#last gifset before i start school

[vampirehizzies]

SOPHIA BUSH as Brooke Davis in One Tree Hill 4.13, Pictures of You

[cal-kestis]

HOW TO: Make a Pantone “Color of the Year” Gif

A few people have asked about my Pantone sets which use the “Color of the Year” swatch design. So, here’s a full tutorial with a downloadable template of my exact overlay! Disclaimer: This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of gif-making in Photoshop.

PHASE 1: PICKING A SCENE + PANTONE COLOR(S)

I’m starting with this because it’s crucial for planning your gifset as well as making sure the execution is smooth sailing. The steps in this phase won’t necessarily be literal steps but some tips for how I usually go about making a Pantone set:

1.1 – Picking a scene.  Scene selection is everything. To make things easy on yourself, I suggest choosing scenes where the background is mainly ONE color �� for example, a scene where the subject has a clear blue sky behind them. To make things even easier, choose a color that isn’t the same color as the subject of your gif. Like, if your subject is a human, I’d avoid using a gif with a red or yellow background unless you want to do a lot more work to mask their skin. 

Rip me using a scene of green lil Grogu in green grass lmao. But I guess that goes to show you could really do this with any scene (I just did lots of masking and keyframe animations to perfect this green shade). BUT selecting your scenes wisely = a lot less work. 

1.2 – Picking Pantone colors.  People often ask me how I choose my colors and there are a few methods which I’ll go over below. 

But note that not all Pantone colors have a cute name, or any name (fun fact: only Pantone textiles have official names and they end with TCX, TPX, or TPG).

METHOD A: Google Search “Pantone [Color]” Source: Google Easy but not always fruitful, all you do for this method is open Google and type “Pantone [insert color here].” For example, when searching for teal colors, I searched several things including: Pantone Teal, Pantone Turquoise, Pantone Blue, Pantone Green, Pantone Blue Green, etc. Then, just sift through the Google results and click on whatever comes up from the official Pantone website! Since Pantone’s site blocks some info behind a paywall, you won’t be able to get a hex code from them. But you can just screenshot the swatch from their site, put it in Photoshop, and use the eyedropper tool to figure out the color.

METHOD B: Color-Name Site Source: https://www.color-name.com/ This handy website lets you search by colors using the upper navigation bar. Or you can just type something like "magenta" or "blue pantone" or even “frog” and see what comes up lol. Color-name can put together palettes too! I like that this site also tells you the hex code of a color, which is really helpful for getting the right code to put in my overlay. Note: Not every color on this site is a Pantone textile, so not all of these names are Pantone-official names. You can tell it’s official if, in the Pantone row of the Color Codes table on the middle of the page, it has a code that’s 2 numbers, a dash, 4 numbers, and either TCX, TPX, or TPG.

METHOD C: User-Made Pantone Colors Archive Source: https://margaret2.github.io/pantone-colors/ For my Wednesday characters as Pantone colors set, it was all about matching the color name to the character’s vibe. So, before looking at the actual colors themselves, I wanted to find the perfect color names. I stumbled upon this page. The pros = it lists pretty much all of the current official Pantone names. The cons = it’s not convenient since there’s no filtering tool. You can do Command+F and search for keywords, but that’s it. I literally scrolled through this whole page for my Wednesday set and read every single name, which... I think means... something’s wrong with me /lh /hj

METHOD D: Official Pantone Color Finder Source: https://www.pantone.com/pantone-connect This is last on my list because I don’t actually recommend it. Unless you already have access to this resource from your school or work or something, I would never pay for it and it is a paid feature only. Boooo 👎 But there is a free trial (which I’ve never used), so if you want to see what it’s about, you can definitely go for it.

PHASE 2: MAKING THE BASE GIF

Again, just some super quick tips for making a gif that, I think, looks best with this kind of set — but if you’re still learning how to gif, I do have a basic gif-making tutorial here for extra guidance!

2.1 – Uncheck “Delete Cropped Pixels” before cropping your gif. When you use the crop tool, this checkbox appears in the top toolbar. Unchecking it allows you to move the positioning of your gif later on, which is handy in this case when you want to choose which part of your gif will be underneath the Pantone swatch. You can read more about this tip in my basic gif-making tutorial (linked above; Step 1.5 – Tip B).

2.2 – Make your gif 540px width. My gifs for these sets are usually 540x540px but I think 540x500px will also look good. I think it’s more impactful though to make a big gif to show off your coloring.

PHASE 3: ADDING THE PANTONE OVERLAY

3.1 – Download my template I made this template myself, so all I ask is that you don’t claim it as your own and that you give me proper insp or template credit in your caption if you decide to use it! Get the PSD with the transparent background here!

3.2 – Download the font Helvetica Neue Bold The font I use (and I’m pretty sure it’s the same font Pantone uses) is Helvetica Neue Bold, with some very specific letter spacing (which I determined by studying Pantone’s official Color of the Year Very Peri design). It’s already set in my .psd but here are specs in case: color name spacing = -40, color code spacing = -75 (sometimes I’ll do -25 for the numbers after the dash if I don’t like how tightly they’re packed together). 

I uploaded Helvetica Neue Bold to my dropbox here!

3.3 – Import my overlay You can either drag the whole folder onto your gif from tab to tab or right-click the folder, select Duplicate Group, and select your gif as the destination document. Just make sure this overlay group is above your base gif!

3.4 – Fill the color swatch In my .psd, on the layer labeled “Pantone Swatch,” just grab the hex code of your chosen Pantone color and fill that layer using the Paint Bucket tool! I’ve already put a layer mask on the layer for you so it fits perfectly inside the square outline.

