#here it is - the gifset(s) i made just for me

[sandreeen]

Sung Hyunjae || The S-Classes That I've Raised

[i-mas]

HARUKA AMAMI / 天海春香 ❤️

[pharawee]

Boss Thawatchanin as BU & Gap Jakarin as DA — NORRASING (2023) · pt. 1/2

[lotr1978]

i always get questions when i do a split gifset, and it's a deceptively simple process so i thought i'd try to show how i do it! i don't know if these types of gifsets have a more universally recognized name, but that's what i call them so that's what i'm going with.

i'm going to write this assuming you have a solid familiarity with photoshop and making gifs, but please feel free to send me an ask if anything is unclear. i use video timeline/smart objects so will be showing that (here's a great general tutorial on giffing with timeline). i will also be talking A LOT about gif dimensions, so first let's briefly go over the limits and theory a little bit.

a 1 column gifset can accommodate gifs 540 pixels wide

2 columns = 268 pixels each with a 4 pixel gutter between

3 columns = 177, 178, 177 pixels with 4 pixel gutters

i'm mostly going to talk about 2 column split gifs here (what i will refer to as 2x1 from now on - 2 across and 1 high), but the process is the same for 3 column (3x1) and so on (1x2, 2x2, etc).

so, why would you even want to make a gifset like this? i mean, let’s face it, generally, bigger is better for gifs on tumblr, and there are obvious incentives to 540 width gifs over 268 or 177/8 width, especially since the upload limit went to 10MB. but even 10MB isn’t much when you’re talking about high quality footage. gif making is a constant balance between quality (whatever that means to you: frame dimensions, sharpening, coloring, etc) and file size. split gifs are a cheat to that limitation >:)

i personally believe an untapped frontier of tumblr gifmaking is playing with dimensions and time. that sentence makes me sound like an old-timey sci-fi villain, but you get the idea: gifmaking is an art and there are many fun and interesting ways of exploring the medium. you can do a lot with 268 pixels! longer frame loops to gif longer scenes unbroken, bolder coloring on a wide shot you don’t want to pare down. and, a shorter x axis means the y axis’s bang goes a lot further on a buck. also just if you have a 2 column set but only 5 gifs so you need to make one take up 2 slots. there's a lot of reasons but the most important one is it's fun :) here are some examples of other split gifs i've made: x, x, x

this isn't so much a limitation, more of a shift in how you think about gifs, but it's important to remember that each gif should ideally be doing something still. when making split gifs, it’s easy to pick a wide scene without thinking about how it’ll be split down the middle, and then you’re left with a lot of something on one side and a lot of incongruous nothing on the other - or you're left with a person cut in half awkwardly in the middle. so while a split gif can still be a whole scene, you shouldn’t ignore the break and what it means to the bigger picture. now this is personal preference, but i like to play with the break and make it a part of the gifset. mirrored movement, subjects trapped on either side but still talking to each other, a bird flying from one side to the other. fun with frames! it can be another way of drawing attention to specific images/moments/feelings happening within the same shot.

SIMPLE SPLIT GIFS

to more narrowly define what i’m calling “simple split gifs,” it’s one set of frames split down the middle into two separate gifs that are meant to play concurrently, side by side.

first thing's first, crop your gif and uncheck delete cropped pixels if it is not already (very important). i'm cropping it to the 1x1 size, in this case 268x350. if you need to see how the full size will look, you can try it out with 536 first. but this one is pretty easy, this is the exact center of the frame (the left boundary of this crop is the center line) and both their heads fit within their respective 1x1 crop.

then color as you normally would. if your scene is very different one side to the other, it might be easier for you to color on a wider crop and then either crop again or copy paste your coloring to the smaller crop version. i do that with the 2x6s, but it's usually not that big a deal to color the 2x1s with just the small crop on your canvas at the time. this scene is very symmetrical, both in movement and colors, so i'm good.

now the fun part! once you've got one side how you want it, save/export as you normally would. at this point i also like to make a mental note of how many frames there are.

so i have 49 frames and it's still only ~3MB! this is just an example that i picked from my rotk fancy set, otherwise i probably would have made this gif longer.

then onto the other side, so i ctrl + z my way back to my smart object video timeline. to get to theoden i just drag and drop the smart object 268 pixels over. since this one is in the exact center of the image, it even helpfully guides me (this can get annoying if you are NOT giffing the center of the image fyi, but you can always manually go pixel by pixel too if you need to with your <- -> keyboard buttons. just always remember where you started and count accurately). i can never move around my smart object without hiding the adjustment layers on top of it, so you'll see me do that in this screen recording.

see how it corrected me when i dragged it a few pixels down by accident, and with all those pink guidelines? sometimes photoshop is good 😌

then make sure you still like the coloring, adjust whatever needs to be adjusted, but watch out! don't make any major changes because it still has to match the other side. and export again.

what we perceive as 1 series of frames chopped down the middle is just 2 separate gifs with the same frame rate. when tumblr loads the images, it will run concurrently in the post (even though it never does in the draft post 🙄). and that's it!

COMPLEX SPLIT GIFS

again i'm making up terms, but i call anything with more than 2 components a complex split gifset. i've tweaked some things in the process as i went along, but this is generally how i did the lotr series. these sets are basically just many split gifs with transitions. and here's where endurance becomes a factor :) there's a lot of prep done blind. but if set up well, it will be fairly easy to pull together by the end.

first i decide on my dimensions, using my upper bounds to determine how big i'm going to go. since lotr has very nice large file sizes, i can go pretty big without sacrificing much in quality. i decided on 3 rows of 350 pixel height gifs and it's worked well for me. that means my biggest gif will have a total height of 1050 pixels - fun! you could also do 8 rows, with two 2x2s or just a series of 2x1s that transition to 1x1s. there really is no limit to this except your imagination and source material.

i cap everything i'm going to use before i even open photoshop, then do all of them at once. uncheck delete cropped pixels, then i make my gifs! this is where i spend 90% of the time on this set. every gif should be the size of the smallest 1x1 gif (268x350 for me). i make all 10 into a fully colored, separate psd. (and then i usually go back through all of them a few times to get the colors to match better 😅) for the bigger ones (2x1: 536x350 and 2x6: 536x1050), i just crop them as if they were 1x1 but always thinking about how they will look when big. this gets tricky when i do the big one :) my lazy workaround for that is to basically make it twice: one cropped as it will be and one full size for me to color. then i copy and paste all the coloring layers onto the small one and voila, i know that the coloring in the upper right slice will also look good on the bottom left slice 1050 pixels away because i saw it on the full size version.

coloring is probably the biggest thing i'm thinking about with this kind of set. the whole idea is that these gifs are using the same colors, more or less, throughout each phase. even with the 1x1s, they're still part of a larger color concept, and they should (🤞) work with each other.

in a pinch, i like to eyedrop a color from one gif and add it as an accent to another. one of my 1x1s had a much more muted color palette originally, but i wanted it to have deeper blues and yellows to complement the 1x1 that would go next to it, so i added some gradients on lower opacity over it, color picked from other gifs i already colored.

i keep my coloring and the smart object in separate folders to help me in the final step of combining everything, and then i trim everything down to my lowest common denominator of frames. you might think you need to keep frames pretty minimal if you're doing 3 phases with transitions like this, but there's more room to work with on a small gif, in terms of file size. i usually do 30-50 frames for each phase, with the assumption that i'll be adding a transition on each side of each gif that will eat up some frames (i usually do 4-6 frame fade transitions). for the rotk set my final frame count was 129 and i never went over 8MB on a gif, so there's plenty of space play around with things :)

and then, combine! whatever order you start with, you are stuck with (unless you're getting even more complicated, but we won't go into that lol). for these sets i go small 1x1 -> medium 2x1 -> big 2x6. i like to think of it in phases from this point on. small is the first phase, then medium, then big. then i put in the fade transitions, chopping up the first phase gif so the last one will fade into it, restarting the whole cycle seamlessly. i'm just doing a quick and dirty fade here, but here's a tutorial if you want more explanation on transitions.

at this point i save this psd as its position, "top left" or whatever (usually it's a psb by this point too 🥲), just in case i need to go back to it. then i export this first gif and move on to the rest.

it's the same concept as a simple split gif: drag and drop the smart object to the new position, but now there are multiple phases to keep track of. folder organization has been key for me to keep everything straight. i move through the gifs in a backwards S, starting with the top left. but you could go any direction, just gotta stick with it and remember your counts. in my case, i'm always thinking of 268 pixels over and, for the 2x6, 350 up/down. it's a tedious process, but it goes quick (apart from waiting for photoshop to load each time you export).

i did this series as a color concept aesthetic kind of thing, so my theory was by using the same-ish colors throughout, that would save me in the end when it came time to export. there's only 256 colors max to work with on a gif, and that's usually what gets me over the 10MB limit. but as i said, i have never even gotten close to the size limit on this series. it's pretty hard to reach the limit on 268 pixels, but not impossible. (i did run into that on the emma set i did, and that was hell. but also not an impossible fix in the end.)

and that's it! if you try any of this and have trouble, i'm happy to help if i can but mostly this is a "click around and see what works for you" kind of process. and feel free to tag me on your split gifsets :) i love seeing them <3

[uraichievents]

UraIchi Week 2024

Monday, July 1st, 2024 - Sunday, July 7th, 2024

AO3 Collection

Full Prompts List Submitted This Year

(Click images to enlarge. Alt text under the cut.)

What is UraIchi Week?

It’s a week-long fanworks event to promote the Urahara Kisuke x Kurosaki Ichigo ship. There’s no sign-up, it’s just for fun, and everybody can participate. Completed works and wips are both acceptable, and any type of fanwork (fanfic, fanart, gifsets, etc.) is welcome. NSFW and/or potentially trigger-y content is allowed, although please remember to tag your works properly.

The ship itself can be written romantically or platonically, as lovers or friends or even enemies, so long as it stars these two characters together in some way. Poly ships are also fine so long as Ichigo and Kisuke are still the focus of the fanwork. And crossovers and fusions are also allowed even if it isn’t one of the given prompts for the event. Basically, anything goes, and the only criteria is that it has to be UraIchi-centric.

Posting:

UraIchi Week is hosted here on Tumblr and on AO3. For posts on Tumblr, remember to ping @uraichievents and tag #UraIchi Week 2024. For AO3, you can add your work(s) to the collection linked up above. You are also welcome to join the UraIchi Discord server if you haven’t already and come and talk about what you’re working on!

Themes:

July 1st, Day 1: i've met you before / i'll meet you again / this is the first time we've met.. right?

Time Travel / Dimension Travel

Identity Porn / Hidden Identities

“I've suffered from traumatic dreams of my past lives since I was a child, and I'm just now realizing that coming up to a beautiful stranger who looks like someone I've seen die a thousand times in a thousand different ways at a bar and asking if we've met before sounds a lot like a come-on haha no wait come back that doesn't mean I'm not desperately attracted to you please kiss me again” AU

July 2nd, Day 2: It's fact that killable problems are not real problems.

