#i thought a gradient filter would look over it ^^;;;

[thisghosts-obsessions-again]

| High-Res |

His arms lock securely around you as if the creek edge might pose a risk by spontaneously widening and swallowing you whole; it's a sudden, quick embrace.

Have some random quick sketch of Warrick and my OC Val from TFS by @lacunafiction ...

[hana-no-seiiki]

𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐌𝐄

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄! 𝐒𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐒 + 𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄! 𝐇𝐔𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐒 𝐱 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑! 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑 (𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝟏)

“Athanaxious. We are going back right this instant!” An adult male siren called out to his brother. His beautiful gradient tail of obsidian to violet shimmered underneath the water filtered sunlight.

“Oh stop being a prickly pufferfish for once, Vasileios. We’ll be in the deep once again in a moment. I just have to—“ ‘Athanaxious’ replied with a huff. No matter the uncountable times he had come to the shoreline, it was still difficult navigating through shallow water on such a rocky beach. His tail, an exact opposite of his companion with its sandy ivories and gold, flicked in all directions as it tried to propel him away from harsh terrain.

His hands gripped tightly to a leather sling bag across his exposed chest.

“Have to wh—“ The albino creature attempted to ask but was thwarted by a hash tug on his arm, “Hey!” He stretched out his arm to slap Athanaxious in retaliation only to pause at the sound of singing.

“All I ever wanted was the open sea and sky; freedom from the life I always knew.”

Both men froze. A chilly delight crawled through their spine, their limbs and eventually the tips of their fingers and fin. Vasileious had never heard of a voice that entrancing. He has heard several of his fellow sirens luring humans to their demise, but none of them could even hope to compare to this sound. It echoed within the chambers of his heart, the matter in his brain, and the longing that lied dormant within.

But then he saw it’s source and the features on his face soured.

A human.

You.

“Now all I am is haunted as days and hours roll by…” You continued with your song, and then you abruptly halt. The next line wouldn’t come out properly. Your eyes run over the words, slowly getting frustrated with how it wouldn’t fit in.

Athanaxious doesn’t waste a beat. He knew that adorably annoyed sneer you’d make and what would fix it. “All I ever think about is you.”

Vasileious gasped. Athanaxious never sang. Always going on and on about the safety of the sailors on sea and how he didn’t want their blood on his hands. Yet here he was freely providing his — quite literally — magical voice to this human.

“Athanaxious, what are you—“

“Than! You’re back! I was just thinking on ways to improve that verse. Thank you.” You ran, the ruffles on your chiffon blouse flowed through the wind. You flinched and stumbled as the pebbles scraped the sole of your bare feet. Your luxurious leather heels long forgotten.

“Of course, your highness. I wouldn’t miss our reunions here for anything.” Athanaxious winked, just like how you taught him a while back.

You chuckled. The siren had noticed how the clothes you wore contrasted to those he’d usually spot at sea. ‘Couture’ you called it. But all he could think of was those pictures of human prince and princesses, and thus the little inside joke started. “I told you I’m not . . . “

Your eyes trailed from your raven haired companion to the albino. Athanaxious’ tail always fascinated you, but the new siren’s looked out of this world. Further reminding you of how different the worlds you lived in actually were. “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, him?” Athanaxious rolled his eyes, another mannerism he learnt from you, “Just one of my older brothers.”

“You didn’t tell me you have an older brother.”

“Y-you didn’t tell me you were fraternizing with a- a- human! What would father think about this?Not to mention mother . . .” Vasileious’ fins shivered at the thought.

“Father knows.” Athanaxious shrugged whilst looking throw the bag he’d wrapped around him. You have gifted him many things, tangible or not, throughout your friendship. So he thought of bringing something back to you.

A pearl necklace. He was actually going to give you the clam it came from but judging from what fishermen looked for and spoke about, he thought giving you the biggest, shiniest pearl he could find would have been more appropriate.

As soon as you received the gift, you swiftly embraced him in an attempt to hide the empty look on your eyes before mustering the most sincere ‘Thank you.’ you could do.

“In any case, don’t humans have siblings as well? I just didn’t think it would be interesting enough to mention in our conversations. Our time together is often far too brief.”

“Far too brief it is.” You stared at the iridescent pearl. A sigh escaped your lips. “Than, I have an event scheduled on a beach—“

Vasileios attempted to cover his little brother’s mouth but it was too late.

“Magnificent! We’ll be there!”

“Excuse me, I didn’t agree to this—“

“—across the continent.” Your cheerful temperament dissipated.

Athanaxious asked, confused at why you seemed so upset about such a fact. Didn’t more events meant you get paid more in those currencies you spoke about? He shook his head, perhaps you were forgetting he wasn’t human like you always did and said, “Your highness, do I like I wouldn’t be able to swim there?”

“No, of course not. You seem quite capable.”

Athanaxious’ cheeks turned a dark shade of blue at your words.

“Besides you must have plenty of royal duties to accomplish.”

“I have no such thing—“

“Thank you for reminding me, human.” Vasileios’ patience had ran out. He loved his brother to pieces — he really, truly did — but feared the wrath of his parents much more. “Mother asked us to survey the reefs. If we come back without a proper report. . .”

“Oh fine.” Athanaxious slapped the other siren’s hand away, and then faced you with his sharp teeth. “Fare thee well, your highness.”

“You too, Than. Twas a pleasure to meet your brother.”

You sighed one last time. Annoyed at your lack of confidence in conveying the message you wanted to.

Athanaxious will find out sooner or later that it was your very own wedding he would attend by himself,

and the nickname he gave you? Might have some truth to it soon.

[ AUTHOR’S NOTE ] - status: unedited

Have an old ass draft that has collected dust atp.

If this gets idk, 1000 notes I’ll make artworks of our siren brothers and switch out the one I have featured on the header.

This fic will have three-five acts in total. Of which the story I’ve already planned out. It’s pretty much just a twist on the classic little mermaid story to end our pride month with a bang. We love our historic gays as much as our contemporary ones 🏳️‍🌈

reader is amab and will have more stuff alluding to their masculinity in later acts.

[ LINK TO NEXT ACT HERE ]

©️ hana.no.seiiki - yun | 2023

[wasyago]

okay don't mind me just gonna ramble for a second haha-

(this was originally going to be under the drawing, but it got too long, and i can't add it in a reblog because both things are on queue, so separate post it is)

i just love how every time i start a drawing im like "well alright, just a quick sketch yea? no color, maybe some gray to white gradient and that's it, okay?". and then i start drawing (and obviously it takes longer than i thought because duh) and i go "okay but- i gotta at least do the flat colors, right? just the flats- maybe even some random colors to not spend too much time on it--". and then. of course. i do the flats, and im pretty happy with the result yeah? looks simple but not too simple, like it has some color some personality to it, but its not over the top so. so, i leave the drawing i go to get some water and start on an actual piece, and when i come back and take a look at what i drew its like, "well. listen. listen-- yeah im still pretty happy with how it looks but, but. it could be a little better, yea?" and then i sit down, put my water down, put my other drawing to the side, and i sit there making this quick sketch look better. "oh i don't like the colors anymore! but its all on one layer now so i can't exactly change them, plus i still like the idea, so maybe some filters? yeaj some filters on top will do!" (and of course its a yellow shade filter, because im original like that and 90% of my drawings don't also have it on). and then i add them filters and i think" well maybe some bounce light now? surely it already looks better with the filter but its kinda flat, and i want to bring *a little bit* of the original color in" so i add the bounce light, but now it looks out of place! shocker! so i decide that surely i can maybe add some grass at the bottom to hide the edge of the drawing a little. and well, alright, grass looks good, but its too dark, brings a lot of attention to it! and i can't exactly make it lighter, so, the logical choice would be to make the characters darker too, bring some contrast into the thing! and lets just do all the values while we're at it, why not! patterns to the horse, make the pants and skin darker, yes yes. and, oh- but now the eyes are lost because there's more dark hues! gotta make a new layer on top and make them eyes a little bit darker, maybe also color the bandana red and not brown so it looks special, hm? oh and! while we're on this top layer, lets also fix up the hair a little, maybe add some blush... oh and the straps of the saddle look weird, gotta fix those too! oh man and not that i look at it-- the head is too big! lets merge all the layers together and start that same thing over again! yes yes make the head a little smaller, yeah looks much better now! oh, better add some fading as well, to make it fit in the background a little, oh and some glow, suuure sure, and some lights in the eyes, and-

(and now that im looking at it, i realize that i somehow didn't save the final version????? like, i did a lot more to the thing, fixed up the saddle and that awkward shade oh his knee, and the grass-- i wont fix it now because NOW im too lazy to do it for some reason, but yeah, a bit unfortunate u_u)

anyways, point being, love art, art is pog, wish i cared a little less about it sometimes, but it also turnes this into this (imagine me pointing at the drawings as i say that, overly dramatic and sounding a little annoyed with myself)

[noisytenant]

The Look Back movie adaptation was excellent. it had been a while since i read the oneshot, so i enjoyed seeing the story over again and being surprised by the parts i forgot.

it was faithful, but used the animation medium to capture the nuances of the characters' expressions and body language. it emphasized the strength of fujimoto's character writing by bringing the characters "to life" in a believable way. props must go to the voice actors for their part in this--it was also yumi kawai's (fujino's seiyuu) VA debut, which was really impressive.

when i saw the trailer, i thought, "finally, an adaptation that faithfully captures the charm of fujimoto's art", but the style can't be overstated. the director talked about maintaining certain sketchy elements from the key art and trying to do more manga-like backgrounds, which were beautiful and expressive. my partner who is a background art enthusiast said it was "some of the best background art they'd ever seen in an anime". it was made with an obvious and great love for drawing, honoring both manga and animation as mediums.

i continue to wish that more anime produced today would have the confidence in its color schemes on display here. skip out on the gradient overlays and filters--attention to detail in the harmony between character and background can go a long way. i hope more directors will notice and follow suit.

the score fit the story well, and the sound design/foley was also great.

it is a slower-paced story, even at just under an hour, so it may lull at times. however, i don't think it significantly detracts at all.

overall, a very well-executed adaptation that has its own merits and positively colors the original work. if you have the chance to see it in theaters, it's worth it. Many if not most movie theaters offer discounts on tuesdays (we got half-off tix), so try to go then if it fits your schedule :)

[mystic-blue]

// ayo it's been a minute but uhhh follow up to this piece i did because i wanted to and also i'm still always thinking about starchild casey <3 as always this au belongs to @ashwii i am merely writing bc i'm obsessed with the au!

"Careful, Raph," Donnie's voice filtered through the darkness that weighed Leo's eyes closed and muffled everything around him. "I think he's a little numb right now, he might not feel it if you burn him."

"But he's so cold," Raph's voice rumbled against Leo's cheek where he was curled up against Raph's chest.

A hand touched Leo's arm, the weight barely there against the detached awareness Leo currently possessed. He wasn't sure if the hand was testing the temperature of his skin or trying to wake him, but he couldn't seem to summon the energy to care. Everything felt syrupy slow, and his body was far too heavy for the task of lifting his head.

Leo was used to pain. He grit his teeth through it every time a star died, and breathed in tune with the sting of new stars blazing to life. Pain was constant, ever-present, and (unfortunately) reliable.

But this? The numbing detachment, the rattling chill, the press of constant fatigue, and hollow absence of a connection lost? Somehow the emptiness hurt more than the pain.

Leo was prone to wandering the cosmos, but ever since the attack, he hadn't left his brothers - both for lack of want and lack of energy. Raph kept him close because Leo thought maybe the heat would find a way through the paralyzing chill, but it had yet to do so. Still, Leo kept trying. There was nothing else he could do. This had never happened before, and he didn't know where to even begin in terms of bringing his stars back.

Part of him knew they were still out there, but his connection to them was gone. They didn't decorate his arms and legs anymore, not since the Kraang. Worse yet, there was no sign of them returning any time soon, either. He finally forced himself to uncurl from Raph's hold and blink blearily up at his brothers.

"It's been days," Leo murmured, drawing their attention. Donnie moved closer and placed a hand on Leo's starless knee as Raph gave him a careful squeeze of a hug. Leo flipped his palms up and stared down at where his hands trembled in his lap. They looked so lifeless, so dull and starless. The inky gradient still spilled up Leo's forearms, but the endless map of glittering stars remained mostly absent. Leo had hoped they would start flickering to life relatively quickly on their own, given the average rate of creation, but nothing changed.

Without his connection, he couldn't even tell if stars were being created or dying anymore - just that ever present numbness that permeated his limbs like static. He never thought he would miss the pain.

"What should I do?" Leo choked out, looking up at Donnie and Raph again. They both looked to be fighting back emotion, knowing well enough that Leo didn't want their pity. He wanted answers - something none of them had.

Leo wanted to scream, the sound aching and straining for freedom at the back of his throat.

"Master Leo?" A tiny voice piped up, shaky with fright. Distracted from his misery, Leo looked up on instinct and found Mikey nearby with little Casey in his arms. Casey's eyes were bright pools of nebulous starlight, wide with concern for their primary caretaker. "Are you okay?"

"Hey Case," Leo managed, voice strained and smile forced. He held out his numb arms with clumsy coordination and nodded at Mikey. He passed Casey over to Leo carefully, and Leo clung to his little starchild, curling around Casey protectively. Raph pulled Leo closer, creating a cosmic matryoshka doll of vigilant embraces.

"Are you okay?" Casey repeated, placing gentle, tiny hands against Leo's jaw. "You aren't sparkling."

Leo swallowed a sob and choked it up as a laugh instead. He gave Casey what he hoped translated as a light squeeze of a hug and nodded jerkily.

"I'm not feeling too great, bud," Leo confessed, because he knew better than to lie to Casey. His little starchild was far too perceptive for their age. "But I'll be okay soon, promise."

Casey frowned up at him before looking down at their sparkling fingertips. Their skin was a swirling collection of cosmic dust interspersed with the flickering, fitful bursts of new stars. The more developed a star was against their skin, the closer the light moved to their fingertips or settled on the bridge of their nose. Eventually, the light would disperse and make way for yet more starlight, but Leo loved seeing the freckled patterns traipsing across his starchild's skin like a dance.

"I can share until you feel better!" Casey cried out abruptly, startling Leo and his brothers. Leo looked down at Casey with confusion as they wiggled around in Leo's hold.

"What--?" Leo started to ask as Casey wrapped their tiny hands around Leo's forearm. Their brow furrowed, tongue poking out from Casey's lips as they concentrated on pressing their palms against Leo's arm.

The return of sensation to Leo's limbs was a sudden, unpleasant rush of prickling heat. He gasped and fought the instinct to yank his arm away from Casey, not wanting to hurt them. His brothers moved forward but stopped just as quickly, their eyes wide and fixed on Casey.

Where their hands were wrapped around Leo's arm, starlight spilled from Casey's fingertips and melted into Leo's inky skin in a puddle of silver. From the mass of light, pinpricks broke free and rushed off to various positions, rebuilding constellations that Leo had lost to the Kraang.

With Casey's shared starlight, came the familiar call of the universe. Leo could feel his stars calling out to him, joyful and worried and clinging to his presence. They had never lost connection with him before, and now that they could reach him again, they wouldn't let him go so easily. Leo reveled in their presence, choked by relief and joy and a thousand emotions he couldn't begin to put a name to.

Sweeping Casey up into a tight embrace, Leo tumbled out of Raph's arms to spin Casey in circles and laughed as starlight tears dripped down his cheeks. Casey squealed with joy and wrapped stubby arms around Leo's neck as they spun.

With the return of his connection came the ever present pain, but Leo embraced it with a joy he did not know he possessed. He would take feeling anything over the emptiness.

Nuzzling his face into Casey's faintly starlit hair, Leo huffed a watery laugh and squeezed his starchild a little tighter.

"Thank you, Casey," Leo said through tears. His brothers pressed in around them, hugging and speaking over each other in wondrous excitement.

Casey grinned a sweet, gap-toothed smile up at Leo and squeezed him back. "You're welcome!"

Leo's limbs burned as stars were born and died while his brothers hugged him. In that moment, it didn't even hurt.