If you’re using my .psd, all the blend mode settings are already in place! I usually set the colored square behind the Pantone logo to the Color blend mode, but sometimes, I prefer the way Hue looks. It’s up to you! 

You can also adjust the drop shadow settings to make your text more visible as needed. The layers are arranged in this order so the drop shadows don’t interfere with the semi-transparent part of the colored swatch. 

3.5 – Insert the color name and code My .psd has two versions to choose from: (1) a color name that fits on one line and (2) a color name that requires two lines. Use the one that applies to your color name and simply type that and color code into the corresponding text layers! 

Note 1: Pantone doesn’t keep their font size uniform for every color of the year. They’ll sometimes shrink the text to fit longer names, but I like being consistent. So, I use this one font size for all my colors.

Note 2: My template has all the text left-justified and matching the starting point of the P in Pantone. BUT, sometimes the gif looks better if you nudge the text a bit so it looks more centered. Use your discretion when aligning the text!

Note 3: Btw, you definitely don’t have to use the TCX/TPG codes like me. (I’m a nut and there’s no way I’ll ever do a Pantone set and not use those types of codes to maintain uniformity across this series lol.) I’ve seen others do sets inspired by mine using different color codes or even just the hex code itself!

PHASE 4: COLORING THE BASE GIF

The key here is to make a majority of your gif feature your chosen Pantone swatch. If you’re really smart with your scene selections, this should be a breeze! If you’re stubborn like me and want to use specific scenes with the opposite color of your chosen Pantone swatch, there will be a bit more color manipulation involved... However, this isn’t a coloring tutorial, so again, I’m going to give some tips and resources that will hopefully help you out!

4.1 – Color matching. Now that you have the Pantone swatch on your gif, you should be able to reference that center square set to Color/Hue to match the rest of your gif to that color. Feel free to paint a little blob of your color onto another layer anywhere on your gif so you can refer to it closer over a specific part of your gif. For example, I put a little circle over Grogu’s head to see how closely I matched Pantone’s Peapod color, then I tweaked my adjustment layers a bit more until the colors matched near perfectly and I couldn’t tell where that blob begins or ends. The left is the solid color and the right is set to the blending mode Color (like the square):

4.2 – Moving the base gif. This isn’t really about coloring... but remember when I said to uncheck “Delete Cropped Pixels” in Step 2.1? Well, here’s your chance to adjust your canvas and move the gif around so the exact part you want under the color swatch is in the right position. I personally think these kinds of sets are more impactful when you put a differently colored part of your gif under the swatch so you can see through it and the difference is clearer. In my example, I put Grogu in the center so the green box would cover some of his brown potato sack robe.

4.3 – Color manipulation. Color manipulation is when you transform your media’s original color grading into a completely different color. The Grogu gif isn’t a great example because the original scene was already a green-yellow color:

I mean, the difference is still pretty drastic but that’s mostly because my file was HDR and washed out as a result.

So, here’s an example I made using a gif from my first Pantone set for ITSV (I’m not doing this demo to the Grogu gif because it’d be too much work to manipulate a green background with a green subject. This ITSV scene is perfect bc the majority of it is blue while the subjects are mostly red.)

For the “basic coloring,” I did everything as I normally would: mostly levels and selective color layers.

For color manipulation, my fav adjustment layer is Hue/Saturation (those are the screenshots that are on the gif above). When you’re smart with your scene selection, it’s pretty easy to manipulate colors with one Hue/Sat layer because you usually only need to tamper with 1-2 colors and, hopefully, they shouldn’t interfere with skin tones (obviously you’ll do other layers to further enhance your gif’s brightness, contrast, etc. — but I just mean the heavy lifting usually only takes me one layer with a good scene choice). 

All you have to do is figure out what color the majority of your gif is, toggle to that color’s channel, and fiddle with the hue slider. In the gif above, you can see that I played with both the Blue and Cyan channels. Here’s why:

If I only adjust the Blue hue slider, I get those speckles of cyan peaking through in the gif above. Unless you’re working with completely flat colors — like 2D animation with zero shading/highlights — a color is never just one, solid color. Blue isn’t just blue, it may have some cyan. Purple isn’t just purple, I often have to toggle the Blue channel too. So, yeah, be mindful of that!

I’ll sometimes go in with the brush tool and paint over some areas of my gif to really smooth out the color and make it uniform. When I do that, I just set that painted layer to the Color blend mode. Some of the resources below go into that technique a bit more!

4.4 – Coloring resources. While not all of these tutorials cover the same type of color manipulation I did in my gifs, I think the principles are similar and would be helpful to anyone who’s a beginner:  – color manipulation tutorial by usergif/me: I go a bit more in depth here (I think lol) – how to change the background of any gif by usergif/fionagallaqher: a great tutorial for using keyframes so you can manipulate the background of a gif with lots of motion – bea’s color isolation gif tutorial by nina-zcnik: this tutorial has more tips about hue/saturation layers as well as masking your subject – elio’s colouring tutorial by djarin: this tutorial shows a lot of examples of first manipulating the colors then brushing over the gif with a matching color for extra coverage

And just one last note on coloring, I always try to appreciate gifs with the mentality that “good” coloring is 100% subjective. One of the only things I would classify as “bad” coloring is when you whitewash or [color]wash someone’s skin tone. So, as long as you keep the integrity of your subjects’ natural skin — especially if they’re a POC — you should feel good about your coloring, because it’s yours and you worked hard! <3 

PHASE 4: EXPORT

That’s it!! If you work in Video Timeline like me, just convert from Timeline back to Frames, export your gif, and voila! 

