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notebooks-and-laptops · 3 years ago

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Dragon Age Inquisition Mod Recs

And finally we reach inquisition. I have...so many mods for this game. As before, all are from Nexus Mods and currently I’m only using DAI mods (though if I ever branch out to frosty I will do a separate rec list for those). I’ve marked the ones I deem ‘essential’ as **.

Character creation Mods

**Enhanced Character Creator - THE dragon age inquisition mod for character creation. It completely revamps the character creator; adding blood swipes, hair colours, letting you edit how ‘shiny’ your skin/hair is, all sorts. It also re-organises the character creator so that things are grouped together a little bit more sensibly. The only issue I’ve ever found with it is that it crashes with Qunari inquisitors.

Hair

**Modded Hair in DLC - make sure you have this installed if you want your modded hair and hair colour to show up in the DLC’s, otherwise you run the risk of crashing the game

**SK Hair retexture - retextures the hair for your inquisitor so it’s less clumpy (particularly modded hair), there are a few options to chose from that give the hair different looks

SK Hair Pack - a great range of hairstyles for every kind of inquisitor, this is where I got DeLila’s hair from as well as a few others

SK Mini Qunari Hair Pack - be warned, some of these clip (the long ones) but they’re really lovely. This is where I got Aban’s hair from if anyone remembers my pics of him.

Qunari Ponytail - what it says on the tin; a ponytail for FQ (this was Taash’s hair if any of you remember my pics of her)

Qunari Ponytail Long - what it says on the tin; for FQ

Qunari Female High Bun - What it says on the tin; for FQ

Tweaked Bun - for HF, DF, EF

Crown Braid Hairstyle - HF, EF, I have an inquisitor planned for this hairstyle who I am very excited about

Bob with Bangs - EF, DF, HF, a really lovely replacement to the normal bob with bangs in the base game

Gameplay Mods

**Party At the Winter Palace - This mod is one of my most essential mods, it lets you bring everyone to the winter palace. You’ll still sneak around with whatever team you pick, but the others will be present for you to talk to and ask their opinions on things. Which just makes sense considering the fact that they all imply they were there in dialogue post-quest. It also means you’ll always get Sera’s Red Jenny quest.

**More Banter - exactly what it says on the tin. Inquisition has shitty banter times. This helps improve that.

**More Inquisition Levels - I like to do everything in my DAI playthroughs and I like to buy the manuscripts that increase your inquisition levels to get the perks quicker. This unfortunately means I often max out early. This lets you continue to collect the inquisition levels/perks post level 20.

**Immersive Starting Armours - just makes the role playing aspect of the game better in the beginning, with plenty of options to chose from.

Schematics Spree - allows you to get the schematics for all the main weapons etc. in the game early in the shops around Val Royuex. Great for if you’re playing an elf and want the dalish armour early.

World Tweaks

templar banner banned - is your inquisitor anti-templar? Does that templar flag on the stairs to your quarters piss you off? This mod removes it

Improved Mabari Textures and Recolours - anyone else think Cullen’s dog looks a bit...off in Trespasser? This mod fixes the appearance and allows you to pick a preferred coat colour

Stephy’s Odds and Ends: Two Moons - In here you’ll find the files to add the canonical 2 moons Thedas has back into the game in the Hissing Wastes. Again, another small thing but it makes my brain happy

Dress Up/Dress down - a complete revamp of Orlesian NPC’s outfits throughout the game. It’s absolutely stunning as far as designs go. Personally I use ‘Dress Up’.

Band of Misfits Portrait Replacers - This replaces the character portraits you see at the left hand side of your screen. A nice thing to change up the feel of your game every now and then

Inquisitor Armor Leather Shoulder and Thigh Pads - I get...irrationally angry at the stupid leather bits on the warrior armour that never seem a good colour to suit my inquisitor. This is a quick fix for that and just edits their colours slightly.

PJ replacers

Vashoth Maiden - For FQ, I really like this one for my more feminine Qunari women

Scion of Glory - for MQ, FQ, pretty looks for your inkies who like to show some skin

Jammies of the Kadan - All races/genders, I love these, they all incorporate the Dragons Tooth somehow. I’m using the elf one for my current inky Merripen and it really suits him

Casual Jammies retexture Elf Female - for EF, really beautiful and fancy casual outfit for your inquisitor

Eles female elf Jammies rexture - I love these! They’re the first PJ replacer I used back when I was playing Gwyneth.

The Carta Cut - the best dwarf PJ retextures out there, particularly the Gambeson which I used with DeLila

LL Inquisitor Uniform - EF only, a more understated change to the inquisitors PJ’s

Nimue: Ra'lah PJ Edit - EF only, but stunningly beautiful

Skyhold Outfit Mesh Edit - HF only, this also works with Frosty - very pretty knitted jumper style I can’t wait to try

Companion Appearance/Outfit Mods

Warden of the North: Blackwall Remade - I just use this for the man bun but I LOVE the manbun on Blackwall.

Cole: Angel and Demon - a retexture for Cole that makes him ever so slightly creepier

Silver Knight: the Celtic Commander - Beautiful Outfit Mod for Cullen

The Golden Lion - another outfit Mod for Cullen

Nasty Girl Sera - a patchwork outfit for Sera which really fits the vibes of her character. I’m honestly completely in love with this mod and use it always.

**NPC Subtle Tweaks - get’s rid of the shinny/oily skin affect on the NPC’s. I don’t use the Cullen/Cas/Leliana face edits, just the no-more-shiny ones.

Dear Lady Montilyet - pretty outfit retextures for Josie

Josephine Hair and Face - Again, I just use the hair in this one, but there’s a file that let’s you just use that (same as with the Blackwall one)

Winter Palace Outfits

**Exquisition - the BEST Winter Palace outfits imo. They’re all stunningly beautiful

Exquisition Remix - a remix of the above mod

Inquisition Branded Finery - has the inquisition logo on the back of the formal wear + various colours

Inquisitoral Fashion - there’s only a few DAImods (rather than frosty) in here, but again, they’re all stunning. They’re very shiny though if you’re not into that

Winter Palce Outfit retexture - I don’t like this one as much as the others, but it has a more dalish feel for your elf inkies

Champagne and Truffles - Again, not one of my favs, but a silky retexture of winter palace outfits

Sumptuous Silk Finery - More silky retextures of the outfits based on Champagne and Truffles

#dai #dai mods #dragon age mods #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #sera #blackwall #winter palace #winter palace outfits #formal wear #cullen #cole #josephine

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the-iceni-bitch · 4 years ago

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PLEASEEE write more for august walker! i'm in love with the banter in "welcome home, walker" and how he's grumpy but has a soft spot for the reader. LOVE UR OTHER WORKS TOO <33

Aww, I love Auggie! And it has been a bit since I wrote for him. Soooooo...

PDA

Pairing: August Walker x fem!Reader

Words: 2145

Summary: You and Auggie go out with the graduating cadets to celebrate your new assignment.

Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual content (innuendo, teasing, sex in a public place, fingering, unprotected vaginal sex), violence (fistfight, implication of gore and death), betrayal, protective!Auggie, TW- implication of impending date rape/mentions of drugs, SMUT, 18+ ONLY!!!!

A/N: This got away from me a bit if I’m being honest. I was just gonna do the teasing in the gym but I couldn’t stop myself, so please enjoy this little impromptu fic! And please feel free to send me an ask if there’s a character or kink or anything you’d like to see more of!

Check out my masterlist and join my taglist here if you want!

You didn’t know how he got you in this position. You could practically feel him beaming over you as you struggled to get out of the hold he had you in.

“You keep moving like that, you’re gonna make me hard, sweetheart. You want me to fuck you right here on the mat?”

August ground his crotch against your ass to illustrate his point and you let out a moan. Your arms were bent back at your shoulders unnaturally as you scrabbled for some purchase to get out of his grip.

“Fuck off, Auggie. You know the only reason you’re on top right now is because I didn’t get any sleep.” Maybe if you arched your back a little...

August groaned in your ear as your ass rubbed against his growing erection.

“Shit, Y/N. The director is right there.”

You turned your head as much as you could to see Sloane standing at the gym entrance, surveying the cadets as they practiced their sparring. You wiggled your ass again, making Auggie growl at you.

“You’re not giving me a lot of options, baby. You know my brain doesn’t work when I’m sleep deprived.”

He grumbled and you felt him start to loosen the hold he had on your arms. You grinned to yourself as you wrapped one arm behind his neck, gripping the hair at the base of his scalp and rolling forward. You heard him give a small sound of surprise as you flipped him over, knocking all the air out of his lungs when you slammed him into the mat and wrapping your body around his shoulders, stretching him to the point of pain.

“Damn it, I thought we were done.”

“I don’t remember tapping out, sweetie.” You gripped his wrist and stretched his arm even further as you squeezed your thighs around his neck.

He wheezed for a second before a wicked grin spread over his face. “Y’know, when you get me in these holds, I can smell you, and it drives me fucking crazy.”

You almost loosened your hold at his admission but caught yourself at the last second. “August...” you growled in warning.

“I know you’re soaked under these sweats, sweetheart.” He turned his head as much as your hold would allow, running his nose along the inseam of your sweats until you released him with a hiss.

“Fine, it’s a draw.” You mumbled, drawing yourself to your feet as he chuckled darkly. “Equipment room in 5?”

“Walker, Y/L/N, with me.” Sloane gave a beckoning motion and the two of you moved to follow, sighing with frustration.

You moved with the director as she marched back towards her office, shooting each other apprehensive looks as you considered what she may want to talk to you about.

“Good news you two.” Sloane announced as she closed the door to her office behind you. “We finally managed to get the heat off you from Interpol, and you’re set for a new assignment in Brazil.” She handed you your files detailing the op. “Looks like there’s a Syndicate group operating there, moving weapons through the black market there. You ship out in two days. Please do your best to remember, Syndicate members are assets, not targets.”

“Right, boss.” You murmured, flipping through your ID docs. August just grunted beside you.

“Alright, I heard the two of you are going out with the graduating cadets and trainers tonight to celebrate the end of the course. Don’t overdo it.” She gave you a knowing wink before you turned to leave the office.

“I think she knows about us.” August whispered as the two of you headed to your lockers.

You just laughed at him. “Auggie, honey, we’re the worst kept secret at Langley.”

“Y/N, Walker, I hear congrats are in order! We’re gonna miss the two of you in training!” Melissa managed to find out everything as soon as it happened, you didn’t know how she got stuck in training instead of the field. “I’ll make sure everyone buys you a round at the club tonight.”

You groaned at that, those goddamn trainers would have you passed out if they got their way. You slammed your locker closed and turned back to August.

“Meet you at the club, baby. Make sure to do your reading first!” You called over your shoulder as you headed out.

You arrived at the club 4 hours later to see August looking incredibly uncomfortable in the middle of a group of rowdy cadets. You tutted to yourself as you approached him, he always had a stick up his ass.

He saw you then, and his face relaxed as he walked to meet you.

“You’re late.” He grumbled as the two of you headed to the bar. “You know how much I hate talking to these kids.”

“Relax, grandpa.” You smiled before turning to order yourself a gin and tonic. “You gonna dance at all tonight, or just stand there glowering?”

He scoffed into his scotch as you grinned at him, moving closer and rubbing your foot over his calf suggestively.

“Don’t you start something you’re not prepared to finish, beautiful.”

Just then, Melissa arrived with a tray full of tequila shots, and you let out a groan. This was the second time you got cock blocked today, and you were starting to get frustrated.

“Look what I’ve got for you!” she said gleefully as the two of you winced at her.

“Melissa, I’ve told you a million times, I don’t do tequila.”

“C’mon, it’s your last night with us, just a couple.”

You took a deep breath and grabbed a shot for yourself, giving August a shrug before tossing it back. He hissed between his teeth as he downed his own.

“Fuck me, you sure this isn’t rubbing alcohol? Jesus, Melissa!”

She just handed the two of you two more with a giggle, and clapped her hands when you swallowed them. Before you knew it she was dragging you towards the dance floor, your head fuzzy from the tequila as you instructed August to watch your cocktail. He gave you a grin before turning back to the bar, but that quickly changed once he noticed movement in your glass.

August clenched his jaw as his arm shot out to grab the cadet that was wandering away from the bar, wrapping his fist around his upper arm with a vise-like grip.

“The fuck you think you’re doing?” He growled, a menacing glare taking over his face.

“Get your hand off me, man.” The frat boy idiot actually looked offended as he glanced down at August’s hand.

Walker just tightened his grip as he patted the asshole down, cocking an eyebrow as he pulled a tiny baggie of tablets out of his breast pocket.

“Graham, right? What’s a senator’s nephew doing with… what is this? GHB? Molly?”

“Look, buddy.” The moron gave him a grin like he was his friend as August stared him down. “That piece of ass needs some loosening up. I bet she’s a tiger in the sack.”

August threw your drink in his face before hauling him outside. He considered letting you handle it yourself, but he wanted to let off some steam.

He didn’t say anything, just punched the smarmy bastard in the face. The idiot didn’t even try to defend himself, pathetic.

“What the fuck?! You broke my nose!” Graham held a hand to his face as he stared at Walker in disbelief.

“Yeah, that’s not all I’m gonna do to you.” He growled as he set to work.

Five minutes later he stood over his handiwork, wiping the blood off his knuckles as he let out a sigh. That had gotten a little out of hand.

“Fuck.” He muttered, pulling his burner out of his suit pocket and dialing. “Yeah, this is Lark. Send a cleanup crew to the alley outside Sketch. Yeah, some senator’s nephew.” He frowned over the phone. “Because it’s a fucking order.” He hung up, not bothering to wait for the Syndicate’s sanitation team before heading back into the club to find you.

He found you on the dance floor and a hungry sneer came over his face. He strode toward you and wrapped a possessive hand around your throat from behind, drawing you fast against his chest and growling into your ear. You whined as he pulled you away from the group, Melissa beaming at the two of you like an idiot.

“Have fun you two!” She called as August steered you around a corner.

He pressed you into the wall behind a column, his mouth devouring yours as he slotted his knee between your legs. You whimpered as he shoved a hand in the front of your blouse, squeezing your breast viciously before tweaking your nipple to the point of your pain as you arched into his hand.

“Fuck, Auggie. What happened?” You were panting with need as he moved his face down to bury in your neck, his teeth scraping over your throat.

