#i mean i don't use my laptop a lot but i think there are mobile posing apps as well. all i need is for them to hold still anyway

[marshmellowtea]

idly thinking here but honestly i think if this blog went down then i'd just be done with tumblr forever. like.....that's it. this is the blog i've had for as long as i've had a tumblr account, i'm not built like the people who can start again and remake over and over again. it'd be a sign that i just need to be done with this website for good i think.

[nightshadeowl]

Thinking about trying to use MMD to have models of Doomguy on hand.

[doctorbitchcrxft]

Asylum | Supernatural Series Rewrite | Dean Winchester x Reader

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader (Eventual)

Warnings: canon violence, canon gore, mentions of parental abuse (take care of yourselves my lovebugs)

Word Count: 5444

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You and the boys had bonded quite a lot since Kansas. You and Sam had always been close; bonding over random pop culture debates, philosophical musings, and your interest in the pursuit of knowledge. It was your relationship with Dean that was really starting to confuse you.

You knew you were attracted to him; that much you had never denied. But it was the way your heart seemed to tug toward him in your chest when you two made your pinky promise next to his car that confused the hell out of you. You and Dean were friends, and that was truly all you needed from him. Or, at least, that was what you told yourself.

Sam was on the phone with one of his father’s friends named Caleb. The boys were growing frustrated at their inability to find him. Every lead they followed was a dead end. 

“You know, maybe we should call the Feds. File a missing person’s,” Sam suggested.

“We've talked about this. Dad'd be pissed if we put the Feds on his tail,” Dean rebutted.

Sam shook his head. “I don't care anymore.”

Dean’s cell phone rang on the bed next to you. You got up to bring it over to him. 

“After all that happened back in Kansas, I mean, he should've been there, Dean. You said so yourself. You tried to call him and… nothing. You know, he could be dead for all we know.”

Dean took the phone from you. “Don't say that! He's not dead! He's – he's…”

“He's what? He's hiding? He's busy?” Sam argued.

Dean went to respond, but the message on his cell phone caught his attention. “Huh. I don't believe it.”

“What?” you asked, peering over his shoulder.

“It's, uh, it's a text message. It's coordinates.” Dean immediately opened his laptop and began clacking away.

“You think Dad was texting us?” Sam asked.

“He's given us coordinates before,” Dean said.

“The man can barely work a toaster, Dean.”

“Sam, it's good news! It means he's okay, or alive at least.”

“Well, was there a number on the caller ID?”

“Nah, it said 'unknown,’ “ Dean replied.

“Well, where do the coordinates point?”

“That's the interesting part. Rockford, Illinois.”

“Interesting how?” you asked him.

“I checked the local Rockford paper. Take a look at this.” He handed the paper to you. “This cop, Walter Kelly, comes home from his shift, shoots his wife, then puts the gun in his mouth, blows his brains out. And earlier that night, Kelly and his partner responded to a call at the Roosevelt Asylum.”

“Okay, I'm not following. What has this have to do with us?” Sam questioned.

“Dad earmarked the same asylum in the journal. Let’s see…” Dean flipped to the page. “Here. Seven unconfirmed sightings, two deaths; till last week at least. I think this is where he wants us to go.”

Sam snorted. “This is a job. Dad wants us to work a job.”

“Well, maybe we'll meet up with him? Maybe he's there?”

“Maybe he's not? I mean, he could be sending us there, by ourselves, to hunt this thing.”

“Who cares! If he wants us there, it's good enough for me!”

“Guys—” Their bickering had gotten more frequent in days of late, and it was beginning to bug the shit out of you.

“This doesn't strike you as weird? The texting? The coordinates?” Sam pressed.

“Sam! Dad's tellin' us to go somewhere, we're goin'.”

Sam made a bitchface at his brother and sighed.

***

Your destination was a bar in Rockford you had stalked the cop you knew was the partner of the deceased. You found him sitting at the bar, nursing a beer. You monitored the scene from a few tables behind. Dean was to meet you there after his interaction with the cop.

“You're Daniel Gunderson. You're a cop, right?” he asked.

The cop nodded.

“Huh. I'm uh, Nigel Tufnel, The Chicago Tribune. Mind if I ask you a couple of questions, about your partner?” he asked enthusiastically.

“Yeah, I do. I'm just tryin' to have a beer here.”

“That's okay, I swear it won't take that long. I just want to get the story in your words,” Dean continued.

The cop was not amused. “A week ago, my partner was sitting in that chair. Now he's dead. You gonna ambush me here?”

“Sorry. But I need to know what happened.”

Sam came up and pushed Dean aside roughly. “Hey buddy, why don't you leave the poor guy alone! The man's an officer! Why dontcha show a little respect!”

He was calling an unnecessary amount of attention to himself that amused you slightly. Dean paused, glaring before walking over to you.

“Spinal Tap?” you questioned, laughing, referencing his fake name. “Seriously?” The two of you began walking out of the bar over to the Impala. 

“What? It’s a classic!”

“I’m not arguing that,” you said. “But what are the chances he knew your reference?” You sat on the hood next to Dean.

“Oh, come on, we’re probably the only two people in Rockford who even know what Spinal Tap is,” he remarked.

A moment of silence passed between the two of you. 

“How’s your neck healing?” Dean asked.

You turned your neck up to him. There was still quite a bit of bruising from the way you were strangled back in Kansas. He sucked in air through his teeth. “That’s gotta hurt, huh?” 

“Meh, a bit,” you answered. “I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”

He rolled his eyes at you. “Are we ever gonna talk about Kansas?”

“Hmm… I did pinky-promise,” you jested. 

“That you did.” He looked at you expectantly.

You sighed. “My dad was uh, a bit of an asshole. The man’s dead and I still can’t decide if I love or hate him. He was mean. And that’s putting it mildly. For instance, like, one time, I missed a shot on a hunt, and he beat me til I was black and blue later that night. Said it was gonna make me sharper, and he’d rather me hate him than fuck up again like that on a hunt. I was twelve.”

“Wow,” Dean responded quietly. “How young were you when he started taking you on hunts?”

“Ten.”

“Holy crap. Could you even hold a gun at that age?’

“Please, I’ve been able to hold a gun since I was four. He said I needed a dose of reality if I wanted to complain so much about being in the motel room with my brother.”

He nodded. “How much younger was your brother?”

“Two years.” You smiled at the memory of him, but your smile quickly faded. “I, uh, took beatings for him a lot.”

Dean nodded again. He paused for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

You shrugged and sighed. “It’s over now.”

“Yeah, but I know it still hurts.”

You don’t know what made you do it, but you leaned your head on his shoulder. He tensed under you briefly, but let you keep your head there. 

You hadn’t noticed Sam walked out of the bar and was approaching the two of you. “You two look cozy.”

You jerked away from Dean. 

“Bite me,” the older Winchester answered. "Shoved me kinda hard in there, buddy boy.”

“I had to sell it, didn't I? It's method acting,” Sam quipped.

Dean looked confused.

“Never mind.”

“What'd you find out from Gunderson?” you asked.

“So, Walter Kelly was a good cop. Head of his class, even-keeled, he had a bright future ahead of him.”

“What about at home?”

“He and his wife had a few fights, like everybody, but he was mostly smooth sailing. They were even talking about having kids.”

“Alright, so either Kelly had some deep-seated crazy waiting to bust out, or something else did it to him,” Dean nodded. “What'd Gunderson tell you about the asylum?”

“A lot.” Sam filled you in on the local legends and experiences teens had in the place. Kids frequently dared each other to spend the night because it was said everyone who stayed all night went crazy. 

You and the boys arrived at the asylum a little while later. The interior of the building was gray and gloomy. Metal carts were laying on their sides, vials spilled all over the ground, and you were sure you would find needles sticking out of the soles of your boots by the end of the endeavor. Dust covered every surface, flaring up your allergy, and every few minutes you were sneezing. 

“So apparently the cops chased the kids here… into the south wing,” Sam described, gesturing to the sign above the door.

“South wing, huh? Wait a second…” He pulled out his dad’s journal. “1972. Three kids broke into the south wing, only one survived. Way he tells it, one of his friends went nuts and started lighting up the place.”

“So whatever's going on, the south wing is the heart of it,” you continued.

“But if the kids are spelunking the asylum, why aren't there a ton more deaths?” Dean questioned.

You noticed a broken chain on one of the doors. “Looks like the doors are usually chained. Could've been chained up for years. Keep people out or keep something in.”

Sam slowly pushed the door open, and the three of you began heading down the hallway. 

“Let me know if you see any dead people, Haley Joel,” Dean remarked at his brother. He was passing his EMF meter over various surfaces in the hallway.

“Dude, enough,” Sam groaned.

“I'm serious. You gotta be careful, all right? Ghosts are attracted to that whole ESP thing you got going on.”

“I told you, it's not ESP! I just have strange vibes sometimes. Weird dreams.”

“And that’s not ESP?” you quipped. 

Sam made a face at you. “Okay, maybe it is, but—”

You snickered.

“Not funny, (Y/N/N).” He playfully shoved your shoulder. “You get any reading on that thing or not?”

Dean shook his head. “Nope. Of course, it doesn't mean no one's home.”

“Spirits can appear during certain hours of the day.”

“Yeah, the freaks come out at night.”

“Hey, Sam, who do you think is the hotter psychic: Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Love Hewitt, or you?” Dean deadpanned.

You and Dean laughed, and Sam shoved the both of you. The three of you entered another room. You looked around, a sinking feeling hitting your stomach.

“Man. Electro-shock. Lobotomies. They did some twisted stuff to these people,” you shook your head.

“Kinda like my man Jack in Cuckoo's Nest.” Dean made crazy eyes and grinned at you and Sam.

Sam ignored him and his smile dropped. 

“So. Whaddaya think? Ghosts possessing people?” Dean questioned.

“Maybe. Or maybe it's more like Amityville, or the Smurl hunting,” Sam suggested.

“Spirits driving them insane. Kinda like my man Jack in The Shining.” Dean grinned again.

“You are such a nerd,” you mumbled.

“Hey, don’t talk about Sam like that,” Dean gibed back, even though he knew you were talking about him.

“Dean. When are we going to talk about it?” Sam asked his brother.

“Talk about what?”

“About the fact Dad's not here.”

Dean clicked his tongue. “Oh. I see. How ’bout… never.”

“I'm being serious, man. He sent us here.”

“So am I, Sam. Look, he sent us here, he obviously wants us here,” said Dean gruffly. “We'll pick up the search later.”

“It doesn't matter what he wants.”

“See. That attitude? Right there? That is why I always get the extra cookie.”

You scoffed. “C’mon, guys, cut it out.”

Sam ignored you. “Dad could be in trouble; we should be looking for him. We deserve some answers, Dean. I mean, this is our family we're talking about.”

“I understand that, Sam, but he's given us an order.”

You loved Sam, but you were on Dean’s side. Your father’s training probably programmed you that way.

“So, what, we gotta always follow Dad's orders?” Sam bit back.

“Of course we do.”

Sam huffed frustratedly. Dean stared back and then turned away, ending the conversation.

You started poking around the room a bit more. You picked up a dusty sign off the floor and sneezed again. “ 'Sanford Ellicott'... You know what we gotta do. We gotta find out more about the south wing. See if something happened here.” You put the sign back down and walked away from the boys. 

