#it's literally just: open tumblr then scroll a bit through dashboard then like some of the posts i see

[washidashi]

aha i haven't really touched this app (or made just a text post in so long kjdfsdf) aside from passively posting art and surfing through some stuff I'm into and it makes me 🅱️ig Sad that I haven't engaged much with followers or people here 😔

that being said, how exactly do you spark engagement as a tumblr user kjsdfn 😖

[miwtual]

KAI’S PHOTOPEA GIFFING TUTORIAL

so literally no one asked for this, but i thought it would be fun to document my process of giffing on photopea for anyone who might be interested in my personal process. this tutorial is VERY long, but i tried to be as thorough as possible with my process with some optional steps that i take sometimes.

i’ll be honest and say my process is a frankenstein process of everything @benoitblanc​ has ever made in her photopea tutorials (which you should definitely check out before you follow this one, via this tag) and other miscellaneous tutorials i’ve found in my giffing journey. i’ll try and refer back to the different tutorials i’ve used to get to the point i’m at now, but if you want more in depth tutorials about the things i do/talk about, my writing blog @mshelleys​ has a tutorials tag where i archive most of the tutorials i use.

but with all of that out of the way, let’s get started. :)

so i won’t cover every single button on photopea, or go into detail about my process of how i make my starting gifs, but if you’d like more detail about either of those, here’s arwen’s tutorial about how she makes gifs that has info about both of those things. i personally screen record using activepresenter and run those clips through ezgif’s video to gif maker, but use whatever method you think is easiest to make your starting gif.

upon opening up photopea, click “open from computer” and choose the gif(s) you’re going to be working on from wherever you have them saved on your computer.

and now we’re here at the photopea dashboard with your gif all ready to go. this first screen seems very intimidating, but i’m going to be taking you step by step of how i make my gifs. 

STEP 1: CROPPING & RESIZING THE GIF

the first thing i do is crop and resize my gif. when i made this particular gif in ezgif, i used the Original (up to 800px) option so that i could make it match up better to tumblr’s sizing options (which you can check out in depth here).

in the crop menu at the top, use the drop down menu and click “Fixed Ratio”. use any ratio you’d like (i used 16x9 for this gif, but there’s lots of other ratios to play with), and then crop your gif how you’d like to based on that ratio. then, under Image > Image Size at the top of the site, you’ll have a popup to change the width/height of your gif. tumblr stops your gifs from getting any bigger past 540px, so i usually keep my gifs between 540 - 600px wide. i personally worry about the height of gifs more than i do the width.

at this point, i save my gif so i don’t have to go through the process of cropping and resizing just in case photopea crashes, my internet goes out, or any other issues happen in this initial process. i also tend to title my gifs at this point, though you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.

STEP 2: SHARPENING

now that our gif has been sized properly and we’ve saved a backup, we can get into the fun part: sharpening. on your right under the “layers” tab, scroll to the bottom of your gif and left click on the first frame of your gif, and then scroll up and use the shift key when you left click your last frame. this will allow you to sharpen all your frames at the same time, rather than individually (which i did for a very long time. don’t do that, it’s not fun).

at the top of the site, go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. from here, you’ll use this button twice to sharpen your gif. the first time you sharpen, put the amount to 200% and radius to 0.5px. the second time, put the amount to 10% and radius to 10.0px.

and after doing this, your gif will probably look something like this.

which if you like how this version of your gif looks, feel free to skip the next couple of steps of my tutorial. however, i found a way to work around this grainy look to make it look a bit less grainy, so i’ll walk you through that now.

OPTIONAL STEP 1: GAUSSIAN BLUR & ADDING NOISE

so, from here (with all your frames still selected), you’ll want to go back to the Filter tab at the top of the screen. now, though, you’ll want to go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. in the popup that shows up, put the blur to 0.1px. your gif will now look like this: still sharp, but not quite as pixellated.

so from here, we’re going to go to the Filter tab again (i know). this is a sort of new step i’ve learned from @leather-face​‘s tutorial here, so thank u leo for introducing me to this button because it makes gifs look much nicer.

under the Filter tab again, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. in the popup that comes up, put the noise level between 1-3 (over 4 looks a little strange, and you unfortunately can’t work in decimals like you can on actual photoshop). here’s what my gif looks like now with the noise level put at 1, 2, and 3 (i ended up using 3 for the final gif).

play around with the noise when you make your gifs; i’ve found i like my gifs best when the noise is at 2 or 3, but maybe you like something different. it’s all up to your preference!

it is also important to note that adding noise to your gif can greatly increase its size, or break the gif entirely. test to make sure your gif isn’t too large or broken by going to File > Export As > GIF.

if your gif is ‘broken’ (you will get a popup that says something like “something went wrong with one or more frames”), you will need to take away noise entirely.

if your gif is above 10MB (as seen in the bottom left corner of the gif preview), it’s too large for tumblr and therefore won’t work and will also have to take away the noise from your gif entirely. check here if you’re unsure how big your gif can be at the sizes tumblr allows; if your gif is 540px wide or wider like mine in this tutorial, it will need to be under 10MB.

however, like i said, these steps are entirely optional. even if you just do the gaussian blur step and not the noise step, your gifs will look just fine.

STEP 3: BASE COLORING

at this point in the giffing process, we’re done with messing with the actual gif frames themselves, so feel free to close that folder that your gif frames are in if you’d like to by clicking the little arrow on the left of the folder near the eye. make sure that after you do this, you have the folder itself selected; i do this, mostly to make sure all my coloring goes on top of the frames rather than accidentally somewhere in the middle (this has happened to me many times while giffing, so i’m trying to save you the panic when only part of your gif has been colored).

now we can move on to the fun part, which is coloring. as you can see from the previous screenshots, this particular gif is very dark, which makes it hard to do the fun coloring (because what’s the point of making gifs colorful if you can’t see the subject?). this step is all about my base coloring, which stays about the same for all my gifs with maybe a couple changes here and there, depending on the gif.

(btw, for the rest of this tutorial, we’re going to get well acquainted with the lots of the buttons under the Layer > New Adjustment Layer tabs.)

to start us off, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves. i always start with this because it really does make a difference in the brightness of your gifs to start you off on the right foot. this is what mine looks like for this gif but, again, it changes often depending on the gif i’m working on.

look at that difference already! mess around with this as much as you’d like to brighten your gif. don’t worry if it doesn’t get to be too bright, as we have more layers upcoming that are going to help brighten it even more. just try to make it not as dark as you may have started with.

once you’re done with your curves layer, go again to Layer > New Adjustment Layer and go to Brightness/Contrast. i always put this layer at 15 for both brightness and contrast, but feel free to play around with the levels.

this helps create, well, contrast between the lighter and darker parts of your gif, and (at least in my experience) helps differentiate the colors involved with your gif, which will be very useful later on. plus, it just looks pretty!

once again, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer and go to Exposure. this part of these initial layers do wonders for brightening your gifs. i rarely, if ever, change the numbers for these layers, so i wouldn’t recommend changing them either, but feel free experimenting with this layer as much as you’d like.

in the panel that pops out, make the exposure 0.20; this makes a HUGE difference in the brightening of your gif, as you can probably tell between the image below and the image above. under gamma correction is where the only real differences are, but i usually keep mine between 1.05 and 1.15.

for this particular gif, i’m not going to mess with the offset option. if your gif is too bright for you, or you simply want more intense contrast between the brighter/darker colors of your gif, put the offset to -0.01. doing so will darken is pretty dramatically, though, so i don’t usually mess with this part unless the particular gif calls for it. here’s what my gif right now looks like with the offset set to -0.01:

but that’s too dark for my taste (and will make the gif a bit difficult to work with when we get to the next step), so i’m keeping the offset to 0.00 for now.

now that we’re done with the Exposure layer, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Selective Color (towards the bottom of the list). we’re going to use this adjustment layer later, too, but for now we’re using it to help give the gif more contrast (can you tell that i like contrast in my gifs?).

in the panel that pops out, go to the dropdown menu that says “Red” and find the color White towards the bottom. don’t mess with the cyan, magenta, or yellow layers in this panel, but go to the black adjustment slider at the very bottom of the panel. this number changes depending on the gif, but i usually set this slider to -70. this takes away the darkness from the whites in your gif and, you guessed it, brightens up the gif entirely.

from here, we’re going to darken the blacks in the gif. under the same menu where we got to the white panel, go there again and pick Black from in the dropdown menu. once again, go straight to the black adjustment slider at the bottom.

so this is another thing that changes depending on the gif. since this gif i’m working on is pretty dark, i don’t want to add too much black into it. i usually keep this adjustment slider between 2 and 5. gifs that are too bright or need more contrast i’ll play around more with the slider, but that isn’t the case for this gif. for this particular gif, i kept the slider at 2.

like earlier, i have another optional step for brightening up your gif. if you’re happy with just messing with the whites and blacks of your gif, feel free to skip this bit.

OPTIONAL STEP 2: NEUTRALS

so with gifs like what i’m working on now, sometimes i want to brighten them up even more than i already have with my other base adjustment layers (or vice versa if they’re too bright). this doesn’t go for every gif, but there are cases like this one where i just want to make it brighter, or others where i want to make them darker. this is where the neutral color adjustment comes in.

so, same dropdown menu where we chose white and black, go to the menu that’s labelled Neutral. this layer you need to be more careful with, because it’s not like the White or Black layers where it messes with a specific color; this layer can either brighten or darken the entire gif, regardless of color. however, with this gif, that’s what i want, so that’s what we’re doing.

once again, ignore the cyan, magenta, and yellow adjusting sliders and go straight to the black adjustment slider. since we want to brighten this gif, we are going to work in the negatives of the slider; if your gif is too bright, you’re going to work in the positives of the slider to darken the gif.

this is, once again, a layer that changes from gif to gif. for this particular gif, i set the black adjustment slider to -10, but do whatever works for you and your gif, and play around with whatever you think looks the nicest.

and, finally, you’ve completed all your base coloring!

STEP 4: (FUN) COLRING

now that you’re done with all your base coloring for your gif, we can move on to the most fun part, which is playing with the colors of your gif. if you’re like me and need to be organized to high hell, feel free to put your base coloring layers into a folder by left clicking the curves layer, pressing shift, and left clicking your selective colors layer and clicking the little button at the bottom of the layers panel that looks like a folder.

you could also save all of these steps as a PSD for future use by going to File > Save as PSD. make sure if you do this you put the PSD somewhere you can find it again, just in case you want to use it for future use. this also gives you another of your gif just in case something happens to photopea or your internet while making your gifs.

with all your base coloring done, your gif should be significantly brighter than what it was when we first started. here’s what mine looks like before and after the adjustment layers i added:

and now that it’s brighter in general, your coloring following these base layers will be brighter too! so let’s get to my favorite part of giffing: the fun coloring.

so as you can see with this gif, it’s very pink and purple. these are fun colors to work with, but i tend to like to tone down these more colorful gifs to something more simplistic to work with. i HIGHLY recommend reading through @selinakyle​​‘s channel mixer guide if you’ve never played around with that adjustment layer before, because that’s what i’m going to use to make this gif more basic to color. you can also check out @nobodynocrime​​‘s tutorial for fixing yellow tinted shots, because i tend to use a lot of these same aspects when fixing any scene that’s a majority of one color. however, if you’d like to skip this step, go ahead! it’s not a requirement, nor do i use it for every gif.