Easy PEAsy. 🥁 

If you have specific questions about this tutorial, my ask box is open <3

Also, check out these other Pantone-inspired sets by my friends @nobodynocrime (Mulan set) and @wakandasforever (Ponyo set)! There are so many ways to use Pantone colors in your set, so I hope this inspires you to create something beautifully colorful <3

[beachy--head]

I didn't plan on writing a Christmas drabble this year, but then @babyjapril posted the most perfect gifset and it inspired this little Japril Christmas movie AU. Hope you'll enjoy, and happy holidays to you all!

___

Christmas in Bozeman, Montana, is always a treat, and even more since April moved away for med school and then for work. Seattle is not that far, and she tries to visit her family as often as she can, but there’s something special about the town during the Christmas season. She absolutely loves spotting the Christmas lights in the streets as she makes her way to her parents’ property, the snowy mountains offering a picture-perfect background for the season.

This year is no exception, meeting all her requirements for a perfect Christmas. At home, the lights in the Kepner’s Christmas tree are sparkling, there are so many wrapped gifts under the stockings that opening them on Christmas morning would surely take hours, and her mother spends most of the time in the kitchen, making treats and baked goods at the speed of light. 

A few hours after she arrives, April finds herself already in the kitchen. As she helps her mother add a layer of white frosting on some cookies freshly out of the oven, Karen Kepner starts listing a few last-minute details about the festivities. “Oh, and you know Robert Avery, who owns the Jefferson grill in the city outskirts? Tall, blue eyes, makes the most perfect cup of coffee? Well, his son is visiting him for the holidays, for the first time in forever, apparently. He’s a doctor too, you know! Lives in New York, or Boston, or somewhere East. So I invited them both for Christmas Eve, because the man shouldn’t have to cook on Christmas, he already does it enough during the year, and he helped your dad once with the tractor, remember? So I thought–”, and at that point, April, used to tune her mother out when she starts rambling, offers a few “yeah” and “is that so?” now and then, and thinks no more of it. 

The next day, she meets Jackson, Robert Avery’s prodigal son. At her mother’s insistence, she plays the part of the perfect tour guide and shows him everything Bozeman has to offer, she takes a few walks with him around town and laughs when he admits he’s not much of an outdoor man, they even sit down once in the cold, watching people skate on the ice rink and sharing stories about surgeries and their respective hospitals (Boston’s Mass Gen seems way more peaceful than Seattle Grace Mercy West) before she dutifully walks him back to the Jefferson Grill. Robert Avery is a sweetheart, so she’s not surprised that his son is as charming, and they hit it off as much as two big city outsiders in a small town can. His laugh when she offers him anecdotes about her years in Bozeman warm her heart, and she finds out she actually looks forward to Christmas Eve, even if it means her sisters taking a dig at her for daring to be a single, twenty-something surgeon living alone a few states away and her mother insisting she eats her weight in stuffing.

Christmas Eve is magical, Robert Avery regaling them with tales from his youth, Jackson complimenting her mother’s cooking skills and having a second helping of everything, her father looking at the whole family with a wide smile, and for a few perfect hours, she truly feels the Christmas cheer she always hopes to find when she comes back home. 

And then her overactive imagination just has to ruin it.

After dinner, everyone gathers around the fireplace, swapping stories she must have heard a hundred times. She loves her family, she really does, but she needs a break, so she goes to the kitchen and sets out to get a head start on the dishes. Jackson volunteers to help out, drying the plates she washes, and they soon talk and laugh like they haven’t just met four short days ago. They only stop when she washes the last of the plates, and she doesn’t know what happens, but his fingers lightly brush her arm as he takes the plate from her hands, and she shivers. His touch is electric, and she raises her head, finding his eyes already on her. His hand find her again, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and she can’t help but stare at him. 

From the living room, she hears her parents exclaim that it’s time they get a move on or they’re going to be late for midnight mass, another cherished Kepner tradition, and the moment is gone. Jackson snaps out of his trance and steps backwards, shaking his head, and it’s not long before he and his father leave, his eyes avoiding her as he profusely thanks her mother for her generosity. 

So much for a perfect Christmas holiday.

She goes to bed, feeling confused and, she’s adult enough to admit it, disappointed. And because she’s April Kepner, she soon starts to feel extremely annoyed with herself. She always does this, having huge expectations that don’t go well when confronted to reality, and she’s a fool for thinking that this time would be different. That a fancy, handsome surgeon would play his part in the Christmas movie she’s apparently written in her head, and act out cliché moments under the Christmas lights. 

The next morning, waking up before everyone else, she quickly dresses up and goes for a short walk to try to clear her head. Still replaying the moment in the kitchen in her mind, she takes comfort in the fact that she’s due to go back to Seattle in a few days. She’s not going to let her delusional brain ruin what is otherwise a perfect Christmas, thank you very much, and she can easily avoid Jackson Avery until then and not make a fool of herself.

Well, it would be easier to avoid him if he wasn’t standing in her parents’ driveway as she comes back from her walk.

His eyes seem clearer than ever, and she manages a small smile, hoping he’ll credit the cold for her blushing cheeks. She stares at him a few seconds too long before she remembers her manners. 

“Hi, um, did you forget anything yesterday?”

“Actually, I did,” he answers in the low voice he seems to use just for her, and she really wishes her body would stop reacting so strongly to his presence.

The snow starts to fall just then, but she barely registers it, because she can’t tear her gaze away from him. He gets closer to her, shakes his head with a soft smile on his lips, as if he can’t believe what he’s doing, and slowly raises his hand to hold her neck. 

Their lips touch, hesitantly at first, then more insistently, and as they kiss for what seems like hours under the falling snow, she can honestly say that this Christmas is definitely a perfect one.