***

You and Dean dropped Sam off at a therapy session with Sanford Ellicott’s son, James Ellicott. You figured it was the best way to get information from someone close to the situation. In the meantime, you and Dean spent some time hanging out in the Impala. 

Conversation between the two of you never felt forced. You still enjoyed pushing each other’s buttons, but you genuinely got along very well.

“Okay, so, I told you about my fucked up family, you need to talk about yours,” you told Dean. 

He scoffed and gave you a bitchface. “Says who?”

“Says me. Now, spill.”

Dean seemed uncomfortable.

You took the hint. “Okay, if you don’t wanna talk about it now, will you tell me at some point?”

He nodded and stuck out his pinky with a smirk. “Promise.”

A smile spread across your face and you linked his finger with yours. “Okay, then. Different question. What’s your favorite color?”

He scoffed lightheartedly. “What?”

“I’m serious! What’s your favorite color? Mine’s (Y/F/C).”

“Blue,” he answered. 

“Like, baby blue or navy blue?”

“Definitely closer to navy,” he told you. He was eyeing you strangely again.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” you asked him.

“You… confuse me.”

“Oh?” You raised a brow. “Why?”

He shook his head. The one thing you hated about Dean was his inability to talk about quite literally any of his feelings. 

“Will you ever tell me why?” you asked.

He nodded and stuck out his pinky again. You smiled warmly and took it.

***

“He’s been in there for-fucking-ever,” you groaned, pushing yourself off the wall of the building. 

As if on cue, Sam walked out at that moment. 

“Dude! What the hell were you talking about?” you asked as you headed back to the car with the brothers. 

“Just the hospital, you know,” Sam responded.

“And...?” Dean pushed.

“And the south wing? It's where the housed the really hard cases. The psychotics, the criminally insane.”

“Sounds cozy.”

“Yeah. And one night in '64, they rioted. Attacked staff. Attacked each other.”

“So the patients took over the asylum?” you questioned.

“Apparently,” Sam answered.

“Any deaths?”

“Some patients, some staff. I guess it was pretty gory. Some of the bodies were never even recovered, including our chief of staff, Ellicott.”

“Awesome. What do you mean ‘never recovered’?”

“Cops scoured every inch of the place but I guess the patients must've...stuffed the bodies somewhere hidden.”

“That's grim,” the older brother commented.

“Yeah. So, they transferred all the remaining patients and closed the hospital down,” Sam explained.

“So, to sum it up, we've got a bunch of violent deaths and a bunch of unrecovered bodies.”

“And a bunch of angry spirits.”

Dean chuckled humorlessly. “Good times. Let's check out the hospital tonight.”

***

You held a shotgun full of rock salt round, Sam a video camera and flashlight, and Dean his EMF meter.

“Getting readings?” Sam asked as you walked down the labyrinth of hallways in the asylum.

“Yeah, big time,” his brother responded.

“This place is orbing like crazy.”

“All of these unrecovered bodies are probably causing it,” you added.

“We gotta find ’em and burn ’em. Just be careful though. The only thing that makes me more nervous than a pissed off spirit... is the pissed off spirit of a psycho killer.” Dean’s unwavering confidence cracked a little in a rare moment of vulnerability.

The three of you continued searching. You and Sam split off to one room and Dean took another. You looked around the debris scattered through the room to try and find some of the bodies.

Sam’s yelp caused you to wheel around “(Y/N), shotgun!” he called to you

You came up behind him. “Sam, drop!”

He obeyed and you shot the apparition in front of him square in the face.

Dean came running into the room. “What happened?”

“That was weird.” Sam was breathless when he got up from the ground. 

You furrowed your eyebrows at him as the three of you made your way out of the room. “Why?”

“She didn't attack me,” the younger brother replied.

“Looked pretty aggro from where I was standing,” you retorted.

“She didn't hurt me. She didn't even try! So if she didn't wanna hurt me then what did she want?”

You shook your head and shrugged. You and the brothers jerked in the direction of a sound coming from a room you were passing. You raised your shotgun, and your eyes flicked to Sam’s. He nodded at you to go into the room first. You approached a ragged metal bed that had been turned on its side in the corner of the room. You could see something hiding behind it. 

Sam tipped the bed over and you aimed the shotgun at the thing behind it. However, the girl hiding behind it screeched and jerked further back into the corner.

“It's alright,” Dean told her, “we're not going to hurt you. It's okay. What's your name?”

“Katherine. Kat.”

“Okay. I'm Dean, this is Sam and (Y/N).”

“What are you doing here!?” you asked her.

“Um, my boyfriend, Gavin,” she replied shakily.

“Is he here?” Dean questioned.

Kat nodded. “Somewhere. He thought it would be fun, try and see some ghosts. I thought it was all just… you know. Pretend. I've seen things. I heard Gavin scream and…” she trailed off, tears welling in her eyes.

“Alright. Kat? Come on. Sam's gonna get you out of here and then we're gonna find your boyfriend.” Dean gestured between the two of you.

“No! No,” she protested. “I'm not going to leave without Gavin. I'm coming with you.”

“It's no joke around here, okay. It's dangerous,” Dean responded.

“That's why I gotta find him.”

You looked over at Sam, who shrugged.

“Alright, I guess we gonna split up then. Let's go,” Dean commanded your group. Kat went with Dean and you headed off with Sam. You kept your shotgun raised just behind Sam, tension gripping your chest.

“Gavin.... Gavin?” Sam called.

A few minutes of walking later, you noticed a figure on the ground unconscious. Sam crouched to wake the boy up, and you lowered your gun. 

Gavin awoke and freaked out, pushing himself away from you and Sam.

You were consistently impressed by Sam’s ability to calm others down. “Hey, Gavin. It's okay, We’re here to help.”

Gavin calmed down considerably, but still sounded slightly panicked. “Who are you?”

“My name is Sam, this is (Y/N). Uh, we found your girlfriend.”

“Kat?” Gavin got up from the floor. “Is she alright?”

“Yeah. She's worried about you. Are you okay?” you asked.

“I was running. I think I fell.”

“Running from… what?” you questioned.

“There was...there was this girl. Her face. It was all messed up,” he explained.

“Okay listen, did this girl... did she try and hurt you?” Sam asked.

Gavin looked back at Sam and shook his head. “What? No, she... uh…”

“She what?”

“She kissed me.” Gavin’s cheeks flared in embarrassment.

Sam seemed to feel uncomfortable, too. “Uh, um, but- but she didn't hurt you, physically?”

His eyes widened. “Dude! She kissed me. I'm scarred for life!” 

“Well, trust me, it could have been a lot worse,” you snickered. “Do you remember anything else?”

“She uh, actually, she tried to whisper something in my ear.”

“What?”

Gavin shook his head. “I don't know. I ran like hell.”

You scrubbed a hand over your eyes. “Okay, let’s go.”

The three of you went walking on, only to hear a female scream and Dean calling Kat’s name. The three of you broke off running toward the sound. 

“What's going on?” you asked Dean as you approached him. He was trying to jimmy open a heavy metal door with a pipe.

“She's inside with one of them,” the older Winchester explained.

“Help me!” Kat screamed from the inside.

“Kat!” her boyfriend called back.

“Get me outta here!”

Sam pushed Gavin back to get against the door. “Kat, it's not going to hurt you. Listen to me. You've got to face it. You've got to calm down.”

You and Dean turned to Sam. “She's gotta what?!” you exclaimed in unison.

“These spirits, they're not trying to hurt us, they're trying to communicate. You gotta face it. You gotta listen to it,” Sam urged.

“You face it!” Kat protested.

“No! It's the only way to get out of there.”

“No!” she cried.

“Look at it, come on. You can do it,” Sam told her.

And then, quiet. There was nothing for a few minutes.

“Kat?” Gavin called through the door.

You and the brothers backed away from it. “Man, I hope you're right about this,” Dean told his brother.

“Yeah, me too.”

At that moment, the lock clicked and the door slowly opened. Kat stood in the doorway, shock overcoming her face. 

“Oh, Kat.” Gavin hugged his girlfriend.

You headed into the room Kat had been locked in. Nothing. You came back out and shook your head at the brothers.

“One thirty-seven,” Kat muttered.

Dean quirked a brow. “Sorry?”

“It whispered in my ear. One thirty-seven.”

“Room number,” you and the boys muttered in sync.

The three of you crouched along the wall and led the teenagers back to the exit. Sam was to take them out of the asylum while you and Dean went to investigate room 137.

You sneezed again for the umpteenth time. Your eyes were itching you, too.

“Are you allergic to me or something?” Dean asked you as you moved down the hall toward room 137.

You giggled. “No. Dust.”

“Aw, sweetheart—” he mocked, “—don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the dust bunnies.”

You rubbed your nose and sniffed. “I’m gonna kill you.” You pushed against the door of room 137, only to meet major resistance. You figured there was a bunch of furniture blocking it.

“Move, move,” Dean told you. Of course, he shoved the door open with ease. He looked at you smugly.

“Whatever,” you deadpanned, pushing past him into the room. You moved your flashlight around the dark room, finding tons of papers scattered over the floor. Filing cabinets were laying on their sides and a desk was completely broken in half. You sifted through folders in one of the only upright file cabinets. 

Dean was behind you, and you could hear wood creaking. He grunted. You turned to see him trying to pry a wood panel off the wall.

“Need help, princess?” you asked.

“No,” he grunted once more, finally jerking the panel off. Inside was a satchel that was relatively dust free. “This is why I get paid the big bucks.”

You rolled your eyes at him. 

The two of you pulled up chairs next to one another and began flipping through the journal inside the satchel. There were mad scribblings and hand-drawn pictures of the strangest medical instruments.

“Well, all work and no play makes Dr. Ellicott a very dull boy,” Dean remarked.

“This is insane,” you muttered, disgust overtaking you as you read the doctor’s accounts of what he had done to his patients. 

“Yeah, I want this fucker nice and crispy,” Dean said. “C’mon.” 

He led you back to the exit of the asylum, and Dean jerked back into you suddenly at the sound of a shotgun. 

“Damn it, damn it, don't shoot! It's us!” Dean called, trying to catch his breath.

You heard Kat from around the corner next. “Sorry! Sorry.”

“Son of a…” Dean huffed out a quick breath. He led you around the corner. “What are you still doing here?! Where's Sam?”

“He went to the basement. You called him,” Gavin said, looking at Dean dumbfounded.

“We didn’t call anybody,” you returned.

“His cell phone rang. He said it was Dean.” Kat was confused, too.

You and Dean came to the realization of what happened. 

“Fuck,” you muttered. “Basement, huh?”

Dean found Sam’s discarded duffel bag and grabbed an extra handgun. He handed it to you and grabbed a shotgun for himself. “Alright. Watch yourselves. And watch out for me!”

***

You and Dean had your guards up immediately upon entering the basement. The two of you called out to Sam, only to get no response. When you turned around, however, Sam was right in front of you. “Holy shit, dude!” you lowered your handgun. “I almost shot you.”

“Man, answer me when I'm calling you! You alright?” Dean said.

Sam sounded different to you. “Yeah. I'm fine.”