OPTIONAL STEP 3: CHANNEL MIXER

in photopea, go to Layer > Add Adjustment Layer > Channel Mixer.

i’m going to get into some color theory for a second to explain how to fix this coloring, so please stick with me here. since this gif is majority pink/purple, we’re going to want to first mess with the green color channel to even it out.

for this gif, i increased the green adjustment slider to 113%. to help even out the amount of green in this channel, i also increased the red adjustment slider to 7% and the blue adjustment slider to 3%.

so i’m not very happy with how the gif looks with just this channel changed, so i went to the red and blue channels to mess around with them as well. here’s what those numbers now look like with the adjustments i made:

and now my gif looks like this, which will make working with color much easier for the following steps.

which makes working with these colors easier, at least to me, as we move on to the (official) next step.

STEP 4, CONTINUED: (FUN) COLRING, HUE/SATURATION & VIBRANCE

alright, so we’re now to the ACTUAL point of the fun coloring. absolutely play around with the different layers i talk about during this step, because there are lots of choices here you can play around with to make unqiue gifs of all kinds!

first thing’s first, though, is that we want these colors in our gif to be more vibrant. once again with the adjustment layers, go to Layer > Add Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation. this is the layer where a lot of the heavy lifting for making my gifs colorful is from.

when the panel pops out, you’ll be on the master range. this is the range that colors the whole of your gif. for my more colorful gifs, i always put the saturation to 30 and the lightness to -2. if you’re wanting to do pale gifs, i’d recommend working in the negatives with the saturation, which will change depending on how pale you want your gif to be. here’s what my gif looks like with this step:

now play around with the different ranges that you have in that dropdown menu. this is, in my opinion, the most fun part about making gifs, because this is a sort of part 1 to choosing what colors my gifs will be by playing with the “Hue” slider at the top above the “Saturation” slider for different colors. i won’t show all what i did with my adjustments to the different ranges, but here’s what my gif ended up looking like afterward:

beautiful! we’re almost done, just a few more layers!

when you’re done with the hue/saturation layer, go to Layer > Add Adjustment Layer > Vibrance. regardless of what the gif is going to look like, put the vibrance adjustment slider to 100 and the saturation adjustment slider to 25. this is what my gif looks like:

don’t worry about how vibrant this looks, because you’ll adjust this a couple layers from now and you can turn down the vibrancy then. for now, this is what you want.

OPTIONAL STEP 4: PHOTO FILTER

so i started doing this next step because of a tutorial i saw a while ago (that i forgot who made it), so if you’d like, you can skip this bit. it’s just something i do that doesn’t have much of an impact on the final product.

go to Layer > Add Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter. when the panel opens, you’ll be met with something like this:

again, i’m going to talk about color theory again. this layer is very dependent on your gif. if your gif is a majority cooler tones, like blues, cyans, or greens, use the orange that photopea gives you with this layer and set the density to 10%. this will warm up your gif.

if your gif is majority warmer tones, like reds, oranges, or yellows, click the orange in the panel to be brought to the color picker popup. at this popup, you will have to choose the default blue tone from the little color squares above the “OK” button on this popup (or just put 0000ff into the hex box; either way, get that default blue in there).

click “OK”, and then set the density to 10%. this does the opposite of the orange, cooling off the colors of your gif.

for my particular gif, since my colors are somewhere between warm and cool tones, i could use either orange or blue. orange would bring out the pinks in my gif, and blue would bring out the blues/purples in my gif. i chose to use the blue for my photo filter, making my gif look like this:

if you have a similar situation to what i had here, choose either color you’d like more. i personally want to work with the blues and purples of my gif and cool off the pink in the background, so that’s why i chose the blue for my photo filter layer. again, this is up to your preference.

STEP 4, CONTINUED: (FUN) COLRING, SELECTIVE COLOR

now we’re on to part 2 of choosing what colors my gifs will be. we’re going to be going back to the selective color layer for this step, so go to Layer > Add Adjustment Layer > Selective Color.

from here, mess around with the different colors you have available to you! much like the hue/saturation layer, this changes all the time from gif to gif for me, so feel free to play around. with the selective color layer, you can actually make colors change by messing with the cyan, magenta, and yellow adjustment sliders throughout the different colors to choose from in the dropdown menu. again, play around with the different colors in this panel -- you can even mess with the black, whites, and neutrals again!

after playing around with my selective color layer, this is what my gif ended up looking like:

and now we’re almost done with making your gif!

STEP 5: THE FINAL LAYERS & EXPORTING YOUR GIF

so now we’re at the final stretch. all we have are a couple more adjustment layers, and then we’re done! 

as you probably expected, go to Layer > Add Adjustment Layer > Levels. since coloring your gif, you’ve probably messed with the darkness/brightness of it in some way. this layer, as well as the next one, will help brighten or darken your gif to your liking, as well as add contrast if you’d like.

in the Levels panel that’s popped up, only mess with the middle number. the numbers on the left and right mess with the original base coloring you did to add contrast and brightness to your gif, which you don’t really want to mess at this point in the gifmaking process.

i usually put this middle number anywhere between 1.15 to 0.75, depending on how dark or bright i’ve made my gif at this point in the process. this gif is a little dark for me, so i brightened it up by putting the middle number at 1.15, as seen here:

and now we’ve gotten that bright contrast back that we sort of lost in the process of coloring our gif.

after this layer, go to Layer > Add Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast once again like we did for the base coloring. this one’s more for my personal taste than actually required, so feel free to skip it if you’d like.

in the panel that pops up, rather than making both the brightness and contrast equal like we did before, i usually tone down the brightness and turn up the contrast. i keep both of these numbers between -30 and -10 for the brightness and between 15 to 30 for the contrast. in the particular case of this gif, i put the brightness at -10 and contrast to 15.

and viola! you’ve completely sharpened and colored your gif! below is the difference between no coloring, just the base coloring, and the full coloring of this tutorial.

now that your gif is complete, if there’s nothing else you want to do to it (such as adding text, like i did for my gif), you can export it! go to File > Export As > GIF. this will get you to this pop up.

here, you can preview your gif and change the speed. when you’re changing the speed, i wouldn’t recommend going below 60%, but again, up to you! previewing your gif is also helpful to make sure your coloring looks good throughout your frames, because if you’re like me, you probably just looked at only the first frame while working on your coloring.

if your gif looks just like how you want it to, go ahead and click “Save”, and you’ve done it! you’ve made a gif!

once again, this is just my process of gifmaking. if you want another way to make gifs, or more information about other things you can do to your gifs, you can send an ask my way or head to arwen’s tutorials tag (which i use all the time) to see what you can find.

and more importantly, above anything and everything else i’ve said in this tutorial, play around with photopea! maybe you’ll find a way you like better for making gifs, or you’ll discover a button that does a cool thing, or something else that you like better than whatever i may have done in this tutorial.

mess around, experiment, and have fun with it; it’s gifmaking, after all!

[christianborle]

Hey friends! In some strange turn of events, I’ve been spending more time on this website again so I think I should make a post reintroducing myself and saying what I use this blog for now (as of December 2020)

So if you just stumbled upon my blog or if you’ve been following me for a while but forgot, hi! I’m tumblr user christianborle (am i really the man himself? well, that’s the question oop) and I’ve been on here since 2012 (oh god). You may know me from reblogging posts about christian borle, obviously, theatre/broadway (shoutout if you’ve been here since smash aired on tv omfg), star wars, doctor who, cartoons, and whatever other kinds of entertainment I enjoy. You may have seen me be involved in fandoms and discussions over the years and I may have been mutuals with some of you!

Around 2017 things were getting toxic on this website and I just needed to step away. With this whole pandemic, I’ve been watching a lot more movies and tv shows and reading more books, and slowly I dipped my toe back into fan stuff because I wanted to find more content. A little bit of Anne with an E, then Steven Universe, then Avatar the Last Airbender, and now Julie and the Phantoms has taken over my life, as you may have seen lol. (also i have maybe been avoiding responsibilities and work recently so if u see me actively reblogging a ton of stuff tell me to get tf off of here lmao)

While I do miss fan communities, it is still a bit overwhelming for me and I still need to focus on other areas of my real life. so how I operate tumblr now is I:

don’t scroll through the dashboard anymore so I can limit my screen time here. I only stalk my friends’ blogs and reblog from them. so if you see me reblogging like 25 posts from you at once, please don’t feel creeped out!

basically if i recently watched a movie or tv show i just go ham and spam y’all with it for a few hours/days. i’m not sorry lmao. so if you see some random influx of, for example, matilda (1996) gifsets for no reason, you can safely assume i rewatched it and i needed a moment to get my feelings out about it. i expected to only blog for a day about julie and the phantoms and now i’ve accidentally turned into a jatp blog so that may happen too lol. as always, you can blacklist whatever you don’t like to see!

a little bit hesitant to join fandoms again because a lot has changed in fan culture since i left and i can’t have too many distractions. but that doesn’t mean i am opposed to making new friends! i love to talk about the things I am passionate about and am always trying to be kind and lend a helping hand :)

if you’ve been following me for a while, you probably know who christian borle is (my url). you can rest easy knowing i am still a fan of his and seeing as his name is attached to this blog, i always try to uphold respectful standards because of that. i would reblog more stuff about him, but the tags are kind of scary tbh and as i said, fandom spaces have changed. but if you want to talk about him and his work and how awesome he is, or if you have any questions about him, my inbox is always open! i miss getting asks haha

So yeah! That is the current situation. Don’t know how long I’ll stick around, maybe it’ll literally just be for a couple more days and that’s it, or maybe a little longer, and I don’t know what the future will be for this blog, I’m just here to vibe. Thank you for reading all of this :)

And if we were mutuals long ago, hi! You probably changed your url and icon so I may not recognize you but I hope you are doing well. I may or may not go through and unfollow inactive blogs or ones I don’t recognize so if I unfollowed you I’m sorry! (it’s time consuming to do that tho so we’ll see lol) I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe!