[femboymilkovich]

Weekly Tag Wednesday 🌟

Thanks for the tag @iansw0rld✨️🖤

Name: Sarah

Age: 29

Location: California

And now...

Latest music discovery: Crosses! they're so good and I'm happy that I stumbled across them

Latest movie: Last one I watched that I haven't seen before was Shattered

Last TV show you finished: Shameless...again lol

Most recently started book: It's been a while since I've read an actual book lol

Most recent trip out of town: outside of normal shit because I have to leave my town to do literally anything...probably my anniversary weekend

Most recent trip out of the country: Never :(

Most recent gift you made yourself: I made a new gifset this morning that I really liked so that!

Most recent gift you made to someone else: probably the gifset I made Georgia (@iansw0rld)

Most recent text message you received: not gonna write the whole thing out because boring but it was about school pick up for my kid lol

Most recent text message you sent: "sounds good to me" in response to said school pick up plans for my kid

Last fic you read: currently reading one about mobster mickey

Last drink you had: sweet tea

Last thing you ate: barbecue chips lol

Latest piece of clothing you bought: clothes for my kid

Latest piece of advice you received: I honestly couldn't tell you

Latest piece of advice you gave: wasn't necessarily advice but it was a gentle reminder to a friend that the hard choice she had to make was the right one and that she is worthy of love

Latest thing you promised yourself: That I would do better at taking care of myself

Thank you for the tag! <3

Tagging these cuties if you want to partake, if not, this is a friendly boop🖤

@mickittotheman @mickeym4ndy @whatthebodygraspsnot @heymrspatel @onthepyre @jessieoneday @samantitheos

[airenyah]

QL Wrapped 2023

i was tagged by @nongnaos and @ranchthoughts thank youuu <333

i meant to upload this at the latest by december 31st, but the thing is when i saw the tag i was a little overwhelmed at first bc i didn't know how to fill it out and then once i had it all written out i had a super hard time deciding on what to gif and then it all ended up taking soooo much longer than planned. and now it's already 2024. oops. well, better late then never...

so without further ado:

You watched 12 QLs this year that's about 264 hours!

(i'm counting only qls that started airing 2023 bc i didn't keep track of every single show that i watched and it's a lot easier to count all the 2023 dramas on mdl lmao)

You primarily only watched QLs from Thailand

i blame my bachelor thesis for this which i was writing on the translation strategies of thai to eng and also the fact that i'm learning thai, so any time i watch a series i'm like "do i watch something from a country other than thailand tonight??" only for a little voice in my head to go "yeah but you COULD be spending your evening practicing thai listening skills" so yeah...

You spent way too much time thinking about these characters: Pat Napat Jindapat

listen. LISTEN. i know ok, i know bad buddy is from 2021 not from 2023. however!!!!! bad buddy was part of our skyy 2 and that included my boy pat and so i'm counting it!!!! i'm always thinking about pat napat jindapat ok bye

no for real tho. i am NOT kidding when i say i have spent hours on end thinking about pat in the year of our lord 2023, two full years after the show dropped:

maybe in 2024 i'll finally sit down and write that meta that's been in my head for two years now

Your favorite show was Moonlight Chicken

it's gotta be the chicken show for me. yeah. it just felt so... idk, real in a way. idk how to explain it. i'm not even obsessing over mlc all that much but any time it pops into my head i go all kinds of 😭😭😭 and 🥰🥰🥰

not to mention the firstmix

the heartliming

and most importantly earth and fourth as an uncle/nephew duo??

i am so🥺🥺🥺

special shoutout also to jimbo the cat (left) who looks almost exactly like coco, my family's cat (right):

Another one of your favorites was Last Twilight

just. the way p'aof shows relationships on screen okay. yeah.

i cry

You are still stuck in this hallway:

yeah i've been thinking about the yank-kiss-yeet scene from hidden agenda and joke breaking down afterwards in that very hallway for 19 weeks straight gay. bye.

The soundtracks you listened to the most were:

(according to my spotify wrapped top 5)

Just Friend? (Bad Buddy)

Our Song (Bad Buddy)

น้ำลาย (My School President Cover)

Secret (Bad Buddy)

yeah. i've given up on the "only 2023 media" thing. if we're talking songs only from series released in 2023 then i've got love love love (our skyy 2) on no. 32 and no more empty nights (our skyy 2) on no. 46 on my spotify wrapped

also if you're wondering what the 5th song (on no.3 in reality) from my top 5 was that's missing above where i only mentioned four songs, well, it's none other than tilly birds' same page? which yeah. is also bad buddy related. surprise surprise 🤭

Your overall bl mood was P'Aof

You created 15 gifsets (of which "only" 1/3 were about making other shows about bad buddy)

you can find them here

You shazammed 295 royalty free background music pieces/songs from thai dramas

fun fact: i haven't mentioned this publically yet but since thai dramas keep using the same music over and over again in various series i've actually started collecting the different songs/pieces and i'm planning on making a side blog about it. i just want to go through some more dramas first before i publish anything. so this is something you can look forward to in 2024 dkjfkfdj

currently shazamming my way through bad buddy (you may have seen my blorbo breakdown about pran in the ep4 sleepover scene the other week that was triggered by me shazamming all of ep4). next on the list: theory of love and the eclipse. it takes ages tho, so don't expect it any time soon

Your favorite acting pair was JoongDunk

(is anyone even surprised by this lol)

no but for real whatever these two have going on, i'm intrigued:

i just. i love their energy ok. they're fun. and they're clearly having fun

i couldn't decide on what to gif so here's a little compilation bc fuck it, this is my post and i get to do whatever the fuck i want

