she’s right, it’s also a bit embarrassing.

“... Thanks for that. All ok?”

“Do you want the good news or the bad?”

“Good.”

“Sure? I kinda want to tell you the bad so that I can pump you back up again with the good?” 

“Why, how bad is the bad?” You frown, all bad news has been bad lately. You’re not sure why you’d even hope for not-so-bad anymore. She hands you her phone with a youtube video loaded. You hit play and your ex’s voice fills the room, making you grimace.

Oh man, she was just so high maintenance you know? And so rude to everyone, all the time! Like her assistant was so scared of her, it was ridiculous the way she treated people. And the shit she said about her fans? Not cool, those kids like fawn over her and she couldn’t give a crap about them at all. Everything she does is for show. She was totally cold and clinical about everything - if you know what I mean. Hated being touched or hugged, she was just completely closed off emotionally and it made her so manipulative.

Your reaction is not that of an emotionally closed off person. Tears streamed down your face as soon as he started speaking, the phone in your hands shook so much you thought you might drop it. Lily, having seen this reaction before, took it carefully from you and wrapped herself around you. You weren’t particularly tall but she was barely 5’3”. You fold yourself in towards her, your whole body trembling.

“Shhh, I know. It’s not true. None of it is true. It’s ok. It’s gonna be ok.” She rubbed your back and looked around you to Jason. “Would not blame you if you wanted to bail. She’ll understand, I can tell her to call you later?” Jason shook his head. 

"As long as she wants me to, I'll stick around. If I head out now, it just reinforces this belief that he's right." Lily nods. Your heart rate is starting to settle and the main feeling you're left with is embarrassment that you still feel so emotionally ravaged by your ex. You perch on the barstool next to Jason feeling drained.

"I'm sorry-" you start to mumble but he cuts you off. 

"You've got nothing to be sorry for. Nothing."

"Why don't I get us some dinner? I'll give you guys some space. I'll collect Italian from that restaurant you like. You want carbonara? Jason?"

"That sounds great Lily, thanks. Here, take my card. Get dessert too."

"Yes! They do an amazing tiramisu. You won't regret it. Thanks!" She's gone before you can really shake yourself out of your stupor.

"What can I do?" He asks quietly. 

"Know any hitmen?" Your voice muffled by your hands. 

"I wish. None of this is your fault, you know?" You nod, you do know. 6 months of therapy has been painful but revealing.

"I just wish I didn't let it get to me so much. No matter what I say, or do, or how I'm perceived in the future, he'll never stop rolling out these lies over and over, and each time I have to pull myself together, keep quiet and not stand up for myself and all I want to do is-" You growl, pacing. Distress and upset turning to anger. A rage you feel deep within your chest. "God he makes me so fucking angry all the time!" Your fists are balled at your sides, boxercise will be productive in the morning. Jason sits back on the barstool, letting you rant. Eventually you run out of steam and go back to the wine you'd long abandoned. 

"Feel better?" He asks. You sigh, rolling your shoulders. 

"Yeah, I actually do. Thank you. I don't get to just let it all out without interruption. Lily's been amazing, but she's all solutions, all the time. I feel like half my problems would really be solved if someone asked "do you want to run your mouth or do you want solutions" before I got going." 

"I'll bear that in mind. And thank you, I learnt some very colourful language there, and I thought I was like a pro at cursing." You laugh, at last - it felt like it had been hours since you'd raised a smile. In fact, Jason being around had pulled you out of your slump a lot quicker than usual. When Lily returned, she expected you to still be feeling the effects of seeing the video, but you were chatting happily with Jason, the only lingering sign were your eyes still red from crying. 

"Hey! You look good, feeling OK?"

"Yeah I said the word cunt a lot and it really helped."

"I mean, that's absolutely the right word. I'm glad you're doing better, you'll be ready for your good news now?" She started getting plates and cutlery for them all while Jason picked out an additional wine glass for her. 

"Yess, I want good news please!"

"The lineup for Glastonbury has been finalised." You suddenly felt super nervous. You'd cleared your diary in anticipation, had your staging team brainstorming ideas and you had the basis of a set list planned, but nothing had been confirmed or announced. 

"And?"

"How does the Pyramid stage at 7.30pm for 90 minutes sound on Saturday night? You're the build up for Guns n Roses." Your jaw drops. 

"Seriously?"

"Rumour is it's the Foo Fighters on before you."

"Are you fucking for real? Lily! Oh my god!" She comes round to hug you, both of you jumping around squealing with joy. This was the dream. All the albums and tours in the world couldn't prepare you for this, it had been an achievement which, to you, would lead to the next step up. Jason got caught up in your infectious happiness and enveloped you into a big hug. His proximity was intoxicating, your hands felt small on his broad shoulders and you giggled breathlessly as he circled your waist and spun you around. You popped a small chaste kiss to his lips, the lingering look in your eye a promise for later. Lily passed you your glass, 

"A toast! To fucking Glastonbury!"