Murder Husbands

Ichigo is Deadpool / unbreakable / any other accidentally immortal being who is really kind of annoyed about it (because it’s boring, and he’s still young enough to be within his lifespan, but it sure takes the fun out of fighting).

All the times Ichigo died, he ACTUALLY died, he just came back. Every time he comes back, he comes back Wronger.

July 3rd, Day 3: Things I Should've Told You / Things I Don't Tell Anyone Else

The skeletons in your closet are about to overflow. Would you like me to tidy it up?

Ichigo is experimenting with self-expression, a hobby, etc., making up for lost time as a regular teenager. Urahara is always the first one (sometimes only one) to see or hear about a new idea.

“The person I trust most is you.”

July 4th, Day 4: Sword and Shield

I am yours to command, use me as you please.

Shiba!Ichigo and Second Division!Kisuke

Summoner/Mage AU: Paired summons who are good apart but unmatched together.

July 5th, Day 5: That One is Mine

Hollow Instincts / Feral Protective

Possessive!Kisuke: He stepped aside for Sui-Feng because Yoruichi was always master first and friend second and love interest never, and because Yoruichi wanted her in a way she's never wanted him. But Ichigo is different, and everyone soon realizes that when Kisuke truly wants something, he always gets it in the end.

“Death can’t have you. You’re mine.”

July 6th, Day 6: Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Some are born, some are made, and some decide being a monster's pretty fucking cool.

Visored!Urahara Kisuke AU / Vasto Lorde!Kurosaki Ichigo AU

“Ichigo forges a friendship with his Hollow in the Shattered Shaft” AU

vs. Gotei 13 AU: Ichigo time travels back from a future where he was chained to the throne as the next Soul King by the Shinigami.

July 7th, Day 7: Creator’s Choice!

As always, the above prompts are all optional, and you’re free to come with your own ideas. You can also find an excel sheet with all the prompts submitted this year linked up above, so feel free to look through that if you want, and you can also make a copy for yourself.

And that’s it! We’re looking forward to what everyone comes up with!

[thanekrios]

So, years ago I made a series of gifsets, starting with this one:

Well, now they're available in fic format. Nobody asked for this half a decade later or so, but here we are! AO3 link here (chapter 2 on AO3)

NO HARD FEELINGS

Summary:

Years after the Reaper War, a grieving Kaidan comes into possession of the files Shepard left for him.

CHAPTER ONE NIGHTCAP

Kaidan wakes up to a ping.

Nightcap.

Shepard’s nightcap messages rarely wake him up. They come as he is tossing and turning in his bunk or wandering around the ship. It’s not unusual behavior; everybody’s sleep cycles are fucked. He can always count on Vega for a late workout or on Tali to continue their little side project of building KEI-9’s a mech buddy. But on occasion, he does doze off, and the sharp beep rings through the starboard observation lounge, cutting him clean from his sleep cycle.

He sits up. One eye open, responding without reading the notification – because it’s always “nightcap?” And his eloquent reply is always: “omw.”

He taps on the keys blindly. A swooshing noise carries his response. He can’t bring himself to get up and slide into his sweats. He just leans against the bedrest in the soft darkness of an early summer morning. The bed creaks under his shifting weight.

Well, that’s funny, he thinks in the hazy reality of the half-awake. Furniture in space doesn’t creak – it whines, whirs, hums... 

He drifts away.

Another ping comes in.

His eyes are barely open, far away from where he believes to be. The light of a lazy sun has begun filtering through the blinds, and the air is far too humid and lacking the scent of citrus sanitizer that circulates and recirculates through the air ducts of the Normandy. It smells like pine needles, like sheets put away in a closet for years.

He must be dreaming because Shepard has just asked for a nightcap and he hasn’t seen this room, his childhood bedroom, in six years. He doesn’t even know if it still exists. If the house exists. If the orchard exists.

He’s at home. He’s on the Normandy. He’s in his childhood bed. He’s in his bunk.

The light dissolves behind his eyelids.

Now, this is it. He must be awake. Fully awake.

He’s up now. Hands buried in his sweatpants’ pockets as he makes his way to Deck 1.

He makes a point of engaging in eye contact and nodding politely to the crewmembers he passes on his way to the elevator. They know where he’s going, and he doesn’t give a flying fuck about the gossip it generates. Even if the rumors were true, what does it matter at this point in the game? He certainly wouldn’t care about who’s sleeping with whom when they could all be dead before their next sleep cycle.

When Shepard’s quarters door hisses open, he notices the distant scent of pine needles again.

And there she is, sitting with her back to the door.

Her hair is so short and shiny as it always is right after it has been buzzed. She shudders, donning her hoodie shortly after.

“Shepard, hey.” He says as if they had casually bumped into each other.

She doesn’t turn around but greets him in return.

This little ritual of theirs that nobody comments on – except for maybe Joker’s occasional “So you and the Commander are, uh, bumping uglies again, huh?” – began a few weeks after Udina’s attempted coup to seize control of the Citadel.

Too much had happened then. Two of Shepard’s former teammates from the infamous Cerberus-funded suicide mission had been lost. He had aimed his gun at her. She had aimed hers at him. They talk about it for the first time after Kaidan pours himself a glass of TM88 Peruvian whiskey and sits across from where she is.

“It would’ve been unbearable to continue without you,” she admits, curled up on her chair, feet bare, face obscured by her hoodie. Shepard never wears her armor to their nightcaps. “But I know I would’ve done it. I was going to gun you down.”

“Me too.” He replies in a whisper.

It’s something so terrible and shameful that had she been somebody else, he would’ve never admitted it. But it isn’t in Kaidan’s nature to conceal himself from Shepard, and in the last few weeks, he has learned that neither is it in hers.

“Good thing we got to keep our warm hearts,” she says.

That makes him smile.

Cool mind, warm heart is a phrase she has tattooed on her chest, over her left breast. Kaidan remembers discovering it under the dim blue lights of her cabin before Ilos. He never asked why she had chosen that phrase, why that was the only ink on her body. He had just kissed it softly every time they had made love. He began saying it to himself whenever he found himself in a dangerous situation, even after she was gone – especially after she was gone. It had crossed his mind, too, as he stared at her down the barrel of his gun.

The tip of his nose is chilly. There’s something wrong with the controlled temperature of her cabin. Too much moisture.

Golden light begins to bleed through the edges of her closed bathroom door.

“Have you asked EDI what that’s about?” he points at it with his chin, but Shepard doesn’t react. Instead, she stands up and walks towards the window that oversees the dark, starless expanse.

Birds twitter.

He walks up next to her; her hooded head faces the other way.

“How you doin’ these days, Shepard?” he asks because he always asks her, except sometimes they’re standing on the Starboard Observation Lounge or at the Med Bay of the first Normandy, and on really shitty occasions, they’re on Earth just moments before she leaves him behind and makes for the beam that will take her away from him forever.

“Still breathing, K,” she lies.

 It stings like alcohol on an open wound.

“Shepard,” he says pleadingly. He’s suddenly overwhelmed, exhausted. “Can I please look at your face? Just this one time.”

She doesn’t turn to see him. One of Shepard’s hands rests on the window, “Take my hand, Kaidan.”

He presses his palm against hers, except he can only feel cold glass. It’s as if Shepard’s molecules have been rearranged, dissolved with his touch.  

He sees then, out in the vastness of a dark galaxy, Shepard is there, in full armor, floating on the other side of the window, banging on it.

No. This was a nightcap. She’s never in armor during their nightcaps.

She beckons to him. Her arms cross in front of her chest, her fists ball. Then she stretches out both arms and hands and spreads her legs, making an X with her entire body.  It’s a signal people who grew up in space like her use when all other communication fails – it’s meant to signal danger or distress or imminent explosion – he should know what it means. Still, he can’t remember, and he bangs on the window, terror so sharp a violent sensation of pins and needles on the soles of his feet is all he can feel, “Shepard! Get out of there! Get out of there!”

There is no response.

She repeats the motion over and over, each time more desperately, more violently, banging her arms against her chest plate with the strength of a Brute.

There’s a pause.

Shepard does it one more time, slowly and almost affectionately, as if hugging herself and then, she lets go – defeat or acceptance or both.

Her helmet hisses as its vacuum seal breaks when she begins to remove it.

“You can see my face now, K.” He shouldn’t be able to hear her, but it’s as if the sound is being amplified, blasted in her cabin.

“No. Shepard! You’ve got twelve seconds! Twelve seconds to put it back on!”

This should not be the cost she should pay so he can see her face again. 

He can go on forever without seeing it again if she just gets herself back to safety. 

“Shepard, please!”

And just as she lifts it halfway along her nose, the helmet is overexposed under the blast of a nearby explosion.

He screams. Or he is trying to. Every sound dies in his throat.

He can never scream in his sleep.

His fists bang on the window. There’s nothing out there but an inferno and the twittering of birds.

“Every future moves in a different direction of time,” Shepard whispers in his ear, unseen. “All of these things happened. To you. To a different version of you. But you have to stop peeking through these windows, alright? It’s time to come back.”

“How do I make it stop?”

“We’ll figure it out. I promise. But for now, I need you to come back, okay?”

He nods and feels her fingers intertwining with his. She did that often towards the end, offering quiet reassurance for a few seconds in private, before the elevator doors opened, when they stood together at the Presidium, right before he said good night when their nightcaps came to an end.  Now she does it whenever he navigates unsettling dreams.

“Okay,” he agrees with the ghost.

The beep of a new notification fills the room and cuts him away from her grip.

He sits on his childhood bed, pressing his hand against his forehead. It’s soaking wet but not too warm. He feels a throb in his left temple – it’s always his left temple.

The birds outside his window are still chirping happily, as they always do in the early hours of summer mornings.  

He’s home. That’s the only place where he can be right now.

The blue glow of his hand terminal burns so bright he is reminded of that rare footage of the Citadel erupting in indigo, a surge of energy darting across the Milky Way, crippling one mass relay after another.

He taps hastily on his omnitool – concerned the pings have awoken his mom too. It’s always a gamble, she could be getting some shut eye at any time of the day. Ever since the war, she hasn’t been able to sleep for more than three hours straight, so instead, she takes a series of naps during the day. She’s told Kaidan that now that he’s home, sleeping has gotten easier. 

His back is drenched in sweat, and his throat is hoarse. The tingling in his feet has dimmed but not disappeared entirely. He reaches for the glass of water and a pill on his nightstand and gulps it all down in one go.

His hand terminal’s screen has gone dark at the inactivity, and only a tiny green dot blinks insistently, reminding him of the unanswered ping.

Liara T’Soni [06:46]: Are you awake? There’s something I’d like to discuss. [READ]

Kaidan Alenko [06:46]: omw [READ]

Liara T’Soni [06:47]: That won’t be necessary. Is your vidcom working?

Liara T’Soni [07:14]: Kaidan?