“I’ll tell you later. Are you still drunk?” He moved his other hand to the apex of your thighs and groaned against your chest when he felt your slick coated folds. You weren’t wearing any panties.

“No, the dancing burned most of it off. Shit.” You hissed as he inserted two fingers inside you, stretching you open as he fumbled with his zipper. “Can’t even make it to the bathroom, huh?”

“Sorry sweetheart.” He mumbled as he freed his dick from his slacks. “Sure seems like you were expecting this, though.”

He moved his lips to yours and swallowed your cry as he dipped his hips and plunged into you. His hands wrapped around your thighs and lifted them to wrap around him as he started to move his hips. He tried to move slow so it wasn’t obvious what the two of you were doing, but those goddamn tiny whimpers you were making into his mouth were making it hard for him to control himself.

“God, this cunt feels better every time I’m in it. Fuck.” You were clenching around him with each thrust and your breath was coming in ragged gasps, letting him know you were close. “Jesus Christ, it’s barely been a minute. You’re so fucking sensitive.” He nipped at your bottom lip and stilled his hips for a beat as he teased you.

You slapped his bicep playfully and whined. “Shut the fuck up and move, asshole.”

He braced one hand on the wall and drew his hips back slowly before slamming into you. You buried your face in his neck to muffle your scream as you came apart. Your pussy fluttered around him as every muscle went rigid. He felt you sobbing against him as your muscles quivered in your release, his hips still setting a punishing pace as he fucked you through it.

“Shit, honey.” He murmured against your cheek as you came down. “You make it so easy.”

Your snort turned into a whimper as a particularly deep thrust had him kissing your cervix. “Fuck, Auggie.”

“Yeah, right there?”

You nodded vigorously as your face screwed up in bliss, leaning it back against the wall as he picked up the pace.

His cock was dragging against that sweet spot inside you with each thrust and it was all you could focus on. Your thighs squeezed around him as he brought you closer and closer to another orgasm. He loved watching you take it, getting completely lost in your pleasure. And knowing he was the one doing this to you was just icing on the cake.

“You close, gorgeous?” He asked, feeling his own imminent release looming.

“Shit, shit!”

He was extremely grateful for the loud music as you screamed in your release. He swallowed a shout of his own as his cock twitched and his cum spurted into you, painting your insides as his hips faltered and he collapsed against you.

“Jesus.” You whispered as you set your feet on the floor, August still sheathed in you as he softened. “Public sex, who knew?”

You felt his chest rumble against you as he gave a low chuckle, sliding out of you gently before he tucked himself back into his slacks. He ducked his head to give you a tender kiss as he drew down the hem of your skirt over your thighs.

“We should go back to your place.” He whispered after he released you, leaving you breathless.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you tonight, but I’m totally fine with it. Lemme just say goodbye to Melissa.”

He grinned as he watched you saunter away, your gait a little wobbly as you tried to keep his cum from leaking out of you. He was really looking forward to your new assignment. The thought of being cooped up with you for several months was making him hard already.

Tags:

@slothspaghettiwrites @stargazingfangirl18 @starlightcrystalline @jack-skellingtons-stuff @drabblewithfrannybarnes @captain-asguard @harrysthiccthighss @bonkywobble @dslap65 @stanallstarks @macgruberrr @blackestpinkworld @wanderinglunarnights @sebslut @allinhishands

#natalie answers #natalie writes #request granted #request #send me asks #august walker #august walker fandom #august walker x reader #august walker x you #august walker x y/n #august walker smut #august walker fanfiction #henry cavill #henry cavill fandom #henry cavill smut #smut #eighteen plus #mission impossible fallout

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coldasyou · 5 years ago

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How to gif without photoshop

Hello! By popular demand (of like 4 people) I am going to write out a tutorial of how I make gifs when I’m on my personal laptop and don’t have access to photoshop. There is another method I use with a different software that is a bit more complicated and if people are interested, I will make a tutorial of that method as well. I’ll do my best to keep this concise, so let’s get started.

Warning that this is VERY text and image heavy because I know how frustrating it can be when a tutorial feels like it’s skipping steps and I want this to be as clear as possible. Also please read this on desktop, tumblr mobile kills the quality of gifs inside text posts.

This is the video I will be giffing and here is the gif I will be making!

What you need:

A video to gif

For the best results, I recommend a video that is either 720p or 1080p (basically the higher the quality, the better). Videos with good lighting and bright colors also turn out the best. Unfortunately for me, I gif the TV show Prodigal Son a lot and that show has neither of those things, which is why my gif example is from that show; if you can make a scene with zero lighting or vibrancy look even somewhat decent, you can make anything else look good.

A video downloader or screen recorder

This is the video downloader I use and this is the screen recorder but basically any youtube video download website or screen recorder program works. Keep in mind that ezgif has a pretty low upload limit for videos, so if you want to gif something longer than like ~4 minutes, cut the video down to the specific parts you want first on a website like this one.

ezgif

A very straight forward website that anyone can access. You don’t need to download anything, it’s all online.

Bonus: Online Image Editor (not required, but I use this website to add text to gifs)

1. Making the gif:

Once you have a video downloaded, you go to ezgif.com and go to the section video to gif. Click choose a file, scroll to your downloaded video, and hit upload video. Your screen should look like this now.

There are two ways to pull out the sections of the video you want to gif. You can either write in the start and end time in the little sections (you have to convert them to seconds: for example, if my gif started at 1:16 and ended at 1:20, it would be 76 seconds and 80 seconds respectively). Or you can do the method that I feel is easier, where you go to the section you want it to start on, hit pause, and hit the blue button that says “use current position” then let the video play until it hits your stopping point, hit pause again, and click on the second “use current position” button.

Once you have the start and end time recorded, scroll down to the next part of the screen with the size options. For size, select “540xAUTO (for Tumblr)” since tumblr gif sizes start at 540p and go down the more gifs are in a row. For frame rate, try to do either 20 or 25; the higher the frame rate, the smoother the gif will look. If you are trying to gif something in 540p that is longer, you might need to chose 10 to keep it under 5mb, which is the tumblr gif size limit. For method, leave it on FFMPEG. Then hit, convert to gif.

your gif will now look something like this!

Now, this gif is currently 5.7mb, which is above the size limit for tumblr (5mb or above gifs will still play if I recall, but the quality will be really bad when you post them). If I was planning on keeping the gif this size, I would go back and change the frame rate to either 20 or 10 to get the size down. However, I am going to resize the gif to 268p, so I don’t need to worry about it being to big.

Using the correct gif size for tumblr is one of the easiest ways to make sure the gif looks good! For gifs that take up a whole row, the size should be 540p wide. For two gifs in one row, the size is 268p each. For three gifs in one row, the sizes are 177p, 178p, and 177p in that order. Here is a visual of it.

The next step would normally be resizing the gif, but Prodigal Son youtube videos come with a black banner on the top and bottom that I need to crop out. You will see a menu full of options under your gif, and you want to click on “crop.”

Cropping is pretty straight forward; you just move the little box over the part you want cropped, then hit the “crop image” button. Make sure width stays 540p!

Your gif now looks like this

Next, you look at the options under your gif again, and go to “resize.”

Again, resizing is pretty straight forward. I just put in 268 into the “width” section and leave the “height” section blank since the site will automatically resize the height. You can ignore the other menu options.

Your gif now looks like this

Next step is optional, but I usually do it. Once again, you go to the menu of options under your gif and select “speed.”

Speed is also super straight forward. I almost always reduce the speed of my gifs somewhere from 90% to 80% no matter what, just because I think it makes it look smoother. For gifs that are of short scenes that go really fast, I will reduce it to anywhere from 70% to 50%. You can try different speeds to test out what you think looks best. For this gif, I’m going to put it at 80%.

Here’s what we have so far. Congrats, you have made a gif!

Now for the fun part!

2. Coloring the gif

Go to the “effects” option, in the menu under your gif. You will see a LOT of options, but the panels I’m going to focus on are “colorize”, “brightness and contrast” and “color presets”. This section is going to vary a lot depending on what specific video you are giffing so remember to be flexible and try lots of different options out! It took me a while to get to a place where I can just eye a scene and know what settings to use. It’s super easy to go back and tweak a setting if the gif doesn’t look like how you want it the first time, but it’s a lot of trial and error.

The main option I focus on in the “colorize” section, is “saturation.” This is what will make all the color in your gif pop out. The saturation I use varies a ton; for scenes that already are colorful/bright, I usually keep it around 120 to 150, since you don’t want it to be over saturated. If I’m making an edit that is supposed to look toned down or more grey/neutral tones, I’ll decreases the saturation in the range of like 90-40. For a show like Prodigal Son, where there is basically zero color vibrancy, I tend to go full out with saturation, usually in the 150-200 range. For this gif, I have it all the way up to 200.

Next is brightness and contrast. This also varies wildly, but a good rule of thumb is I always try to keep my contrast at least 5 points higher than whatever my brightness is, it just makes the lighting more even. You need to find a good balance; obviously, the darker the scene, the higher you want the brightness and contrast, but if you go too high, the gif with be staticy/grainy. For Prodigal Son, which has horrible lighting, my brightness is anywhere from 10-30 and my contrast is anywhere from 15-35. For this gif, my brightness is on the lower side since the scene is outside in natural light; brightness is 16, contrast is 26.

After you get those settings, I go over to “color presets” section and click on the “tint” option. It will pull up a color chart that looks like this

You ALWAYS want the intensity up to 100. This part is where the most trial and error occurs; there isn’t any one color option that works for every gif. The shade I use most often is light red/pink or light blue/light purple. For scenes that are lacking warm tones (which is almost all of Prodigal Son) I tend to go to the light reds, and for scenes that are lacking cool tones, I go to the light blues. The light reds are best for making characters skin tones look more...like actual skin tones and not totally washed out. To select a color, you just move your mouse around the chart. This is the range of color codes I tend to use.

Again, intensity should be up to 100 (it automatically starts at 50 and I was too lazy to move it while getting screen shots :P).

For this gif, I actually used a new technique I’ve been trying out where I start with a light blue tint to even out the color tones, then once that gif is done, I go back to effects and add a layer of pink to make the colors brighter. Usually, one color works fine, but sometimes it’s hard to find a good balance (the red colors can get too red and the blue sometimes brings out too much of a yellow shade). For now, I have my color tint set at #eeebff.

Ultimately, this is what my effect settings look like and this is what the gif looks like now.

Now, like I said before, I added another layer of tint to this gif. All you have to do is go to the menu under your gif, and click on effects again.

It will take you back to the panel you were just on, expect now your colored gif is on the top and all the settings are blank again. The only setting you need to use now is the tint option; go there, and select a light red shade. I used #fff0f0.

And here is the final gif! To save it, just right click and hit “save image as.”

I know it seems like a long process, but once you get a hang of it, it goes by super fast, especially if all your gifs are coming from the same video.

BONUS: Adding text

If you are trying to gif something with dialogue or you want a quote to put over your gif, you will want to put text over it. ezgif has a “text” option that you can use if you want, but I personally don’t really like their font options, so I use the website Online Image Editor.

This is what it looks like. You can either hit “upload an image” and upload your saved gif, or you can go back to ezgif, right click the gif, hit “copy image url” and paste that url into the “upload from url” option. The web page should now look like this.

It’s pretty straight forward from here; click on the “add text” button and a menu will appear on the left hand with options for the text.

Type whatever you want the caption to be in the “type text here” box. This website has a ton of font options you can play around with, but when I just want to caption a gif, I stick with “Arial Bold Italic.” For a 268p gif, the font size should be 10-12, depending on how much writing you plan to put on each gif (if some gifs are going to have more writing than others, pick a smaller font size so it stays consistent!) When I make a 540p, the font goes up to 14-16. I use white for the color and black for the stroke. I make the strokewith 3 because it makes the caption stand out more. Once all these settings are selected, hit the “preview” button under the text box.

You can now drag your text anywhere you want on the image! The only bad thing about this website is that it doesn’t automatically center text, so you either have to eyeball it, or if you’re picky, like me, open up one of those online ruler applications and use it to measure out the center. For captions, I move the text just slightly above the bottom of the gif.

Finally, you hit apply. Once your gif has the text on it, all you have to do to save it is right click it and hit “save image as.” And here is the finished project!

That got a lot longer than I thought it would, but I hope it was informative! If anything was unclear or if you have further questions, feel free to send me an ask. Thank you for reading.

#gif tutorial #giffing tutorial #giffing #gifmaking #mine #my gifs #long post #I hope this makes sense lol #pls rb if it helped!!!#also if mobile doesn't keep the read more...idek

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maximumsnow · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: A Hat in Time (Video Game) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: The Conductor (A Hat in Time), The Conductor's Grandchildren, Hat Kid (A Hat In Time) Additional Tags: The grandchildren have names because I could not find a way around it that would be believable, Don't think too hard on them, This was mostly canon compliant until I decided to be self indulgent at the end whoops, Parental Conductor, THIS IS VERY MUCH A FIC I HAD WANTED TO READ BUT HAD TO WRITE Summary: Of all the things that could have happened on the cruise, The Conductor definitely hadn't bet on the ship sinking. He has to find his grandchildren before the worst can happen.

Aka, It kills me that you find The Conductor in an empty playroom in Rock the Boat. There's no way he could have known the babies were safe while he was stuck there, and if he even remotely cared about them, I wouldn't imagine him taking it well.

The Conductor hadn’t even spent a full day on the ship, and when he was back on dry land, he was going to file a complaint. He’d been searching for a bathroom for the better part of an hour, and he was extremely lucky he literally stumbled upon a seal who knew where it was.

Said seal was trying to clean a giant mess in front of the only door to said bathroom.

“WHY IS THERE ONLY ONE BATHROOM ON THIS PECKING SHIP?!” He was practically jumping with anger as he yelled. The pleasant buzz from the alcohol had long since worn off, and his irritation about the situation was only building to a proper explosion.

“I’m vewy sowwy, but we’we wowking on it.” The seal seemed appropriately apologetic, but was otherwise unfazed by Conductor’s loud anger.

The moon penguin in front of him snapped literally and figuratively, "Stop bothering them! I can't hold on for much longer, and if you-"

He checked out of the tirade the penguin clearly needed to direct at someone. Even though the penguins had a strong loyalty to that peck neck Grooves, he really didn't have the energy to fight them with the same fervor. They weren't the one constantly driving him up the wall, and he had other things to focus on.