Oh, and I’m not giving up this url.

~~~~~~~~~~ tl;dr: not as active in fandoms as I used to be but getting a little bit involved, mostly just here to vibe and reblog stuff i like and not sure what the future will hold for this blog. and i don’t scroll through the dash anymore to minimize screen time, only on friend’s blogs, so if you see me reblogging a ton of stuff from your blog in a row, pls don’t be creeped out!~~~~~~~

[mittensmorgul]

The Tumblr Beta Version: an objective analysis

I was tempted to just type “it sucks.” And while that is an objective analysis, it’s not exactly helpful. I’ve sent several requests to @staff and @support to restore my account to the old tumblr dashboard format, and received the same automated reply twice now. I’ll copy/paste it here so everyone is on the same page:

(lol, I had to go back and edit this, because apparently the beta version doesn’t display block quotes on the dash. So I’ve also put the block quotes in italics... hopefully it’ll display properly... note after editing: nope, it doesn’t display italics either... how the heck am I supposed to differentiate quoted text? I’ll start each quoted bit with an asterisk, I guess...)

*Thanks for reaching out about the beta dashboard.

*We're currently testing it out, and your account seems to have been selected to take part in the test. Thanks for your patience while we work on it! At this time there is not a way to opt out of testing. You may see your Tumblr experience return to normal as we continue testing.

WE CAN ONLY HOPE.

*In the meantime, check out some of the new features available only in the beta dashboard:

OKAY TUMBLR, IF YOU INSIST, though I would MUCH rather have back all the functionality I personally invested into this website through xkit... you know... making the site ACTUALLY FUNCTIONAL. Let’s see what this beta version has given me instead of functionality:

*Change Palettes: Go to the person icon, then click "Change Palette." You'll find the classic Tumblr blue, dark mode, and a few other color palettes for your dash.

So I tried out all the color palettes. In addition to the ones mentioned here, there’s one that’s trying to look like a green screen terminal that gives me flashbacks to the early 80′s. There’s a reason we stopped using green screen terminals... Another one is “canary yellow.” It’s very yellow. The “classic tumblr” isn’t actually classic tumblr... all the post boxes are dark blue with grey type, not white with black type. And all the other colors are the insanely bright fluorescent of the new Dark Blue standard tumblr scheme. Which means links are practically invisible unless I highlight them. It’s migraine inducing. The one theme with a light colored background is called “Concrete” or “Cement” or something like that and even that only works for about half an hour before the migraine aura really kicks in. I just want my Old Blue via xkit back. You know, what tumblr actually used to look like. I don’t want any of these horrible color palettes. None of them work for me.

*The new "meatballs" menu: This is where you can copy the post link, unfollow the Tumblr who made or reblogged the post, or report a violation to our Community Guidelines.

I could do all of this from the user menus with xkit, too. I don’t regularly report violations or have the urge to block people I have chosen to follow. Why on earth would I want to do any of this? And why would I want these features located directly beside the post link copy feature? 

You know what I do miss? I miss the xkit timestamps feature. I didn’t have to hover dangerously close to the KILL IT WITH FIRE meatballs menu in order to see when a post was made, and in this era of disinformation and misinformation spreading around this site faster than Covid-19, being able to see when a post was ORIGINALLY created is a far more useful feature than an easier way to block people. For reference: I currently have three blogs blocked. Two of them are pornbots. One is a nazi. If I don’t want someone’s content on my dash, I don’t follow them. This “feature” is entirely useless to me.

*A quick note: Pagination is not supported in this beta test, but we're collecting feedback to send to our engineers.

THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST. This beta test might actually be tolerable if I wasn’t trapped into endless scrolling. If I could page through my dash, refreshing it every ten posts or so. You know why? Because once I scroll about 30 posts down my dash, tumblr starts overheating my laptop under the load of ALL THOSE POSTS. Things start malfunctioning-- it takes longer and longer to load new posts the farther I scroll. And the keyboard navigation (both page down and hitting J to advance to the next post, and even just using the down arrow to scroll as I read a long post) freeze and stop functioning. One of my laptop fans has actually begun to malfunction.

You know why this wasn’t a problem on the old version? If the data load got to heavy, I could open a post in a new tab, click view on dash with xkit, and voila! Brand new tab! I could close the malfunctioning tab and everything would be refreshed to normal! But without pagination, THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Also, after reblogging a few posts, the beta version of this site breaks, and doesn’t open a post tab to add commentary or even tags. It just... reblogs the untagged post with no warning whatsoever. You know... that’s really really not cool. I tag EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. The tags are the only way to keep track of the 40k+ posts on my blog. And warn people that I am posting potential spoilers, or other specific content. It’s REALLY inconvenient to have to either immediately go to my blog to edit the post and add tags, or even comments. The alternative is to scroll up to open individual posts I want to reblog in a new tab, and then reblog directly there. Ironically enough, THOSE pages actually open with xkit installed, and everything (surprise!) functions perfectly there.

It’s perfectly reasonable to understand why this specific issue has limited the number of posts I reblog. Reblogging content should not be this much of a hassle. Creators have been complaining for a while that reblogs have drastically slowed down, and I think making it even more annoying and difficult to reblog posts will not help this problem.

Also, with xkit enabled, there’s a function that auto-loads images as you scroll, so the images are always visible BEFORE they appear on screen. I don’t have to look at the colored boxes and wonder if this is a post I’ve already seen or something I should sit and wait for. Don’t even think about watching tumblr videos. Loading priority is given to the ads that you cannot pause or dismiss, so that video loads and plays in choppy two second bursts instead of being given priority. Since that’s the content I am actually here to consume, it kinda makes me want to do the opposite of patronizing anyone who advertises here with graphically intense ads. And then when you scroll away, with xkit, gifs and videos you’ve scrolled past STOP loading and playing, which I think might be contributing to the intensity of the resource hogging that’s literally melting down my laptop.

And for reference, I have a pretty decent little gaming laptop. A blogging platform shouldn’t be driving it to the brink of frying itself. I didn’t realize just how much xkit worked to streamline this and provide basic functionality to this site.

*And lastly, if you're an XKit user, know that the XKit team is working hard to update things on their end to make it compatible with the beta dashboard.

And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I’ve lost without xkit. And this is a really REALLY garbage response to user complaints. “Oh, yeah, sorry we made our site suck even worse, but those nice people who do our jobs for free will surely fix our garbage soon!”

Dear wonderful people at @new-xkit-extension, I love you, and I miss you, and while I wish xkit worked with this beta version I’ve been forced into living with, I truly feel for y’all who are trying to deal with this nonsense on behalf of all of us.

And to the folks at Tumblr... maybe try to just... make your site actually more like xkit. You know, actually functional. None of these special new features are useful or functional to me. I respectfully request for a fourth time to be removed from this inane beta test.

Give us OPTIONS. Let us display ALL THE TAGS without having to click a button. Let me have back my Activity+ that actually allowed me to interact with people from my dash! That showed me real-time inline notifications in a way that I could reply to with a single click! Bring me back to my column of open messaging conversation icons so I have easy access to the people I talk with throughout the day instead of closing them all every time I refresh the page. I already feel socially isolated in freaking quarantine, please stop shutting off all my avenues of communication!

Let us have pagination! I mean, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to force heavy users of this site into a beta version that doesn’t allow us to opt out until your engineers had actually figured out how to make it work in a very basic way.

*Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with!

YES. PLEASE REMOVE ME FROM THIS BETA TEST NOW. I have let you know exactly what I want from this site. I just want it to ACTUALLY WORK. For someone who spends 12+ hours a day on this site, this beta test version is NONFUNCTIONAL. PLEASE ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT. I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU. I WILL ACTUALLY PAY YOU CASH MONEY TO ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT OF THIS AND GO BACK TO HAVING A FUNCTIONAL BLOG AGAIN. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!

PLEASE! 

I AM OFFICIALLY AT THE END OF MY PATIENCE FOR ENDURING THIS NIGHTMARE.

(one final quick note... I’ve only been back on my dash long enough to make the parenthetical edits-- i.e. adding italics that don’t display and then adding the asterisks at the beginning of each section of quoted text, and already my laptop is overheating again. For reference, I originally typed this entire post from within my tumblr inbox page-- which still functions normally with xkit-- and spent over an hour on it. My laptop was fine the entire time. Clearly the issue is this beta version of the website. I will never forgive tumblr if y’all fry my literal only portal to the outside world at this time. PUT ME BACK TO NORMAL NOW. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING AND ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE. Thanks)

(oops apparently i lied... when the asterisks and the previous final note failed to display, I thought that seemed suspicious, and realized that I literally needed to refresh my entire dash in order to see edited changes. Funny how xkit enabled me to do that in real time, which is just another bit of functionality I’ve lost with this beta program. Please guys, this is really, really not working for me at all, just put it back.)

[thefloatingstone]

I really like your blog! I specifically like the stuff you reblog because it's so in tune with my interests that I can browse for hours while forgetting that this is in fact NOT my dashboard! I hope you're feeling better and talking to someone.

Thank you very very much, Anon! That’s really flattering, and I’m really glad you find my blog so enjoyable. Sometimes I worry I reblog too much and that people may only be following me for my art and become disappointed by my blog as a whole. So it’s really nice to hear.

It’s been a couple of weeks, so I am feeling better, thank you. And I am talking to somebody, I promise

Thank you, anon

It’s really rough, I won’t lie. And it’s been rough for a very long time. But I do hear you on the “it’s impossible to NOT find somebody who’ll click with me.” But I do sometimes fall into the thinking of “how is it possible that there are 7 billion people out there and I seem to struggle in finding anyone irl to even have a conversation with.” But that’s a thought pattern I don’t really want to entertain right now.

Also, it sounds weird to say, but thank you for saying it’ll get worse before it gets better. Because that kinda.... makes it feel more real, you know? It’s way too easy for my brain to just think nice things people say are “empty platitudes”. So when something feels a little more down to earth, it hits me a little harder. So thank you.

Thank you so much @under-the-dragonz-tail. Things are better now. At least for right now. But thank you for sticking with me while I was in a really bad place, and for reach out.

Thank you Anon.

thank you

Thank you @nina-thegamergirl And thank you for the good vibes and sending me some kind words. Nothing has changed yet, but I’m hanging in there a little better now. Thank you for messaging me and making me feel less alone and isolated

@torrikor We may not talk a lot but I still consider you a friend

This legit made me crack a tiny little bit the first time I read it.

Thank you Anon

Thank you @vass-junk It’s really difficult to try and fight feelings when they punch down that hard, but things are better now, at least for now. And thank you for caring about me, even if just in a tumblr fandom sense.

Thank you so much @sin-cognito Things are better now.

