#i always say this but the reason there are still gifmakers here is because making gifs is our hobby and we like it

[eliseliedl]

users 10 years ago: i will request gifs from this gifmaker cause i love their gifs!

users today: i will request gifs from this gifmaker so someone else does all the work for me because i don't know how to make them and i can repost them on all my socials!

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Top 10 Things I Love About the QL Tumblr Community 2023

I'm loving everyone's end of year lists, and decided to make up one of my own.

I haven't been on Tumblr for very long and was originally just lurking. 2023 marks the year where I finally started posting, after I read a take that made me feel compelled to come to a fictional character's defense. (Saengtai, my poor little blorbo).

So in commemoration of my first proper year of active tumblring, I present what I love about this community (in no particular order).

(Side note - Technically I know this is still primarily a BL community, but I like to say QL because I am trying to manifest more lesbians for us.)

1) The Gifmakers

Y'all are a good 70% of the reason I joined Tumblr in the first place. There are so many show moments that I want to relive, but without having to search through videos. Sometimes I want to appreciate the aesthetics. Sometimes I want to remember adorable or goofy moments. Sometimes I just want to see cute boys eating each other's faces. Our gifmakers give all of that to us, with the addition of so much creativity and style.

There's too many amazing ones to mention everyone, but I have to shout out @sparklyeyedhimbo, because the way your brain works makes me so happy.

2) The expertise

The other part of why I joined Tumblr was to learn more about what BLs were out there and what I might be missing. And holy hell. Y'all are putting in the work. Not only lists and resources for finding all kinds of QLs, like these fabulous monthly breakdowns by @gunsatthaphan, but also amazing posts that add additional context, like @absolutebl's incredibly helpful breakdown of Asian honorifics. There is so much research people do, for fun! And then they share it!

3) The meta analysis

I frickin love reading people's takes and analyses on series. I love learning, I love seeing perspectives from people with different cultural backgrounds to my own, it's all so fascinating! There's so much context we can miss due to our own privileges, or lack of knowing about various cultures, or due to whatever bubbles we've been living in. People here are just so smart, and nuanced, and willing to reflect and think about things, and also push back at each other, but generally with respect (except when you call out the dumb shit you see, usually on Twitter or TikTok, where people are being reductive and dumb about gender and sexuality).

And I've seen a few takes where people complain about analyses, and say that the director/production doesn't do everything deliberately, and we're all reading too much into it. To which I say, eh, lighten up. How people connect to and relate to media has relevance beyond what was intended. The point is we get to think and discuss and learn and grow. That doesn't happen if we don't analyze.

Special shout out here to @respectthepetty because colors mean things!

4) The wild theories

The other side of the analysis coin, the clown cars y'all drive around in with the wildest of theories. I have happily climbed into an occasional clown car, and usually I am utterly wrong (*cough* Saifah *cough*). But it's a super fun ride. I love seeing how people's brains work. I love it when y'all are wrong. I love it when y'all are right. It's beautiful.

5) Immediate acceptance

I am one of those people who knows that I have a lot of good qualities, and also, always kind of expect rejection. Blame the childhood bullies, I guess. Anyway, whenever I delve into a new space, I still feel like a total dork that no one will want to talk to. It's kind of a fraught way to move through the world, but I manage.

Anyway, I started posting my thoughts as they came up, and people are just totally cool with it. People even follow me sometimes. Even my silliest thoughts and dumbest jokes get at least a couple likes. It's so validating.

And my very silly joke about gay mafia in Kiseki has over 800 likes. I feel very seen.

6) Mutuals

I still kind of can't believe I have any. This ties in to the dork feeling above, but seriously - they are soooo cooooool. They're smart and awesome and funny, and they somehow find me worth following back, which is baffling yet wonderful. I want to squish their faces and give them many kisses (if they're into that kind of thing).

7) The self-exploration

I really appreciate how it's become more talked about how a lot of people are discovering queerness through BL, because that is so the case for me. I think it's both that I was in a bit of a hetero bubble before, and also that I'm evolving a bit as I age. I had figured out I was demi, and maybe a little bit gay, before getting in to BL, but being in this community, and seeing so many of you share so openly and freely, has made me realize it might be more than a little bit.

Either it was a new realization, or being around y'all has made me more gay. Win win, either way.

8) The weirdness

I'm weird. Y'all are weird. I love it.

9) The thirst

So many in this community are thirsty as fuck, and as someone who is in that same condition, I love that it's not just me. There are not many places where I can freely admit how horny I am as a part of my general existence.

Here? I could post about wanting to lick some random BL actor's face, and it would get a bunch of likes and some tags like #lickable, and it's just not remotely a big deal.

Also the gifmakers understand this, and give us beautiful cuts of our spicy scenes. They are genuinely too good for us.

10) The communal watching experience

There is absolutely nothing like watching along with people in the community. It is so worth the torture of having to wait week to week for new episodes. Seeing the show trend, watching the theories fly fast and furious, or the way everyone collectively loses their minds over particular moments. In a world that can feel very isolating, it's a very warm experience.

So there you go. Thank you all for being you. Here's to another year of QL shenanigans and losing our collective minds!

[wolfes]

NEW EDITOR 101: A GUIDE FOR GIFMAKERS by v @shangs

Hi friends! I know I said I would do this way back in April/May when this change was announced but I've been massively busy lately so thank you all for being patient with me :)

Based on the results of this poll, I will be trying my level best to help make a guide for gifmakers to best deal with any problems that have been present with the new editor. However, it's worth noting that I have personally not experienced any of these problems myself and I have no record of any problems from other people that I could send to staff and get guidance on, so for some of these issues I will unfortunately be a broken record.

That being said, I have been using the new editor for a few months now and it hasn't been too bad. So don't be discouraged by the new editor if you still love to make gifs and share them. You may need to adapt a bit, but it's doable!

This is meant to be comprehensive and will be explanation and image heavy. Full guide under the cut.

CONTENTS:

What is the new editor?

Steps to take before posting

Making a post

Troubleshooting

01. WHAT IS THE NEW EDITOR?

Some of you may be asking yourselves what the point of the new editor even is and why it's being implemented in the first place when we already had a (mostly) functional editor. My very limited understanding of it as a CS student is app compatibility and flexibility. I'm not totally clear on the details nor am I 100% certain this is the case, but NPF posts (basically, posts made with the "new editor") first started with the mobile app. I'm unsure if the different post types were simply too unwieldy to transfer to the app - having to make a whole bunch of post types when with the new editor you can now have posts with any elements you want without the rigidity of a set post type - or if it was simply not able to be implemented, but the apps have always used NPF. The majority of Tumblr users are coming from the mobile apps. Then it became a case of having the legacy editor for the web users (which were fewer in number) and the new NPF editor for everyone else. That takes resources to keep around and it's pretty inefficient. Naturally the older editor that was used by less people was going to get the axe, especially since you couldn't tell on mobile that there was even a difference between NPF or legacy posts.

So now here we are and the posts are NPF. This means they're in "Neue Post Format." Basically, every post you make is by default a text post, containing "blocks" of other media - as gifmakers we will primarily be dealing with photos.

I understand that it's frustrating to many to see "our gifs are now rendered as text posts" and ask WHY it's happening when photos should logically be rendered as photo posts - but the fact is, there's now no real delineation between a "text post" and a "photo post." The reason NPF posts are now "text posts" is because that's how they are rendered for desktop themes, not because everyone is going to see your post as text and your gifs are going to be compressed into the quality of a potato (though I know some have seen this issue - more on that later.)

02. STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE POSTING

The long and short of it is that you may have to update your theme. More detail here for those who are interested, but check that your theme supports "new editor posts" or "NPF posts" AND that this is true for original posts (you can read more about why in this ask and, although this may be a bit time-consuming, test it out on your blog). I can say with certainty that my second theme Cygnus supports original NPF posts. This is NOT true of my first theme, though.

You can try to add the NPF Fix by @glenthemes to your own theme (beware if you don't know HTML/CSS) or try this tip by @burningblake for original posts.

Feel free to add theme makers with fully NPF-compatible themes in the notes! I have been happily using my own theme so I can't say to what degree others' themes are NPF-friendly.

03. MAKING A POST

If you're sticking around to post on the new editor and you have trouble ordering your gifs around, here's a little guide on how to post.

If I click on "Photo" from web and open up the editor, here's how it looks:

I went ahead and added three full-width gifs and the editor put them in like so:

You'll most likely also have to order your gifs around in the way you want them. You can go ahead and hover over your gifs to see the button to orient them (the four dots in the top left corner) and the button for an image description (the three dots in the bottom right corner). I've attached images of all three below:

If you hold the orientation button, move your gif around until you see the blue line that shows where your gif will end up in the spot that you want it. For example, I wanted to move the second gif below the first one, so I oriented it so that the blue line would show the marker between the two gifs:

Now my gifs are oriented nicely! Of course, this is a simpler layout, but the principles still hold.

If you save your gifs as a draft and reopen them or you just notice a large gap like this in between your gifs when you're in the editor, don't worry.

This will not show up in dash view or on a desktop theme that supports original NPF posts. For example, this is how the gifs' gap (without modification) looked in my desktop theme:

With your gifs ordered, the final step is to add alt text. You can read more about alt text and why you should use it here. (Feel free to ignore the sections about the captions on the legacy editor since it is no longer relevant. It's also unnecessary to clearly mark descriptions if they're not in the caption of your post because they will clearly show up under "ALT" on Tumblr.)

If you click the three dots in the bottom right corner as seen above, and click "update image description:"

You can add the description you like and click "update." Your photos' alt text will show up under the "ALT" bubble on Tumblr. This is generally a good practice to get into to make your content more accessible, so I hope you guys will consider using alt text regularly :)

Also, I've noticed that in the editor, if you go back and edit something it will take some time to show up. You may have to refresh the page or load it again after some time, but your edits should be there. I would not go back and edit posts again if you see your posts haven't shown up. I also advise against editing your posts on mobile because it's easier to make a mistake.

And there you go, you've successfully made a post with the new editor!

04. TROUBLESHOOTING

I'm sure you've all been waiting for this. Unfortunately I am probably going to be extremely unhelpful if the editor hasn't been refined in the last few months for those experiencing issues. I'm going to go in the categories that I listed out in my original poll, but keep in mind that I haven't personally seen any of these issues on my end so I haven't been able to contact staff with any evidence that this happened other than my poll.

Dashboard view quality issues: I haven't noticed this issue. I'm not sure if this has been fixed since the original poll was posted. If you're experiencing this issue, this is not something I know how to fix so I would contact staff with screenshots of the issue.

Desktop theme side padding: As noted before, this is a theme issue. If you change themes to something that is NPF-compatible with original posts, there shouldn't be any more issues here.

Small gifs on mobile: In my experience this was happening regardless of what editor was used; it's a bug that seems to have been fixed since this poll was created. If you're still experiencing it, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would advise contacting staff.

New editor doesn't accept gifs of size 9.8MB < x < 10MB: I haven't experienced this issue so I would say the only workaround would be to either trim the size of your gif so that it is under 9.8MB or whatever threshold seems to be the cutoff or contact staff (I am so sorry for constantly having to suggest this 😭 unfortunately there's no trick I can offer because the new editor has been taking all my gifs just fine)

Logistical issues ordering gifsets: I hope this guide has been able to answer the majority of questions and shed some light on some of the more buggy behaviors of the new editor, but if you have any more specific questions you can feel free to shoot me an ask!