Such as getting through that door.

Somewhere between getting called "a has-been director" and "the worst thing to happen to bird cinema since The Birds," the Conductor realized that the seal had made absolutely no progress on cleaning the mess. Every spill that was sopped up with the mop was replaced by a new glass falling out of the cart.

It was like watching the new tech owl trying to wrangle the lights.

Making an executive decision, he decided he would take matters into his own hands and jumped ahead of the still ranting penguin. He heard them squawk indignantly, but he was already bolting towards the wall by the blocked off door.

He used his momentum to climb up the wall and hopped onto the walkway that apparently served as a roof for the bathroom. The seal had ignored him as they continued their neverending task, but the moon penguin’s dropped jaw was hilarious. Apparently they forgot that he still did his own stunts.

Cackling, he turned away and dropped down the other side. There was a tool cabinet flush against the wall, and at the top, he saw what he was hoping for. The opening didn’t even have a vent cover, which made things even easier. Clambering up the drawers as if they were stairs, he was FINALLY inside.

Along with another seal with a dining cart.

He had more urgent matters to take care of though, so he brushed away the question of, “How the peck?!” For later.

He had to pass by the seal again as he washed his hands, so he asked, “Ah, need some help?”

“No thank woo. My fweind will let me out once they’we done.”

He still had a drink with his name on it and, and was not about wast time arguing. “If ye insist,” he casually said before jumping for the vent opening and climbing out. Once he was on the tool cabinet again, he paused as he tried to figure out the quickest way to the bar.

This ship was convoluted, not like his train, which was mostly a straight line. Sure it would get tweaked for certain movies, but for a train to actually go, you couldn’t deviate from the norm. But this thing didn’t have stairs where they should, and in order to get anywhere, he had had to jump and climb.

That was not an easy task while toting around five rowdy little ones.

He hopped onto the balcony so he could get a better look at where the next jump was when the entire ship violently tipped to the side. The Conductor gripped the railing to keep him self grounded, but he nearly lost his grip when the ship tipped the other way.

“WHAT THE PECK IS GOING ON?!” He screeched at a seal that flew by. Whatever was said was lost in the ruckus of the ship tipping once again, and he caught them with one hand as they were flung back in his direction.

One of the bulky Mafia humans on a balcony across from him yelled, “Driver must have lost mind!”

“Captain was on bweak!” The seal helpfully added.

They were jerked as the ship swerved, causing him to scream,“THEN WHAT PECK NECK IS STEERING?” If he wasn’t clinging for dear life, he would be stamping his feet.

Any further conversation was cut short by a loud metallic screech as the ship jerked to a dead stop before tilting. With the side that the Conductor was on sinking straight into the water.

The seal started to squirm before insisting, “Let go, mister! I can swim!”

Given that he couldn’t hold onto the struggling seal with only one hand, he had to take their word for it. The water was already close enough that the fall wouldn’t even faze them, and he needed to get out quickly.

Once the seal was in the water, a few others were already pulling up a lifeboat to their area, and they directed all the passengers towards it. If it wasn’t for the owl and penguin clearly calling the shots from the boat, he would have wondered where the sudden competency came from.

Shifting his grip, he pulled himself upwards so that he was balanced on the railing. At first he was going to make a jump for the lifeboat, before something icy gripped his heart. “OI, PECK NECK!” he yelled towards the boat. He didn’t care which one answered, “Have ye been to the children’s playroom!?”

“No, sir! we’re trying to get everyone close to the water first,” The owl responded. That was all he needed to know, and he jumped for the still intact bounce pad. “S-sir!” He could hear the owl call for him as he used the spring to trampoline upwards, but he had other priorities.

The little ones were in danger, and he couldn’t wait for someone else to find them.

His jump carried him almost half-way up the side of the ship, but there wasn’t an easy place for him to land. Expletives left his beak as he realized this fact, and his claws screeched against the metal as he slipped back down the side. The fall was halted when he managed to grab onto a window ledge and pull himself up.

All he could think was to jump to the next balcony he could see and keep going up. Even as the ship leaned further over, he fought gravity itself to reach the next hand hold.

He couldn’t let them die. He promised his daughter he would take care of the children on this trip, and that they would all have a good time. She wasn’t supposed to worry about them drowning while they were with him. He couldn’t let her down. He couldn’t let them down.

Even if it meant he died trying to save them.

With the speed that had carried him through the opening of Train Rush, he managed to climb nine-tenths of the way up when he saw a problem. There was a patch of pure white and then glass before the railing at the top of the ship.

Nothing to hold onto.

And the water was only climbing higher.

His best bet was to jump and pray that he could reach the railing. With no time to lose, he took his only available option.

Which thankfully worked out; he was able to grip the railing that kept people from falling off the top of the ship and pull himself over. Just in time for several pool toys and floats to slide down and bounce into him.

If he popped one or two out of frustration when trying to get them out of the way, no one needed to know.

With everything turning on its side and sliding, the path to the playroom was perilous. He could even see the icy pool water spilling out and flooding the lower level of the deck. From his position, he could see that the remaining vacationers were scrambling to the exit on the opposite end from his destination.

None of them were carrying little balls of yellow feathers.

All the pool chairs on the upper level where he was were heaping together into a miserable pile. At least one tipped over the edge once it hit the glass. But, it meant there was a mostly clear path to the dome that he knew covered the playroom, and he took off running.

Until the angle became too much for him to keep his feet on the walkway.

His chin hit the boards before gravity rolled him back towards the railing he just left.

He couldn’t fail. Not now. Not when he was so pecking close.

Pulling out a knife, he jammed it into the wood to stop his descent. The pain in his shoulder told him he would feel that in the morning, but he would worry about that when the little ones weren’t in danger.

He tugged the knife a few times to ensure it was well and truly wedged in before pulling himself up and grabbing the edge of the deck. The angle of the ship now meant that once he was over the edge, he could stand on it, and once there, he prepared himself for a dive towards the still open door to the playroom.

The landing was a bit rough, but he was finally in there.

And it was empty.

Unable to believe what he was seeing, he called out, “Ainsley? Maisie? Innes? Rory? Alister? Yer grandpa’s here!” As each name came out, his voice became more desperate and pleading, and it nearly cracked by the last word.

All he heard was silence other than the sound of water leaking in.

Speaking of which, he could feel the chill of the arctic ocean through his shoes, and he clambered onto the desk before the water could soak more of his clothing. Still frantically looking, he noticed that the circular playpen, while still attached to the floor, was tilted so that the opening was hanging over the water that had already accumulated.

His heart stopped.

The little ones couldn’t swim.

He jumped into the water in a panicked frenzy. With frantic movements, he swept his arms around as he searched. His arm bumped into something, and without hesitation, he grabbed it and swam up. Once he surfaced, he got a better look. A part of him was afraid of the answer, but he needed to know.

It was a dinky toy.

“RAAAAUGH.” Screaming in frustration, he threw the toy against a wall, uncaring of where it landed. Which, after bouncing a few times, it slid right back into the rapidly swelling pool. “WHERE ARE MY PECKING GRANDCHILDREN?!”

Any further screaming was halted as he felt the cold bite of the water finally getting through his desperate and angry haze.

He already knew that he couldn’t handle arctic water well after the incident in the pool.

They have no chance of surviving that.

The thought weighed him down even more than his currently wet clothes. Climbing out of the water was difficult thanks to his shaking limbs, and he wasn’t sure if that was thanks to the physical or emotional numbness.

With the ship almost completely on its side, he couldn’t see a way out, so he pulled himself into the concave curve of the glass-like dome that was once the ceiling of this room.

And waited.

He wasn’t sure for what. Even if he was found, would he be able to live knowing that he had failed his precious grandchildren? He shouldn’t have left them to drink for hours. He hadn’t even explored the boat for other activities he couldn’t do with them around. He had just wasted his time in one spot on alcohol and not spending the last few hours of their lives with them.

He was an awful grandfather. An awful father. Maybe his other daughter was right. Maybe he was just a selfish bastard who never cared for his family.

Thoughts continued to spiral as he stood up, and he couldn’t help but contemplate the water before him.

Until a loud splash brought him to the present, and jerked his attention back to the very crooked entrance.

It was the hatted lassie.

She was jumping across the platforms with the skill and speed he expected from her, but he couldn’t figure out what she was doing here. She should have been on one of the life boats! He was about to say as much when she got to him, but she picked him up without any preamble.

He couldn’t help but squawk at the sudden action, and he gave a half-hearted reminder about his feathers that she clearly wasn’t paying attention to.

Unwilling to potentially drag her down with him by struggling, he kept quiet as he let her carry him out of the playroom and to the last life boat. He couldn’t help but shiver as his damp clothing was exposed to the wind, but the minor tremors did not deter the lass.

When they made it to the boat, there was a fair amount of rescues there, including two Express Owls. Who looked overjoyed when he saw them.

“Conductor, your grandkids have been looking for you! We went ahead and sent the other boats on-”

“Don’t wait up for me pup. Get in a boat and scram. This is my dang ship, and I’ll go down with it,” the Captain’s voice echoed over the water.

The immense relief at finding out the little ones were safe was then shattered when the lass started running back to the boat. Likely to rescue the stubborn captain.

“Wait, lass, where yer going? You wanna save HIM?” He shouted at the fleeing child. The Captain was a Walrus for Peck’s sake! He could hold his breath long enough to swim away if he wanted to! And if he didn’t want to… well, the lass shouldn’t be risking her life!

“I’m not gonna hang around a sinking ship! If you don’t make it back quick, we’ll leave without yer!” Some part of him had hoped that would scare her back, but she was already climbing into the top of the ship and had clearly ignored him.

“She saved some of your kids, you know?” The moon penguin whispered to the frustrated owl. “I don’t think she has it in her to leave anyone behind.”

While he knew that was true, it didn’t ease his agitation. The ship was already halfway sunk; they didn’t have much time before they would be endangered too. They couldn’t wait forever.

The boat couldn’t stay so close to the ship and had to move, but between the seals moving some capsized life boats around and some of them staying back to guide, there was a clear path from the ship to their boat. He could only hope she saw it.

Waiting was agony, and there wasn’t much room to pace. “Where’s the lass? The ship is sinking, we gotta get out of here.” After about a minute, he yelled again, “Get over here, lassie, We’re leaving NOW!” It was only thanks to his light weight that he was able to jump up and down to express his impatience.

The Express Owl that had the misfortune of being right next to him rubbed his head to clear the ringing from his ears.

After a minute, the lass hopped down from an icy ledge while carrying the Captain. The sight made the Conductor do a double take. Sure he knew that she was light on her feet and good at jumping, but that didn’t necessarily translate to carrying someone ten times your weight. He hadn’t thought much on her carrying himself since he wasn’t much taller than her and significantly lighter, but this was strange.

The relief returned, however, and overpowered the confusion. She was a strange one, yes, but she was consistently strange.

And safe now.

Everyone gave their thanks to the lass as the boat caught up with the others, and the Conductor threw in his own deeply felt appreciation. “Aye, thank you lass. The little ones haven’t learned to swim yet!”

Speaking of.

He could hear the excited peeps from his grandchildren when they saw him. Alister was waving his rubber knife around with excited glee, and it was only thanks to a strangely alert seal that kept him from jumping out of the boat and towards his grandpa. Of course the Conductor couldn’t help but wave and make a silly face at him.

When he could tear his attention away from the little ones, he noticed something… familiar glowing in the middle of the boat with his grandchildren. A glowing hourglass.

Oh PECK.

He heard the Captain say something about the shiny thing on the glacier, and while that caught his attention, he was a lot more worried about something so dangerous in the middle of his grandchildren.

Before he could make his own path, the lass must have come to the same realization and booked it over to claim the Time Piece to send back to her ship and away from clumsy and curious hands.

The time piece itself vanished in an instant, but the lass remained this time. She sunk onto the bench, and he could tell even from this distance that she looked exhausted.

He decided to hop over now that the lass had claimed her prize, and the little ones immediately started to climb all over him. Unfazed, he picked them all up for the best group hug he could deliver. Maisie was initially reluctant to let go, clutching him as tightly as her beak held her pacifier, so he cradled the little one in one arm as he placed the others down.

With the little ones assured of his presence, he joined the lass on the bench. Innes crawled up to sit on his lap still clutching their sunhat, and the others all hovered around him before settling near his feet and leaning against his legs.

He wasn’t sure why the lass hadn’t left yet; generally, once she had her Time Piece, she would leave as soon as possible. He opened his beak to ask the question, but as he turned, he noticed that she was hunched over and trembling.

Thinking about how they were in the arctic and how she had just been hopping and running around in the water, it concerned him. Quietly, he asked, “Are ye cold, lass? Need anything to warm ye up?”

What he hadn’t expected was the lass to turn her face up to him and for her to be crying. “I’m sorry!” she sobbed before burying her face into her hands.

At first, he was confused. “Why are ye apologizing? It’s not like this-”

Before he could complete that sentence, she wailed, “Yes, it is! I saw that Time Piece and. And.” She couldn’t keep talking before another sob broke out. Whatever she had been about to say was lost, and she instead said, “Almost hurt everyone...”

The puzzle put itself together. The Time Piece. She wrecked the ship and endangered all of their lives for one of those hourglasses? A part of him really wanted to be angry. It was a very loud and vocal part of himself.

But the other part saw a clearly guilt-wracked child, and his parental nature told the angry part to peck off.

He shifted the little one in his arm to the other side before reaching out to gently touch her shoulder. “Ye didn’t mean it to turn out like this,” he stated when she looked up at him in surprise. “Everyone was talking about how the ship couldnae sink, and well. How were ye supposed to know?”

She clearly didn’t accept that. “It doesn’t matter… I still-”

“Beatin’ yerself up over it isn’t gonna help, trust me on that one, lass. We all make mistakes. Some of them terrible. But everyone got off that death trap, thanks to you.”

The lass glanced around at the few lifeboats that were around them. “There’s no way that’s it!”

“Lass, ye saw the way to get on before the boat left the dock. It thinned out most of the crowd since they couldnae get on board. Everyone who got that far had to fly or jump.”

After a moment, the lass leaned into his touch until she let him give a one sided hug. The shaking had lessened by then, he noted.

They stayed in that position for a while, and now that he was still, the dampness in his clothes was making itself known again. The lass noticed and asked, “Why are you so cold?”