[beautiful-02-08-18]

1 Corinthians 10:14 (KJV)

Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.

Fan Interpretation of Charming Gold’s parents from Running Man Animation.

When I was watching Running Man Animation, I at first never really paid much attention to Charming Gold. Before him, I was more interested in Pala, and even with the whole villain reveal, I still did not really pay him much attention until his backstory was revealed. I immediately became attached to CG after that.

In Charming Gold’s backstory, we are shown his parents and what’s interesting is that they are the only characters with faces. The other Pikok members have some sort of comedy theater mask on their faces, or even not drawn at all.

I probably thought more of these characters, if you can call them that, than what was intended. They were only present for precisely 15 seconds combined but there are so many storytelling elements on them. We were only shown their bust and side view and for this reason, we were never shown their full designs. It was hard trying to make their designs as it was in a flashback sequence with a yellow filter on everything so we, the audience, did not even know what colors they were. They do not even have names! They are called “Charming Gold’s mother” and “Charming Gold’s father” or “Charming Gold’s parents”. Even then, I actually liked these characters. Or their story potential regarding Charming Gold.

I’ll go talk about their names first instead of calling them “Charming Gold’s mother” and “Charming Gold’s father”. I named his mother Charming “Darling” Diamond because the diamond is one of the most valuable gemstones, fitting for the queen of the beautiful Pikok tribe. For his father, I was originally going to name him Charming Cobalt so his name is an alliteration similar to Charming Gold and also to reference his blue feathers. However, I thought that would make Charming Gold an outlier. My friend pointed out many years ago that Charming Gold's name is “Gold” but he’s blue. Since there are already characters with alliterations on their names I changed it to Charming Platinum. I made this as a reference that Gold's father is higher in power than him as platinum, which can also be known as white gold, is more valuable than gold.

On to their designs, as I said before in my Dazzling Diaspore character art I have a headcanon that the women of the Pikok tribe have duller colors compared to their male counterparts. I used a real-life image of a peahen so that’s why Diamond has a blue neck. Platinum has a hue of deep rich blue color, to further emphasize his authority over Gold, who has a standard blue color.

Using Charming Gold as a reference for their designs, I noticed that while looking at Gold’s design his whole body is a gradient. From a light teal on his nose to dark violets on the tips of his hair to even the icy blue color of his tail. With bold colors of red and gold on his face with purple eyes. I incorporated that detail into the designs of Pikok characters.

I did not want Charming Gold’s parents to be an exact copy of him, so I tried my best to make them look different, but still similar, to CG. Granted that, I may have overdone it. I did 3-4 color tests to see what I liked the most.

Another headcanon is the makeup they wear is a part of their face. So that eyeshadow and goatee on Charming Gold is actually a part of his face. While looking at the close-up shot of Platinum I noticed that there seemed to be some sort of bottom eyeliner, and since I wanted them to look like their son more so I made him have eye makeup similar to Gold. There seems to be no make-up on Diamond so I had to improvise.

Charming Gold seems to embody Korean beauty standards like his androgynous body and flawless skin. His backstory of being horrifically bullied is a common story in Korean Media, especially stories about beauty standards.

With that in mind, I designed Diamond and Platinum from those beauty standards. In Korea, facial hair is seen as unattractive, but according to history, men were not allowed to harm their bodies and that includes hair. That is why I had Platinum sport a beard than Gold’s goatee. (Side note: Fandom Wiki just described it as a “red line” but I personally see it as Gold having a goatee.) Diamond have freckles and a mole because from what I had researched these beauty marks are at best neutral or at worst ugly in Korea. I found no solid statement even though some KPop idols, who are known to follow Korean beauty standards, have these same beauty marks. She was shown to have pronounced eyelashes so I made sure to show that.

I also have a headcanon that as they age, their faces darken from a white to a gray color. I picked the gray from their grayscale.

For the clothes, Charming Platinum's design was simple enough as his clothes seemed to be a long-sleeved polo shirt with buttons paired with black pants and shoes. He had this cloth wrapped around him like a belt and was wearing a large cape or a royal mantle. He was noticeably wearing the same backless vest Gold wore in the show. Hence, I see the vest like a crown, where the king, Platinum, passed it down to his heir, Gold. And let me tell you, it was hard getting a decent reference for this very symmetrical pattern.

For Charming Diamond here, we were never shown much. I had interpreted it as her wearing a royal mantle and a sleeveless dress and that is all. I noticed that the design on her brooch has the same design that can be throughout the show, like the window in one of the references.

Their royal mantles are rather interesting to me since Charming Gold never wore one in the show; however, since the mantles have peacock patterns on them, I think they were supposed to represent a peacock’s tail, similar to how Gold wore one during Season 1. I did some creative liberty while designing their clothes as we were never shown their full frontal view. Clothes from the Pikok tribe are surprisingly rather simple.

For my headcanons about their deaths, it is rather simple. I did not really think much about it, just a vague idea about how they died. Charming Diamond died from an illness, and she never knew about Gold’s ability and that he was the one behind the missing persons cases. Charming Platinum was stabbed in an assassination attempt by a member of the Mong tribe, who Gold killed to save the former, ultimately revealing his secret power. Platinum later died from the injury he sustained but was on rather good terms with Gold after learning the latter’s ability.

I do not really like the idea that Charming Gold killed his parents. While yes, he probably killed all of the members of the Pikok tribe I just can not really see him as the type of person to kill his parents. Maybe that is just my rose-tinted glasses, but I like to interpret his relationship with his parents as complicated but loving. In his backstory, it was implied that Gold immediately went to his parents after being bullied again. We can assume that this was not the first time this had happened to him, and he possibly went to his parents for consolement.

When he realized that even his own parents were ashamed of him, he was completely heartbroken as implied by the emphasis on the single teardrop. Charming Gold’s parents were ashamed of him because of his appearance, so it is possible that when Gold gained his energy absorption ability and became “beautiful” they started to treat him better. They did have some sort of familial love for him before that, but it became more apparent after the “curse” was lifted. But this is just my interpretation.

For their personalities, we were never shown much. What little we get is where they are in a stressful situation, so we can not really know for sure how they normally act. But Gold’s personality and skill must have come from somewhere.

I might draw and flesh them out more but this is it for now. I have been trying a new art style where I lean into the gothic medieval style so that is why the art has a yellow filter, but there is still the other version where there is no filter. Drawing these two was hard because as it turns out, I’m not actually good with drawing two characters existing in the same space with correct proportions.

Thank you for reading!

[ardn632mikhilarutherford]

Refined composite tests

For my next to composites I wanted to look back into the background image from my favourite composite from last week. When making these new ones I took consideration from the feedback given by my peers and David, as well as considered a concept for each composite to give me a sense of direction when piecing these together.

For my first refined composite I chose to create a somewhat creepy and ominous atmosphere throughout the image. I achieved this by keeping the exposure darker, as well as using a portion of another photograph for the sky to make the whole image appear as though it was taken at night. Finally, I used different street signs to give the feeling of dread or something not right, using signage that showed stops or telling you you're in the wrong place. I'm very happy with this manipulated image, however I do feel as though some of the lighting on the signage could look more realistic.

My second refined composite uses the same background as the previous, however I've completely changed the setting. For this I wanted to show the scene of an Atlantis esk, underwater city, possibly taken over by flooding. To achieve this look I changed the sky background to a water texture. Then I added in the shark. I had to change up the shadows to make the belly darker and add backlighting to properly adjust to the lighting of the scene. I created a shadow by flipping the original shark and adding a gradient map to make it a complete silouhette. I added Gaussian blur and lowered the opacity to allow for the ground texture to show through. I also added the flooding sign to add more context to the image and added a gradient map to that to change the hue to appear more blue. Finally, I added a photo filter with a cooling filter to marry the colours of the scene better and added a water texture overlay over the entire image.

I am beyond happy with this composite as it is something I never thought I would be able to do when starting this class. I think everything fits nicely into the scene, and the colours and shadows have been adjusted to fit with the overall image.

[manipulatedimagegerogia]

When it came to the process of editing photos I followed a very similar process for each of the photos.

It consisted of me

- cutting backgrounds from photos

- Editing all the photos to help it look like it was all from the same image

- Adding highlights and shadows

- Playing with whatever

- Then adding usually a gradient layer or I’d go ahead and add a filter which would either be like grainy or film like texture to the final image

I tried to relate this observation I made from our reading into my work. I love wanted to make something obviously edited but also with the intention to make it somewhat belivable by first glance. Photography is an art form that is able to take advantage of imagination and truth and I wanted to try and play with that

When I thought of edited photos I think to the trending early 2000s I guess late 90s teen fashion magazines. And I just led with that.

The first photographer I looked into was someone who I’ve seen their work all over social media. I really loved the creation of these crazy photos. So obviously edited but it’s fun to look at.

The second person I looked into had these bright colours and just like the first artist they had these crazy backdrops for their subjects. One thing that I wanted to take from this particular artist was the use of the heavier use of shadows and highlights. I just felt like it added to the fun of the photos.

- otherworldness

- Fun

- Weird looking

[kaelula-sungwis]

Confluence by Otto Berkeley Via Flickr: York Minster, situated in North England, proudly claims to be one of the world's most magnificent cathedrals. I'd been planning to visit the location for over a year, but it wasn't until I was standing inside it, taking in the awesome spectacle of its nave, that I realised how true that claim is. The site's history extends back almost 2,000 years, with the remains of Roman barracks uncovered in the 1960s and now on display in the Minster's undercroft. The current building is around 800 years old, and on its north side is the Chapter House, a circular space ringed with low stalls, soaring stained-glass windows and a 60ft-high ribbed-vault ceiling. The day-to-day running of the Minster once took place here, and it was praised as revolutionary for its time because it lacked any central pillar to support the ceiling. From a photography standpoint, this was must-see architecture, not least because the absence of a central pillar meant it would be possible to capture a look-up directly beneath the ceiling. The image was captured shortly after the Minster opened in the morning, and is a blend of eight bracketed exposures that were later blended in Photoshop using luminosity masks. My aim was to bring out as much of the nuance as possible in both the Chapter House's stone pillars and in the wooden roof, so I shifted the midtones and shadows towards the brighter exposures. At the same time I wanted to preserve the detail within the windows, so the highlights were geared towards my darker exposures. I also wanted to emphasise a sense of depth and proportion across the ceiling, so a combination of the Pen Tool and radial gradient masks were used to blend in brighter exposures at the centre of the frame. When colour-grading the image, it was important to me to try to put the focus on the location's symmetry and ornate decorated architecture. For this reason I opted for quite a muted palette. The bold reddish-yellow tones across the ceiling were toned down, with only a low-opacity Colour Lookup applied to the centre of the ceiling using the Soft Light blend mode and the Soft Warming preset. Small adjustments were made using Colour Balance, Hue/Saturation and Curves layers to add a hint of blue to the shadows and to play up some of the warmth from the interior lighting, particularly along the carvings at the lower-centre of the frame. Using Nik's Silver Efex Pro on a layer set to the Luminosity blend mode, I gently increased the image's dynamic brightness and amplified the whites, as well as lowering the midtone and shadow structure along the stone columns, which had a lovely gritty texture but which I thought might distract from the glass windows and ceiling that were the key components of the image. Lastly, inside Colour Efex Pro, I used the Pro Contrast filter to selectively increase the intensity of light coming through the windows on the left side of the frame. This was to ensure a balanced finish, as the position of the sun early in the morning meant the windows on the right side were slightly brighter than on the left. The final result hopefully conveys the location's beautifully geometric architecture, and perhaps also the admirable workmanship that went into planning and constructing such a sublime building and on such an enormous scale during the late 13th century. You can also connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, 500px and Google+.

[herestrish]

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠▸ nanami kento x reader (gn)

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬▸ hurt/comfort, fluff, coffee-shop (i have no chill with this au i swear to god).

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭▸ 1.3 k

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲▸ you desperately try to wash your thoughts away with your writing, when a workaholic nanami catches your eye. 

𝐚/𝐧▸ dedicated to my sweet @kikyan​​, whose love for storytelling is as strong as nanami’s hate for overtime work. they’re a gem. 

A beam of sunshine escaped through the window and fractured his face in a straight line of warmth. Pale cheekbones that looked almost healthy, dark circles covered under dying sun. A flare reflecting into his eyes that one—if blinded with hurry, obliviated with disinterest—would deem alive. They weren’t.

The place was almost empty. Small, narrow piece of intimacy hiding at the corner of the street; the secluded type where customers usually know the bartenders, and bills are paid at the counter. Cosy gradient of browns and beiges, light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, shining soothe and retro just like the music playing in the background. A casual guy with freshly trimmed beard was typing on his essay on the other side of the room. Two pink-cheeked girls in turtleneck sweaters (with steam spectrally hovering up from their cups, hardcover books by their side—oh, but we know it’s just for show) were keeping up with each other’s lives three tables farther from you. Rarae aves. Sighing in frustration, frowning at the sudden disturbance, he averted his eyes from the outdoor light play—gold turning to bronze, at last to silver—and pulled the laptop lid a bit lower. He didn’t like it when things dragged him out of his concentration state. Tightened the tie around his neck as a form of punishment. Then he rubbed on his eyes just so heavily, determined to get used to the screen’s whiteness as promptly as possible. As efficiently.

And now that the sun left his face and scattered into shades of pink behind the rip-roaring arcadia of Tokyo, the contrast between his own image and the setting he’d put himself into became more and more evident. Like a frame that had built itself around his table, covered it in paint and got it hung on wallpaper. At this point, you’d thought this man would fit better inside a cubicle: white quivery neon, coffee filtered in a hurry, nine-to-five schedules, cigarette breaks restoring the worker’s will to live. But it was still Saturday and an office room could be claustrophobic, and a home distracting.

So he typed and typed and typed; occasionally dropped some scribbles down the notebook beside him, took a sip from a white ceramic cup. He’d ordered a double-espresso—no sugar, no milk, just caffeinated oil to keep the cogwheels moving. By the other side of his laptop, the man’s phone started to buzz. It didn’t stop too soon. He rolled his eyes at the insisting caller, swiped a thumb up only at the fourth ring. Phone by his ear and a frigid tone in his voice, he looked up, and your gaze hurried downwards when he did. You had your own amount of typing to concentrate at, less work and more pain-killing escape. A laptop screen, a half-hearted paragraph and a story idea that had grasped you during your own morning shift at work and hadn’t let go ever since. Eyes heavy and back aching, you were here out of an unconscious attempt to bring it to life. You didn’t really know what to do with it in the future.

The conversation went on. (“Precisely. I’d very much appreciate it if you stopped associating me with all this, I won’t get involved with the line of work no longer. Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to acquire a new competency and do the jobs you are assigned to from now on.”)

You tried to put your thoughts in order, turn ideas into words, daydream into text; all efforts were to no avail, and a headache slowly started to take over in all your frustration. A word, cut out. Two words, replaced. Three—let’s select the whole row and begin a new sentence from scratch. At least the sound of your typing was soothing enough to keep you going. The man sitting at the table in front hung up the phone and ordered a glass of wine, moments after it wasn’t your typing to soothe anymore. You stared at the screen, eyes glazing over, with a finger curled up your lips as he completed endless rows of text. Mechanic, focused. And you were gripped again. Curious, mind blank.

“You’re staring again.” It was an observation. No hostility held to his voice, nor mischief.

A thought took form out loud. “Am I?”

“Pretty much, yes,” He responded, eyes fixed on the screen and fingers racing over keyboard.

You felt as if a knot got stuck in your throat. Your lungs got flattened, and your headache pulsed in response.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

A moment passed.

“You seem horrifyingly tense on a Saturday evening, is all.” You managed.

He didn’t take too much time to ponder over it, his words came out cold and professional.

“I shouldn’t be working on a Saturday evening.”

And he was professionalism incarnated, all right, with shirtsleeves pulled up to elbows and braces vertical to slim waist and round shoulders that had no time to loosen.

You closed your laptop lid, a faint ‘click’ when you did. Your stare was less sheer curiosity and more sociability this time, it propped your hand in a palm just as dandelion seeds are driven mid-air and then down to the ground.  