Kaidan Alenko [07:22]: Just a mo.

He stops himself from tapping on his omnitool to activate the coffee machine that may still be at his old apartment’s kitchenette in Kronos Station – he should really delete the coffee maker app. It’s been either a couple of days or a couple of weeks since he was at Kronos. It doesn’t matter. It’s hard to shake off his old routine and come to the realization that he doesn’t have one anymore. Plus, he should lay off caffeine for a while.

He runs a hand through his salt and pepper hair as if that alone would bury the evidence that he had been sleeping moments before and changes into a dry t-shirt. 

He opens the vidcom channel to Liara.

“Oh no,” Liara’s preferred form of greeting, “did I wake you?”

“It’s alright, doc. I needed to wake up.”

Liara doesn’t say it, but Kaidan knows she can tell he looks like shit. He feels like it too.

She moves on, doesn’t ask him what’s wrong – small kindnesses. Instead, she wants to know about the orchard and its recovery, and even though she’s never met her, she always takes the time to ask about his mom. 

Their conversation drifts to discussions of hydroponic apple trees and the growing obsolescence of farming drones in recent years; ever since the war, an interest in old farming techniques skyrocketed, and more and more people began favoring manual labor. Treasuring, more like. 

They’ve been fifteen minutes into the conversation and Liara continues to find new topics unrelated to the reason she messaged him in the first place. But Kaidan doesn’t mind, talking to Liara has grounded him back into the present, into reality. His heartbeat is steady, and his limbs are no longer tingling. 

Something chimes in Liara’s terminal, chaos and the weight of the universe reflected on her grimace as she reads a new incoming message. Kaidan has started noticing how much she’s starting to resemble her mother and he considers mentioning it every time they hold a vidcom conference, but the thought always dissolves in a whirlwind of other topics.   

“Do I need to let you go, doc?” 

“I–” she hesitates for a moment before tapping on her hand terminal with finality, tossing it onto a surface Kaidan can’t see. A racket off camera and a pained expression across her face tell Kaidan she had used more force than she had intended, but she blinks it away and stares back at him,  “No. I’m here. That is part of the reason why I needed to talk to you.”

“Well,” Kaidan rolls his neck. It cracks. He’s gonna need at least decaf. “I’m all ears. What’s up?”

“I have something for you, Kaidan. However, I am not sure if…if you’ll want it.”

“Alright. How illegal are we talking about, doc?”

They disconnect some time later but not before Liara asks him to be good to himself, which she could’ve done out of habit or because he’s still a sweaty mess.

The sun is up by then, and he hears his mom downstairs. Footsteps and the front door creaking open. She’s going to have a cup of tea on the porch like she used to do every summer morning with dad.

The air is crisp and clean; it still smells of pine needles and sheets put away in a closet for years.

He slides into a hoodie and walks towards the door. He might have breakfast, go for a walk, peel some apples, or talk to his mom. There’s much to do before he can go back to Shepard.

Before he starts his day, he unlocks his hand terminal to stare at Liara’s little offering – and there it is, a small icon containing God knows how many files with everything Shepard had left for him to read, to hear, to see.

Every future moves in a different direction of time, she had whispered.

Each decision, each action, each conversation brought him here. He stands in his childhood bedroom, and she fills the sky. And there may be other universes where he stretches across the cosmos, and she stands in his childhood bedroom. And there are some others where he read everything she ever wrote for him, heard every word she ever meant to say to him, and perhaps they’re both scattered across the galaxy together. Or they’re having another nightcap.

[thlayli-ra]

Trick or treat is such a fun idea!

Could I request a Punkintyre ficlet with the shock collar prompt 🥺 (I would very much appreciate Drew being the one in the collar but I leave the details in your very capable hands)

Ok so, just, let me explain myself here! By the time this prompt came through I had already received the Cody Rhodes 'Shock Collar' prompt and I didn't want to essentially write the same fic so I tried to come up with something different and I couldn't stop thinking about this gifset from Bad Blood and @fantasticalleigh 's tags on it about Punk and Drew being like two beasts mating in captivity, and it made me think of the original Planet of the Apes movie and well... this is the final result. Hope it's kinda, sorta what you were hoping for (I'm sorry!)??? 😬

Trick - 'Shock Collar'

Characters - CM Punk, Drew McIntyre

Rating - Mature (18+)

Warning Tags - Alien Abduction, Drugging, Breeding, Non-Con, Dub-Con, Rough Sex

'Punk! Wake up! Wake up, ye stupid prick!'

A meaty palm slapped his cheek, stirring him from his deep sleep. 'Ow!' Punk grunted moodily. 'What the fuck's wrong with you?'

It was then that he saw the raw terror in Drew McIntyre's eyes. 'Everything is wrong! Everything is as fucking wrong as it can possibly be!'

His vision started juddering back into focus and Punk spied the metal above Drew's head. For a split second he thought they were both in the Cell, and that he'd taken a bad bump and passed out during their match but he soon realised that these were not the zig-zag mesh of Hell in a Cell.

These were bars!

They were both locked in some kind of cage!

Punk sat up like a shot to look around. The cage was large, more like an enclosure, and rich in foliage, wiry bushes, dirt and rocks. Punk was lying on a bed of hay in the top-most corner, under a bamboo canopy like some kind of animal in a zoo.

'Drew?' he stammered out. 'Where the hell are we?'

'I have no idea...'

The large Scot lumbered up to his feet and tentatively stepped out from under the canopy and into the make-shift forest. Behind him, Punk gawked when he noticed Drew's attire. Or lack of it! 'What are you wearing?'

Drew glanced down at the sparse shred of clothing to his name - a loin-cloth made from animal pelt draped around his waist and a metal collar around his neck. 'Same as you,' he shot back and Punk looked down and found to his horror that Drew was right. Letting out a curse, he shoved the front of his loin cloth down between his legs to give himself some decency then moved his fingers up to inspect the steel collar at his throat. It was bolted fast. The panic escalated into full-on alarm! 'What the fuck is going on?'

'Shh,' Drew hushed him, his ears pricked.

'You hear something?' Punk whispered.

'Shut up!'

Drew edged his way forward, reaching out his long arm to swipe through a clump of giant leaves and push them aside to reveal-

'JESUS CHRIST!' Drew toppled backwards with fright, landing hard on his lower back.

'FUCK!' Punk yelled, shuffling further back into his corner.

Quick as a flash Drew rushed up beside him, the two men shaking with terror. 'You saw that, right?' the Scot asked.

'Yeah,' Punk hushed out, trying to process what he had just seen. 'Yeah I saw it.'

Behind the leaves there had been a gap in the bars, filled with what looked like glass. A viewing gallery to peer into their enclosure. And there standing at the window were two figures crafted from their very nightmares. Impossibly tall and thin, something not of his world or the limits of his understanding, something that was completely...

...alien!

Suddenly a high-pitched shriek tore through Punk's head. He let out a wail as the pain screeched behind his eyes, covering his ears to try and stifle the blare.

'-creatures of P-0087453-E,' a tinny voice spoke inside Punk's very skull. 'We believe they refer to it as Earth-'

'W-what's happening?' Drew gritted out through his clenched teeth, tearing at his hair. He could hear it too!

'I don't know, I- GAH!'

'-simple creatures, not highly advanced. They can be prone to acts of violence and aggression, acting purely on their most basic urges-'

'I can hear a voice!' Punk yelled over the static in his skull. 'I think... I think it's them. Whatever they are!'

'I hear it too. How is that possible?'

'I have no idea! AAAGHHH!' The pain was growing, like somebody was blasting a badly tuned radio in his head.

'-but incredibly rare and valuable. Which is why our experts identified these two as a fertile pair and brought them here for our breeding programme-'

Punk froze. Had he really heard that right? Or did he just imagine it? Glancing up at Drew he was shocked to find the Scot looking deathly pale. He was afraid the larger man was about to keel over any second and shook him roughly by the shoulder to snap him out of his stupor. 'Hey, you ok?'

'This can't be happening! This is all some fucked up dream. This can't be-'

'-we will start our programme by activating the pheromones in the dominant male-'

Punk's stomach fell out from under him, wondering what on Earth that meant! Perhaps there was some kind of mechanism in the cage that would spray it into the enclosure? Anticipating it, he grabbed in a lungful of air and held it, waiting, listening, watching for anything to happen.

But nothing did.

He released his breath with a loud gasp, coughing oxygen back into his bloodstream. 'I think we're in the clear,' he told Drew, 'I didn't see or hear anything and I don't feel any different so-'

Drew let out a heavy grunt beside him, cutting him off and Punk turned to find the Scot shaking his head like he was trying to fend off an incoming sneeze.

'Drew? What's wrong?'

Drew's head shot up, his gaze finding Punk and fixing on him. His pupils were completely blown, erasing all the blue from his eyes. Making him resemble some kind of wild animal in the woods, a bear or wolf or... no, more like a shark circling the water, smelling fresh blood. Strong and dangerous. And hungry!

Guess he'd just found out who the so-called 'dominant male' was, and if that was Drew, then what exactly did that make Punk?

'Pheromones activated. Now all we have to do is wait and we'll hopefully see the mating rituals of this fascinating species.'

Shhhhhit! 'D-Drew?'

But the larger man wasn't listening! Settling onto his haunches like a crouched tiger, he began to stalk closer to his prey who scrabbled backwards with a yelp but where could Punk go? They were completely caged in and inevitably his spine collided with the metal bars of the cage, cutting off his retreat. Drew was on him now, mammoth arms boxing him in on either side and trapping him completely.

'Drew! Snap out of- urk!'

Punk's heart twisted with fear when Drew's bear paw found his chin, grasped it and lifted it up like he had done so many times before. The black, lifeless eyes looked him all over, Drew tilting his head slightly and giving that exact same elated smirk he'd worn back in the Cell at the first sight of Punk's blood. The hand at his chin then went for his throat, wrapping around Punk's collar and pushing him back until the base of his skull clattered against the bars.

Eyes clouded. No thoughts, only instinct.

'Drew! Hey McIntyre, listen to me!' Punk tried to break through the Scot's hysteria, tried to snap him out of this trance. 'You gotta fight it, you hear me? Fight it!'

But it was in vain. Punk's mouth was abruptly gagged by Drew's invading tongue, the larger man growling and snarling, rumbles vibrating down his throat and through their chests pressed together, while large, thick hands stroked all over Punk's shoulders and back and chest and nipples then trailed down his ribs and stomach and pelvis to-

'NO!' Punk wrenched his face to the side, freeing his mouth. His hand grabbed hold of Drew's wrist, stopping it in its tracks. 'GET OFF! STOP IT, DREW! THIS ISN'T YOU!'

And then the blue flickered back into Drew's eyes and for a brief moment, his humanity returned, only to be engulfed once again. 'No, no, no, no,' Drew pushed himself off of Punk, stumbling away. Punk, still packed tight against the bars of the cage, watched as the Scot roared in distress, grabbing fistfuls of his own hair, twisting his head from left-to-right and back again, a man trying to evade a swarm of invisible wasps.

