#it's a deeply unhinged way to make gifs but i promise you it works

[astrhae]

Hi! Sorry if this has already been asked, but I looked through your tags and did not see it previously mentioned. Do you have a gif tutorial for this post? https://www.tumblr.com/starklystar/726552560907026433/composed-by-david-arnold-good-omens-season-2?source=share

Thank you! 😁

hi!! glad you liked that gifset 💙 so, if you've looked through my previous tutorials, you'll know i use a very unconventional method of gif making, which consists of two steps: 1. make the main gif in photoshop, and 2. add all other elements in powerpoint.

to make the main gif in photoshop, here's a very comprehensive tutorial!

for the first gif in my soundtrack gifset, the main gif is the underlying gif of crowley and aziraphale:

then, i open up powerpoint to a blank presentation, and i change the slide size using custom slide size to be in the aspect ratio that i want it to be in -- for a square like this, i usually stick to 14 cm x 14 cm, but it doesn't really matter what size it is as long as it's the right ratio.

the next step is to make the template you want. for the soundtrack gifset, all i did was to make a square at the center, turn the fill to no fill, and the borders to white. to get the squiggly lines as outlines, you go to Shape Format > Outlines > Sketched, and then you choose the style you want.

then, i made four rectangles around the square, removed the outlines, filled it with a very light grey color, and changed the transparency to 70%

after that, i added in the "progress bar" for the music, which was just one long line that i set to have a dark grey outline with transparency set to 50%, overlayed with a shorter white line and a tiny circle. the pause and rewind and fast forward symbols come from powerpoint icons, and i added the text using simple text boxes! i also added a shadow effect to everything to make things stand out. finally, i insert the main gif and send it to back so that it's behind everything. alternatively, you can also insert a video clip into the slide, and send it to back, and it'll play exactly as a gif.

this is what each component looks like in powerpoint!

and if i move things back to their right alignment, it turns into what the final gif looks like!

finally, you export the powerpoint as a gif. you need to do this slide by slide, and you adjust the number of seconds for how long the main gif takes to run. for the gif quality, i usually go for medium or large, and if it's too large to upload to tumblr, i compress the gif via photoshop

alternatively, if you don't have the export as gif function in powerpoint, you can export the powerpoint as a video (.mp4) and then turn the video to a gif again using photoshop!

feel free to message me if you need any more details 💕

[imaginesandideas]

honey

another installment of the favourite flavour mini-series cause i’m unhinged and unstoppable 🙃

as always: it’s short, there are some innuendos here and there, but nothing explicit yet

also Hassan overuses emojis to emphasize his point, and also cause Ali is a lil dickhead and told him it’s okay to do so 🤡