Natural, understanding. “Leave it to Monday, then.”

“Weekend productivity leaves a door open for the rest of the week. If my schedule says I’m ought to be off at five, I’d prefer to be off at five.” The man clarified, with a lowered tone and a masked sigh that actually translated themselves to ‘cannot do’.

“Has it worked so far?”

“No.” He said, throwing you a wise look, hand resting somewhere near touchpad.

“That’s the case,” After a second of thought, you point a finger at the gleaming glass of wine on his table, “Drink up.” then at the opened laptop in front. “Open a word document, write a story.”

The interior lights radiated brighter and brighter—orange and yellow midst the room, dark circles on the ceiling—as the sun became completely concealed, and your reflections gained contour in over-carefully wiped windows.

He complied with the first suggestion, glass by his mouth and alcohol cascading down in crimson waves. “I’m not convinced literature will get any bureaucracy done, however.”

A shrug. “It shouldn’t. But it should clear up your mind at some point.”

“If only people functioned the same.”

“Still, I don’t know anyone who isn’t truthfully into taking a break from time to time.”

“All right, look,” He began, brushing a piece of blonde hair from his face, all austere and composed. “I much appreciate your concern, but under no circumstances will you see me becoming this Kobo Abe in my free time. Especially when overloaded with work. It wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Neither does bureaucracy.” It was all you could say back; your smile was still clear like a morning sky before you returned to your laptop, your own word document that remained to be filled with pages.

He left early, earlier than you. Watched him pack his things out of the corner of your eye, paid attention when bells chimed at the exit door. And it didn’t take much more time for you to follow suit: laptop closed, bag around shoulder, seat dragged to its place.

“Don’t sweat it,” The woman at the counter looked unusually casual for the dark circles she wore under her eyes. “it has been already taken care of.”

Like someone entering a numbing state after endless hours of labour.

“What do you mean?” Raising an eyebrow, you stopped rummaging through your wallet.

There was a deep sinking feeling in your stomach you found hard to get over.

“The guy from before? Looking like a peaky blinder or some sort? He paid for your bill before leaving.”

A couple of beats later, your lips curve in amusement. “If they ever come in here again, please tell them they be more old-fashioned than my granny’s curtains.”

[madd-nix]

So, here's my character from Pokemon: Legends Arceus. I initially named them Ryuu cuz the hairstyle of the boy character really reminded me of Ryunosuke, and after that I just developed them into a full-on self insert OC.

Also, this is like the first time in months that I've actually drawn for fun so I'm a little rusty, but I'm glad I got this drawn out. Who would've thought that Pokemon and funny train men would bring back a little motivation for me!

Also, I'll put some image descriptions and all the notes in the sketch under the cut in case you can't read my handwriting.

Drawing: A pencil drawing of the boy player character (although to me they are a masculine presenting nonbinary person) from Pokemon: Legends Arceus. They have short spiky black hair, light blue eyes, and pale skin. They're wearing the red Survey Corps cap, a red plaid kimono, the satchel around their waist, the seascape fancy kimono pants (dark blue to lighter blue gradient that gets lighter as it goes down), and black split-toe boots. They're smiling and holding a Pokeball in their left hand with their right arm behind their back.

Notes:

Ryuu (Phoenix) they/them

- nonbinary Phoenix Wright kinnie (named themself after the character)

*they said their name is Ryuu cuz they panicked & wanted to try to fit in better in Hisui (Ryuu derived from Ryuichi or Ryunosuke Naruhodo)

- from modern day Sinnoh

- has a girlfriend from Unova

- they often visit her & go to see plays/musicals in the Pokemon equivalent of Broadway (since Unova is basically NY)

- love to draw

- recognize Ingo in Hisui since they've seen him whenever they ride the subway in Unova & silently vow to help him get his memory back & get them both home

The rest of the images are screenshots of Ryuu from the actual game. 1) Ryuu standing at their cot in their room in Jubilife Village wearing the same outfit I drew them in. 2) Ryuu in the changing clothes screen wearing a red headband, purple festival top with white patterned designs on the sleeves and around the waist, yellow shorts, satchel, and black split-toe boots. 3) Ryuu standing outside in Jubilife Village wearing blue snow gear with their Pokemon team. From left to right: Lopunny, Eevee, Luxray, Hisuian Typhlosion, Floatzel, and Haunter. 4) Ryuu and their Typhlosion at the photo studio in Jubilife Village. Ryuu is on the right, standing with their arms behind their back with Typhlosion next to them, both facing the camera. There is a sepia filter over the photo. 5) Ryuu facing Ingo and Lady Irida at the training grounds at night. Ingo is tipping his hat in greeting. 6) Ryuu facing Ingo at the training grounds during the day with their Typhlosion standing next to Ingo. Typhlosion and Ingo are looking at each other.

[spellfist-3d]

Guide to that elusive “PS1-pixelated-lowpoly”(but not really)

With the videogame playing population growing up we've finally broke from pixel-art nostalgia into the broadly called "low-poly" nostalgia. On closer look this broad categorization gets further described as “PS1 pixelated textures low-poly”, which is a bit better, but still is a really broad and a pretty wrong description of this style that’s so dear to a plenty of game-playing and game making individuals these days. I’ll try to dive into some of the technicalities and examples of this style in the attempt to find it’s characteristics and some actual technical requirements to meet this style.

Let’s start with the obvious, calling it PS1 low-poly is wrong, mostly because the same games were release on Nintendo 64, Dreamcast and PC. More so, games released later can be put into the same category, plenty of NDS or PSP games fit into the same style and adhere to the same economy principles. The only real surface level thing unifying these games is the game size, that is, the games came on CDs. The advent of a DVD format really changed up how the games look, so the graphical style we’re talking about here is called CD-3D in smaller circles.

First let’s look at the games that fit the criteria would give you some information to describe the style, textures are obviously small enough to have visible pixelation (hidden by texture filtering) and models are obviously low-poly (that is around or less than 500 triangles for a character), but let’s see what doesn’t seem so obvious. Here’s Spyro and Crash, fan favorites

Both games check both points we’ve noted before, but what’s not obvious to an untrained eye is that these games both extensively use Vertex Color, the thing you’ll notice more and more in other games we’ll talk about. Vertex Color is absolutely simple, each vertex of a mesh can be assigned a RGBA value and they’re then linearly blended with other vertex colors. Notice how in Spyro the yellow and purple light is placed on places where texture is repeated, following that you can eyeball where the wireframe is and then you’ll see that the vertex color is used to simulate lighting. Crash himself is filled with Vertex Color, it’s a cheap way to avoid using textures, while having some control over the color of the thing, instead of it being a solid chunk. If you search-engine around you can also find some really fascinating notes on the development of the original Crash and the tricks they’ve pulled! The more ingenious way to use Vertex Color is to take a look at Spyro skyboxes:

Notice how the clouds are diamond-like in shape and are linearly gradiented to the next point in the wireframe.

Vertex color was used extensively and fell off with the increasing complexity of the meshes, delegated mostly to technical masking of stuff like foliage, it’s still a powerful tool for lower triangle counts.

Textures

Now, let’s talk about the textures. Pixelated textures look nice and crisp these days, at the age of 1080p being the norm, turning texture filtering really makes the games look crisp and feel right

Quake 1 is a perfect example of CD-3D style, often undeservingly forgot in discussions about this style.

But this makes us forget that the textures were often authored with texture filtering in mind. Careful step gradienting to make textures seem smoother after being filtered is a craft in itself.

Texture filtering is not bad in itself, some games look better without it these days, because of the display resolutions, but it’s still a valid tool to apply, it can help push low-res texture a bit higher and produce a softening effect make those 4 pixels into a round circle or improve a visual effect.

Of course, some games took a deliberate approach of avoiding smudged look, like Megaman Legends, for example.

Via a very deliberate texture economy and unwrapping the developers were able to produce very crisp and pixel perfect textures (slightly warped by the infamous PS1 rendering), that look absolutely astounding when you render the game in a modern resolution. Pixel-aware UV Unwrapping, is being used in most games that are considered the pinnacle of CD-3D style, this technique is so powerful, that it was used to great effect in PS2 era games, PSP games and even modern games like Guilty Gear (for a different effect though). Let’s take a closer look,

As you can see, our character is unwrapped in square pieces in such a way that a straight line on a texture will produce a straight line on a model. While Vagrant Story is an absolutely perfect in execution of this technique, it’s also used in a same way in Megaman Legends

While I couldn’t find a reliable tool that works with modern 3D modeling software to allow pixel perfect alignment, just using a UV Checker will produce great results. This method also requires some thought put into your topology before unwrapping, but it’s strong point is that you can make changes into your unwrapping and geometry easily, making little tugs won’t break the whole thing.

As you can also note, Vagrant Story textures are authored in a single atlas, while Metal Gear Solid separates this atlas into smaller chunks like this:

Allowing for easier unwrapping, since you can unwrap into the full UV space and then change the size of the texture to scale your results. The other important thing is that you probably want your characters in a T-pose when you’re unwrapping, since this allows for easier use of normal based unwrapping, considering your model would be authored with 4 to 8 sides for limbs and torso it could be box unwrapped and then tweaked for optimal results.

Silent Hill 1 used the same technique, and is also regarded as one of the best looking PS1 games.

While this is the best practice for this kind of look, it’s absolutely not required, Quake 1 used a really loose flat unwrap:

But it’s still looks bloody amazing in the end.

While the topic of using UV Unwrapping for crisper result is endless I’d also love to bring your attention to a certain Jet Set game

It also uses the same technique as Megaman Legends, but it tops it off with some cel-shading, producing crisp, stylish and iconic look.

Here’s some technicalities: Character textures are usually 256x256 for main characters, 128x128 for other characters, character usually have ~100-120 colors per full atlas. MGS breaks down the atlas into chunks so each chunks is usually 8 colors. So when authoring textures, make us of Indexed Color image mode or Save for Web.

 Now let’s move from character textures to

World textures

Universally regarded as best looking CD-3D games share the same trait, not only the characters look amazing, but the environments too. Despite hard limitations, the environments look very much affected by lighting. A lot of the times this is achieved with this one simple trick that was only improved with modern technology. That is, a lot of the lighting is baked into the textures

While this limits you on the amount of lighting scenarios or makes you produce more same-ish assets this certainly elevates the look. While nowadays baked lighting is not something that exciting, it’s also being done on a separate “layer”, so there’s no need to make a separate texture for every lighting scenario, however the resolution of a lightmap should not be higher than your texture, to not produce a cheap and uncanny effect. You still want to bake some fake lighting into your texture, which contradicts the rules of PBR, but since you’re not using normal maps, rules of PBR should not apply in the same way.

The other important tool to use, is the one we’ve talked about, that is, Vertex Color. Vagrant Story uses to great effect, while it’s environment textures don’t have lights baked, they use vertex color extensively to create a variety of moods and lighting scenarios.

Using best texturing practice, Vertex Color and making sure your lightmaps are matching resolution to your textures will produce the best results.

Now let’s talk why I don’t advise using a lot of normal maps for this style. The simple answer, it’s somewhat difficult to produce a normal map that will work with an unfiltered look, but it’s somewhat manageable to do it if you’re using texture filtering. The issue arises when you try make your normal maps unfiltered, this will make your result either a mess or a bunch of visual noise. If you’re trying to make sharp pixel-perfect textures and then will try to make normal maps to match you’ll get very harsh results. The only way I can see it working somewhat nice is to make a normal map that’s less detailed and then use it texture filtered to give some volume to your objects, while not trying to chase pixel details.

The suggested method is to do a rough sculpt -> bake it down -> use ambient occlusion and other masks to author a texture map with more details. Then use a detailed texture and less detailed normal map for optimal result.

 As a closing thought, let’s talk about the

Meshes

A lot of the time you can visually trace the wireframe of things, this makes it easy to pin the style as “low-poly”, but how lowpoly it really is?

Characters in Vagrant story average 500 triangles per character. Characters in MGS go from ~450 for minor characters to ~650 for major characters. So 500-600 triangles is a solid baseline for a main character in a third person game.

This limit brings out some great restriction for every aspiring 3D artist. You have to know your limb deformation techniques (search-engine “Limb Topology” and browse around the polycount wiki to find some great examples and deformation ready examples), but as you might’ve noticed, some games decided to not wrestle with skinning and deformation and straight up detached the limbs or even made their characters out of chunks. This is perfectly noticebla if you compare the OG Grim Fandango and the remaster, where they botched the shading and you can see the bits in all of their glory.

Another easy example is Metal Gear Solid. Characters arms are separate from their torse, but this is covered with other geometry or they’re of the same color and shaded closely.

This way of doing it was used in a number of other games and allows for unlimited range of motion, while not looking weird.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of adding more triangles and loops, but if you’ll follow the rule of “if it doesn’t add to the silhouette, you don’t need it”, you’ll keep to the style. Zoom out often and if an edge doesn’t add anything from the distance and is not critical to the deformation in a character, you really don’t need it.

These principles are so solid they’ve been alive for decades, in fact, one of the best looking PSP games “Peace Walker” sticks to these principles very closely, for example this soldier is just around 1500 triangles

Spilling out of the “low-poly” territory it’s still made with the same economy principles used in CD-3D style, making use of every bit of texture and every triangle available.

Here’s another game of Metal Gear variety, Metal Gear Solid 2 is a direct heir to the design philosophy of MGS1, perfectly pixel-aligned unwraps allow for crisp detailing:

Another honorable mention goes to Animal Crossing on Nintendo 64

Animal Crossing combines meshes and sprites masterfully, uses pixel-aligned UV unwraps and makes up their own trick when creating landscape.

By unwrapping the repeating texture on each triangle of a hexagon they create these smooth patches of sand without the need for big or unique textures. It’s only 64x64 and 9 colors, but the mileage you can get out of it is insane!

 And this honestly sums up the CD-3D style perfectly, it’s the style governed by economy. There’s no need for insane textures for sharp lines, and millions of colors for smooth gradients. Now of course all of these are not rules, but recommendations, you can certainly bend the rules and improve on some aspects. Before we go, here’s some more pictures to get you inspired.

[thatweeboverthereisthirsty]

OK so I got this idea. S/o (who's this time has to be female) is also an octo mermaid but still from another world. So s/o gets into one of the pools and they discover she's a blanket octopus (if you haven't seen a female blanket octopus they're one of the most beautiful octopus out there with their gradient colors) and they get popular af like everyone is like "wow she's such a beautiful meroctopus" Yada yada. And Azul it's mad. Part 1

Part 2. And both Jade and Floyd notice it and decide to tell s/o who is shocked and sad because they have a HUGE crush so they decided to give him a gift. Since they know he doesn't have a octopus pot they decide to make him one. After months they give it to him and confess and he's shocked and ask for their forgiveness as it isn't their fault. At the end he and s/o cuddle inside of the octo pot in their mer forms.

OMG THIS TOOK ME FOREVER!!!! I probably got this ask before thanksgiving so I am very sorry that it took me this long, HOWEVER, it is the longest oneshot I have ever written so that’s quite an accomplishment. There are photo references that go with this story as well so check those out before you read. 

Warnings: Slight language, insecurities, fluff, very very minor angst, fem!s/o

Word count: 4,710

Azul x Reader: Cuddle Pot

The above images are references for the s/o’s octopus species and the octopus pot. I don’t know who the original artist is for the second so if you know please let me know so I can give credit where due.

   “Wait seriously? You’re a mermaid!” Ace practically shrieks and you giggle. Placing a finger to your lips, you shush him as Deuce slaps the back of your over energetic friend’s head. 

   “Yes. I am a mermaid, but you can’t tell anyone yet.”

   “Why not?” Jack questions. His tail flicks in confusion.

   You sigh and think back to the last time anyone found out about your true form. Most of the people back in your world found merpeople to be odd and cursed. It was considered a disability and a disease. Human society often shunned what they didn’t understand. And that lack of understanding led to fear. 

   A boy in your old school had been your middle school sweetheart for approximately 7 months before you decided to tell him your secret. He had seemed so eager to finally go swimming with you that you had naively believed that it was all going to be fine. However when he stared at your flowey, shimmering form you felt yourself grow worried that he would no longer like you. 