"Fucking Glastonbury!" You all talked incessantly throughout dinner, Jason wanted to know which songs you'd already decided on, Lily couldn't wait to call your styling team and you could finally let the staging guys go wild. The news had broken in the media so Twitter was steadily replacing the video of your ex with videos of your previous festival appearances.

"I think I want to confront this before the summer. I don't want it to linger over me." You admit. "I need to get the record company on board, but I think it's time to publicly and properly deny his bullshit and speak out about what he did." Lily raised her eyebrows. 

"You're sure you're ready for that?"

"No. But I've got all the evidence. Audio and video files, pictures. I don't want the world to see them, but I've got them and if I need to prove that he's a dickhead, then I'll do it."

"Maybe worth getting in touch with the other exes. If there's enough between you, hopefully we could get away with just an image or two. I don't want you to have to release the video." Lily suggested. 

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but can I ask what the video is of?" Jason asked topping up the wine. 

"I went to hide in a bathroom. I was trying to record audio of his shouting and screaming at me but I ended up getting a bloody Blair Witch video of me. You can still hear him, we could release the audio only."

"Babe, I've seen it. If you want to expose him for everything he is, that's what you should release, but I don't want you to have that video out there for everyone in the world to watch."

"Having the video out there" Jason countered, "makes it less about his actions and more about the impact of them." You nod in agreement, 

"Exactly-" pointing a fork full of tiramisu, "I need to show what a prick he is, not that I'm a victim - that much is obvious. He will always be a prick, he'll never change. I might always be a victim but at least I'll recover, at least I can move on from what he did to me. I care about the lies he's told about me, but ultimately people will believe what they want. This is about them seeing him for what he really is." It felt so good to have someone in your corner, who understood that this wasn't about you specifically. Lily pondered, wise beyond her years. 

"OK, I hear you. I'll make calls in the morning and get you in with the team to make a plan."

"Better get the therapist on standby as well." You half joke. 

"For sure. I'll come over in the morning and make some plans. When are you booked to record the song for Tom and Jason?" Jason eyes you curiously, Tom had also been a bit cagey so he wondered what you'd say. 

"It's going to be recorded in London in April."

"I'm in London in April. I wanna be there." He said, half firmly, half pleading.

"I'm sure that can be arranged. You are the boss after all." You tease. "I'm recording other stuff too, but you're more than welcome."

"I'll make sure I'm available. You must be nearly done then?"

"We're not far off. I've got a session with Tom tomorrow afternoon, I think by then we'll have it nailed."

"Good, I can't wait to hear it. And the other stuff too."

"I don't think I've ever written so many songs so quickly. It feels like all I've done since I arrived here is write. I've got a good 3 songs done, plus the one I started when you got here."

"Sounds like inspiration has struck." Lily rolled her eyes as she gathered her things. "I'm going now that I've been the bearer of both bad and good news. See you tomorrow." She gave you both a wave. Two minutes later, you had a message. 

Press outside, warn Jason.

"Ahh shit," You hold up your phone to show him. "Looks like we need to sneak you out… unless-, no. Nope. Nevermind."

"No, nope, Nevermind? Wow, that is a lot of rejection in one sentence. I'm almost as impressed as I was with your creative use of the C bomb."

"Oh god, no, I didn't mean -"

"I know, I'm kidding, I promise, I'm kidding."

"God, as if I'd ever be that stupid."

"Nah, see, now you're kidding. Gorgeous Glastonbury headliner who's about to go Beyonce huge? I'm pretty sure that rejection would be an honour." You step into his personal space just close enough for you to both mull over what to do next. 

"So we're crystal clear, I'm not rejecting you. Flew out here especially to meet you, remember?" You tilt your head with a smile. 

"I recall. Bold move."

"I've got a few of those lined up."

"I look forward to seeing them all play out." He reached out to tuck some stray hair behind your ear. 

"You get a front row seat."

"That so?"

"Yours if you want it. You might be a bit of a sitting duck though." He brushed off the warning with a pfft.

"Ohh I'll survive. I've got to - did you know I'm going to Glastonbury this year?" You laughed.

"I think it's sold out?"

"I know someone."

"You do?" You feigned ignorance.

"Beautiful, amazing singer, pretty funny, about to stage one hell of a takedown…" You cut him off with a kiss, looping your arms around his neck and pressing your body flush with his. His hands splay across your back and down to your hips. You pull apart just long enough to take a breath, 

"By the way, that's twice I've kissed you now if you still need an indication of where I am with this."

"Noted." He smirked, leaning back into you.