HTML issues / colored text: Unfortunately it seems colored text may be deprecated entirely? This could be for accessibility purposes because I believe screen readers would read out every single letter of gradient text in captions which I imagine can get quite frustrating for users of this technology. I recommend just using the normal rich text editor. If you want small text, you can highlight and click the <s> button!

Other: If it seems like something I may be able to answer, please feel free to ask me. Otherwise... hound staff 😭

Here's where you can hound staff, btw. If you're having major issues I would advise you guys to submit support tickets. That way if there are any widespread bugs, staff will hopefully be able to fix them.

I hope this guide was helpful to you guys in dealing with the new editor, and happy giffing <3

[ca-suffit]

sam-reid the tumblr user who makes gifs has always considered herself to be the "fandom mom" of the books because she read all the books "many years ago" and considers herself the sole expert on all things vc. she can't stand listening to an opinion that's not her own/she doesn't agree with and regularly tries to school the fandom on how to feel about the books and the show and the movie, she can't handle any other opinion or thought or possibility except her own. She's a big rice-a-roni and calls anything anne rice did or said as "mistakes" cause "we all make them". i've never made the mistake of supporting pedophilia like anne rice did but sure jan. anyone criticizes the books? she gets up in arms. funny thing is she was hating on book fans when the show was announced, and then switched sides several times over. she leans into whichever fandom(book or show) she agrees with whenever it suits her. her pov is lestat is the most lovable character in all universes. condescending to the nth degree, she believes gifmakers are an authority in all fandoms. remember that racist youtuber who is a big marius stan? she was promoting them not too long ago. her basis for fandom is that fiction trumps real world connections. you're better off without her hovering around your blog causing issues and shutting down the crucial conversations you're putting out there for the fandom to open their eyes on.

what's funniest about her finally getting sick of me ig is that I prbly still have multiple drafts saved of times I was replying to her posts and didn't. the *one* time I replied to a comment she made to my post, *that's* when she loses it.

oh wait, when going back to reference my post, I saw I'm not blocked anymore. well until I post this prbly lol.

I know someone long ago sent me an ask complaining about her and she replied to it, but I can't find it now. if u look at my archives and sort by asks then u will see why that's such a problem lol (u will also see a lot of crazy shit omfg. seeing it all laid out at once is insanity).

ppl who get posted here don't tend to ever change bcuz it's easier to double down and say everyone is a "hater" for "no reason." it's never for no reason tho, it's usually for causing some kind of real harm. if ppl reflected on that instead of saying I'm / we're causing "discourse" then maybe we could make some progress in these spaces.

[golden-jeon-jungkook]

i’m so sorry someone blocked you! i know the vibes here lately have been at an all time low, and i’m so sorry this incident has made it worse. i rly enjoy seeing your content — your colorings are so pretty, and when you started popping up in my tags and on my dash i was so thrilled! idk what the reason could’ve been or if it was an accident or something, but just know that you’ve got support and a place here just as much as anyone else. army is inclusive, and i’m so disheartened to think it could be turning into something else :(

all this to say — i’m sorry, i love your content, and i want you to know you have support from other cc’s, myself included. we need to stick together! i’m here if you ever want to chat 💜

Thank you so much for comforting words, Emmeline! This means a lot! 💜 I love your gifs so much! You are amazing! It is always comforting seeing you on my dash! I'm always here too if you want to talk! 😊 💗

I'm always nervous to tag gifmakers under my gifsets because I think my creations are not good enough. But seeing compliments by such talented people makes me less and less nervous. I was on a break, and now I feel it is going to be even longer.

And I still hope it was an accident too (a glitch or something). So I think it is not fair to name who it was. Sorry for complaining.

[ice-sculptures]

Why not! 🍓

marie marie marie, where do i even begin?? you are without a doubt one of my favorite blogs on here for too many reasons to count.

all of your commentary is so thoughtful and so detailed and so brilliant and i absolutely love reading it. the way you find so many connections not just within the show itself, but also with interviews from the cast and crew + parallels to other media, is so impressive and leaves me mindblown every single time. your posts have made me rethink the way i view this show and have helped me grow to appreciate aspects of the narrative that i'd never noticed before and make my peace with certain things that i initially disliked, along with completely eradicating any traces of lingering byler doubt from my mind. it is so clear that you have so much genuine love for stranger things and appreciate all of the hard work that went into making every single part of it - not just the writing but also the costuming, set design, music, and all of the other aspects that normally get overlooked by most people - and that so clearly shows through the way you talk about this show. also honestly, i think i may regret confessing this in the future bc it's pretty embarrassing, but i've actually sent you several asks on anon bc i value your opinion and Love hearing your thoughts so much.

and if that wasn't enough, you also make such incredible gifsets!! i seriously would not believe you if you told me you just started giffing two months ago because everything you post turns out so beautifully. all of your ideas are so creative and you're so skilled with typography and coloring and all of that jazz. i always check your blog every day to see if you've posted something new because even the simplest gifsets from you are enough to brighten my day.

but honestly.......even if you weren't a genius analyst and a talented gifmaker, i think you'd still be one of my favorite people simply because of how kind and supportive you are. you always leave such nice tags on all my gifsets and i actively look forward to hearing what you say about everything i post. you are so friendly and you're of the people that has made me feel most welcome in this fandom. just one of the biggest highlights of my dash and i'm so glad to know you 💖

mutuals send me a 🍓and i’ll compliment you :)

[nostalgia-tblr]

I agree but also I don't? Let me think with my hands here for a bit...

There have always been short-lived fandoms and they tended to be the ones with a limited amount of, well, "content" (by which I mean canon content). Movie fandoms would usually be over and forgotten within a few months - I know this because as A Poor I would generally first see a film when the DVD was cheap enough in the supermarket and as a general rule by the time I saw a film its fandom would be long-dead.

The exception being a franchise like PotC, LotR or Marvel (& etc) where there are multiple films coming out at intervals that revive and feed the fandom with new stuff.

So everyone in the notes saying "Doctor Who" or "Star Trek" or even "Harry Potter" are still active because they're old is naming something with a large amount of canon content (massive, really, in the first two cases - you might never run out of new stuff to watch) and we can't really compare those to a Netflix drop of 6 to 8 episodes of something. Modern TV/streaming seasons are shorter which means we have less to work with when making fanworks.

Gifs... Look, I know gifmakers work hard but at the end of the day they're all giffing the exact same scenes with a faithfullness that fic and fanart don't require. Yeah all the popular (shippy, v often) scenes will be giffed within a few days, and unless the gifset is doing something fancy and artistic with it there's only gonna be so much demand for "the exact same shots as the gifset I reblogged 30 seconds ago except the colouring's a bit different maybe." Fanfic reuses tropes and so on, but two fics about such-and-such scene will never be as similar as two gifsets of that scene, purely because of how much the artist/author is being called upon to invent and add themselves.

In my experience tumblr is not a great platform for fanfic, even if you're just linking to it, because tumblr prefers visual works (which is valid!) and the reblogging and comment functions have never been ideal for discussion anyway. And AO3 is massive and you don't have sign in to drop a comment but in, say, the LiveJournal days you'd be commenting on a fic by someone you followed (most likely) so you knew them a bit and were more likely to feel comfortable talking to them, and there was sometimes a reciprocal transaction at work when they commented on your fic in turn. I may love someone on AO3 but their fanfic is literally the only contact I have with them. I don't know who they are, I have far less personal connection there.

If you go far enough back in fandom (even just to the 2000s) there was nothing we could offer each other but words and that made words our currency and so we wrote a lot of them.

Even fannish meta (now "Discourse" for some reason) isn't ideally-suited to tumblr as compared to LJ - no threaded conversations, no ability to lock to a limited audience, and oh my god the way some tumblr themes will fuck up a post to unreadable within even three or four reblogs with additions.

Add to that we're not "supposed to" add to the OP (like this!) but to use the tags to add our thoughts and as the complaints about "prev tags!!" remind us the tags are lost on a reblog unless you screenshot or copy/paste to add them onto a post yourself. So an utterly amazing insight can be lost so easily in the tags of a post and we're scared of getting told off if we splurge our thoughts in a format that can be preserved and passed along without effort from the next person along.

The ability to time-travel (archiving) is also a bit shit on newer sites, and the real-time focus makes commenting on older posts harder and scarier or even in some cases impossible.

LJ comments showed up in your email and LBR who didn't at least once get into a fannish fight there one night and wake up the next morning to replies on a topic you no longer gave a shit about? But if you *wanted* to keep up a discussion for a 50-comment thread then you could. And anyone joining in later would get neatly threaded within it.

I didn't unfollow on LJ because fannish posts were interspersed with more personal ones (helped by the friends-lock option where you could talk without everyone on the internet overhearing - imagine that!) so when they left My Current Fandom I might keep them cos I felt like I knew them, I'd read their lives and they were funny or whatever. Like there's a "moot" I have on DreamWidth that I don't think we've been in the same fandom together since about 2006... but I also followed along while they struggled with IVF and started a family and so by 2008 she was someone I felt pretty close to as internet relationships go. We had the chance to share our lives and often to have more in common with someone then Current Fandom. Tumblr is different because when I finally grow bored of gifsets of X And Y Do Something Cute In One Of The 12 Episodes Of My Current Show that's kind of the only thing I was sharing with that fandom's tumblr moots and so when I leave a fandom there might be no point still following someone for that sort of thing. And they feel the same way about me, which is fine! We don't have to marry each other to share a fandom for a while!

Short-form content generally doesn't appeal to me and can allow for limited creation or discussion (Tumblr is for gifs, Twitter is not much use for anything but Hot Takes, TikTok is for... I dunno I found it literally unusable so clearly that's not one for me) but I think the loss of long-form text content hosting is more the issue than the latest media/canons themselves. SPN gets a mention in the OP and aren't there about 15 seasons of that? So again it's about the amount of canon content we have to work with as fannish creators. We can only transform a work so many times before we run out of things to say about it and need to find a new one.

Not people saying “Fandom has always been like this” in that vent post I made. No. It hasn’t always been like this. Fandom has NEVER been like this until recently and if you were in fandom pre-tumblr purge, pre-twitter, pre-netflix boom, pre-tiktok….then you would fucking know it was nothing like this.

We still had the drive to create. We still sold prints and charms and made zines…but it was never like this.

The introduction of streaming, binge shows that drop all at once, tiktok and vine RIP i still love u vine but you were the beginning of a particularly ugly era) creating this bite sized, quick paced ‘content’ era of creation and it bled out into fucking everything else.

Fandoms didn’t die down when the show ended or the season was over. You didn’t mass unfollow artist, writers or moots just because they changed fandoms. There wasn’t this need to please the algorithm in order for your posts to get seen by people and enjoyed.

Fandoms used to last YEARS. Star Trek is literally the oldest running fandom out there and you got people in there that could care less about the new stuff and still have been happily prancing through their fucking fifty year old fandom today. Hell, even SPN after all it’s fuckups and shitshows has a dedicated fanbase STILL creating tons of art and fic.