“I uh, might have taken a dip earlier. While trying to find the little ones.”

The somber look returned to her face, and he kicked himself at his callous reminder of what they had just gone through. The moment was interrupted by a seal with a penguin perched on top approaching their boat, and the penguin asked, “We got some blankets stored in our boat, need any?”

“YES!” The lass shouted. “He’s like a birdcicle at this point!”

That got a loud laugh from the Conductor. “Ye need one too, lass!”

After they got blankets brought over, the Conductor got the little ones wrapped up in their own so that they would nap for a while. Their rescue boat was still a distance away, and he didn’t want them to get into any trouble before then. He noticed that Ainsley’s white hat was damp somehow, so he plucked it off. She chirped in protest but calmed down when he let her hold onto it like a toy.

With his limbs free, he cocooned in his blanket and watched the lass follow suit with hers. Eventually, she ended up leaning against him again, and he finally said, “Ye could just go back to yer ship, right? It’ll be safer for ye.”

“Not fair to you guys...” She mumbled.

It really didn’t sit right with him that she insisted on suffering along with them, but arguing wasn’t going to change her mind. “… How about ye head back once the rescue boat gets here? We’ll be safe by then.”

The lass mulled it over before finally agreeing. “Sure. That’ll be… fine.” A yawn interrupted the reply, and she jerked away.

“Ye can sleep, there’s not much to do other than wait.”

She must have been tired enough to not argue, because she simply leaned back against him, and her breathing slowed after a few minutes.

With all his charges accounted for and resting, the Conductor smiled in relief. He was tired, for sure, but he would deal with that later.

“Rest well, lass.”

#A hat in time #My writing #The Conductor #The Conductor's Grandchildren #Hat Kid #Other characters are loosely referenced #But not much

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ogmosis · 4 years ago

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PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER INTERVIEW: ALLIE REYNOLDS

2021 is a weird time for everyone right now with debut authors hit by the lack of a traditional marketing window for their precious first book out the gate. Despite that, Allie Reynolds and her Headline publishing team managed to get her big publisher auction debut Shiver widespread coverage leading into its UK release two weeks ago. High-profile author blurbs and Waterstones promotion, amongst other activity, has given this fresh take on the psychological thriller genre a good chance of emerging from the pack which it deserves for its finely paced story and atmospheric snowy setting. I spoke with Allie at the back end of 2020 from her Gold Coast home in Australia to find out more about the former British snowboarder's career switch, inspirations and what the future holds.

Are you still pinching yourself with how the last couple of years has gone?

It has been an absolute dream. I suppose when I was writing it, I never knew if I would find a publisher. I kind of thought it was a niche book that might just be of interest to snowboarders and there weren’t that many thrillers set in ski resorts. I have heard from a lot of readers so far, who enjoy the insight into this world that they didn't know about.

How much tweaking did you have to do in order to bring the snowboarding side of it to life?

I had to add in about 20,000 words, partly because my US editor had never been to a ski resort and wanted explanation and clarification of what a halfpipe and tow lift was, in case readers couldn't visualise them.

Where have your biggest writing style influences come from?

Lee Child is a big influence. I am a massive fan. There is something really addictive about his thrillers. He tends to write in very short, sharp sentences. He writes in very simple language, there's no fancy bits or frilly bits or pretentious bits - it is just all about the story and I love that as I don't want to be pretentious in my language. You can absorb his words easily and that is the writing style that I try to emulate. I seem to mainly read female psychological thriller authors like Jane Harper, Erica Ferencik, Ruth Ware and Clare Mackintosh, a lot of the British authors. I love debut thrillers as they often have high concepts that are different to anything that you have seen before. Clare's books seem to have characters that feel things quite deeply and you care about them. I am trying hard to do that, because that is what I like reading.

The emotional depth of the characters in Shiver is one of the things that I picked up on, so where did the light-bulb moment come for that?

I never read any craft books until the last few years. I was a foreign languages nerd, and I didn't study English literature past the age of 15. I was just trying to write novels without knowing anything about the theory and struggling massively. Some of the craft books contradict the others, so I don't follow them rigorously, but I take the bits that I like from each one and form my own little note file of what I want to use. The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface by Donald Maass is one I really love and looks at emotion separately and the psychology of what readers might feel, even though it is challenging to understand. Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham is a little bit dated, but he talks about the scene and the sequel when the characters are processing what has happened and formulating a new path. Everything is about pace in thrillers these days and this part often gets cut out. He explains about writing in scenes, not chapters. Get in late to a scene and finish early on a cliffhanger. It is quite strange the process of how I came up with the characters. When I started out, I was researching snowboarders by watching YouTube videos of current top athletes, their mannerisms, the way they speak and just trying to get inspiration. Two of them started out as real, pro snowboarders but then they morphed as I wrote into something completely different. With Milla, there is a lot of me in there but hopefully not as competitive. I wanted to overhype that flaw of hers as it kind of drives the whole story in the end. I am a massive fan of John Truby and he always talks about how your main character must be an underdog. Another of his big focuses is how the character's flaw should drive the story. Almost every event that happens in the book happens because Milla is competitive. I liked the idea of Curtis being a hero with strong morals. Robert McKee talks about having characters that you would like to be or admire and look up to. Having a pull for the reader. I guess Saskia is the shadow side of Milla. The villain should have some aspects of the heroine, but then they take something too far.

Were you worried some readers might get put off by the snowboard circuit romance part of it?

I did wonder how the romance would go down as I had heard that UK readers do not especially like romance with their thrillers unlike Australia and the USA, where romantic suspense is a bigger genre. I was trying to get the fact that everybody knows everybody in that winter resort scene. Relationships might make or break and the following year somebody is seeing somebody else.

Did you also have it in the back of your mind that the women's psychological thriller genre boom might fade before your book even got out there?

I did worry that the psychological thriller boom would finish while I was writing it, but it seems to be going on longer than anyone anticipated. You always wonder when a dark situation like COVID-19 happens that people might look for something uplifting instead, but I see Shiver at the lighter end of that spectrum. I shy away from anything really dark or violent. It has been called a locked room mystery because the characters at the reunion play an icebreaker game, and whoever created the game clearly knows the dark secrets of their past. They are stranded in a closed environment. And Then There Were None was a big inspiration. The way they are invited by false pretences and realise early on they are not sure who it was.

It felt very cinematic reading it, so I assume screen rights have been snapped up?

The TV option was sold to Firebird Pictures straight after the publisher auction and, fingers crossed, it gets made. Julian, at my agency Blake Friedmann, really took care of rights. I got really lucky with my agent Kate Burke too.

What can we expect next now you have your foot firmly in the door?

I need silence at the starting phase of the book and time to think, so it was impossible trying to write the second book during lockdown homeschooling with my kids, but I am trying hard to finish it soon. It is quite a strange process compared to Shiver as I didn't know if anyone would read it. I was unselfconscious and sort of feeling my way along. This time it is very different as I have constant promotion work going on for Shiver. My next book is set here in Australia on a beach in a totally different environment with a fresh set of characters, so it is quite hard switching back and forth. You hear about second book syndrome. It is terrifying writing to a contract full stop, where you have to write the same but different. You are trying to capture everything they liked about your first book but trying to make it different enough. It has a sports focus in this second book a little bit as well, as athletes interest me, and we haven't seen them much in fiction.

Find out more about Allie and buy Shiver HERE.

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nighttimepixels · 6 years ago

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Heyhey Night! I have a buncha questions after seeing all your animations and they're just so cool so! I hope this is ok!! Can u animate normally too, or only pixel? Not that that's bad, just wondering! What's ur preferred kinda animation? Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs? What's the hardest part of the animation process?? What's ur favorite?? Any part u don't like? What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into? Do u have a fave animation u've done? Thank u btw for all ur art!!

Oh stars, okay, yeah- I’m happy to answer all these!! I’ll break them up so it’s easier to read X) And awww geez thank you so much for your support, sweet anon! It really makes my day when people say they like anything I’ve made, and stars knows it’s all the more true with the sweet sweet time sink that is animation (´•̥̥̥\\ヮ\\•̥̥̥` )

I’ll also put this under a cut since it gets a bit long :)

Can u animate normally too, or only pixel?

This one cracks me up a little, don’t worry about it XD I totally can! In fact I enjoy it a lot - and... gods, animation software is a nightmare and a half, to be honest. That’s the biggest hurdle.

I do just straight up love pixel art and the aesthetic I can achieve with it, but I do at times miss ‘normal’ (non pixel?) animation, heh. Especially sound-syncing! I do all my pixel art in Asesprite which imo is the best pixel art program, not to mention made by an actual pixel artist - buuuut it doesn’t have a sound file option. Which makes sense! Er, frankly, most pixel artists wouldn’t... use it to animate like I do? More for games, or for looping gifs? So I can’t complain much, it makes a lot of sense that it’s a low dev priority.

Now, when it comes to other animation programs... I’ve tried a lot. Unfortunately, the ones that are preferable for the feel I like are either way out of budget (stares at TVPaint in the distance) or... well, have too high a learning curve for my single-person workflow, really. (OpenToonz, sigh...) And a lot of the free programs are good for getting a start in animation, but once you get to a certain point you really feel the limitations (whether it’s workflow, sound import, exports, trying to make something more finished than a rough...).

Then... there’s animation programs I just don’t like, and a lot of those are angled towards bone-style animations (nothing wrong with those, they just don’t fit my style? and are too much time investment for a single artist to output more quickly...), or are, well, freakin’ Adobe Animate.

I... gods, I do not like Animate (formerly Flash). And I made a whole 2 minute+ animation in it a couple years ago! (It’s very rough and bad and doesn’t make sense, pfff, not gonna link it XD) It’s... clunky, and vector oriented, and freaking lines don’t go where I want them too, and it tries to predict too much?? It’s hard to put to words, gah. For me, my animation style would be much more... raster oriented. Flow, hand drawn inbetweens, yaddayadda. Animate’s great for... plenty of things, but not for that kind of animation. There are far better animators than I who make it work with freakin’ aplomb though! So really, it’s just my taste, haha.

.... Er, that got long! I’ll cut off more rambling about animation software and tl;dr boil it down to “I love animating period, but turnaround is something I have to keep in mind as a freelancer, as well as budget, and my current focus is pixel animations for a number of reasons.” X)

What's ur preferred kinda animation?

I’m not exactly sure what this one means! Between pixel and non-pixel? Er, they both have their pros and cons, so I couldn’t say! But if I have to break down my current animations into categories, I’d say I have cutscenes, loop environments, and the broad game-like animations...

The first would be something like this animation feat. teasing Edge, the second would be something like this one with skesgo’s Starlan and Cinnamon, and the third is... everything else! From headsprite loops to ‘small’ characters running and so on.

Honestly, they’re all a lot of fun for different reasons! Cutscenes are generally the most challenging, but they give me the chance to push my limits and try and pull off something cool, whether I’m having to conserve frames (to keep the cost of a commission down) or whether I’m going more all out (which is a pricey commission, or a fun personal project, lol).

Loop environments are their own challenge - it may not look like it, but I put a lot of thought into how to make them look as natural as possible! From timing of talking characters, to where to place a blink, to exactly how many frames it’ll take to ‘soften’ a motion (so people aren’t just snapping between major poses) and so on - it takes... a lot of time to animate even simple scenes well, so I do a lot of mental math on how I can keep things affordable when someone approaches me for a commission. And frankly, I totally undercharge;; but I do my best!

Game-like animations are just fun. They range, they’re silly, to intense (I’ve animated fight animations before for game concepts), to indulgent, and beyond! Headsprites are always a delight, especially if I get to push the expression X) and I love tiny things (I mean... I am a pixel artist...) so getting to make lil tiny babs even just walking can be fun - and also, a lot more time consuming than you might thing, esp if you wanna make it smooth, like this lil Frisk I did last month or so:

Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs?

oTL

B... both??

Okay, lipsyncing basically is very time consuming. AND, I freakin’ love it. I love puzzles, and when it boils down to it, that’s what super fun & expressive lip syncing is (some Ghibli animations are the heckin’ best for this)...

and, I’m a pixel artist, without sound-syncing capabilities in her main art program oTL Yeah, I can export frames and line them up and check but... gods, it’s so time consuming. I’ve tried it out of desperation - but for even five seconds of sound (sayyyyy a lil Vine...) that’s hours upon hours of transferring back and forth just to check.

So even though I love lipsyncs, they’re too time-consuming (and ergo, if I’m being commissioned, often too expensive) to do often! Someday I’d like to get back to doing them more often, but for now, practically I stick to/’prefer’, in the loosest terms, to do lipflaps. For the layman, this is that ‘two frame’ (maybe three) open-closed style of animating mouths- however, I’m working on ways to keep that style, but make it more expressive! It depends on the project - and in commissions, I’ll pretty much always prioritize giving the client a little more body animation than mouth animation, unless it’d really fit what they’ve requested.

What's the hardest part of the animation process??

.... damn, this is a tough one! Sometimes I’d say it’s the initial concept work - but it depends on what I have to work with. Sometimes that parts a breeze - and honestly freeing, bc I can take the time to try and push what I’ll do with it!

Roughing is one of my favorite parts, tbh. It can be tricky, sure, but getting to go from keyframes to in-betweens & smears to adding the flairs of secondary motion (think hair swishing, or coats flaring, etc) is so exciting and satisfying.

From there it’s all refining, and tweaking...

Hm. Honestly, the hardest is probably the initial cleanup and lining. It’s cool to see it come together, but it feels so much slower, and it can drag - and then you find bits that actually don’t translate well from the rough stage, so you have to go back and rework, and oof it can just drag in this phase, heh. Plus, I’m always tempted to add more frames, but it’s not always realistic - I’m a perfectionist, to say the least, so I’m constantly having to leash myself back so I don’t turn a project into a half-a-year undertaking, pff.

What's ur favorite??

Probably gave myself away talking about the roughing stage X) It’s just loose and fun and free! But seeing it all come together is also damn satisfying too, so that’s not to say I don’t like the refining portions either...

Outside of that, I also really like the beginning of the color stage! .... Before having to translate shadows/highlights to each and every frame *shudders*. That gets tedious, but it’s so critical! Anyways, though, I heckin’ love colors. I always have a rough palette in mind at the start of the process, but I go ham and play with it as a little break and a true test when I get to actual slap together a full frame with full color, highlights/shadows included! It’s exciting, like a preview of the finished product, basically :D

Any part u don't like?