(actually there's more that i could have put in there but i didn't wanna waste any more time with posting this tag game and also i was trying to keep the compilation somewhat short lmao)

they are such silly little idiot boys ("little" says the 155cm tall short person about the 180+cm giants 🤭) and i adore them &lt;3

their energy is essentially this meme and i'm so here for it:

and they just communicate so well when they're performing and you never feel like either of them is "alone" on stage (doing his own thing in his own little bubble), it's SUCH a joy to watch!!!! once again plugging two of my all time fave performances that i've been rewatching over and over again for the last 3 months:

also dunk is just SO little brother-shaped to me idek!! looking at his face just makes me go into big sister mode. it doesn't help that he's only like a month or so older than my actual little brother. AND he reminds me a lot of one of my fave kids from my youth group that i used to go to for years. dunk natachai has klein-andi energy and you all don't know what that means but i know what that means as does my mom and she agrees. so.

tagging:

i feel so ashamed for not making it in time before 2023 ended so i'm not gonna tag anyone but if you see this and you really wanna do it bc you haven't done it yet then please do so and tag me because i say so!!

and mutuals, send me yours bc i'm not sure i saw everyone else's!!!! (@celestial-sapphicss @moonkhao @visualtaehyun @telomeke @waitmyturtles @dribs-and-drabbles did you guys do this already and if yes, send me yours? i must have missed it 🥺🥺🥺)

[andoqin]

List of dramas that I am watching or want to watch, just for personal record reasons:

Cdramas:

The ingenious one (36/36): this drama has blown me away so far with its incredibly nuanced and sharp writing, its love stories between all the major couples and the absolutely magnificent cinematography. FINISHED verdict: HIGHLIGHT drama of the year for me so far. Smart, engaging, complicated, peak romance of all sorts, just what the doctor ordered tbh (overly long review can be found in my tags). 9.5

Chang Feng Du (40/40): I did not realise how close to the end I was. This drama is very pleasant and I adore our mains, but sadly except for a few highlights (the early beating gjs put on himself, the destruction of the gu family and the aftermath, the battle for wangdu) the writing hasn’t been able to keep the narrative tension up which is sad. FINSHED verdict: Very pretty and engaging in the beginning kinda loses me in the second half and then fizzles out emotionally, doesn't crash and burn but doesn't exactly stick the landing either 6.5

Gone with the rain (10/30): adore the gremlin4gremlin couple and from the spoilers I’ve seen not gonna adore much else

An ancient love song (1/16): incredible first episode and with only 30 min per ep and 16 eps in total this is gonna be a short fun ride I hope ( with lots of angst and tears naturally).

Here we meet again (18/32): started this for Wu Qian playing to type and Zhang BinBin being pretty but oh boy I’m struggling I just don’t care about the conflicts and in s surprising twist, I like the flashbacks to high school much much more, which is very funny if you think about the fact that the reason I started liking wu qian in the first place was because of her show stealing performance in the flashbacks of My Sunshine. I’ve been promised kisses in the near future so I’m gonna hold out till then but this might end up another drop.

Hidden Love (5/25): this one promises to be v sweet and kinda short but oh my god I have so many dramas on my plate rn so this might end up the first drop.

Till the end of the moon (22/40): I think I watched ep 1 when it started but then I got busy and now I am just staring at gifsets and crying, it’s definitely on the list to watch tho.

Heroes (6?/38): I started this a while ago, was really into it and then got busy… dammit. I might just rewatch the beginning so I can remember most of the set up for sure but man the visuals on this were so good, aaaa liu yuning.

Blood of youth (0/40): the last 12 months really have spoiled us with interesting looking wuxia dramas and this one is definitely on the list, I have been gifbaited once again.

Ray of light (0/30): usually hs dramas are something I avoid, but because I will not be watching the longest promise, for reasons, and bc @storge is a gifmaking temptress, this has made it on the list.

The legend of anle (0/39): Lmao trust YOUKU to screw up the release with bad subs only 1 ep even for vips and no released schedule… but at least I can put this on the backburner for now. Lmao should have known not to trust a youku dilreba drama, the tl has soundingly spoken and I'm gonna avoid this.

Ancient Detective (0/24): I was recced this by a friend when I mentioned my love for wuxia dramas, and since it’s almost shockingly short for a cdrama it’s on the list. EDIT: this got @purplehanfus seal of approval so it is def going up the list and since it's complete I'll probably at least watch it before the ongoing ones.

Butterflied love (0/22): see I barely made this post and already forgot about the screencap that got me started on writing it, the screencapa look great, but the drama is on mango, so who knows when I’ll truly be able to watch this

When I fly towards you (0/24): Well, I wasn't interested bc modern youth drama, but then I heard it described as "updated It Started with a Kiss" and... I'm weak? ISWAK was pretty much my crack gateway into asian dramas and while IDK if i could rewatch it today, something in me will always love this kind of story. Maybe it's like a quick palate cleanser in between since apparently eps are only about 30 mins.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook(0/40): CHENG YIIIII, in a possibly bromantic role? Or maybe het romance, I'll take it all. Plus I've already seen he's bleeding copious amounts as per his contract, so that's most of the checklist done.

Lost You Forever (0/??): because nature abhors a vacuum I apparently must have?? A minimum to watch pile and this actually and genuinely looks good??? A Yang Zi drama in 2023??? The mind boggles. Anyway I've been reading the recaps with delight, and am def going to watch this when part two airs in a couple of months but until then I have a thankful reprieve...