'No,' he growled under his breath. 'No, not like this! Not this way!' Drew blinked the blue back into his eyes, holding onto himself again, however fleetingly. Then turned his attention towards the window of terror hidden away at the far end of the cage. 'No!' he spat at their captors, 'I won't!'

'-hmm, perhaps the first dose wasn't strong enough. Activating a second dosage-'

This time, Punk saw the powder puff up from Drew's metal collar, engulfing his face, and like before he struggled and writhed, trying to evade the poison but it was clinging to him, following him around the enclosure no matter how far he tried to run. His roars filled the air, Punk quaking with fear at its feral nature. Too scared to move, he watched as the huge Scotsman bent down and heaved a huge rock right up out of the ground.

'What the hell is he-?'

Drew rushed towards the observation window, the boulder raised high, meaning to throw it right through the glass and shatter it to smithereens.

'Immediate threat detected. Engaging collar!'

A loud crackle and Drew tossed his head back, screaming in agony. The boulder plunged from his arms and his body soon followed, both hitting the floor with a crash.

Punk leapt up to his feet, his heart in his throat.

'There, that should pacify him-'

But their captors grossly underestimated the fortitude of their prisoner. 'I'm no some beast in a cage,' he croaked, dragged his arms under him to push himself up, 'and you won't reduce me to one!'

'Shock him again!'

Another crackle and Drew fell onto his back, spine rigid and arched painfully off the filthy floor, howling through his gritted teeth, until the shockwave released him and all four limbs flopped, lifelessly. From his position by the bars, Punk held his breath, looking for any sign of life.

It all seemed hopeless. Until Drew rolled his hips back.

Unbelievably, he flipped up onto his feet in a perfect kip-up, just like he would in the ring and before they had a chance to shock him again, he grabbed up the boulder and launched it through the air with all his might.

'WATCH OUT! WATCH OUT!'

Drew went down with another terrible shockwave just as the boulder crashed against the glass, not shattering it but creating a crack that almost split the screen in two. Only this time, the gruelling torture didn't stop. The shocks continued, the Scot's body contorted horribly, flailing rigidly in the dirt. Punk rushed towards him, hearing the electricity running through his fellow wrestler, seeing the turmoil on his face. He looked towards that window of terror, and the creatures hidden behind the fractured spiderweb of broken glass.

'That's enough!' he yelled towards it, hoping that, by some miracle, if he could hear those things that they could hear him too. 'You'll kill him! Stop!'

But still the jolts continued, one after the other. And now Drew wasn't screaming anymore and Punk could see froth foaming at his mouth, his blue eyes rolling into the back of his head.

'I SAID THAT'S ENOUGH!'

Still nothing. Punk's head went blank with panic, desperation.

'WE'LL DO IT! WE'LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! JUST TURN OFF THE COLLAR FOR FUCK'S SAKE!'

And finally... the crackling stopped. Followed by dreadful silence, highlighting the heavy breathing of both men and the putrid smell of burning flesh in the air.

'Punk...'

Punk's eyes found Drew's weakly fluttering back at him, pain-filled and weak. Ringed by the tiniest sliver of blue. 'It's ok, Drew, it's alright.'

'No... don't...'

Looking around him, Punk found the perfect spot and shuffled over to a large, flat rock. Slumping down to his knees, he bent over and lay atop the cold surface, lifting his hips up into the air.

Nothing happened. He looked back to find Drew where he left him, refusing to move.

'Come on Drew, it's alright. Just do as they say.' The Scot shook his head stubbornly. 'One little fuck isn't worth killing yourself over. Anyway, isn't this what you've wanted this whole time?'

'Not like this,' Drew choked out with a sob.

'If they kill one of us, they'll kill both of us,' Punk protested. 'The only chance we have of getting out of this is by sticking together.'

But still, Drew refused to move.

Punk sighed with defeat. Turning his face away, he placed his cheek against the cold rock and whispered, 'hit him with the pheromones again.'

From behind him, he could hear Drew call 'what did you just- urgh!' Then he held his breath and waited.

It didn't take long for Drew to crawl over, sniffing like a curious beast at Punk's rear. The tattooed man flinched when his loin cloth was ripped up, exposing his open cheeks and Drew mounted him from behind, his hairy chest and stomach rubbing up against his bare back. Two huge fists wrapped around Punk's skinny wrists and held them down, keeping Punk securely pinned on his front to the rock face as Drew rubbed his sopping wet and rock hard dick between Punk's glutes, prodding his head around until it lined up against his puckered hole.

Then rammed himself in. Punk choked on a cry of pain, a terrible burning at his rectum as he was stretched wide and entered. The beast on his back hooking himself into his body, breaking through the seal and into his guts, tearing him open.

No thoughts, only instinct.

And Punk closed his eyes and tried to fight the growing ache between his own legs and Drew's hands shackling his wrists tightly, and his warm breath grunting against his ear and his sweat falling onto Punk's back and pooling in that small hollow at the base of his spine and his huge dick ravishing him again and again.

But soon the blood and the pre-cum lubricated his passage, and Drew began to move easier and the thrusts became long and powerful and struck that perfect little sweet spot deep inside of him and Punk began to hear the crackles in his own skull and see the explosions of electricity behind his own eyelids and in an instant, he forgot the cage, the window, their plight and he became lost in the throes of the delicious mix of pain and pleasure. Opening his thighs up wider to entice Drew in even further, his lips fell open and he moaned, a line of drool escaping the corner of his mouth and dripping onto the stone beneath him.

Drew began to pump in harder, scrubbing Punk's naked chest against the jagged rock and Punk was so helpless, caught in the larger man's strong grip and he couldn't help but love his helplessness, being held down and bred like a bitch in heat, all while being watched, being observed. A thought bubbled to the surface of his consciousness, wondering if he too had been hit with some kind of pheromone to muddle his senses but it fell away again when Drew hit his bundle of nerves head-on with the blunt tip of his dick. His own cock was full to bursting and it was too much to bear and when he let out a strangled cry, Drew obliged him by letting go of his wrist and grabbing him between the legs, pumping his shaft with a taut grip, the pad of his thumb teasing his slit.

'Fascinating! We always wondered how two males of this species mated and now we know it's through the-'

Punk went blind and deaf and even the blaring static in his head was drowned out as warm cum seeped into him and out of him, sopping from his wrecked hole and between his swollen cheeks and down his ragged thighs onto the dirt below. Drew collapsed onto him, nuzzling his face into the hollow between Punk's shoulder blades and kissed his flushed skin tenderly. 'S'you ok?' was all Punk's numb lips could form. Drew answered with a throaty purr.

Later, the pair were up on the hay under the canopy, Punk firmly snuggled in Drew's arms, both of them fast asleep. But something stirred the tattooed man slightly from his slumber, a tinny voice echoing around his skull.

'-a success. But this is only phase one of our breeding programme. Tomorrow we'll prep the submissive male for surgery and move into phase two-'

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hello! Love your blog and your meta, its breath of fresh air in all the craziness of this fandom. There are 2 posts I was hoping to find-You seem to have your finger on the pulse of most things Loustat realted so I thought you might be a good person to ask, or someone following you might know

The first is a post about Rockstat's possible fashion influences, that I thought you made but can't find in your ask tag- there were a lot of great outfits in it that I enjoyed (😳) imaging him in, including a couple from the lead singer of Maneskin

The other one I'm a little foggier about- I can't remember if it was an actual gifset and or just someone talking about it. It was Sam being nervous to present the teaser at comic con (at least I THINK it was comic con lol) and Jacob being sweet about it. The fact that they're such good friends makes me very happy

Anyway, hope you're having a good day!! Thank you<3

Hey! (Yes the ask went through^^)

I think you meant my reblog of @zkaus' post a couple of days back, here is the post by them:

And... do you mean this gif? :))

Unfortunately I don't have a higher quality right now, but that was right before the SDCC 2022 panel started, and Jacob noticed how nervous Sam was and reached out to comfort him, and Sam reaching blindly out to him in turn.

It's very clear from that little scene that they are extremely attuned to each other and I adore it.

Btw, I can only recommend watching the old interviews, there's a lot of Jam Reiderson "gold" in there..

... as well as the fact that this panel should be mandatory viewing wrt the show, imho :)))

[eddiediaaz]

hi lovely!! do you have any tips on making cool fun and sexy typography?

hey joanna!! this made me giggle haha, i'm not quiiiite sure how to answer that, but here are some tips i keep in my when i do typography, and some examples:

FONTS

don't be afraid to "shop" for fonts and try funky fonts you've never used/seen. i often try so many before settling. i almost always use at least 2 different font for gifsets, even 3 sometimes. i think a good font pairing can do a lot for a gif. it's usually something like:

serif + cursive/funky fonts (example)

sans serif + cursive/funky fonts (example)

serif + sans serif fonts (example)

two different cursive/funky fonts (example)

or even simply the same font but all caps + all lowercase (example)

in case you're unsure where too start or want inspiration, here's a great resource: usergif's font pairing guide and its fonts page

BLEND MODES & LAYER STYLES

i think playing around with different blend modes and layer styles will always elevate your typography game, in my opinion. it's usually a bit more dynamic than just an opaque color. tho this minimalist typography can also be really good.

when you double click on a text layer, you get all the layer style options, as well as the blend modes. a very popular layer style is setting the layer's blending option to difference, paired with a color and/or gradient overlay (often set to multiply/color dodge). a drop shadow is also important so the text is more easily readable. we often see a black soft drop shadow, but don't hesitate to be creative with it, for example a thick, hard line, colorful drop shadow.

i feel like this step often takes the most time for me because the possibilities are endless. definitely play around with layer styles, especially drop shadow, color overlay, gradient overlay, stroke. and also try different blending modes for these settings.

as for the layer's blend mode, also definitely play around with them. and keep in mind that the text's color will also give a different result, it doesn't have to be white + blend mode set to difference, even tho this is a classic that works well.

TEXT WRAPING & POSITION

a great feature on photoshop is definitely the text warping tool. to access it, right click on a text layer and go "warp text". from there you'll get a few different styles and setting sliders. my favorites are flag and wave (example). you can always go back to edit these settings once they're done by right clicking again. and you can even keyframe/animate these settings!

typography doesn't always have to be centered and straight, i often prefer it on a side and rotated a little. you can easily rotate typography by selecting the layer(s) and hitting ctrl + T. you can also play with the skew and pespective after hitting ctrl + T by right clicking the canvas and clicking on either. these will give different ways to move your text.

SIZING

i love playing around with different font sizes, it makes the typography more interesting in my opinion, and it's a way to emphasize some words.

so for that reason i usually put each word on a different layer so i can edit each word separately. sometimes i will also put each letter on a different layer, because it can be interesting to offset/rotate some letters sometimes (example) (another example).

i often pair a quite small serif or sans serif font with a much bigger funky font (example). and often that bigger font will also have different sized words (example). i play around a lot with this!