While I was trapped in a pit of depression and literally could not keep up with tumblr and did nothing but stare at youtube for 2 days straight, I couldn’t remember who said these things, but somewhere in that pit my brain was clinging onto the things you mentioned, specifically “nobody can predict what tomorrow brings” and how you pointed out that all my negative thoughts all started with “I feel”. So while in that terrible mindset, those two things really hit me and gave me some sort of grounding, and I remembered them clearly despite the rest of those 2 days being kind of a blur.

So I sincerely want to thank you very much for that. It definitely helped, probably more than you realise even after hearing me trying to explain it.

Thank you for being there, and for sending me this message, and for looking out for me and showing me that in whatever way, I’m not completely and utterly alone, even if I am all by myself.

oof. I know that feel. That’s been happening a lot lately.

Thank you @readingatdawn7. And thank you for writing something even after tumblr tried to sabotage you! The move was really hard coming off the back of a year of really hard things. I’m still not sure if it will be alright in this town, but I’ve been making plans and taking steps to change things and I hope they can come to fruition soon.

@legademacinderheart It’s more than just consolation, believe me. And even if online connects can’t replace ones in real life, they do a TOn just to let me know there ARE people out there who actually exist in real life who actually do care, even if just through fandom or because I can draw.

I don’t think I fully realise how lucky I am to have that, and how much worse it could have been if I didn’t.

@xxtc-96xx Thanks TC!

Thank you @itmestine and honestly? Even if it took a year and a half, it’s somehow comforting to hear it happened at all. I still don’t know if it’s even possible for me to find some form of irl friendship here, but I am trying. It’s difficult, but I’m making an effort not to spend all of my time in my room working. Even if it’s just driving to the mall to get groceries or going to a favourite place to eat. I am making a large effort not to just sit by myself all the time.

Somebody suggested getting into a DnD game which can be a good way to meet people. But I haven’t tried it yet. I’m concerned about asking on the town’s facebook page because I’m worried I’ll get marked as some sort of “““satanist”““ for wanting to play DnD. But I’m also worried about starting my own game and inviting people to it because I don’t know how to DM and I feel I’m too awkward and shy to be the person heading a game.

I’m going off topic now though. Thank you for sharing with me. It does give me a little bit of hope.

@54viruses Have I told you how jazzed I am that you’re on tumblr now? Because I am really REALLY jazzed to see you on tumblr!! I was REALLY happy and excited when I saw your avatar pop up on my notifs here! And I’m super happy to see you around

And thank you so much man. And I legit can’t even believe you remember the mayo rice balls. Holy shit.

(I still love them)

@sketchehkimmeh Honestly? that whole “go to a coffee shop” thing just to be around people even if not directly interacting is a really good idea. A coffee shop I really like is moving to the mall around the corner from me, and I’m hoping once they open I can start spending a lot of time there, if only to write fanfics or something. (I’m hoping a change in environment might help the writing thing)

And don’t worry, I am seeing a therapist and he’s helping me with stress management and anxiety problems. He can’t really help me meet other people, but it’s at least one extra person I can speak to.

Thank you for sending me some words of encouragement.

And thank you to everyone else as well. I know I’ve had bad spots in the past before, but this was.... probably the worst I’ve had. I certainly can’t remember being that low before. I’ve never reached a point where I literally shut down and couldn’t do anything but watch youtube while lying in bed for 2 days straight.

Your messages did help though. I read them on my phone as I was notified of them, even though I didn’t have the energy to scroll through tumblr. I don’t know if I fall into that headspace again if I feel they’d be as effective as I do re-reading them while I’m feeling better, but I remember in my fugue state that your words and messages and just the very very simple fact that people cared enough to SAY things to me helped an enormous deal, even if it just meant it chased away dark thoughts and the adrenaline pumping through me for 5 minutes, it was 5 minutes feeling better than I had been previously.

So that you again. I’m sorry I took so long to respond. I was in no condition to do so when you guys sent these, and when I started feeling better I just wanted to ignore those feelings and try get back to normal again.

But thank you.

[lliaq]

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I guess it’s finally time to make some changes.

TL;DR: not purely a SPN blog anymore, ‘not spn’ tag goes away, not going to turn multifandom but you might see more animals, nature pictures and random shitposts (basically what it’s already been for a little while now), gonna be cleaning up my dash and unfollowing some people (nothing personal)

horribly long winded explanation below

A few weeks ago I opened tumblr, as one does, and scrolled for a bit and saw some spn related news and the only thing crossing my mind was “huh I really don’t care anymore” and that was kind of a bittersweet realization.

This show has been with me for literally half of my life. I started watching when I was 12 and I’m 24 now. That’ actually crazy to think about. Without getting too personal, my teenage years were pretty turbulent and SPN was the one thing that was always there, the only solid, steady thing that didn’t change - and I honestly don’t know where I would be today without it, or if I would be here at all.

You know, looking at it now it’s hilarious, but I was actually a Sam!girl in the beginning - how the times have changed. I mean I was 12 and thought he was cute lmao, but then I get older and more observant and I started seeing myself in Dean a lot more, and he’s always going to have a special place in my heart. I mean, personal feelings aside, he’s such a great and multi-faceted character. For someone who loves stories that’s always something I’m going to be drawn to.

Supernatural also taught me English. Obviously, I didn’t learn only through SPN, but it did help a great deal. I actually remember, 4x05 was the first time ever I watched something in english without german subtitles and I was so confused. I could barely keep up lol But I stuck with it and eventually got to the point where I could just watch the episodes as they aired, instead of waiting for dubs and being like 2 years behind - so hooray for that

It also led me to video editing back in the day (good ol’ windows movie maker days), and then again many years later. It inspired me to learn how to make graphics and gifs and draw. It’s given me a way to express myself through a variety of mediums, something that I’ll always be grateful for.

I actually kind of stopped watching once. Like, I was still watching, but it was more of a “it’s running in the background while I’m doing other stuff” kinda thing, you know. So I just missed a lot, but it was still there in my life, still present. I don’t remember exactly when this was, but I think it was somewhere around the end of S7/beginning of S8, and I didn’t get really back into it until early S11. I was going through a rough patch - and guess who was there, just like all the times before? Yup, SPN. So I rewatched everything from S1 and then I binge-watched convention panels and that was the first time I’d laughed in months.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to properly put into words how important this show has been for me throughout such formative years of my life, and later when I was struggling. The way I used to watch Baby when I was feeling anxious because the way it was shot made me feel like I was there in the car and it made me feel safe during a time when I didn’t even feel safe in my own home, or the way Carry on My Wayward Son hits me with a full blast of over a decade worth of emotions every time I hear the opening chords. It’s a lot of little things like that that have accumulated over the years into something beyond words.

But - things change, they always do. And look, I don’t want this getting into wank territory, but I also want to be honset. The direction that Dabb has taken the show is too far removed from what it used to be. I think he’s an okay writer, and I think he’s a bad showrunner. Those are two completely different pairs of shoes and I don’t think the second one is right for him. But that is just my opinion. At the end of the day, it is what it is, and whatever Dabb is doing - it just isn’t for me. So I’m taking a step back, maybe two.

Keeping up a blog solely dedicated to something that I’m barely interested in anymore just seems like a collosal waste of time and energy and I just don’t want to do it anymore.

As a result, I’ll no longer be tagging things as “not spn”. I will still tag other shows/movies accordingly, altough I don’t think you’ll be seeing that much of those anyway - I’m not really active in that many other fandoms. Most likely it’ll just be less Supernatural and more pictures of cute animals and scenery, shitposts and some other odd things here and there. Basically, I’m going back to what this was before SPN took over. Either way tho - if that is not your cup of tea, or if the tag change is an issue for you, feel free to unfollow me, no hard feelings And speaking of unfollowing: I’ll be doing that as well, because I just want less SPN on my dash (especially stuff that isn’t Dean). So if we’re mutuals and I unfollowed you: it’s nothing personal. I just want to be happy with the content on my dashboard again. As far as content creation goes, I’m not sure yet. Frankly, SPN has been the very opposite of inspiring for me for a while now, but we’ll see what S14 brings, I guess.

Okay, this got way longer than I intended (not that I’m surprised) but I guess it was nice to just say this all before I move on.

It’s been a wild ride, Supernatural, and you’ll always have a place in my heart, but it’s time. Thank you for everything

[clumsyphilip]

It’s In The Eyes

Hiding that you’re in love with your best friend can be difficult at the best of times, add in the fact that every time you’re together the internet makes endless gifs of your “heart eyes” and it can be impossible.

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: None! (Well, like one swear word)

A/N: Honestly this was just an excuse to reference their constant love eyes at each other because it’s literally cute af

Dan’s been in love with Phil for as long as he’s known him.

Maybe even before that. As far as Dan can remember he’s had at least a crush on Phil from the moment he first saw him on camera and it’s never really changed. Obviously, their relationship’s developed as they have and he’s gone from being some secret internet fanboy to Phil’s best friend and whilst he’s always felt lucky to just be a part of his life, he can’t help but wish for something more.

And he’s always assumed that if they’re right together then they’ll figure it out, but the problem is that he wants Phil now, and it’s getting harder to hide.

He can’t seem to help himself. Everything that Phil does completely amazes him because he does everything so well and sometimes he just can’t stop himself from staring, he notices himself staring at Phil a lot.

But the cut of his jawline above his slender neck and broad shoulders is hard not to stare at. As are his blue eyes in harmony with his pale skin; long, dark eyelashes brushing stark cheekbones every time he blinks and Dan catches himself just taking Phil in far too often.

The problems start when it becomes second nature and he does it on camera, and the internet catches it too.

Now, he finds himself frozen part way down his tumblr dashboard, unable to scroll any further as he looks in horror at the gif set in front of him. There he is, looking at Phil as if his face is the first one he’s ever seen.

The only saving grace is that gif-set Phil seems oblivious to it as he plays The Sims, blissfully unaware that his supposed best friend is looking at him with that much intent. Though, Dan feels his fingertips turn cold at the realisation that there’s a fairly high chance that Phil might stumble on one of these gif sets and ask him about it and right on cue Phil decides to remind Dan that he’s sat in the same room as he is.

“Christ Dan, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Phil chuckles from the other end of their sofa. Dan slams his laptop lid down before he can even think about how suspicious he looks, blushing when Phil raises an eyebrow at him.

“It was nothing.” Dan laughs nervously. “Just a kind of creepy video.”

“Creepy how?”

“Like... Conspiracy theories and stuff.” He feels his blush turn deeper as he lies, knowing that he sounds completely unconvincing but trying to divert Phil’s attention for a moment. “Have you had dinner?”

“No actually, wondered if you fancied pizza?” Phil smiles easily as he looks away from Dan and back to his MacBook to edit his video. Taking a moment to marvel at him before shaking his head lightly, Dan stands up.

“I’ll grab drinks, you order.” He says, leaving the room quickly.

He sighs with relief once he’s out of Phil’s earshot, glad that he’s managed having to avoid explaining himself, for now. 

But he’ll have to be more careful.

--------

“Are you nearly done with that video yet?” Phil asks, poking his head around the door to their gaming room and making Dan jump.

“We need to get you a bell or something.” He mumbles. “But I actually just uploaded it.”