Kdramas:

See you in my 19th life (4/12): since kdramas release so slowly this is on the backburner but it does have some great gifsets that keep enticing meee

King the land (2/16): I am watching this for junho but it is kinda hard bc I have so much else on my plate and while I don’t mind a classic romcom type story I feel I need a bit more of an emotional hook

Story of the nine-tailed 1938 (0/16): so so many gorgeous and hilarious gifsets so little time. I loved season one so so much and the fact that this focuses on the brotherly relationship?? Extremely smart writing decisions were made!

The red sleeve (0/16): I blame @dangermousie for this she keeps reblogging angsts junho on my dash and I am but god’s weakest warrior.

Love tractor (0/8): gay himbo farmboy falls in love?? You bet this is on the list

Lady durian (0/?): ok this is only on the list for crack reasons but, daughter in law is in love with mother in law and both women are like 40+ truly kdramas have entered a new era and I kinda wanna be here for that

EDIT: Revenant (0/12): Kim Tae Ri in a spooky drama? POSSIBLY POSSESSED KIM TAE RI??? how could i forget to put her on this list, plus it was written by the Kingdom writer and I adore that drama plus it's only 12 eps which is smart in this case so... let's hope i get to it at some point D:

My dearest (2/20): I checked this out because it's got pretty much everything going for it from a production standpoint and boy did the first two eps deliver. This has got 2 seasons though so I'll probably wait until the second season is airing, since it won't be too long till season 2 or so the internet tells me.

My lovely liar (0/16): minhyun learned to act and I wanna see it happen!!

Jdramas:

Our dining table (2/10): ok this category is gonna be a bit shorter bc I haven’t watched too much drama recently but omg the gifs for this I am just crying thinking about it they look so cute??

Jack o‘frost (0/6): people have recced it and it’s short so here it is.

Utsukushii kare s2 (0/4): Season 1 was an unexpected delight so I hope s2 works just as well.

She loves to cook and she loves to eat (0/10): the manga for this is amazing (and hungry making) so I hope this adaptation holds up.

Ok this list is in no way exhaustive (well except for me being exhausted just trying toward this down) and probably subject to change ( I haven’t even looked at thaidramas or twdramas I gotta stop for now) but hopefully this will keep me on the ball and maybe I can add to it whenever a new tempting gifset crosses my dash…

[insomniamamma]

Ok, some thoughts on episode one of The Last of Us under the cut:

I’m going to preface this by saying i know next to nothing about the game. I’ve seen gifs of it here, but that’s where my knowledge ends. Once Pedro’s casting was announced I decided that I was not going to watch any playthroughs. I wanted to go in with fresh eyes as much as possible. OK. Disclamer done. Here are some thoughts I had in no particular order.

I loved that they showed outbreak day through Sarah’s eyes. She’s just going to school and doing ordinary things. There’s hints around the edges that something is happening, but nothing direct, and I thought this served to crank the tension up to eleven. Sarah is our window into this world, and I love that we only know what she knows.

Also, the sweetness of the relationship between Joel and Sarah and Tommy. They only give us a little but it’s enough to see how much these three care about each other. I love Tommy mooching leftovers out of Joel’s fridge. That’s such a baby brother thing to do.

I love that the focus stays narrow as things inevitably go to shit. The world is coming apart and we see it happening through the windows of Joel’s truck while they’re trying to get out of town.

Even when they abandon the truck the camera is right on Joel and Sarah. IDK I was white knuckled through the first 30 minutes.

As soon as that FEDRA lady started promising that little kid all the toys he wanted to play with I was just like oh no.

The QZ. Yikes.

OK. I’m just gonna take a minute to scream about Pedro Pascal. The difference between how Joel carries himself pre and post breakout is so fucking stark.  I’ve seen several gifsets that show pre and post breakout Joel side by side and the difference in body language is incredible. Pedro can do so much with so little. There’s no need to explain Joel’s grief and withdrawal, it’s etched into every movement and facial expression. The shot of him cradling the dead child the same way he held Sarah and throwing him onto the fire, the absolute lack of emotion. Holy fucking shit. Pedro needs to get all the awards for this show and we’re only one ep in.

Ellie. I’ve had Ellie for one episode and if anything happens to her I will kill everyone in the room and then myself. Seriously though. I love this scrappy little girl. What’s the Troubled Bird meme about being 5oz’s of whoop-ass? She is twenty pounds of murder in a ten pound bag and I love her for it. I’m sorry, but when she pops out of that door and tries to stab Joel and he just launches her into the wall? I’ve got to imagine that his first thought was what the actual fuck?

I love her ok? I love her foul mouth, and snark and the fact that she’s the willing to fuck with Joel after knowing him for tens of minutes. I can’t wait to see these two bounce off each other some more.

And Tess. As I said before I know nothing about the games. But I’ll tell you right now that I love this lady. I have a feeling this is going to hurt me later on though. I love the relationship between her and Joel, there’s no I love you type histrionics, it’s all implied.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll probably post more nonsense as it occurs to me.

[ericstoltz]

life update!!

i finally have some free time and havent properly posted something in so long so i thought id write up something!

first of all i want to say that ive successfully fixed my bingewatch problem in late january!! i hate to say it, but seeing how many movies i saw last year in my letterboxd wrapped really concerned me 🫤 i wanted to make an effort to make use of my time properly (after starting a new job and all) and i thought i wont let myself waste time bingeing horrible b-movies just so i can bump up the percent watched in someones filmography (its kinda tricky doing it so i made a resolution to only watch movies which interests me if i want to see more of someone)

with that said, i ended up not watching anything on weekdays and eventually think that staring at my phone for more than an hour wasnt my thing anymore (at least in the context of doing it EVERYDAY). so that may be one of the reasons why the turnaround for my hyperfixations got slower (which i think is good!).