p.s: i got a very good suggestion from an anon recently and i promise i’ll work on that too!

~~~~~

 It’s a thing you notice only sometimes.

When he’s trying to contain his excitement about something, but his eyes betray him. For instance, when Ali speaks to him passionately about something that sparks his interest. Or when you bring him a steaming cup of coffee on a gloomy day at the office.

When you smile at him and he smiles right back but his gaze lingers on you longer, even after you look away.

It’s like the colour of his irises changes completely. Sometimes it hits you like an old memory. Like a gemstone found on a beach. Bright and rich like afternoon sunbeams when they light up his face. 

Hassan radiates warmth. At least through your eyes. 

 People tend to call their loved ones diamonds when referring to the inner light they exude. But that’s not that. There’s something more refined about him. 

Hassan, to you, is like a piece of amber.

He can be stern and serious. But then, nevertheless, patient and understanding to the point that is completely foreign to you. 

And he can be rough around the edges, but still a firm shoulder to lean on when you walk back home and rant about how messed up your day was, hand in hand. 

 On some days his lips taste sweeter. They speak deeper into your heart, making it speed up, making your body shake. Like sugary syrup they feed your deeply hidden vanity.

His perfect little thing.

The sweetest fruit on Earth.

His eyes shine brighter then. Wide pupils encircled by a ring of fire.

Like tonight.

 It was a very long day. He was out of the station the entire time, because he had the whole island to check up on after tonight’s storm. He called you first thing in the morning, in case you needed some help of course, but after that you only exchanged occasional texts.

[How’s work?]

[15 more residents to go… 💁🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️]

[Do I see emojis now?! 😄 They really must be getting under your skin huh]

[🧟‍♂️🙆🏾‍♂️💀] [I’d rather get under your skin though.] [🤷🏾‍♂️😍]

[HASSAN]

But really, you like the playful Hassan. 

And despite the rather short periods of time you two are away from each other, you still miss him sometimes. You miss that glint in his eyes. 

 It’s almost midnight when you hear knocking. You’re half awake at this point, sleep-walking to the door, not really expecting anything or anyone specific.

„Hey.”

 Instantly you perk up at the sound of his voice. He’s just standing there, at your doorstep, all smiles. Your gaze softens for a second cause the way he looks at you… It’s almost like his dark brown eyes became pools of gold.

Like… Honey. Dripping from his tone, from his amber-like irises, his mouth as he bites the lower lip. Not to mention his thoughts. You can practically hear them when he stares you down like this…

And still, confusion washes over you.

„Wha- Hassan? It’s so late, what are you doing here? Isn’t Ali- ” 

„He’s fine. Went to sleep already, don’t worry.”

 That shadow of a smile from earlier doesn’t leave him. 

His heart beats like a drum because even now you look like everything he wanted. Even when you’re frowning at him like that, squinting your eyes at the obnoxious light coming from the nearby streetlamp.

You’re probably pissed that he woke you up, or maybe you’re just worried, that, he isn’t sure of. 

But he knows one thing for sure now, here underneath this dark, celestial vault. 

„I just wanted to see you.”

[piracytheorist]

Your top 5 Hook moments, and idk if you like to read but can you give me your top 5 books? :))

So as I said I haven't watched OUAT in some time and I'm a bit ashamed to say I had to go down a mental list of episodes to remember some favourite moments. But I did gather five 😁

1. Singing his baby daughter to sleep and giving her his mother's name, Alice.

(I didn't even have to think about this one. Even Colin has spoken about how this is one of his favourite scenes as Hook) Yeah, this scene will never not fucking gut me. The emotion is just so raw here and like, we've never seen Hook like that. We've seen him happy and loving before, but this one is just... Openly, unashamedly pure love that reaches down to his core. There are very few scenes in OUAT that allow that, and in this one, being my favourite character realizing his own blooming love for his daughter, and SINGING to her... God I'm a mess.

2. Apologizing to Ariel in 3x17

(couldn't find a gif, lol)

The one thing I'll always remember this scene for is that it was the scene for me. The one that made me a Hook fan. The one that made me go from "He's becoming better, he really wants to do better for himself" to "OMG THIS IS IT I LOVE HIM KILLIAN JONES DESERVES THE WORLD". And from a character standpoint, it really describes the entire way he went about his redemption; unprompted, on his own will and initiative, and knowing that it suited him best to not do the right thing. Yes, Zelena was manipulating him fully as Ariel, but this was kinda the point. She hit him on his guilt (while pretending she didn't know what he'd really done) and it worked, because that's how deeply his own action had hit him. And I love that scene because he doesn't focus on how bad it was for him (even though he's been wracked by the guilt - he only replies to Ariel's question of "What kind of person does that" and he still admits his emotional state doesn't excuse his actions), but on how wrong and fucked up his action was and that he wished to make things right.

3. The entire scene of Dark Hook in Gold's pawn shop.