Heh, by the time I get to shadows/highlights, I tend to be getting impatient, I suppose. It’s not that I don’t like it - I definitely highly value it, and if it was the only thing I was working on in an animation that’d be different, but as a one-woman team I’m just raring to be done at that point; it’s very nearly the last thing I do, after all, so it’s a struggle to focus. X)

I suppose one that always gets me is more complicated backgrounds. It’s a work in progress, as I’m getting better and finding the fun in them for sure! But I’m still not where I want to be in translating ‘background concept’ to ‘finished background’ - it feels more stiff than my animations, I guess. So it’s a frustrating part... but hey, it’s part of it! And learning to embrace the challenge is a big help.

... I just always have to make sure I have a big cup of coffee and a good jam playlist going when I sit down to do ‘em, in the meantime.(=▿= ||||)

What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into?

Definitely the coloring. This goes for both backgrounds and the animated characters themselves. It’s... never as simple as it looks? It’s time consuming, and while some parts of frames can be copy-pasted, I also put subtle work into the animations that mean that some pixels are off so it ends up being marginally faster to just recolor, but then there’s shadows, and working in pixels means that if I miss one then there’s a flickering pixel mid-animation, and sometimes there’s an unconnected line and then you bucket fill the whole damn thing, and gods know I’ve got colored lines so I have to be exacting with keeping the same ratios highlighted vs darker in shifting frames...

*deep breath*

... Yeah, basically the coloring is super time consuming. And balancing bg coloring with animated elements in the image itself is a whole extra challenge on top of that. For 99% of my animations, I can damn near guarantee I’ve spent at least twice as much time coloring it as I have animating it.

Do u have a fave animation u've done?

*looks at my goblin hoard of animations in horror like I’ve been asked to choose a favorite child*

... Stars above, I can’t choose! I love them all, and at this point a good portion of them are commissions- it wouldn’t feel right to choose!

*...carefully covers the hoard’s metaphorical ears*

... also, that said, I can admit a soft spot for any of them that involve humor. I tend to get to do extremely expressive faces and action there, even if I have to ration the frames, so it turns out really fun X)

And though rough and I’ve definitely done stuff I’m more proud of, I still crack up at this one I did a while back of the nonsense ‘ass’ joke between Red & Stretch... their faces were too much fun XD I’ve gotten waybetter since then though, Big Oof, I see so many things I can fix; might go back and redo it someday.

Honestly, though, I just freakin’ love animating! They all have their ups and downs andI always put a lot of love into them and find a way to have fun with it and try to push any emotion/theme (when applicable). I like to think it shows, but idk, that’s something I have to leave up to you guys X)

#night answers #about animating #phew there were a lot-!#thanks so much for your interest #hope these answers made sense! :D #Anonymous

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fantabulousfunnelweb · 5 years ago

Text

Spider-tober prompt response dump part 2 (Parts 7-11)

200+ Words per prompt, Critique/Feedback Appreciated! (Warning: Vulgar Language use in Day 10)

Day 7: Snack

Convenience stores. The height of suburban dining… At least that was the thought on Funnels brain as they hopped right through the worn-out sliding doors. “Evening Mr Phil!” a mock salute bouncing off their forehead towards the cashier by their right. The entire establishment bore an almost old charm, its middle-aged guardsman standing for what seemed eternally behind the reinforced glass as tired eyes perused whatever customers it had, the novelty of an urban icon in his store fading long ago, leaving the costumed kid just another customer. “What's good today?” The Spiders voice rang from the cold drinks aisle in the far back, eyes perusing the glowing display of drinks as if it were a beacon of hope. Phil perked up attentively at the mention of his name, peering over the counter to catch a view of the inquiring Spider, “Restocked the Candy a day or two ago, no more stale caramel chews.” Funnels cheek let loose a dry huff at the hearing of such news, “Thank god, Ms Marvels been this close to cracking at me about always buying her the stale stuff.” Thankfully the Spider had only himself to look out for tonight, happily spending a portion of his small allowance on a bag of chocolate almonds. “You know the drill kid, I keep quiet about you…” “And I’ll keep quiet about your partner, are they okay?” Phil's brow furrowed, the dense lines of grey hair curving as his eyelids dropped to half-way, a lip-curling on one side like a man who knew too many secrets and wished not to share them with you. “He’s doing okay, My boss would kill me if he caught me with Phil Jr. at work, Pet Policy & all, but he's the only thing that keeps me company.

Day 8: Arms

“Wait, You’ve been making what?” “A Nanotech extension for the suit Kyles, are you even paying attention?” Silence washed over the young man’s expression, answer enough to the Scientist prodding at his suit-clad back incessantly, tweaking minute elements of the metal harness that compressed his shoulder blades. “Wait, why aren’t we just using that suit Stark made for you ages ago?” Maydays grip pushed itself further up his shoulder, grasping at his padded shoulder to provide ample support for their next little check-up, “I dismantled that thing like, last month, where do you think I even got all this Nanotech from?” Kyles tried his best to break what would no doubt be another bout of silence, issuing the first response that comes to mind, “Ahh, Charity? That or you stole it all from SHIELD.” “Shut up Jonathan.” The unmasked Spider perked his brow high, expression fraught with a mix of amusement & frustration, channelling it into a weird scoffing laugh that ultimately leads to his somewhat malicious compliance, “Whatever, you’re the boss, Aunt May.” The nickname came from a place of earnest, and the history behind the mere title was already one in the books, so it put May in a tough spot when it came to receiving it. “Alright, We’re all set.” sealing the harness shut and stepping herself back, the nanotech cylinders submerged within the reinforced plastics & steels that coated Kyles backside, “Put on the mask & hook up the suit, we’ve got tests to run.”

Day 9: Eyes

The deafening crack of wood upon the Spiders impact with the vintage walls echoed around the studio like thunder, giving way to the dull thud that followed moments later. Funnels eyes twitched as they peeled themselves off the concrete bound pool of splinters and onto their feet, hazy vision darting around as they attempted to make heads or tails of where they just ended up. “Ugh… If you’re gonna fight me in an old place like this, can we at least use some rinky-dink music? Like Ragtime or something? I could’ve worn my trilby if I knew this is where we’d end up.” Beck had a lovely habit of being seen soon after being heard, the trudge of his metal, servo clad boots slowly growing louder & louder before silence rocked the old studio once more.

“Oh? You’d love an audience, wouldn’t you?” the regulated fog billowing from the dented valves around the armoured man's jugular, obscuring his face to seem as if the smoke were devouring him. Funnel could barely realize his rhetoric before the building lit up with a spark, cameras spreading out & littering the scene as the supposed studio had much more to than meets the eye, “Well, I’m always courteous to my adversaries, besides, when was the last time someone apprehended a criminal on live television?”

Day 10: Snap

Funnel winced at the visceral sound of splintering bone, from his hiding place ontop the shadows of the ceiling, he closed his eyes as their ears became polluted with the informants wailing cries, his raw shrieks of pain sending Funnels senses into alarm. It guilted him to observe such mindless torture, even on those who deserve it, but May’s orders were strict, and unlike most occasions, they couldn’t cheekily skirt the lines for fun. If the Debt Collectors knew that they were being tailed, there would be no chance to find their headquarters. “Good God.” his quiet plead to higher forces stifled under the growing arguments between the animals he observed. “Randy, get your shit together or else I’m gonna break another bone, you understand!?” “The Moneys in the goddamn cabinet upstairs, please!” Adjusting their grip on the steel bar they used as a weapon, the collector let it sway below by his feet, “Better be, Don’t go anywhere.” Disappearing up the stairs to their right in a matter of moments.

“They’re collecting the money now Mayday, just a bit longer before we can find out where they’re stationed.” The Spider was left only to observe the remaining debt collector & their victim, whose continued sobs of sheer pain echoed across the old office complex.

Day 11: Demon

“Demons, huh? Weren’t these the guys wh-” “Had a hand in the Devil’s Breath tragedy back in 1987, Yes.” Jonathan's lips pursed in exhale, somewhat calming the latent fear within him as his mind was far too busy consuming the information provided. “But didn’t they supposedly putter out sometime back in the 2010s?” Dragging a daggy sleeve across the desk, Maydays hands held out another file, pinched & printed straight from SHIELD Records & Archives. “After Mr Negative disappeared, Yes.” “Okay, are you gonna say anything other than yes?” “Ye- I will just keep reading.” Letting out a huff, Kyle’s hazel eyes fell on a particularly recent entry listed within the reports, bringing the fine, freshly printed text up close to examine, its contents prodding at his interest like a child tugs a grown-ups coat for attention. “Surveillance personnel have concluded in their most recent report that inactive financial assets for the Demons have recently been drained to several off-shore accounts, attempts to retrieve location deemed unsuccessful”. Rolling his broad shoulders, the Spider used whatever excuse of deductional abilities they had at their disposal to make a guess, “Maybe they’re finally salvaging the wreckage? With all this asset moving to unknown locations before SHIELD could drain them, it could just be some former manager wiring all these up into his own pocket.” May Parker shrugged, typing away at her keyboard as their mind too weighed up options. “If I could guess, you’re going to need help on this, you said Patriot was good with computers, right?

#spidersona #spidertober #spider tober #spider sona #funnel-web #marvelsona #wasn't feeling it for most of these really.#But I'm having some fun at least

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shadkatsart · 6 years ago

Note

hi! how did you edit the makeups on your love nikki stylings?

Hey! Thanks for the question! It’s pretty easy, actually. The short answer is “The Magic of Photoshop,” but I’ll stick a long answer under the cut (in case someone wants to try this themselves…)It looks long when I write it out, but I was knocking these out in less than twenty minutes once I had the process down!

Step 1: Take a blank Nikki and change her to the skin tone you want and the makeup you want. I also change her hair to Pristine Dancer because her bangs are out of her face. You could also use Free Dancer….that’s about it for bangless hair……hmmm…….

Step 2: There’s probably a more technologically savvy way to do it, but I just take a screenshot and email the screenshot to myself

ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ

Step 3: Open the file in Photoshop. Create a new folder for all the sexy, sexy layers about to unfold on this masterpiece, to contain the chaos. Create a new layer, set its blending mode to multiply. Color pick from the lightest section on the neck and fill the layer with that color. The whole picture will now be tinted a lovely dark brown.

Step 4: That’s not gonna work, obviously, so I create a layer mask on the skin tint layer. Masks sound scary but they are very easy. They let you cut out selections of a layer without making it permanent, in case you:a) fuck up your cut-out somewhereb)want to change your cut-out laterc) want to cut out the same section to use on a different layerSo I fill the layer mask (not the layer itself!) with black, which will make it look like the layer is empty again, because I just concealed the whole thing with a mask. Bye bye brown tint!

Step 5: Still on the layer mask, I go in and carefully color in just the face with white, which will re-reveal the brown color I laid down earlier, but just on her face. She now looks darker! But she also looks very strange!

*note: after this, you’ll also have a layer mask you can just copy without having to do this every time, which saves time

Step 6: Working now on the layer itself (shouldn’t need to mess around with the layer mask again until the end), color over her eyes with white. Because this layer is set on multiply, her eyes will simply reappear like magic~ If her mouth is open, you can color the inside of her mouth with white too.

Step 7: From here, I just work on tweaking the little things. For any new layers created after this, I turn into clipping layers, which will only let me draw on the area I have set on the base layer (in this case, Nikki’s face)

Step TWEAK: I use the blur tool heavily from here on out. Nikki’s eyes on her pale skin makeups just kind of…blend into her skin, which looks good on pale skin, buuuut doesn’t work so well on dark skin, so I like to draw on shadows to the tops of her eyes on a new multiply layer to help them blend in too. On an overlay layer, I use a low opacity red-orange gradient to emphasize her blush. I also draw in her nose using the same blushy color (but blur the absolute hell out of it or it just looks completely obvious), adjust her lip color and eyeshadow if applicable, and throw in another low opacity gradient (light yellowor orange) in the middle of her face to give it a bit of depth.WHEW.

Step 9: If the color of her face isn’t quite matching up to her skin at this point from blending layer abuse, I’ll finish it off with a color correction adjustment layer.

Step 10: I duplicate the original screenshot and copy over the layer mask from her face and drag it into the folder I created in the beginning. Now I have a totally independent floaty face I can stick anywhere I want.

Step 11: (Technically optional from here on out, but why wouldn’t you at this point??) I take a screenshot of an outfit I want to give this new makeup to, with the skin tone set to the same color as the new makeup. I import this into Photoshop via the very technologically advanced process I used in step 2.

Step 12: I drag the independent floaty face folder into the new image and duplicate the folder, before merging that newly duplicated folder. I then drag the old layer mask from the original folder onto my one-layer-floaty-face. (You can just make a layer mask for a folder, but I like doing things this way because it applies the mask when you merge a folder, which means I won’t accidentally reveal brown tinted background if I go hog wild with my brush in a minute).

Step DONE: Now you can edit your layer mask to go around the new hair, et voila! You have a new, beautifully styled, dark skinned babe!

#Anon #shad replies #love nikki #love nikki edit

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plagg-o · 7 years ago

Text

Better Together

Jumping onto this @auyeahaugust train with an idea I had and might continue later!

Day 4 - Enemies [Hacker AU]

Growing up homeschooled and alone, Adrien Agreste was never allowed to have a normal life. Eventually, he found his ‘freedom’ in the form of hacking, starting his career by infiltrating and taking down evil corporations from the inside and ending up with many clients running from another hacker with the codename HawkMoth. But then someone better came along.

Words: 3,125

He hadn’t meant to make an enemy of her. She’d stolen a client from him once; he’d sent her a virus in return. An impulsive move, he admitted, and for a while he wasn’t sure what had come over him. Jealousy, maybe? It wasn’t that he cared about losing money — he had enough of that to spare. But it had been a hit to his pride, this new hacker upstart coming in and taking a job he’d been working on for days right from under his nose. And so he’d taken it out on her. Two days later she sent him a tweaked version, signed with a heart.

Annoying, but harmless. You’ll get along well. -L

Adrien wasn’t quite sure what to make of Plagg at first. Codename ‘Ladybug’ had taken the VI virus he’d implanted to mess with her system and turned it, somehow, into an AI that never shut up — but also didn’t ever do damage. And, while the note had most certainly been a jab at his abilities — Ladybug hadn’t been wrong. He and Plagg did get along well…weirdly enough. At first, he couldn’t get past the safeguards she’d put in place to disable it — and then, he stopped trying. He liked the company.

