#i also have ideas for other gifsets for them but they need more time

[bisexualcherdegre]

D:BH Rarepairsweek 7 | @dbhrarepairs

Day 4 - Kara/Luther

[thelassoway]

Do you ever think about the origin of the name Theodore? No. "From the Ancient Greek name Θεόδωρος (Theódoros), meaning "gift of God(s)" (from the Ancient Greek words θεός, (theós) "God/Gods" and δῶρον (dṓron) "gift.""

[mithrandirl]

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

[corrodedcoffinfest]

Welcome to Corroded Coffin Fest!

This is a fanworks challenge/event that is all about Corroded Coffin. It will take place from July 1st thru July 31st.

Thanks so much for showing interest in this event during this post! If you have friends that you think would like to participate, please considering reblogging this announcement!

The calendar of prompts is located here:

Since there are so many events going on (and we love to see it!) we've decided to set a word count range for this event, so the love can be spread around to more events.

GUIDELINES:

Ideas for works include: fic, art, gifsets, fanvids, moodboards, edits, playlists, or anything else you can think of to celebrate Corroded Coffin!

For fics, there is a word count minimum/maximum of between 300-1000 words per drabble. We'll use wordcounter.net to check the word counts before reblogging, so make sure you stick to that range!

Do one prompt, do them all. Hell, do them all twice! It's totally up to you. You can pick and choose what you're interested in. And we're not going to police how you interpret the prompt. Just use them as a jumping off point to be inspired by the boys of Corroded Coffin, and then share that inspiration with us! (Not everything has to be band related, we encourage you to explore other parts of their lives, too!)

Submissions can absolutely be connected to other prompts from the event, or even past works, but should still be able to stand alone each day.

Every morning a new prompt card will go up, reminding everyone of what that day's prompt will be.

All submissions should include any pairings featured, content rating and any content warnings (CW) or tags that you think are appropriate. Please put the prompt you are fulfilling as well, just to keep things straightforward. A sample could look something like this:

Prompt Day 9: The Hideout, Word Count: 666, Rating: M, Pairing: None, CW: Underage Drinking, Recreational Drug Use, Tags: Corroded Coffin, First Gig, Partying, Eddie, Gareth, Jeff, Freak, The Hideout

Also, please consider putting any explicit material under a read more cut, because anything rated E that's not hidden under a cut will not be reblogged.

For the artists! Your art submission must be posted on the same day as the current prompt in order to be reblogged by this blog. Your piece of art (or other creation) must be Corroded Coffin focused, using any combination of the guys, together or solo. Of course, other characters can be included, too! But you need to have at least one of the CC band members in it for it to count for this event. Thank you!

All ships are welcome, as long as they include at least one member of Corroded Coffin: Eddie, Jeff, Gareth & Freak. (Who I look forward to learning the name of from you all, time and time again!)

Please tag us here @corrodedcoffinfest when you post your work for the day so we can reblog it!

Be respectful of your fellow participants and readers. We're all here to have fun and share the love of all parts of Corroded Coffin.

Definitely feel free to ask me anything if the rules weren't clear in places, or if I straight up forgot something (or if you just have anything else you'd like to ask). You can send an ask/message to this blog or reach out to @thisapplepielife.

Please submit your post by 11:59 PM EDT on the day of the prompt in order to not be missed for reblogging.

 If posting on AO3, please feel free to use the collection associated with this event: Corroded Coffin Fest AO3 Collection after your submission has been reblogged by this account.

Most importantly, have fun! We can't wait to see what Corroded Coffin fanworks come out of this new event!

More info below, including full prompt list with jumping off suggestions, the warm-up rounds for April, May & June, and a spreadsheet you're free to use:

PROMPTS:

JULY 1ST - FIRSTS

First gig, first check, first award, first...anything.

JULY 2ND - IN THE BEGINNING

How did Corroded Coffin come to be?

JULY 3RD - BEST FRIENDS

Who are the best friends in the band in your head? Let's find out.

JULY 4TH - EDDIE

We all know Eddie. Let's hear some more about him today.

JULY 5TH - ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Get them out on the road, in any way you see fit.

JULY 6TH - HEARD IT IN A LOVE SONG

Let's have some romance. Any pairing(s) that tickle your fancy.

JULY 7TH - CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES, C'MON

Let them celebrate! Maybe that's a birthday/holiday/celebration show. Maybe it's a wedding, etc.

JULY 8TH - BAND POLITICS

Fight! Fight! Fight! Not everything goes smoothly all the time.

JULY 9TH - THE HIDEOUT

Catch them there, every Tuesday, playing for five drunks.

JULY 10TH - PRIDE

Let's see them celebrate Pride! Or let's see them be proud, etc.

JULY 11TH - JEFF

Let's spend some time with the guitarist of Corroded Coffin.

JULY 12TH - OW!

Injuries happen. Tell me more.

JULY 13TH - SEX, DRUGS & ROCK N ROLL

Tell us about the seedier parts of being in a band! 18+ for adult content, please!

JULY 14TH - AND THE WINNER IS...

It's time for awards season. Do they win? Lose? Let us know.

JULY 15TH - LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT

Press Tour/Interviews. Sometimes they need to promote themselves.

JULY 16TH - STRUGGLING

They're working their asses off, grinding it out, but they haven't hit the big time yet. Or they're struggling in other ways...

JULY 17TH - "THIS ONE'S FOR YOU"

Dedicate a song to someone special.

JULY 18TH - FREAK (GRANT, FRANK, GOODIE, ETC.)

Whatever name you given him, let's all focus on the bassist of Corroded Coffin.

JULY 19TH - IN THE GARAGE

Get them in the garage. Band practice, fixing the van, etc.

JULY 20TH - UNDER THE COVERS

Let them cover some real songs. Or, you know, get under the covers in another way...

JULY 21ST - HATE THIS TOWN

Hawkins. How was it dragging them down? Or, maybe they hate LA...

JULY 22ND - ALTERNATE UNIVERSE (AU)

Use your imaginations and put them into a whole new world!

JULY 23RD - UP AND COMING

They're finally gaining a little traction. Or maybe they're up...and coming. *wink wink, nudge nudge*

JULY 24TH - BEHIND THE SCENES

What's it take to get this show on the road? Or, what are they really like, off-stage? Let's get a peek behind the curtain.

JULY 25TH - GARETH

Bang them sticks! Let's catch up with the drummer of Corroded Coffin.

JULY 26TH - TOUR DATE

Let's focus on a specific show.

JULY 27TH - YOU'LL BE IN MY HEART

Navigating love while on the road.

JULY 28TH - BACK TO INDIANA

Let's go back to Hawkins and/or Indiana. Send these boys home.