There is no patience anymore. No calm feeling of taking in fandom and friends at a pace that which doesn’t make you stressed and is still fun.

Do I blame fandom for this? Of course not, but people are complacent with it and start changing their vocab to accommodate and end up making the situation so deep it cant be fixed.

We call Art & Fic Content now, completely stripping the value of what it is to a level of consumerism instead of personal entertainment & community bonding.

[allelitewrestlings]

allelitewrestlings’ gifmaking tutorial #1

hey there! this is a brief tutorial with technical tips for making wrestling/aew gifs. i won’t go through the basics of gifmaking, so some photoshop knowledge is expected. i hope this will help any new gifmakers in the wrestling fandom, or anyone who is interested 😊 

tutorial content:

choosing the footage

gif dimensions

duplicated frames

sharpening and timing

colouring*

the full tutorial is under the cut! enjoy!

intro. as i mentioned, this is a very basic, very simple tutorial that goes through issues i have encountered since i first started giffing wrestling stuff. keep in mind that i am by no means an expert, and there must be better/easier ways of doing the things i do, but these are my methods. 

*note: i will not be talking in-detail about how to colour aew gifs because it’d take most of the tutorial. but if anyone’s interested about a veeery basic colouring tutorial that focuses on aew, let me know 😊

1. choosing the footage

when it comes to making gifs, the rule of thumb is to always choose 1080p footage or higher. this makes your gifs look more hd. when it comes to wrestling/aew (in my personal experience) even 1080p can look pretty terrible sometimes. 

this is a screencap from a young bucks entrance. you can see how even when the video “is 1080p”, the image looks super pixelated and blurry. to me that’s a no can do, sorry young bucks. i often try to go for clear frames, but it’s a challenge when it comes to aew 😅 (unless it’s close-ups or backstage segments).

once you have your footage and once you’re exporting your video to frames on photoshop, remember not to limit the frames (unless you’re working with 1080p60, in which it’s totally fine to limit 2 frames if you don’t want your gif to look too “smooth”).

for the purpose of this tutorial, i will be working with backstage segments.

2. gif dimensions

now that you have your footage, you have to decide what kind of layout you’ll be working with. most set layouts consist of one, two, or three columns. depending on the layout you choose, the width of your gif will be different (the height can be whatever you want, just remember to keep the proportions). as of 2022 the tumblr width dimensions are as follow:

i usually crop my gifs using the crop tool (but there are other methods for sizing your gifs). this time i’ll be making a 540x450 one column gif

personally, i never fully select the bottom 3-4 pixels because (for some reason?) you’ll find a black line at the bottom of aew footage like 80% of the time. but feel free to crop the gif as you please! there are other ways of cropping and sizing your gif, this is just one :) 

3. sharpening and timing

once you have your gif cropped, it’s time for sharpening. it’s important not to skip this step! i’d say that sharpening is as important as selecting the correct width/colouring your gif. there are many ways to sharpen your gif and it all depends on whether you work with timeline/smart object or you choose to sharpen each frame individually. both of these can be achieved through actions or manually. personally, i prefer actions. there are many great action packs available here on tumblr for free! they’ll make your life easier. one of my favourite action packs is @anyataylorjoy​’s action pack #1. this action pack has two different sharpening actions and they’re both quite useful (and look good on my dated photoshop), but what i love the most is the save action.

this is when we need to talk about timing. i’ve been making gifs for a while, and it took me a long time to realise that 95% of the time, the correct timing for gifs is 0.05. the issue here is that when you save your gif and you’re still working with it as timeline/smart object, 0.05 is converted to 0.07, so it slows the gif down. sometimes it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but fixing the timing makes a huuuuge difference in what your gif will end up looking like. by using the save action, your work will automatically be converted back into frames and the timing will be fixed.

let’s look at examples.

this is what happens if you change the speed to 0.05 before converting the frames to timeline/smart object to sharpen it. (when you save it, the gif will automatically be 0.07. we don’t want this).

what we want is to convert the timeline back into frames and change the speed to 0.05 (so you can use the save option for this and save yourself some time!). after that, your gif will move way smoother/better:

4. duplicate frames

i didn’t know whether to talk about duplicates or sharpening first, but i decided to leave this for last. something that no one told me/i didn’t really notice when i started making gifs is that there can be a lot of duplicates in the footage you’re working with. if duplicate frames don’t bother you, you can just ignore this bit! it’s mostly a preference.

so, with aew/wrestling footage, you’ll mostly encounter duplicate frames in two occasions:

- backstage segments: this is the most common way of finding duplicate frames, and 98% of the time it’s a 1 in 5 duplicate frame. i usually fix this manually, but i know that avisynth has a very fast, very effective way of removing these duplicate frames. (i found this avisynth tutorial if anyone’s interested!). so, these kind of duplicates will show once every 5 frames. i’ve...memorised? by now that if the 1 and 2 frames are duplicated, then the 6 and 7 will be. so i manually delete every frame that ends with 1 and 6 (or 2-7, 3-8, 4-9, 0-5). it’s... complicated to explain haha. 

most of the backstage segments and slow-motion videos found in, for example, all the roads to and countdowns to are likely to have 1-in-5 duplicates. “hey ew”, and those kinds of videos also have duplicates. as an example, let’s take a look at these:

this is a gif with 1-in-5 duplicates (which has been sharpened, and its speed is 0.05).

and now this is what the same gif looks like once you fix the issue with the duplicates.

- screen recording:

now when it comes to screen recording, it’s very likely that you’ll have duplicate frames. in my experience, unless you’ve just turned your computer on and you don’t have too many tabs/apps open, you’ll find random duplicates throughout the footage you’re working with. sometimes screen recording can also lead to skipping frames, so keep that in mind. to know whether or not your screen recorded footage has duplicates, it’ll look something like this even after you’ve sharpened it and fixed the timing:

the only way (that i’m aware of?) that you can deal with this if you’re using screen recordings is to manually delete the frames. that is, go one by one trying to spot duplicates and delete them. (yeah i’ve done it and yeah it’s a nightmare). so... my advice here is to try to download your footage whenever you can or try to screen record without having too many tabs/apps open 😅

5. colouring

the last step for me when i make gifs is deal with the colouring. some people prefer to do colouring before converting timeline to frames, but it’s just a preference (unless you’re making a gif that requires you to use timeline, etc). what’s important to know if you’re going to add your colouring when working with frames is that you have to always edit the layers on the first frame (so that the changes apply to the rest of the frames).

in-ring action is definitely a nightmare to colour because every shot will look different and aew does a very bad job when it comes to offering contrasted/colour balanced footage. as i mentioned earlier, i’m not gonna spend too much talking about colouring this time. if you struggle with your own colouring, we have shared a couple of psds in the past, which you can use as bases if you’re just getting started or if you find them useful! but there are a lot of good photoshop resources blogs where you can find brightening/base psds as well.

these are the two gifs i have been working with, now with a very basic colouring: 

****

now the only thing you need to remember when saving is that your gifs need to be under 10mb! most of the time my saving settings are adaptive - pattern - bicubic sharper. 

and... i think that’s all! 😊 hope this can help someone. and feel free to message us (or me @jonmoxleys​) if there’s anything you’d like to ask. 

[lacebird]

💜  HOW TO MAKE A GIF WITH PHOTOPEA 💜

Hey everyone! I recently got asked to do a tutorial on how I make my gifs. I know that many people (such as myself) don’t have access to Photoshop for various reasons but they’d like to get into gif making. When I started making gifs, I only had a free trial of Photoshop, but when that ran out, I had to find another way to make gifs. Enter Photopea! A free, web-based software that you can use anywhere and that works just like Photoshop! 

In this tutorial, I’ll teach you how to make a basic gif like the one I did above. I use a macbook air, but it should be doable on a regular pc too!

If you found this helpful, feel free to share it with your friends! The tutorial can be found under the cut below 💜

THINGS YOU’LL NEED

A browser (I switch between Safari and Chrome, more about this later)

A screencapping software (like MPlayer OSX Extended) or, alternatively, a presentation program like Keynote or Powerpoint.

A program to screenrecord or a program that let’s you download from YouTube 

Lots of patience bc gifs are annoying little shits <3

1. GETTING A VIDEO BY SCREENRECORDING

First things first, you need to have the clip you want make a gif out of. There are plenty of ways that you can get them. I’ve seen some gifmakers say that they torrent entire movies and gif from that. The way I do is I screenrecord the part I want to gif directly from where I’m watching the movie or show (like Disney+ or Netflix [or something like 123movies if you’re a pirate 🏴‍☠️)]). That way, I don’t have to download the entire movie and I have just the part that I want.  

To screenrecord, I use my macbook’s built-in program called Screenshot. 

Open the program by pressing ctrl + command + 5 on your keyboard and you get these funny little buttons.

Click on the button that says record entire screen. The program is now recording your screen. Play the scene and make sure you expand the video into full screen so you get a full resolution. When you’re done, click the stop button that is at the top right of your screen (next to the wifi and battery symbols.)

If you don’t have Mac, I suggest you look into how to screenrecord on your computer, as I don’t know how other operating systems work. Sorry!

1B. GETTING A VIDEO FROM YOUTUBE WITH CLIPGRAB

Another way you can get videos is from Youtube. I use a program called ClipGrab for this. Download and open the program. You’ll get this window

Simply paste the link and chose the highest quality, then click ‘grab this clip!’. Done!

2. SCREENCAPPING

After we’ve obtained the clip we wanted, we can do this two ways. The first way is to use the program MPlayer OSX Extended. Here’s a tutorial on how to set it up, make sure you do this if it’s your first time using the program. Make sure that you have a special screenshot folder!

Open MPlayer, then go to file > open and find the video of the scene you screenrecorded or downloaded. MPlayer will now play the video. Use the left and right keys (< and >) to go go backwards or forwards 1 minute, but try not to move around too much because the software crashes if you do. If that happens, just click the reopen button when the popup comes on, and reload the video again.

When you’ve gotten to the point you want in the video, press the command + shift + s buttons at the same time and the program will now take a screencap of every single frame until you stop. 

If everything goes smoothly, you should find all your frames in your screenshot folder that you’ve made before when setting up the program! 

2B. USING A PRESENTATION SOFTWARE TO MAKE A GIF

If you want to skip the screencapping part and you want to have a fully completed gif, you can do the second option. That’s what I used to do before I got MPlayer. In my experience, it’s a really fast way to make a gif, but the quality isn’t really good. 

Here’s a tutorial on how to turn a slide into a gif in Keynote.

Here’s a similar tutorial on how to make a gif on PowerPoint.

Basically, you make sure that the size of your presentation is the same as your video, and that you make sure to export one slide into a gif. Also make sure that you export in the highest quality!

3. LOADING THE FRAMES IN PHOTOPEA

Finally, we can start giffing! As I said at the start, Photopea can be used anywhere, but I switch between Safari and Chrome. The reason why is that if I upload the frames in Chrome, the frames will be out of order. In Safari, that doesn’t happen, but the downside is that once I start editing, Safari will reload the page because it takes up too much memory. 

So, first I go to photopea.com on Safari. I click New Project and put in the same dimensions as the screencaps (in my case, they are 1440x900 px). You’ll get an empty project. 