You eyed him strangely. 

“You know it wasn't me who called your cell, right?” his older brother told him.

“Yeah, I know. I think something lured me down here.”

“I think I know who. Dr. Ellicott. That's what the spirits have been trying to tell us. You haven't seen him, have you?” 

Sam shook his head. “No. How do you know it was him?”

“’Cause we found his log book. Apparently he was experimenting on his patients, awful stuff. Makes lobotomies look like a couple of aspirin,” Dean retorted.

Sam’s face was set in hard lines. He was scaring you, if you were honest. “But it was the patients who rioted.”

“Yeah. They were rioting against Dr. Ellicott. Dr. Feelgood was working on some sort of, like, extreme rage therapy. He thought that if he could get his patients to vent their anger then they would be cured of it. Instead it only made them worse and worse and angrier and angrier. So I'm thinking, what if his spirit is doing the same thing? To the cop? To the kids in the seventies, making them so angry they become homicidal,“ Dean went on. “Come on, we gotta find his bones and torch ’em.”

You continued to eye Sam, not quite sure what was going on with him. 

“How? The police never found his body.” Sam’s movements were almost robotic.

“The log book said he had some sort of hidden procedure room down here somewhere where he'd work on his patients. So, if I was a patient I'd drag his ass down here, do a little work on it myself.”

“I don't know, it sounds kinda…”

“Crazy?”

Sam nodded.

Dean motioned for his brother to follow him into the next room. You continued to watch Sam carefully, and the sly look he gave his brother did not escape you.

“I told you I looked everywhere. I didn't find a hidden room,” Sam said.

“Well, that's why they call it hidden.”

You shushed the boys. “You hear that?” You crouched to the ground and Dean followed suit. 

Sam was still standing behind him. “What?”

“There's a door here.” Dean felt along the wall until he found it.

“Dean.” You heard a gun click behind you. “Step back from the door.”

You and Dean rose from the ground with your hands raised. Blood was trickling down Sam’s face from his nose. 

“Sam, put the gun down,” Dean pleaded quietly.

Sam’s voice was hard. “Is that an order?”

Dean shook his head. “Nah, it's more of a friendly request.”

Sam pointed the gun straight at Dean’s chest. “ ’Cause I'm getting pretty tired of taking your orders.”

“Sam, stop it,” you told him. “I fucking knew it. Ellicott did something to you.”

“(Y/N), for once in your life, just shut your mouth.”

You knew it wasn’t Sam talking and you tried not to take offense.

“What are you gonna do, Sam? Gun's filled with rock salt. It's not gonna kill me,” Dean bit back.

Sam shot Dean square in the chest. The shot threw him backward through the hidden door. “No. But it will hurt like hell.”

“Dean!” you cried, rushing to his aid. 

“Get back, (Y/N),” Sam demanded. 

“What the fuck, Sam? Cut it out!”

Dean grabbed your arm, doing his best to silence you and steady himself. “We gotta burn Ellicott's bones and all this will be over, and you'll be back to normal.”

“I am normal. I'm just telling the truth for the first time. I mean, why are we even here? ’Cause you're following Dad's orders like a good little soldier? Because you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval?” the younger brother spat.

“This isn't you talking, Sam,” Dean groaned, head lolling back against the floor.

Sam tapped the gun to the side of his head. “That's the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I'm not pathetic, like you.”

“So what are you gonna do, huh? Are you gonna kill me? Then (Y/N)?”

Sam laughed bitterly. “You know what, I am sick of doing what you tell me to do. We're no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago.”

“Well, then here. Let me make it easier for you." He held his treasured handgun out to Sam.

“Dean, no,” you pleaded, grabbing his wrist. The look he gave you told you to trust him. “Come on. Take it. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt.”

Sam hesitated.

“Take it!” Dean commanded.

He did, and pointed the gun straight at Dean’s face. 

Dean laughed humorlessly. “You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it!” 

Sam pulled the trigger. The gun clicked, but no bullet left it. He tried once again. You took the opportunity to kick Sam square in the stomach, knocking him to the floor and winding him. 

Dean scrambled to his feet. “Man, I'm not going to give you a loaded pistol!”

Sam stared up at him with venomous disdain, only to receive a wicked right cross from Dean. Sam was knocked out cold.

“Sorry, Sammy.” Dean patted his brother’s head on the ground.

“Are you okay?” you asked.

He nodded. “Let’s just get this over with.”

The two of you found the rotting corpse of Dr. Ellicott behind a cupboard door. The smell nearly knocked you out. “Holy hell.”

Dean covered his nose with the back of his hand. “Oh, that's just gross.”

You pinched your nose with one hand and salted the body while Dean covered it in kerosene. “Soak it up,” he told the doctor. The two of you went to stand, only to be knocked to the floor by a gurney flying across the room.

You looked up to see the ghost of Dr. Ellicott right above you. “Don’t be afraid.” The doctor grabbed your face. “I'm going to help you. I'm going to make you all better.” His fingertips felt like they were burning holes into your skull.

You wailed in agony. And suddenly, he backed away from you. You dropped to the ground and looked up to see the doctor turning black and falling to the floor in front of you, crumbling on impact. 

You turned your head toward Dean. “Thanks.” You knew he had lit the corpse on fire while the doctor was distracted with you.

“Don’t mention it.”

You turned to the sound of Sam moaning from a distance away.

“You're not going to try and kill us, are ya?” Dean asked him.

Sam flexed his jaw painfully. “No.”

“Good. Because that would be awkward.”

After the three of you bid goodbye to Gavin and Kat, you were on the road again.

“Hey, Dean?” Sam said.

His brother turned to face him.

“I'm sorry, man. I said some awful things back there.”

Dean’s tone was guarded. “You remember all that?”

“Yeah. It's like I couldn't control it. But I didn't mean it, any of it,” Sam told him. 

The older brother didn’t sound convinced. “You didn't, huh?”

“Dean—” you started.

Sam cut you off. “No, of course not! Do we need to talk about this?”

Dean turned his attention back to the road. “No. I'm not really in the sharing and caring kinda mood. I just wanna get some sleep.”

“Ditto,” you mumbled, stretching out over the backseat. 

Soon enough, you and the boys arrived back in your respective motel rooms. You’d decided to get some shut-eye before heading out to your next adventure. You awoke hours later to the sound of your cell phone ringing. You picked it up, not recognizing the number at all. 

You shot straight up at the sound of the man’s introduction. “John?!”

Series Rewrite Taglist: @polireader @brightlilith @atcamillanorrman @jrizzelle @insomnia-bookworm @procrastination20 @mrs-liebgott @djs8891 @tiggytaylor @staple-your-mouth @iloveshawn @jesstherebel @rach5ive @strawberrykiwisdogog @bruhidkjustwannaread @mxltifxnd0m @sunshine-on-marz @big-ol-boat @mgchaser @capncrankle @davina-clairee @chervbs @thepocketverse @simpingdeadcharacters @elqsiian @stillhere197 @stephshaww @tearsforhan @take-it-on-the-run @iloveyou2mia @maxinehufflepuffprincess @ohgeehowdigethere @here-for-the-extravaganza @seninjakitey

Quite a few tags were broken; sorry lovebugs! :(

[anticomedygarden]

white noise

Piper over thinks her powers and has a crisis. Luckily, her friends are there to ask for help.

ao3 link

i wrote this slightly oxygen deprived so if you see any mistakes please lmk (fr while I was editing I caught so many name, pronoun, spelling, and verb ending errors and I am still a bit not breathing right so please please tell me if something is wrong or doesn't make sense)

for those who don't know who killgrave is: he is a supervillain in netflix's jessica jones. he has powers similar to charmspeak but incredibly more powerful and uses those powers to completely control people, including rape

-

Piper never should have tried to watch TV at camp. She never should have asked her dad for a mobile hotspot and high speed internet. She never should have started catching Jason up on modern media. She never should have continued being friends with her ex-boyfriend. And she never should have introduced him to Marvel.

Jessica Jones currently had his whole attention, and his eyes were a little too bright as the hero snapped Killgrave's neck on her laptop screen. "Finally," he muttered, which would have concerned Piper a lot more had she not been staving off a panic attack.

"Oh my gods," Piper gasped, "I have Killgrave powers!"

Jason looked at her sharply. "Uh-"

She jumped off Jason's bed into the marble floor of the Zeus cabin, suddenly needing to get away from him. "Charmspeak is basically mind control!"

"I mean, you-"

"Oh, gods, did I contribute to Hera's heteronormative agenda?" She was full on panicking now, pacing and breathing heavily. "Do you think it took so long for you to realize you're gay because I was using my powers on you?"

Jason frowned in concentration, and it actually made her feel a little better that he took the time to think about his answer. "I don't think so. I think Hera did more damage than anything. Besides, your powers are more based on your own intent, right? You have to really try to make people do things."

"Not at first!" she said, a tad hysterical. The whole reason I was at the wilderness school was because I got that guy to give me a car!" Sure, she had good control of her powers, now, but whenever she first learned about them, she was basically just manipulating people. It felt icky then, and it felt even worse now that she'd seen what those kinds of abilities could do.

She looked up to see Jason staring at her, concerned. "Don't look at me like that, with your big sad Chris Evans eyes."

Jason's nose crinkled, and his blue eyes - big and sad like Captain America - turned downward. "Who's Chris Evans?"

Any other time, she would have made fun of him for that, but she was too upset to appreciate how funny it was. "The guy who plays adult you."

If it was possible, Jason looked even more confused. "What?"

"Oh gods, oh gods," Piper muttered. "Did I force myself on you? Was everything we did even consensual?"

There was a scratching sound over by Jason's bed, and Piper looked over to see Jason scribbling something down. She was willing to bet it was Chris Evans' name to google later. Again, she wanted to laugh but was freaking out too much.

When he was done, Jason said, "Yeah, I think it was. Even thinking about Hera, we were 15 to 16, and you're very pretty.” So he was he, but whatever. “Exploring your sexuality is what being that age is for." He started walking over to her. "Besides, we never really got past kissing."

Piper sniffed back tears. "Any forced touching is sexual assault."

"It wasn't forced, though," Jason insisted, but Piper still wasn't mollified. "Don't your powers work better when the person already wants to do the thing? Like the final push-"

"That's so much worse!" she exclaimed, to Jason's surprise. His eyes got very wide, and he took a step back. "Consent should be verbal and not coerced! If Chris Evans asked me to have sex with him, I'd probably want to, but I wouldn't say yes!" A horrible thought occurred to her. "Plus, do you know how easy these powers would make it to break an addict's sobriety? Or a million other things that suggestive mind control could do to vulnerable people?"

"Who is Chris Evans?" Jason asked again. Piper vowed to show him the Captain America movies if only so he could understand the archetype role he filled perfectly - if she could ever look at him again. He waved a hand. "It doesn't matter. Piper, you know this is something we all deal with? I could do terrible things with my powers, too. I could short out the entire eastern seaboard's power grid if I tried hard enough." He snapped. "And Nico - you hang out with Will, I know you've heard some of his stories - Nico can and has done some pretty terrible things, but we all still love him." Piper almost said this wasn't the time for Jason's weird older sibling obsession with the Italian before he pulled out the big guns. "Think about Percy. Do you know how hard he has to work to keep his powers in check? Your powers aren't even half as strong as his."