JULY 29TH - BEHIND THE MUSIC

You know there's drama. A story. Probably enough for VH1 to come knocking.

JULY 30TH - FAME & FORTUNE

They've made it big! Now what?

JULY 31ST - YOUR SONG

A Corroded Coffin song? A work inspired by a song? A song that makes you think of Corroded Coffin?

WARM-UP ROUNDS:

Let's get a little practice before the full event in July!

Here's a prompt each month leading up to the event to work out the kinks and get in the rhythm of it all!

APRIL 15TH - TAXED

It's tax day. Do they need to pay their taxes? Is this a write-off? Or, are they just taxed from being on the road? Tax them.

MAY 15TH - GET A JOB

Put 'em to work. First jobs, side hustles, etc. Surely they've had some other jobs besides being in the band. Tell us about them.

JUNE 15TH - BAND ON THE RUN

Are they late for a gig? Running from monsters in the Upside Down? On a tour from hell?

Same guidelines as the full event will apply.

SPREADSHEET:

If you'd like a spreadsheet to help you keep track of the prompts and your progress, here's the one I personally use for other events, and will be using myself for this event. If you'd like to use it yourself, just go to File>Make a Copy and you'll get a version you can edit in your own Google Sheets.

Thanks for showing interest in having a Corroded Coffin event this year! ❤️🦇🖤 - @thisapplepielife (and thanks for the help and adding to the prompt list, @wormdebut!)

[ririsasy]

This man is so normal about Varadha (Deva and his possessive madness.)

Thinking about Deva's lines that's mostly "DON'T TOUCH VARADHA" how could anyone watch Salaar and think they are just friends when Deva showed this level of possessiveness. No straight man would this offended over another man getting touched by anyone ever.

(Please anyone even if you haven't seen this movie and see this gifset, do you think this is hetero lines? I need to know.)

He did warned Naarang like 4 times not to touch Varadha,

Which is in itself kinda an insane line to repeat that many times, with all kind of begging gesture. I mean he could have said other kind of variation like "don't hurt him," "don't kill him," "don't hit him," or just anything like the usual lines I often heard when someone pleading for the safety of others, but nope, Deva was clear with what he wanted, he didn't want anyone touching Varadha, not even a touch, more over to harm him.

When people didn't want to hear his kind request, what did he do? He lashed out, he became someone who was uncontrollable n only unreasonable rage left in his veins when prople crossed that simple condition, I mean just look at the way he just broke that chain and his eyes basically bulked out from anger like he could literally torch the entire court room just with the fury flame in his eyes.

What's interesting to me is the way Varadha also got the end of his anger about this (even though later he said sorry for lashing out toward Varadha) but almost like "Varadha, don't let anyone ever touch you" . The literal madness of possessive display, even Varadha himself, he forbid him from letting anyone to touch him.

It's crazy gosh the way he raised his voice that echoed to the entire prison even Bilal, rinda, and basically everyone else also could hear it, almost like it's also a warning to them "NO ONE SHOULD TOUCH Varadha di you hear me?!", everyone else should understand this line that Deva had drawn, Varadha is not to be touched by anyone else and they all should make sure of it if they didn't also want to get the taste of his wrath the way Naarang had suffered.

If I was Varadha, I would have shivered to my core lmao either you run so far away from this kind of man that hold a big sign of redflag possessiveness, but perhaps because Varadha is just like Deva, he, himself, is crazy, he perhaps even loves this part of Deva the most who is so obsessed with him and basked in this level of madness display gladly.

Even when Deva was just a little boy, that idea of no one should touch Varadha had gnawed it's way to his brain, he perhaps didn't know how it happened, but it's almost like part of him, the reason that he lives is to protect Varadha, even from himself.

So I counted it like a total of 11 times that Deva said don't touch Varadha lines

It's really too many right? I don't think even other heroes got to show their possessiveness this strong, this many times on screen, with this really undeniable lines to show how much you care about this person.

It feels like in The Princess Bride movie somehow when Deva says "No one should touch you" the way Westley said "As you wish" but unlike Buttercup, Varadha still doesn’t perhaps have a clear clue that it means "I love you" just the same, the fact that Deva keeps saying it over and over again like he was trying to get the message across, because often times the word love is too heavy on the tongue to say it blatantly, men really do try to find any other way to avoid saying love lol either through action or say it differently but they literally mean the same thing.

Sometime I wonder if Varadha ever try to let anyone other than Deva to touch him intimately but literally couldn't continue any further because Deva's possessiveness ringing in his ears like a warning "no one should touch you.", Varadha who subconsciously thinks that all of him belongs to Deva and he should have asked his permission first even if he wanted to let other people touch him, which Varadha himself knew that the answer is No, Deva is not going to allow it, so he stop and think of Deva and just want him to be near him and hold him and possessed him the way he wanted to, body and soul.

[scoobydoodean]

i’d like you to know you’ve made me much more of a bitter deangirl when it comes to the trap. like i still love the idea of it, of them reconnecting in purgatory of all places, and i still like the idea of lots of what dean says re: should’ve asked cas to stay and i forgive you and talking *about* his anger, but… dean had a right to be angry, including at cas. and yeah it’s good that dean apologized, for the sake of healthy communication cause that’s what you do when you’ve said hurtful things in an argument regardless of who’s “right”, but cas also should’ve apologized again. in fact, i can’t remember so i could be completely misremembering, but does cas ever actually apologize to dean beyond expressing the sentiment of feeling bad that mary died?

and i’m also thinking about the conversation they have before being separated. i like the angst of cas’s line re: i left but you didn’t stop me, but again, dean was not the only one in that argument. to leave was very much cas’s choice, and it feels kinda unfair to put that on dean, regardless of whether dean saying smth would’ve actually gotten cas to stay (which, to dean, probably would’ve seemed unlikely given cas’s past habits). and also, cas saying dean couldn’t move on, that’s actually fucking heartbreaking and almost… cruel. iirc it’d been at most a couple weeks since his mom (his mom!) had been killed!! plus dean never got to say goodbye, again!! of course he couldn’t just move on!

idk idk… anyway i believe i’ve sent an ask about your opinions on the trap before lol, and sorry about this long ass message, but i recently saw a gifset about that conversation (before being attacked) and all the notes were like ‘yes cas you tell him!’ ‘dean needed to hear that!’ ‘finally got dean’s head out of his ass!’ and it kinda made me annoyed for dean which. brainrot. but whatever. bitter deangirls unite, dean deserves the support 😭😭

context

LMAO sorry for my tumblr arc culminating in me turning full bitter deangirl ig and taking some of you down with me (I'm not sorry actually I'm having a ball in this bitch).