Then click file > open & place and select your screenshots. Wait until Photopea has loaded all the frames, then, at the speed of light, quickly click file > save as psd before Safari reloads! You’ll find it in your folder where all your downloads are.

Next, I open Chrome (I use the incognito window because I have adblock on my usual Chrome, the program won’t work as usual if you have it enabled) and I click Open From Computer, locate your saved .psd file that you saved from Safari. 

Now, you’ll see all the frames as individual layers. Select everything by clicking on the first layer, then golding the shift button and clicking on the last layer. Press command + G to group the frames into a folder. Here’s how everything should look after you’ve grouped the layers.

^^ See how Agnes approves! Agnes things you’re going a great job!

Now, it’s time to crop the gif and get rid of the black borders. Making sure that the folder is selected, click on the crop tool (or press C) and click on Fixed Size

W is Width and H is Height, write in your sizing here. Tumblr’s max width is 540, so I put the width as such. For the height, I use 405. Then you just drag the corners until you’ve selected the part that you want, like this

Press enter and the image will be sized down 540x405 px. 

Now, our gif looks like this after cropping!

Open the folder so you can see all the layers. Select all your layers and right click on them, then click rasterize. 

Then, go to layer > animation > make frames. You’ll now see that each layer begins with _a_ - this is crucial because this is how Photopea knows that the layers are part of a gif. If your layers don’t begin with _a_, then it will not play as a gif

If you instead already have a gif done, all you have to do instead is simply click open from computer when you first open Photopea and load your already finished gif and it’ll have the _a_ at the start of every layer. You won’t have to go through the steps of loading your frames into a new project to make your gif as it’s already done and in a folder :) Just start cropping once you load it

You can preview your work by going to file > export as > gif. Make sure to change the speed in the preview window until your gif plays the way you want it! I put my speed at 500%

4. SHARPENING

Hooray, we now have our gif! But to make it look a little nicer, it’s good to sharpen it. I always use Smart Sharpen when I sharpen my gifs, and many other gifmakers use that too. It’s really good :D

To sharpen your gif, again, make sure that all your layers are selected. Go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen. I use two different settings for my gifs, it really depends on the gif.

Setting 1 (which is the default setting)

Setting 2 

 Again, it depends on the gif, play around until it looks good to you!

Here’s our gif after sharpening it 

I ended up deleting the last few layers as the gif got bigger than 10mb (that’s Tumblr’s file limit, it your file is bigger than 10mb, it won’t upload). I also added a gradient map and it made the file size smaller, more about that in the next segment!

5. COLORING

Here’s the fun part! Now we get to play around with the gif, making it brighter and look Extra Nice™!  Since this is a black and white scene, I make sure that the blacks and the whites really pop. 

Notice how in the original scene it’s not actually b&w, it has a slight sepia tint to it. I want to remove this, so I add a gradient map by clicking on the white square with a black circle (I want to point out that we’ll be clicking on this button a lot in this step)

and I change the blending mode to Saturation

Then I add a curves layer using these settings

Then a second curves layer

Brightness/contrast 

Then my favourite! Selective color! First layer, I deepen up the blacks

Then another selective color layer, this time the whites

Lastly the neutrals

Here we have the final results!

Wasn’t this a gas! I hope this helped you out, let me know if you want to know anything else about gifmaking, I’m happy to help! Also, sorry if I wasn’t very clear, I’m bad at explaining 🙈

MORE RESOURCES:

Here are some other tutorials that are really helpful in making gifs. These users use Photoshop, but you can still use their tips most of the time in Photopea too, you just need to play around and see what works for you!

Gifmaking for beginners by @chloezhao (this one saved my life)

Pale coloring tutorial by @itsphotoshop

Two-Toned Gif Background by @clubgif​

Text with white outline tutorial by @anya-chalotra​

[olderthannetfic]

"Be a mod to make friends" anon here.

To the people being Very Upset at my suggestion, you'll remember the line about it being a bit tongue-in-cheek, and that there were a couple of lines about it being, actually, work, and not a bed of roses.

I am, after all, talking from experience ;-)

Your points about newbies being clueless are very fair, but remember that everyone has to start somewhere, and that someone launching an exchange, bingo, bang, etc isn't necessarily a fresh-faced 17yo with little people- and fandom-experience; my ask was sent thinking about folks who have been fandom denizens for a while, because that was my own situation, and who were struggling to connect, because that was the vibe I'd got from some asks on this blog. (And, I can't stress it enough, it was explicitly tongue-in-cheek. Because I am aware that it's harder than it looks! But it's true that not everyone realizes it before jumping head first into the modding work.

Yes, I'll admit I wasn't thinking of hyper-enthusiastic fans who don't realize the work ahead, but I have not met a lot in my fandoms (they skew slightly older, probably) and I generally avoided having to deal with those. Though I did advise one once, and yeah, I could tell it wouldn't be a resounding success from the start.

To go back to the initial point, while I didn't start on the mod path to make friends, I did find it a good way to be more involved in fandom and start conversations. It absolutely is a big reason why I have made more fandom friends in the last few years than I ever made in the decades prior.

However, if I'd been told "you need to have made lots of fandom friends already" and that I should first have "paid [my] dues" (I'm not sure what you meant here exactly and would welcome a clarification, because if you meant do the gruntwork of organizing the exchange itself, then you can't pay them before starting, so no one can ever be a first-time mod?), that perhaps I was suspected of "power-tripping," well... I'd never have started, and the hundreds of works created over the years for the different exchanges, bangs, etc I set up might not exist.

People gave me a chance, even when they didn't know me well (in some fandoms I'd already created fanworks, in others, not really).

It worked out all right.

Like many things in life - a new job in a new company/environment, a new city/country, making friends... - a fandom event is a leap of faith: faith that you, gifmaker/writer/artist/vidder etc will be able to fulfill your part (including warning if you have to drop out), and that the admin, too, will do their job and communicate well including if circumstances change, if they need help, etc.

The first time one sets up (or helps organizing/admining) a fandom event will be a learning experience (just as your first participation can be!), and there will be flailing at some point(s): what to do if someone is late or ghosts you, how to deal with threats... but I too was a beginner mod when I started, and lo and behold, folks still happily participate!

Of course, it's not so much a matter of age, but above all patience, level-headedness, communication skills, commitment, and organization. Those things can correlate with age, but not always ;-) I've seen badly-run events set up by Respectable Fen, and decently-run ones set up by younger people.

But not every person who says, "Hi, I'm offering my services to organize a fun exchange in this fandom; would you be interested?" is going to be a disaster.

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no :-)

(and sorry for the loooong ask!)

--

[nataliescatorccio]

GIF MAKER APPRECIATION TAG

rules: answer the first half of the questions with gifsets of your own, then answer the second half by tagging gif makers you love

so many absolutely wonderful people have tagged me (i have a whole tag for it on my blog where i go and sob about how many talented souls mentioned my name) and i am showing up incredibly late with no starbucks to speak of that people will be like ‘becca, this tag ended weeks ago go home’. but i would still like to show my appreciation even if, as always, i am late!

LINK A GIFSET...

link a gifset you’re really proud of: my grisha orders and powers set has been my pinned post for the past month for a reason and will probably continue to be so (also because it took me forever).

link a gifset where you tried something new: i feel like i very much have my style and stick to it, but (this set is a real throwback) i once tried this softer coloured (i wouldn’t go as far to say pastel cos i don’t really do pastels but) malia set and it was one of the most soothing and enjoyable things i’ve ever made.

link a gifset that features your favourite character or celebrity: i was trying to do a favourite character meme for yennefer (tho currently failing at maintaining it) but shoutout to this set!

link a gifset that you want more people to see: i want you all to see my latest inej set because i actually made something i like for once!!!

link a gifset you had fun making: i recently had a lot of fun doing darklina week, even though it was a challenge as creating content daily always is, but i really loved creating this darklina according to tumblr set because it was just a delight looking through tags and seeing the love, joy and humor of this fandom.

link a gifset you created as part of a meme, challenge or series: all i do right now is memes i don’t finish but my ladies meme has been fun and chill and i was really proud of this fatin set as i’d never giffed the wilds before!

link a gifset of yours that makes you smile: my witcher + troubled birds set, the one that started my obsession with troubled birds and i always giggle like an idiot at my own joke in the roach gif.

link a gifset you made for someone else: my entire 15k celebration was so much fun because i spent the time making things for other people. but this geralt & jaskier as shrek & donkey set for and inspired by @captain-james was one of my absolute favs.

TAG SOMEONE WHO...

tag someone who inspired you to start making gifs: @alina-starksov who got me into giffing and taught me how to make gifs many years ago! without her constant encouragement i would not be a gifmaker, so i guess you have her to blame.

tag someone who makes great vibrant gifs: there are so many people i follow who make beautiful vibrant gifs that make me yell, but @meliorn always impresses and has been an inspiration to me in her colouring skills for years, and the merlin goddesses @arthurpendragonns @ughmerlin and @merlinsprat constantly make my jaw hit the floor because i find that show so hard to work with!

tag someone who makes great pale/pastel gifs: i don’t follow many people who make pastel gifs because my own aesthetic has always fallen in with vibrancy, but @ballroomofmymindp makes stunning pastel gifs and her darklina appreciation series has totally made me fall in love with pastel!

tag someone who gifs for a fandom you love: as i’ve currently been obsessing over shadow and bone (as you might have noticed), some gems who have put a smile on my face and inspired me are: @the-darkling @aleksandr-morozova @zoya-nazyalenskys @benj-barnes @jemmablossom @starlless @hunterschafer @timothyolyphant @redbelles @time-turner @inej-ghafa @ffahey @hollywoods @jessiccachastain @emmaduerrewatson @ladystarks @dxrklina @reitvelds @jackarthurdavenport @sunbeamalina @genyazoyalina @alinastarkhov @djels @docmcfly @volcra @saint-aleksander @aleksander--morozova @barnesplots @niinazenik

tag someone who uses text/typography really well in their gifsets: arianna @seance changed the typography game. her use of fonts and effects is truly everything and constantly inspires me to get more creative with text!

tag someone who motivates you to step up your game: i’ve told her this many times but @anya-chalotra motivates me daily. i really believe ava took giffing to the next level, her creativity and talent have influenced tumblr as a whole so much and i am constantly seeing trends on my dash that come from her. she constantly inspires me, but also challenges me to try new things. just thank you for everything you do, you goddess, tumblr would not be the same without you.

tag someone you have taken inspiration from: there are so many creators who have inspired me, but shoutout to avia @lamberts who has come back to the witcher fandom with a bang and everything she has made just blows my mind with how cool, pretty and creative it is! her book snippets set is one of the most amazing sets i’ve seen (i really do not have the words to express how obsessed i am with it) and it inspired me to make this set for darklina week recently!

tag gifmakers who you admire and appreciate: so many, if i follow you i admire and appreciate you otherwise i wouldn’t have you on my dash! but here are some people i haven’t mentioned yet who inspire me daily and i really admire are: @captain-james @ivashkovadrian @montygreen @cherylblossom @lizzies @rue-bennett @yelenabelovas @olivia-rodrigos @shinylightblue @zavens @pietro-maximoff @gracechoi @minerva-marble @withered-rose-with-thorns @colins-bridgertons @forbescaroline @tonystarks @captainheroism @megtheestallions @anissagraces @eddiediaz @karlimorgenthau