From the day he sent her that virus, Ladybug never left him alone. And he never left her alone, either. They ended up always dipping into the same pool of clients, always in competition even though they were trying to accomplish the same things. He had spent countless hours hacking into her system, trying his best to gain the upper hand, trying to win back clients. Ladybug’s counterattacks seemed to exist simply to mock him; she was always trolling him, driving him up the wall — and little notes she sent along seemed meant to taunt him further.

Nice try, Chaton. Try this instead. -L

You almost got me with that one! Almost. -L

I fixed it for you. -L

Hey, that wasn’t very nice, Chaton. Have fun re-downloading all those files. -L

Plagg got a new update last night! Enjoy. ;) -L

It was infuriating, and confusing, but his biggest concern was that Ladybug was better than he was. No matter what he tried, she turned it on him within days, with modifications and upgrades and things he would never even think of. But it was never damaging or irreversible. Sure, she’d sometimes slip into his system in the dead of night and delete games he’d spent hours downloading or disable every web browser but Internet Explorer, but nothing that actually prevented him from doing his work.

He hadn’t meant to make an enemy of her, but he’d always found himself antagonizing her — or trying to. Perhaps the way with which she handled it kept drawing him back to her. They were well known in the community for being pitted against each other — the rumors had spread, and now he was facing a conversation he had never wanted to begin.

Adrien’s eyes rested on the screen, cursor blinking impatiently at his hesitation.

[HawkMoth]: I’m still waiting for an answer.

[HawkMoth]: We could take her down together. No one would have to know.

[HawkMoth]: After it’s done, everything can go back to the way it was before.

[HawkMoth]: You’ll have no competition.

[HawkMoth]: You could be done with all of this.

How crazy had he gotten, to think that Adrien would say yes? Then again — HawkMoth was capable of destroying his entire system in fifteen minutes flat, as well as wiping out his account. He couldn’t exactly say no right off the bat, or it would all be gone.

[Chat Noir]: Let me think about it. Give me a few days.

[HawkMoth]: …You have 24 hours.

[Chat Noir]: Fine. More generous than usual, anyway.

[HawkMoth]: I can be patient. You have no other options, after all.

//hawkmoth has disconnected.

After checking his defense and making sure his activity couldn’t be traced, he took a deep breath. Now or never. It took him a good three minutes just to press send.

[Chat Noir]: Hey, can you imagine how annoying it might be to have to find a new picture of Camembert every thirty minutes for three years?

Her reply was near-instant, much to Adrien’s relief.

[Ladybug]: That was Plagg’s idea, actually. ;)

[Ladybug]: Every thirty minutes is a bit much, tbh. You’re spoiling him. I’m smiling!

[Ladybug]: Tikki likes cookies.

[Chat Noir]: You named the virus I sent you Tikki?

[Ladybug]: It fits.

[Ladybug]: Not a virus anymore, btw.

[Ladybug]: I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever actually talk to me.

[Chat Noir]: Are you always this friendly with your enemies?

[Chat Noir]: I can’t say this is what I was expecting.

[Ladybug]: Is that how you see us?

[Ladybug]: I think ‘rivals’ is more fitting, personally.

[Ladybug]: I’ve always enjoyed a little friendly competition.

Ladybug was…not like he expected. And it made his life way easier — tonight, anyway.

[Ladybug]: You still with me, Chaton?

[Chat Noir]: We need to talk — somewhere secure.

[Ladybug]: Ah.

[Ladybug]: Go offline and then talk to Plagg.

//ladybug has disconnected.

Adrien blinked. He’d approached her with caution and she had immediately taken him at his word, had not even questioned it. He supposed he should do the same. He shut everything down except for Plagg. The image of the little black cat floated in the middle of the darkened screen, smirking.

‘OH, FINALLY.’ Apparently much more in the loop than Adrien was, Plagg didn’t hesitate. ‘GIVE ME YOUR PHONE.’

Hesitantly, Adrien stood up. “Plagg. You don’t actually have hands.” Suddenly, Plagg’s voice was coming from behind him, much quieter than usual.

‘Yeah, no kidding, genius.’

Whirling around, Adrien snatched up his phone, eyes widening to see he’d taken over the screen. “You can jump into my phone?! How long have you been able to do that???”

Snickering, Plagg shrugged. ‘Since the beginning? Ladybug didn’t think it would take this long. I don’t think she knew just how stubborn you were.’

“Do you mean to tell me that Ladybug had planned for this from the beginning? That we’d meet?”

‘Guess you’ll have to ask her when you get there.’ Just as Plagg said that, the phone beeped: a text from a blocked number with an address and short instructions.

11 pm by the fountain. Cover your face.

————

Adrien’s stomach was in knots as he arrived in the darkened park, black hoodie and scarf successfully obscuring his identity. He’d spent years fighting with this girl, albeit not quite the ‘enemy’ he’d dubbed her, and in all honesty before tonight — he’d never even considered meeting her. To find that she had planned this all along was — what, exactly? He didn’t even know.

‘Calm down, kid. She’s not gonna murder you.’ Despite the fact that his phone was firmly in his pocket, he could almost see the eye-roll.

“Don’t make me regret the ear piece, Plagg. And that’s not — I didn’t think she was.” Not until Plagg had said that, anyway. But it was a fear he could fairly easily push aside — after all, they might be rivals, but they were both doing good work, even if they weren’t exactly going by the law to do it. After a few moments of steeling his resolve, he made his way to the fountain, sitting on the edge with nothing to do but wait and hope.

“You’re early!” Adrien nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice coming seemingly out of nowhere behind him. The very loud voice, for their very discreet meeting. And then she was giggling. “Oh, you even jump like a cat when scared. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you!” When he finally calmed his heart enough to turn around and face her, he was met with more giggling.

Again, Ladybug was not what he was expecting.

She was wearing a red hoodie with fabric that covered her face; the only thing he could see were her striking blue eyes. Eyes that were smiling at him — she was still laughing. And he found himself quickly covering his embarrassment with a huff. “Anyone would have jumped at that.” His voice didn’t come out quite as friendly as he’d intended — especially considering why he had asked her here — but it did nothing to dampen her mood, apparently.

“Oh no, I’m—” Ladybug stifled another giggle as she shook her head, waving her hands in front of her enthusiastically. “I just didn’t expect your hoodie to have cat ears. I didn’t see them until you turned around.” She shook her head, finally recovering, and he could see the laughter fade into determination in her gaze. It almost captivated him for a moment — almost. Plagg must have noticed, somehow, because he could hear the snickering in his ear. That’s when Adrien took the ear piece out.

“I know we just met, and I know you don’t know me. But I need you to trust me for a minute. I need you to close your eyes.” Ladybug took a step forward, arm reaching out almost as if she was going to touch him, but it dropped to her side almost as quickly, as if she had thought better of it.

Adrien didn’t know why, precisely, but he trusted her — and so he did. He felt slender fingers wrap around his hand, then, and without a second thought he found himself sliding his fingers through hers. She began to lead him, and he followed for what felt like hours before he felt her stop and open up a door, leading them both through it. The room lit up around him and she released his hand. “Okay, you can open your eyes.” Her voice sounded more timid now, and he did as she said.

His eyes hadn’t even fully adjusted to the light when he started sputtering in surprise. “T-this is…?!”

“Where I do my work.” She laughed a little shyly as she extended her hands, gesturing to the large room. It wasn’t just full of computers, but also pictures and mannequins and scraps of fabric and half-finished clothing everywhere. “I, uh, spend most of my time in here so other things have bled into it, but you won’t find a safer spot to talk in all of Paris.” She shook her head. “Sorry about having you close your eyes. I didn’t want to give away the location just yet.”

“No, it’s uh — that makes sense,” Adrien murmured, a little at a loss for what to say. “Um, sorry I didn’t really expect…” His voice trailed off. Honestly, he’d had no idea what to expect, but this girl didn’t seem like the trolling hacking machine he’d once thought she was.

Ladybug’s eyes darted to the side, and she shrugged. “So, um — you needed to talk somewhere secure?” She was looking at him again, and this time it was Adrien looking away. “Does this have to do with HawkMoth?”

She was giving him every opening he needed to start talking, but he found himself stumbling over his words, what he had planned to say vanishing from his mind as soon as he opened his mouth. “Y-yeah, good intuition,” he finally managed, and found himself sinking into one of the desk chairs. “He’s trying to get me to team up with him to take you down.” Once he got started, it had been easier to say than he was expecting.

“Oooh. I didn’t expect that.” For all the girl’s words, she didn’t actually sound terribly surprised. In fact, she was already halfway across the room, flipping over her dry erase board to reveal the back — an extensive record of HawkMoth and his methods, codes, and possible plans. She was already jotting the information down in one of the few bare spots on the board, tucked away in a small corner. “I mean, I knew he wanted to get rid of me, obviously, but he always works alone and trusts no one so that strategy is a little surprising, you know? I mean, not that I’m an expert, but I’ve been tracking his actions over the past few years and I—”

“Whoa, this is insane,” he cut in, now standing next to her and examining the board. He only felt a little bad about cutting her off…he felt that might be the only way he got a word in edgewise. “You realize this looks like one of those crazy conspiracy theorist boards?”

Ladybug laughed. “Well, at this point, it kind of is? I mean, I don’t really know what he’s after. But everyone that comes to us is trying to escape from him, aren’t they?” She grabbed his arm, suddenly serious again. Her moods seemed to shift on a whim, and Adrien couldn’t help but be fascinated by it. “Chat, you need to say yes.”

And now his jaw had dropped, not that she could see it beneath the fabric. Was this girl actually insane? But she didn’t look crazy — she looked determined. “I — you’re serious?”

“If he lets you in, even a little bit, wouldn’t that be a chance to learn enough to take him down? We can work with this!” Ladybug did not seem to have a grasp on the potential dangers of the situation, and Adrien felt himself slipping into a weird sort of panic on her behalf.

“What…what kind of things could we even learn from that? There’s way too many chances for it to backfire. No way.” He shook his head, finding it hard to hold her gaze when it was so earnest. Why did it have to be her eyes that he could see? “I came to you to avoid that.”

Her eyes were pleading with him now, and he had to break away from her touch before she hypnotized him. “If we could learn his identity, I’m sure we could find a way to connect everything with him and—”

“That is not an issue.” Adrien gritted his teeth. Now or never. “I already know his identity.” There’s no going back.

Ladybug froze, her eyes widening. For a moment, he could swear he saw the fear of the worst flashing through her eyes before she recovered enough to prompt him. “…oh?”

Adrien sighed. “HawkMoth is my father.”

“Oh…oh.” Ladybug’s voice was soft, but it wasn’t pity he felt from her. She was touching his hand, now, and somehow he felt like she was sharing every bit of the pain he’d felt when having to say those words out loud. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how hard that is.” Before he’d realized she’d done it, she had led him over to the couch, sitting them both down on it, hand still on his.

She didn’t ask about his father’s identity.

After a few moments, she spoke, hesitantly. “I admit I noticed some…similarities. At first, I was suspicious, but when I confirmed that you definitely weren’t — well, him — I … I had thought maybe that you would be the key to bringing him down for good.”

“He taught me everything I know,” he murmured half bitterly, leaning back. He didn’t make any move to remove her hand…hers was a comforting touch, and Adrien didn’t know how much he had needed that until tonight. “You really think we could bring him down?”

When she didn’t immediately respond, he looked at her curiously. “Are you…sure that’s what you want?” She shook her head. “I—I mean, HawkMoth needs to be stopped but I can understand if you don’t want to be involved in that, it’s—”

“Yes, it’s what I want.” He sounded more confident than he felt. “But — he taught me everything I know,” he said again. “He’s got me outmatched, and when I don’t say yes tomorrow, he’s going to be able to cut me off from everything.”

Ladybug shook her head, and her hold on his hand tightened slightly. “You say that, but the way you code—” She stopped mid-sentence, shaking her head again; it looked as if she was having trouble getting her words out. “Would it make any sense if I said it had more heart?” She laughed. “No, I just — I need you to understand how good you are. I’ve been freaking out over it for like, three years, okay?”

And now, Adrien was having trouble keeping up again. “You’ve improved and outdone everything I’ve ever sent to you.”

“Yes! No,” she corrected herself almost immediately, her voice speeding up excitedly. “No that’s just it! That virus you sent me, the very first time. It had something in it I’d never seen before, not in anything HawkMoth has done, not in anything my master taught me — it was completely unique. I can’t explain it, but it’s been in everything you’ve sent me. The only reason I’ve been able to make the things I have is because I was building off of your code.” She had released his hand now, only to gesture excitedly with both of hers — still, he found himself missing that warmth. And he was definitely blushing now.

“I, uh…didn’t…notice…” he mumbled awkwardly, unable to meet her eyes again — although now she, too, was looking away.

A little calmer now, she started again. “There’s something about putting our minds together that just…works. I think we could do it, if we were working together.” She paused for a moment. “Is that — what you wanted when you came?”

Adrien gave a barely perceptible nod. “I messaged you earlier hoping to ask you to help me defeat him, yeah.” Even so, he felt himself somehow swept away by how the evening had unfolded so far.

“Then…we need to trust each other.” He saw her nod out of the corner of his eyes. “I have a plan, but there’s no way it can work if we’re staying in the shadows — not from each other, anyway.” She sounded hesitant, but resolved. And she didn’t wait for an answer before he saw the hood come down. Adrien’s head whipped towards her more quickly than he thought physically capable, and he found himself locking eyes with her once more, jaw dropping as his breath caught in his chest. She then pulled down the fabric from around her face and greeted him with a smile much more beautiful than he had dared to expect — then again, Ladybug had a habit of defying his expectations. “My name is Marinette.”

And he smiled. Reaching up to pull down his own hoodie and remove his scarf, he was still smiling when the fabric dropped. Any apprehension he had felt earlier had all but vanished, at least in this moment. “It’s nice to officially meet you, Marinette. I’m Adrien.”

#miraculous ladybug #mlauyeahaugust #auyeahaugust #ml fanfic #mlb fanfic #mlb fanfiction #adrienette #ladynoir #adrinette #ml au yeah august #marinette dupain-cheng #adrien agreste #plaggo writes #season 2 spoilers

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ahjiee-rana · 6 years ago

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Hi, apologies for bothering you but since I've been seeing your lovely DAI shots, I've had DAI in my backlog to play and wanted to ask if you were using any mods or if there were any you would recommend?