Cas's attempts at apologies are cataloged here. So he does try to apologize. But how many times has Cas been "sorry" only to do the thing he apologized for again? I mean the fact that he keeps "apologizing" for lack of communication and unilateral decisions over things that impact other people besides him and secret deals that blow up in all of their faces over and over and over and over shows that he is... not actually that sorry? Because if you're actually sorry, you actually change your behavior. Except Cas thinks "getting a win" (while actively digging a deeper hole in his relationship with Dean) is the way to "apologize" and make everything better instead of just... changing his behavior. And whatever his latest big plan to fix everything is never works and instead actively makes his relationships and his own self esteem worse. From the outside perspective, what Cas is doing (apologizing then doing the thing he just apologized for again) is just kind of... the ultimate way of telling a person you claim to love that their feelings actually have very little value to you. I mean Cas would be horrified by the idea that he doesn't actually value Dean's feelings, but what conclusion is Dean supposed to come to? Is it any wonder that Dean is perpetually confused about what exactly Cas thinks of their relationship? Is it any wonder that he reached a point where he couldn't stand to hear one more of Cas's meaningless apologies? To maintain any semblance of a relationship with Cas, Dean has to focus on what he feels about Cas's intentions (intentions Dean has always had faith in being good) but that faith and care increasingly forces him to ignore aspects of their relationship that are deeply hurtful because Cas refuses to do his part in addressing their issues in any meaningful way. It's just a vicious cycle of Dean trying to communicate that their lack of communication is upsetting and Cas pretending to listen and apologizing but clearly not actually listening or understanding the gravity of the situation and how it is slowly building a rift between them over years (with perhaps the most striking and hurtful example being The Future) until the secret over soulless Jack becomes "the straw that broke the camel's back" and Dean absolutely explodes at the end of season 14... and then... still... Cas's secrets remain—to the bitter fucking end.

Also yeah tbh Cas's "I left but you didn't stop me" makes my eyes roll so hard. Painfully stupid dialogue with unpleasant (though likely unintentional) implications (as linked in thread above).

[inchidentally]

I'm so curious to hear what you think about non RPF differences between Lando with Carlos, DR and Oscar. I don't do a lot of RPF shipping personally but your takes on all of them are so intriguing and feel pretty truthful. I feel like fandom ignores that it hasn't all been smooth sailing with Lando and his teammates and want to know what you think about the less rose-tinted side of that?

okay so jsyk I always end up a little rose-tinted even when talking about non-RPF Lando relationships but I like to hope I stay truthful in terms of not inventing any kind of sexual/dating/etc narrative that just doesn't exist. and I'm afraid I'm about to go insane in my response so hopefully you don't mind that either lol.

also @twinkodium is so much better at timelines than I am so pls can you add your part to this if you get a chance??

so just to establish which I think we all know: Lando has a tendency to take his warm heart out of his chest and hold it up to anyone who seems even remotely kind or friendly. yes, he's got a bite to him and a temper but honestly that's all also part of being far too open to people. if a person - especially other men and boys - show him even a hint of affection or camaraderie then he's all in immediately. especially as the youngest driver on the grid for so many years.

truly, I think Carlos and Daniel didn't know what to do when Lando put his little beating heart into their big, clumsy hands. the fact that the level of openness and devotion they got - immediately - from Lando was so much down to Lando's insecurity in F1 and how much he was dealing with mentally, was way too much for two guys who honestly only expect to have a laugh sometimes with their teammate. maybe be chummy enough to hang out sometimes and make media responsibilities less tedious.

and Lando was so happy to be the adoring satellite, shrieking with laughter over all their jokes in exchange for him latching securely onto an established F1 personality. but Carlos and Daniel were running the show while they were his teammates - they were the entertainment and Lando was sort of a conduit for the adoring fans. and what's interesting is I think that we can pretty visibly see the turn with each of them where Lando came thudding down to that realization himself. that he would have to change his own ideas about friendship with both of them in order to remain friends at all. there's the infamous 2020 carlando "breakup" gifset (here) where Lando's face just sours at Carlos in his traitorous blood red suit making some offhand comment

and Lando cuts such a wide berth from him that it puts two whole people between them. by the time Lando reaches the reporters waiting at the media pen, his face looks gray and set

and it's like damn, we straight up witnessed Lando standing up for himself and setting up some boundaries with Carlos.

the moments with Daniel were more scattered but you could see them when Daniel was doing his usual attempts at the bromance thing and sometimes Lando was just. not. having it. there's the moment in particular of Daniel coming up behind him and hooking his chin over Lando's shoulder and oh. you can feel the coolness coming off Lando bc he's genuinely going through something and needs a friend, not another performance for the cameras.

ohhhh and the response of "no one" when asked who his best friend was on the grid was before casting around a bit and finally saying Carlos. parallel that to his irritated dismissal of the journalist pushing for carlando in Vegas and reminding them that none of these guys are his real friends they're his F1 buddies and he "hates them" when racing them. by the time 2023 rolled around Lando grew up, set up boundaries and will only give what he chooses to his friendships with Carlos and Daniel. which is overall so much healthier and has probably ensured that those friendship didn't die out completely. but they're not what they once were for him. Carlos and Daniel are allowed to visit the garden of Eden that is being fully intimate with Lando - but the gates always shut behind them when it’s time to leave.

genuinely I don't blame Carlos or even Daniel (even if I don't like a lot about him) bc literally neither of them has ever had a friend like Lando - and probably don't know any guy like him. and they're both such Typical Dudes - as well as being fully a different generation to Lando - so how were they supposed to know a sensitive, naive kid like this would be in F1 let alone their teammate? guys they know never butterfly themselves open to other guys except for extremely long term friendships - if even then. Lando above all wants to have a good heart and he just trusts people, and while it makes men absolutely crazy about him it's surely got to get him hurt a lot. you can even see it with his media pen work where he reacts to difficult questions or fairly open hostility with a wide disarming smile because he'd rather bring someone round than openly fight with them. even Daniel who definitely utilizes his smile to dominate and disarm can still easily be baited into hostility compared to Lando. but when someone persists in being a twat to Lando, he just closes off with that cold, sour look and bam. that moron just lost themselves any access to the garden of Eden.

and I'm not saying we know enough about Oscar to say that Lando's heart is definitely safe with him, but the absolutely huge difference is that Oscar came into being his teammate fully aware of who Lando is and he was willing to hold back and be content just being a teammate and let a friendship develop if Lando felt so inclined. *hint: this sign of respect and deference will be significant!

like we saw how they fell into this twinning thing at first where Oscar would mirror Lando a lot of the time - out of nerves but also deference. then as the season went on and the car still struggled, they developed sort of a tentative camaraderie born out of equally blighted hopes.