[kbsd]

not sure if you’ve answered this before, but what’s your process look like when you make an amv? i’m just curious and in constant awe of ppl who can make videos like you do :)

hello all!!! i have answered this before and i have a vid help tag with other asks i’ve gotten about stuff like this! but i’ve gotten several more messages along these lines so i’m just going to answer a bunch of them together (under a cut since i love to ramble about editing lol). i do just wanna say i’m definitely not the authority on video editing and obv everyone has their own techniques!

edit: i just finished typing all this up and it’s SO long so sorry in advance LMAO god bless anyone who reads this entire thing

so i work in news tv and we have a very specific workflow for writing scripts, sourcing video, producing, and editing. i’ve just applied that to making amvs! for every video i make, i copy the song lyrics into a google doc and adjust them to match the song i’ve cut (i often will trim songs for time and/or content purposes). then i start planning! i’ll mark down what clip i want to use for each lyric next to that line, and any sound bites i want to use (with episode numbers!). i’ll color code between video and sound bites and lyrics, so my scripts end up looking something like this (for my honeybee amv):

doing the planning ahead of time makes everything much easier when it’s a video that spans the whole show or involves a lot of sourcing, like honeybee or sports analogies. that way when i get to the actual editing process, i already know what i’m going to do and have a game plan. for videos like happy ending or believe it or not, where i’m mainly just pulling from a few episodes, i can just plan it in my head as opposed to writing it all down, and produce as i edit. obviously i do make in-the-moment decisions while editing—sometimes a shot doesn’t work the way i thought it would, or i go where the video takes me—but planning ahead definitely helps. i know some people use spreadsheets as well, with columns for lyrics, video clips, and sound bites if applicable. once you find a system that works, it actually goes pretty quickly.

as for sourcing clips themselves/finding clips within episodes, i talked about that here and kind of here. the short version is that transcripts are a must, and the supernatural wiki is hugely helpful by cataloguing all the hugs, prayers, phone calls, etc. in the show. gifmakers that tag episode numbers on their posts are your friends. it gets easier the more video you make—that’s another huge reason i make the google docs for each video (even the ones i plan in my head, i end up going back and making a loose script with episode notes just for reference). if i can’t remember where something is but i know i used it in another video, i can easily reference past scripts!

i also cut all my videos in the same project in premiere pro, so i can flip between them easily. instead of checking a past script, i can just go to the video sequence itself and copy the clip i’m looking for! this was especially helpful when i match cut together the 5x18 and 4x22 wall slam shots for my bestie video, and then stole it from myself for honeybee hahaha. at any given time i have at least 8 sequences open:

because of the sheer volume of videos i make, it’s worth it for me to download the entire show—i have all 327 episodes in HD, plus deleted scenes. if you think you’re only going to make a few videos, i’d start with scene packs. you can usually just google “destiel [or whatever ship/character you’re looking for] scene packs” and there will be any number of ones you can download. if you need other specific scenes, you can always download/torrent individual episodes or screen record netflix (that’s what i did before i got HD download links). i’m happy to share my links if you DM, but be warned it’s a lot of disk space (about 500GB on my hard drive). someone also compiled every destiel scene, downloadable here.

having every episode already loaded in premiere for all my projects also makes it a lot easier to source clips. once i use a clip in a video, i’ll put a marker on the episode file, so that after a while i have most of the important scenes/lines marked to easily find them. to give you an idea, this is my episode file in premiere for 12x10 lily sunder has some regrets (markers at destiel scenes, the car fight, hot girl cas, etc.). markers are the green tabs along the bottom:

premiere also lets you color code and name markers, so ONE DAY i will go back and color code them all. the ones above are all the same color, but in a perfect world, i’d have a myraid—for destiel shots like hugs, touches, looks; for important pieces of dialogue; for action shots; etc. but for now this works ok for me, so that’s a project for another time!

between detailed scripts, one giant premiere project, markers, the wiki, and my own memory, i have so many points of reference that i can usually find any clip i need in about 2 minutes max. sound bites are often harder to start out, or tiny specific shots i haven’t used before, and that’s when i turn to tumblr gifsets or beloved mutuals to crowdsource. but if you’re as obsessive about marking/keeping neat scripts as i am, it gets easier and easier with every video you make. that’s part of why i’m able to cut videos together so quickly. (also i want to stress i do this for a living and have to produce/edit a new piece for my show every day so i’m used to it. and compared to constantly updating content/sources and news that changes every day, 327 highly documented episodes that never change are much easier to handle hahaha)

this is all great for me since i make so many videos and plan to continue doing so, but if you’re only making a few, this level of work isn’t worth it imo. really it’s all about developing a system that works for you. whatever you do with episodes/sourcing, though, i cannot recommend planning things out in a script ahead of time enough. 

everything i just mentioned is producing, though. for the editing process, i usually do it in this order:

music first. any parts i want to cut, i make sure it all sounds smooth

then soundbites. i usually try to weave them into the lyrics—i have characters talk in breaks between lines or instrumental sections as much as possible. i’ll sometimes go so far as looped/extending an intsrumental part to make room for the soundbite i want there lol. if i do have dialogue over a line, i do the sound mixing/levels at this point as well to make sure everything is audible/one doesn’t overpower the other. (also i always include the video that goes with these bites when i drop them in, and decide later if i want to show the character speaking or have other clips cover the dialogue)

once i have all the audio locked in, then i bring in all my other video clips. sometimes i edit completely chronologically, sometimes jumping from section to section—it depends on the song or how i’m feeling

double check sound mixing. i usually listen to my videos through a few times, with headphones and without to make sure it’ll sound good no matter how people watch it

once i have picture and audio lock, i go through and color correct my clips. i’m basic and just use lumetri color in premiere, and usually just play with brightness, saturation, temperature, and tint until i like it

render and export! :)

i always have several audio tracks, but i try to keep my video tracks condensed. i’ll drop clips on a V2 level, and edit a section there, and drop the whole chunk down to V1 so i know it’s finished. that way when i leave and come back i can know where i left off/what’s done/etc. to give you an idea, this is the timeline for my what the hell video:

i always render as H.264 with high bitrate, and make sure to check “render at maximum depth” and “use maximum render quality” for the best quality. i’m sorry, but i don’t know what the equivalent options are in final cut, imovie, kdenlive, etc. i post on youtube mostly so i don’t have to sacrifice quality, but usually just using a lower bitrate will get you under the tumblr file size limit and it’ll still look good.

as for the anon who asked about “polishing”: first of all, thank you!! second of all, it’s in the details. all of this is a matter of taste and my own insanity, but here are some little things i always try to do:

after i color correct, i blur out any credits from the starts of episodes. i use gaussian blur for this, but really any blur tool works

as much as possible, i avoid clips where we see a character’s mouth move but don’t hear the words. in tv/film we call it “lip flap” and i just think it looks messy. also i’m trained to avoid it at all costs at work hahaha. it’s more for serious videos that this matters a lot to me (e.g. i think i did a really good job eliminating lip flap in my happy ending amv)—for comedy videos i don’t sweat it as much

i put audio fades on the start and end of every single audio clip i use, even if i don’t think i need it, to make sure everything sounds smooth

i use markers for timing, especially in action-y videos like what the hell. i’ll put a marker on the clip i’m using at the exact moment a punch lands, and in the song on the beat. if i have the magnet/snap in timeline tool on i can just easily snap them together instead of having to spend time finagling it

this is such a small thing but i dip/cut to black for a tiny bit at the start and end of every video. this way if i post with tumblr video player, there’s black between the loops, and it gives you a beat before the video restarts. i do this even on videos i post on youtube, just because i think it looks nicer/more professional

this is 1,500 words so i’m going to stop myself before i pull something. if you have follow-up questions feel free to ask and i’ll continue to add them to the vid help tag, but any more questions about sourcing clips or my process in general i’ll just link this post going forward. anyone who made it this far, i am sending to a telepathic kiss. thank you for reading and happy editing!

[petekaos]

2020 creator wrap + a follow forever

rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

hiii hello everyone! sorry it’s taken me so long to get on this BUT it’s all for good reason! i thought i would combine this post into me sharing some of the works i am most proud of this year as well as spreading more love in this wonderful little community because i truly love you all tons and being a part of such a lovely group of people has made me beyond happy this year. it’s been a difficult year for all of us and i’m just so glad that i can give back the love and care y’all can give to me 💛

onward to spreading love to people who tagged me, in no particular order! thank you all for tagging me, it means so much and know that i have read through your posts at least twice with a smile on my face.

@wjmild: kylie!! you constantly surprise me with how kind and insightful you are, as well as your dedication to watching absolutely every show with lee thanat in it. you are so smart and educated and every time you talk about your research and your studies i can’t help but feel so incredibly proud of you. i really hope life brings you the peace and fulfillment you deserve. i love you!

@gigiesarocha: cata - it is always such a pleasure to see you on my dash. i can rely on you losing your shit over ingredients every two weeks and every time i see jeff doing things it 100% reminds me of you! you possess such a kind soul and i’m so glad to have had the pleasure of following you this year :’)

@yihwas: sometimes i still can’t believe you know who i am and that we’re grouped together, soph! your blog is such a refuge to me, i adore scrolling through your replies and laughing at all the witty things you say. you are simply so kind and thoughtful in your responses and criticism and you have such talent in gifmaking! i am forever grateful to you for introducing me to new lakorns and to you and shannon for creating @lakornladies​. 

@morksuns: sumaya! my url twin! i absolutely love seeing you on the dash, it really is that trans desi solidarity, no? your moodboards are always so aesthetic and your blog is so soft and calm. i see you sending such lovely asks to people, including myself, and i truly admire your personality so much!

@gayvlad: nico, my sibling! i love you so much and seeing you on the dash always makes me smile. sometimes you’re too hard on yourself, but that’s okay, because i’m always here for you. i loved your reactions to dbk in live time, and that you’re now as attached to the show as i am. we love a lot of the same things, and i’ll forever be grateful to you for indulging my headcanons and developing them with me, like the ram and bohn friendship. the ram fic of him finding the gym as a home was developed through much of your influence, and i’ll never stop being astonished at how kind and supportive you are. i love you! 

@khaotungthanawat: saaaam! your gifs are always a beauty to behold. i admire you so much for making those bl compilation gifsets because that takes so much patience and dedication, especially to find all the moments. i can always count on you for underrated gifsets, too, and i smile every time you send me an ask!

@tanwirapong: roa! oh i adored getting to know you better this year through the gifted gays gc. i remember still when you made a post about there’s an art to honesty and it truly made my day - i sent it to my partner and best friend and they were so fond as well! i will always be so happy about the fact that we both lose it over petekao every now and again, it means the world to me :’)

@emisfritish: your wisdom and way of expressing your thoughts will never fail to amaze me, emma. i can always count on you for calling things like they are and writing out well-worded, thought-provoking posts that express everything i have ever thought about fandom but could never quite write down. it’s such a pleasure seeing you on my dash and honestly, whenever i see tay, he reminds me of you!

so that was everyone who tagged me, for which i am eternally grateful! (if i missed anyone... i am so sorry ily...) now onto me rambling about how much i love specific people in the fandom generally that i haven’t already mentioned.