Phil gives him a thumbs up and an exaggerated smile before ducking out of the room to presumably go and sit back down now that he doesn’t have to worry about Dan’s lazy editing habits anymore. He knows that Phil’s gotten a bit curious as to why he’s volunteered to edit every gaming video they’ve done for the past two weeks but he just needs to make sure that no more clips of him staring at Phil make it onto the internet.

Honestly, he’s seeing more and more of them and he doesn’t understand how people can be quite so perceptive but it’s a problem because it’s getting harder to hide it from Phil. Despite knowing that he shouldn’t be staring like that, it doesn’t seem to stop him and trying to prevent Phil from seeing any of the gifs, or worse seeing it in person, is becoming increasingly difficult.

The trend seems to have caught on and now people are calling him “heart eyes Howell” and they’re tweeting it to Phil, who thankfully hasn’t mentioned it.

Dan pushes him up from his desk chair and shakes his legs out as he stretches his back, walking lazily into the living room and collapsing in the seat next to Phil.

Phil looks at him and opens his mouth but quickly closes it again to look back at his laptop, then he looks back to Dan again, then away, then back again and Dan pokes him lightly.

“Have I got something on my face?” He asks jokingly, smiling as Phil looks down in slight embarrassment.

“No, no it’s nothing.” 

“Come on.” Dan encourages, poking Phil’s arm again for good measure, making him laugh.

“It really is nothing, just well- have I got something on my face?” Phil turns his laptop to face Dan as he speaks, showing him a clip of the video that he literally just uploaded where Dan is just staring contentedly at the side of Phil’s face.

Dan feels his entire stomach flip, heat flaring through his chest and arms and making its way up to his face to light up his cheeks in a hot blush, he looks up at Phil and feels his insides constrict because he can’t help but appreciate how he looks now too. A half smile sits on his face delicately and he looks at Dan with such softness that Dan could almost swear that he was trying to take him in too.

“No.” Dan forces out after a while. “I didn’t even notice that, I must have just zoned out or something.”

Phil hums as if he’s thinking about whether he’s happy with Dan’s excuse or not, looking him up and down to try and gauge whether he’s lying. Doing his best to keep a straight face, Dan relaxes when Phil finally smiles over at him, bright and beaming.

“That’s so you.” He chuckles, going back to scroll through his twitter feed.

“Are they happy with it?” Dan asks, desperate to change the subject to just about anything else. 

“I think so.” Phil mutters absentmindedly, clearly not paying that much attention to him anymore.

Dan’s body doesn’t seem to want to calm down, still tingling as Phil drops the subject that his mind can’t seem to. How had he missed that in editing when he’d been trying so hard to notice it?

Grabbing his phone, he too opens twitter to look at the reaction to the video, trying desperately to calm down the nerves he feels over being caught by Phil and using all of his will power not to look back over at him.

He’s trying so hard not to look at Phil, in fact, that he doesn’t quite catch it when Phil begins to stare back at him.

--------

Weeks pass and nothing happens.

Nothing except that Dan notices Phil starting to coin a nickname of his own from the fans and he begins to see the term “love eyes Lester” thrown around almost as much as he see’s “heart eyes Howell”. Though when he watches the videos, and maybe he’s started following a few phan accounts “just to keep track of it all”, he can’t help but think that he looks at Phil with just more than when Phil looks at him.

It disappoints him, though he’s not sure why.

He knows Phil well enough to know that his feelings are unrequited, though it doesn’t stop him wishing otherwise. He’s been trying to talk himself out of being in love with Phil for quite literally years and come to find that it just doesn’t work like that.

Though coming to terms with it makes it hurt less every time Phil goes on a date, or calls him his “friend” or “roommate”, or leaves him on his own when he goes to see his family, Dan still occasionally feels a pang in his stomach or a tightening in his chest when he remembers the nature of their relationship. 

It’s not like he hasn’t tried to hint at more over the years. He’s tried to subtly get more touchy with Phil, only for Phil to look uncomfortable the entire time, and he’s definitely tried to make a drunken move and pass it off as the alcohol but Phil manages to just laugh it off and never mention it again. 

Eventually it made sense to stop hinting and either drop it completely or at least let Phil move at his own pace, though he hasn’t exactly decided which one of those he’s doing now.

As it is, tonight’s one of those nights where his chest feels tighter than normal because Phil’s away and he's counting down every minute that passes until he finally gets a Skype call.

He taps his fingers on the desk mindlessly as he stares at his computer, deciding that if he’s going to talk to Phil then he’s going to do it properly like he would for a liveshow. Staring at the little clock in the corner, he watches as another minute ticks by and Phil still doesn’t call him, slouching back in his chair and sighing loudly.

“Come on.” He whisper to himself, jumping when a ringtone goes off almost simultaneously, Phil’s name flashing across the monitor. “Magic.” 

He answers the call instantly, giving Phil a dorky wave and laughing as Phil mimics the gesture. 

“How’s the great north?” Dan asks, unable to take the smile off his face as Phil shakes his head at him.

“Cold and full of strange creatures.” He wriggles his fingers as he speaks before covering his mouth to hide his tongue as it pops out when he smiles at Dan again.

“And the Lester clan?” 

“All good! I actually can’t stay for long because we’re all having dinner soon but I just thought I’d check in.”

“I’m not a child.” Dan rolls his eyes, trying to hide the way that his whole mood brightened at the fact that Phil called to check that he’s okay and not just because he’s bored.

“I know, I know.”

Dan hears Phil’s mum call something from outside the room and Phil sighs as he tilts his head towards the door to hear her better. 

“Yeah, I will do!” He calls at the door, sighing even louder when he turns back to Dan. “Right so this is really embarrassing but she’s forcing me to say something to you.”

“Okay?” 

There’s a silent moment as Phil stares at the ceiling before looking back at the webcam to speak to Dan again. 

“Mum saw me staring at you in our latest video and says I should apologise because ‘staring is rude’”

As hard as he tries, Dan can’t hide the laugh that bubbles it’s way up his chest and out of his mouth, only getting louder as he sees the blush covering Phil’s face on the other end.

“Stop laughing at me!” He says exasperatedly.

“Sorry but that’s actually priceless, Phil.” Dan chokes out between laughs. “You actually got made to apologise by your mum for looking at me.”

“Please, make this more embarrassing.”

“Alright I’ll stop, but you will literally never live that down.”

They both quieten as Dan tries to stop himself from laughing anymore and Phil just watches him through the screen, he looks at Dan with one eyebrow raised for a moment before he shrugs and lowers it again.

“Maybe I can see what she means, it is kind of weird to be stared at like that.” He says.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re staring at me now.”

Dan coughs in surprise before he regains enough composure to speak again. “We’re on a video call, what are you expecting me to do?”

“Most people just look at themselves.”

“Most people are vain.”

“Alright.” Phil shrugs, tilting his head towards his door once again. “Right that’s my cue, I might call you tomorrow if I get time but I’m off for now.”

“Okay, have fun!” Dan smiles, secretly letting out a sigh of relief that Phil’s getting called away so he can’t question him anymore. They both give the same over-animated waves that they did when the conversation started and then the screen goes black and Dan’s left staring at his own face.

He goes about the rest of his evening, and it takes him nearly half an hour until the wind gets knocked out of him with the realisation that Phil’s mum had noticed Phil staring at him. Apparently, he’s that obvious too.

Just as quickly as hope began to rise in Dan’s chest, he pushes it down again because he’s not a teenager and just because his friend looks at him doesn’t mean that they’re looking at him.

He tries to put it out of his mind for the rest of the evening. Unsuccessfully.

--------

Dan’s not sure what in the world he’s done but suddenly Phil doesn’t seem interested in him. It’s not like he’s mad or they’re not getting on but Phil just isn’t really around anymore.

They film a video and then he goes straight to his room, or he makes them both dinner but then eats it alone, saying that he needs some “quality time” to himself. Which Dan would understand, but it’s constant lately.

He’s taken to staying in his room in the evenings because waiting for Phil in their living room every night was beginning to feel desperate and he needs to feel like he’s isolating himself on purpose and not because he’s not being given any other choice. 

Also, he’s noticed that in their videos Phil seems stiff, wooden almost. Not in a way that anyone but Dan would notice but the thing that stands out the most to him is that Phil doesn’t look at him at all, doesn’t even glance in his direction for the duration of every video they’ve filmed for the past two weeks and Dan just cannot figure out what it is that’s changed.

Since they Skyped, who stares at who hasn’t been brought up once and Dan assumed that it was forgotten but Phil’s avoidance to look at Dan seems just too deliberate to be coincidental but Dan can’t think of a non-awkward way to bring the topic up.

So he just sits in his room alone, hoping that eventually Phil will go back to normal and they can forget the whole thing.

He’s halfway through a bowl of pasta before he hears a knock at his door, and he almost throws his food halfway across the room with the urgency at which he gets up to answer it, running to the door.

He pulls the door open quickly to a clearly sleepy, and frankly adorable, Phil on the other side. Phil’s staring down at his feet and wringing his hands together, long fingers entwining with one another as he drags his gaze upwards to fixate on Dan.

Their eyes meet immediately and they stare into each other. Dan does his best to control his breathing, but eventually has to break the gaze before he gives himself away.

“We need to talk about it.” Phil mumbles, dropping his own eyes back down to the floor. Dan shifts uncomfortably.

“About wha-”

“About the staring.” 

Phil looks to Dan quickly before looking away again, eyes darting around the room but not focussing on anything in particular as Dan tries to take a moment to collect his thoughts.

About the staring.

Fuck.

“About what staring?” He asks innocently. Maybe, he thinks, if he can downplay this one more time he can get away with it for good and it can be forgotten. Ultimately he can’t mess things up with Phil over something as simple as looking at him.

Though he knows that he doesn’t just look at him, he admires him. And it’s all over his face.

“There you go again, staring at me, it always seems like you want to...”

“Like I want to what?”

Dan’s heart hammers against his ribcage as he comes to the decision that this is his moment. It’s too late to pretend he doesn’t know anymore; all or nothing, do or die, this is it.

He mentally prepares himself for what he’s about to do and takes one more longing look at Phil to drink him in as much as he can. Ruffled hair, tired eyes and perfection in front of him, hopefully thinking the same as he is because if not... Well, best not to think about if not.

“Well.” Phil mutters, reconnecting his gaze with Dan’s and shuffling slightly closer to him. “Like you want-”

His sentence is cut short as Dan takes a final steadying breath before surging forwards to kiss Phil, bringing a hand up to cup the back of his head gently as he does so. Bracing himself for Phil to push him away. He can only try to contain his smile as Phil melts in his touch instead, taking the other step forward so that he can wrap an arm around Dan’s waist to pull him closer.

Dan feels his body ignite, warmth spreading from his fingertips into his core as Phil presses his lips against Dan’s, moving them needily as he pulls lightly on his hip, free hand resting round his neck in an attempt to pull him closer.

They kiss sweetly for a while, light brushes of their lips that leave them both tingling with goosebumps forming wherever the other one touches them before Phil breaks it, pulling away slowly and opening his eyes to meet Dan’s again.

“Like you want to do that.” He sighs happily, beaming at Dan.

“As if you can talk, love eyes Lester.” Dan teases, enjoying the way that Phil looks away from him coyly. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you too.”

“Shut up, heart eyes Howell.”

--------

A/N: so i literally just wrote this on a complete whim because i got the idea and ran with it and now here it is, written at 1 a.m so sorry for any mistakes!

i really hope you enjoyed this one as it was fab to write, please let me know your thoughts if you like and thank you for reading!!

other fics can be found (here) ❤️

[hornsbeforehalos]

Anytime, Sweetheart: Part 12