   “Babe,” you started, leaning closer to try and grasp his face with your smooth, webbed fingers. “It’s alright. It’s just my merform. It’s going to-” He quickly slapped your hand away and stumbled back. 

   “F-freak, monster, disgusting. Stay away from me you animal! We’re over you deceiving B*tch!” He quickly ran away from the side of the lake where you had brought him. As dawns lovely lights sprayed your body with pinks, and soft oranges, tears slid down your cheeks and into the water below. He hated you. Oh what a fool you had been to think that he would be different, that he would love you anyway. 

   School had become increasingly difficult after that. Word spread fast and you were quickly isolated by everyone you had called a friend. Eventually you moved to a new place and decided that you would never love again.

   This wasn’t the case however in Twisted Wonderland. You were so pleasantly surprised to find people like you, and they weren’t considered freaks because of it. It had been a shock and you quickly found yourself yearning to tell others about what you truly were. Fear had you back though. At least up until that point.

   “I had a bad experience with someone I cared about back in my home world.” You stated softly. The boys looked at each other and smiled. 

   “Well this isn’t that world. You're good to go here since I can’t imagine anyone judging you for what you look like in this place.” Ace’s words reassured you.

   “He’s right. At NRC it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be bullied because of something like this. But what are you anyway?” Deuce questioned. 

   You giggled and leaned in closer to the 4 people sitting at the lunch table, (5 if you included Grimm, but he already knew). “I’m an octopus.” You said with excitement and slight nervousness.

   “Really? That sounds so cool!” Epel was quiet but excited when he spoke up for the first time since the conversation started. You smiled to yourself and mentally sighed in relief that the people you had next trusted with your secret didn’t view you any differently. 

   “Wait hold the phone. Octopus? Like Azul?” Ace pressed close enough that you could reach across with a napkin and wipe the side of his cheek that had been smeared with BBQ sauce when he scarfed his lunch.

  “Yes and no, Azul is a Common Octopus, which means that he is the standard octopus you mostly see around the ocean or in pictures. Basically what you imagine when someone says Octopus. I’m a different type of octopus, one that is more rare.” You pulled out your phone while talking to bring up an image. You held the phone so everyone at the table could see.

   “This is a female Blanket Octopus. We’re pretty rare but we are also one of the most beautiful kinds.” 

   Everyone went wide eyed and watched the screen as you scrolled through images of your fellow eight legged friends. Epel turned to you and grabbed your shoulder. 

   “You absolutely have to show us your merform.” Ace, Deuce, and Jack all nodded in agreement. You flushed and fiddled with the hem of your shirt. 

   “I don’t know guys. It would be a hassle to find a place where we could do it and I’m not sure I want anyone else seeing me. What if someone shows up and freaks out?” This time it was Jack’s turn to speak when he leaned back before smiling slightly.

   “Not that I care but I personally would show up to support you if you needed it. Besides, the school pool is closed after dark. However I’m pretty sure Ruggie has snatched a copy of every key to every lock in the building.”

   “Of course he has.” Deuce says rolling his eyes. “That hyena couldn’t keep his paws to himself even if his life depended on it.” You giggled but ignored the comment in favor of asking Jack if he could get the key. The wolf nodded and you told everyone to meet you by the pool at 9:30. Your friends nodded in agreement just as the bell rang.

----------

   The air was humid and warm, it was perfect for a late night swim, although your clothes would likely stick to your body when you changed back. Still you shifted uncomfortably at the idea of getting in the water with what you are wearing. A pair of leggings was slipped on underneath a waterproof skirt. You had a jacket over your bikini top but per usual you were unable to wear bottoms unless you wanted them to tear. You would have to be very careful not to let the skirt go up before you shifted.

   A sigh left your lips and Grimm, sensing your nervousness, rubbed up against your leg in silent comfort. Your friends were unlikely to freak out but it was still nerve wracking to think about exposing your true form to other non-merpeople. Hundreds of scenarios where something went wrong filtered through your head and promised that your anxiety wouldn’t leave anytime soon. 

  “BOO!” Half a shriek pierced the night before a hand clasped over your mouth.  

   “Shishishishishi.” You turned around in surprise and pulled the fingers away from your face.

   “Ruggie! What are you doing here?” You whisper shouted. The hyena snickered again and held up one finger. He made a circular motion and a key ring twirled around in response. 

   “Jack said you needed to get in here. Thought I’d tag along.” The smirk on his face irritated you but you couldn’t be surprised. You should have known that having Jack of all people ask for keys to break into the pool after hours was going to raise some eyebrows. Honestly you should have just asked him to invite Ruggie along anyways. Key or no key the hyena was likely to want to know what was going on. 

   “Alright fine, but if you tell anyone what you saw here today, and I mean anyone, then I will hide your piggy bank from you.” Ruggie’s eyes went wide before they narrowed.

   “You have my word.” You smiled knowing that you had convinced him to keep your secret despite the fact that if he really had told someone you wouldn’t have actually done more than try and punch him. Of all people you knew how precious money was in this world, considering the fact that you had none.

   Footsteps alerted you to the approaching presence of your other friends. You turn

around and find Jack, Epel, Ace and Deuce walking over to you. They wave and Jack frowns when he spots Ruggie.

   “What are you doing here? I thought you already gave me the key.” The hyena snickers and points towards the key Jack was holding. 

   “I gave you the one to the janitors closet, which I’m gonna need back by the way. I wanted to see what was going on for myself so I hung out here till Y/n came over, and then I figured it had to be interesting if she was involved. I didn’t know there was gonna be a crowd though.” He looked at you, “This must be one hell of a surprise if you got all the first years here.”

   Deuce pointed out that Sebek was a first year as well but the hyena shrugged it off saying “he doesn’t count as a student since he’s basically just a guard.” You figured that was Leona’s opinion and Ruggie agreed.

   “Guys it’s already late and I don’t wanna get caught so let's go in already.” Everyone nodded and Ruggie opened the gate. 

   Carefully you unzipped your jacket as you walked over to the bench. The water appeared calm and undisturbed, allowing a clear view of the illuminated bottom which was surprisingly clean considering teenage boys flung about in the water all day.

   You sighed and shrugged the jacket off before stepping out of your shoes. Setting down the bag with your extra clothes you mentally prepared yourself for what was about to happen. 

   Ruggie leaned closer to Jack and whispered something you didn’t catch but Jack’s response of “You’ll see.” was enough to tell you what had happened. Pushing your anxiety out of the way you lowered yourself into the pool, sighing as the cool water licked your skin. Giving yourself a moment to relax you let your worries leak into the water around you. You had always felt better in the water. It’s a merfolk thing.

   “Are you guys positive you won’t freak out?” You called to the edge of the pool where your friends were standing. 

   “Not unless you grow 10 heads.” Ace sniggered until Epel elbowed him. You rolled your eyes and looked suspiciously over to Ruggie who still had no idea what was going on. 

   “No promises.” You sighed, but smiled when Jack nodded at you, signaling that it would be alright. Who were you kidding Ruggie was a hyena man who grew up in the slums. What did he care? Feelings of worry taken care of, you sunk deeper into the water and closed your eyes.

   The feeling that comes with shifting is always a little strange. It’s almost like your skin has been turned to putty and it is remolding itself and when it reaches the desired outcome it snaps back into place and holds like it has been that way the whole time. 

   Once you felt the transformation had completed you righted yourself in the water and peeked an eye open to look at your friends. Ace and Epel had their mouths wide open in a gasp. One that quickly turned into a smile. Jack looked as though he had just witnessed a miracle and Deuce was still in shock. Ruggie’s reaction was by far the most extravagant. His eyes were wide and his mouth was curved into a questioning gape. He had taken several steps back and his ears lay flat on his head. Behind him his tail bristled and stood fairly straight, pushing up the too large shirt. 

   You bit your lip and examined their faces trying to come up with a conclusion to what they were feeling. 

   “That… Is so cool!” Ace blurted out excitedly and ran over to the pool's edge to get a closer look. Deuce and Epel followed him and Jack trotted over as well, but not before snorting at Ruggie. The hyena man looked your form up and down and took in the swirling shades of color that decorated your now sea creature bottom half. He made a small noise before shaking himself and casually patting down the fur on his tail, which was still tense but not as much. 

   “Ok, of all the things I’ve seen. That, I was not expecting.” You giggled at Ruggie’s flustered reaction and felt yourself relax now that you knew pitchforks and torches weren’t coming out. 

   The hyena moved closer to the pool and joined your other friends who were staring at you in awe. You blushed uncontrollably as you felt their gazes roam your colorful body. Decorative markings that spread up to your collarbone changed to a darker shade with your blush.

   “So like can I touch you?” Deuce smacks his hand against Ace’s chest and gives him this look that says “dude you can’t just say that''. You giggle and glide closer to them before lifting your arm which was for the most part pretty human, but had a lavender shade to it and a long silky strip of webbing that shimmered as it moved. The longest tentacle on your body rose out of the water as well and you shivered as the webbing stuck together in an uncomfortable manner. 

   Ace leaned forwards and stroked your arm and tentacle. His eyes were filled with curiosity and wonder. Deuce looked a little more unsure but Epel had no problem reaching out and gently caressing your webbing. Ruggie joined him and Deuce eventually stuck his hand out to stroke your arm, but Jack held back and decided that ultimately he only wanted to look.

   “Wow! This stuff is so soft!” Epel said excitedly. He was generally pretty quiet so you were glad he was comfortable enough to speak out. 

   “It’s so colorful. If we had silks this pretty in the savannah then we’d have lots of money. Say, where could I find more of your kind.” Ruggie’s smirk told you that he was just joking but you glared at him anyways and flicked water his way. 

   The hyena flinched and shook his head before laying his ears back and moving away from the water. Jack and Ace laughed at the antics before Ruggie growled playfully and distracted them from what had happened moments before. 

   It was then that Ace leaned a bit too far forwards and fell straight into the pool. You jumped and swung your tentacles back, instinctively spreading them out to make yourself look bigger. 

   You willed your body to relax as you recovered from the little panic attack and laughed when Ace’s head bobbed to the surface. He sputtered and swam over to the edge and climbed out of the pool. He lay on the concrete and breathed heavily while the boys around him cackled. Ace glared and stood up. 

   “You jerks I’ll show you how you like it.” Deuce shrieked as Ace shoved him into the water. You laughed with everyone else as Deuce came up for air. Sensing a sudden threat of being pushed into the water Ruggie backed up against the gate and watched as Jack pushed Epel in before diving in himself. The five of you giggled and splashed as Ruggie snickered at your antics. 

   You were so glad your new friends didn’t mind your merform. Even better, they really liked it. It felt like a weight had been lifted from your shoulders as you dived down to swim with your friends. As the five of you splashed and played with Ruggie distracted with your antics, none of you noticed a dark form smirk in the bushes. Nor the click of the camera that he had with him.

----------

   The next day was a nightmare. Apparently someone had spied on you and your friends and photographed you in your merform. People swarmed you asking you all sorts of questions. It was difficult to just get through the halls. Luckily none of the people who stopped and talked to you had anything unkind to say and the stares you received were more curious than malicious but it was still an uncomfortable situation to be in.

   For the most part people who knew you were pretty considerate about your space and privacy. Cater seemed absolutely thrilled to know that you were an octopus but only asked if you were alright with everything going on, instead of bombarding you with questions. 

   Kalim was a little more enthusiastic about the whole situation. Jamil ended up apologizing for him and pulling him away. Vil and Rook subtly commented on your merforms beauty before moving on. Diasomnia rarely came near you but Lilia gave you a sympathetic smile. Trey offered you a few baked sweets as he sensed that you were overwhelmed and as for everyone else you had yet to see them.

   The person you were most worried about seeing though was Azul. He was an octopus merman like you, yet you had never seen his merform. Unless you counted his overblot the only time you had seen him in full shift was in the picture you had borrowed from the museum. 

   He and the Leech twins will probably have an absolute field day over the fact that you’re also a mertype. You worried what Azul was going to think of you hiding it. Over the past few months you had developed a crush on him. You had a plan to confess and everything, but now that the secret was out you were worried that he wasn’t going to like you for keeping it from him. In truth you planned on telling him first, but figured there was no harm in letting your other friends know. Turns out there was and the whole school knew.

   Trapped in your thoughts, you failed to notice the two approaching twins and bumped into them as you turned around a corner.

   “Hiii~ Shrimpy-chan~!” Floyd’s ever changing mood seemed to pleasant as he greeted you with a smile and not a squeeze. 

   “Hello, Y/n. How are you today?” Jade's gentleman persona greeted you but failed to hide the questions and mischief in his eyes. 

   “Just say it already. I know you two already know.” You sighed and watched their faces light up with excitement. Floyd grabbed your arm and took off, dragging you behind him. “Wait!” Soon the three of you arrived at an empty classroom which you were promptly shoved in before the tweels followed, shutting the door behind them.

   “Y/n, my apologies for Floyd’s exuberant behavior, but we have been meaning to speak with you in private since the most recent exposure of your true nature.” Jade was calm and collected as always when he spoke and gently fixed your crumpled uniform which had been shifted while running. 

   “Shrimpy-chan! We have something to tell you!~” Floyd sing-songed before sitting on a desk.

   “What? Wait what is it? And where’s Azul? Wouldn’t he want to speak with me too? If this is about a deal the answer is no.” You folded your arms in front of you and put distance between yourself and the seemingly respectful brother. The twins looked at eachother and you caught a glimpse of something passing through their eyes before Floyd pouted.

   “Aww, what’s wrong with making deals with us? We promise to be real nice this time and not leave you homeless. You could stay with us at Octavinelle!” You rolled your eyes as Floyd giggled and swung his long legs despite the fact that they could easily reach the floor from his seat. 

   “The truth is, Azul is jealous.”

   “What!” You turned and exclaimed at Jade’s statement. The tall mage nodded and continued with a strange look on his face like he wasn’t bothered by this at all. 

   “You are far more beautiful than him in your merform and he is bothered by it. Everyone has always shunned him for his octopus body and now you present yourself as one and everyone goes wild with excitement over your gorgeousness. Something he believes to never have possessed.” 

   You were stunned. Azul was jealous of you. He was upset because you were more beautiful than him. No. You wanted him to love you, not be bothered by you. Why hadn’t you thought of Azul’s insecurities. He just wanted to be an attractive merman and here you were, the same mertype as him and you were advertising your beauty to the world where he had to hide his away due to the fact that he was insecure. 

   Not bothering to say a word you quickly left the room and raced down the hall. You needed to fix this as soon as possible. Otherwise Azul might not like you ever again. Two pairs of mismatched eyes watched your retreat and shone with anticipation. 

   “How long do you think it will take?”

   “Not long Floyd. Luckily she was already prepared before we released the picture.”

----------

   Azul was so over this whole thing. He had rewatched the video and looked at the pictures about 20 times. You were so gorgeous and graceful in your merform; it just made him frustrated that he couldn have been admired for his tentacles. They were simple and slimy so most people hated them yet you were swathed in colorful silks that attracted every creature in the ocean. While most would swim by him or threaten to eat him, any sea animal that came across you would be hypnotised by your beauty. 

   The worst thing about you being an octopus is that it gave him one more reason to tell himself that you will never love him. He was so drab and you were well amazing. Of all the creatures in the sea you had to be a blanket octopus. If you had been a simple mermaid or even better a common octopus like him then surely he would have a chance with you at least. 

   A sudden knock on the door startled the mage and he stood quickly to make sure he looked alright before answering the door. You stood anxiously as he opened the door and grabbed his wrist before he had the chance to shut it. Surprisingly, Azul offered no resistance as you dragged him to the entrance of the aquarium. 

   Octavinelle’s aquarium had two sections, one was for regular fish and the other sea creatures that were on display from the mostro lounge. The other was for the residents. Any and all merfolk could use the aquarium if they felt homesick or separated from their true forms. This was where you chose to place the gift you had made. 

   Coming to a stop you turned and looked at Azul. He looked confused and excited at the same time. You took this as a good sign. 