but what's really interesting is how much Silverstone was truly the turning point and not even in a fandom goggles sense. I isolated the following moments out in a video below: there's this hilarious little moment right before the fan stage where Oscar is asking Lando something like 'what's that (playing)?' and Lando seems to think Oscar is referring to the (very obvious) crowd noise and Oscar goes "no not them you idiot the song!" and it goes back and forth wayyy too long for the brain cells I would like to assume they have before they finally work out between them what song is playing.

and Lando had by the time of the fan stage momentarily set aside his own euphoria and positively showered Oscar with praise at press briefing after the race. he also repeated it at the fan stage in front of Oscar for good measure! and clearly loves it when Oscar says how he was rooting for Lando leading the race at one point.

then, like something out of a movie, as they're posing for the photo in front of the crowd, Oscar slips that arm around Lando's waist and urges him closer and you can see the whole of every thought on Lando's face. the look of surprise as Oscar's strong arm jostles his body a little, the blossoming delight, the 'woah is he really initiating this? he never does this!', and finally the big beaming smile as he wraps his arm around Oscar and settles in.

and just a few races later when Lando has another podium under his belt and has qualified 2nd at the Dutch GP, there's this other movie moment where it suddenly clicks for Lando… Oscar will always show up for him no matter what. not just when they're both doing well or both struggling, he'll always show up for Lando. out loud and where everyone can see but without a hint of performance to it.

and when you scroll through @piastrisms wonderful post-race gif compilations, you can see that dynamic shift even more to the suddenly much more tentative but openly kind of 'crushing' on each other. Oscar starts to let himself think that maybe, just maybe! the Lando of his 8-year social media obsession really likes Oscar for who he is and not just as a team obligation! this leads to him taking a few more risks during the McLaren challenges and by the time they film the beloved Austin material, Oscar has actually started to surprise Lando. from there on you can see Oscar's relief at making Lando really laugh and smile build his confidence right at the exact same time that Lando looks thrown off center and his boundaries start falling away. that mirroring they used to do started to build into trusting each other, which then led to them genuinely liking each other, and then mutually wanting to stay together as teammates. and isn't that level of security something new for Lando!

and you know what I noticed in all this that has me frothing and biting? that instead of Lando handing his beating heart over to his teammates and having it bruised and withdrawn? with Oscar, it's been the exact opposite. Lando had finally decided to be cautious from the start and keep this new anomaly teammate at arm's length - and for a while felt relieved bc the anomaly turned out to be so damn competent and quick! *oh and the anomaly was showing a level of respect and deference that Lando was not at all used to, which was so very nice but also ?? was the anomaly a little bit cold toward him ?? but then Silverstone happened and dawn broke. we finished the season out with Lando actually looking to Oscar for affirmations and wriggling excitedly and looking at Oscar with that wide-open expression on his face and Lando clearly beginning to wonder if maybe his sacred heart might fit comfortably in Oscar's hands that are smaller and gentler than the other men he's known on the grid? maybe how much more steady and careful and devoted Oscar is when it comes to his racing is reflected in how he has treated Lando, so unlike the usual "Lando effect" bromances that get all the attention and that the cameras and fans eat up. maybe the big, traditional handsome alphas and their big displays of affection are one kind of friend for Lando but perhaps not so good as a teammate. and maybe a friendship that grows too steadily and quietly for networks and social media teams to take much of an interest is another kind of friend, and maybe just the right kind of teammate.

[zoloteh-volossya]

I love your reblog on that Astarion post! What do you think is the best way to recruit Minthara while aiming for a more positive outcome for her? Personally, my favorite approach is "accidentally" destroying the grove by stealing the idol and then reluctantly aligning with Minthara. It feels like the character is acting out of confusion or desperation, not malice. This way, you still get that pivotal moment where she feels safe with your character and begins to break free from the Absolute. (and when you rescue her later she still hoped you would save her)

I'm basic - I personally prefer the knockout method. It's a pity that you miss the discussion after the sex scene and the romanced version of the conversation at Moonrise - it was a gifset of that conversation (see my pinned post) that grabbed me by the heart and dragged me into this fandom, after all.

But to me, it's important that Minthara isn't special. Her life isn't worth more than Alfira's or Dammon's or Mol's, ultimately. I personally care about her more, am more invested in her character, but struggle to justify the deaths of the refugees in the stories I want to tell. It's a different story, the act 1 scene, but to me the meat of the Minthmance happens once she gets her mind back so it's an acceptable loss.

(Of course, in my personal Mintharamance playthrough, I did commit Grovicide. My Dark Urge Krov was largely uninterested in getting involved in other people’s business, so I engineered the Worst Possible Grove Visit. She entered the grove, got robbed, didn’t step up for Arabella so she died, got poisoned by (then killed) Nettie, got arrested for trespassing in the kids’ hideout to get her stuff back, broke out, talked to Sazza and freed her, got the hell out of town, and then ended up murdering Alfira that night anyway. When Minthy told her to help raid it she was like, might as well, fuck that place, the only person I liked there is already dead by my hand.)

I think that triggering the Grove's violence via following Mol's request makes a lot of sense! It's definitely the way I'd go in a fic if I were writing a scenario where Tav/Durge romances Minthara in act 1.

In my fic ideas, I 'justify' the nonsense knockout option in different ways.

With my good bard Tav, she infiltrates the goblin camp for several days, slowly pitting Dror Razglin against Minthara (using Gut's death to stoke tensions between them). She was hoping to have the two sides fight it out and then have her team sweep in and clean up the survivors. However, all the goblins side with Dror. So then she just focuses on buffing and healing Minthara, figuring that the more goblins she kills the fewer the Tadfools will need to deal with. To her surprise, Minthara both wins and is genuinely grateful, tending to Tav's own wounds. In return for this unexpected kindness, she helps Minthara escape when 'adventurers' attack the camp, promising to distract them and then meet up with her at Moonrise later. (This fic idea began before the knockout method was added to the game, so you can tell I've been on my bullshit for a while.)

With my neutral ranger Tav, she doesn't infiltrate the camp at all. She sneaks into the camp via the other bridge, gets to high ground, and starts an outright assault. By the time Minthara is informed that the camp is under attack, everyone outside the shattered sanctum is dead. The bulk of the battle happens in the throne room, with all of the goblins and True Souls mounting a desperate defense against a two-pronged attack by Team Tadpole. They lose, but Minthara is able to overwhelm my Tav (mechanically much weaker than her) and make an escape, and the team is too exhausted to give chase.