Hey! DO I EVER. Lol. It’s no bother at all and I’d be happy to recommend a few that I use! :DI tend to switch various mods I like in and out pretty frequently based on whatever mood I’m in and the section of the game I’ve reached. But here are a few of my faves. (Uh, okay, I’ve gotten a bit carried away here and this is going to be a lot longer than I thought it would be oops haha).To start, the majority of these can be found on the Nexus - only a few are from other sites - and I don’t think any of these would be considered ‘cheats.’ Also, I personally play almost exclusively as elves, so some of these might be more geared toward them. Also, also, these all use DAI Mod Manager to merge with the game, rather than Frosty mod manager. An asterisk next to a mod means it’s pretty much crucial, either for modding the game, or for me, personally.

The sacred text for everyone using DAI mods: DAI Modder Central.

Eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes:-SOS Eyes up Here (All of which are gorgeous. I’ve used tintable Witchcraft v2 and v3 as well as tintable Babydoll). I also use the eyelash mod from here.-I am also currently trying out Look At These Eyes from this mod page, which are very lovely, too!-*Eyebrows 4 Women and *Eyebrows 4 Men. There’s another brow mod that’s being worked on here rn which I’m definitely going to try when it’s done!

Hair:-SK Hair pack has great options!-Short wavy bob is adorable (my bby is using it here).-Nipuni’s updated bun is also very nicely done! (using it here)-I also strongly recommend using a hair texture smoother like *this one along with whatever hairstyle you pick, or even if you pick one of the vanilla game hairs.-I’ve also used Relaxed Hairstyles. (screenshots)-If you sift through Skara’s mixed mods page here, there’s some more excellent hair mods and other cool things that are not on the Nexus.*Meshes need to be set to Ultra in options for all hair mods to show up in-game, or else on a lower setting they’ll only show up in cutscenes.

Complexions & makeup:-Ascendia’s complexions (I’m using the ‘Ionie’ DLC-friendly one currently on my f!Lavellan).-Gearhog’s complexions (I use their ‘Jude’ complexion for my male elf).-Kitten’s Complexions (I’ve used the tintable ‘Sera’ one as well from here).-Gearhog’s burn scar one is a fave as well, as I find it adds a bit of backstory to play with ;).-Also while on the topic of complexions/face things, I like these vallaslin tweaks by tropelicious, as well as these if you’ve played DA:O and want that style back for your Quizzy.-For makeup, I especially like the eyeliner #6 from this one on my F!Lavellan.-This is also beautiful work from Sidoumo.

While I’m here - a note about complexions, hair, and makeup. It’s much easier IMO to merge your chosen complexion and makeup mod (many DAI complexion mods change complexion #3 for f and #5 for m. So you can only try out 1 complexion mod at a time) and a few hair options before starting up a new game, rather than seeing how they look on an already created character, especially because the Black Emporium, where you can change your character’s appearance at any time, will absolutely crash if you go in there with mods on that alter your appearance. What I do is make one mod folder with my main mods I want to use, merge for regular gameplay, and one mod folder for Black Emporium without any Inquisitor appearance mods, and merge that one whenever I need to go in there for the mirror to tweak my appearance, or for purchasing schematics and crafting supplies that I’m too lazy to go and collect myself. I also eventually create a third folder with mods that are compatible with the 3 end-game (or late-game) DLCs, as some mods that worked throughout the whole game will also crash (or just not show up) in these later DLCs.

Armors & pajama/unequip outfit:-I love all the *Dalish armor edits from KittenTails.-If you play as a Qunari, definitely take a look at the SOS Qunari overhaul collection.-I can’t stand the ‘unequip’ outfit/pajama (not a big deal early in the game, but later on you’re wearing it all the time at your HQ), so I use *a pajama replacer.-No matter your class and race, you always start out wearing the same armor. If you want to switch it to something like elven mage armor or want to RP your Warden from DA:O, etc., Immersive Starting Armors is a good option.-Multiplayer Armor Edits for Single Player is great for expanding your armory, too.~-Just a little aesthetic thing is the No Dirt Buildup mod which disables the gradual dirt/sand buildup on your armor.

Important/Other:-***DAI Mod Manager for merging your mods with the game.-***7 zip to extract mod files.-**DAI Cinematic Tools for screenshotting/flycam. These tutorials have helped me a lot when learning how to use the Tools.

Companion appearance specific:-I adore Skara’s lil greying ponytail for Blackwall (scroll down toward the bottom of pg5).-Sera is super cute with this complexion and bun.-For Solas, I’ll switch between *this one (first regular option) and (spoilery) this one for late-game as a bit of a storytelling element in my mind.-Vivienne is already badass but I like this mod for her as well!

I tend to over-organize my computer, but I’ve found it reeeeaaaallllyyy helps when I’ve tested out as many mods as I have to make separate folders for each type of mod (Face Things/Eyes/Hair/Armor/Other Characters/Mission Specific), one for your characters, and then one or more inside that one for each of your characters if you have multiple playthroughs that utilize different mods for quick and easy merging. Like so:

> inside My_Characters (I make these folders as I need them.)

When I post images on Nexus, I include my mod list to credit and thank the authors for their work, so you can also get an idea of what these all look like on a created character here.

I hope this helped!

#ask #reply #dragon age #aeretylian #long post

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bixgirl1 · 7 years ago

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4 and 5 for Prima Nocta please 😍💕💕 (and maybe for Every Me too?)

@magpiefngrl Of course, babe! :D

4. What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

For Prima Nocta: Yeesh. This one’s hard because so much of the fic is dialogue, and yet so much of that dialogue feels straightforward but is really subtext. I think I’ll go with the lines I used for the summary:

"I'm saying I want to own you tonight," he says, drawing the word out into a purr. "Are you surprised?"

Potter looks away. His voice drips with distaste. "Just at myself, for having unreasonably assumed you might have grown up in the last ten years."

and

“Stuff it, Malfoy. We’re not kids anymore and I’m an Auror, not an idiot. I know all about you. But you can pull my pigtails more if you like, later. You can do anything you want.”

Every Me and Every You: This... sucks. LOL. I’m actually super fond of several bits of dialogue in this, and a lot of those come from the AU hopping Harry does (for instance, in the Dark!Harry scene, I really loved, “Entertain me in the meantime.” It was chilling and...weirdly hot to write. LOL), and also a lot of them don’t make sense without the context of the scene so please, omg I’m so sorry, forgive me for the length of this! LOL. I settled on two: A scene and a line. Scene first. *cries with indecision*

(Putting the rest under a cut because this grew super long and not a little spoilery and nsfw. LOLOL)

‘“This,” Malfoy said, holding up a crystal-stoppered vial with clear liquid, “is Veritaserum.”

A flicker of amusement slipped through Harry. Malfoy’s clipped, instructional tone made him wonder if he’d practised mimicking Snape as a child. He caught Hermione’s quickly-hidden smile — she’d heard it, too.

“I can see that,” Harry said somberly.

With a subtly theatrical flourish of his wand, Malfoy placed the vial on his desk. It stood on its curved end, spinning slowly, on display. Harry bit his lip.

“Which,” Malfoy continued, “will make you spill all of your secrets. While not infallible, even the most skilled at protecting themselves against its effects are prone to mistakes.”

Harry and Hermione exchanged another glance. They sat together on Malfoy’s small sofa and waited. From within his emerald green waistcoat, he withdrew another vial. “And this,” he said, “is my own version of it—”

“Did you put that in your waistcoat when we got here, just so you could pull it out dramatically?” Harry asked.

Malfoy sniffed and ignored him, “—which compels the drinker to tell the truth only if they choose to answer,” he said, chin tilting up. The liquid within this vial was mostly clear but murkier, swirling with little, hard-to-see silvery clouds. “So it gives you the option to weigh the question before saying anything; it’ll also only pull the truth from you if you sense it’s pertinent to the objective.”

“Why am I still here, again?” Hermione wondered aloud. “I just came in to give Harry that file from Ron. I have things to do; some of us are still trying to save his life, you know.”

“It took me nearly a year to develop this,” Malfoy went on, eyes gleaming down at the vial with uncomplicated pride. “Three areas of the brain become active when we lie: the anterior cingulated cortex, the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex. This specifically targets the first and last, which monitor errors and reads sensory output. But, unlike regular Veritaserum, it only gently tweaks the dorsal prefrontal — which controls behavior — so you have input on the amount of truth you reveal.”

“Wow,” Harry said after a beat, trying to sound appreciative. Malfoy looked up, frowning.

“No, really,” Hermione said, sitting forward. She, at least, didn’t have to fake her enthusiasm, though she still seemed as confused as Harry. “That’s brilliant, Malfoy. Well done.”

Malfoy nodded, relaxing. “Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “You’re here as a witness so that Potter will feel more comfortable taking it.”

Hermione blinked and looked at him; Harry smiled at her weakly. “I thought it might make him less inclined to ask personal things.”

“But the whole point is that you can choose not to answer,” Hermione said, baffled.

“I didn’t know that part yet!” Harry said. “You saw that little presentation he just gave us.”

Malfoy huffed. “Presentation?”

“Can I go then?” Hermione asked.

“Hell, yes. Please,” Harry said. He shooed her away. “I don’t really want to answer stuff in front of you, either, if I don’t have to.”

Looking vaguely offended, Hermione said, “I already know all your stuff.”

“Presentation?” Malfoy asked again.

“You don’t know all my stuff,” Harry said, frowning.

“I could quote all of your stuff,” Hermione said. Her lips twitched.

“It was an explanation,” Malfoy insisted, and Harry threw his hands up in the air.’

I was just really proud of the back-and-forth of it, how so many things were happening simultaneously, and of course I really love writing funny when I can, so it tickled me that this tickled me. :D

As for a single line of dialogue... *cough*... Um, my favorite might be one of the most nsfw lines I’ve ever written but I sorta love it so much? Sorry for spoilers! :D

“I want to fuck you with your come up my arse.”

Ahem.

Okay, question 5!

5. What was the hardest part to write?

Man, you’re not taking it easy on me, are you? LOLOL.

Prima Nocta: Kind of the whole thing. I was really hard to get the tone I envisioned right, that push-pull. I wanted Draco to feel unredeemed but not unsympathetic. So I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote that fucker until my fingers were sore. LOLOL. Especially since it was from his POV, that was super difficult. Also the sex toys. I looooovvve reading/writing (*cough*using*cough*) sex toys, but it can be hard to make it read realistic in a fic. That was a struggle for me - but it always is. LOL.

Every Me and Every You: Kind of the whole thing. LOLOL. No, seriously, I rewrote this too, in a dozen different ways. I think the beginning was the hardest for me, though, establishing the whats and hows and whys until Draco gets really involved. Every AU remix I did from your amazing Tumblr AU prompts series was just smooth as butter, because look what I had to work with. lol. But I get tangled up in magical theory I find fascinating, so the background stuff I had to explain before I get to the story (and after the story took off), took lots and lots of work. Which I’m thrilled to have done because I love it and you.

Thanks so much for the ask, sweets!

Fic Asks

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home-halone · 7 years ago

Text

Long Post on Screenshots

Coincidentally, I had glimpsed the twitter thread in question (or something similar) before I saw a post about it and had some thoughts™ as well

I was going to straight up reply but it got out of hand and I ended up blabbing a lot about taking screenshots, mods and ReShade.

Mods. Literally just an aesthetic client-side change. I can't believe people are up in arms about this. Let people have their fun and ignore it if it's not to your taste. There's absolutely no need to shit on someone else's definition of fun. Your values for what comprises a good screenshot made with effort should not be imposed as the standard. (Unless you're holding a screenshot contest, it literally doesn't matter.)

I don't use mods personally, out of laziness and I cannot be bothered messing with my files. Partly because I don't have characters that have a particular appearance that I really want. But that's my reason, and if other people are happy with their mods, so be it. I'm happy with my own thing. Even a walk home next to a world-famous monument just gets dull when you see it so often. It's not a crime to appreciate it through a different lens.

I'm going to preface this by saying no one has to defend what they want to do for fun. And even if your reasons for using mods/ReShade etc doesn't fall in line with any of the ones offered below, it literally doesn't matter and you should have your fun.

Contrary to what some negative folks think, people are still fully capable of doing some really good glamour without mods. Although it makes sense when you play around with FFXIV's glams/character creator enough, you'll quickly realize that there are particular limitations (certain gloves don't show up with certain tops, some bottoms lose the pants/skirt when you wear certain things over them, etc) and some people simply want to portray the details of their characters accurately to their vision. I have seen a lot of really good designs that don't exactly match their in-game sprites. Some people might want to do an easy cosplay. Some people might just want to look pretty and sometimes it doesn't get deeper than that.

Nevermind that there are ordinary people behind modding, creating these for use. They didn’t spawn out of nowhere. They’re a product of someone’s hard work and skill too. Shout out to @keeperofthelilacs for the posts & a glimpse into the grueling, painstaking process just to make a deceptively simple mod and apply changes to each model. I cannot fathom people creating things that are not even in-game.

But obviously, with modding being the new shiny thing, there would be an influx of pretty pictures with people using them. The majority out there still does some creative things without the use of these programs. But their use isn’t indicative of a lack of creativity in taking screenshots.

Yes, the game is intrinsically beautiful and the sights are breathtaking, and there's no shortage of unmodded, unretouched, unReShaded screenshots littered about. I know there are more than a handful of reddit threads with such screenshots up. But, even with the built-in /gpose, the options can be limited and the vivid colors don't always show up the way people intend them to. This is why ‘different’ draws attention. Since we all have the same washed out color palette (suitable for actually playing the game. try raiding with an Aesthetic ReShade setting with Depth of Field on, it is agony.) it’s easier to pick out brighter looking, unusual colored screenshots. Moreso if they’re beautifully composed.

The improvement of colors from ReShade are only one aspect of it, as a lot of people who use them could tell you.

This screenshot has ReShade on and some /gpose settings, and it’s whatever. It’s meh.

It’s poorly lit, tilted to one side for some reason, the background lantern is grabbing all the attention, but the scenery is somehow cut off, my character is awkwardly posed, the colors, while MORE vivid, aren’t really inspiring the ‘hey this outfit is awesome and unique’ feeling. You have no idea what you’re meant to pay attention to.