Pairing: JDM x OFC (RPF) Features: Ackles & Padalecki Families, R2, Misha Collins, Norman Reedus, Andrew Lincoln, and other OFCs

Summary: (I’m horrible at summaries, but let me try): Kylin Ackles runs to her brother’s house after leaving her abusive boyfriend of 3 years, where she meets Jeffrey. Events unfold that bring them together, as well as push them apart. Warnings: Emotional abuse, Physical Violence, mentions of rape, cursing, drinking, recreational drug use (weed), Strip Club, RPF, Older Man/ Younger woman, Sexual Content, NSFW 18+***

(A/N: This is strictly a work of fiction that I came up with off the top of my head. For fictional purposes his S/O & Son are not mentioned. I love him and his little family, though, so no hate intended. This is the first time posting anything on Tumblr, but I couldn’t get it out of my head since my ao3 fic is currently on hiatus because writers block. Feedback is appreciated. unbetaed, all mistakes are mine.)

SERIES MASTER LIST

TAGS:  @jml509 @jesbakescookies, @daddy-kink-confirmed, @aquivercactus @xagateophobiax @mkate-writes-things@jdmfanfiction @jeffreydeanneganstrash @missghoul18 

"What ever you do, do not look on Tumblr right now." I rolled my eyes to Dani's tone of voice, "What happened now?" "Misha."    I rolled my eyes again as I got off the couch to sit at the desk where my laptop had been placed. It was Saturday afternoon and the convention was in full swing. Jeffrey hadn't had the time to text or call all day, as was the usual when he was one of the main attractions. I knew how it went with his schedule. I sighed, "What the fuck did he say?"    "Let's just say that him and Jensen almost got in a fist fight during their panel. I don't think they've ever been this pissed at each other."

   "What the fuck happened?" I scrolled through my dashboard, countless videos being uploaded of the panel in question.    "A fan asked where you were, why you weren't with them, and his words were 'She's at home, packing to run away from her responsibilities.' Everyone kinda flipped on him. What's going on with that, anyway? You're going to fucking Georgia?"    "Yes. It was supposed to be just an office relocation for me but he flipped his shit and said if I wasn't going to be his assistant anymore than I wasn't going to do Gish either. I don't get it." I sighed, furrowing my brows, "I don't know why he's doing this." "Neither do any of us. Vicky can't even understand it."    I clicked on a video that had been labeled as their panel, with various comments about the argument the two shared. When it finally loaded I turned the volume up, ignoring Danneel’s grunt of protest

   Fan: "I was hoping to meet your sister, Jensen. Why isn't she here this weekend?"    Jensen opened his mouth to speak but Misha interrupted him, "She's at home packing to run away from her responsibilities," He nodded his head sarcastically.

   Jensen's mouth instantly fell open as he gaped at Misha, not believing what he was hearing.    "What in the Hell are you talking about?" he asked, putting a hand on Misha's shoulder and gripping it tightly.

   "Oh, you didn't know, babe? Your baby sister is running off to Georgia to stay with Jeffrey. She's not coming to Vancouver with us. She's not helping me with Gish anymore, either."    The crowd gasped, then the whispers stirred among everyone. Jensen moved the microphone away from his face and mumbled something to Misha, gripping his shoulder tight enough to make the other man wince. Misha mumbled something back and Jensen shook his head in disgust at him. Jensen stepped away from him, still shaking his head and putting some distance between them before he raised his mic to his lips once more, "I know you didn't fucking just say that, dude." "You fucking heard me."    Immediately Jared burst through the curtain from backstage, bolting directly for Jensen at the same time as he started to stalk towards Misha, fist clenched at his side. Misha of course stood there giggling like the sadistic ass hole he was as Jared hauled my brother off the stage.    "You've got to be fucking kidding me." I growled, slamming my laptop closed and leaning back in my seat. "I told you not to look." Dani replied, breathing deeply with exasperation.    "He's literally following me around, Dee, like what the fuck am I supposed to do?" I complained, stepping out on my back porch for a cigarette. Looking down, I noticed a few photographers lingering below on the street, cameras at the ready. I lit my smoke, inhaling the cancer with a relieved sigh as I flipped off the vultures below.    "Girl, I get it. Vicky gets it. Gen gets it too probably if Jared's filled her in by now. Misha's having a moment, and that's that. He'll get over it, you know he will."    "But why does he have to be such a fucking prick in the mean-time? Makes no fucking sense. None of it." I threw myself down in one of patio chairs, grumbling as I took another drag. "Look, I've gotta go, twins' are screamin'. Notify me." "I will, I love you." "Love you too."

   I was sitting outside again when Jeffrey got back to my apartment later that evening. I could hear the reporters below the balcony shouting at him to pose for pictures and asking him questions, which appeared to be ignored but I wasn't sure because I didn't move from my spot in the chair. I exhaled smoke as I heard him open the front door, followed by his boots trudging along the floor. "Ky?" he called, looking around the loft for me. "Out here," I replied back to him, still unmoving.    He slid the glass door open and walked out, lighting his own cigarette before throwing himself down beside me. He placed the hand nearest to me, the one not holding the smoke, on my bare thigh and gave me a small smile before leaning over to kiss me.    "How was your day?" I asked nonchalantly, taking the last hit from my cigarette before stomping it out in a near by ash tray.    "Eventful." He grunted, leaning his head against my shoulder after slumping down in the seat, his long legs stretching across most of the balcony.    "So I heard," I admitted, earning me a huff of a laugh from Jeffrey who tilted his head to look at glance at me for a second before looking forward again. He looked down a little, gnawing on his cheek from the inside, "I feel like all this is my fault." "Why?" I asked, confused expression crossing my face.    He sighed again, flicking his ashes on the patio floor as he squinted his eyes, "He's doing this because you want to come with me. I'm taking you away from him."    "You're not taking me away from anyone." I promised, lifting my arm up to wrap around his shoulders, fingers playing with the little pieces of his hair sticking up.    "It feels that way. " He sighed again, closing his eyes at the sensation of my fingertips.    "Well, he's dumb. He thinks he's trying to protect me, from what I don't know. He can manage just fine without me up his ass all the time, and he knows that. He knows that I can do my job whether I'm in Atlanta, Vancouver, or Los Angeles. He just wants to be a little bitch right now because someone's not doing what he wants. Which is stupid when it comes to me because he's known me long enough to know how I am." It was my turn to sigh, my lips pressing together to make a funny sound. Jeff giggled, and seemed to loosen a bit as he nuzzled his face against it's place on the side of my shoulder.    "I just don't want you giving up something you love because of me, sweetheart."    "I'm sure I can find something else that tickles my fancy, there are always other prospects." "You sound like me." he huffed, smile widening "Maybe you're rubbing off on me, Mr. J" "Well I definitely don't mind rubbing something off on you, Ms. Ackles."

   "We're going to have to stay with Norman for the first week that we're down there," Jeffrey sighed as he sunk himself down into the couch beside me. He had been outside on a call with someone, I wasn't sure who, but he seemed to be rather agitated.    I was scrolling through my social media, liking pictures and pinning stuff, and looked up at him with a smile, "I'm cool with it if Norman's cool with it."    "He's cool with it, trust me." He let out a half-hearted chuckle as he moved one hand to my knee as the other scrubbed his beard in thought.    "What's up?" I asked curiously, shutting my phone screen off and devoting my attention to him.    He sighed again, "The house I normally stay in isn't available right now, and it's gonna take the network a few days to get everything....sorted out."    My eyebrow quirked itself in suspicion, myself not really able to control the reaction. Something was bothering him, I could almost feel it, but I wasn't sure what it was, and if he wasn't going to come out and say it I wasn't going to pry. Instead, I leaned my head against his shoulder and threw my leg over his thigh.    "Got everything ready for tomorrow?" He asked casually, shaking my leg gently. Our flight out of LA was early as fuck and I had been procrastinating.    "Of course not, I was waiting on you to help me," I giggled, heaving myself off the plush cushion, turning around to grab both his hands in mine and lean back, "Come on,"    He shook his head back and forth with an amused smile on his face before standing up and following me into the bedroom. I opened my closet door and walked in, staring at the rows and rows of clothes that I had to decide between to take with me. He pulled down my suitcase from the top of the closet and sat it on the floor after opening it for me, then turned his attention to the fabric on the hangers while I opened a drawer to my dresser.

   "You have so many fucking clothes, woman. How many Metallica shirts do you need?" He asked, digging through the hanging shirts and finding five "Ride the Lightning" shirts back to back from each other.    "Shut up, you have like 30 Misfits shirts!" I snorted back, throwing a pile of blue jean shorts into the suitcase.

   "All of which appear to be here!" He accused, plucking two from the rack and holding them up as evidence, "Fucking thief!"    I rolled my eyes at him, tossing my bathing suits and underwear into the growing pile.    "Ooooh, I've never seen this before!"He exclaimed, pulling a short black dress off the hanger and holding it up while wagging his eyebrows, earning him yet again another eye roll from me when he threw it in the case and continued looking, a little bit more excitedly now as he snickered,"Gonna get you in something besides flannel and shorts,"    "You like my flannel." I quipped, throwing a pair of socks at his head that he dodged, "and my shorts."

   "I do, I do. But you haven't gotten dressed up for me in a while, you know." He smirked, eyebrow raised knowingly, "Gonna have to change that."

I snorted again, "Whatever."    "Hmmmm, where are your shoes?" He asked, shifting through the clothes again for a second before turning to me. "Hall closet, don't get any ideas." I retorted as he started to walk out of the door.    I've always got ideas, sweet heart." He winked back at me before darting towards the hallway.

   The trip to Georgia was essentially uneventful, or at least our definition of the sort. The transition in Denver greeted us with a few fans asking for photos and a few TMZ reporters spotting us, but no negativity was thrown around for once.    Norman picked us up at the Atlanta airport when we arrived, causing a little bit more of a stir since he decided to actually get out of the car and meet us instead of just grabbing us at pick up. Nothing got too out of control, but there were definitely a couple crazy fan girls among the crowd when Norman threw his arm around my shoulders as we walked and kissed my temple. "Get your hands off my men, bitch!"    I rolled my eyes and looked up to Jeffrey, who had his long arm hooked around my hip as we made our way through the frenzy. He looked down at me with a chuckle, his free hand scruffing his beard in amusement as his eyes flicked to Norman. He wiggled his hand down to grip my ass and give it a squeeze right before we got to the door. "Jeffrey!" I yelped, smacking him in the chest with my hand.    Norman removed his arm from my shoulders as we made our way through the exit to his truck, chuckling as he walked around the vehicle. Jeffrey peered down at me with a shit-eating-grin and licked his lips, "What?"    I narrowed my eyes at him and shook my head, not being able to keep a serious face for longer than two seconds before a smile cracked through, "You're an asshole."    "You know this, and you love this." He quipped before he threw our bags in the back of the truck and opened the back door for me.    "I've never said I have good taste in men," I mumbled, almost inaudibly as I crawled up into the big Chevy. "What was that?" Jeffrey quirked and eyebrow, watching me as I got situated. I turned to face him with an innocent smirk on my face, "Nothing, honey-kins."    He rolled his eyes with a big smile, tongue between his teeth as he chuckled, "What am I going to do with you?"    Without missing a beat my eyebrow instinctively raised itself and a cruel smirk displayed across my face. Jeffrey's eyes darkened at the sight of my own pupils dilating drastically against my bright green irises. I swear I could rear the rumble in his chest over Norman starting the engine before Jeffrey shut my door and got into the front seat.    "Sooo, Normskie, what's on your playlist?" I asked, poking my head between the two front seats.    He took a hand off the steering wheel to reach into the cup holder in front of the stereo and pass me back a iPod that was connected to the audio system. I giggled like a school girl, loving to be able to pick the music, as I scrolled through the never ending list of artists. Jeffrey turned his head to look at me questionably as Norman spoke up, "No bubble-gum girly bullshit, Princess."    I tilted my head to silently look up at the side of his face with my lips pursed, giving him my 'you fucking serious right now?' face. Jeff chuckled. I went back to my searching before finding a song I hadn't heard in ages.    "Ooooh, I used to have this CD before douche bag cracked it," I commented, hitting play.    The music started and Norman sat up straighter in his seat to quirk his head towards me before turning back and looking at me into the rear view, "The fuck you know about Misfits, little one?"    I ignored his question as I began bouncing in my seat to the sound of the music before singing along, leaving Norman with his jaw dropped and Jeffrey busted out laughing.