Both of these have a very different dynamic with Minthy than a Tav/Durge who romanced her in act 1, of course. With my bard Tav, there's a preexisting connection, but also a betrayal - Minthara was used by this person, unknowingly danced on her strings. Regaining trust after that is a key plot point. With my ranger Tav, the arc is more one of coming to trust a former enemy (and dealing with the repercussions of becoming a drider, but that's unrelated.)

Thanks for the ask! That was... a very long answer. Hope you enjoyed it, at least.

[abigaillazaar]

CREATOR TAG GAME

yayyyy happy new year my loves!!

thank you for tagging me char @cressidascowper pick your 5 favorite gif sets of 2024 that got less than 1k notes and then pick 10 gifsets of someone else's that got less than 1k notes.

mine:

this johanna and finnick set for thg week! i rarely ever try greens so this was a great exercise. plus shameless letterboxd review insert i had the time of my life making it (even though i think it's on the simpler side)

rhaenicent + august! my beloveds <3 i actually was so relieved finishing this—mainly bc i'd been working on it since last year but couldn't be satisfied with the coloring + typography (real ones remember it was in my new year's clean up last year). i'm so glad i waited for s2 to air though because it really made the lyrics more cohesive . freaks. (also i remembered seeing the lyric "change" on swiftietok and hated it so. bad . like so bad. but was like wait but so fitting for rhaenicent so. i caved! #noregrets)

rhaenicent + sad beautiful tragic. this was the first edit i made for that week in preparation and that last gif was what led to my idea for day one (paternity test). rhaenyra's the father bitch! also i'm proud of myself for making the first gif bc that's emily in lost girls ! and now she riding syrax instead of flying to neverland. love me brain <3

rhaenicent + fics ! fic writers the backbone of our society i love them sooooooo much i'll probably end up doing another one! i know some of the authors saw the set but i hope all of them know how hard i'm clutching their fics to my chest

this is truly the rhaenicent show (i have an addiction). anyway last one is this super simple rhaenicent edit! it's slightly au but placing alicent watching rhaenyra play with her children i'm sick to my stomach and i literally made it. thank you aish (@alicenthighstower) for dealing with me in those trying times

others:

@maxanor's gorgeous gorgeous sejanus -> katniss edit. i remember falling to my knees when i saw that omg. the black and white to bright saturated orange is insane, my teeth ache just looking at it. beautiful work hannah!

one of the most deplorable (endearing) edits i've seen this year is this jackieshauna set by miss becca it girl @nataliescatorccio herself. first of all anyone who knows me knows red + black + white is my favorite color combo so this was an immediate hit. this edit......took my breath away (also bc i was dry heaving from the #pain!)

this padme and sabe edit by char @cressidascowper........lorddddd don't even get me started i wanted to throw up! i love muted colors so much (i rarely ever attempt bc idk. it never looks right when i try) but char......your coloring on this i'm gonna scream! and the quote! i'm screaming. absolutely insane chef's kiss

this anakin skywalker set that erika @padme-amidala (come home the kids (me) miss you <33) made....this has been one of my favorite poems since like...high school. like at some point i had it as my lockscreen. i love this mf poem. and so when i saw anakin skywalker ??? to this poem ????? the scream i scrumpt. need her to come back and bless my eyes again...

itty bitty baby aish made this swanqueen edit, and it almost influenced me to rewatch ouat. the coloring is exquisite and the quote ....and the shots you chose.......lordddddd it sent me into a downward spiral i opened up swanqueen's page on ao3 just to feel something again

anyway thanks for tuning in! tagging everyone mentioned (unless they already did this, then. whatever) love you all and can't wait to see what you guys have in store for 2025 (break my heart, i'll still love you <3)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

[olderthannetfic]

The "reblog, don't like. Liking hurts creators" stuff has always gotten on my nerves, who are you to tell me what to put on my blog? But I jsut saw this post, which put it in a different light. https://mayahawkse.tumblr.com/post/691239174316097536/heres-a-little-comparison-for-people-who-say

I' got on Tumblr in 2013, quit around the porn ban, and only came back pretty recently. I didn't realise that people had actually stopped reblogging things from each other.

I guess the "likes hurt creators" thing might have some validity after all. I still really don't like the tone of entitlement or the idea that expressing your appreciation to OP with a like is an insult instead of an expression of appreciation.

The comment section probably cuts into the reblog counts; people have conversations there instead of in reblog chains, and don't have to reblog an entire post just to point out one quick thing or make the same joke as everyone else, but I don't think that comments account for the ratios in that post, especially since the screenshots don't show posts with hefty comments.

So yeah, guys, likes don't hurt creators, but Tumblr is for passing posts around. If you see something you like, you can just reblog it to be all "look at this cool thing I found". You don't have to worry about adding anything meaningful in a reblog, and if you and all your mutuals reblog the same post twelve times in a row, well, that's just how Tumblr works; if someone gets anoyed they can block the post through xkit.

--

Eh. I'd beware of anecdata like that.

I used to get like 2 notes a post and no asks ever. On the rare occasions that I reblogged heavily in a hot fandom of the moment for a month or two, I got a lot of engagement once people realized I was a place to go for that fandom, and I particularly got a lot of reblogs because people wanted that content on their own tumblrs.

Currently, I get a decent number of reblogs, but I get a lot more other interaction because things here tend to be discussions and debates and people don't necessarily want them on their own tumblrs.

--

In my case, I don't like the framing that it hurts creators because that's assuming that a person would have reblogged if they hadn't liked. In reality, they probably just wouldn't have interacted.

People pass posts around all kinds of ways, including pasting links to mine into various discord channels for fandom drama or sending me links to others' posts via chat messages here.

I also don't like the framing that it hurts creators because this only makes sense if you mean that it hurts the ability of visual artists to earn money.

Am I not a creator of a kind? Do I not write copious meta even if a lot of the content here comes from others? My ~engagement numbers~ are not harmed by failing to reblog. My engagement numbers don't matter full stop.

Or maybe, maybe, it's not about money, but it's about clout-chasing nonsense. Boo hoo, my gifset doesn't do numbers because it's not 2012 and I'm not in superwholock fandom now. Oh well. Chase the crowds to another site or chase the megafandoms. That's the only way to get those numbers back.

--

I do think that some time after 2012, people became increasingly afraid of harassment and may have pulled back on interactions, particularly contentful ones, because of that.

But mostly, tumblr has cleared out. Fewer people are using it, and fewer of the ones remaining are using it actively in a way where it makes sense to fill their own blog with content.

Maybe part of the change is that you can't become a BNF of tasteful curation so easily now, so there's no point in reblogging unless it's for yourself?

Maybe it's gifsets that are out of fashion? I don't know.