Now, before you say I took a bad one on purpose, this was actually from the time I first got the diamond coat so I was ACTUALLY trying to show it off. This was one of many screenshots I’d taken, trying to nail down what I wanted to do.

It just goes to show even if you have the tools, you can still produce some pretty underwhelming stuff. And you could easily take a better one if you know what you’re doing.

It may be beyond the provisions of the game, but it’s not an easy task taking good screens with ReShade. Like said, it takes time and skill.

You have to know when to use angles and tilts and how to frame photos. Composition does SO much. The word gets used a lot but there’s a lot involved, whether you do it consciously or not. Do I zoom in up close or far out? How far? Do I want to put my subject in the center or a little to the right? How much of the background should I show? Do I blur? Do I use dutch angles? Do I take a high angle shot? Daytime? Nighttime? /gpose which filter? How much can I crop? Do I need the feet in the frame? Do I add special effects? Lighting setting 3 2 or 1? More green or more red? Those are basic questions people think about, but these are settings you use to tell a story. Then there’s questions like, how do I frame the photo to draw more attention to the feeling of being trapped? How do I use lighting to create a feeling of dread? How do I use the environment to help me tell the story and not just take a dull photo of my character?

And that’s just taking the photo. It’s easy to be tempted by all the shiny stuff you can pile onto a photo, but if it doesn’t serve a purpose other than “ooh”, then the intense sparkles floating around a photo can distract more than contribute.

So you have everything set. You switch ReShade on. You picked out a good preset. But when it comes to stuff like this one size does not fit all, in order to make it work beyond what a preset provides (as night can be pitch black, and daytime is a complete bloom-filled eyesore) you have to get your hands dirty. Presets can be pretty for sightseeing, and for most it’s enough and they work well enough to use consistently in screenshots. And that’s perfectly fine. The settings are very technical and have numerical values. I don’t understand all the values and effects myself, and finding the sweet spot to produce is an arduous process.

The same goes for Photoshop. There’s no magic button to make your art look good. You need a good eye for adjusting saturation, color balance, lighting, cropping, framing etc. to improve ANY photo. More than that, you need to be good at making believable visual effects for fancier edits. If you drag a brush randomly, no one’s going to be immersed in the way those hair extensions were made. Nope, people study the native look of a photo to make changes. Otherwise you just end up with spaghetti hair.

[it’s the same ugly photo but with spaghetti hair]

I literally used the color dropper. It’s not enough to do that!! Like GIRL I’m a fuckin digital painter and I don’t know how all those people paint/edit hair, it’s a SKILL they learned and not one I have LOL. You have to care about lighting and getting the right width and all that. It’s not that simple.

Photoshop’s got a magic wand but it’s not that easy!

People who edit photos are familiar with these... and each one has its own settings and values :,^) that can change the mood of a photo by making only certain colors be more muted or even making everything look a little lighter and brighter.

It’s not that easyyyy look at one of these windows if I didn’t do this for a living I’d be so confused

So going back to showing off my coat. After I saw the lineup of photos I’d taken, I was pretty dissatisfied, especially because I knew I could take better photos.

I identified the problems I saw:

1.Even though I wanted to showcase my outfit, I didn’t have to take a photo straight on. The photo earlier had her facing completely straight into the camera. And it felt very flat.

2. It’s zoomed too far out, you can’t really see the details on the coat.

3. I tweaked my ReShade settings. I worked on the lighting. When I realized my settings and the lighting in game (and on gpose) were not cooperating, I decided to wait for daytime. Kugane at night was distracting as hell with all the lanterns in the background. My clothes were the star.

Here’s another screenshot I took wearing the Far Eastern stuff.

I wasn’t showing off the details of the glamour here. Kugane at night has a lot of personality, lights and colors. When I looked at this old screenshot, I realized that it wasn’t a good setting for a simple photo that said “hey check my glam”. This photo told a story. My clothes weren’t the focus, it was the fact that Proxi was in Far Eastern clothes in Kugane. All of those facts were of equal importance, so she was a figure immersed in her surroundings.I didn’t need to capture the details of her dress, just show enough for it to be recognized. That’s why this photo worked. And only one of the many reasons why the badly lit one didn’t work. Contrary to the urge to do so, I didn’t need to tilt the camera angle to make it look interesting. I used her body language, paused an emote at the right second to get something more relaxed, her over-the-shoulder look gives an inviting feeling. I let the color contrast separate her from the background as a figure, but I kept her a part of that warm Kugane vibe with bits of red lighting. There’s a lot of thought that goes into this. How color and mood tie together. Knowing what is essential and what isn’t helps a lot, and sometimes it’s trial and error and you don’t really actually know what you want.

Here’s the final image of the Coat screenshot that I posted a couple months ago

The problem with the Diamond Coat is that I dyed it a dark blue color and I wanted to keep that sense of dark blue without shining a bright light on it, or lightening the color. I used stronger contrasts to bring out the blues, fiddled with settings I didn’t understand but it made details shaper lol. I used angles and some blur to add a little more dynamicity (being a more static photo) and focus on Proxi. While she is still mostly facing forward, I played with her pose more, to get more of a ~random well-dressed elezen on a stroll~ feel. And!! look at all the details on her coat, you can see them!!

But wait, you ask, aren’t you just proving that ReShade is a crutch wELL IT’S NOT. It’s a TOOL. You use. If it makes your life easier and more efficient and it makes you happier, like, honestly it doesn’t matter.

But here’s a non g-pose, non-ReShade screenshot I took during a Zurvan EX run early last year. My PC froze for a second lol. I was going to have a heart attack doing this but as a SMN I’m obligated to RELISH Teraflare. This is ONE lucky screenshot I got and you know what, even if the colors aren’t super vivid, this screenshot feels SO right. The explosions aren’t overwhelmingly bright, the arena is surprisingly a fitting background, and she’s got her leggy up but she didn’t give me a panty flash and I am fortunate this turned out to be a great photo I could put in a church mural.

Another non-gpose one. See! framing, contrast and all that. This was from my old blog circa 2016 and it got one note! LOL gpose didn’t even exist yet as we know it, and I don’t think ReShade was widespread or even a thing yet and I was super proud of this one. The trees gave her a soft background without making it too blindingly bright so she stands out and I love it.

So there’s’ your normal screenshot look, without excessive flash and eyesore while still being pretty.

But yeah anyway

TL;DR

1. Don’t be bitter about other people using tools and adding steps to enhance their aesthetic experiences or to create screenshots that are more faithful to their vision. If it’s not harming you, live and let live.

2. There’s more thought that goes into pretty screenshots than you think. Just because they don’t pick up a brush and draw, does not disqualify these screenshot posters as skilled artists in their own right.

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ'✿ That’s all!

#long long post #personal

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iu · 7 years ago

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oh okay i'll send my ask again!! so this might make me sound rly dumb but basically i was looking through ur ps help tag and i kept seeing people asking for the psd you use and i was wondering what that means exactly?? like i know psd is the file extension for photoshop files but what exactly does it mean when you use a psd for gifmaking?? i hope that wasn't worded too confusingly jfkljsld

yay okay so!!! (if you view this on desktop i think my theme cuts off the large pics so i recommend checking this post out on mobile haha)

idk how proficient you are already so i tried to be as descriptive as possible + a lot of visual aid!

the first step of giffing is importing a scene from a video, resizing it to tumblrs format and setting it’s timing right? (if u need help with any of these too hmu im always glad to help u can even do it off anon in pms)

but the thing is that even though the video itself might look good and have nice color grading etc, in gif form it looks kinda boring and bland..

maybe it doesnt Look like that but since ppl edit their gifs so much on here it’s now considered bad taste to gif without any PSDS on top. so it has become a custom in the gifmaker community to add a lot of Adjustment Layers to the gif, which in total are called a PSD.

so you click this button

and it gives u a list of various things you can do to change the look of a gif. The most simple to understand is i guess Brightness/Contrast, where moving the handles adjusts the brightness and contrast of the gif:

so for my first step i slightly raised the brightness and lowered the contrast (it doesnt mean you always have to do that it’s just whatever the gif is, or the look you want to go for!)

and this is the result

Hmm.. Now let’s say that i feel like i want the purples in this gif to me muuuuuch more vibrant, so i make a layer of Vibrance and raise it a bit to make the colors pop more

and maybe raise the saturation just a liiiiiitle bit

I still feel like it doesnt look cool enough.. Like i dont want a subtle soft purple from the original i want it PURPLE with a capital P and capital every other letter lol. There’s a bunch of fun ways to get that effect that you’ll get after playing around with those Adjustment Layers.

I went into Hue/Saturation aka my fav tab, and made the settings for Blue and Magenta just a bit to the right of the spectrum and more saturated (it might not seem like a big diff but those little changes pile up to give the gif a distinct look)

then i went to color balance and changed it towards slightly more red and magenta

this is all the work we have done so far, it’s pretty visible already i would say

Now what i showed so far is i guess the more like bare simple ways of color manipulating ur gif. It’s nothing crazy but it already gives it a distinct and more pleasant look!

There’s so many of them that tbh there is no One tutorial, it’s just about experimenting with each of these options and seeing what kind of results you get! Because there’s sooo many possibilities in adjustment layers that i haven’t even started describing the tip of the iceberg. some examples:

I made a Solid Color layer in a darker purple shade ur seeing in the little box, set its Blending Mode (the lil box next to opacity) to Luminosity and changed the Opacity to a lower one bc it looks crazy on 100%, and achieved this nice toned down effect to the gif if you’re going for this kinda look! i also like it cos it returns some color to her skin shade

another cool feature with like .. endless possibilities is the Gradient Map. With this one you also gotta use Blending Modes and lowering the opacity of that layer so that your gif doesnt end up looking crazy... ooh also play around with Photo Filters, those are really easy to grasp and have already st presets that can make the photo colder/warmer/etc!

after playing around some more this is my final result lol...

before

after

(i also sharpened the final gif)

So if you take all these adjustment layers and group them in a folder, it’s called a PSD! A lot of people share their psds online as do I! Not every psd works for every video, but some might be more universal than others, and you might just have to tweak it a little bit to look nicer! So to use someone else’s PSD on your gif you just open them in Ps side by side and drag the folder with the PSD on top of your gif!

#ps ask #sorry i got long #Anonymous

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ask-obt · 2 years ago

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// wow, that was surprisingly easy!

// well not actually lol

so it turns out my 3DS had some bad luck and decided it didn't want to be modded directly- instead I would either have to reformat it (not happening, I have a lot of downloaded titles I don't want to lose saves for), or backup my saves on a flashcart and then reformat it. so I bought a flashcart with ok reviews on amazon, waited patiently for it to arrive, and it worked...! kind of. well, it was already pre-loaded with modding software that I don't think was what I was looking for- but I also wasn't sure whether or not to try getting it a new SD card for it or if that may potentially brick the dang thing (I have bad luck with bricking things lol). in the end I just decided to use the flashcart as-is and just play it directly on my DSi and just give up on the 3DS modding for now. yeehaw!

I fiddled around in sky temple for a little bit (read: 8 hours) to add little tweaks to the game. mostly adding fairy-type in (using one of the premade ASM patches, I tried learning the coding language for 3 seconds and wanted to explode), and then adding fairy moves and learnsets in by hand using the stats from the mod Explorers of Skies- which seems like a super fun hack! I'd just boot that on the flashcart directly, but I wanted to keep mods for OBT minimal... with one other change, to make milotic's body size 1. because I want eilwyn to hang out with more pokemon pre-postgame than just rune and [partner] :(

working on this though did make me want to attempt one of my own hacks someday! i'd love to implement stuff like: - nuzlocke setting (not sure if there could be a recruitment limit of 1 per dungeon, but I could possibly see there being a way to delete a recruit automatically when they faint) - option to switch hero/partner out mid-playthrough - early unlocked luminous spring (maybe post-future arc?) ... but I also don't know a lot about coding! I'd have to be pretty far ahead in OBT's buffer to fixate on a big learning project like that, hehe. wishful thinking in the meantime! there was also a mighty temptation to change the sprites here into custom OBT sprites, but that would've made this into a MUCH bigger project, and I really should focus on drawing pages since I don't have a buffer atm u,w,u (also also I'm a lil freak that wouldn't want to mix the art style of the game with the art style of my art, so it'd take even longer on account of me trying to emulate the canon style, rip)

this does mean I couldn't really find a way to port the game files for OBT's data directly though, so for now I am settling on starting a new file and playing it to the point current OBT is at, of course keeping recruits and items the same- it'll be a big project, but I'm warming up to the idea of streaming a casual run where y'all can watch me collect a million gummis to give shiny new alolan rune stair sensor. being able to play on-the-go with the hardware is already pretty helpful, since I hate playing games at my laptop haha.

finally, here's a clean screenshot! I also gave her the shiny model, which... is hard to tell because that's just how shiny alolan vulpix is

is rune an alolan culprit ingame?

// she is! or at least, my best approximation of one. see OBT is played on a physical cartridge, with modifications made using ye olde action replay (which boy oh boy I sure hope that never explodes, they're hard to come by nowadays). I use a combination of cheats that can change rune's type, moves, and even abilities to get my closest approximation to alolan vulpix based on a combination of what was available at the time and what would be closest to kantonian vulpix in build (since a lot of pokemon get better movepools in later gens). she very very briefly had snow warning (but no snow veil since it isn't in the game's data), but I quickly found it made the game borderline unplayable since every 3 turns or so, EVERY pokemon currently in the dungeon had to take damage. which takes forever. so she instead has no ability at all. however, the game does have flags to reset pokemon types and abilities, so I always need to reactivate the codes every time I enter a new dungeon... it's a lot of work haha

of course I set all this up before the super cool Sky Temple ROM editor was released! the very talented community has options to include alolan vulpix and fairy-typing in the game, along with many other fun mods. I have considered porting OBT's data from the physical copy into a modded ROM, but I haven't gotten very far haha. the other option is to start with a new file on a ROM and play up to where OBT's gameplay is with items, recruits, levels, etc... which is probably way more work, hehe. though typing this all out, maybe a casual "mimic" playthrough would be good streaming material? that said if you're in the modding scene and would like to baby someone through save porting and/or editing, feel free to hit up my DMs!

#on borrowed time comic #ask-obt #ooc

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