ADDED EFFECTS

there are some things than can be done to enhance typography:

adding a colorful rectangle block behind the text (example)

using text symbols such as quotation marks or backets (example)

using lines around the text (example) (another example)

these can definitely bring typography to a different level

MORE RESOURCES

great font website

usergif's typography tag

my fonts tag

this is all i can think of right now, i hope it helps :D if you have any question on a specific text effect let me know, i can definitely make a tutorial!

[kimtaegis]

This Christmas I'd like to share my love for this community by doing a little Xmas Gift Giving! I prepared some little presents that I would love to exchange for just one simple thing:

Send me an ask or make a post tagging me (#annietrack) in which you give a person that's part of armyblr the love they deserve. Whether it be you telling them how much they brightened your year, if there was a post of them that made you especially happy, what you wish for them for 2024, it's completely up to you; you can even gift them something, like a gif(set) or any other kind of art!

Of all the people who participate I will randomly choose five people that will receive some little presents from me. The presents are

🌙 1x Jimin's Photofolio with all inclusions ❄️ 1x 2 official photocards of your choice from my small pool of pc's that I would've sold otherwise (all in great condition) + lots of freebies 🎁 3x one bts gifset of your choice from me; it can be anything you want (yes, also a huge compilation if you'd like!)

Christmas at Annie's (I'm laughing writing this) will end on Taehyung's birthday, 12am KST on Saturday 30th December 2023. I will announce who will receive the gifts on Sunday, 7th January 2024 and will then contact the persons privately as well.

I kindly ask for you to follow me and reblog this post if you participate (reblogging just to spread the celebration is very welcome)!

For some more (important) info, please read below!

Lots of love,

Annie

I will cover all costs to get the first two presents to you (worldwide).

If you're only interested in one or two of these gifts, just put the respective emoji somewhere in your ask or in the tags! If there're no emojis, your name will come in all three selection pools (but please note: you will only receive one present max. I will randomly pick names in the pool order: Photofolio, photocards, gifsets. e.g. If you receive the photofolio, I'll take your name out of the other two pools. I hope this makes sense, if not, let me know!).

Since a lot of you like to keep yourselves anonymously/ might be too shy to express their love for someone openly, I would like to offer the option of sending asks on anon as well. In this case, please think of a unique pseudonym (no emojis please) which I can add to the participants' list(s). If you get chosen to receive a gift, please contact me on anon again, telling me your username so we can talk about everything else. I will keep your identity a secret, I promise.

Please please please tag or otherwise make clear who your ask or post is dedicated to so I can make sure they'll see it!!

I will start shipping out the presents the following week after the announcement!

Lastly, here are pictures of the Photofolio and the photocard pool for your consideration (I apologise for the quality of the pc photo; it's already dark as I'm uploading this)

[fereldanwench]

I think I'm just about done with my impromptu blog clean-up! I'm still sorting some tagging systems out, but I've got the fandom and personal stuff squared away at the very least, which was where I really wanted a little refresh.

For those who are also organizational enthusiasts, these are a few of the tools and methods I used to make it a little easier to sort through over 25,000 posts accumulated over about 8 years. One major caveat is that most of these have to be used on a PC browser.

Tumblr Tools

Your Tumblr Mass Post Editor This is Tumblr's native mass post editor; the link is on the right-hand sidebar on your blog page (right under settings). It's very limited without any extensions, but you can do some batch actions like deleting a ton of posts or changing tags.

Your Tumblr Blog Archive This looks very similar to the post editor, but you can actually narrow down the posts by tag, which is super helpful. You can access this by going to your blog.tumblr.com/archive (e.g. fereldanwench.tumblr.com) but you must have custom themes enabled to view it (you can find that under your blog settings).

Tumblr Secret URLs Okay, they're not that secret, but they aren't readily accessible anywhere either and you have to manually enter them. There's a list here with the most helpful ones.

External Tools

Tumblr Tag List Generator This web tool will let you generate a list of the tags it can find on your blog. It's not 100% accurate--The "tags to exclude" option never seems to work for me, and it does miss stuff--But I love using this to find posts with random tags or tagged with a typo.

Tag Replacer There are a few different tag-replacing tools out there, but I like this one a lot because it'll let you play with different combinations of tags to delete, replace, or amend. For instance, I wanted to separate my community OC tags from just "other's ocs" and organize them by fandom: with this tool, I was able to search for posts that had both "g: cyberpunk 2077" and "other's ocs" and then I could replace those tags with "g: cyberpunk 2077" and "ocs: cyberpunk 2077" without replacing all the posts that also had "other's ocs."

Xkit Rewritten & New Xkit Browser Extensions These are increasingly less reliable without regular updates, and you can't even get New Xkit on some browsers right now because it's been flagged as a security risk (so obviously, use it with caution). Xkit Rewritten has a mass private tool for posts, and New Xkit adds a tag search in the native mass post editor--It's pretty glitchy and limited, but it helps.

And I'm just gonna drop some deets under the cut about my housekeeping because it's interesting to me:

I made this blog in March 2016; it was my 3rd or 4th account remake since first joining Tumblr in 2010.

(Tangent: 2 of my remakes in 2013 and 2015 were actually because I didn't like having as many followers as I had, lmao. This account has well surpassed those numbers, but Tumblr doesn't have as many active users as it used to, so it doesn't feel as daunting.)

I did not record the exact number of posts I had before I started purging, but it was around 25,000.

It's now down to 16,947!

Most of the stuff I deleted were TV and movie gifsets and non-fandom artwork, but I also purged a lot of fandom posts that no longer sparked joy. I did get a little overwhelmed for some months because there were so many posts and I know I probably removed stuff I would have preferred to keep.

Although seeing some stuff brought on Bad Feels, I also got a huge surge of inspiration diving through my archive, which is great, because that's exactly what I want out of my space.

Cyberpunk OCs absolutely dominated my OC tag--I ended with about 2700 posts for other folks' CP77 OCs. Dragon Age was next with about 800 posts.

One thing I would like to be more conscious of is minimizing reblogging art from "curator" blogs and finding more artists who are actively posting on Tumblr to support. I don't mind the curation blogs as long as they're sourcing the artist, but I'd just rather give love to the folks who are actually here.

My quietest year was 2019, likely due to a combination of a lot of people leaving after the great tiddy purge and getting more into Twitch and by extension Twitter.

April 2019 was my quietest month, which had 3 posts!!!! 3 posts!!! I post like 4x that amount in a day, lmao.

The Outer Worlds coming out at the end of 2019 brought me out of my semi-hiatus.

Not sure exactly what was my most active year/month, but I'd guess either 2022 or 2023. I do vaguely remember going from about 8000 posts in the middle of 2021 to feeling like that practically doubled by 2022. Cyberpunk really got me using this space again (to the point of my own mental and emotional detriment in some cases, but I got better, lmao).

[gingerpeachtea]

karadec's ties & morgan — 1x07, one of us & 1x13, let's play

(all stills used are from the incredible @high-potential. thank you so much for always posting them!!)

hi! i pointed out in the tags of this post that, seeing as karedec's tie pattern in 1x13's formal scene is bolder than i expected, it made me realize that his tie patterns seem to stand out from the rest of his attire more as the season progressed.

so, i was looking through more episode gifsets and stills to test that theory, and noticed a similarity between karadec's tie pattern in 1x07 and the pattern of morgan's shirt from that episode!!

morgan's shirt is obviously much louder, more vibrant and colorful, etc; everything we'd expect from her. karadec's tie has a similar pattern (!!!) but with a strict color palette, just two similar tones of gray that make the pattern blend in well with the background fabric. the singular color also means it doesn't stand out from the rest of his gray/neutral-based costuming for that episode. the visual connection between the two of them is subtle, but still there.

this brings us to 1x13—karadec's tie pattern once again serves as a visual connection between him and morgan.

here's a still from that episode of them side by side, where you can clearly see his tie:

and here's another still where you can see the entirety of morgan's outfit, and in better lighting:

what i found to be the most interesting is the orange in karadec's tie; this being a point of intrigue makes more sense when put in the visual context of the overall ensemble costuming for this episode.

one of the definite strong suits of high potential's costume design is its ability to keep subtle cohesion throughout the team, while still letting each individual character's style and choices shine. here, they are all in various blues, navies, and blue-grays, save for soto's pink shirt, morgan's maroon skirt, and...

the orange in karadec's tie.

sure, that orange doesn't clash with the ensemble color palette, but it definitely doesn't match with anything daphne, oz, or selena are wearing ("match" being in the more literal sense here, seeing as oz and daphne are in entirely cool tones and the pastel color of selena's shirt is opposite to the darker hue of the orange). it's also a minor variation in his gray/neutral color palette, which is an upgrade from 1x07.

this is also where the entirety of morgan's outfit is important—the teal boots. teal and orange are complimentary colors (especially, i would argue, that specific darker shade of orange with the darker shade of teal). not only that, but (selena's shirt aside for pastel reasons), the orange in karadec's tie and the maroon of morgan's skirt are the only warm colors in the ensemble, tied together even further by their shared dark hue.

it's such a small, interesting piece of visual storytelling! high potential costume designers i love you!!!

(...i would also make points about the metallic gold against the black in morgan's belt being a point of visual similarity to karadec's gold lapd badge, especially bc they're both at hip height, and would also love to make a post one day about morgan wearing shirts with collars as a means of subtle visual assimilation with the rest of the team, but. this post is about karadec's ties.)

[accidentally-in-fictional-love]

get to know your mutuals

tagged by @polkadotjohnson and honest to god I've never ever done one of these before so seeing you tagged me made me gasp QwQ

I talk a lot in here so time for a cut :D

what's the origin of your blog title?

Me trying to think of something clever that gets across that this is a selfship blog without like putting that in the title, and then setting on this classic song lol

favourite fandoms?

Oh jeez, so David's 'fandom' is the main one on here, but I have so many that've been with me since I was a kid. Typically though I don't actually interact with the fandoms I enjoy on this level, like interacting with people, so I just create stuff and keep to myself, but everyone here is so nice I broke that rule for the first time since 2012 ;w; Marble Hornets was the fandom I did that for, was majorly into it, and while I have no remaining friends from that time and I'm not editing it anymore (although I've been wanting to now and then), I still love my Operator tattoo and the fandom itself so much I still actively follow Troy and his work, he was a huge inspiration for me back in the day, my past David when I was fresh outta highshcool and at my lowest low of that decade.

I don't feel like mentioning the next fandom I did that with, for personal reasons, but I'm not in that one either even though the untainted parts of my memories and the bit of fandom I still partake in mean the world to me.