--

I never had much interest in "look at this cool thing" sans commentary back then, and I have little now. I have my activity page set to hide all that.

The changing phases of a site can be interesting, but we need a bit more than one person's top couple of posts to reach any conclusions.

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

Hello, I have a tiny question.

Lately I've started to publish gifs and the thing is that I don't see a lot of people reblogging them. I've been wondering if I make them in a bad way or is it just that they need time to get more attention?

As the fellow gif maker I think you should have the answer. Thank you in advance.

this is such a precious ask that also kind of makes me sad. and a very good and real question.

without even seeing them, i'm like 99.9% sure it isn't your gifs that are the problem.

this has been a thing that a lot of people have been complaining about, actually. i've seen so many posts basically yelling at everybody to reblog from creators because otherwise people get discouraged and stop posting, that the lack of reblogs is slowly killing tumblr. especially if people come here hoping to meet/interact with others over common interests and they don't get that. the loneliness is real.

i mean, this place used to be more populated too, so less people is probably part of it.

it also depends on whether you're posting things related to a big fandom or a small fandom, or if it's not really fandom specific stuff.

in a bigger fandom, reblogs should be more common but some people still complain about the reblogs/likes ratio, with most notes being likes instead of reblogs.

in a small and/or nonexistent fandom, you'd probably be like me with around an average of 0-4 total notes on a typical gifset, reblogs usually being very rare(not counting the times i've reblogged my own posts).

some fandoms might have more rebloggers in them than others regardless of whether it's big or small, depending on the people in it.

if your gifs aren't always fandom specific, it might be hit or miss where an occasional post might blow up, while most of the rest might get very little. (in 2020, i was making gifs of various bands, i made some of a guns n roses video and one gifset has over 400 notes, over 100 of them being reblogs, while the rest of the gifsets from that video have like 15 notes total. i never know what will happen, but now i know people love guns n roses)

if you're posting on a new blog, you could just need time for people to find your posts. be sure it's all tagged so people can find them, especially in case anybody is following a specific tag.

it's also fine for you to reblog your own posts to bring them back into the light once in a while. some people feel weird about doing self-reblogs, but otherwise your followers might not even know they're there unless they're put back on their dashboard or if they're specifically searching it(which is sometimes unsuccessful with tumblr's search problems). some might miss them when they were first posted depending on the time of day and their timezones and how active their own dashboard is, things like that. i reblog my own stuff all the time, especially if i have something new in mind to say about it later on or if i'm just browsing my own archive for fun. i made them, i figure i'm allowed to have fun with them if i feel like it.

if you're making the gifs just because you enjoy making gifs, just keep doing what you love doing, don't worry about the notes so much. eventually you will attract the right people. sometimes it can just take a long time to get there, especially in tumblr's current state where it's harder for people to discover you when nothing's getting reblogged by other people. but if you decide it doesn't feel worth it, i wouldn't blame you because i've felt that too, many times. i'll probably feel it again eventually. but i have a few different reasons i continue making and posting gifs despite that.

it feels weird too when things happen like, you'll be posting about one thing for a long time and then one of your followers will reblog one of the posts one day and it turns out one of THEIR followers is very interested and had no idea your blog even existed for all that time. it's like. HOW LONG HAS THAT PERSON BEEN JUST SLIGHTLY OUT OF REACH?

but everybody's blog is their own, i personally wouldn't ever tell somebody what they should or shouldn't post on their own blog. it's just sad to me that so many people seem so separated these days. i hope that changes and people start wanting to be involved in each other's things more without being pressured to. but also, this is the social anxiety website.

[ilkkawhat]

[a snippet of a fic in progress from my tags on this gifset]

There’s a part of him that knows he’s still trapped in that room in the depths of the ocean. His escape is just another fantasy he’s desperately playing out, hoping the dream doesn’t turn into another crumpled nightmare he rips out of the carriage and tosses into the never-empty garbage can in his writer’s room. 

There’s the other part of him that’s happy to indulge in the reality that sits in front of him; an old friend transformed into an almost unrecognizable fair-framed man with now baggy clothes that reminds him of their college days in the nineties. Some things never change, and for Barry Wheeler he’ll always have his outlandish shirts, even tucked into baggy cargo shorts. He’ll always have the faith and confidence in Alan that Alan doesn’t have in himself. He’ll always have an ear to listen, a hand to pat his back, a mouth to make Alan’s crack a smile, eyes to keep him in check. 

And perhaps it’s the fact that it’s just too good to be true, that he’s sitting on a couch, drinking beers with his long-lost friend, that makes him worry he never got out. He convinced himself very early on that Barry was a darling he’d have to kill to survive, so the idea of him being here still confuses him, both making him constantly reach a hand to grip his friend, make sure he’s real, but also treading carefully, afraid that the man will just snap and vanish like the shadows on the streets. 

“So, these old coots, you should have seen them, Al. They’d get up on stage and I’d argue it was more of a magic act than a concert! It’s like they would lose fifty years, their voices became so…youthful, and I swear to you the effects team they got claim it wasn’t them, but their singing seems to match the projection of those younger selves that they sound like!”

Alan laughs, more to himself than to Barry at the thought, less at the absurdity and more at the reality of their powers. 

“Funny, that’s how they were in my musical.”

“Your…what? You know what, quid pro quo it’s your turn to tell me a story from the past thirteen years and this is it, baby.” 

“I’m not drunk enough to tell you,” Alan whines, waving his half-empty beer bottle. 

“Nah, nah, nah, you’re not getting out of this one that easily. I can just call them up myself you know, maybe those Old Gods remember the time they got zapped into another dimension to play to the whims of a crazy missing’s writer’s words—I gotta write that down, that’s a good idea.”

Alan coughs, at first thinking nothing of it. He clears his throat, takes another swig of his drink. He’s had this cough on and off ever since he returned, figuring it was just a symptom of his body being in a lake for thirteen years.

“Well, since you’re not in a sharing mood and I am, oh brother, you’re gonna love this one, I got involved in this cult called the ‘Bless—’”

Alan sneezes into another cough.

“—you…” Barry interrupts himself. “You alright there, buddy?”

“Yuh-yeah,” Alan beats a fist against his chest. “Got some frog in my throat or something.”

He pleads for the carbonated waterfall to wash whatever it is away, and his stomach seems to threaten impaling Alan’s throat on something to stop the third beer bottle from diving into it. 

He coughs again, an effort his body doesn’t have enough power to give. He heaves over, coughing harder and harder because there is something in his throat and he needs to get it out. 

“Al?” Barry puts a hand on Alan’s back and Alan pushes into it like backing himself against a wall, still coughing and trying to both reign himself in but still…get it out. 