'If I cut off your arms and cut off your legs Would you still love me anyway? If you're bound and you're gagged, draped and displayed Would you still love me anyway? Why don't you love me anyway?​'​

​   Norman puckered out his bottom lip a little bit and gave an approving nod towards Jeffrey as he turned the volume up. I sat back in my seat and grabbed my phone as I continued singing along and began scrolling through my social media. The moment I opened Instagram I was greeted with over a thousand new notifications and tags of the latest picture from the airport, followed by the greatest caption I'd read up until that point, 'Jeffrey shares? Look at the way she's looking at Norman! Fucking whore.'    ​I busted out laughing and took a screen shot of the post before posting it on Twitter with my own caption and tagging both ​Jeffrey and Norman. ​   'The funniest upon all funny things I've seen today, and I was at the Atlanta airport earlier. @bigbaldhead @JDMorgan'    Jeffrey had been poking around on his phone himself when he got the notification, and instantly joined me in my giggles that I couldn't yet contain. He stretched his arm out towards the windshield with his camera function loaded. He flipped off the camera as I leaned back onto the seat and did the same with both hands, sticking my tongue out as Norman leaned over a little towards the console and flipped his own finger up. He clicked the button and moved the camera closer, filling just him and I in the frame. He smiled brightly but I remained unchanged besides putting my tongue back in my mouth and twisting my lips into a snarl instead. He clicked again but then gave me a look through the camera that told me he actually wanted a nice one. I rolled my eyes but scootched forward in the seat and rested my head on his shoulder and smiled for him.    He re-blogged my post to him with the picture of all three of us he just took with the caption, ' 1st of all, what we have to say about that. @bigbaldhead @kylinkackles'    Then he uploaded the second one, with just me and him and my angry face, he added, '2nd of all, she barely likes me, what makes you think she would put up with him? @kylinkackles'    Finally he uploaded the sweet one of us, 'Third of all, MINE. I don't share. @kylinkackles.'    I laughed and kissed his cheek before reclining back in my seat for the rest of the drive. Misfits continued to play as I went through the various responses to the posts, laughing at various responses. He pulled into the driveway of a particularly large two-story home. I looked up at it as I stepped out of the car, mumbling to mainly myself, "So this is what you get when you have money."    "This is what you get when your network loves you." Norman corrected, obviously hearing me.    "The boys really need to think about switching to zombie killing, leave the ghosts a lone for a while," I chuckled, crawling up onto the tire of the truck to be able to reach one of my bags from the back while Jeff grabbed the rest.

   The house was magnificently spacious, with a pool and hot tub in the back. Black and white photography cluttered the walls, various fine leather couches sprawled across the rooms. Jeffrey placed our luggage in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs, a large suite with a connected bathroom and California king sized bed. I explored the property while Jeffrey took a phone call, automatically ending up outside by the pool.    I sat at the edge with my feet dipping in and out of the cool water, watching the ripples as I thought about how dramatically my life had changed once again. Just four months prior I hadn't even been speaking to Jeffrey, been completely reliant on my self, had my own way. Even when I let him convince me to move to Los Angeles, I still had my own life, regardless of it being following Misha around. Now, here I was, on the opposite side of the country, in a state where I knew no one, completely at Jeffrey, and temporarily Norman's, mercy. Sure, I had a little bit of money in the bank, but no job. No idea of what I even wanted to do. Suddenly the idea that moving out here being a bad idea popped into my head. 'Come on, I mean you've only been with Jeffrey for 4 months, haven't even had sex with the man, barely told him you love him, and appear to have ended a 13 year friendship just so you could fly across the fucking country for him. For what? To be completely dependent on him? To have him take care of you?' I took a deep breath at the thoughts racing through my mind, willing myself to stop the panic attack threatening to spread through me. My thoughts were quickly distracted as Norman sat down next to me with his pants rolled up, his feet joining mine in the water as he handed me a beer.

"You alright?" He asked quietly, staring into the water.

   I paused for a moment as I sucked in a breath and replied, "I'm fine. Just thinking."    "About?" He said, pushing his Ray bans onto his face as he leaned back onto his hands. I continued to swish the water around silently for another second, "This." "What?" "I just kinda uprooted my whole life for the man." "So, what? You're having second thoughts?" "Not necessarily second thoughts, just feeling a bit overwhelmed."    He nodded in understanding, returning his gaze to the water, "I can figure it, seems like you've had a hell of a year."    I snorted in amusement, not sure if he knew exactly how true that was. Our conversation was interrupted before I could reply by Jeffrey closing the back door and walking towards us as he tucked his phone into his back pocket. He didn't seem too happy.    "Norman," he sighed, looking down at the both of us, "I need you to run me out there real quick."      Apparently knowing where 'there' was, Norman nodded his head and made the move to get up. I turned my body, lifting one leg out of the pool and looking up at him, squinting my eyes in the sunlight, "Everything okay?"    He gave me a small smile and nodded his head, "Don't worry about it, baby girl. Something I gotta deal with real quick. We'll be back in a little while, you'll be okay here by yourself?" "I'm sure I can manage." I nodded, pushing myself from the ground to stand up.    "Kitchen is kinda a wreck but you're welcome to anythin' in there." Norman added, looking back at me from where he had started walking towards the house, "Just use at your own risk."    I giggled at that before approaching Jeff, who looked down at me with the same small smile. Something was obviously bothering him again, but I still wasn't sure how to broach the subject. He leaned down and gave me a chaste kiss as he wrapped his arms around me for a quick hug. I followed him back to the patio and sat down to light a cigarette. He gave me one last kiss on top of my head before disappearing back into the house and out the front door with Norman.    The sun was setting and I watched the light reflect off the pool water for a few in silence before hearing the distinct buzz of my phone ringing. Ashing my cigarette while picking up, I saw that it was Misha calling me. I smirked, figuring it was him calling to apologize like he always did. I knew he needed me. "Hello, Dmitri," "How's your first day in Georgia, peach?" He quipped. "Fine, what can I help you with?" "Just calling to check in,"    "Hmmm, I'm sure that's what you're doing after the little stunt you pulled at the panel. Thanks for that." "You're welcome." I rolled my eyes, "What do you want, Misha?" "Is Jeffrey there with you? Getting you all settled into your new home?"    "We're staying with Norman for a few days, something with his house and the production team. They had to go out for a little bit. Why do you ask?" "Peculiar..." "What is?" "Oh, nothing, just connecting some dots laid out by a very reliable source." "What are you insinuating, Dmitri?" "I've asked you not to call me that." "Answer the fucking question, Dmitri."    "No, Kylin, I won't. I'll let you figure it out on your own, then when you come back I'll get to say 'I told you so'." "You told me what, dude? What the fuck is your problem?" "You'll see." He chuckled darkly before hanging up on me.    I growled my disapproval at my phone as I stomped out my forgotten cigarette, huffing as I removed myself from the chair I'd been sitting in and moved myself inside. I wasn't sure how long the guys would be gone, but I figured the least I could do was figure out something to make them for dinner. It was signaled that Norman hadn't eaten much besides junk for the last while based on how many Chinese food containers littered the counter-tops and spilled over the trash can. I dug around his freezer and found some chicken, which I sat out to defrost while I started on the cleaning.

   I had the kitchen spotless and had taken a shower in the over-sized stall before changing clothes into a pair of short sleep shorts and one of Jeff's shirts and starting dinner. 'Come on, and show them your love Rip out the wings of a butterfly For your soul, my love Rip out the wings of a butterfly For your so​uuuuuuuuuuuul.'​​

​   I was dancing in front of the pan of chicken and veggies, using the spatula as a microphone as I belted out the lyrics to one of my favorite songs when the music suddenly cut out and laughing broke out behind me. I spun around instantly, my wild bun of hair that I had tied onto the top of my head flopping infront of my face with my movements.    My eyes instantly went wide at the sight of Norman doubled over while Jeffrey looked away innocently, chuckling to himself while stroking his beard.    "Jesus Christ, Morgan, I wouldn't mind coming home to that, either!" Norman barked as he raised ​himself up straight and wiped the tears that sprung from his eyes. Jeffrey clapped a hand on the other mans shoulder with a grin as he finally made eye contact with me.    "She's somethin' else, that's for sure." He commented as he sauntered towards me, kissing my forehead on approach while looking at what I was cooking, "Smells delicious, sweetpea."    "I figured Normskie here hasn't eaten a real meal in a while, and it was the least I can do for his hospitality." "Well I definitively appreciate it, darlin',"

   Everyone made their plates once the food was finished cooking, and we all sat down at his big table to eat. Norman thought that everything tasted like heaven, apparently, and Jeffrey beamed at me with praise per usual. Jeffrey insisted on cleaning up the after affects of dinner as me and Norman went outside for a much needed full-belly-cigarette.

   "He loves you, you know. He really, really does." He spoke quietly, the exhaled smoke fluttering from his mouth slowly.    "I know." I replied, furrowing my brows in confusion, 'Why did that sound like he was reassuring me?'    "Good. I haven't seen him this happy in a while. His ex girl is a fucking nutcase." I chuckled a bit, taking a drag of my own smoke before exhaling, "I've heard." "You really haven't."    My eyes narrowed in suspicion, but I ignored it as Jeffrey opened the door to join us.    "Look what the fuck I found under your kitchen cabinet looking for the dish soap, fucker." He plopped down beside me with a very large bong.  Norman and I both stomped our butts out. "Ha, was wondering where that was. Find the bud too?" "Of course I did." "Hound dog." "Kinda hard to miss, dude."    I giggled as he passed it to me, criss crossing my legs on the bench with both men looking at me expectantly. Naturally, an eyebrow quirked as I lowered my lips to the mouthpiece in return. I lit the bright green substance and inhaled, quickly milking the thick smoke into the neck. Not bothering to take another breath, I pulled the bowl and sucked hard, ripping the water, the bubbles making one of the best sound in the world.

   I exhaled a cloud of smoke that most can only achieve through one of those stupid vape pen thingies. Both men sat and stared at me in awe.    "When's the last time you smoked, love?" Jeffrey questioned, eyes suspicious but amused as I passed him the bong and lighter. "Uh, Saturday?" I confessed. Jeff's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Holding out on me, were you?" He asked before inhaling himself "I live upstairs from a weed shop, Jeffrey."    "Touche." He grinned, voice altered slightly with holding his breath. He pushed the smoke out of his chest loudly and handed everything over to Norman.    "There's a half in the kitchen drawer under the coffee pot. Help yourself while we're gone but save me some." Norman chuckled, hitting the bong then passing it back to me.    We rotated it around a couple more turns before it was cashed, and chatted about them going back to work the next day. It was pretty late for their scheduled by the time we carried our selves back inside and parted with Norman to our respective bedrooms.    I crawled into the over-sized bed while Jeffrey stripped down to his boxers, my eyes dancing across his skin. He of course noticed. "See something you like, Sweet heart?" "Always." I replied, slightly blushing at being caught ogling.    "Mmmm" he hummed as he curled up beside me, pulling me into his chest and rubbing his rough hand across the flesh of my thigh.    "Mmmmmm"I hummed back, nuzzling my nose into the space at the base of his throat between his collarbones. He moved his huge hands to my ass, squeezing it slightly in his grasp. My own hand found the side of his face and I scratched the course hair there with my nails as my tongue darted out to tease his flesh. He rasped a moan and squeezed tighter briefly before capturing my mouth with his lips. He kissed me deeply, passionately, rubbing his hands from my ass up my back and rolling over to place my torso on top of him, fingers moving further up my spine from underneath my (his) t-shirt. He massaged my muscles for a while while kissing me before pulling away and arranging me against his side with my head on his shoulder.