   “Azul. Will you swim with me?” The merman’s eyes widened and he stood there processing your request for nearly a minute before responding.

   “Sure.”

   Giddy with glee you quickly leapt into the water and shed your clothes before transforming. Rising to the surface you looked up at him from just underneath the surface and he peered back at you.

   Strange. He thought for sure he would feel angry again when he saw you but the darling flush on your face and how you were genuinely happy to swim with him gave him another feeling all together. It bubbled inside of him and made him blush as he slowly lowered himself into the cool water beside you. 

   It had been a while since Azul had consciously shifted so he was a bit worried that he would do it too fast or slow and something would go wrong. Fortunately he was able to shift without incident. Once shifted he suddenly felt very self conscious. As a common octopus he was far more simple and plain compared to your swirling and colorful body. 

   You didn’t seem to mind however as you twirled and circled around Azul excitedly.

   “Come on I have something to show you.” Azul frowned in confusion but followed you regardless. You led him to a sort of grove area that he had never seen before. It was very well hidden but gorgeous as well. 

   You looked back at him excitedly and pushed through the sea vines to an open area where a ray of sunlight fell across and illuminated the gift you had spent months on. Azul’s jaw dropped when he laid eyes on the octopus pot that sat in the middle of the small room. 

   The base was grey and made of some type of stone. Around it sat lavender pillars and corals that surrounded the base except for the entrance. The round opening was smoothed and carved in a delicate design that resembled sea coral. Behind it sat a dark velvet cloth that was tied back with a golden rope.Azul assumed that was to block the entrance or allow for privacy. 

   The inside was decorated with lavish pillows in all sorts of cool shades. They were illuminated by a small yet classy lamp that hung off to the side. The outside of the pot was for the most part smooth and grey with a few purple undertones, but off to one side there sat a carving that resembled the waves and water foam, on top off which held a large pearl that glinted in the sunlight. On the other side a darker grey octopus clung to the top portion of the pot and spread its tentacles out in an elegant manner. Azul took note that the few that rose off the pot appeared to be for hanging things and one looked suspiciously like it was meant to support a staff. 

   You floated in place for what felt like hours as you waited for Azul to react. You reminded yourself to stay patient as he might not respond to it immediately. When he finally did react he did so without words. He simply pointed to himself and raised his eyebrows. You nodded excitedly before bowing your head bashfully. 

   “I’m so sorry that I upset you Azul. I never meant for it to get out in the first place. I was actually planning on telling you first and then giving this octopus pot to you since I know you don’t have one. Then things got messed up and everything and I’m so sorry. I think you’re beautiful in your merform and I hope you’ll accept my apology.” Your face burned when you spoke and you swished your tentacles nervously.

   “What?” You looked up when Azul spoke and saw confusion on his face. “I’m not upset at you. It’s not your fault you’re beautiful. Besides I could never be upset at you, octopus or not. I was distraught because I thought you were so amazing and I’m so plain and that there was no chance that you’d like me back.” You gasped and watched as his face slowly turned pink. 

   He dove into the pot and curled up, mentally berating himself for letting that slip. Shocked you glided over to the entrance of the pot and leaned your head in.

   “Azul. Do you mean that? Do you really like me?” He didn’t respond, you took a deep breath and admitted your own feelings. “Well I like you so…” His head snapped up and he let his expression grow into an ecstatic smile before coughing into his fist and composing himself.

   “Well in that case, do you want to come in and lay with me?” Azul ignored the fact that his face felt like it was on fire and waited as you giggled and moved in beside him. 

   “I’d love to. What do you think of the pot?” The merman smiled gently at you and spoke as he curled his tentacles around you and yours, him. 

   “It’s exquisite. I couldn’t love it more. Where did you get it?” 

   “I made it.” You muttered and flushed at the surprised and impressed look on his face. He shifted closer to you and gripped your hand with his. 

   “You did an excellent job. Thank you.” Your fingers intertwined with his and you pressed your forehead against his. 

   “I love you Azul.” You mumbled sleepily.

   “I love you Y/n.” He spoke before shutting his eyes and enjoying the warmth that spread through the pot. You’re silky webbing fell across the two of you like a blanket and after a stressful morning Azul allowed himself to slip into a comfortable sleep.

----------

   Two pairs of heterochromatic eyes watched the two octopus merpeople sleep soundly inside the pot and smirked with wicked teeth. 

   “How did you know she was an octopus as well?”

   “Floyd, surely you must have noticed. They both smell like takoyaki.” The eels laughed and quietly zipped away, leaving the octopus pot behind.

[coepiteamare]

depth of field

pairing: yoongi x female!reader genre: angst (are we surprised), fluff, reader is an actress, yoongi is photographer warning: a lot of feelings, uhm there’s like 2 lines about sex but it’s not super explicit, bad break ups, not beta read, heartbreak,  header credit: lovely isa! she’s so talented please check her out @monvante​  word count: 9.5k (how and why this became the longest thing i’ve written, i don’t know) rating: sfw though slightly mature (2 lines about sex but not explicit) collab: the valentine’s day collab with a bunch of awesome writers! please check out everyone’s stories! 

summary: yoongi is a nature photographer and you’re an actress who’s spent her entire life in front of the cameras. when he’s hired (against his will) for a photoshoot, he’s not quite expecting you: all smiles and charm and mystery. (alt: you laugh, and yoongi hears the night sky crumble into a thousand shooting stars. he fumbles with the settings, his heart rattling in his chest like the camera in his hands, but for the first time, the picture doesn’t do the sight in front of him justice.) A/N: this is....so late because i am big dumb + life changes + writing is hard. i have extremely mixed feelings on this one, but if you do read it, i hope it makes you feel something. if you listen to epik high, a lot of this was written while listening to “sleepless in _________”. 

[Triptych: Sleepless In The City.JPEG]

[alt.image: Black and white triptych of a view outside a bedroom window. The position of the shot is the same in all three: all of them are directly facing an open window depicting the Seoul skyline. Towards the bottom of the picture, the edge of a bed can be seen: a plaid blanket with a light coloured bed frame. Right below the window is a dark wood dresser with a glass of water on top. At the center of the frame is a square, side hung window with light coloured (white) curtains on the sides. The first frame depicts a light blue coloured sky. There’s a lens flare at the top right of the corner. The second frame depicts a gradient sky. There’s light from the buildings shining through. The third frame depicts a darker sky, but the building lights are still on. The glass of water lies in the same position through the pictures, with little to no change in water amount.]

There’s a loud bzzt bzzt coming from the side of his bed as sleep clings to his eyelashes and glues his eyes shut, exhaustion still running through his veins. His fingers fumble, groping in the darkness, for the source of the noise until his fingers clasp around his phone and silence it. He rubs his face in his pillow and lets himself settle in again, sleep creeping back when—bzzt, bzzt—there’s another round of vibrations from his phone. Yoongi knows he turned on the do not disturb mode, so he contemplates answering as his fingers make contact with his phone, before pressing the side button and turning it off. 

He shuts his eyes, but sleep doesn’t call his name this time around. Someone else does, as the door swings open.

“Yoongi!” 

Yoongi groans and pulls the covers over his head, letting the weighted blanket settle around his body, but Hoseok peels it off his body without a struggle. 

“You could have called when you came back,” Hoseok opens the black out curtains, afternoon light flooding through the window and making Yoongi’s vision dance. 

“You could have called before you barged in.” 

“I did,” Hoseok settles on the edge of his bed, laughing when Yoongi kicks him off, “you didn’t answer.” 

“I was busy.” He sits up and rubs the sleep from his eyes, the afterglow of his dreams fading from his mind. 

Hoseok looks at the suitcase still packed at the corner of his bed, at the instant noodle cups on the counter. “I see that.” 

Yoongi shrugs and reaches for the camera bag on his nightstand, fiddling with the zippers and refusing to meet Hoseok’s eyes. 

It’s quiet before there’s a sigh that paints the silence between them. Hoseok reaches his hand out, eyes a little soft, smile a little apologetic, and Yoongi gives him the camera. 

“So how was Greenland?”

“Cold. Colder than here. Not green at all.” Hoseok laughs at that, and perhaps it’s the weather, the lack of people Yoongi has seen the past few months, or Hoseok’s sunny disposition dispelling the shadows, but there’s a small warmth that blooms through Yoongi. “It was nice though. Nice pictures.” 

“I can see that. Did you have an exhibition in mind for these?”

“No. I just wanted a change of pace for a bit.” he clears his throat, trying to unstick the words clinging to his esophagus. “New environment. Clear my head. Look for new inspiration.” 

Hoseok hands him back the camera. “I signed you up for RKIVE LAB’s Valentine’s Day exhibition.”  Yoongi stops fiddling with the buttons and grips the camera  a little tighter. “Portraits of love. Pictures of people required.”

“I don’t take pictures of people.”

“You used to. Before.” Hoseok doesn’t say it—knows to shut his mouth even before Yoongi glares at him—but the presence of the words stains the air like an unwanted lens flare smudged across the picture. The weight of it lingers, glaringly obvious in the silence, as heavy as the blanket curled up at Yoongi’s feet. 

“Used to. Not anymore.” 

“That doesn’t mean you can’t do it again.”

“And that doesn’t mean I want to. Besides, I’m not ready for another exhibition.” 

“Yoongi,” Hoseok takes a seat on the bed and this time, Yoongi doesn’t chide him for it. “Your last exhibition was a year ago. You stopped photographing people for 8 months. 4 months ago, you decided—out of the blue, mind you—to pack up and visit Greenland, 2 weeks before your exhibition. Not only was PR an absolute nightmare, but you also scared me. I was worried about you.”

There’s a sense of guilt that trickles through him at Hoseok’s words. Yoongi hugs his knees to his chest and tucks his chin over them. He’d sink into the floor if he could, let it swallow him whole if it meant he could avoid the conversation, but knowing Hoseok, he’d continue, even when it closed back up. 

“You need to let go,” Hoseok squeezes his shoulder. 

“I need to sleep. I’m still jet lagged.” 

“It’s been a week since you’ve come back!” 

“Exactly,” he pouts, and tries to reach for his blanket, but Hoseok gently slaps his hands away. His voice softens when he opens his mouth, insecurity painting the edges.“I just don’t think I’m ready for an exhibit. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”

“I think you just need to try.”

The sigh that leaves his body doesn’t do much for the heaviness that he can’t seem to dispel. He’s tried. Tried to take pictures, tried to photograph people, but he doesn’t know how to capture them without the lens of heartbreak, without finding pieces of his ex hidden in filters. He’s tried to forget, tried to remember, tried to drown everything out to the bitter taste of alcohol, and nothing worked. He tries, and nothing works. 

“I don’t know how to take pictures of people anymore,” Yoongi says weakly. 

Hoseok’s smile is bright, too bright, the picture of false reassurance. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve already made a call.”

[Ready Or Not.JPEG]

[alt. Image: An out of focus, blurry, god shot, full body photograph of a girl. She wears a short red dress with thin straps and black platform boots. There’s a pink and green image/texture projected on top of her as she poses with her arms stretched over her head. The woman is not at the centre of frame, but more towards the right. The photograph appears to be taken hastily, as if the photographer was falling down when taking the shot.]

Yoongi’s forgotten how much light is involved with studio shoots: the moment he steps into the studio, there’s a flash of bright light, and there’s small spots of light dancing in the corner of his vision. He wants to go home, curl back into his cotton sheets, and hide under the covers. 

It’s convenient, he’ll admit. Outdoor photography, especially nature photography, means hours and hours of planning ahead, of trekking into the wilderness and adjusting lenses and camera angles, and tripod placements to get the perfect shot, only to have something—be it the sun, or a bug, or an animal, or a tree that decides to fall at that moment—interfere and ruin the moment. But indoor photography means that everything gets to be controlled, adjustable to his whims.

Yoongi fiddles with his camera settings, finger nervously itching for something to do in the unfamiliar environment. He’s not sure if he likes these kinds of photographs, the ones scripted and tweaked until perfection is smudged against the frame of the picture. He likes spontaneity, likes the unpredictability of nature, but he also likes the idea that everything can be adjusted, picture perfect, to the way he wants it. (No one leaves, no one hurts. Just pictures. Just his ideas.)

“I didn’t know we were getting a new photographer.” 

He spins around and almost stumbles backwards at the sight of you. He could easily have deemed you as one of the set pieces: clothes perfectly pressed, skin glossy, not a hair out of place. You're brilliant and dazzling and beautiful, pressurised to perfection, and Yoongi doesn’t know if he likes that. Doesn’t like the crisp edges of your pants, the sharp angles of your shoulders. 

“My name is Y/N. It’s nice to work with you.”

He stares at the hand in front of him for a second before wiping his palm on his pants. Your smile doesn’t fade as Yoongi gingerly shakes your hand. “Yoongi. I’m just here to watch Vante on shoot. I haven’t photographed people in a while, and our agent thought it would help me to watch him in action.” 

The way your eyes sparkle, light up brighter than the studio lights, feels uncanny: he knows he’s seen it before, but he’s not sure where. It stirs up a familiar feeling in his tummy, like the anticipation that builds just as he’s about to press the click of a shutter. 

“I’m sure you’re a lot better than you think you are,” your smile is warm, but it sends a chill down his spine. It feels wrong, like he’s stuck in the wrong picture frame, the wrong background. The ground is blurry, his head is light, and when he blinks, everything feels cold. 

“You’re a lot better than you think you are, Yoongi. I’ve seen the photos. I know you,” his voice is warm, and Yoongi can hear the smile in the way he grips his hands. “I want to see the exhibit you put up, and I know other people will too.” 

“Hey,” there’s a jolt of electricity when you touch him. He blinks, and your face is in front of his, brows knitted. “You okay? I lost you for a moment.”

“Fine,” his voice is scratchy, so he coughs to clear it. “I’m fine. Just-uhm-it’s been a minute. Memories. I haven’t stepped foot in a studio for a while.”

“You must have loved it. Taking pictures of people,” when he tilts his head and tries to make sense of your words, you smile and let go of his shoulder. “You wouldn’t have had such a visceral reaction if you didn’t love it. I’m a firm believer that the things we love never leave us. So you’ll find that spark again. I believe in you.”

When the shoot starts, Yoongi moves around, trying to remember what it was like to work with other people other than him, what it’s like to capture the soul of a human being through a split second. But his mind is still standing where you left him, trying to digest your words to the tune of shutter sounds and someone else’s voice. 

All throughout the shoot, he wants to puke, wants to unclog the memories that won’t drain and be forgotten. But they keep playing—over and over and over—and refuse to stop. He talks to Vante in a daze, but he’s unable to wake up from the voice that he hears over and over again—you’ll find that spark again, Yoongi. I believe in you—until your voice cuts through the fog. 

“Wait!” he grabs your wrist, and quickly lets go when you turn back, eyes wide. “Wait. i-uhm-have an exhibition and I was wondering if you would be interested. In being the subject.”

“I’m flattered, but-” you pause and bit your lip, eyebrows furrowed, and there’s that feeling again, the click of a puzzle piece falling into place: everything feels all too familiar and foreign at once, like a dream he knew long ago, a photograph he’s taken and forgotten about. Jamais vu and deja vu all at once.  

It’s stupid, he knows. But there’s something about you that he doesn’t know how to let go. He’s not sure he’s ready to let go. 

“What’s your exhibit on?”

“Love.” He takes a sharp breath in. The word feels a sucker punch to the gut, like touching a wound that hasn’t healed. “What it means to fall in love.”

He knows his face gives away more than he wants to, but you don’t press him for answers. You continue to smile and ask him other questions about his photography instead, but something about the way you pretend like everything is fine reminds him of him, and everything hurts more. He answers the questions, tries to see you instead of his outline over yours, but still sees him in the way your eyes smile, in the sharp raise of your brows, and the quick way you navigate his defenses and gives him his space. 

“I don’t know if I’m ready for an exhibit.”

“I don’t think we ever know if we’re ready for anything,” you smile, and he feels nauseous again, like something is trying to crawl out of him. He hears the voices in his head crash over him like a wave, drowning out the sounds of everything and everyone else. 