Barry presses a hand to his chest, which triggers another lurch and this time, something wet and sticky comes out of Alan’s mouth and into the palm of his hand.

It’s not blood.

Unless the blood in his body was black.

“Wha-cough-tuh-coughcough-fuck is-cough-that?” Alan continues to cough and Barry is immediately calling the ambulance. 

“Fuck if I know!” Barry cries out. “Shit shit shit shit! This is worse than that time I dragged your sorry ass outta the club while you were OD’ing on some shit you got into. You're worse than a goddamn toddler sometimes, Al—Hi, yes, my best friend is-is having…I don’t know what but we need an ambulance now!” 

Alan remembers the incident Barry’s referring to, not one of his finest moments. Fighting with Alice, ignoring Barry, putting substances in his body because he didn’t want to be himself. Alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, tobacco…he’s done it all. 

“I don’t know! All we’ve done is had some beers!” Barry continues to berate the poor operator on the other end of the line because the ambulance hasn’t come fast enough.

It’s not alcohol poisoning, he thinks to himself as the blacknees begins to spread in the palm of his hand. His eyes cross and start to roll up. He feels lightheaded and shaky, but sinks heavily into the couch like a stone. 

“Stay with me, Al,” Barry reminds him, and Alan falls back in exhaustion. 

Barry bailed him out both physically and mentally from the last overdose. Maybe he can save him from whatever this is. 

Barry presses his hand to Alan’s throat, taking his pulse but he seems to fumble over the math when he tells the phone operator that “he’s fucking breathing, okay?” 

Alan’s arm feels melted into the cushion beneath him but he wants to hold Barry’s hand, hold on to something as he feels himself fading faster and faster away into oblivion. The lights in the room are dimming. He sees a shadow growing larger, approaching closer. Edges illuminated like the echoes he would see as inspiration. Shitty time for an idea but he’ll hear it out, maybe it has a clue to what is going on…

Unable to move closer, he holds his hand up to the shadow, and his fingers brush up against something solid, but viscous. It grips onto him, draining all of the color out of his body. He tries to pull his hand back but slimy tendrils spread and form a copy of himself right before his eyes.

“Ew gnoleb rehtegot, nalA…” 

It sounded backwards, wrong, but it sounded familiar. Scratch. Coming back to haunt him. He may have left The Dark Place but The Dark Place never left him. 

“Alan!” Barry’s voice cut through the darkness, his thick form of light inflating and bursting through the black goo-Scratch. He’s not sure if it’s real but he feels a splatter of goo on his face. 

He’s dimly reminded of his thick friend dressed in an oversized parka wrapped in Christmas lights, burning away the Taken in front of him and saving Alan’s life. The blurry thin man in front of him now is almost unrecognizable, unarmed, unprepared for this. 

“Barry…” Alan groans. “Don’t…don’t leave…” 

“I got you, Al, I got you,” Barry comforts him, the phone falling out of his hands and cupping Alan’s cheeks. “Help is coming.”

There are so many people helping you, armies of people. 

There’s no army strong enough to come close to the power of Scratch. And there was no ending in sight he could write to escape it. 

His final thoughts before passing out, pangs of guilt tugging at every pore in his body because he was taking Barry down with him into the darkness.

[booskwan]

hi theo, it’s your secret santa!! ❄️ I hope you’ve been well? first off I’m really excited that I got you, I love your content a lot, so my first round of questions is related to your creations: where do you get your inspiration from? how would you describe your own style? is there anything you’d like to try out in the future? what is most important to you in your creations (layout, colours, quality, fonts etc)? and lastly, what styles do you really enjoy seeing from others?

I hope you’ve been having a great weekend! ❄️🤍

omg hi!! thank you so much that's so sweet��� for gfx i would say a lot of my inspiration comes from pinterest whether it's designs from other fan artists or magazines/ads from like the 40s and 50s. of course a lot of it also comes from people on here like @bandzboy, @scouped, and @wonwooridul and for gifs i think a lot of my inspiration for more complicated sets comes from @jeonwonwoo, and if there's anything specific i usually link to the set that inspired it in the caption!

for my gfx style i usually say it's collage? but i think it definitely varies in complexity from piece to piece i have no idea what i would call my giffing style😭 for my regular gifs i definitely love high contrast and vibrant colors, and for my more complicated stuff i guess you could say it's still kind of collage-esque

i would love to try more typography focused stuff because that's something i love to see but i think i need to take a class before i dive in by myself lmao

i would say above all what's most important is first fixing whitewash shdffhf. i've giffed the worst quality files but as long as i can make them look like living breathing people with enough noise it'll turn out fine lol. i definitely spend the most time on layout and picking fonts. usually when i go into a gifset or a gfx piece i have an idea of what color/s i want to highlight (eg my latest hongjoong gfx because of the pink tile i knew i wanted to make it pink themed). but yeah i guess maybe fonts! bc i feel like font choice can change the whole vibe of the piece

hmnnn for my favorite styles i really love styles like this because i have no idea how to pull it off💀 i think just in general tris's and lee's! tris does a lot of really amazing typography and like i said i really want to learn how to do it well, and lee has so many cool gfx that are kind of in line with my style but also their own really cool thing that i really admire and would love to get to the point where i can do smth similar

tysm for sending this in!!!

[rocketturtle4]

How much is Mew playing stop, slow, go?

(I'm shadowbanned fyi so no idea how posting is going to go)

Okay so I had a thought about the tricolours of Mews shirt and beadspread but I had planned to leave it, until I saw this gifset by @raypakorn (partially used below) and then I had MORE Thoughts and then I watched OF again (again again again) and then I started spiralling SO

Have some thoughts that aren't a real theory yet. (@waitmyturtles as asked although not sure @ing will work right now)

From the opening we get red, green and white wristbands. I had several side convos with people (@anon451 +(@plantsarepeopletoo posted some other Mew related thoughts we discussed here)) about whether white was about sexuality or about pace or virgin status (there are, for the record, other people wearing white wristbads in the bar)

but after seeing the above linked gifset I became pretty sure white = yellow = slow (already a prevailing theory I think)

Mew wears tricolours in both his initial meeting of Top at the bar and his later return to the bar before taking top home with him. (That I think is evidence of this theory if it is a theory applying to only Mew ftr (and maybe Top when with Mew))

yellow, red, green on the top in shapes (I'll talk about the yellow background in a mo)

also his t-shirt above is yellow

tricolours again - yellow, red, green stripes this time

Later when we're making out we initially have green go:

(chairs and grapes)

but when Top tries to start things again after Mew stops them:

we're back in yellow for slow.

Also the bed scene

both on yellow (pillows), mew leaning into red

mew moves onto the green.