Actual answer, Sailor Moon has been with me since I was like 5, and I rediscovered it in highschool along with other animes that're still my favs to this day. Revolutionary Girl Utena and Princess Tutu are also huge to me, if you've never seen Princess Tutu I highly recommend it, I can't dance but that show really makes me want to. Teen Titans has been my biggest fandom since 2005 but in the way that I don't actually work with canon anymore, but strictly in aus and crossovers to tell new stories, so even though I'm still editing it you will never see just a normal video to them unless I'm super inspired, like recently I came up with a ghost story with Raven that I'm excited to tell but those edits take so much work I keep being lazy and putting them off for more DD OTL

I've got a ton of random things but those are the ones that've been with me the longest so I enjoy seeing them on my dash along with the other misc things I like seeing, but I'm less in their fandoms and more 'ah what a nice gifset of my boyfriend 🥰' and then I keep scrolling lol

otp(s)/shipname?

The long answer: I actually have so many that I made a goddamn list for it. Outside of this blog I have video editing friends, like amvs and stuff only like not just canon tributes but like actual storytellers using fandoms to create new worlds, it's my favourite thing, you'll see that from me here as time goes on and I actually start working on my own ideas. Anyway I made the list for them and to keep track of what I love, since we make each other otp edits for birthdays and christmas and stuff, so it's quite extensive.

The short answer: Ethan/Johnson/Matty 💛❤️💙 and everyone I ship Addy with lmao those are the ones I've been concentrating on solely the past year now

favorite color?

Purple (also pastel), pastel teal, pink, red, black of course, and blue. I didn't used to like pink cause I was concentrating so hard on being cool and badass and then I realized how fuckin well it goes with everything. I have so many ocs that have pink in their palettes now and I love all of them 🥰

favorite game?

This one is a long read ;w;

I lovelovelove video games but the actual list of stuff I get and replay is so small TwT but Silent Hill above all else. That's a Love of My Life fandom right there, even the games I don't like, including the films. I could recite 2 and 3 to you like they're movies. I put them on all the time as background noise while I'm playing other games. I'm getting tattoos for them just next month. I'm not in the fandom itself, but this series owns my heart and soul and has from the moment I was too scared to watch someone play 2 without being in a room full of sunlight. Wind Waker was actually the first game I ever played as a kid, I might've had a crush on Medli before I even knew I could have a crush on a girl asdknak and I'd love to play it again but I don't have any consoles to do so, so I have to settle for watching someone else play and that breaks my heart, I wish it was on the switch 😞

Bioshock for absolute sure, getting Jack's chains was my second ever tattoo, I know the first game inside and out, it's one of the two I've 100%, and really wanna work on my Atlas selfship stuff at some point but since my character won't be Addy I'm just not 🙃 After that I fucking adore Alice: Madness Returns, I fell so in love with the first game in highschool that when the second came out I had to play it myself, and it's the only other game I've 100% and know inside and out. My heart is still broken over the third one being cancelled, fuck you EA. I haven't completed the achievements for this one but Left4Dead2 is also one of my top favs, I've been in love with Nick since I first stole my younger brother's xbox to start playing back in like 2009, me and my sibling can do each map blindfolded now so we love playing custom maps for it, the Silent Hill ones are very long but extremely well made even if they take forever to do. Also Half-Life 2 and the episodes, although I haven't been able to play Alyx, Portal of course, the 2nd is a masterpiece, although I've never played TF2 lmao

Along with them I unironically reallyreallyreally love minecraft sdknsksdvb have you ever played a custom horror map for it?? Some of the best times of my life, same with the super long 12+ hour adventure games people can make, it's so incredible, I love them and playing normal worlds mindlessly while movies play in the background. Adore Subnautica, recently started a new world this year but I haven't had time to pick it back up due to everything, House Flipper is really helping scratch that house design itch that the Sims gives me, I never actually play the Sims itself I just wanna build so I make my ocs' houses and then I'm good >:D

Outside of playing them I have a ton that're my fav to watch others play, that's a fun thing I love doing when I have to draw and can't think of a movie to put on, like Detroit: Decome Human is also a masterpiece and when I got my dad to watch a longplay of it he thought it was like a movie, and he doesn't get let's plays at all. Love FNAF, I'm too chicken to be that alert but I've seen Mark play a thousand times lmao, Amnesia was such a cool experience when it came out and watching SOMA for the first time was a highlight for me, Cry of Fear holds a special place in my heart for scaring the shit outta me and introducing me to let's plays, been a while since I saw that one so I should fix that, Little Nightmares is super cool, Fran Bow is another amazing one, Until Dawn is one of my favs too and I'm getting Hannah's tattoo as well, I dipped my toes into that fandom for a bit, The Evil Within and Alan Wake are awesome but I still need to watch the sequels OTL

Also love Corpse Party which I bought but never played oop, have you caught on by now that it's a bunch of horror games Mark has played yet skdnskds RPG horror games like Mad Father and the Witch's House really made me wanna make one but I never did, Nightmare House 2 introduced me to the magic of custom horror maps made using other games, Doki Doki Literature Club I did play when it came out but never finished but for a while before I found David, Monika was actually one of my biggest comfort characters since she could 'interact' with me and I really needed that during covid. I'm not a RE fan but 7 made things really fun for me cause I'm a sucker for haunted houses and 8 was also fun, so I'll add those, I like Undertale and Deltarune by proxy since my sibling loves them, and I also really love pokemon and Animal Crossing hehe but I haven't played either in years now just from laziness.

song stuck in your head?

Depends on if it's new or if I wanna edit to it, cause then I'll listen to it for days while planning what to do in my head, so I'll list the ones I'm gunna do once I get off my ass when LtF is done: Guns For Hire, Use Me, The Line, Dreams, and Good Luck, Babe! Yes, all of them are either 3RP or David related lol

weirdest habit/trait?

I skinpick ;w; if you're talking to me in person you'll probably notice my hands need to be holding something or else I'll be casually attacking my nails/fingers or face or arms, just cause they're there. I also tend to overexplain myself a lot, I think it might be a mental thing, like instead of answering there I'm giving huge paragraphs for example. I've had people ask me questions and I'll give a 30 page essay as my response and it's actually made them get mad at me for not just saying yes or no, but I don't know how not to do it. I've also had trouble with saying things that make sense in my head but the person I'm saying it to doesn't get it, so I have to explain myself that way too.

hobbies?

Writing of course, drawing since I was old enough to hold a crayon, animating now finally, gaming, video editing from the moment I saw my very first Teen Titans amv and went 'oh, I wanna do that too' and now I'm making edits so intense that it takes me forever to finish anything TwT

if you work, what's your profession?

Main job is a page at my local library, which I'm doing double shifts for til June. Second job is working at my family's business, so between the two I have no days off at all unless I say 'please give me sunday I'm tired' and it's helllll but the money 🤑

something you're good at?

I would like to think the hobbies I listed above ;w; except gaming lol I'm so fuckin casual I play on easy just to have some fun, give me no challenges unless it's a custom map.

if you could have any job you wish what would it be?

Being so fucking rich I don't have to work. That's literally it, I don't wanna do my hobbies as a job, it's so tiring and makes me hate them. Give me money so I don't have to work and can just create things for me and my friends, send me a sugar daddy or let me be a trophy wife. That's it.

something you're bad at?

Not finding a way to stop procrastinating. I have work in 3 hours from this point and I'm supposed to be writing cause the rest of my day and tomorrow are booked between double shifts and easter but instead I'm doing this 😐

something you love?

Creating new things from old things, like with my videos. It's fun to do it with fics, but taking existing footage and making it into something so entirely new that I get comments of 'what episode is that?' and 'where did you get that clip from?' and they always warm my heart. I got them from nowhere, I made it myself 🥰 I also really love my family, my friends, and my sweet little one Bucky, my cat 🥰🥰🥰

Also David, of course 💙

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff?

I could spend forever doing just that trying to list stuff so I'll make it an actual list or else we're gunna get trapped: David, how much I love Reprisal and the 3RP, my own fics, especially LtF, which I have done to my sibling a LOT (screenshots of that coming soon), why minecraft is a fun game and why mom should play with us, why Subnautica is a game my sibling should like and play with me, my magical girl series I'm writing and want to turn into a whole show, Silent Hill and my inspired series I also wanna turn into a show, my videos and the progress that goes into them, I used to do it for Marble Hornets and why Masky and Hoodie aren't proxies or creepypastas and if you get me started now I might turn back into an inferno of rage, and David a second time because yeah I did that so much my new boss at work asks me about him and just lets me ramble skdnskj

something you hate?

Spiders. I have a very bad phobia of them to the point where I need to sandwich books of them before I can touch them to put them away at work, even if it's a drawing and not a super detailed closeup. Being hot, I run hot so I sweat and turn red so easily and I hate it so much. I'm usually just slightly annoyed when things I like have shitty sequels that aren't very good, since I'm just happy to get more of a thing I like (Silent Hill for example), but do not get me started on how the ending of The Boy 2 ruined the entirety of the plot they did for the first. Holy shit it's been years and I'm still so mad about it, they almost had a perfect sequel and they pooped on it.

Myself. I'm working on it.

something you collect?

Merch! I don't make a ton working at a small town library, so if I truly love something I'll spend money on it, like a physical release of a show I already have downloaded, or a manga I can read online and really love. Right now my biggest collection is for David, but I'll take pics of that when I move and it's all set up and together. Likewise, if you're my friend and I offer to buy you something, that means I really love you 💗

The only time that backfired was when I commissioned a fully custom 21k gold necklace for my best friend a decade ago as a gift for when I went to meet her. It was based on a sword design she made for me so I got it done as a symbol of our friendship and how much she meant to me, while I had a 10k silver version that was around $100. Hers was worth $1000+. She eventually ghosted me and I have no idea where the necklace is now, if she still has it, if she threw it away, even sold it.

Needless to say I won't be doing that again, no matter how much I love you. The fact that the necklace could be lost or garbage hurts more than me realizing she didn't need me anymore.

something you forget?

Mostly just stuff to do at work cause I'm focusing on other things at the library and I'd much rather write readers than vacuum at my family shop. Cleaning when asked, cause again I'm focusing on other things. I forgot to feed the cats while I was writing this actually...

favorite movie/show?

Did you not see the huge wall of text when you asked me about games?? You wanna do that again for media??? I'll list my favs I can't do this again we'll never leave this post otherwise, there's too much. If it's one of my top 10s then assume that I know every word and can recite the entire movie off the top of my head.