ALSO, i do want to mention that because ive been watching less films recently i initially thought it would be great for my gif making hobby since i wont feel the pressure of wanting to gif so many movies at one sitting. i tried this in early feb and.. well... lets just say that it takes time for my very old laptop to make gifs (i had it since college during the pandemic so it was really used!). i only screen record scenes i want to gif because i hate having to wait to download AND even if i had hq clips it would take my laptop so long to render. so making something lq and having to wait 30mins just for a single gif wasnt doing it for me (bcs i said i wanted to make more use of my time).. so thats the reason why i havent posted anything lately (I REALLY REALLY wanted to make a gifset of josh whitehouse in valley girl but the quality just ended up stressing me 🫠)

and for my last update, as u can tell from my reblogs on queue, i just saw daisy jones and the six and LOVE josh whitehouse and he really got me playing the guitar again 😭😭 (i still think its a miracle!!!). ive been practicing some old pieces i used to perform when i was in high school during my 5-9's and i just had a bizzare idea of getting into the piano. i only ever played classical before, so i always had a problem doing improvs. i spent some time looking at videos on youtube and found out improvs on the piano were waay easier to play and understand, so im gonna buy a keyboard very very soon (which im so excited for)!!!! learning how to do jazz improvs on keys would probably be my new hobby and making gifs would probably be back until i get a new laptop (which at the moment is very low priority 🥲)

SO THERES THAT! Now heres an audit trail of my jan-feb hyperfixations!

still on a tom blyth high since late december 2023

dom sessa: after watching the holdovers (seriously this time)

sam claflin: i wanted to get out of the coriolanus blackhole so i ended up reading finnick odair fics 😭😭 i found out he was the lead in daisy jones and the six so i watched that! my hyperfixation didnt last tho!! i have love rosie on my watchlist but got side tracked bcs of... *drum roll*

JOSH WHITEHOUSE -i find it crazy how most of my hyperfixations are englishmen. but yes. my sweet pookie. i love him. i will try not to talk much bcs if i start i wont stop. but tldr i didnt binge his filmography so i was on his youtube channel for quite some time and spent 15mins a day there... thats maybe the reason i got into playing the guitar again? love his music videos AND love how he plays flamenco. i play classical on the guitar and am a tarrèga girl so i never bothered to learn flamenco (tarrèga hated it) . but knowing just that made me want to at least remember some pieces i used to play just so i can play again... THEN i found out he has a new movie coming up with...

malcolm mcrae: ngl his pretty face caught my eye (special shoutout to anya! literally the power couple)... my first thoughts were like 'ohh i wonder what his character is like in triton'. but then i found out hes in a band SO i was thinking ok hes in a movie w josh so theres probably gonna be something music in it. i then looked up his band and love their songs!! theyre only a duo which i think is p strong (u dont need that many ppl in a band rly!) and i watched some interviews they had too!

KANE RITCHOTTE: my babygirl. my darling. idk what to say abt him. his songs with malcolm are always so magical. ive been playing gods in the details on repeat since early feb. hes my favorite more* member. the literal musical god. im praying hell sing more songs. ALSO i was suprised he did a cameo in daisy jones and the six with malcolm (they were the one who taught some of them how to play their instruments!! i was in awe bcs malcolm was the literal billy dune. LIKE sam claflin really copied his playing style which is so neat!!)

thats all!! thanks so much if uve read up until this point ily and pls lmk what uve been up to as well 🫶

take care <3

[lunar-years]

rjk hunger games au is SO GOOD i would read the hell out of that if u ever decided to write more. but also the everlark gifset you reblogged could definitely be a concerned and shaken roy (katniss) latching onto a recently revived and sarcastic jamie (peeta) who’s just casually joking about how he died. and maybe keeley takes on the role of finnick in this scenario, or she’s part of the resistance and supporting from afar.

how do you think jamie won his games? when and where do rjk figure things out for the first time? i don’t think i’m going to be able to stop thinking about this.

The book lines go so hard for that scene too: "You were dead! Your heart stopped!" *Katniss losing it* Peeta: "Well, it seems to be working now" vabvbjcsbj SIR. 1) generally a scene of all time and 2) very excellent content for Roy/Jamie AU yes yes.

I'm not sure how Jamie would win his Games because I want him to do something rebellious :) Maybe in keeping with the THG plot, he orchestrates the Katniss & Peeta berries movie only without the romantic angle. WHAT IF Sam is also in the arena and they become allies... Except Sam at the beginning is like "I am not going to last long here. I cannot kill anyone, I cannot." and Jamie is like...fuck that I'm not just letting you sit here until someone comes along and kills you wtf. So after that they have an unspoken agreement that Sam will forage for them because he's really good at identifying edible leaves and berries and Jamie will do the fighting if/when it comes to it. then when it comes down to just the two of them Jamie is like okay Sam i'm sorry but you have to kill me now. and Sam is like absolutely not. did you not hear me when I said I'm not going to kill anyone? It's okay Jamie do what you need to do. but Jamie of course says ABSOLUTELY NOT and comes up with the berry scheme!! I simply think a hunger games AU deserves a samjamie bestieism side plot.

as for rjk... Roy has isolated himself for sooo long after winning and meeting Keeley and secretly fueling the resistance with her as the liaison has finally given him a sense of purpose again 🥺 so those two are already getting close when Jamie is reaped, and Jamie again is friends with Keeley from school and because she gives him tasks to do to help the resistance. Jamie is still so young, so most of the others in the resistance dismiss him but Keeley sees how desperate he is to help and is like, well why shouldn't he? she's always seen his potential :) So they are also already very fond of each other. and roy and jamie are in their enemies to friends arc because that needs to be the royjamie dynamic in any universe, i don't make the rules. Roy finds Jamie annoying because he's always getting in the way. also in the early days after they meet Jamie tries to give Roy hunting tips just to be snarky lmao and roy is like absolutely fuck you i've been hunting before you could hold a bow. Also Jamie is relentless and nagging and won't leave roy ALONE to his own peace and loneliness in the victor's village. So by the time Jamie is reaped they have a tentative friendship and care about each other but would never admit it.