Starting from how unhinged he is. And I don't mean it in a "My baby off to destroy people" kinda way, but in a "He fucking hates this mofo who has ruined him emotionally multiple times without a shred of guilt and now all that rage combined with his anger at Emma is coming out at full force because he's way past giving a fuck" kinda way. And Gold knows that, deep down, Hook's feelings are a bit justified - not that he'd admit that, but he understands that, now that Gold is powerless, the times he took advantage of other people by using his powers are going to bite him in the ass. So reluctantly, he accepts Hook's anger and even the duel challenge. And as of Hook, he just doesn't hold anything back. Mentioning his cut hand, Milah's death, Emma becoming the Dark One... And promising to make Gold pay for every single one of those crimes. I remember watching that scene as a sneak peek before the episode had aired and was like "This is what I've wanted to see since 2x04, that's more than three years of my expectations coming true". Of course, as is OUAT's wont, it led to fuck-nowhere, because God forbid they delivered on the things they established, but it still stands as an amazing moment and scene overall.

4. That damn goodbye in "Firebird".

Aka the first of the two times we see Hook cry in the entire show. It's deep and raw and it just makes me wanna scream. For centuries, he's been hiding behind façades and masks, and when he realized he could love and trust again, all of that slowly dropped. He showed more of himself, allowed himself to be emotionally vulnerable. And in this scene, all of that skyrockets. He knows it's the last time he sees Emma (and hopes it's for a long, long time), had his own hope of going back home with her crushed just minutes ago, and he's just so tired of holding it back. So he lets it out. From the moment his voice starts breaking and he starts whispering, to how he caresses Emma's cheek, to how he cries and holds her close, to how he can't hold back his "I love you" when the bars are between them, to how he gives her a devastating smile as he lowers the bar so that the elevator can start taking her away, to how he frantically kisses her hand as she's being taken up, to how he tries to hold on to her hand, to how he stays there, looking at her go, tears literally streaming down his face...

It just fucks me up. I hated that moment when I first watched it, felt it was unnecessary because we had had enough angst already and we all knew he was coming back anyway, but once again OUAT doesn't know about establishing, execution and delivery so as a standalone scene it's agonizing and absolutely beautiful.

5. Goading Gold to kill him in 2x11.

I remember, even at the time I was first watching season two, where I didn't particularly like Hook, how this whole episode changed my perception of him. He doesn't show any satisfaction at what he does; stealing the shawl, threatening Belle, mocking Rumpelstiltskin, shooting Belle... It's all anger and pent up emotions. And he then goads Gold to kill him, cause he just doesn't fucking care. He never did. He only hoped to manage to kill the bastard without any plans of surviving that himself. And Belle didn't believe him when he said that Gold killed Milah, so he takes it upon himself to prove to her what a monster Gold is, how when Hook is completely at his mercy, Gold will just rip his heart out and murder him without a second thought. Like after that point I was mostly confused, didn't know what to think of Hook. In hindsight, though, since it's in the first seasons and the writers had put some effort into their writing, this scene is amazing in establishing Hook's potential for redemption, as weird as that sounds. He's not out for blood out of any sadistic choice. He's just messed up emotionally to the point where he doesn't give a damn about his own life if it means taking Gold down with him. So Belle was wrong; it was a broken heart that led him there, not a rotten one.

~

As for books, I admittedly am pretty far away from being a bookworm. But I may have a suggestion or two:

My absolute favourite book I've ever read is Perfume: the Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind. The narration is outright spectacular. It not only introduces you into the world of scents, something that most of us don't really take into account that much, it bathes you in it, and that even happens from the pov of a protagonist that while at first you feel bad for, you grow to absolutely despise. After a certain point you just know that Grenouille has no chances of becoming a decent person, but the suspense and the description of everything and the twisted ways in which he manages to do what he does drag you into the story and his disturbing actions.

Another one is Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. The first of the His Dark Materials trilogy, and a book I’ve reread many times and always enjoyed. Pullman is amazing in putting you into Lyra's world and despite dealing with serious issues and crimes, still managing to keep you in the worldview of a child focused on saving what's most important to her.

The other ones I’d choose are, as controversial as that may sound, both Battle Royale by Koushun Takami and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, even though I will simply never believe that the latter wasn’t inspired by the former, as much as the latter author says otherwise. In any case, both books are amazing though violent and disturbing, and each one has something terrific to bring into this world; despite my own doubts about THG not being inspired by BR, I find THG amazing on its own merit.

Sorry for not responding earlier, lol! Had to actually put a lot of thought into which books I’ve loved over the years XD

[sorceresslost]

“Dammit Orren where are you?!”

Her question echoed through the forest, the young woman nearly falling over as she cast her gaze out into the blackness, her words fading into the void.