@earthfluuke: maddie... where do i even start. getting to know you this year means the absolute world to me and i love how many thoughts we can share together and how many aus and ideas we can plot out to the finest detail, but i also love how we can talk about serious topics and irl issues affecting us both and know that the other person will be there. i admire you so much for going on and persevering despite the many difficult factors in your life right now. know that i will always be there - to listen to you, to support your gifs and fics, to develop characters with you, to weigh in on problems or ideas you have. i love you!

@asianmelodrama: faiza!! i can never address you without immediately adding ‘jaan’ after it honestly. you are a sister to me in all things and knowing you has been such an honour. your wise words, your calmness in dealing with things, your infectious excitement - they are all facets of your personality that i both admire and adore. whether it’s getting angry about shitty muslim rep or freaking out about a movie, i know that i can always count on you to be there for me if i ever need it. i hope light and love touches your life always, and you find peace in everything you do. if i ever happen to be in england, i am definitely coming over for your chai :’) i love you!

@yioh: yura my laddoo! i say this all the time, but i simply am so grateful that we met. i love seeing your tags on my posts and i just... adore seeing you doing your thing on your blog, your posts always make me smile. i know school is hard right now, but know that i’m always rooting for you and believe in you completely. words cannot express how happy i am to have found another tamil lgbt person who can understand the same experiences, it really does mean everything to me. and know that i will begin reading tyk soon, i promise, and i’ll tell you all about my thoughts! i love youuu!

@1akorn: shannon!! i still cannot believe people group us together because i’ve always admired you from a distance - imagine my absolute surprise when i found out that you followed me! i 100% rely on you for the good mek content and love your gifs so much. you’re so articulate and speak your thoughts incredibly well, which i truly admire.

@brightwin: jelly - you already know the amount of love and fondness i hold for you. you’re such a kind and bubbly person and your personality shines not only through your tags and responses to people, but also through your gorgeous gifsets that are just so warm and lovely. i can always rely on you to give me updates on all things related to brightwin and 2gether. you’re wonderful!

@yibobibo: aamna! i know i can always get my yibo content from you, and i adore it. i love seeing updates about your bunnies and your kind responses to your anons, you truly are a ray of light! you’re also one of the fairly concentrated cql blogs i follow - and for that i am always grateful.

@metawwin: ali! your gorgeous gifs are always such a light on my dash. i remember once you called me ‘rahulito’ and it made me so soft. your voice and songs are so lovely and i don’t even know where to begin thanking you for sharing your art with us. i know it means a lot to me, and it means the same to many others.

@taytawan: nuriaaa! i remember seeing you so often in the petekao tag and i gotta say that your sets of both petekao and sarawatine, especially the heart eyes series, always make me so soft. and of course, the fact that you gifted me this wonderful url! i will always be thankful for that and for your general kindness and warmth that you bestow upon everyone.

@piningbisexuals: axelle! although we don’t talk that much, i always love seeing your gifs and your thoughts on shows on the dash. i’m wishing you all the best with your thai classes and hope that everything goes well with you! also, you should know that i read that manboss fic you gifted to me at least once a week because it just means that much to me - and i’m so glad i got you into this little silly ship of mine. 

@sunsetchimyeon: nene, my pk anon! i love seeing your asks in my inbox and writing essays as replies. having conversations with you was one of my absolute highlights and i’ll always be blown away by how kind and calm and supportive and patient you are! i hope life is treating you well, my friend.

@toptaps: zey!! oh i love seeing your gifs and kindness on my dash and know that whenever i see toptap in anything, he always reminds me of you! also your gifs of sammy? absolutely gorgeous!

@giftedgays: i love you all SO much it is truly insane. being part of our tumblr gc that evolved into a discord server with a thousand channels has been one of my 2020 highlights. i loved yelling with you all about tgg every week and i must thank you all for sitting through my chanonpom breakdowns every second day. 

in particular: 

@pangwave - dawnie, i love you! i admire you and your no bullshit attitude so much. i know you’re going through a process of change right now, and i could not be prouder of you for persevering through it, regardless of the painful and strange circumstances we find ourselves in. i have full faith in you, and i know that you got this. we’re all here for you! 

@doctorbahnjit: - alexa! i still remember when you wrote the first manboss fic and an anon sent me a link regarding it. you are genuinely one of the funniest people i know and you deserve the absolute world. i read out of the blue every day, no kidding, because it means so much to me! thank you for being my fellow chanonpomer, my fellow manboss-er, and just being an all around ray of absolute sunshine.

@gunatps: vee! i have already embarrassed myself enough in my post to you but it’s worth repeating. i adore our eden chanonpom breakdown sessions, which we should have again soon when you have time, and i love us roasting modi in the chat, it truly cracks me up! we have so much in common and i just want to say that i am so proud of you for studying and taking your exams - i know how difficult they are. 

@wavelovespang: cass!! how i adore your analyses and breakdowns of scenes and relationships, you have so much insight and wisdom that you spread in such thoughtful ways! you’re so supportive and kind and such a great teacher, i know that. your writing is so wonderful and i’m truly so honoured that we all get to read it, it’s a gift!

@class2clown: angel! i cannot say this enough but i admire your art so much, it’s so so beautiful! you’ve always been so kind and lovely, and just like with cass, thank you so much for organising the gifted week events! although i couldn’t properly partake this year because of time constraints, i loved seeing everyone’s creations and it was super thoughtful.

@soulmatelines: i’ve said this before, jo, but it must be said again: i cannot believe you thought i was cool. i’ve always adored your gifs from afar and you’re such a sweet person! i love love love talking with you in the kpop channel (even if you personally hate 3racha smh), and you truly do bear the novel agenda! i’ve learned about so many more novels i must read and for that i am so grateful :’) 

@billkinpp: violet, i will never fail to crack up at a) your and kylie’s plans to run away and get married, and b) you having a thousand sideblogs and complimenting yourself on your own gifs in the tags, as you absolutely should! i hope the next year is kind to you and that your sleep schedule isn’t too fucked up :’)

@vihokratanas: mel, i will always be in complete awe of your gifs! they are always so clean and crisp. i remember still when you were fondestphan and my phannie days flashed in front of my eyes fhsnfg but either way, you’re so kind and sweet! 

@pvrrish: eleni!! i don’t think i’ve ever told you this before but i’ve always loved the 2gether poster that you made, i sometimes go on your blog to look at it for like 5 minutes, it’s truly so beautiful! i hope you’ve had an okay year, all things considered, and that life is kind to you!

@lee-thanat: another leesbian, ke! y’all always crack me up in the lesbians for lee thanat channel truly. your simping for ms ladda is so valid, i miss her so much honestly. i hope that the coming year is kind to you, and that you find the peace you deserve!

okay, so i think that’s everyone that i either talk to regularly or admire a lot! in case i didn’t mention you, please please feel free to reach out to me because i mean no offense at all - my brain is small haha. would also like to shout out all my anons who send me asks and bear with my late responses these days because of life, i adore you all and i love answering your asks.

if you’re still reading after this... whole monster of a post, i’m just gonna quickly mention some things i’ve been proud of either writing or making this year. in no particular order:

1. my weary heart has come to rest in yours. this is a fic i wrote in an... interesting headspace, and i was really going through my chanonpom feelings at the time. i’m really proud of how it came out and i adored writing chanon through pom’s pov. also i kinda love how i tied in p’bird’s song prip dtah in with the fic because i adore the song and it fits so well with them.

2. petekao week 2020. i guess this is sort of cheating, because these are technically 7 fics, BUT. i am actually proud of myself for writing seven, and i think they’re all of fairly good quality. i just really love this little universe i created for the dbk characters after the show and this whole week was just so warm and lovely to be a part of.

3. this set of num and prang from a gift for whom you hate. this moment really stuck with me from the finale and i actually am really proud of the colouring and how it came out! i think the blues really popped and i managed to lighten this dark ass scene without whitewashing mek or aye. the fireworks gif also is one of my favourites i’ve made! num and prang’s whole relationship was so pure throughout the entirety of this show, i adored them. 

4. but love is impossible and it goes on despite the impossible. this is the longest fic i’ve posted so far and i’m super proud of it - it’s also my most well-received fic. the yunmeng brothers mean the world to me and i just... wanted to write about jiang cheng and his love for his brother and give them a somewhat happy ending, in one future at least.

5. there’s an art to honesty. i think i really nailed my version of kao in this work! i just really loved writing this fic so much, especially because it was right after the whole ‘scandal’ with new happened. i was really just finding a way to separate kao from him, and i delved into my feelings with this fic as well, because i relate to kao in multiple ways. either way, i thought writing this fic was fun and a lot of people loved it too, which made me so soft!

if you’ve read this far, i personally adore you! while this has been a difficult year, i am blessed to have been part of this loving community, and i really hope that next year will be kinder to us all and give us good shows and discussions! i love you all. stay safe and stay kind, friends 💛

[bucksbisexual]

well, well, well. it’s the end of 2020.

kinda weird, isn’t it? the year has flown by and it’s already the end of the last month. it’s been..... strange to say the least, but this year i’ve found a place, and most specifically, people who have made this year a little bit better and brighter with either their presence or their content, and for that, i want to send some love to all of you who have made an impact on me this year with our interactions or your content on my dashboard 💖💖

i feel like i should start with everyone who has added me in their follow forevers (i still can’t believe i was even part of a single one??? i- 🥺) so let me do just that hehe

@yihwas​ soph!! we haven’t interacted much but every time we did u have been nothing but the sweetest and kindest person ever and that made such a great impact on me, thank u for being so amazing 🥰💛

@planthusbands​ cass!!! even though our age gap is 10 whole years you have been nothing but welcoming and lovely to me and u truly feel like an older sister to me 🥺💚 the cover u did for our secret santa hugs me tightly whenever i feel down 💖

@petekaos​ rahul!!!! (or should i say rhaul kjsjfhsfj my fingers h*te u for no reason i swear) u are such a lovely person and i’m so glad to be able to have gotten to know u better this year. you’re so amazing and u already know from before we even interacted that i Love ur fics so please never let anything stop u from writing!! 💙

@wjmild​ kylie!!! we have been talking more lately because of both of us (well, now only me) watching guardian and it’s so much fun!! i love hearing ur thoughts and opinions on things even if they differ from mine because i find u really interesting!!! also u’ve probably heard this from everyone from the gc but i love ur voice jhfkjsf love u lotsss 🧡

@toptaps​ zey!! we haven’t interacted much and have barely spoken on dms but u’re so lovely and kind 💛 ur love for things makes me want to love them as well (see: guardian) and i would love to get to know u better this year that’s just around the corner 🥰

okay and now.. to everyone else!!