Animated Movies: I'm actually a huge lover of disney movies, grew up with the princesses and now I get to make new stories using their movies, it's how I met three of my bestest friends 🥰🥰🥰 with my top favs being The Little Mermaid, Alice in Wonderland, and Frozen. I love Aladdin, he's always been my fav disney guy and the one I most related to outside of Ariel, which is funny considering Ethan plays him, which I didn't know! I was so happy when I put that together after watching the show for the first time since I saw the movie in theatres and really liked him! Beauty and the Beast is another big fav, basically think of all the classic animated ones and considering me loving them, but these ones are like top five. Also love Hercules, saw myself in Herc as a kid and then Meg as I got older, James and the Giant Peach, Pooh's Grand Adventure has no goddamn business having the saddest fucking song that still makes me cry to this day if I'm feeling lonely, the Hunchback of Notre Dame cause no one gets me like Quasimodo, the Incredibles, the Nightmare Before Christmas rewired my brain permanently as a kid and I think David would be proud of that, Toy Story was a big one for 5yo me and I still have the Woody toy I got when I was 5, as such he remains a pure comfort character to me to this day, and Zootopia. Anastasia was huge for me as a kid, all of Don Bluth's movies were, but this one, Thumbelina, and Pebble and the Penguin were the biggest, while I also loved a Troll in Central Park and Rock-a-Doodle. Cats Don't Dance is amazing, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Coraline might be one of my favourite movies altogether, Corpse Bride was actually the first movie I ever downloaded and it was super bad quality and split into two parts, I'll never forget that, Fantastic Mr Fox is top 10, Ferngully, Happily Ever After is a hidden gem and I'm so glad I got my editing friend into it cause she adores working with Snow now hehe, Horton Hears a Who and the Lorax, but I was never that kind of fan lol I just liked the jokes and songs, Megamind is a huge fav and I'm scared to watch the sequel, Once Upon a Forest is another hidden gem I never see talked about, Sing, the Spiderverse movies of course, Storks a lot, the House is actually a stopmotion horror movie that came out in recent years and is great, the Pagemaster, can't not mention the Prince of Egypt simply as a masterpiece of a movie, the Road to El Dorado, and We're Back, which was much too scary for a kid my age to be watching akjndskd I was never a huge watcher of the Scooby Doo show, and then suddenly there were too many, but I also love the old Zombie Island movies they did. Same with Tom and Jerry the Movie, never a watcher of the shows but that movie means a lot to us as something me and my siblings grew up with regardless.

Live Action Movies: Half joking answer is everything David is in, same with the ones I've seen with Rhys, but I do truly love LNWTD, The Suicide Squad, The Dark Night Rises (the whole trilogy is fantastic, I saw them in theatres), and the Last Voyage of the Demeter. A bunch of series like The Conjuring and Insidious (been calling Patrick Wilson my husband thanks to those since 2010 lmao it stuck so hard I automatically call him that in front of everyone even when I try not to), Scream, the MCU and a few other Marvel movies, love DC but I grew up specifically with Batman Forever so it holds a super special place in my heart, used to be more into HP but that was tainted wasn't it (used to be able to recite POA), used to be huge on the Marx Brothers for a while there, Get Out was great but I'm in love with Us and Nope scared the fuck outta me, super great movies, and Night at the Museum are also special to me cause it was the first time I saw Rami 🥰 Back to the Future, Beetlejuice was Baby's First Horror but someone left a sour taste in my mouth about that so we're on a break even though it's one of my favs, But I'm a Cheerleader and DEBS were the first movies I watched after coming out and they both made me cry, the cheering part at the end of BIAC always chokes me up, loved Casper since I was a kid and the 'Can I keep you?' bit is a surefire way to make me cry when I'm feeling lonely, Clue is excellent and everyone should watch it, same with Coherence. Gold Diggers: TSFBM is about girlfriends and you can't convince me otherwise, also loved that one since I was a kid, Grave Encounters so much but only the first one, the second is so bad I only used it for my halloween vid and want to delete it cause I don't wanna watch it casually, I actually had a thing for the old movie Homicidal for a while back! Saw it when I was running a haunted house out of our house and I was so enthralled with the ending that I made a fake trailer for it, IT is another great LOML on a smaller scale, Jacob's Ladder, Knives Out and Glass Onion are so much fun, Mirrormask is one we randomly found at the local rental place and it's captured my heart ever since. Spent a LOT of time as the single fan in the Of Mice and Men fandom in highschool and that's not a joke, Shutter Island, Splash has been a fav thanks to being an Ariel fan, we've watched Spirited a ton of times it's so damn good and we adore the music, The Boy is a top fav and you've seen Brahms on here before more than likely, The Indian in the Cupboard started my intense fascination with skeleton keys as a matter of fact but I don't really watch it anymore, The Mask, me and my sibling love The Producers (2005 musical version naturally) so much we've seen that one a bunch too, The Thing is excellent, had another brief thing with the Wizard of Oz for a while there but I mostly just watched it over and over, the Woman in Black is probably my most favourite tension horror movie of all time, Titanic was my entire life when I was a kid and it has yet to not make me cry at the end so I haven't watched it in years but the love is still there, I unironically really love V for Vendetta, and that's all the major ones I have downloaded! My family adores these old movies so we've seen them a million times and are constantly quoting them to each other: Baby's Day Out, Clifford, Christmas Vacation, Elf, Hot Rod, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Jingle All the Way, you seeing the pattern yet? Just Friends, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Rat Race, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Spaceballs, and Tommy Boy. At least, those are all the ones I have downloaded, there might be more.

Shows: Reprisal! First and foremost I'm crazy about Reprisal right now!! (I had to plug in my live action and then my anime external drives to make this one oop)

Anime: Aggrestuko, Another which I'd love to work with someday as a premise, Asobi Asobase made me laugh so hard but the manga itself dropped off even harder sadly, Assassination Classroom, Beastars, Brand New Animal, Death Note, used to like Elfen Lied but it's not one I watch much anymore in favour of these others, Futari wa Pretty Cure almost got me back into anime prehighschool but I've yet to finish the original season even though I really want to, just no time, I really wanna rewatch Heavenly Delusion my god, Houseki no Kuni, Junji Ito Collection even though they're not great cause I love his work, it's not a fav but I do wish Mayoiga had been better and I also wanna work with that premise as well, Mirai Nikki, Nichijou is a top fav and everyone should watch it if you enjoy laughing, Odd Taxi, Princess Tutu, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is another top fav and I'm so excited for the new movie, Read or Die is another big top fav as well, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Sailor Moon, Shadows House is so cool and I need to reread/rewatch, Spy x Family, Summertime Render was a very cool watch and the first ending theme is so perfect for my one series that I wanna animate to it someday but I do wish it was a bit scarier not just sad, Tasogare Otome x Amnesia has such beautiful horror imagery but I was screaming when plots of it lined up with one of my own ocs, no idea is ever original OTL I'm not a gundam fan at all but I did watch The Witch from Mercury and adored it so much I bought a zine lol, plot twist but Uma Masume Pretty Derby has my exact type of humour and it's actually good and cute, Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijou oh my god is that not LITERALLY me with Abner if I could, which is why I decided on Addy's plot with him as it is, Yami Shibai is short and not super scary but a cool spooky watch for halloween, and Zombieland Saga was so surprisingly fantastic I made my sibling watch it immediately after I binged the whole thing. I also really love studio Ghibli movies of course, same with Mamoru Hosoda's films, and this super old movie version of this Thumbelina show might've been my first ever anime after Sailor Moon, with the streamline dub of Totoro being the second.

Cartoons: Adventure Time, Arcane is good and the songs go so well with Reprisal but my sibling loves it more, Chowder, Clone High but mostly the og, Dan Vs (another sibling fav), Gravity Falls, Invader Zim (wasn't a fan of the movie), Kipo ATAOTW did make me cry a bunch but I haven't watched it since for some reason, My Little Pony FIM DON'T CALL ME OUT OKAY I like it, but not the new stuff, Regular Show, Rick and Morty, RWBY is a main love and has been since Weiss' trailer came out and the fact that David did a voice in the DC movie blew my goddamn mind, She-Ra ATPOP but in the sense that I actually hate a lot of the show itself and just like working with Catra and Adora for my videos lmao, Smiling Friends, Spongebob but just the og 3 seasons and first movie which I can also recite, Steven Universe, Teen Titans, TTG and don't call me out again okay it makes me laugh and I get more of my favourite thing, The Amazing World of Gumball is one of me and my sibling's favourite shared shows, and The Owl House.

Live Action: A couple of the MCU shows like Loki and TFATWS cause Bucky, A Series of Unfortunate Events was one I've been waiting for since the movie (which I also loved like crazy) and I was not disappointed. Syfy's Alice cause I love all things AIW pretty much, American Horror Story, I'm not a cop media person in the least but I do rather like CSI: New York (remember when I said I was the only person in the OMAM fandom? this came from that), kinda in Game of Thrones in a 'I will watch and cry but I haven't rewatched yet' way, I Am Not Okay With This (supporting Stan and Bev from IT and then being still salty over it being cancelled), Mr Robot but only when I'm in the mood to be horribly depressed afterwards, Rami is phenomenal and I love him, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, which I watched cause I was curious and then fell in love with their take on it, very very good made me cry a ton, Sherlock but not as much as I was, still have a soft spot for it though, Stranger Things (again thanks to IT), The Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor are very good and the first one makes me and my sibling bawl cause family stuff always gets us, I need to watch his other shows though!! Supernatural, Twin Peaks, and The Umbrella Academy, came for the laughs and again cried over family stuff.

There's about 100 I didn't list between all three ;w; these are just the top favs

favorite food?

Burgers, pizza, fries, ice cream, cake, brownies, cookies, all the fun stuff lol I'm a simple guy

favorite animal?

Cat! Also love dogs, been watching a lot of bat vids recently, and thanks to a certain vampire I love hyraxes now too. I love a ton of animals really but I'm all burnt out from listing media x_x

are you musical?

Absolutely. My dad was in a band when he was younger so he raised us on his music and his love for it, plus like I said I grew up on disney movies, so I'm constantly listening to my fav songs on repeat, singing, dancing badly, watching other musical movies, it's probably a factor in why I wanted to edit videos so much once I discovered them. Ironically, I have no actual talent for composing or playing unlike dad, just listening, and have a distaste for play musicals, I can only digest them as movies since plays and live performances make me cringe unfortunately, can't do it.

what were you like as a child?

Despite being socially anxious even back then I'd get very active and hyper which I cringe at now cause kids are always unaware of how disruptive they are. I was also very unaware of how I presented myself when I tried to be more social, like I would try too hard or pull back completely, plus I liked stuff the other kids didn't, so I wasn't liked very much. That only carried into highschool where there were even more kids who didn't get or like me.

favorite subject at school?

Art, naturally, with some english outside of essays, as well as math, really loved the communications (video stuff like editing and live filming) class my fav teacher did, he was really cool and nice to me.

least favorite subject?

History. Science. Gym. Get that shit outta here I wanna draw.

what's your best character trait?

I'm actually not sure? Having an obsessive personality maybe? Not in an altogether bad way, even if I'm cringe, cause it keeps me working on things for fandoms for a super long time, like I've got video ideas I've thought up years ago and I still wanna make them, which helped lead to my halloween vid last year, that one took six years to make cause I couldn't let it go. Maybe determination is a better word? Definitely a bit obsessive though, I mean, look at my David collection and all the money I've spent on him in just one year ;w;

if you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be?

The fact that I was too sick to go in last night so I have to do two shifts at two branches back to back very soon TwT and the fact that I never got to write my next chapter since that I tried to do this first...

if you could travel in time who would you like to meet?