(For the record this bed spread also looks kind of blue however for the purpose of GO I am not sure the distinction is important because in a side convo with @plantsarepeopletoo and @anon451 and @lurkingteapot we discussed how the green go in some countries (like Japan) is blue AND in terms of light and primary colouts, blue is a primary colour that is needed to make green in painting etc but green is the colour needed to make blue in the light spectrum I'm pretty sure, so like blue/green is being considered equivalent here)

(Edit for additional info, from @lurkingteapot: ao (written 青, also read sei) is a colour that spans a spectrum of both what English calls blue and green, and it also means "fresh" in the sense of "green behind the ears" -- young leaves are aoba, aozameru is to turn green/pale (in the face), seinen is young men around twenty. To make matters more complicated, 蒼 (sou; deep blue) and 碧 (heki/hyaku; jade green) can ALSO both be read "ao", so it's sort of like, idk … English calls both blue and light blue "blue", but in Japanese, light blue is "mizuiro" ("the colour of water")? Colour boundaries just shift across language in fascinating ways)

(Edit also a helpful video about colours and how language shapes them @anon451)

ALSO there was a post going round saying the days of the week montage was linked to mew and the writing is yellow again (it is also yellow in the intro bit where we start with Mew)

So how much, for Mew specifically, are yellow and green (and red) important? I dunno.

BUT

In the days montage we have top in blue then green then green then blue again (blue=green=go = Mew is happy with current events)

does this mean something??? IDK but nobody else wears colours as much

The bar lighting is also interesing. Mew is introduced in yellow 1/4

Meets top in Yellow 1/4

and later in 4/4 sits with Top in yellow

despite the fact that when Chaeum sat next to him

they were not both in the yellow.

(if anyones curious bar also has Red = Stage area and Green = bathroom but I am focusing on Mew here because I am not sure the colours matter to anyone else...)

MORE YELLOW

Mews intro shot on a yellow couch to go with his yellow bookcase

(also side note most of the other intro's have tints of red or less colour but tops is just like GREEEEEN+blue):

Mew and top lighting during the confession scene:

top in blue, mew in yellow.

Does it mean anything? I don't know

current not really a theory is that yellow = slow = control

Because this is A LOT of yellow for it not to mean things.

[corrodedcoffinfest]

Let's get a little practice before the full event in July!

Here's a prompt for the 15th of each month leading up to the event to work out the kinks and get into the rhythm of the event!

APRIL 15TH - TAXED

It's tax day. Do they need to pay their taxes? Is this a write-off? Or, are they just taxed from being on the road? Tax them.

MAY 15TH - GET A JOB

Put 'em to work. First jobs, side hustles, etc. Surely they've had some other jobs besides being in the band. Tell us about them.

JUNE 15TH - BAND ON THE RUN

Are they late for a gig? Running from monsters in the Upside Down? On a tour from hell?

Same guidelines as the full event will apply:

GUIDELINES:

Ideas for works include: fic, art, gifsets, fanvids, moodboards, edits, playlists, or anything else you can think of to celebrate Corroded Coffin! For fics, there is a word count minimum/maximum of between 300-1000 words. We'll use wordcounter.net to check the word counts before reblogging, so make sure you stick to that range!

This will blog will comment with a 🦇 when your fic has been checked for word count and queued for reblogging.

All submissions should include any pairings featured, content rating and any content warnings (CW) or tags that you think are appropriate. Please put the prompt you are fulfilling as well, just to keep things straightforward. A sample could look something like this:

Prompt Day 9: The Hideout, Word Count: 666, Rating: M, Pairing: None, CW: Underage Drinking, Recreational Drug Use, Tags: Corroded Coffin, First Gig, Partying, Eddie, Gareth, Jeff, Freak, The Hideout

Also, please consider putting any explicit material under a read more cut, because anything rated E that's not hidden under a cut will not be reblogged.

For the artists! Your art submission must be posted on the same day as the current prompt in order to be reblogged by this blog. Your piece of art (or other creation) must be Corroded Coffin focused, using any combination of the guys, together or solo. Of course, other characters can be included, too! But you need to have at least one of the CC band members in it for it to count for this event. Thank you!

All ships are welcome, as long as they include at least one member of Corroded Coffin: Eddie, Jeff, Gareth & Freak. (Who I look forward to learning the name of from you all, time and time again!)

Please tag us here @corrodedcoffinfest when you post your work for the day so we can reblog it!

Be respectful of your fellow participants and readers. We're all here to have fun and share the love of all parts of Corroded Coffin.

Definitely feel free to ask me anything if the rules weren't clear in places, or if I straight up forgot something (or if you just have anything else you'd like to ask). You can send an ask/message to this blog or reach out to @thisapplepielife.

Please submit your post by 11:59 PM EDT on the day of the prompt in order to not be missed for reblogging.

 If posting on AO3, please feel free to use the collection associated with this event: Corroded Coffin Fest AO3 Collection after your submission has been reblogged by this account.

FULL EVENT COMING IN JULY.

[kemendin]

Intro Post 2024 Edition

Heya, I’m Kem! (he/they) This is where I share my gaming shenanigans. I like RPGs, angst, and making my OCs suffer.

Current focus is generally Star Wars: The Old Republic, with a new hyperfixation of Baldur's Gate 3. You can also expect to see content from Lord of the Rings Online, Fallout 4, and Secret World Legends.

NEW! Temporarily in the grip of Dragon Age: The Veilguard!

I’m an avid screenshotter/virtual photographer, so expect many screenshots as well as the occasional gifset. I also spend far too much time, effort, and money playing pixel dress-up with my characters. With SWTOR at 32 possible outfits, I might just be able to sate my outfit needs there (other games still need to get with it).

More notably in my opinion, I'm a passionate writer with more fanfic ideas than I think I'll ever actually be able to write. Again, most of my fics have been SWTOR in nature, but I'm dipping my metaphorical toes into some BG3 writing as well. I have a handy page for my published fics here.

If you’re interested in learning more about my OCs, feel free to check out my characters page, or peruse their tags. I’m always happy to talk about them, or answer any questions!

Other places you can find me (though I’m most active here):

kemendin (twitter) kemendin_ (instagram) Kemendin (AO3)

Navigation/helpful tags below cut:

#kem rambles - general talking #kem oc - anything related to my own characters #kem writes - for fic words I write, including WIP blurbs #kem fics - completed writings #kem screenshots - I take pictures #kem gifs - I make gifs #kem arts - for when I occasionally do the doodle thing #kem plays dress up - outfits galore across all my games #kem does swtor building - SWTOR housing adventures #kem does fallout building - Fallout 4 housing adventures