How do you know you’re ready? He hears his voice wobble from the weight of his sorrow, quiver from the pressure of composure. He can’t meet his eyes. 

“I don’t think we’re ever ready for anything, Yoongi. But we don’t know until we try.”

“But we do it anyway. Because we never know until we try, right?”

“Right,” he repeats soullessly. (He wasn’t ready then. He doesn’t know if he’s ready now. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready to move on.)

“So I’ll do it.”

Yoongi snaps out of his reverie at your words, blinks away the fog. “Pardon?”

“I’ll do it. I don’t want to be the reason you don’t do this,” you purse your lips. “I do have a favour to ask though.” 

“What is it?”

The smile that spreads over your face, slow and cheshire, makes him grip his camera tighter. “How do you feel about going to a party?”

[Are You In Love.JPEG]

[alt image. Nighttime. A girl in a white dress on a rooftop with skyscrapers behind her. Her hair is blown back by the wind. Although her face is mostly turned away from the camera, there’s a hint of a smile on her face. Her eyes are closed as she spins around, dress billowing around her. The ends of the dress are unseen because the photograph cuts off at what would be her knees to show the cityline behind her. The skyscrapers are out of focus, blurry, so the girl is highlighted. Despite the lights in the background and the moon in the corner, she is the brightest piece in the photograph.]

Yoongi has never been a fan of parties or crowds. He doesn’t like the rush of people, of bodies pressed against each other as they slide across the floor; he hates how the lights are too dim and too bright. It’s too loud, bass amplifying his insecurities and dampening his social skills. 

Even at this gala, stuffed with people with important positions and famous titles, where the music is moderately loud and the tables are posh with red velvet tablecloths, Yoongi feels out of place. His glass flute feels awkward in his hand, tie a little too tight no matter how much he pulls it down. He knows he doesn’t belong here (or there or anywhere. It was always him who belonged and Yoongi who followed): security had stopped him before he entered telling him “paparazzi not allowed,” and gave him a once over when he fished out the invitation from his pocket, hesitantly letting him enter the venue and side-eyeing him the entire time. Minutes tick by, and there’s only so many hors d'oeuvres s he can devour, so he pulls out his phone to send you a text of rushed excuses (i have food poisoning. My pipes burst. My car broke down?) and hasty apologies. Just as he manages to get halfway to the exit, squeezing in between crowds, he sees you. 

A smile dawns over your face, and all his insecurities melt into the background. “I’ve been looking all over for you”

He points towards the buffet at the back. “They have good crab puffs.” 

You laugh at that, and he feels his cheeks stretch into a smile. The silence that hangs over the two of you now feels comfortable, like the world is dimming down to highlight you both, and Yoongi takes the moment to watch your eyes sparkle under the crystal chandeliers twinkling above you. You look at him, quirk an eyebrow and nod towards the exit. “Want to get out of here?” 

“Yes please.” 

You grab his hand, lace your fingers with his, and pull him up the stairs to the roof, letting go to run to the edge. He feels where your palm was in his, the loss of your warmth, and wants to reach back out to you. 

“How pretty.” The wind is cold, sinking teeth through skin and tearing through hair, but you cross your arms and fight back, planted firmly where you are to look at the view beneath you: small glimpses at people living their lives. 

Yoongi can’t take his eyes off of you. “Yeah. Pretty.”

“I like coming to the rooftops at parties. Sometimes, when the world is too loud and too much, I go up to the rooftop and I just stand here. ” your teeth chatter, and Yoongi rushes to take off his coat and drape it over your shoulders. Your fingers brush against his and something about you, he realises, feels like a fever dream: hot, hazy, and electric, even in the bitter chill of the winter winds. “I come up to the rooftop and I just look at people living their lives and wonder what I would be doing if I wasn’t here.”

Something about the way you look, empty and hollow, carves a hole in Yoongi’s chest. His fingers itch to reach for the shutter, bring it back to his eye and catch you in his view, but he fiddles with the camera strap around his neck instead. “What does it feel like? Being at the top?” 

What does it feel like? To be at the top? Yoongi writes and deletes over and over and over again. 

Your laughter sounds as bitter as the wind, but your smile is still fixed in place when you turn your body to meet his. “Like a rollercoaster. Only it’s going backwards as it goes up, so I can see the floor, see the bottom. I am always aware of how far I have to fall. I see the damage before it’s done, so I am always anticipating the drop.” 

Your shoulders sag, his jacket slipping down, and Yoongi, for a moment, thinks he sees stars glimmering in your eyes, catching the light of the city and threatening to fall. But when he blinks, all traces of it are gone and you’re back to the girl in the ballroom, smile shy and coy and knowing. 

“So what about you, photographer? What does it feel like to be in love?” 

His brows furrow and there’s a flush of heat blooming on his cheeks. His heart beats a little faster, staccato against his ribcage, like it’s trying to outrun the shame of being discovered. He’s not sure how you know, so all he can do is stutter. “I don’t-I mean-”

You raise your eyebrow, quirk your head to the side. “Isn’t that your exhibit theme? Explorations of love?”

“Oh,” before he can stop it, a film strip of memories starts playing through his head, snapshots of a relationship shelved in the back of his closet. It’s a slow slide show that sticks to his throat with every image, printed and smudged into the corners of his thoughts. He feels the corset of his ribcage tighten until he’s breathless, so he looks everywhere. Everywhere but you. “I don’t really know what love is supposed to feel like anymore.”

When your hand gently presses against his chest, Yoongi’s eyes widen, feet gently fumbling backwards from the chill of your fingers. “Does it hurt here?”

“What?”

“Are you heartbroken?” 

The words fall off your lips casually, like you were asking him how he took his coffee (no sugar, no cream) or how he liked his steak, and not plunging into his insecurities the way the cold of your fingers sink into his skin. The two of you blink in silence as Yoongi struggles to find the words. Everything feels wrong, his tongue twisting and falling to form the correct sounds—

“Stop thinking about it. Feel it here.” you press a little harder against his chest, “Are you heartbroken?” 

(Empty coffee cups, songs unfinished, laughter in the walls that he’s unable to scrub off. Yoongi remembers all of it.)

“Yeah.” it’s quiet, his voice stuck in his chest, but he sees the corners of your eyes soften and knows you hear his honesty over the howling wind. “I am.”

You retract your hand and hug his coat a little closer. “I don’t think there’s just one form of love, just as I don’t think there’s just one way to love someone. We love differently, and we love different people differently. Heartbrokenness is just another form of love. Just because they’re not there doesn’t change the way you love them or the fact that you love them. It just means all the love you have to give is still sitting here,” you bring your hand back to his chest, cover his heartbeat, “with no place to go. Isn’t that love?”

Isn’t that love? Seokjin asks him, sitting in the corner of Yoongi’s room. The sun casts a golden glow over his skin, kisses his dimples, and Yoongi swears Seokjin has always been more ethereal than mortal. “You take photos and bring me food when I forget to leave my desk because that’s what you know how to do. I write you songs and love letters because that’s what I know how to do. We say I love you in different ways, but does that make it any less love?

“I guess it doesn’t make it any less love.” 

You look his way and laugh, brilliant and dazzling and beautiful, and nothing in the sky can compare: not the moon, nor the comets, nor the galaxies. You laugh, and Yoongi hears the sky crumble into a thousand shooting stars. He fumbles with the settings, his heart rattling in his chest like the camera in his hands, but for the first time, the image through the lens doesn’t do the sight in front of him justice. 

But he tries anyway. He presses down on the shutter and tries to stuff your laughter into a freeze frame, even though he knows it won’t compare. 

It could never. 

[____Struck.JPEG]

[Alt Image: A girl sits with her chin over her knees next to a floor length window as a rainstorm blurs the background into hazy lights. The lighting is dark, but there’s a flash of lightning outside as it lights up the girl’s face. She stares outside her window, at the sky, deep in contemplation.]

Yoongi finds that Seoul sparkles when you’re next to him. Even the bitter winter winds that blow through his parka can’t steal the warmth of your hand in his when the two of you walk through the streets. The two of you start to spend more time together, getting food and eating in your apartment and taking pictures of nature. You’ll have glasses and a cap and a mask on, and there’ll be more of you he can’t see than he can, and still he finds you to be the brightest star in the night sky. But he likes you best like this: dressed with a smile and his t-shirt, face free of the traces of your day, in bed with him. He’s not sure when he’s found himself to be at home in your place, but he finds himself there instead of his studio apartment. Outside the window of your penthouse apartment, he can see the Seoul skyline and skyscrapers: if he looks down, he can see smudges of people walking through the streets, living about their daily lives. 

Sometimes, he’ll wake up in the middle of the night to find you sitting on the floor, against the floor length window, looking at the world below you. 

“Come back to bed,” he’ll murmur, sleep still fogging his vision, and you’ll smile, set your tea on the nightstand, and wrap your arms around him as he pulls you closer to him until the andante of your heartbeats lull him to sleep. 

Tonight, however, your head is leaned up against the glass, watching as the rain pours down, and there’s something about the moment that makes Yoongi reach for the camera to take a quick shot. He knows the lighting is off and the shadows are dark, but something about the way you’ve tucked your knees under your chin and folded in on yourself makes you seem so small, so different from the girl he sees on the billboards and magazine covers and television shows. 

You turn around when the flash goes off. “I didn’t know you were awake.” 

“The thunder,” he explains, just as another flash of light strikes through the sky. You hum, but don’t move towards him: this time, you look back out the window. He’s tempted to wait for the lightning to strike again so he could have the shot of your face illuminated in light, but the image through his viewfinder looks so different from what he’s used to, so he takes the camera with him and sits down across from you. He leans his face against the cool of the glass.

“Hey,” you smile, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. He sees the shadows under your eyes, the build up from over night shoots, and it tugs his heart. There’s something beautiful about you like this, in the normalcy. 

“Hey,” the two of you sit in the silence for a minute. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Another flash of lightning, then a roll of thunder. “Just thinking about how many people are out there, just living their lives. I wonder if they all know me, if they have an opinion of me, if they’ve seen me act. I wonder who I am to them, if I am anybody at all.”

“What do you mean?”

You pull your fingers away from the glass, but don’t look at him. “I feel as though I am always playing a character. So, I wonder what character they know me as. If they would be interested in knowing who I am.” 

His hand reaches out to yours, and he moves his body closer to yours, until your knees are knocking against his and your legs are entwined. “I’m interested.” 

Another flash. You smile, but it fades as quickly as the lightning does. “What about you? Anything on your mind? You seemed pretty distracted earlier.”

It’s Yoongi’s turn to not meet your eyes. There’s a slew of umbrellas below, a bunch of colourful blobs against the pavement. (Seokjin liked the rain. Do you like the rain? He’s not sure.) 

“It’s nothing.” He can’t meet your eyes. 

“Is it hard to let them go? The one who broke your heart?”

Yoongi hears the way your voice softens, the way it carries through the room gently, the same way you asked him if he was heartbroken up on the roof weeks ago. You’re always a little more perceptive then he gives you credit for, a little too good at reading in between the lines. He lets out a shaky breath. “Yeah. Yeah he is. I still think about him sometimes. Sometimes, I still hear his voice in my head.” 

He feels your gaze on him, but neither of you say anything for a while. 

He knows you have a busy day tomorrow, jam packed with schedules and meetings and shoots and bits of sleep in between. (Not that your days are ever not busy. You’re always running from here to there, a blur of motion in the screenshots of his memories.) But the two of you just look out the window, at the storm that refuses to quell, and listen to the rain fall. 

He wakes up next to the lingering warmth of your body heat, your shampoo still clinging to the pillows and sheets. There’s not much to do today, so he takes his time getting ready to go back to his apartment and edit. Just as he’s putting his toothbrush into your toothbrush holder, his phone starts to vibrate.

Before he’s even said hello, Hoseok’s voice cuts through the phone. “How’s your exhibit coming along?” 

“Good morning, Hoseok. How was your sleep? Mine was lovely, thank you for asking.” 

There’s a sigh that comes through the phone. “I slept great. So how’s your exhibit?”

“It’s coming along.”

“Word on the street is that you’re getting close to Y/N.”

He catches a look at himself from the entrance mirror and is glad Hoseok can’t see him right now. There’s a small constellation on the dip of his collarbone from a couple nights ago. “We’re working together on the exhibit, yeah.”

“Yoongi, I’m serious. I’m glad that you’re editing and taking photos; I really am. I just think—if you are more than just coworkers—you should take it slow. You remember what happened last time-”

“It’s not like that this time Hoseok.”

“I know. But it’s happened before. You always fall too hard, too fast and then you don’t know how to dig yourself out of the hole when it’s over. “

Yoongi gently shuts the door behind him, shoves his free hand into his coat pocket. “When do I need to send you the pictures?” 

Another sigh. This one is heavier than the other. “Next Friday.”

“Alright. I’ll see you then.”

“Just take care of yourself, Yoongi.”

“I know,” there’s a hum from the other end before he presses end call. “Trust me, I know.” 

[Love Looks Pretty On You.JPEG]

[Alt Image: A girl turning around to smile at the camera as she holds the hand of the photographer. There’s a lens flare at the upper left corner of the picture. She glows as she smiles, sunlight hitting her cheekbones. The picture is a bust shot, and though the girl is in the centre of frame, she is slightly out of focus: the photo is mainly focused on the interlocked hands due to the depth of field.]

It’s strange how in love you are with the mundane. You like coffeeshop dates, holding hands in public, and the ability to walk down the streets without covering up your face, things Yoongi has never thought twice about. He prefers time spent in doors, tucked away with food and natural lighting. But you prefer the outdoors, the sun on your face, even if it isn’t the great outdoors. No, you like pavement and parks and everything in between if it means you don’t have to cover up. 

“I’ve never really had that,” you told him once, mouth stuffed with street food. “I’ve always been conscious of the way people look at me, how they’re going to view me, and the eyes. I’m always aware of people’s eyes on me. Growing up in the spotlight, working in this industry for so long meant I don’t get to have the normal things in life.”

So he tries to take you out more, though more often than not, it ends with the two of you running away from shadows and bright lights. More often than not, the two of you find your way to his or your apartment, tucked away from the eyes of everyone else with take out spread across the floor. He dreads the moment you pull your hands away from him, when the hands on the clock move too quickly for his taste. Tonight, however, he has you all to himself. 

So, he takes his time: delicately arranges the bouquet of purple across your chest and up your thighs, gently plucks your moans from your lips, and plants kisses on the field of your shoulder blades when the bloom of pleasure becomes too much. 

Your chest gently rises and falls under the white sheet, while his heart rapidly flutters inside his ribcage. Before he knows it, his fingers are on camera, trying to immortalise the moment before time takes it away from him too. 

When the shutter goes off, you bring your hand to his, pull his body to yours, and nuzzle your face in his shoulder. “So.”

“So?”

“Exhibition soon. Have you figured it out?” You pull back and trace your finger along the constellation you drew on to his chest. “What it feels like to fall in love?” 

He’s not sure. It feels fast: time seems to slip through his fingers when he’s with you. It feels slow: every moment is a picture frame, a freeze frame of a small infinity. It feels quiet: neither of you are loud, reveling in the silence and the quiet, sharing the same breath. It feels loud: you smile and he hears the sirens go off, ringing his mind until it’s drowned out by the pounding in his chest. I don’t know. It just feels different with you, he wants to say, but it sounds stupid in his head. It’s similar to how he felt like with Seokjin, but brighter, a saturation of colours and experiences. 

“Feels like you,” he tugs you closer. 

His brows furrow when you reach away from him, and he tries to pull you back: he reaches for your hand, but you slip away from him with a small smile. “Tea. I’ll be back.” 

He hears the pitter patter of your footsteps as you walk into the hallway, and he waits for you to come back. He waits and waits, until his eyelids grow too heavy.

When he blinks again, the light is shining through your curtains. The blanket is tucked under his chin, but the bed is empty. He rolls over, but it’s cold. 

The pillow doesn’t smell like you.

[Apparition.JPEG]

[Alt Image: A picture of someone’s eyes. The eyes are staring directly into the lens. One eye is lighter than the other, due to the angle of the sunlight. Although they are in the center of frame, the face is turned slightly to the side, as though they turned around for this picture.]