Damn. That was a good one. The boy was practically a ticking time bomb. The focus he expended just to not turn into Luke probably took most of his strength. "You're right," she said. Jason looked relieved. "I should go talk to Percy."

She ran out of Cabin One and booked it to Three.

-

Predictably, Percy and Annabeth were a bit startled when Piper burst into the Poseidon cabin.

"Percy," she declared, "kiss me."

The boy in question sent an alarmed look to Annabeth who seemed equally surprised. "...That's gonna be a no."

Piper narrowed her eyes and threw every bit of concentration into her next two words. "Kiss me."

A fog seemed to come over him, and he actually started to get up. Then, he shook his head. "What are you-"

"Percy, don't listen to her, she's having a crisis," Jason blurted as he shot through the door. The blond did a double take when he saw Percy, Annabeth, and Piper just staring at each other. "Oh, good."

Annabeth held up a hand from her spot at the corner of the bed. "What is going on?"

It was a good thing Jason started talking first because Piper had no idea where to even start. "We were watching Jessica Jones-"

"Oh, I love that show," Annabeth interrupted. "Well, the first season. Krysten Ritter is so hot-"

"So hot," Percy echoed.

"-and David Tennant is so good as Killgrave." Thankfully, that appeared to be all it took for Annabeth to understand Piper's current crisis of self. "Killgrave's powers freaked you out?"

Mutely, Piper nodded.

Annabeth put out a hand. "Percy's demi, it won't work as well on him. Ask me, I'm bi."

Before she could reconsider, Piper said, "Annabeth, kiss me."

Just as it had to Percy, a fog seemed to come over her face, but unlike her boyfriend, Annabeth didn't stop. She got to barely a few inches in front of Piper before she stumbled a little and pulled her head back. "Wow, that's so weird."

Piper was vaguely aware of Percy and Jason watching them in her periphery. "Do you feel violated?"

If she'd expected Annabeth to get uncomfortable at the question, she was sorely disappointed. The daughter of Athena just laughed at her. "I mean, only in the sense that I knew I was being coerced. Otherwise, you're my friend - my very beautiful friend - and I know you wouldn't hurt me. Honestly, if it weren't for Percy, I probably would have kissed you."

Now, everyone - barring Percy, who had apparently had extensive conversations with his girlfriend about what celebrities they both thought were hot - was staring at Annabeth. Piper shook her head and turned to Jason. "See? See how easy it would be for me to force-"

"I think you're looking at it wrong," Percy said suddenly. The son of Poseidon was giving her a thoughtful look. "I don't think your powers are as persuasive as you're thinking they are. You had to really try just now to get me to do anything, and Annabeth was, uh-"

"Ready to do what anyone would be when their awesome friend tells them to kiss them with their superpowers," Annabeth quickly declared.

Jason threw up his hands. "Thank you! And whatever you think you did to me should really be blamed on Hera because we were young-"

"So young," Annabeth agreed.

"-really, not old or experienced enough to be sure about what we wanted, not to mention the memories and manipulation, and you didn't realize you weren’t straight until a lot later, either-"

"So really, if anyone is guilty of mind control and sexual assault, it's Hera," said Percy, who was not afraid of pissing off the queen of the gods. No, he looked perfectly content and not worried about cow shit at all.

That made Piper smile.

"Plus," Percy started, "our powers are there to help us. We're not like characters who get powers by accident or give themselves power ups for their own gain or security. We're born with them because monsters are constantly trying to kill us."

That was...surprisingly insightful. It was easy to forget that Percy was actually pretty smart. "How do you guys do it, then? Deal with these crazy powers?"

Jason shook his head. "Percy can answer that better than me. Anything more than some sparks and flying takes a lot out of me."

His comment very nearly sent Piper back into a tailspin. She never would have considered herself anywhere near as powerful as Jason; hell, she wouldn't even consider herself as powerful as Annabeth. This new responsibility - knowing she could leave this cabin and ruin lives just with her voice - was almost more than she could handle, and she didn't like it at all. She couldn't believe Percy just lived like this, but 100 times worse knowing that his powers could - and had - hurt the gods.

The black haired boy cocked his head. "It's not like...I mean, I don't do anything special. You learn to live with it. You just have to find a way to not be bothered by it or lose control." Her face must have fallen or something because Percy said, "Annabeth helps a lot. I know if I ever did lose control, she'd pull me out of it." He grabbed Annabeth's hand. "Or kill me."

Annabeth blanched. "But it won't ever come to that."

Piper could tell from Percy and Annabeth's faces that it absolutely could come to that and that they'd probably had this exact discussion between the two of them before.

Maybe she should make a kill-pact with Jason or Leo or someone in case she ever went supervillain and turned into Killgrave.

She finally took the time to look around the room and realized that Percy and Annabeth had been doing homework. "Thanks, guys, I feel a lot better. See you at dinner."

"See ya."

The second the door to Percy's cabin was shut, Piper rounded on Jason. "Swear that if I ever go off the deep end, you'll kill me."

Jason's eyes bugged out of his head. "Piper-"

"Swear."

There wasn't any charmspeak in her voice - at least, she didn't think there was - but Jason still said, "Fine, but only if you do the same for me."

Piper nodded. "I swear by the River Styx that if you start using your powers to hurt innocent people and there's no chance of stopping you non fatally, I'll kill you."

Jason repeated the oath, and Piper dragged Jason back to his cabin for a Chris Evans binge.

-

A week later, Leo returned from Indiana and sat next to Piper on the steps of the amphitheater. "Hey, Beauty Queen."

"Hey, Repair Boy."

"I hear you're to blame for Jason suddenly writing Captain America fanfiction?"

Piper burst out laughing. "Is he really?"

Leo chuckled along with her. "Yeah, I caught him last night when he said he was writing a history essay. I think it was Stucky."

Piper grinned. "Technically..." She didn't need to finish the sentence. "But, seriously, with his self worth issues, this is kinda like therapy."

Leo laughed again, and, damn, she missed her friend. "You're not wrong." Then, his smile dropped. "You know, if you were looking for someone to kill you, I'm right here."

Piper raised her eyebrows at him. "Likewise. Wanna make a pact?"

He sure did. 

[devsgames]

Game Optimization and Production

I wanted to write a bit of a light primer about optimization and how it relates to game production in the event people just don't know how it works, based on my experience as a dev. I'm by no means an expert in optimization myself, but I've done enough of it on my own titles and planned around it enough at this point to understand the gist of what it comes down to and considerations therein. Spoilers: games being unoptimized are rarely because devs are lazy, and more because games are incredibly hard to make and studios are notoriously cheap.

(As an aside, this was largely prompted by seeing someone complaining about how "modern" game developers are 'lazy' because "they don't remember their N64/Gamecube/Wii/PS2 or PS3 dropping frames". I feel compelled to remind people that 'I don't remember' is often the key part of the "old consoles didn't lag" equation, because early console titles ABSOLUTELY dropped frames and way more frequently and intensely than many modern consoles do. Honestly I'd be willing to bet that big budget games on average have become more stable over time. Honorable mention to this thread of people saying "Oh yeah the N64 is laggy as all hell" :') )

Anywho, here goes!

Optimization

The reason games suffer performance problems isn't because game developers are phoning it in or half-assing it (which is always a bad-faith statement when most devs work in unrealistic deadlines, for barely enough pay, under crunch conditions). Optimization issues like frame drops are often because of factors like ~hardware fragmentation~ and how that relates to the realities of game production.

I think the general public sees "optimization" as "Oh the dev decided to do a lazy implementation of a feature instead of a good one" or "this game has bugs", which is very broad and often very misguided. Optimization is effectively expanding the performance of a game to be performance-acceptable to the maximum amount of people - this can be by various factors that are different for every game and its specific contexts, from lowering shader passes, refactoring scripts, or just plain re-doing work in a more efficient way. Rarely is it just one or two things, and it's informed by many factors which vary wildly between projects.

However, the root cause why any of this is necessary in the first place is something called "Platform Fragmentation".

What Is Fragmentation

"Fragmentation" is the possibility space of variation within hardware being used to run a game. Basically, the likelihood that a user is playing a game on a different hardware than the one you're testing on - if two users are playing your game on different hardware, they are 'fragmented' from one another.

As an example, here's a graphic that shows the fragmentation of mobile devices based on model and user share. The different sizes are how many users are using a different type of model of phone:

As you can tell, that's a lot of different devices to have to build for!

So how does this matter?

For PC game developers, fragmentation means that an end-user's setup is virtually impossible to predict, because PC users frequently customize and change their hardware. Most PC users potentially have completely different hardware entirely.

Is your player using an up-to-date GPU? CPU? How much RAM do they have? Are they playing on a notebook? A gaming laptop? What brand hardware are they using? How much storage space is free? What OS are they using? How are they using input?

Moreover PC parts don't often get "sunsetted" whole-cloth like old consoles do, so there's also the factor of having to support hardware that could be coming up on 5, 10 or 15 years old in some cases.

For console developers it's a little easier - you generally know exactly what hardware you're building for, and you're often testing directly on a version of the console itself. This is a big reason why Nintendo's first party titles feel so smooth - because they only build for their own systems, and know exactly what they're building for at all times. The biggest unknowns are usually smaller things like televisions and hookups therein, but the big stuff is largely very predictable. They're building for architecture that they also made themselves, which makes them incredibly privileged production-wise!

Fragmentation basically means that it's difficult - or nearly impossible - for a developer to know exactly what their users are playing their games on, and even more challenging to guarantee their game is compatible everywhere.

Benchmarking

Since fragmentation makes it very difficult to build for absolutely everybody, at some point during development every developer has to draw a line in the sand and say "Okay, [x] combination of hardware components is what we're going to test on", and prioritize that calibre of setup before everything else. This is both to make testing easier (so testers don't have to play the game on every single variation of hardware), and also to assist in optimization planning. This is a "benchmark".

Usually the benchmark requirements are chosen for balancing visual fidelity, gameplay, and percentage of the market you're aiming for, among other considerations. Often for a game that is cross-platform for both PC and console, this benchmark will be informed by the console requirements in some way, which often set the bar for a target market (a cross-platform PC and console game isn't going to set a benchmark that is impossible for a console to play, though it might push the limits if PC users are the priority market). Sometimes games hit their target benchmarks, sometimes they don't - as with anything in game development it can be a real crap shoot.

In my case for my games which are often graphically intensive and poorly made by myself alone, my benchmark is often a machine that is approximately ~5 years old and I usually take measures to avoid practices which are generally bad and can build up to become very expensive over time. Bigger studios with more people aiming at modern targets will likely prioritize hardware from within the last couple years to have their games look the best for users with newest hardware - after all, other users will often catch up as hardware evolves.

This benchmark allows devs to have breathing room from the fragmentation problem. If the game works on weaker machines - great! If it doesn't - that's fine, we can add options to lower quality settings so it will. In the worst case, we can ignore it. After all, minimum requirements exist for a reason - a known evil in game development is not everyone will be able to run your game.