Her slender frame dodged and weaved through the dense sea of trees, hopping over downed tree trunks and just barely avoiding the rocks and debris strewn about the thick undergrowth. A raised forearm shielded her face from low hanging branches as she forced her way deeper through the foliage, and she winced whenever a particularly stubborn branch would make it past her gloves and add to the growing collection of scratches on her exposed neck and cheeks. Tired muscles pressed onward regardless, pushing through the dense underbrush.  Her lungs burned with fatigue as they desperately gasped for breath. The air that filled them was unpleasant, thick and damp, reeking of decomposition, a scent made even worse from the rain the night before. Her heart pounded in her chest from a cocktail of fear and exertion, begging for a respite that simply couldn’t be granted.

An agonizing pressure behind her eyes continued to mount as she came across yet another massive husk of a stone building, remains of what used to be a proud metropolis now commandeered by local flora. Too large to make her way around it, the woman cursed under her breath and forced her way inside the ancient structure, squeezing around the massive roots that had burst forth from the ground and wrapped themselves around what was left of the door frame. The cursed woods and everything in them were laden with ancient magicks, and every time she made contact with another handhold shimming through the entrance, it sent a fresh jolt through her skull that intensified her raging migraine.

The woods themselves seemed off from the very beginning, a feeling that fueled some deeply seated instinct, screaming at her ever since she laid foot here to turn around and get out; a voice that was only magnified the more her survival instincts continued to take over. She mentally chided herself for the dozenth time in the last thirty seconds. A single line repeated  over and over, each time laced with more contempt.

Stupid.

So stupid.

The far wall of the decaying structure had simply eroded away with time, and the girl easily made her way back outside. Beyond that last outpost, the landscape began to subtly shift the further she pushed forward. Ruined building became less frequent, and the massive trees that sprang forth in and around began to subside, replaced by smaller saplings and numerous bushes, before the foliage began to disperse entirely. No longer impeded, the woman was able to quicken her pace, rushing ahead with a renewed vigor kindled by the promise of open space. Scant rays of sunlight began to pierce through the dense canopy and illuminate the ground below as the forest continued to thin. With one final burst of resolve, the woman threw herself towards the light.

She stumbled out of the bramble and into a small clearing. Her legs finally gave out on her, and she collapsed to hands and knees, gasping for breath, ignoring the searing sensation that ran up her arms as she impacted hard against the ground.

It was only after taking a few moments to collect herself that she noticed the silence. The sounds of her pursuer had faded, replaced with the constant buzz of insects, the chirping of birds, and the occasional distant shriek of something deep within the woods she’d rather not contemplate. Her eyes took in the deceptively tranquil surroundings as she struggled to control her breathing in an attempt to calm down.

“I think… it’s gone…”

Silence was her only answer, and she fell further to the ground, cradling her limbs as she nursed her burning calves. A pathetic moan escaped her lips as she rocked back and forth in the grass. The adrenaline flooding her body began to subside, and the scratches on her face started to become noticeable, sharp pinpricks shooting through her cheeks with each exhale. Fatigue seeped into every last inch of her body, and it begged her for rest, the grass quickly becoming more comfortable as it cradled her exerted frame, threatening to lull her off to sleep.

She barely noticed the soft rustling sound as the foliage behind her was disturbed, her eyelids heavy and drooping. It wasn’t until the firm hand was upon her, grasping tightly at her shoulder, that she snapped to attention, a new wave of adrenaline firing through her. Her hand tightened into a fist and she leapt off the ground, ready to rain blows down upon her attacker, before freezing in her tracks when she realized who it was.

“Orren?!”

The young man jumped, pulling his hand away, face deep with distress.

His expression cut deep at the girl, and she winced. “Sorry…” Her cocked fist unclenched, falling to her side and she relaxed again, slumping back into the clearing’s alluring embrace with a long sigh. “At least say something next time. Nearly gave me a heart attack…” Her gaze slowly traced the figure in front of her; Orren’s appearance was equally as frazzled as hers. His proud olive tunic was in tatters, having been assaulted by both beasts and bramble, exposing the layer of ringmail underneath that she had, in hindsight stupidly, given him flak for insisting on wearing. The cuts and scrapes on his bare arms were less noticeable against his significantly darker skin, but the occasional trickle of crimson still shimmered against his athletic frame. Her stare rested on his wounds as pangs of guilt shot through her stomach, before moving up to his eyes, which were similarly giving her a once over. A soft smile touched her lips, despite her best efforts to conceal it. “You came back…”

His gaze shot off into the distance, expression heavy, before slow, unsure footsteps closed the remaining gap between the the pair. “You’re hurt.”

The girl’s brow arched. She looked over her body, only now noticing the sea of red on her arm and the rather nasty gash it sprang from. Her eyes jumped from the wound to Orren. “…What, this?” She loosed a nervous chuckle, the sight of the wound disturbing, but the pain barely noticeable amongst all the adrenaline. “It’s no big deal.”

Her would-be assailant ignored her, getting on one knee. “Lemme see…”

Tepidly, she extended her arm. Rough, calloused fingers met her skin as Orren took a moment to examine the injury. The eerie silence was dashed by the sound of tearing fabric, Orren taking what little was left of his sash and ripping a strip free to clear away the blood, followed by a longer strip to fasten into a bandage. Sera trembled under his touch, and the young man took a keen interest in the dew coating the grass as he worked. Even the ambience of the forest seemed to soften over the palpable tension.