It gets harder and harder to meet you through the interstices of your schedule: you text him less and less, and he finds himself trying to find every possible reason to see you. 

Did you eat? 

Are you free anytime soon?

I miss you.

Every short text finds an even shorter response, crammed between short breaks. He spends more time fiddling with his phone, shooting up at the glow of his screen, than he does with his camera. His camera sits on his nightstand, untouched for the past few days: every time he tries to take a picture, all he can see is you. You laughing at dumb cat videos he sends you. You squealing in delight as the unpredictable Seoul weather brings rainfall. You leaning your head against the glass, lost in thought. 

He sees you in unfinished pizza boxes and unfinished netflix shows and half empty mugs strewn around. He finds you in everything. So when you show up at his doorstep, pizza box in hand and hat over your head, he almost dismisses you as an apparition. 

You stick your foot in his doorway to stop him from shutting the door. “You’re not kicking me out so soon? Not when I brought pizza?” 

He takes the pizza box from you, still a little unsure if you’re real, but then you call his name.

“Hi Yoongi,” you smile, and it’s so much prettier than he remembers. He knows you’ve had a long day—eyes glazed, shoulders drooping, smile falling—and something about the way you’re trying to hold your smile makes a corner of his chest squeeze tighter, until it hurts to breathe. He’s not sure what to say, not sure how to move past the breathlessness, so the two of you wordlessly chew on your pizzas. 

When the tension grows thick, the silence hard to breathe through, the clump of feelings in the pit of his stomach feels harder to hold on to, so he blurts out, “I love you.” 

His confession rings through the room, echoes in the silence, and crashes against your chest. Though neither of you say anything, he continues to hear the ripples in his head, his voice repeating over and over again. You don’t look at him, and his leg won’t stop bouncing, his hands won’t stop fidgeting with the camera settings. 

“I love you,” he says once more, just in case you didn’t hear it. He hopes your silence is because you didn’t hear it the first time. He knows better, from the way you bite your lip (your nervous habit) to the way you shrink into yourself (another tick he’s noticed). 

“I should leave. I have an early shoot tomorrow.” you stand. The smile plastered on your face makes him want to hurl, too reminiscent of your first meeting when you held him at an arm’s distance. When Seokjin held him at an arm’s distance, right before he told Yoongi I don’t think I’m the person you’re in love with. I don’t think this is going to work out. When Seokjin smiled and told him I’m sorry but wasn’t sorry enough to answer the phone when Yoongi’s heart was bloody and broken and drenched in alcohol. 

“But I love you,” it’s quiet and hoarse this time, and Yoongi doesn’t know if you can hear it over the sound of his heart breaking, but you turn around. The smile on your face—brilliant and dazzling and empty—burns something in him, the hollowness of his chest suddenly swelling with rage.“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“That,” Yoongi motions to you, brows furrowed and anger coating his tongue. “Stop looking at me like I'm a screenplay and a set, like you’re trying to read me and understand what I want. I don’t want anything from you.”

“That’s ridiculous. Everyone wants something.”

“Fine. I want you to be you. not what looks best on screen, not what you think I want you to be. But you. I want you to be you.”

“What’s that supposed to be like? Being me?” the anger lacing your voice, the way your smile drops quickly off your face, makes Yoongi’s anger fizzle out into a cold chill. “You don’t realise how biased the camera is, how you’re seeing the picture the way you want to, the way you want to frame things? Tell me you look at me and you don’t see what could be changed. that you don’t see how you would adjust the exposure, how to narrow or widen the depth of field.”

Yoongi doesn’t say anything, mouth glued shut and sticking together with shame. There’s a heat licking up his neck to his cheeks that burns through his skin and into his chest that only grows hotter when you continue. 

“My job is to give people what they want, squeeze myself into a character and a script. Become a fantasy they can project on. I’ve spent my entire life being different people and fitting myself into the role they want me to play. I don't exist, Yoongi. I only exist between action and cut. I am constantly in some form of a take. I am constantly shooting different movies for different people, being the different characters they want me to be. You want something from me too, Yoongi. Don’t you get it?”

He forces himself to look up at you. 

“Did you like me for me, Yoongi?” You tilt your head, eyes tired. “Or did you like me because something about me reminded you of your ex?”

Yoongi recoils, hurt spilling out of his veins. He opens and closes his mouth, but nothing falls out. Instead, it’s another roll of memories that plays through his head. 

I think we should break up, Seokjin tells him and Yoongi drops his fork. When you look at me, it feels like you’re seeing someone else, a version of me that exists only in your head. 

Who are you seeing when you take a picture, Yoongi? 

Who am I to you? 

What do you see through the lenses?  

When you smile this time, it’s more of a grimace, like his silence gives you an answer. Your eyes fall to the floor, shoulders trembling as you laugh humorlessly, and you start to leave.

Yoongi tries to say something—anything, the correct thing—and frantically pulls at his brain. “But I love you.”

That makes you stop. You stay at the doorstep, hand gripping the doorknob, but don’t turn to face him. He waits for you to say something, anything, for you to turn around. But you don’t. 

You open the door and close it behind you, never looking back. 

He’s alone again. 

[Blank.JPEG]

[alt.image: A black square. Darkness. The absence of light. The shade of broken heart. Is it nothing or everything? Is it too much or too little?]

Everything about you is intentional, from the tilt in your head (precise and exact, calculated) to the gleam in your eyes. The way your lips curl as you smile. 

He wonders if his broken heart was also something written into the script, if he was playing the role of a character he never signed up for, if his broken heart was something you calculated from the very start, just like the angle of your head tilts and degrees of your smile. 

His camera suddenly feels all too heavy, too fragile, and too much like his heart. If he wasn’t a photographer, would he have met you? In another world, would he have seen you through the view of his camera, just a subject and nothing else? No coffee dates and rooftop talks, no heartbreaks? He grips his camera tighter, and a flare of anger rushes through him, filtering every other thought and piercing through his vision. When he blinks and the lights settle, there’s a dull sense of pain near his foot and a dent in the wall. 

There’s shards of broken lenses on the floor, but he shuffles back to bed, sob clawing at his throat. 

Maybe you were like a film camera, brilliant and beautiful at first glance. Until the film is dipped into chemistry and developed and the errors are hung out to dry. 

So why does it hurt so much? 

There’s a loud bzzt bzzt coming from the side of his bed as sleep clings to his eyelashes and glues his eyes shut, exhaustion still running through his veins. His fingers fumble, groping in the darkness, for the source of the noise until his fingers clasp around his phone and silence it. He rubs his face in his pillow and lets himself settle in again, sleep creeping back when—bzzt, bzzt—there’s another round of vibrations from his phone. Yoongi knows he turned on the do not disturb mode, so he doesn’t contemplate answering when his fingers make contact with his phone, pressing the side button to shut it off. 

He shuts his eyes, but sleep doesn’t call his name. Neither does Hoseok.

Instead Hoseok gently shuts the door after slipping off his shoes at the entrance. He makes his way over towards the bed, and Yoongi pulls the covers over his head. He waits for the tug, but it doesn’t come. Instead, there’s a gentle dip to the side of him when Hoseok takes a seat, silent. 

They sit like that for a while, Yoongi gently breathing—up and down, up and down—with a chest that feels broken and a heart that rattles inside his ribcage. He still feels the hum of alcohol in his system, sloshing in his lungs as they rise and fall.

“I’m sorry, Yoongi,” Hoseok’s voice vibrates through the silence. “I’m sorry you were hurt. But you can’t keep yourself holed up.”

Yoongi shifts under the blankets, but doesn’t say anything. He wonders if sleep would drag him under if he pretended long enough. His head is throbbing, and he wants another drink, but he knows Hoseok won’t let him while he’s still here. He knows because the last time he was heartbroken, he shut himself inside his apartment for two months until he was more alcohol than water. He stopped going out, stopped answering phone calls, stopped taking pictures because everything reminded him of Seokjin. 

Now that his camera is broken, he can’t be reminded of you. He drinks up until he can forget, until the film of memories is damaged, so he can fall asleep. When he wakes up and he remembers you still, he drinks up again to forget, shot after shot after shot. He doesn’t want to remember. 

“I called RKive. Told them you weren’t doing it.”

“Okay,” he whispers. Yoongi’s so tired and his head hurts, and he just wants to get this over with as quickly as he can so Hoseok can leave and Yoongi can pour out his sorrows into a shot glass that never seems to run dry. 

I don’t want to be the reason you don’t do this. 

He wishes he could stop hearing your voice in his head, stop seeing you in every corner of his room, stop smelling your perfume on his sheets. He just wants to go to sleep, dream in black. Stop remembering you. 

“I’m sorry, Yoongi.”

“Okay,” he whispers. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Are you heartbroken?

“Yeah,” the tears fall and his shoulders shake when he sobs. “Yeah, I think I’m heartbroken.”

“Oh Yoongi,” Hoseok hugs him close, and Yoongi lets out the wail that’s been stuck in his chest the past week. For the first time, he wants to let go instead of take in, so he weeps into Hoseok’s chest, until his throat is dry from the sounds it’s making. His body trembles from the stuttering in his chest and the remnants of his sobs. 

“I just want to stop hurting,” he hiccups into Hoseok’s shoulder as Hoseok gently pats him on the back. 

“I know. I know.”

“How do I stop hurting?”

Hoseok gently peels himself away from Yoongi until he’s looking at him directly in the eyes. “You have to learn to find closure. Whether that’s talking to her, making art, or just going about your routines until it doesn’t hurt anymore. You have to try.”

“What if I’m not ready to move on?”

I don’t think we’re ever ready. But we do it anyway. Because we never know until we try, right?

“Moving on isn’t a step; it’s a goal, Yoongi,” Hoseok squeezes his hands. “You can work towards it. But it’s a conscious choice we make and conscious steps we take. And when you make those steps, it gets easier to breathe and visit places you used to. And one day, you’ll look around and realise that you’ve done it. Maybe not completely, but enough. But you can’t just hole yourself up in your apartment or flee the country. You have to try.”

Hoseok’s eyes are soft when Yoongi looks at him, and Yoongi understands that he’s never allowed himself to move on from Seokjin, just slapped a bandaid over his wound and pretended it didn’t exist. When he met you, he used you as a gauze to staunch the injury and called it healing. He didn’t notice that he bled all over you, didn’t see that you were bleeding over the red of his blood on your wounds. You were trying to tell him you were hurting, and he was too fixated on how similar you were to Seokjin, how he found love again, to hear. 

“Hoseok,” Yoongi reaches out for his arm, squeezes his hand. “I want to do it.”

“Do what?”

“The exhibit,” his voice is muffled under his insecurities, but he wants this. “I want to do it.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he lies. “I think I need to do it. For me. To move on.” He’s not sure if he’s ready; he doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready. So he takes the step anyways. 

Yoongi knows Hoseok is thrilled: he hasn’t stopped smiling since before the exhibition, when there was a crowd of people outside waiting to enter the exhibition, and even before that, when Yoongi was collecting the photos and taking more. Yoongi’s worked tirelessly through the nights to meet the Valentine’s Day exhibit deadline, but now that he’s here, he’s a little proud of himself. 

He should find Hoseok, tell him thank you. He should also talk to Namjoon, the owner, and congratulate Jimin, Namjoon’s assistant, on a successful exhibition. He should talk to Jeongguk, the painter, about the rose installation piece that’s at the centre of the gallery. He should talk to Vante about the giant photograph of a bird’s eye view of Seoul. He should, but he’s looking for you. 

You were the only guest he wanted to invite, even when Hoseok raised an eyebrow at him and asked him if he really wanted to do this. (He did. He texted you over the course of two weeks and deleted each message before it was sent. In the end, he sent you his heart the old fashioned way, with stamps and an envelope, and sealed it with the hope that you’ll receive it in time.) He doesn’t think you’ll come, so he tampers down the anticipation, tries to not look for your laughter or hear the way your eyes form crescents when you smile too hard. Despite the invitation, he doesn’t know if he’s ready to see you again, so he tries to keep himself busy and talk to the visitors about the pictures. He tries to not think about you. 

But it’s hard when you’re all he has up for his exhibit, when your face is at every corner. When you’re all he’s been able to think about. 

And as it slowly starts to get closer to the close, he tries to not be disappointed. He puts on a smile and asks Jeongguk about the sun and moon holding hands, discusses lighting techniques with Vante, and manages to make Jimin beam with pride when he compliments him about how nice the exhibit set up is. 

When the clock strikes 5, Yoongi packs up his camera and tucks it into his bag with his disappointment and begins to head out. 

“Take care, Jimin.”

“Bye, Yoongi!” Jimin chirps. “By the way! There’s a lady in front of your exhibit. I think she was captivated by it; she’s been standing there for the past half hour if you want to talk to her!”

A very familiar silhouette greets him. 

“I didn’t think you’d come.” 

You don’t turn around to face him, just stand there looking up at the picture of you smiling at the camera with the covers pulled up to your chin. He hears the people in the background, the faint hum of murmurs and laughters, but you stand there, quiet and arms crossed. He takes a step towards you before shuffling back to his original spot, shifting his eyes to the portraits before him. 

At first glance, you are the same girl in the portraits, but the longer he looks at the portraits, at you from the peripherals in his vision, the less the two of you look alike. The girl in the photographs is soft and bright and sunny, draped in warm light and colour corrections, saturated in happiness. The girl in front of him is worn down and exhausted, cloaked in disguises and fronts that she doesn’t have the strength to put on properly. “I remember this day, but I don’t remember it like that.” You nod towards the picture in front of you. 

“What’s it like? In your memories?” he asks, and wants to take it back. There’s too many questions bubbling inside of him—Did you love me? Do you remember how I smiled when you did? What do your frames of memory look like? Do they look like mine, painted in a golden filter?—but he doesn’t know how to develop them into words. He’s not sure he wants to compare the photographs of your memories in the fear it’ll corrupt his. 

You’re radio silent, so he stands there, shuffling his feet back and forth as his heart drops with each second. He understands what you meant, back at the rooftop, when you had said about riding a rollercoaster: he sees the answer to your question before you’ve spoken, sees the damage he’s caused through the lens of hindsight. Yet some part of him still wants to hear the words from you. 

“I don’t remember a lot of it. I remember it was going well. And then I just remember the hurt. I remember realising you saw someone else when you looked at me, just like everyone else. How I wished I could take back everything from the beginning. I wished I could take back the first time I met you. What would it have been like if I had said no? Would it still hurt?”

“I’m sorry,” his hand reaches out for you automatically, too used to the warmth of your body and the lull of your heartbeat to alleviate the stiffness in his chest, but he pulls his hand back as he realises there is too much space between the two of you: he’s not sure if you want to shorten the distance, if you want him at all. 

“Why did you say yes?” he asks instead of what he really wants to ask. “To this. To being the subject. You could have said no.”

“I could have.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Because you seemed genuine.You looked like you were genuinely looking for a reason—for something, for anything, for purpose—and I liked that. I haven’t met a lot of people like that. Genuine. Earnest.” Your body turns to him, but your gaze is still brushing against the floor and clinging to your hands. “I think a part of me wanted, desperately, to be the source of your purpose. So I let myself believe that you genuinely wanted me for me.” 

“I think I loved you.”

“I think the both of us were looking for someone to love,” the corners of your mouth wobble, a pale imitation of the blown up picture of your smile on the wall. “Maybe that’s why it didn’t work. Because we were blinded by our desperation.” 

He doesn’t have anything to say to that. The way you look—so curled up in yourself and so vulnerable—slowly makes him realise there’s so much to you he wasn’t able to see. Were there more moments you tried to open up to him, only to have him turn a blind eye because he was still thinking about Seokjin?

“I wish I had met you later. Maybe in a different universe, you and I have a different story line, one where when you and I meet, I have learned to accept love and you have learned to accept heartbreak. Maybe we would have been ready for each other then.” Your smile wobbles, just as it did last time, and Yoongi’s heart wobbles too. When you start to walk away, he tastes the bitterness of his memories surfacing. 