Making The Game

As with any game, the more time you spend on something is the more money being spent on it - in some cases, extensive optimization isn't worth the return of investment. A line needs to be drawn and at some point everyone can't play your game on everything, so throwing in the towel and saying "this isn't great, but it's good enough to ship" needs to be done if the game is going to ship at all.

Optimizing to make sure that the 0.1% of users with specific hardware can play your game probably isn't worth spending a week on the work. Frankly, once you hit a certain point some of those concerns are easier put off until post-launch when you know how much engagement your game has, how many users of certain hardware are actually playing, and how much time/budget you have to spend post-launch on improving the game for them. Especially in this "Games As A Service" market, people are frequently expecting games to receive constant updates on things like performance after launch, so there's always more time to push changes and smooth things out as time goes on. Studios are also notoriously squirrelly with money, and many would rather get a game out into paying customer's hands than sit around making sure that everything is fine-tuned (in contrast to most developers who would rather the game they've worked on for years be fine-tuned than not).

Comparatively to the pre-Day One patch era; once you printed a game on a disc it is there forever and there's no improving it or turning back. A frightening prospect which resulted in lots of games just straight up getting recalled because they featured bugs or things that didn't work. 😬

Point is though, targeted optimization happens as part of development process, and optimization in general often something every team helps out with organically as production goes on - level designers refactor scripts to be more efficient, graphics programmers update shaders to cut down on passes, artists trim out poly counts where they can to gradually achieve better performance. It's an all-hands-on-deck sort of approach that affects all devs, and often something that is progressively tracked as development rolls on, as a few small things can add up to larger performance issues.

In large studios, every developer is in charge of optimizing their own content to some extent, and some performance teams are often formed to be dedicated to finding the easiest, safest and quickest optimization wins. Unless you plan smartly in the beginning, some optimizations can also just be deemed to dangerous and out-of-reach to carry out late in production, as they may have dependencies or risk compromising core build stability - at the end of the day more frames aren't worth a crashing game.

Conclusion

Games suffer from performance issues because video game production is immensely complex and there's a lot of different shifting factors that inform when, how, and why a game might be optimized a certain way. Optimization is frequently a production consideration as much as a development one, and it's disingenuous to imply that games lag because developers are lazy.

I think it's worth emphasizing that if optimization doesn't happen, isn't accommodated, or perhaps is undervalued as part of the process it's rarely if ever because the developers didn't want to do it; rather, it's because it cost the studio too much money. As with everything in our industry, the company is the one calling the final shots in development. If a part of a game seems to have fallen behind in development it's often because the studio deemed it acceptable, refused to move deadlines or extend a hand to help it come together better at fear of spending more money on it. Rarely if ever should individual developers be held accountable for the failings of companies!

Anywho, thanks for reading! I know optimization is a weird mystical sort of blind spot for a lot of dev folks, so I hope this at least helps shed some light on considerations that weigh in as part of the process on that :) I've been meaning to write a more practical workshop-style step-by-step on how to profile and spot optimization wins at some point in the future, but haven't had the time for it - hopefully I can spin something up in the next few weeks!

[absolutebl]

The Currently Airing Shows Ask Game looks really interesting and I can't resist asking you the following:

4. What is your favorite day for shows to air on? 5. What show do you think is doing the best job at utilizing tropes? 6. What trope is crossing over multiple airing shows that surprises you?

Especially keen to hear your take on 5 and 6! 😍

‌

Aw, yeah thank you!

I just answered #5. I chose We Are and explain my reasoning here. So the other two, fun fun!

4. What is your favorite day for shows to air on?

OMG! Mid week. Please BL gods.

For me a "normal work week" is usually Monday evening through Thursdays at home and then travelling on the weekends. When I travel it's usually for work, which means I only have my work laptop and mobile devices with me, and am moving through different time zones, IPs, and occasionally overseas. So for me it's the opposite of most: on the weekends I have the least leisure time and its hell trying to get access to everything (grey is right out).

Thus I love a shows that air on Mondays (that never happens), Tuesdays (sometimes) and Wednesdays (thank you Japan and Taiwan). Also these break up the monotony of my week.

6. What trope is crossing over multiple airing shows that surprises you?

That's a doozie. I hadn't picked up on any major trend right now across all players.

I will say the shows I'm enjoying the most are the ones that are upending and messing with tropes like Wandee Goodday and My Stand-In. Usually I prefer the fluffy standard fair, but right now the world is a bit askew.

Frankly, I shouldn't be liking My Stand-In at all, but I'm loving it.

Other trends?

It's not really a trope, more a theme or a collective archetype, but I've been noticing that supportive friendship groups, always popular in BL, seem to be getting better development and attention than they have in the past. Almost as if they're being given as much emotional weight (by the narrative) as the central romance. I like that a lot.

I also like how many adult leads and sides we are getting, even from Thailand. By which I mean, BL outside of a school setting. We still have high school and university set stuff, but that used to be ALL we got. I don't mind school settings, but I like that we have some kind of balance going on these days.

Oh yeah. And Japan.

Japan came to play and will not leave the field that they built.

I mean it's crazy how many JBLs we are getting this year. (And last.) Consistently, one after another, even a couple airing at once. At one point there was like 4 airing!

I may not always like JBL, but when I love it, I REALLY LOVE IT, and when it hits it hit hard (pain or joy). And even when I don't like it, it always gives me a lot to think about.

[wardensantoineandevka]

sorry to bother you but i wanted to ask how you're enjoying using Obsidian? I've been eyeing it for a while but would love to know your thoughts, highlights, lowlights, etc :) if you don't mind sharing, ofc!

No worries! The short version is that I've been enjoying Obsidian quite a lot, and I find that it serves all of my needs nicely without any fuss. Using it is rather frictionless, I think, and getting used to it was pretty easy though it did take some willingness to very much learn to navigate its menus and features and how it lays everything out. It's not at all difficult, but I do think you have to sit with it for a bit. It's currently my main writing program with the exception of screenplays, for which I use Highland 2.

For context on myself, my writing needs are rather straightforward. I use these sorts of apps and programs to write and organize my fanfic, original prose writing, professional correspondence, and journalistic article drafts. I previously used Notion, which I left because of the big NotionAI push. Before Notion, I used Bear, though I can't remember why I stopped using it; I haven't checked out Bear 2, so I don't know if it suits my needs.

When I was shopping around for a new program to use, the following points were important to me, in no particular order:

no native / built-in generative AI assistants

interface is simple and clean or had customization or community themes that would make it so

offline access

mobile app with document sync

ability to organize and group notes through a folder, tag, or similar system

not too many Things going on with it or I could very easily ignore stuff I didn't use without them cluttering up the UI or my space

Obsidian organizes files within "vaults", of which you can have multiple, each of which are connected to folders that are stored locally on my laptop (or my phone). I love this. I have local versions of all of my notes. I can literally find all my stuff as markdown files within a folder on my desktop and open them up in another program with EASE. If you are someone who doesn't have a lot of storage space, this might be an issue, but for me, this is a very bright highlight.

The biggest lowlight for me is that mobile sync is reliant on a subscription fee, but considering that the rest of the program is free and the fee is small, I found this ultimately a very small concern. I very critically need mobile sync because I spend a significant amount of time writing from my phone. The mobile sync is incredibly good; it keeps all documents synchronized very well, and I have yet to run into version conflicts that cause me to accidentally overwrite and lose significant progress. I don't even have to close files on my laptop first; they'll just update in real-time on my screen like Google Docs. Sometimes I'll name documents something that my phone's file path system cannot handle; Obsidian warns me that it cannot fetch and sync these files with illegal names, and I like that it keeps me informed about that.

It has both a folder system and a tag system, which allows you to organize your files. I only use the folder system because my needs are simple, but the tag system is also solid. It also has a robust search system. It also has a bookmarking system to further organize your stuff. I don't have enough files to use that, but it is available, and I think that's neat.

More precise customization can be difficult if you're not used to writing CSS. I am familiar with CSS, so I found this a small hurdle, but this will be a bigger issue for others. That said, this does mean that Obsidian is DEEPLY customizable, and there is a large gallery of community themes that offer a lot of styles that serve a wide variety of needs. There is also a deep bench of community plugins to help get Obsidian to do what you want — I have plugins that make the word count in the status bar show the count of highlighted text and allow me to copy text as HTML instead of formatted text or markdown. There is also an active Obsidian community and forum, so you will not be necessarily troubleshooting customization alone.

Other small things that occur to me to mention right now: It supports opening files in multiple windows, and it has a tab system, which is really neat. The ability to open multiple files at a time is very good. You can also open files side-by-side for easy comparison, which is useful for more technical work. I don't use Obsidian for coding or wiki work, but I can imagine this being really useful for that. It has a reading mode. Offers a version history with a "show changes" mode and restoration capability. File merge capability. You can open images into it and organize them like any other file.

All in all, I'm very happy with it, and it serves all of my personal needs very well. I generally give it a blanket recommendation, again noting that I think it does take sitting with to get used to some of its features and UI and customizing it to your needs and preferences, but I don't think that's super difficult with some patience and time.

[aintgonnatakethis]

Writing Interview Tag!

Big thanks to @moltenwrites for the tag! I've seen this going around and was hoping to be tagged at some point. *rubs hands together* There'll be a readmore at the bottom with the templates for both desktop and mobile.

About me

When did you start writing?

Very young, around 5-6. I remember there was homework where the teacher gave everyone a list of words and asked us to write a sentence with each word. I would turn in a paragraph for each instead 😂 When I was 14 I was writing a lot of Doctor Who fic on FFnet (I can't believe that was 16 years ago 💀) and during the lockdown I started writing again for something to do.

Are there different genres or themes you enjoy reading other than the ones you write?

I don't think so? Sorry, that's a really unsatisfying answer, I know. It's like when you're asked what your favourite book is and you instantly forget every book you've ever read 😂

Is there an author you want to emulate, or are compared to often?

Is this gonna be weird? Probably. Am I gonna fight through the anxiety anyway? Sure, you betcha! @septembriseur is one of the best writers I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Your Telford is second to none. Thank you.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

Just sitting in my bed cradling my laptop. Despite only being 3 and a half years old it's got a whole host of things wrong with it, the most problematic being a loose connection somewhere inside the charging port. To be able to charge I have to sit in a very specific position and stay still, with a metal water bottle braced against the charging cable to keep it pushed in, another cable tied around it with an elastic band and hooked over the opposite side of the laptop. It's... honestly not the best lol. But it's a gaming laptop so getting it fixed would probably be expensive and I just don't have the money.

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Am I allowed to say drugs? 😂 I'm prescribed ADHD meds and Pregabalin for anxiety, and they both help me focus enough to get words down on the page. I'd be pretty screwed without them tbh. I had an appointment with a doctor today and am getting an instant release ADHD medication added to my prescription as the extended release wears off by mid-to-late afternoon, so maybe I'll be able to get another daily writing session in when I take that!

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and/or places you write about?

Hn. I want to say not really, but it must have influenced me in some way, right? Kids are sponges and will soak up and mimic the behaviours of the adults around them, and often people will reach adulthood with opinions and ideas that they don't even realise were created by an outside influence.

Are there any reoccurring themes in your writing? If so, do they surprise you?

QUEER! And no, it doesn't surprise me at all. 😂 I love writing about self-discovery, characters figuring out they can grow outside of the box society has built for them.

Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

So, uh, I'm just gonna link y'all here, where I ramble on about David Telford from Stargate Universe for fucking ages. He's in my brain spinning plates as we speak. (He never stops.)

Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?

Well, in real life I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone in the military. While the US military is a special interest of mine because of Stargate, I am very aware that these characters are not realistic when compared to their real life counterparts. Realism in this area is one reason my favourite of the series is Universe, but even then these men aren't... Well, let's just say that - just like in politics - you don't get far in the military if you're a good person.

Which characters would you dislike the most of you met them?

😬😬😬 I mean, the fact they're dislikeable is part of the draw, ya know? I think irl-Young would suck absolute balls. 😂

Tell me about the process of coming up with your characters?

Not super applicable as I'm a solely fandom writer, but the parts of the characters we're not given by the show come to me as I write, like puzzle pieces slotting into place. A good back-and-forth conversation is another excellent way to dig deep into them.

Do you notice any reoccurring themes/traits in your characters?

QUEER! But being serious, I've given both Everett Young (SGU) and John Sheppard (SGA) intrusive thoughts...

My writing

What’s your reason for writing?

Escapism. Creativity. The characters are in my head screaming at me.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment from readers that you find particularly motivating?

Ooh, the long back-and-forth conversations! I'm here to talk endlessly about these little fucking blorbos and I will ramble about them to anyone!

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Taking this very seriously: a man. I know that fandom is typically a woman-dominated area and I've met quite a few other trans people through Stargate, but yeah. I know there are cultural differences with what are generally considered gender neutral terms around the world, but I do not want to ever be referred to as a girl or with woman-coded terms. I've had to fight hard to be able to be myself: man, dude, bro, there are a lot of choices.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Hmm... consistency? I set the New Year's resolution to write something every day in 2022. That year I missed 2 and half weeks because I had top surgery and while beforehand I thought 'awesome, I'll have plenty of time to write!' it turned out that recent wounds almost in my armpits makes it quite painful to move my arms... 🤔 In 2023 I wrote every day and so far I've kept that up in 2024. It's not always a lot of words, but it's always something.

What have you been told is your greatest strength as a writer is by others?

Characterisation. I've been told I've got my SGU boys (Telford, Young, and Rush) down to a tee.

How do you feel about your own writing?

There's a cycle where I look back at stuff I've written and compare it to what I'm currently writing and think 'this new stuff isn't as good', but in 3 months the stuff I'm currently writing will be what I think is good so... There are pieces I'm especially proud of, of course. If you'd allow me to plug for a moment, I think a memory, a distant echo is one of the best things I've ever written. Mind the tags though.

If you were the last person on earth, would you still write?

Yeah sure. I write primarily for myself so I don't see any reason why I'd stop. I wouldn't live long though lmao

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or is it a mix of both?

First point of contact has to be with me, always. If something doesn't resonate with me, I can't write it. Forcing things is going to make writing unenjoyable and for me it's one of the most joyous things I do and I want to keep it that way. That said, if there's specific interest in a certain idea I have, that of course does motivate me. Feedback is the nectar of writers!

Tagging: @fortunatetragedy @bagheerita @frostysfrenzy @adriankyte-writes @frostedlemonwriter

@gioiaalbanoart @septembriseur @authorcoledipalo @anonmadsci @the-golden-comet + OPEN

@wolgerrswraith @chaniis-atlantis

About me

When did you start writing?

Are there different genres or themes you enjoy reading other than the ones you write?

Is there an author you want to emulate, or are compared to often?

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and/or places you write about?

Are there any reoccurring themes in your writing? If so, do they surprise you?

Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?

Which characters would you dislike the most of you met them?

Tell me about the process of coming up with your characters?

Do you notice any reoccurring themes/traits in your characters?

How do you picture your characters?

My writing

What’s your reason for writing?

Is there any specific comment or type of comment from readers that you find particularly motivating?

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Have you been told is your greatest strength as a writer is by others?

How do you feel about your own writing?

If you were the last person on earth, would you still write?

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or is it a mix of both?

About meWhen did you start writing?Are there different genres or themes you enjoy reading other than the ones you write?Is there an author you want to emulate, or are compared to often?can you tell me a bit about your writing space? What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and/or places you write about?Are there any reoccurring themes in your writing? If so, do they surprise you?Characters: would you please tell me about your current favorite character? Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?which characters would you dislike the most of you met them?Tell me about the process of coming up with your characters? Do you notice any reoccurring themes/traits in your characters?How do you picture your characters? My writing: what’s your reason for writing?Is there any specific comment or type of comment from readers that you find particularly motivating? How do you want to be thought about by your readers?What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?have you been told is your greatest strength as a writer is by others?How do you feel about your own writing?If you were the last person on earth, would you still write?When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or is it a mix of both?

[umber-cinders]

Hey fic writers, can I just-

This is my blog so Imma get on my soap box for one more thing about the whole "spam likers should be blocked" rhetoric.

People seem to have taken the idea from places like Instagram that spam liking gets you shadow banned because the algorithm thinks they're bots and—let me be clear when I say this:

THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS ON TUMBLR

Bots do not like your fanfic and fanart posts and tumblr does not ban you for getting multiple likes in a row!!!

Likes are literally part of the algorithm because tumblr has changed from the way it was back in the 2010s. Reblogs are absolutely one of the most helpful and valid ways to see posts on here—and people should definitely be encouraged to reblog and share with others, but reblogs are not the end-all-be-all of pushing content on here anymore.

The posts that the algorithm shows you takes into account the posts you yourself have liked and what those you follow/interact with have liked. You know these little feature here in preferences?

THEY ARE ALL BASED ON LIKES AND FAVORITE TAGS

Its why you see posts like this if you turn on the option.

Likes have become almost as equal in the algorithm as reblogs. Nowadays, a lot of people on tumblr's userbase only views the site via the mobile app instead of a laptop/desktop. It means that they're more likely to hit the like button on a post and scroll on so they can go back and find it later than they are likely to stopping every second to reblog each post.

That's just how things are now 🤷🏾‍♀️(and yeah that sucks lol)

If you don't believe me, the next time you see a post that has a lot of notes suggested to you in a search, tag or on the For You page—or anywhere on here, check the reblogs vs likes. Sometimes they're relatively equal

But I have noticed that a lot of the posts suggested to me also have way more likes than reblogs.

Again, I am NOT dissing people asking for reblogs because people really should be trying to reblog things from your favorite artists/writers/fandoms, but sometimes people will look at a post with a lot of notes and are more likely to reblog it. If you're looking for engagement then likes count towards that.

Social media has trained us to look at posts with a lot of traction (notes in this case), and make us more likely to share it. When you discourage and block people engaging with your posts via likes, you're just making the algorithm less likely to push your posts in the first place unless someone reblogs it.

And hey, if that's your jam, go on ahead, but even posts with ZERO notes that haven't been liked by people I follow get pushed to me if the algorithm thinks I'm going to enjoy it based on what I post and have liked before.

I could also get into the fact that with the way tumblr is set up, you could be blocking people that have to like posts and follow you from their main blog and reblog via a different side blog.

You could be blocking people that are too shy to openly engage with certain content right off the bat.

You could be blocking newcomers into your fandom.

You could be blocking people that see your content promoted to them in passing and might decide to come back and follow you later.

If you don't care about likes and only care about exposure via reblogs, then uh...ok. But my point is: please stop spreading the idea that likes mean nothing on tumblr 🙃

With all that being said:

PLEASE LIKE AND REBLOG YOUR FAVORITE ARTISTS, WRITERS AND FANDOM CREATORS✨

[clochanamarch]

i just wanna explain myself w the disco servers tho bc like. i understand that i can answer things on tumblr on mobile just fine, right? and i know that trimming the posts isn't the end of the world and that using icons is far from a necessity. but for me, tumblr has recently become a place where i feel relaxed. and i like my little tumblr ritual, yk? i like sitting down with a big mug of tea and listening to music and unwinding. i like making the icons and picking out the right one and getting into the zone. but because of work at the minute, i can't find the time nor the mental space to do that.

but disco 1x1 servers are a lot easier for me bc i can use the phone the same way i'd use the laptop. and if i'm stressing out at work i can just send a reply and know that i'll be able to reply again on my next break. and i'm still in the zone! but i don't need to panic about reply speeds or icons or anything like that. and i intend to continue using them after i return home, too!

so yeah. when i say "you're all welcome to ask for a server", i mean that from the depths of my soul, bc i hate not being here, not because i'm not here, but because i'm not chatting and having fun with my friends! and i want that back! so if you're thinking "we haven't really chatted that much in a while so maybe i can't have a server--" i need u to not think that, because if we're mutuals here, we're obviously gonna be mutuals on disco too!

[fangirltothefullest]

First off, you are entitled to how you feel. We all have things that urk us and I'm not trying to prove anyone right or wrong. I just wanted to share my perspective on language and how it's this beautiful and fascinating ever evolving thing to me.

In response to the word "unalive", I can see why it started popping up. It's a light way to describe a heavy subject, is more broad than a lot of terms (think partner vs boyfriend), works when used against censors that block out a LOT of known optional word choices (like many mobile games), and is a less visceral choice for hyperbole and jokes.

Also, in my opinion, unalive became a word the moment one person gave it a meaning and another understood it. That's how language is. It's constantly evolving. Unalive is no less valid than yeet or laptop or one of the 1700 words that didn't exist before Shakespeare (like critic/critical, gloomy, and eyeball). Language evolution happens SO MUCH that if an average person went 600 years into the past, they would struggle to understand anybody on even a basic level (even written because letters and spellings have changed DRASTICALLY over the centuries). It would be like asking a Spanish speaker to understand fluent Italian! All because a billion someones played with langue and made it fit their needs.

Basically, if I were to tldr this, I'd quote comedian Ben Brainard and say, "If it made sense to you, they didn't say it wrong."

PS: Sorry that it got so long!

Ok, tone indicating here because I am not mad about this response but I need you to understand my Frustration Withg This Mindset when it comes to children!

Like I understand that when it is used it becomes a word with meaning- we do that with EVERYTHING, especially online- but what bothers me is that there were lots of others to choose from that work with proper grammar and stuff and basically I'm only frustrated with it because of my 3rd graders!

All of my 3rd graders use tiktok when they really shouldn't but it's not my choice so they all see it being used and they use it in their school work! They now think it's a proper and ok word to use for their writing and they don't want to listen to me when I tell them no that's not actually proper english which I HAVE to say because they get tested on this shit!

Their tests ARE NOT going to give them credit for using 'the dog was unalived when he was hit by a car' or 'I read an unalived mystery story and it was very cool' or 'When my grandma unalived, I felt sad!'

It's just- I CANNOT teach that word to my 3rd graders..... and until it's properly in the dictionary and acceptable usage in American English on American ELA tests, I just want it to go away!

[slowestlap]

i have to shoot my shot and ask - HOW on earth do you make your gifs so crisp. they're so clean its literally out of this world!!!!!! when your gifs are on my dash i almost always know its you just by the QUALITY of the gif. help a girl out!!!

Hii! Thank you!! <3 I'm happy with the way my giffing process now goes but it's taken years and a few different fandoms and stumbling upon good tutorials which is why i decided to make one of my own too.