No one, I'm very boring and I don't like travelling much, let alone through time OTL

recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love!):

@how-serene did so many wonderful readers I was inspired to try my hand at it /)w(\

This fic and its sequels by my wonderful friend Kai, I love how much she loves this vampire hehe

This fic was the first thing I read before I started writing my own 3RP stuff and it changed my brain so much that I took small inspos from it when I was learning how to write them, especially Matty's promise to Ethan hehehehehehe I'm always thinking about it /)//w//(\

tagging: Kai already did it and I don't talk to many people in general so I got nothing ;w; if you see this and wanna do it then I count you as tagged!

[sollucets]

2024 recap: most popular vs. favorite

a long time ago (like. a couple weeks?) @kantpattanawat tagged me to do this, and then @doyeons tagged me on my sideblog just lately, and so finally i am Doing It! i'm going to do both blogs, but jinjjayo didn't gif anything until august so it'll be a minute before it shows up. thanks everyone <3

warning: this post has a Lot of gifs and may lag your device

january

most popular (and favorite by virtue of no competition): 3 will be free userdramas event set

i was fairly burnt out on gifmaking in the beginning of 2024. i think i made like two sets in as many months. i do love 3 will be free and i had fun doing the neon text

february

most popular: puppy eyes lao wen

favorite: my school president rainbow anniversary set or perhaps the ye baiyi effect

as you can tell this is when i finished watching word of honor. the 23.5 pilot also aired in february so my will to gif came back to me :')

march

most popular: ramking & aylinluna side couple success formula

favorite: love for love's sake episode three

i'm kind of shocked and delighted that my event set is my most popular as i didn't think anybody still cared about my engineer and i worked very hard on it. i started doing the lfls episode sets this month and it remains some of my very best coloring work. also, 23.5 was airing & i was doing rainbow sets for that.

april

most popular: heartkillers pilot trailer

favorite(s): ugh i did a lot of good giffing this month. yeowoon's smile set, t8s anniversary set, t4t (teacher for teacher), more rainbow 23.5. but my real absolute favorites are:

lfls episode five

beyond evil event set

my best beloved wenzhou poetry set that i worked on while i was in & out of the hospital

somehow i was at my physically sickest but most productive i guess. thats life for you

may

most popular: asexual plakao

i'm glad it is, i worked hard on that coloring & kao remains dear to me

some other favorites: rainbow 23.5, myungha's smile set <33

june

most popular (and favorite by virtue of no competition): eunbi sabotage mv

the kpop gifmaking spiral begins here, but also, i am still enchanted by this mv. sorry i didnt know about masters and quality and all that yet i was just downloading in 1080p from youtube i have learned since

july

my laptop was broken during this month. :(

august

most popular: hearteyes aninpin, skz maniac forever playlist

favorites: only friends anniversary, bon bon chocolat forever playlist

i went kinda crazy in august. no for real i made 40 gifsets across both accounts all while i was figuring out kpop giffing. i was doing some insane sleep schedule shit to gif the loyal pin, too. my early forever playlist sets are all very good in my opinion

september

most popular: aninpin kisses, snsd the boys forever playlist

favorites: tlp e6 aesthetic set, eternally taejun (and my nmixx fe304 break set)

i've like Always wanted to make an eternally lyric set like that so im so glad i finally did. one of my favorite mvs of ever

october

most popular: crop top jongseob

favorite: any of the spooky season forever playlists but especially hoshi spider. warm place in my heart for swan in on my bike as well

i can barely believe i managed to do spooky forever playlist every other day for most of the month. i felt so bad for dropping it but frankly it was a lot. also, i did not gif on my main this month! kpop rabbit hole is real

november

most popular: girl rules trailer, when i'm with you / my first and last

favorite: over the moon mv, bibi derre

what a good month to love women, clearly

december

most popular: strategy jeongyeon

favorite: astro forever playlist, burn it mv

you guys did not love astro enough... that mv is Beautiful. and burn it is so so so good too i have so many thoughts and yaps to say about it

all in all i'm proud of myself for 2024 gifs. i had a weird and strange year but i'm pulling it together and ive had a lot of fun venturing into kpop gifs. thanks everyone <3333

[jbtwentytwo]

Fic rec ask game, fandom of your choice: 5, 8, 16? :)

5 - A fic that's sweet and fluffy

I could be annoying and just answer all of this with sebson (I read other pairings guys, I promise), but I won't so I'll answer this with Webbonso instead.

It's Chocolate by MidnightCity. My writings have mostly been fluff(s) so it's definitely something I gravitate most often towards, so this hits the perfect spot in my brain🥰 Perfect fluff! The teasing, the push and pull between Mark & Fernando in this was *chef's kiss*

8 - A fic that deserves more love

There's quite a few actually, and I wanna give all of them a shoutout. Ah, maybe another time (anyone can ask this question again btw *wink wink*). For now, I wanna bring it back to the glory days of jevcardo (yes, people. before maxiel, there was jevcardo)

I remembered reading Safe Space by fanficwhirlpool and being touched by how bittersweet their story ended up after reading this, cause it's basically jev losing his seat in F1 while daniel getting to keep his at the same time. That was why their relationship irl was torn apart in the end, and they got lost as the newer ships emerged. This is one story where you see them dealing with it (somewhat), and I really think it's worth reading especially if you love daniel.

Man, I miss them. Me thinks I should write one😏

16 - A fic that's about a popular ship

*checks note again* who to pick, who to pick.

People love Simi in here, so I've definitely read a few Simi fics around. One of them was Winter Pitstop by @backmarkerr, which features Rally!Kimi which is honestly one of the hottest Kimi era (I still think about that 1 gifset with his long hair🥰). Just a really good simi fic if you wanna start reading about them. It captures both of their personalities so well, pretty sure someone made a fanart based on this fic (which is also very beautiful, the talents in this app jfc🫨). HERE'S THAT FANART!!!

check the list here and submit your picks :)

[ranchthoughts]

✨2023: A Summary✨

Post your most popular and/or favourite edit/gifset/analysis for each month (it’s okay to skip months!)

Tagged by @lurkingshan (here) and @wen-kexing-apologist (here). Thanks for the tags!

In 2023, I made 175 original posts, including 45 metas about 12 different shows and two large scale projects (the GMMTV Multiverse and the GMMTV Kissing charts). It was interesting to see what meta (and how much) I had written in which months. It's also fun looking back as I approach my one year anniversary of watching and writing about BL - I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people I've met and gotten to chat with over these past months!

January and February [0 metas]

I wasn’t on BL Tumblr yet! Any and all meta came in the form of thoughts, texts, and powerpoint presentations.

March [6 metas]

My BL Tumblr debut! I started this blog with the intention of 1) more easily gathering and archiving posts for future reference, and 2) collecting my thoughts somewhere other than text threads and my notes app, so I began posting meta the day I got here.

Most popular: what started as me thinking about Win’s rock t-shirt from ep 11 and then grew from there… - reading a lot into a random Thai ql shirt choice? Me?

Favourite(s): Thoughts on Tinn, his mother, and coming out (part 1, part 2); Thoughts on Tinn, his mother, and music - My first meta ever posted! I keep returning to Tinn and his mother's relationship in My School President...

April [1 meta]

By default, the most popular (and favourite): Gun's feelings are realistic - I love when MSP subverts our expectations

May [13 metas]

Oh damn! This was a big meta month for me. Some of my favourite metas I've ever written were posted this month.

Most popular: The Eighth Sense and Missing Pieces - I am really proud of this one. It also made me laugh that I apologized for the length at the beginning when I would go on to post much, MUCH longer metas.

Favourite(s): Thoughts on genre, tropes, Bad Buddy, and My School President (aka my Bad Buddy and MSP thesis, which began life as a powerpoint presentation... now here's one of those much, MUCH longer metas in question); Wai as a faen fatale (which also began life as part of that same powerpoint presentation and I think perfectly encapsulates my analytical style); Conversations in ITSAY that are about more than they seem (I am really proud of the analysis I did here and the writing style I used to present it). This was also the month in which I started my deeply self-indulgent GMMTV Multiverse project, which later inspired my mission to record all GMMTV kisses.

June [11 metas]

Oh nooo another bunch of my favourites. This is cruel to make me choose.

Most popular: Thinking about Pran's "Pat, you've got to stop doing this to me" (I love this one! and this was the first of several times I've gotten to collaborate with the wonderful @dudeyuri)

Favourite(s): An analysis of the baseball mom shirt, Bad Buddy ep. 5 (my entry into the venerable field of Bad Buddy/ql shirt analysis and also encapsulates pretty much everything I try to do in my metas); An impassioned defense of the Bad Buddy ep. 5 rooftop kiss (combines many of my favourite things: reading deeply into the minute details of Bad Buddy, an analytical framework that just clicks itself together as I write, and literature reviews); and Thinking about Snow White as the engineering play, part 1 (shout out to the two other people going ham on Snow White as an allegory during the Our Skyy 2 madness - @chickenstrangers (here) and @letgomaggie (here))

July [3 metas]

Most popular (and favourite): Thinking about Pat, Pran, and pursuit (I think this was my first time articulating the idea of Pat and Pran's commitment to the bit, a concept which continues to circle in my head. This was also another collaboration with the wonderful @dudeyuri!)

August [7 metas]

Here comes Only Friends... and the GMMTV Kissing Multiverse project.

Most popular: GMMTV Kissing Multiverse updates 1, 2 and 3 (this is so much fun to track and analyze, and I've been really touched by everyone else's excitement for the project too); Various thoughts and musings on Only Friends and ephemerality (the Ephemerality Squad assembles!)

Favourite: Thinking about Boston: a study of episode 3 - I find Boston's mind a fascinating place to explore

September [8 metas]

Oh look! It's more Only Friends!

Most popular: Mansplain, Manipulate, Manwhore: Ray confronting Boston - once again, I love getting into Boston's head. This post was inspired by @wen-kexing-apologist's scene breakdowns, especially their Fight Night one

Favourite(s): The above, and also The Mundanity of Meanness

October [5 metas]

Most popular (and favourite): The first fist bump in Bad Buddy - oof. I've gotta come back to this idea sometime.

November [3 metas]

Most popular: The Latest Update to the Kissing Multiverse - the hotly anticipated post-Only Friends update to the kissing charts

Favourite: the kissing charts, and Thinking about Pat, Pran, and competition - again, I love to think about Pat and Pran. I consider this one to be part of an ongoing series, along with my earlier metas on pursuit and the rooftop.

December [1 meta]

Most popular (and favourite): Not Me and earrings - technically an addition on @chickenstrangers' post, but was a relief to get my months old "Not Me is about ears and earrings!" thoughts out.

some no pressure tags: @chickenstrangers, @distant-screaming, @dudeyuri, @neuroticbookworm, @slayerkitty, @telomeke, @twig-tea, @waitmyturtles