“Wait!” he reaches out and grabs your hand, squeezes it a little too tight. When you turn, eyes wide, it feels like a scene he’s seen somewhere before, a picture he used to know. “We could. We could start over. We could make that universe this one.” 

“I don’t-I’m not following.” 

He drops your hand and offers you his. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Yoongi.”

“Yoongi, I’m not-”

“What’s your name?” 

“Y/N,” you tentatively take his hand and shake it. 

“It’s nice to meet you for the first time. This is my exhibit,” you smile, head tilted in confusion, but the light in your eyes is warm, so he keeps going,” and I was wondering if you wanted to get coffee? 

You bite your lip, but don’t let his hand go. He tries to keep his smile on his face, but his heart is beating with the force of a supernova and he feels his nails cut through the skin of his anticipation. When you look down at his hand, he knows you can feel the tremors that run through it, the electricity of anxiety crackling through his veins, but he keeps his eyes on you and the way your eyes search his for clues, for cues and stage directions. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that,” you smile, and it feels like the first time he’s seeing you. 

He’s not sure, this time, of the damage: he’s not sure he can anticipate the fall, the wreckage caused. Doesn’t know if he wants to. 

It’s a brand new film strip. A new camera. A new storyline. 

He’s never been more ready. 

[iloveabunchofmovies]

Around the time of my tenth birthday, a British friend told me about a show called Teletubbies. Nothing he said sounded real, especially the part about it being massively popular. Imagine my surprise, just weeks later, when my younger sister was watching PBS and I saw that this show existed, was exactly as he'd described it, and would soon make its American television debut. I lost my mind. I was obsessed, catching every episode I could, talking about it with my likewise astounded friends on the playground. How was this a show? Why was is so compelling? I thought my interest had run its course, but this morning, I watched the first episode of the Teletubbies Netflix reboot, and I have thoughts:

◦ The sun baby no longer has a yellow/orange filter. It's just a regular baby head with solar flares behind it. It's cuter than the old way, and it shows off their commitment to racial diversity, which is good and makes it a worthwhile change, but the smooth gradient they used to crop out the baby looks bad. It was easier to cheat that effect when the tinted baby more closely matched the sun.

◦ More importantly, the sound of the baby sun's laughter doesn't match the image of the baby sun at all. You couldn't get a baby to laugh on camera?

◦ I hate the new Teletubbyland. It's no longer a set. It's not a real place I could visit. It's all CG, and they've cranked up the saturation. It looks awful, and again, the compositing is rotten. The Teletubbies do not look like inhabitants of an idyllic land. They look like dorks jumping around in front of a green screen.

◦ There are still real bunnies hopping around Teletubbyland, but since Teletubbyland is no longer real, it's really just blurry bunny videos playing on top of a hideous CG eyesore.

◦ The costumes mostly look good, except for the tellies on their tummies. This change probably happened in an earlier iteration of Teletubbies, but since I haven't seen much since outside of the original run, I can't say. I mean, I could spend a second doing an image search, but I'd rather spend ten times as long explaining why I can't say. Anyway, the problem is that television sets have changed in the 1990s. They've gone from a 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9, and that translates to tummy tellies that occupy far less vertical space. It throws off the entire visual design.

◦ More over, they're not properly sewn on to the costumes?? When the Teletubbies bend or sit, the whole TV part bends outward so you can see behind it, like they were just safety pinned roughly in place but the costume department didn't get around to finishing the job before shooting.

◦ The chosen Teletubby's antenna and TV light up, just like before, but now it has a big, YouTube play button that another Teletubby needs to press. I have no issue with this update for video playback in the Internet age, even if it seems a bit silly that they've retained the imagery of an antenna. My concern is that there are clear visual and audio clues to inform the audience that one Teletubby has been chosen by a higher power to receive and display the signal. Who is deciding which Teletubby gets to press play? Does each Teletubby have a designated partner? Is it just which ever one happens to be closest, or the one who moves fastest? Perhaps more episodes will reveal a pattern. Or perhaps they'll reveal carelessness.

◦ The videos on the tummies. Originally, they were ordinary British kids welcoming us in to their ordinary lives. "Come and see us play," they'd mumble before politely sitting down for a lesson in their preschool. This was raw, documentary filmmaking. In the episode I watched, "Bubbles," we get a highly produced music video starring an adult, American woman on a garish set, accompanied by the spawn of pushy stage parents. Ready for the twist?

◦ These horrible music segments are amazing. The Bubbles song is like nothing like you'd see on classic Teletubbies, and that means it's the one part that has its own identity. It is not surreal like Teletubbies, but it is surreal. It is the standout segment of the episode. Mark my words, Netflix Teletubbies songs will be the hottest TikTok trend by the end of the week, if not the end of today.

◦ I didn't know if they'd show it twice. "Again! Again!" is one of the things that put Teletubbies on the map, but the Netflix episodes are half the length of the original. Sadly, none of the other segments get to happen againagainagain, but the Bubbles song does. Yes!

◦ Every single shot in this show does that obnoxious thing where they crank up the playback speed for a second and then slooooow it down, like it's a direct-to-DVD sequel from 2004. One of those where the first one wasn't really that popular, but it's a known property and the rights were cheap, so it will probably turn a profit even though none of the original cast and crew returned. This is the state of Teletubbies in 2022.

◦ The Teletubbies never. Shut. Up. Remember all the silence in the original? They got rowdy, don't get me wrong. But sometimes they just...were. Or they'd mumble to themselves, but softly, soothingly. American Teletubbies are deathly afraid of any situation that might leave them alone with their thoughts.

◦ The Noo-noo has a new look, and it's pretty sharp. I'm not saying it's better than the original, but everyone needs to shake it up now and then, and Noo-noo knows how to shake it up. I don't even care about the chipped paint on the front vent.

◦ I'm aware of Tiddlytubbies. I appreciate them conceptually, but I've never clicked with the execution, and that has not changed today. On a show with a lot of notably bad CG, these little abominations are the worst, no contest.

◦ Oh, I almost forgot! The inside of the Teletubby's home is a real set! Possibly a computer-enhanced set, but there are real photons bouncing against both the Teletubbies and the floor! It don't even care that it looks worse than the cheap old British set in every way. It's an actual location!

◦ I didn't notice until a familiar name jumped out in the credits—the narrator is Tituss Burgess. Now, Tituss is probably an affordable actor, especially for someone of his talent, but what do you get from putting a name in this role? His voice is pleasant. I like him in everything, including this, but it's not a demanding role. Are you expecting legions of Tituss Burgess fans who would otherwise ignore Teletubbies to sign up for Netflix subscriptions en masse? Is he such a fan that he offered his services pro bono? You've cheaped out on everything else. Why did you hire someone who is, if not a real celebrity, at least enough of a celebrity to land a spot on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune?

◦ And finally, the personalities. Each Teletubby still has a unique name, hue, height, and antenna shape, but what of the soul? Watch the original Teletubbies play, and you will see that Dispy's movement's are nothing at all like Po's. Perhaps I'm being unfair. I've only watched a single episode, and it was only fifteen minutes. But the old show didn't need fifteen minutes to show me that every Teletubby is beautiful and special.

This is not a pale imitation of a classic. It is an assault on the senses with no understanding of what it's trying to imitate.

Bubbles is a banger, though.

[nataliescatorccio]

becca’s mega coloring tutorial

i’ve gotten a lot of requests recently asking me to make a tutorial for my 'colorporn’ gifsets, and i think i’ve finally gotten over the traumatic incident 3 years ago, when i spent all day writing out a coloring tutorial only to accidentally hit backspace causing the entire thing to be wiped. so, here it is, buckle up folks! it’s going to be a long ride but here’s hoping it’ll be helpful.

so we’ll be going from left side (no coloring) to right (coloring & color porn):

let’s get started! you will need some sort of photoshop in order to do this, i use photoshop cs5 so this tutorial will be based around that, but i imagine you can adapt it for whichever one you use.

this is more of a coloring tutorial than a gif tutorial, but if you’re not sure how to make gifs then this is a pretty good all-encompassing tutorial, although i use 0.05 as my frame delay speed.

we’ll start from your have your basic gif, re-sized cropped and sharpened like so:

step one: curves

so i’m going to start off with basic colouring! the first thing i’m going to do is a curves layer to sort of ‘balance’ the gif out. to do that i go to layers > new adjustment layer > curves. on this window, right next to the graph, are three little droppers. i’m going to click the very bottom one right here: 

this basically allows you to set your ‘whitest’ point in the gif, aka the point that should be the brightest. so i then go to my gif and click on the ‘lightest’ point. there’s a lot of light coming in from the top left hand corner of the scene i’ve chosen, so i’m just going to click it on that point (circled below) and that immediately brightens up the scene.

next i’m do something similar, but with the ‘blackest’ or darkest point on the gif. to do that i’m going to use the very top color picker:

and i’m then going to hit what the blackest point to balance out the light:

what this is basically doing is using your white and black points as color markers to not only brighten and darken the gif in places, but it also acts as a sort of color balancer. it’s very common that shows put a sort of colored ‘filter’ over their scenes, for example the scene i’ve picked has a sort of yellowish filter over the top. you might find that some scenes it doesn’t really affect, but others it makes a tremendous difference. personally i like doing this to get back to a ‘neutral’ ground on the scene, which is particularly useful when we are taking a scene with a warmer color tone (yellow) and trying to make it a cooler tone (purple).

if you are using a darker scene you may have to put a brightness/contrast layer on before you can complete this step, or even add an auto curves layer (hit the ‘auto' button on that same window) before you have a ‘white’ and ‘black’ spot to work on. i love this trick but this is precisely why i say i have no ‘general psd’ because it is entirely scene specific! but here we are at the end of step 1:

step 2: basic coloring

i’m just going to add a few adjustments to round off my basic coloring! i added just a little increase in curves to make the gif a little brighter (a), added a levels layer to enhance the contrast (b), and added some color balance. for this i worked with adding magenta and yellow tones to enhance the skin tones in the gif. i also made the midtones a bit more ‘purply’ (c) (as this is the end colour i want to achieve) and also did the same for the shadows (d).

for a darker gif i would probably add more curves and an additional brightness/contrast layer. color balance is also a really important tool to just play around with, ‘warmer’ scenes need more cyan/blue balance, while ‘colder’ scenes need more yellow/magenta balance. our final product is:

step 3: painting colors

if you wanted, you could probably leave your gif right there, but i like colors and i’m going to embrace them! 

now there are three methods that i bounce between and they really depend on the type of gif you’re working with. an ideal scene would have a strong background color (see step 4) already for you to work with, but the truth is the majority of scenes don’t. as this scene is fairly neutral in background coloring, you’ll see we can’t just use selective colors to get the purple we want, so instead we’re going to do something a bit different. warning: this method won’t work for scenes with a lot of movement! for that you need step 4 or step 5.

first, something i always do with colored gifs, is i add a gradient map layer of black + a light shade of the final color i am trying to achieve, like so:

i then set this layer to ‘soft light’ and lower it to an opacity that i think suits. for this gif i lowered it to 20%.i think this makes the darker colors a little more ‘purply’ and overall gives a smoother affect what we’ll do next.

next is the fun part! we’re going to start adding in the purple. to do this, we want to create a new layer right at the bottom of all your coloring layers, so sandwiched between the actual gif and your first curves layer. then i grab my paint brush (you want one with the blurred edges, not a solid brush),   use the same purple tone i selected for the gradient mask and paint around yen’s face and body. 

i like to split my left and right side into separate layers. this is because i like to use a large paintbrush to solidly paint the left hand side of the gif, and then use a large eraser to get rid of the color from her face/body. the larger eraser you use, the smoother it looks (i’m not saying try and use a 600px eraser, just a 100px rather than a 10px creates a better effect). now it looks like this:

don’t worry that it looks very white, that’s just because it’s under all the curves layers! so now all i do is change it from normal, to multiply, and as you can see we have a nice purple background:

repeat this process for the right hand side:

you may find that if you’re working with a darker gif, setting these layers to ‘hue’ or ‘color’ is better. and again, the opacity may need a bit of playing around with. remember it’s ok to play around with effects and what might work for one gif will not work for another just because scenes and lighting vary!

then i just painted a line across the bottom, over her chest area, and lowered this to a 41% opacity. this just helped to enhance the purple feel of the gif. now we’re left with:

so a few finishing touches, i noticed that there was a spot by her right arm that as she moves, exposes a bit more of a ‘yellowish’ band. to fix this, at the top of all my coloring layers, but under the gradient map, i added a layer and just put a small purple dot on top with my paintbrush, and set the layer to ‘color’. 

lastly, i wanted to make the right side a deeper purple, so i used selective colors to manipulate the magentas to the shade i wanted. then with the layer mask, painted black over the right hand side of the gif so it didn’t affect this coloring.

and there we have it! i have my finished gif!

tips: sometimes it’s nice to enhance lighter and darker parts of the gif further. i didn’t with this one as i already thought the natural lighting did it well enough, but of course this might not always be the case! 

while i liked the coloring of this gif, i wanted a bit more variation in the purple tones. so, under all the coloring layers again, i painted some black on the right hand side, set this to softlight, and played with the opacity (it ended up on 65%). then added another purple layer on the right hand side, but set this to overlay instead and again lowered the opacity (to 58%) and got this:

you can play around with this to get different tones, and you can even change the color of what you’re painting on to create a gradient effect! for example, if i change the black softlight layer to a dark blue, and the overlay purple layer to a lighter pink, i get this:

and then you can use blue and magenta selective colors to play around with that even more. it’s all about experimenting and seeing what works!

step 4: selective colors

to do this method, you need to have a gif that has a strong background color. it doesn’t matter what that color is, or even if it has two, but it doesn’t work well with a netural background. for example this gif (which i’ve already done my base coloring on), is perfect to work with:

as we can see it’s very yellow in the background which is perfect! so the first thing i’m going to do is  is create a new hue/saturation layer, set this to ‘color’ and then on the drop down menu change the color to ‘yellow’. from here i just dragged the hue bar till it was pink/purple.

because i’m working with yellow, which is a skin tone, we find that her skin has also gone pink. now i don’t really want this effect as i’d like her to look natural! so all i’m going to do is grab my black brush, paint on the layer mask, and erase this from her face. this won’t be so much of a problem if you’re adjusting cool tones, such as blues or greens.

i then used some selective colors to adjust the magentas and the same ‘tip’ i used for step 3 to add a little bit of gradient variation and all done!

step 5: all the time in the world

sometimes, you have scenes that won’t conform to either of the two methods listed. either they have too much movement for step 3 to work, or too neutral a background, or the selective colors won’t work for the overall color of the gifset. also, if you’re working with something of a yellow background with a lot of movement, the selective color method doesn’t work great because it ends up disturbing the skin tone of the person you’re giffing.

for example, for this gif i did all the steps in step 3, and got this:

now i love the coloring, but it’s messy. the movement of her hand means that her hand dips in and out of the yellow, but leaves background exposed.and the turn of her head means half her head ends up yellow. so instead of giving up, because i am a stubborn bitch, i take my yellow layers i’d painted on, merge them into one and start coloring them frame by frame. 

to do this i adjust the timing of the yellow layer to fit each scene, and fill in/erase the yellow around yennefer as required. it ends up looking a bit like this:

i must say this can be pretty time consuming. it’s fine for shorter gifs, but it doesn’t work for a gif with a lot of frames. i don’t mind cos i just do this in the background while watching a movie, but it’s not for everyone. you might just prefer to play around with selective colors as in step 4, but you also might find if you’re adjusting warm skin colors, that you’ll need to use a layer mask frame by frame to still get the clean affect you want!

anyway, i added a slight yellow layer set to ‘hue’ over her dress to round it all off, and after coloring it frame by frame i got the affect i wanted:

obviously if you did all gifs like this it would take all week, but in mixing all three techniques i end up creating the sets i want!

the end

and that’s it, i hope this has actually semi-made sense and is of help. if you have any further questions or points you want elaborating on please feel free to ask! a lot of this takes time, practice and experimenting, so my biggest tip is just be patient and play around with what works for you :)