I still love figuring out new things to try and hopefully you can get some new tips to your process from me too. Under the cut is a long af post about gif making, focusing on some basic stuff and sharpening/coloring tips.

________________________

WAY TOO LONG INTRO

Before i get to the photoshop part, the base stuff is super important: You can't turn a very bad video into great gifs since there's only so much photoshop can do BUT you can turn a good video into great gifs. So, obviously the original video quality matters a lot.

I religiously stand by the correct tumblr size dimensions (see example, the numbers mean the width. Height doesn't really matter). However in 3 column sets i’ll sacrifice that one pixel and would make them all 177px. The empty space between gifs in 2 column sets is 4px, in 3 column sets it's 4px + 4px.

Since tumblr can only properly handle 540 gif pixels in the same row, sets with two wide gifs side by side can be laggy to scroll by. So for example, 268px gif will not be as sharp as 540px gif (if you click on it to see it bigger), since it legit has only half of the pixels, but if you plan to post 2 gifs in the same row, the 268px will look better on the dash in the gif set since it’s correctly sized for the best dash result.

I download videos when i can (dl is always better than screen recording), so that's youtube, instagram/twitter etc. Streaming sites/broadcasts i have to screen record and i use OBS to do it. It's the best i've tried for hq recording. I record with 60fps and use display capture. OBS is a heavy program, as is photoshop, so a good enough computer is also super important imo. I used to make gifs with a laptop of 4gb ram/128gb emmc and lost my mind after all the crashing and spent 1k€ on a new one. Basically, have as much performance as you can afford, and editing experience will be much much more pleasant. Of course gifs can be done with an average computer too, it'll just likely be slower and clumsier and you need more patience 😫

Also, i've gotten rid of the urge to be the first to post a gif set when new content drops. I'm not the fastest, i always do every coloring from the scratch. I save to drafts to see how it looks like on mobile, i go back to ps to correct the things that don't look right (too dark/bright, too green/yellow/red, too slow/fast), i make the changes, then save to drafts again and then post. I'd rather post a set i'm happy with than to post quickly knowing i could've made it look better with just a bit more time. (It'd bother me and i'd go back and re-color for my own peace of mind 😅) And i just wanna say it's totally fine when people make gifs of the same stuff!! The more the merrier, no need to think only the first to gif something somehow now has the rights to that moment. I just never get the best result if i try to hurry, so i’ve stopped trying to get my sets out asap. I’ll post when i’ll post.

________________________

SHARPENING

All these words and i haven't even gotten to the point yet 🫣 But fine tuning the details won't work if they don't have a proper base at first. Which!!! Finally brings us to your question:

I'm not sure if the order really matters but the main steps i do in this order: once the layers have been converted to video timeline and video timeline is converted into a smart object -> smart sharpen -> crop -> resize -> coloring

I like to sharpen things first, to me it makes sense to do it before resizing because after resizing you've already lost some pixels, so feels better to sharpen when you still have all the original pixels.

All the above steps (sharpening, cropping, resizing) will affect how the gif looks, so i do the coloring as the very last thing so i can better see how the end result will look.

To me sharpening and coloring go hand in hand, and you use both of them to get the best result. Sharpening obviously does what it says but good coloring will help to make the gif look cleaner and smoother too.

Finally, examples!! The key to a sharp result in my process is 2 sharpening layers. The main layer and the second layer.

Enjoy looking at judgy max f i giffed last year and chose to use as an example here. The source video quality was 1080px and i screen recorded with OBS.

I use photoshop CC2019 so cannot guarantee that these will work the same way in other ps versions. As always, it's about fuckin around and findin out 🙏🏻

__________________

1. Example with resizing done, but no sharpening or coloring (blurry and ungood)

2. Example with resizing and main sharpening layer (already much better)

3. Example with second sharpening layer included (more depth, dark spots are darker, almost too strong of an effect but coloring will fix that)

4. Example with all of the above + coloring (the final result)

5. The final result as a gif

And how did we get that result?

Main sharpening layer settings (yes, it’s in finnish but i think the options are in the same place in every language):

Because the sharpening is quite heavy, I double click on this thingy (red circle) in the layers panel to lower the opacity to 50-70%

The middle layer is gaussian blur, which i’ve set to 0,2.

So basically i intentionally oversharpen the gif and use the opacity function and blur to soften the effect. Dumb or smart, who knows not me, but it’s working for me so i’m rolling with it.

The top layer is the second sharpening layer. A godsend trick i’ve learned along the way: (the difference between the example photos 2 and 3 above)

(I've created an action, so i just gotta push one button and it'll run thru these sharpening settings, ie. i don't have to manually click thru these every time, saves crazy amount of time)

Wasn't sure at which point i'll mention this so i'm just putting it here: when saving the gif for web, i almost always use adaptive and diffusion.

________________________

COLORING

I’m not gonna go thru every coloring thing in my process since this is already so long hsdkfjdkjgkd but i’ll give some info on what i usually do and some tips i've found helpful.

My style is quite natural and i prefer colder tones. I hateeeee overly green/yellow/red skintones that are caused by bad lighting so I always try to correct that. The below stuff is more or less what i did to color that example gif too. (Everything is down to preference, these are just the way i like to color)

My most commonly used coloring layers:

Curves. Utilize the eye dropper tools, pick white eye dropper and click on a white spot on the gif (not pure white tho since it won’t do anything) and it will turn that spot to 100% white and correct the other colors at the same time. Black eye dropper will turn a dark spot you picked to 100% black. It can be super effective, just try a spot, undo, try another spot, undo, until you find what looks good. If you like the result but it’s too strong, lower the layer opacity. And of course you can just simply drag the curve up and get brightness that way. There are times when the eye droppers won't work nicely but it's always worth a try.

Levels. Works similarly to curves, they are basically the more efficient brightness/contrast combo.

Color balance. No gif of mine has been made in the last 3 years without dragging the blue in the midtones to the right. I also often drag the green to magnetas side. 

B&W gradient map. I set the blending mode to soft light and lower the layer opacity. Gives the gif a bit more depth and pop to the dark/light parts.

If the dark parts in your gif are too dark, for example details around eyes look messy but you don't want to lower the contrast, then try adding light colored gradient map (light yellow-white or light blue-white etc) and set it to soft light and play with opacity. It will give light and brightness to the gif without making things blinding and not losing much contrast.

Photo filter. I’m almost always going for cold blue and 10-20 setting. (Orange filters can give a nice effect too, if you want to bring some warmness to the gif.)

Vibrance. Always adding at least a little bit, helps colors to pop and makes skintones look nicer.

Selective coloring. Just drag them sliders to left and right to see what works, that’s really the best advice i can give. If you want reds to pop, go to red and play around. If you think the white spots are a bit blinding, go to white and then slide the bottom one (black) to the right. If you want some more contrast, go to neutral and slide the bottom one (black) to the right. Same with black (black).

Also, i don't like to do too much with one layer. I tend to do different colors with different selective coloring layers, so if needed i can lower the opacity and it will only affect that one color. Also it's handy to duplicate layers if you really want a certain color to pop, one layer often isn't enough in that case so duplicate it and if it's too strong then play around with opacity.

(Left image below). If you want to correct overly yellow/green skintones, go to yellow and you can try these settings. Then lower the layer opacity to see what looks good. 

(Right image). If you struggle getting rid of very red tones, you can use hue/saturation layer, go to red and just drag the middle slider to the left. (This is also a good tip with POC, when you think their skintone is overly orange/red but you are afraid of white washing. This setting will usually correct the orange and red tone without taking the dark/black color away.)

______________________

THE END

Wheew this is what happens when you give me an opprtunity to talk about giffing 😅 I hope it was easy to follow, feel free to ask if i was unclear about something!! And hopefully you got to learn something new. 

Also these are obviously just my way of doing things, not the Only Correct way, do whatever you like and enjoy and don’t worry too much if other people do things differently. Most important thing is to have fun creating 🫡

[inklore]

Hey dear! How long since I wrote to you, I don't know if I can ask but could you give me some advice on how to edit/theme/customize your blog in an aesthetic way?

Idk, even basic tips are fine, I really love seeing your blog and I think you have really good taste in aesthetics ❤️

hey lovey! it would be my pleasure to try and help you <3. i say try because my explaining skills are the absolute worst but i will do my best lmao. gonna do this in bullet points ok:

have an idea / inpisration / a crumb of what you want your blog to look like! you can find inspo literally anywhere, a friends blog even (but please remember to always ask and don't take it harshly if said person declines you doing so). pinterest is also amazing for this, looking up graphics, different aesthetics, templates, i literally have a board on my pinterest i've had for years now where i get graphic inspo or where i go when i just need to feed my creative juices to put me in the mood to create something. canva is also great, i literally go on there and look up headers, moodboards, etc and just star them for later. keywords are everything as well, so like 'aesthetic here + color, vibe, look, graphic, template' helps sites like canva and pin lead you in the right direction. same with just typing things like 'green, grunge, lovecore, etc'.

edit on desktop! now i know not everyone has a laptop or ipad or the ability to do this but i highly rec it over editing on the janky mobile app where sometimes things save and sometimes they don't. plus i always use one of the random saved user blogs i have to make a test layout / theme so if i don't like it everything on my main blog is fine, didn't change, and i didn't waste all that time on a theme i don't even want to look at lmao. so making a side blog where you do that is also great cause you can just copy and paste your nav post over, you can take the graphics you've already made and upload them onto your main without second guessing if they look good because you've already seen what it all looks like!

start small! by that i mean start with a simple theme or idea and build up from that. don't just start with seven graphics and ideas and overwhelm yourself. sometimes i just think of a color and be like yeah i'm make something with this color or wrapped around that color and i create something great.

ask a friend for help! i can't tell you how many times i've asked friends if this theme looked good or to send me inspo pics or what theme they think i should do, or even asked them to help me find resources. utilize your besties and mutuals.

not everyones aesthetic is the same! some people like messy themes, some like overdone, some like super simple. don't compare yourself to anyone!!!! everyone creates differently, everyone sees colors and aesthetics amd themes differently. no matter what you decide to go with is all your own and great and special.

etc: putting all your most important links in your nav is always a good rule of thumb (anything you really want to highlight as well), if you use pngs they're all over tumblr and pinterest 'transparent' + 'png' at the end or beginning of what you're looking for will always lead you in the right direction, and when it comes to pngs i highly rec adding them to a white background or transparent one and make the size of the background 500px and move the png halfway / towards the bottom (centered) of the background so tumblr doesn't make your header all the way at the top and ugly, don't make your nav post too long, take colors from your images / aesthetics to incorporate throughout the whole theme so everything meshes well together, don't use flashy dividers because it's not good on a lot of users eyes and unless you state a tw in the tags it's just not as cool as some people think lol.

that's all i can think of but if you have any more questions bby my pms are open!!