@brightwin​ jelly!!! i miss u tons :-( but thank u for being so lovely whenever we interacted, you’re so nice to everyone and so so so talented when it comes to giffing, you’re pretty much the person who made me want to start giffing so thank u for creating such masterpieces 💛

@gunatps​ vee!!! are u feeling better love? i hope you’re recovering well <3 i loved getting to know u this year and loved all the weird conversations in the gc when it was alexa, u and me or sometimes just u and me, i miss bicis but hopefully bicis can come back as soon as u recover. ur korn apologist agenda was strong but u ended up being right... truly The Monarch skjfhsj love u lots 🧡 (i will join ur next chanonpom breakdown on vc okay? just tell me when and i’ll be there <3)

@kimmonv​ violet!!! we haven’t talked much but u seem like such an interesting and funny person, i would love to talk more with u this next year 🥰 i loved being ur secret santa (even if i sucked at it) and i felt rlly happy when u said u liked it!! i hope 2021 treats u well 💚

@lee-thanat​ ke!!! i loved getting to know u a little this year and i definitely loved trying to read ur nonsensical messages that were supposed to mean something KHSFJSHF i also loved playing with u on among us that one time even if i killed u once (sorry about that btw... ily), i hope everything’s going well and that we can talk more next year 💜

@soulmatelines​ jo!!! my twin sjkfjksfh i loooved getting to know u this year!! you’re so funny and so smart even if ur artistic skills are... Not The Best skfjhjfhks (neither are mine so it’s okay, no need to feel bad) i loved being on vc with u and just talking with u on discord whenever u were online, i hope we can continue doing that next year!!! love u lots 💛

@pvrrish​ eleni!! we’ve talked so little this year that i can barely remember if there was any conversation at all :-(( but i would love to get to know u better this next year!! u seem like such an interesting person and u and angel are friends so i’m sure u’re amazing!! hope 2021 treats u well 💚

@class2clown​ angel!!! it’s been such a pleasure to get to know u this year and i can’t believe that it’s already been months since we first spoke :’)) all of ur creations are soooo good and i love all of them!!! i hope nothing ever stops u from creating more because they’re all so amazing!!! 🧡

@floralbfs​ augs!!!! god it’s been a while since we started talking but u’ve always been so lovely and have always been there to share ur ideas for the thousand unwritten/posted pangwave and khaithird fics on our dms... i’m so glad that u rbed one of my tgg posts asking for the drama’s name because otherwise i wouldn’t have gotten to know someone as amazing as u 🥰 i hope 2021 is easier for u, sending u lots of love 💛

@vihokratanas​ mel!!! we haven’t spoken much but i’ve noticed that we share our love for a few dramas so i’d love to get to know u better this next year!!! u and violet’s almost daily spam on the bops channel is dearly missed but i know u guys are busy so hopefully this 2021 will be a bit more relaxed 🧡

@doctorbahnjit​ alexa my love!!!!! what can i even tell u.... you’ve been nothing but kind since day 1 that we started talking on the gc and to get to know u this 2020 was such a delight. thank u for being who u are and thank u for watching dramas with me on vc even if u can’t (or i can’t) hear shit, i appreciate it sososososo much and i just love spending hours upon hours (well, until ur grandma ass has to go to sleep) chatting and watching debatably good dramas with u and dawn <3 i hope 2021 treats u better and that u still stay being as awesome as u are 🥰💖

@pangwave​ dawnnie my baby!!!!! hi bb how’s everything going?? i hope u’re okay, i miss u a lot :-(( getting to know u this year has been one of the best things that have come out of this hellhole of a year. thank u for making most of my nights so entertaining with both ur thoughts and ur dumb fights with alexa, they’ve been the highlight of my days from these past 2 months :’) the endless vc calls with u and alexa (and ur shitty internet cutting every single one of ur sentences)  have made my year so much better and i can’t thank u enough for that. u and ur crabsticks and ur opinions and ur incredibly good gifsets are truly some of the best things that have come out of this year. thank u sosososo much for being how u are, i love u so much dawnnie 🥰💖

here’s some other people who have been on my dash for a while and that i appreciate their content as well: @scoupslipgloss (i mostly rb u with my sideblog but i love ur acc!!!) @vocalunits @chaoticbiwuxian @drwcn @bimingjue​ (i wouldn’t be a gifmaker if it wasn’t for u sending me the ps download link so i owe u my Life) @aanau (i rb a lot of what u post and i’m sorry if i have ever spammed u skjfhjsf i just love ur blog even if we don’t really share any fandoms aaaa) @emisfritish @leoyunxi @1akorn @gunsatthaphan @asianmelodrama @fushiguroo @khaotungthanawat @mymycorrhizae @jaehwany​ and @coldties amongst the many blogs that i’ve seen all year on my dash!!!! everyone’s content and posts have gotten me through 2020 so thank u all so much for staying on tumblr 💗

i feel like i’ve forgotten people but please know that if u are not in this but we’ve interacted in any way then you’ve most definitely made some kind of impact to me!! these are just the people i talk with the most 💖

thank u all for being soooo amazing and i hope 2021 is good to everyone here and to everyone who reads this. happy holidays and happy new year to everyone 🥰💖✨

[fromzerotoeuphoria]

Addressing Haru’s Emotions Towards Makoto vs Rin (Season 1, Ep 11 & 12)

(ft. my low quality first attempt at gifmaking) 

So I was innocently looking up Rin and Haru meta on Google (I’m addicted to RinHaru meta plz send help) when I came across this little thread that tried to discredit RinHaru by comparing Haru’s emotional confrontation with Rin in S01E12 vs Haru’s emotional “thank you” to Makoto in S1E11.

Oh give me a break.

{gif from google}

Disclaimer before we dive in:

Now, I know this was posted by antis back when the shipwars within the fandom were at their worst, but I still wanted to address this because I myself am new to Free! and the fandom (I discovered Free! a couple of months ago in mid-July), and being so new to the fandom, these kinds of comments hit like they’re fresh, ya know? I know for me, finding posts of people defending both Rin and RinHaru against the hate really brought me comfort as a baby in the fandom, and I know there are new people coming into the fandom who may feel the same way.

Also, although many of these tumblr posts were written years ago, I still see this kind of stuff active on the internet: on youtube, anime forums, and even kpop forums, believe it or not. So there are still people out there who think these kinds of ways and say these kinds of things, and hopefully addressing posts like these will help highlight the inaccuracies in this kind of thinking...while, again, bringing a sense of consolation to other RinHaru shippers out there.

Makoto is my lil-big squish and I appreciate the MakoHaru friendship, so in no way am I trying to undermine their relationship because it is important (and there’s no way you can deny that Haru does love Makoto at least platonically). So though I may come off strong towards these types of MH shippers, it doesn’t mean I’m talking about all MH shippers and it’s certainly not towards Makoto. I will, however, place things in a proper perspective because I see a lot of exaggerating and misrepresenting going on in order to undermine just how much Rin means to Haru (which is baffling to me because it’s so obvious and CANON just how strongly Haru cares about Rin and wants him in his life).

And YES, I’m a RinHaru shipper. There is a possibility of ship-bias, but I do my best to be fair. Plus, I love these boys.

Well, let’s get into it.

(tl;dr in bold & at end of post)

...but telling Makoto “thank you” and that he “appreciates him being here for him” is overwhelming to the point that he can’t even look at Makoto while talking and feels the need to run out of his room in the middle of the night, the night before their super important relay.

So the scene with Makoto being referenced by OP is the MakoHaru scene in S01E11 in which both Makoto and Haru are in their hotel room the night before the big tournament. They’re in their respective beds, and Haru opens up to Makoto and thanks him for always being there for him. Feeling embarrassed as well as being unable to sleep, Haru leaves and goes for a run.

Then of course, the climactic scene of the whole season: Rin and Haru’s final confrontation. No need for me to summarize it because we ALL know what goes down:

last gif brought to you straight out of a shoujo manga ;D

Comparing Haru's reactions between these two counters is erroneous because so much about them is different, and thus Haru is coming from totally different places emotionally. 

These are two different situations under completely different circumstances (with two different people who hold different places in Haru's heart. Again, different). With Makoto, you had a sweet, heartfelt moment in which Haru opens up his heart to his best friend and thanks Makoto deeply (in his Haru-like way) for always being there for him, for being someone he can always depend on and lean upon for all these years.  With Rin, you had a culmination of so much raw emotion and misunderstanding between two friends who cared about each other—but thought the other person didn’t reciprocate—finally coming to a head-on collision. This has Haru in a completely different mental and emotional state when he confronted Rin than when he was with Makoto in their hotel room. 

Haru went through a whole freakin' lot over the years, even just in Season 1 alone. He just experienced an "existential crisis" of sorts in eps 8 and 9 after Rin told him he was never going to swim with him again, and Makoto was a big part of why Haru was able to overcome that feeling of blackness and discover his enjoyment in swimming relay (Rei and Nagisa and their team-manship being the other part of the reason). Makoto has been THE constant support in Haru's life, always supporting him from the shadows and taking care of him without ever asking for anything in return. I believe that in the excitement, anticipation and emotions of the entire team's journey thus far that brought them to that hotel room for their big tournament, Haru began thinking about everything that led up to such a big moment in their lives. And he knew that the major support in his life right there in the hotel room with him, and in this poignant moment, Haru expresses his gratitude.

(Sidenote: a confession of gratitude =/= a love confession, folks. I've seen people hype up that Shimizaki called it a “confession” from Haru to Makoto, and that Utsumi agreed, and so they somehow equate it to a "confession of love" when…sorry luvs, but no. In the same statement Utsumi says, "…it is a confession to his best friend.[…] this is the first time he openly expresses his feelings of gratitude for that consistent support." It’s a confession of gratitude, not non-platonic “love.”) [x]

And Haru being Haru, he doesn’t often express himself emotionally. The hotel scene was one of the few times Haru ever verbally expressed to Makoto how deeply he appreciates him, and of course, as someone who doesn’t express their emotions or feelings on the regular, he was embarrassed. I agree that it’s totally sweet and makes you uwu because Haru expressing his emotions is uwu, and the fact that he did it to his best friend Makoto who's BEEN deserving it makes it even more UWU. I totally understand how this scene is precious to MakoHaru shippers, and it should be for it was a very sweet and heartwarming scene between the two best friends (and it was about time Haruka expressed his appreciation to Makoto).

That being said, trying to use an exaggeration of what actually happened in that scene as ammo against Haru’s feelings for Rin is just...not it. Haru didn’t leave the hotel room solely because he was embarrassed about thanking Makoto, and certainly not because:

...telling Makoto “thank you” and that he “appreciates him being here for him” is overwhelming to the point that he can’t even look at Makoto while talking and feels the need to run out of his room in the middle of the night, the night before their super important relay.

 ...as OP claims. There were other factors that played a much more significant part in Haru feeling “overwhelmed” and causing him to “feel the need to run out of his room in the middle of the night before their super important relay”—one of those factors being said super important relay.

We know Haru is nervous about the tournament and can’t sleep because of it—Makoto even calls him out on this. Then shortly after, when Haru runs into Nagisa out in the town, Nagisa and Haru go to a nearby playground and Nagisa also asks Haru if he’s can't sleep because he's nervous. Haru tries to dodge the question (he doesn’t want to admit it, very on brand for Haru), but when Nagisa admits that even he’s nervous—and has been so since they got onto the bus—Haru is shocked and asks, “You are??!” He’s surprised that he wasn’t the only one feeling nervous about the tournament, which confirms Makoto’s observation from earlier: that Haru is nervous about the tournament and can’t sleep because of it. This along with him being embarrassed are why he goes out for the run. (But honestly, it makes way more sense to the story that it was primarily because of his nervousness about the tournament that he left the hotel room, not because he was embarrassed thanking Makoto).