--------

[givehimthemedicine]

more NINA fuckery and are current El's actions showing up in '79 footage?

El's initial NINA confusion is setting in, and Owens & co are watching in the control room like "she's rejecting it".

on these four monitors you can see all 4 corners of the rainbow room, which is why I seized on this screenshot to map out the rainbow room cameras (with very architectural precision thank you) and get the lay of the land for the rest of this. I noted in red my names for the cameras and their locations in the room.

then I noticed that Henry and El are visible in the footage, which I noted in yellow. they're standing where they're standing during "well well" - Henry centered in the rainbow arch, and El is facing him and the double doors.

does this indicate that El running around confused is showing up in the 1979 footage?

"the "well well" moment really happened in 1979, that's what the tapes are of!"

is it? where they're standing on the tape isn't where they're standing in the "real" memory (if I can safely call anything that).

El and Henry keep having this same confrontation with her facing him and the doors. but when she finally braces herself to deal with this, she and Henry sidestep weirdly purposefully into this position - perpendicular to the doors. since she glitches into little El during this sequence, I would take this as the "real" memory - meaning, as this moment really happened in 1979.

if that's so, why not have them stand the same way in the tape?

or am I supposed to think current El's footwork just happened to exactly match what went down in 1979?

anyway, back to the cameras and what I actually started out this post for.

here's Brenner in the control room, having his NINA conversation with El.

why is one monitor on the right missing now? that's the monitor that was showing Camera B footage in the Owens scene up above.

could this just be a different bank of monitors than earlier? here's a zoomed out shot from the Owens scene - note the two heart monitors or whatever up above. maybe the table is scooted over a bit to get a better composed shot of Brenner, but this looks like the same place to me, no?

lemme zoom in and number these suckers so we can get on with this.

in case anyone's actually following along, note that the monitors in the Brenner scene don't correspond to the same cameras they did in the Owens scene.

although a monitor is oddly missing, all four corners of the rainbow room are still represented. however, we still have some interesting stuff to talk about here.

why is one monitor being spent on hallway footage?

Monitors 4 and 6 - that's Camera C view - are duplicates. accounting for a teensy change in monitor perspectives, I'm ready to call them exactly the same footage, down to the people in the room being in the same positions. I made it a gif because it's easier to see in motion.

Monitors 3 and 7 are weird for two reasons.

3 and 7 come from the same corner of the room - Camera B view - but they're not exactly the same angle. and these cameras are bolted to the wall.

I'll give you that they can probably pan left/right. idk that that satisfies me, but there's nothing that satisfies me about the second issue:

in Monitor 3, the puzzle table is pulled out into the room, and the plinko board is leaning up against the wall, not in use. but in Monitor 7, the plinko board is set up the way it is in the scenes where El plays with it, and the puzzle table is scooted over towards the wall.

I could just be misunderstanding how NINA works, which is 900% possible, but: isn't the idea to show El all possible footage of the same moment at the same time for the most immersive "memories" possible?

to plug this into the timeline theory: could I take this as evidence that NINA is showing El not just multiple camera angles of the same moment, but the same moment in different timelines?

El's "I don't understand!" shot spins around so we see all four cameras. the room is the plinko-not-in-use configuration (consistent with Monitor 3 I think).

but El is not visible in the footage on Monitor 3. she's not visible in any monitors in the Brenner scenes, as far as I can spot. if she was visible during "well well," where is she now?

one of the times El bursts into the rainbow room is a whole different time.

I'm not the first to point this out, but this needs to be said in this discussion. she enters the rainbow room 8 times in this sequence (including both physically walking in and respawning). actually... sigh. let's just look at all of them.

most are consistent: Two and Three are playing chess, I think Six and Seven are at those drawing tables, and whichever kid that is is doing his puzzle alone at the table.

Entry #5 is totally different from the others. puzzle kid is still there, but that isn't Two or Three playing chess. and they have the kid whip around to look judgmentally at El so we get a good look at his face. actually, who are these kids? do I even recognize them? and I also don't know which two kids those are at the drawing table, but they're both little white kids this time.

and - I realize this relies entirely on how I happened to number the monitors earlier in this post, but - 8 entries into the rainbow room and #5 being different... 8 monitors and #5 missing... that worked out nicely. also Monitor 2 showing hallway footage and Entry #2 being the only one where she didn't go out into the hallway (she just respawned standing in the same spot). but then.... if this was really anything, plinko should be set up in Entry #7... idk man, my brain hurts

final thought: you know how the lights flicker before she respawns? I gotta think this through more before I'm serious about it, but just to toss it out there: what if the flickering lights actually indicate not (just?) power use, but a timeline switch? I don't mean in NINA, I mean like, every time in the whole show.

and that's all the brain I have for today!