The words left her lips without conscience. “You uhh… you okay?”

Orren’s hands froze, trembling a bit. He grunted, swallowing hard before finishing the bandage, giving it an especially aggressive tug taut. “Yeah. Yeah I’m fine.”

“But what ab-”

A staunch raised hand stopped her mid sentence. Sera’s stomach churned at the blunt dismissal, until she noticed Orren’s face: eyes pinpricks, ears twitching as he glanced back in the direction they came. Her churning stomach bottomed out.

“What’s wrong?”

Terror came over the man’s face, and he sprang to his feet, pulling at the collapsed woman in front of him. “We gotta move, now!”

He grabbed her forearm and took off, pulling the young woman to her feet again before she could protest. His firm grasp tore at her just-bandaged wound, and she let out a groan of disapproval. The pair made their way through the clearing, the few beams of light that penetrated the canopy casting the entire area in an odd, dream-like patchwork of desaturated golds and greens. The scent of blooming flowers that peppered the meadow a harsh contrast to the surrounding smell of rotting leaves.

They had only made it a few paces when the ground beneath them shook, loosening leaves from the trees and silencing the surrounding fauna. The pair froze, slowly turning back towards the direction they had just left. Another thunderous footstep shattered the silence, followed by the snapping and splintering of timber from deep within the woods just beyond their vision. Then another. Then another. Each louder and more clear than the one before it.

Its eyes pierced the black first, the light peeking through the freshly downed trees hitting it in just the right way to reflect off it’s inhuman irises. Two stacked pairs of golden hollow pupils that glowed with unnatural luminance cut through the dark. Another tremor, and the full beast came into view, it’s otherworldly head, vaguely reptilian but with a strangely geometric jaw, towered over the pair, it’s body covered in a mix of scales and a thick coating of slime, causing occasional brush to stick to its four lumbering limbs. The creature’s larger size made short work of the difficult terrain that had impeded their progress, and it tore through the forest with an almost casual indifference. It’s broad shoulders pushed aside branches, and flattened bushes under its massive hook-clawed limbs.

The horror locked both sets eyes with the terrified pair in the clearing and stopped, slowing lowering its body, deep indentations carved into the flesh on it’s sides that could be mistaken for gills shuddering as it assessed the situation. It turned it’s head and blinked, eyeing the couple with an animalistic curiosity, unmoving.

Orren gave the girl at his side a soft tap, not taking his eyes off the horror before them. His voice barely a whisper. “You think maybe it calmed down?”

The beast unhinged it’s jaw, letting loose a deep, guttural bellow that reverberated through the entire forest, silencing it entirely, and froze the blood in the veins of its prey.

The creature’s limbs tensed, and it rocketed forward, moving at a speed seemingly unfit for its size. Trees were ripped from their roots as the beast came barreling through the remaining foliage, sending the forest into a frenzy. The ground trembled, the whole world seeming to quake in terror under the beast’s gait.

Orren reacted first, snapping out of his trance and breaking into a sprint, nearly yanking the woman’s arm from it’s socket as he all but dragged her behind him. She stumbled, trying to keep pace with his longer strides, and they both dove back into the forest in hopes of losing the creature in the maze of bramble and brush.

The beast in pursuit wasn’t deterred, bursting through the bramble and continuing the hunt. Against better judgement the woman looked back, and cursed loudly. The horror was quickly beginning to gain ground on the desperate pair. The ground to their left exploded, the impact of a blade the size of Orren’s forearm showering them both in a cloud of dirt and debris as the Manticore just misses him with its massive sickle-tipped tail.

The woman shook herself from Orren’s grasp and veered off to her right. “Scatter! We’re too big of a target like this!”

The panicked man began to protest, but another near miss from the beast right between them quelled his misgivings, and he took to the left, not letting his eyes off the young woman for more than a few moments, and made sure not to overtake her.

The ghastly creature, now faced with two targets, kept its focus on the girl, continuing to close the gap with its prey. She cast a glance back at her pursuer just in time to dodge a sweeping blow from its forelimb, diving to her left as the beast just barely bat air with its strike. The ground met her faster than she anticipated, and she toppled face first into the bramble, the wind knocked from her lungs.

The girl let out a strained cry, and Orren whipped around, making a beeline for the young woman. She struggled to her feet, gasping for air, but the underbrush was still slick from the previous night’s rain, and her boots couldn’t gain traction in time. In seconds the horror was upon her, leaping forward and pinning the woman against the ground with massive claws, one of them tearing through her right shoulder.  She screamed in agony, blood pouring from the wound and soaking the ground beneath them. The creature’s twisted ears perked at the scent, and it let loose a victorious shriek, rattling the woman’s brain and filling her nose with the stench of dank breath leaking from it’s maw. Orren reached out in vain, still precious steps too far away to do anything but scream out in terror as the creature’s jaw slowly reeled back, then snapped forward, ready to sever the woman’s torso.

“SERA!!!!”