[borreloadsavagedragon]

Chris, Kaito and Shark

omfg I had to do this on my laptop bc mobile tumblr is literally unusable in terms of copy and pasting anything

I tried read more-ing this but it wouldn't let me I'm so sorry if it's giant gdjsaklgjg CHRIS

favorite thing about them: he's hot. jk, not just that, I love that he's loyal, man will go DOWN for the people he cares about, family, friends, he's committed to his bonds, the duel with Mizael when he partners with Michael is so good

least favorite thing about them: as much as I love Chris, not a huge fan of how everything sort of got fixed with one duel, I have the same gripe with Thomas and Ryouga-

favorite line: good question jdsaklg, not sure the way he says "my life points" in the dub is kind of funny-

brOTP: vkai, I call them divorcees without being married because they had so much post divorce energy during the WDC but now they're going to be coworkers and chris also had to just watch kaito go off to the moon to fight a guy who said his dragon was bigger and die so he's taking the keys to the rocket the next time he sees him

OTP: what do you mean Kousei isn't in Zexal canon, yes he is, he's right there genuinely can't think of another pair for him from canon though, there's some dynamics I think could be interesting and have wips for but nothing like romantic

nOTP: romantic vkai.............. see kaito's below for details, it's more to do with him and how I think about kaito-

random headcanon: GEEK. NERD. CLOSET FANBOY. WOULD WEAR GRAPHIC TEES IF HE DIDN'T HAVE AN AESTHETIC. Take this man to see Kozmo films right now!!!!!

unpopular opinion: I don't think I have one outside of the ship preference gjdakl

song i associate with them: none omg, unless I REALLY fixate on a character, I don't usually have songs for them gjdklggd

favorite picture of them: he's very pretty, it's hard to choose one fjdsklg, anytime you can see him wiping hair hair around

KAITO

favorite thing about them: how dare you make me pick one thing when I'm already working on an analysis essay- Kaito's one of those characters to me where you look at them and feel like you've been EXPOSED by this show you're watching so picking one detail is hard I like how accurate he feels to me when it comes to how he's someone who's just so used to being burned by so many people, love how fiercely protective he gets when someone matters to him, love how petty and dramatic he can be too but literally NEVER owning up to it I love that he's straight forward that he's not a good person also, that he sold himself to the devil to do what had to be done and he's tainted, I'm just- He's so god damn good really also lives up to being lonely but absolutely genius

least favorite thing about them: nothing, he's perfect............... but I will beat him up if he continues to hide his physical health from everyone else around him and if he goes to the moon again, it's ok, your dragon is good too

favorite line: this is hard because he has so many good ones because he doesn't know how to talk to people hdskjlaj the only one I can honest to god remember at this very moment is "you're quite the romanticist" because who tf says that to another person

brOTP: Chris and Yuma both come to mind, Chris I've gone over above but Yuma, I love that Kaito's always just in awe of him, just imagining Kaito always picking him up by the scruff constantly

OTP: I have like four ships for Kaito that I rotate out in my brain a lot highkey, the only two I haven't written something for are Galaxymaster and Raven but coming soon, my google docs are INSANE right now I want everything with Mizael to be perfect because MizaKai's just... idk, I love it so god damn much, there is SO MUCH to the two of them, and Shun's just not a muse I'm suuuuper comfortable writing rn but we're trying, I love that Shun actually like... goes back for him, not a lot of people chase Kaito back but Shun immediately ponies up idk, Kaito's pension and insistence for being alone always makes me want to throw new people at him at all times though I LOVE going into depth on Challenge, not even romantically either, their rivalry is so good in that subtle way that they're two steps off from being the same person and it didn't get nearly enough time, shakes fist And the last one is EdoKai omg, Kaito speedrunning his enemies to lovers plot with Edo in Arc V is iconic, took one look at him in the safe house and was like "yeah, we could get married"

nOTP: sweats, vkai in romantic context So... I experience pretty strong RSD, which is rejection sensitivity dysphoria, and their entire friend/mentor breakup backstory sits super wrong with me because of that gdsjagilgdsa I don't want to go too far into details but it hits home Also not huge on Kaito and Vector at all-

random headcanon: I love writing him touch starved......... he's always fully clothed anytime he's near another person, probably from just being ditched or taken away from so many people, so letting someone close physically is a big step.

unpopular opinion: He solos. literally no rival matches him if you were to attempt to scale them in skill, I'm on this hill forever and you can't move me from it <3

song i associate with them: god I have a big playlist just for him gjdasklj, it's hard to pick just one so I gift just two - Hell's Comin' With Me / Poor Man's Poison - "I am the righteous hand of god and I am the devil that you forgot", perfect, glorious - I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore / Rise Against - just... chef's kiss

favorite picture of them: him jumping through the cockpit window of the blimp, it's my mobile banner and sometimes is my Twitter banner lmao

RYOUGA

favorite thing about them: ryouga is another character who just says and does shit with his whole chest and I honestly just love him for that, yes king, keep being stubborn, my cringefail bestie I love that he's just such a little edge lord and a wannabe bad boy but just fails at it gjdkaslj he can fight a whole gang by himself, but he'll do whatever his sister says, he's jumping off cliffs for someone who annoys him, god I love him

least favorite thing about them: ngl, I could complain for hours about how much I hate how him getting his memories of being Nasch was done, but it's also in character because Ryouga is SO UNBELIEVBABLY hot and cold about everything and everyone, love him but I also want to beat him UP

favorite line: god, Ryouga is such a tsundere so all I hear out of his mouth is "it's not like I don't like you or anything", I feel bad I haven't come up with any specific lines for any of them but they're all just dumb boys who can't talk

brOTP: Hellshark and whatever his pair with Durbe is called- Ryouga and Thomas being besties is so weird to me but also like, yeah bickering, kicking each other's asses to hell affectionately, good for them Durbe sweetie I'm so sorry but also you signed up for this

OTP: Sharkbait is up there, Challenge is proooobably my favorite though, like I said above, just love going over what could have been with their entire rivalry, the fact that Ryouga never got his grudge match with Kaito will haunt me forever, even though there's no universe where Ryouga wins jagklds

nOTP: deadass 99% of romantic pairs with Ryouga I'm not too huge on, I wouldn't say any of them are like NOTPs but idk, there's more I don't like or don't really think about than ones I actually do haha

random headcanon: ngl. I've got none I can think of right now gdjasg

unpopular opinion: he's not the rival. guy with a sister he'd do anything to help, former school bully who now practically throws his life away for the protagonist, temporary gang member, temporarily evilness Like his dueling is the first thing his sister saw when she came out of the hospital, just like someone else we know... list goes ON why he's the friend role I also,,, like his name more than his nickname, as you could tell I'm sure

song i associate with them: like what I said for Chris, unless I like FIXATE on a character, I have no songs for them, but I Am My Own Muse by Fall Out Boy comes to mind- Ryouga's playlist is inevitable

favorite picture of them: ANY WHERE HE'S JUST LIKE, FLAYING, he has so many shots of him just being blown over or on the ground, they're SO GOOD

[skinsort]

Responsive vs. Adaptive vs. Neither of those things

Aight so. Big topic. We hear the word 'responsive' a lot when talking about web design but it's kind of a wishy washy topic for lots of people outside tech, especially if you've mostly coded while interacting with jcink. John did it really weird, with two skins- one for mobile, and one for desktop. This is actually pretty convenient because it helps distinguish two ideas. If you go to a website like youtube or even tumblr and resize your window as large as you can and as small as you can. These sites are properly responsive- the layout changes and adapts to the size of the screen. Youtube is (unsurprisingly) better at this than tumblr. It changes to use all of the available screen width at every size, pretty much no matter what. Tumblr (the dash anyway) only expands to a certain size- but it also doesn't break when you make it really small. Now go look at the base jcink skin- jcink support forums for instance. If you look at it on a phone, it'll mostly look okay, and after a certain size, will mostly look okay on desktop too. But there's this whole area between the two where things start to get janky. The fixed sizes of everything start to spill over the window size. That's an adaptive skin. Everything is a fixed size, and which layout you see depends on the type of device you're using. Adaptive sites are generally seen as outdated at this point. Almost no one is coding this way anymore. Now go to a jcink skin. Do the same thing with making your window bigger and smaller. In every skin I've ever seen, *something* will break. Text will overflow, you'll have to scroll from side to side to read a post, images will start to overlap other content. That kind of thing. Some sites will resize to a certain point, but almost none of them will do so all the way down to a mobile size, or even half of a laptop screen. This is neither adaptive nor responsive. THIS IS OKAY. I mean it's not ideal, but almost no one coding for jcink is a professional, and these are legitimately difficult things to get right. You have to be thinking about it from the start of the design process. What's going to happen to that icon when the screen gets small? What about the topic information? How are you going to keep information which looks beautiful at a desktop size looking good at tablet and phone sizes? It's legitimately difficult, and if you're not building with that in mind from the start it's a non-trivial task to make an unresponsive skin responsive. If you want to start thinking about these things, I'd recommend reading about media query breakpoints. For jcink, I think it's fair to code for desktop first (usually it's mobile first today) because people using a jcink site will usually want to be typing in it somewhere. Anecdotally, I think even people who post on mobile usually are writing in a notes app first. My skin worked really well at a 600px breakpoint, but other skins might need different figures. That's okay! As long as you can identify (maybe two) places where your views start to breakdown and have consistent behavior in your css for those breakpoints, you should be fine. I think it's good practice to know what you want your mobile version to look like, and code at least the skeleton of both views as you go, so you don't back yourself into corners. That's already a lot of text, so I'll stop there. I'll follow this up with a few different ways you can approach responsive design beyond breakpoints- grid, flexbox, and percentage based css. I can't really effectively teach these things on tumblr, but I can talk about the pros and cons of each approach so you can start looking into the things that seem like they might fit your use case.

[sassymajesty]

hello nina, I'm a different anon and I bring more adblocking knowledge. you mentioned your phone; do you have an Android? if so, I have GREAT news for you: you can just go to your private DNS mode settings and type in "dns. adguard-dns. com" (remove the spaces) and it'll block most ads on your phone, including apps (not just browsers)! it doesn't work for everything - YouTube for example is notoriously difficult - but it works for most things in my experience. you can actually set this up on most devices, including tablets and computers, and even your router if you have access to the settings (username and password are usually either on it or just admin and admin). if you want more info on this, google Adguard private DNS and they themselves have deeper explanations and tutorials. Furthermore, for YouTube specifically, there are a few options, and i recommend looking it up on reddit if you want to read about all of them. however, I personally use and recommend revanced, which you can find instructions for on r/revancedapp; with it, you'll end up with YouTube but better, because you'll get more options for settings, as well as adblocking and even sponsor blocking (as in, it'll automatically skip sponsor sections in videos), while still being able to log in to your account and get your regular sub box and playlists and stuff. lastly, please use Firefox as your mobile browser, bc it's just better and also you can install ublock origin on it. have a nice, ad-free day!

i have an iphone and this message was eye opening regarding how much i cannot do in it. i really don't think i can even access the whole dns shebang (i'm not even sure what that means to be honest. can you tell i'm not tech savy at all?) and the revanced app isn't available here either. and dude, i'd kill for that sponsor blocking. i have it on my laptop, that and no ads are the sole reasons why i spend so much time on youtube

i did just download firefox for my phone though. i've been using safari mostly because it's fine for me, and the icon is pretty (dumbest reason, i know). now i'm off to do a LOT of googling because i don't even know how to install extensions there

update after a quick google search: firefox extensions are not available on ios i see how it is!!!