Also, just pointing out: Nagisa reveals one of the reasons why Haru is nervous about the tournament (and therefore one of the reasons he can’t sleep):

Nagisa: “We’ll be racing Rin-chan tomorrow. That’s probably why you’re nervous.”

I know that some shippers out there (*eyes OPs*) would love to tell themselves that it was all just Haru feeling so overwhelmed with emotion from merely telling Makoto that he appreciates him, and that Haru just couldn’t handle sharing these emotions with the one he luvvvs so he runs out into the middle of the night because it’s all just TOO OVERWHELMING...

...but, that’s just not how it actually was.

YES Haru was embarrassed from expressing his appreciation to Makoto, but he was also nervous and anxious about the tournament—and about racing against Rin. Remember, the last time he raced Rin in ep 7/8, Rin won and told Haru he’d never have to swim with him again. That left Haru in a black hole; yet on the flip side, when he had raced Rin in middle school and won, Rin said that he was quitting swimming and in turn, Haru also quit competitive swimming because he thought he hurt Rin. So in Haru's mind: "beating Rin = losing Rin, which means I get hurt BUT ALSO Rin winning = never swimming with him again/losing Rin, which still means I get hurt." So you can imagine the apprehension, anxiety and nervousness Haru is dealing with from all these different uncertainties. (@skania​ explains Haru’s internal dilemma regarding beating Rin very well in this post; seriously you guys her Free! Meta is everything I'm in love with her posts, please go check her stuff out.)

 Haru being embarrassed with Makoto does NOT mean that, as the mh shippers in the OP are insinuating, Haru doesn’t actually care about Rin because he wasn’t “overwhelmed” with emotion enough to run from the situation, but instead was “just fine” during his confrontation with Rin. 

i still can’t get over the fact that Haru gets through the entire end scene with Rin face-to-face just fine (where they’re yelling about feelings and Rin’s crying on him and everything’s so amped up between them)

Umm…did you guys just skip over this entire scene that was legitimately the most emotionally-charged scene in the entire season?

Haru literally has tears in his eyes as he finally [and “desperately”] reveals to Rin how he really feels [x]:

Did you not hear how just seconds earlier, Haru was literally shouting his feelings to Rin, and how before that he momentarily fell back into a black hole at the thought of never being able to swim with Rin again?

Did you totally miss how even Nagisa pointed out that Haru wasn’t in the condition to swim their relay at their "super important tournament" because he was so devastated about Rin? Did you not watch as Haru risked his relay race at said "super important tournament" to go look for Rin—”running with abandon”—and reconcile with him?

Did y’all not watch the same anime as the rest of us in which the whole resolution is Haru and the rest of the guys willingly getting disqualified at the super important tournament just so they could have a chance to swim relay with Rin again?

Are you guys so obsessed with your ship that you willingly blind yourselves to what’s actually going on in the anime outside of your otp?

 Like I said above, Haru was in different emotional states in these two scenes:

With Makoto, Haru is embarrassed from emotionally opening up and expressing his appreciation for Makoto—something he does not usually do—coupled with his anxiety and nervousness about the relay.

With Rin, Haru is in pure relief that after all of this time, after all of these years, Rin feels the same as him and that he’s finally able to reconcile with his friend. 

What did the OPs expect, for Haru to run away from Rin in that scene because he’s so overwhelmed with emotion? Haru ran after Rin—he was DONE running away from Rin, and with Rin running away from him. This entire episode was about their reconcilement, not them running away from each other yet again. Haru is finally free from the emotional weights of his unresolved conflict with Rin, and what OPs claim to be Haru being “just fine” is in actuality Haru being utterly relieved and happy. Throughout the season, Haru had been wanting to feel free, but it wasn't until he and Rin reconciled that he actually achieved that freedom.Can you really deny the emotion in Haru’s eyes and smile during this scene? I mean, just look at him:

Do you really think KyoAni is going to have Haru be “jUsT fInE” after he finally made things right with the friend who had been haunting him ever since elementary school?

BOTH scenes were emotional for Haru. BOTH scenes were important for Haru, and for his friends involved. BOTH interactions evoked strong emotions within Haru because he loves and cares about BOTH Makoto and Rin.

.

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Tl;dr: Haru was much more (expressively) emotional in the entirety of ep12—let alone in the confrontation scene with Rin—than he was in the hotel room with Makoto. No one can honestly deny that, it's all over the animation and soundtrack and directing of the entire episode. This isn't a knock to Makoto and doesn't mean Haru cares about him any less than he actually does. However, the entire season was about Haru and Rin reconciling + the power of friendship, so of course their reconcilement would be the climax of the show. In addition, throughout the whole season Haru had such powerful emotions when it came to Rin, so it makes sense that their reconcilement scene would be one of the most, dare I say the most emotional scene in the show. That's not bias, that's just merely how it is.

[raviposting]

I was looking through my blog and came across a follower celebration that I was supposed to do and definitely never did for some reason and uh. That’s definitely not happening now but I did want to just do something, so I thought - I follow a lot of great content creators, so why not highlight them?

A lot of people do multiple things even if I only put them in one category so check out their tags and their work. <3  

Glorious Gifmakers:

@olisgifs makes such fantastic gifs (and she did this lovely header)! Her gifs are so thoughtful of the characters and who they are as people, and you can tell that she really loves all the characters. || Favorite set || Favorite series ||

@anya-chalotra has some of the most amazing gifs I’ve seen on this site. She experiments with such a cool style and every gifset I’ve seen of hers has absolutely taken my breath away, they’re amazing! || Favorite set ||

@tuafives honestly the fact that she believes in Hufflepuff Five already makes them a fantastic blog, but her gifs in general are just fantastic! The coloring is always so pretty and I’m obsessed with them. || Favorite set ||

@charmingqueenie I’m always hit with a blast from the past from her gifs in the best possible way. Some of the best Charmed gifs I’ve seen honestly, and her LNC series has my whole ass heart. || Favorite set || Favorite series ||

@inappropriateexplosions Experiments with such different styles and I love it! [meme voice] She has the range, dahling! I love seeing what different style she’s going to do next and it’s always absolutely lovely. || Favorite series ||

@challengerblue Her gifsets need more love and it is a crime, because LOOK at her edit tag!!! These are all such beautiful gifsets and I am obsessed with each and every one! The coloring! The scenes chosen! The talent! || Favorite set ||

@captain-flint Every time I see one of their sets: “Oh the talent jumped out huh?” Has so many lovely Buddie sets and Eddie sets in general and I love them all!!! || Favorite set || Another Favorite ||

@joel-miller honestly I’m getting repetitive here but I can’t help that every single gif-maker is just so so talented. Has fantastic sets and probably my only mutual who also gifs TLOU which??? I love!!! || Favorite set ||

@chloedoeslucifer has such lovely sets!! I’m a particular fan of her parallel sets because she picks up on SO many parallels that I didn’t even notice and it’s amazing. || Favorite set ||

@i-am-irondad Libby’s sets make me so emotional??? Such great Iron Dad/Iron Fam content in particular and it feeds my soul, I just love these sets and the found families that she gifs. <3 || Favorite series || Favorite set ||

@stevenrogered I think the one good thing about the “since you’ve been gone”/”in your orbit” feature is that I got to see their awesome gifs for SO many fandoms that I’m in (and also made me think I was following them for a very long time and I was so sad when I realized I wasn’t lmao). Just fantastic gifs all around! || Favorite set || 

@diegohargreves I love love love the coloring used in these gifsets! The yellow in particular is always fantastic and I rarely see it used in gifsets, so I appreciate seeing it - they’re always so vibrant and lovely sets! || Favorite set ||

@felicityollies has gifsets that I admire from afar now that I don’t watch Arrow anymore lmaooo but there’s always going to be a part of me that still ships Olicity and that part of me dies with how good her gifs are! Genuinely just *chef’s kiss* || Favorite set ||

@vaughnsgreenwood I also look at Dannii’s sets from afar because we don’t share many fandoms but her skills are just FANTASTIC. Also, even though I’m not going to watch the new Charmed her gifsets make me ship Harry and Macy so thanks for that lol. || Favorite set || 

@marcomardon graciously lets me call her Canada since I had very little reading comprehension when I read her blog, and also makes great sets! I love her stuff, especially when it comes to the rogues!! || Favorite set || 

Amazing Artists(/Graphic Makers):

@undead--hotmess has such lovely art! I’m so in awe of the talent, their paintings I’ve seen I’d say would look like real photographs like...it’s amazing || Favorite piece ||

@superbandnerd99 Okay real talk idk if she has more works on tumblr but I just need to share this one because it’s beautiful and everyone should see it and I’m 1000% updating it when she has the final piece out!!

@the-maidofmischief like some of THE best icons I’ve seen??? I love them all so much??? They’re so vibrant and colorful and absolutely beautiful and I’ve made it a mission to have basically all of her icons on my different social media accounts lmao || Favorite piece ||

@fengshuismirke her art is just. SO good. I was so blown away by a Martin piece that I’m tagging in here but I’m just in awe of her work!!! Check out her “my stuff” tag because she also writes! || Favorite piece || 

Wonderful Writers:

@ginnxtonic Ho boy. Ginny’s fics.....her writing is so good that I am now invested in the lives of AU children of Theon/Sansa in Game of Thrones. That’s how invested her fics will get you. They’re so wonderfully in character and she puts real heart and work into her fics and it shows. || Favorite work || Favorite series ||

@aprilthegayqueen has such wonderful fics! The ones I’ve read have been slice-of-life and character studies and I absolutely love them. They’re also in fandoms I haven’t been in for a while and they make me want to immediately rewatch. :’) || Favorite work ||

@zaritomaz hnnnng Mina has written some of my FAVORITE works of all time. She has such a talent for writing and it’s always just so beautiful, poetic, and lovely. || Favorite work ||

@nightskywriter has such lovely fics!! I personally have read through all her TUA fics and they’re *chef’s kiss* fantastic. She has a very fun style of writing and it really shines through! || Favorite work ||

@incendiaglacies Has such a long and varied history of writing and it’s awesome! I sadly don’t share many fandoms with her anymore but I’ve seen her Dream Movie challenge and I’m reading through her book and she’s just such a talented author with such cool ideas! || Favorite work || Check this out! ||

@hedgiwithapen the ANGST hedgi writes oh my goodness. I’m pretty sure a common tag on multiple people’s blogs for Hedgi’s fics is “dammit hedgi” lmao! Amazing stuff (even if they fill me with pain). || Favorite work ||

@deadtedkord Meg’s writing....it is just......so so good. They’re pieces upon pieces of just fantastic writing and literally any compliment I give here would not measure up to how awesome her fics are. || Favorite work ||

I’m sorry if I missed anyone, know that even if you’re not on here it’s bc I have no brain cells and that your work is awesome (and please send me your stuff, I love to see it)! Be sure to give these folks some love, tags, and comments. Thanks to all the content creators out there, you guys are awesome. <3