"Sleep, sweetheart, I have to be up early in the morning." "Fine, " I replied, the slight disappointment in my voice unable to be hidden. "I love you, Kylin." "I love you too, babe." I sighed, something not quite settling right in my belly.

part 13 will be released 9/1/17!

[gguktastic]

He Tasted Like Love // D. H. X READER

NOTE : I didn't exactly understand the 'doesn't want kids' part, so I'm just gonna see it as 'is not ready for a relationship'. I'm so sorry for disappointing :( Warnings - swear words, vague mention of sex, very very boring and shit. ALSO YA'LL I HATE MYSELF I HAD THIS WRITTEN AND THEN I FORGOT ABOUT THIS I AM SORRY TO WHOEVER LOOK FORWARD TO IT LETS GO ON TO THE FANFIC SHALL WE // "DAN! PHIL! IN THE KITCHEN, THIS FUCKING INSTANT!" It was a rainy and miserable Saturday, and all I wanted were some mini Easter eggs to snack on, seeing as my room mates had bought them for a YouTube video on their very famous channel, but hadn't used them in the end. However, when I slouched to the kitchen to have some, well, you can guess what I discovered. Dan and Phil both grumpily walked into the kitchen. "[Y/N], it's fucking ten AM, you'd better have a good reason to wake us up at such an early hour," said Dan. Cue eye roll. "Who ate the mini Easter eggs?" I asked, cutting straight to the point. Both the boys straightened up, their cheeks painted in a light blush. "I'm sorry for eating a quarter of it, [Y/N]," said Dan, evidently guilty. "Ugh, whatever." "I'm sorry for eating the mini Easter eggs, [Y/N]!" Said Phil. I smiled at him. "It's okay, Phil. Just don't do that next time." Dan flared up. "What?!" He said, his voice high pitched. "So I'm dismissed rudely for eating, like, just a quarter of the pack, and Phil here is given a smile for eating the rest of it? This isn't fair!" He yelled, like a toddler. I laughed. "Dan! You're not a five year old anymore. Deal with it." Saying so, I simply walked out of the kitchen after pouring myself a bowlful of Dan's cereal. Right after me, Dan stomped out, and Phil stayed behind to give me a high-five (which completely flopped). Hello there. My name is [Y/N], and I'm a [INSERT DREAM CAREER HERE]. Three years ago, I found an advertisement in the newspaper by some Dan and Phil, who were apparently looking for a room mate. Since my current room mate threw wild parties at the apartment every other day and made me help her clean up, which basically meant she would sleep off her hangover, and I would end up cleaning the whole thing. On top of that, I'd been paying her monthly rent for around two years. Since I couldn't really afford to pay two people's rent or rent out an apartment of my own, I decided to ring the guys, whom I met the next day as I looked at their apartment after a coffee with them. I found out they were actually big-time YouTubers, so I pointed out that giving off their address and phone number like that could get them some serious stalkers. They said they had thought about it, and had decided to use a different phone number for calling, and to actually meet the person before taking them to their apartment to show them around. Still, dangerous. I, to this day, still didn't know why they were looking for a room mate, but I longer really cared. All that mattered was that none of them had tried to get in my pants. I was a sister to them, and to me, they were like brothers. However, I'm not going to deny that I have had a crush on Dan ever since I moved in, three years ago. I mean, could you blame me? Tall, dark hair, chocolate brown eyes, and those dimples? Irresistible. I shook my head, and proceeded to drown my feelings out with cereal. // Two days later, I waved goodbye to them as they got into a cab, on their way to the airport to leave for Singapore, and then, Australia, for a YouTube event. I sighed as the cab sped off. 'It's getting bored for a week now, great.' A day later, I was sitting in the lounge, re watching old episodes of Attack On Titan, wincing at all the gore and blood, when all of a sudden my phone began to explode with notifications. When I say 'explode with notifications', my phone literally fell of the table because it was vibrating that much. Twitter. Tumblr. Instagram. What on Earth even happened? I opened tumblr first, that's what mattered. All I saw on my dashboard was a picture of Dan, standing in front of the Merlion statue, mouth open, and in such a position that it looked like the water spouting out of the Merlion's mouth seemed like it was going directly into Dan's mouth. The caption? 'Yes quench my thirst Merlion dad.' I face palmed. Typical Dan. I scrolled a bit, and came across a picture of Phil, attempting the same thing Dan did and completely missing. I laughed, shaking my head. Those two, I swear. Again, two hours later, my phone exploded with notifications, thankfully not falling off the table this time (mostly because I was sensible enough to keep it away from the edge of the table.) I opened my Twitter this time. All I saw were the words 'Dan' and 'ripped jeans'. I finally found a picture. God damn. I'm not going to lie at all, but Dan look hot in ripped jeans, and my eyes bugged out looking at the picture of him. Oh lord, I need to stop. I got some more of Dan's cereal, to drown my feelings out: again. // A few days later, I woke up to the same thing happening. What did Dan do this time? I chose to go for Dan's Instagram this time. I felt my heart stop for a second. It was Dan, sat on a stool, wearing ripped jeans, and a long, feminine-cut flannel shirt. There was a smirk on his face, as he sat, legs apart. My breathing felt laboured. Oh, fuck. I immediately took a screenshot of the picture, and opened up the Messages app, just to shoot a quick text to Dan. [Y/N] - What is up with that fuckboi selfie? I sent the screenshot. A minute later, I got a reply. Danyul - Lmao I thought I was looking good wait I am looking good rite ;)) I laughed and replied. [Y/N] - you looked good but kinda like a fuck boy, js Danyul - ugh I want to kms now [Y/N] - nO you look like a good fuckboi Danyul - omfg what is wrong with u what is a good fuckboi [Y/N] - ugh whatever, I'll Skype you guys after your show, text me when ur done Danyul - lmao okay fine then ttyl enjoy the silence at home [Y/N] - I will dw, you enjoy australia Dan and Phil's meet and greet had probably started, that could be why he didn't reply, but just read the text. // "What the hell were you thinking, Dan?" I was skyping with the boys, and as soon as they picked up my Skype call, I called out Dan for the mirror selfie he'd posted a few hours earlier. "So I wasn't looking good?" He asked, a smirk on his face. Phil laughed as I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Yes, Danny boi, you looked good, kind of like a fuckboi - a good looking one at that - and you probably made the hearts of around a million girls from around the world stop and cause their 'deaths', as far as I saw on tumblr. Also, Phil, if you ever take a fuckboi selfie like that, apparently people are going to 'float out of their body and transcend into nine different dimensions," I said, making Dan laugh like a hyena and Phil stick out his tongue in the adorable way he does when he laughs. "You can tell them all, that is not happening any time soon," Phil said, and I laughed in reply. "Well I'm going to change out of these clothes now because my sweatpants are calling my name, I'll be right back," said Dan, disappearing into the bathroom with a pair of sweatpants and a tee. "[Y/N], spill." Demanded Phil, as soon as he thought Dan was out of earshot. I was taken aback, confused. "Spill? About what?" "Um? About the fact that you really, really 'like' like Dan?" I blushed visibly. "I - but - just that, I'm not ready for a relationship yet," I say, my voice getting quieter by the second. Phil's face softened and looked almost sad. "Todd?" "Todd." Todd was my ex-boyfriend, whom I broke up with only a few months ago after I found out that his 'helpful' colleague had been way too 'helpful' to him. It just made me not trust anyone else at all for a while and mainly just stop thinking about being in a relationship. I jumped back to the present as I heard Dan shut the bathroom door behind him and enter the frame. Phil and I put our happy faces back on as we talked till the sun came up, the dim light seeping through my partially open curtains. // "[Y/N], I'm hurt! Why wouldn't you come to pick us up from the airport?" Dan yelled, as soon as him and Phil entered through the front door of our apartment. I ran down the stairs to the actual door to the apartment. "Well, Dan and Phil, you'll find out when you go get changed and come into the kitchen!" I said, panting after the exercise. They looked at me, then each other, then shrugged. "[Y/N], it'd better be good, I'm still a bit offended." Said Dan, making Phil and I laugh as he nudged my shoulder while going up the stairs. In reply, Phil obviously raised his eyebrows at me and I bit my lip, slightly shrugging. Phil smiled and patted my shoulder as he climbed up the stairs and walked past me to get to his room. As soon as they were both in their rooms, I got my 'surprise' - successfully green velvet cupcakes after their fail at making them green once before- out of the oven, a sweet smell spreading around the kitchen. I then 'silently' ran to my room, grabbing a bunch of pillows. Phil was the first one to get out of his room, dressed in his classic, old gengar shirt and a pair of Star Wars pyjamas. I gently threw a pillow at him, Phil struggling to catch it. We had a mental conversation. 'Pillow fight?' 'Pillow fight.' 'Attack Dan when he gets out of the room?' 'Attack Dan when he gets out of the room.' We nodded, and put our backs to the walls on either side of the door, clutching our pillows tightly. We had to keep ourselves from bursting into giggles, but after a few minutes of waiting, we finally heard the doorknob turning. I looked up at Phil, and we grinned. 3... 2... 1... The door opened fully and I yelled out a war cry, slamming my pillow onto Dan's face, and then so did Phil. I threw the third and last pillow towards Dan, and Phil and I ran. It must've taken a moment for Dan to realise what was happening, because I was almost to the lounge when I heard Dan's footsteps on the floor. I stopped for a breath in front of the lounge, but Dan caught up. He was only a few steps behind me when I made the stupid decision of running into the lounge, which Dan then rushed into, closing the door behind him so I had no escape. He grinned evilly, and I resorted to darting to different sides of the room to avoid his pillow, but then I felt his arms around my waist, and I squealed. I felt myself rise up a few centimetres from the floor. "Dan! Let me go!" I said, giggling. I heard Dan laugh as he set me down on the floor again. I decided to run while I could, but me being me, I stubbed my toe on the edge of a couch. I fell to the floor, groaning in pain. Dan sat down beside me. "You're the only person I can trust to do something like that," he said, chuckling. I pouted, lightly hitting him on the shoulder. "Daaaaan," I whined. "It huuuuurts." I pouted some more. To make it feel better, Dan stomped his heel on the toe I had stubbed. I sharply gasped, and Dan burst out in his hyena laugh. All of a sudden, I felt him draw me closer to him, his arms around my waist, his head resting in the crook of my neck, bodies close together. After a second of not realising what was happening, I finally clasped my hands behind his neck, hugging him back. He smelt of vanilla and coffee; he felt like a summer day after months of winter. His breath against my cold neck, hot. "Hey, [Y/N], I know it's a really hard time for you after Tony, and you're really, really brave to be dealing with it like this, sometimes I forget that something so shit has happened to someone as beautiful as you; it shouldn't have, ever." His chapped lips forming the words against the bare skin of my neck sent shivers down my spine: the good kind. I let the first of the tears fall, wetting his shirt. When Dan hugged me tighter, pulling us together so close that I could feel his heartbeat, I let go. "[Y/N]. I know you won't like this, but I just have to say that I really, really like you. I overheard you talking to Phil about me the other day, and since then, I've been thinking, and I really, really, really like you. You can say no, I would understand." I pulled away from the hug, eyes wide, and hesitantly pulled him in for a kiss. He tasted like mint chocolate; his lips were softer sandpaper against my completely smooth lips. His hand was warm as it cupped my cheek, the other hand behind my back, pulling me closer to him. He tasted like love.