Then Jamie comes back and is obviously extremely traumatized from the experience, especially since his ally-ship with Sam had him doing all the fighting at the very end. Roy can uhhhh relate to that. more than a bit. So he takes Jamie under his wing in the Victor's Village and starts showing up to check on him and cook him meals. they learn so much more about one another and help one another to heal. Keeley continues to be their access point to the resistance in the District, because she's a bit more under the radar to the Capital since she was never in the Games. It's dangerous for Roy and Jamie to get too involved, but they help Keeley wherever they can and it basically becomes all three of them living together in Roy's giant victor village house. I'm imagining this as a slow burn of like, a year or two after Jamie's back home before they even get together. once they do though, the Capitol finds out about it and starts sending Jamie more and more often to the Capitol :( the only silver lining is that Jamie at least gets to see Sam on these trips, as Sam is another Capitol fan favorite. And Keeley and Roy get angrier and angrier back home about, well, everything but it's so much worse now that Jamie is so relentlessly being forced into prostitution. So yeah, they start getting reallyyy risky with resistance activity. Cue: Quarter Quell :(

[autisticbokutoenthusiast]

fandom get to know me better

was tagged by @nozunhinged AND @jeffsatyr so i had too

3 ships you like:

ok 3 that im into lately

villaineve- they make me turn into the joker <3

aobpuen - like i feel lik if you get it you get it like... i dont have words for them if i think about them too hard i need to bite something

sakuatsu - ride or dies the great fan artists and fic writers of the world have done such wonderful work

the three that im obsessed with currently (like fundamentally changed me

sandray - if you follow me on here you know. literally the last thing i think about before going to sleep and the first thing i think about when i wake up. they were manufactured in a lab to make me periodically lose my mind actually like, id never watched a thai series or heard of them and the only reason i chose to watch only friends was a ray edit someone made right after episode ONE that felt like it was bat signalling me and here i am 7?? months later a fully changed person..... like they will forever be a part of me now i think ill never be the same

vegaspete - similar to sandray in that i watched kinnporsche because of the vegaspete gifsets on the dash and was surprised to find out the series was not about them having bdsm sex in front of the corpse of a hedgehog like i was led to believe, not that i didnt end enjoying kp anyway. they alone would have been enough to make me obsessed but the things people create about them have changed me, thoroughly, like i am unrecognisable to myself after certain fics and fanart....

bokuaka - they are essential to my lore actually, like i dont post about them or engage with them as much as i used to because they are like my eyelashes like they are just a part of me now. bokuaka fanfic was what got me through high school tbh.

First ship ever: idk because ive wrote fic about characters since i was like 8..... actually im gonna be cringe and say chad and ryan from high school musical cause they were real to me when i was in elementary school <3

Last song you heard: good for what by little simz cause it will always get my pumped no matter what

Favorite childhood book: i read like a book a day when i was a kid but i think my favorite was the box car children even tho it traumatized me...

Currently reading: im always in a state of rereading my poetry collection and its recently been claude mckay but i need good novel recs PLEASE SEND THEM TO ME

Currently watching: at the peak of covid fever i started pit babe and im around halfway? thru now, also 23.5 the series as it comes out, and abbott elementary, and tsukutabe, also want to rewatch iwtv 2022... then theres all the shows my mutuals i posting about that i want to watch (im looking at you dead friends forever and moonlight chicken)

Currently consuming: hamantaschen that are supposed to be for tm but there raspberry jam flavored so im celebrating early 🫡

Currently craving: for food: i havent had cheesecake in like 5 years but i think about her everyday. in life: to try to get into the drag scene

ill tag @le-trash-prince @lilleeboi @jenyifer @kitas-cleaning-supplies @luminouschaotic @bokuto-my-beloved

and whoever wants to!!!

[founderscouncil]

"do you ever cry about this family of morally questionable vampires" all day every day. even more when you post your thoughts on hope's name and the pressure which comes with it because talk about FEELS and an amazing portrayal!!! ( btw, leah says hope should definitely check out ibiza or whichever tropical island she likes. it's ok. it's vacation time. )

look out folks, tina activated my trap card (but under the cut because it's long and rambly like i usually am)

OKAY so re: hope's name, i know this was happening in the era of tv where every 'miracle child' was named hope for the same reasons but that gifset really just cemented in how heavy that burden was placed on hope. for a lot of the others, i feel like they were born right as the show ended so we never delve into that, but this is happening at the very start of her life and we follow that.

for a large part of the originals, hope is pretty much a plot device, without a lot of agency. even in s4 where she's seven and actually has a voice, she's still mostly a plot device meant to expand on the actual main characters of the show (and this is not a knock, that's the point and i get it)

but from the perspective of hope, she grows up seeing how her very presence causes, frankly, so many issues for her family? her earliest memories are of her and hayley in hiding, carting around the bodies of her family in coffins, which immediately launched her into being possessed by her ancient ancestor, and then sent off to boarding school 'to have a normal childhood'. it's honestly confusing to her very black and white child's type of thinking, why they call her hope, when she feels like she causes more problems than anything. she has to shed the name mikaelson for her protection, but she still goes by hope, and it's a perpetual reminder of what she was supposed to be for her family, only they're in pieces because she was too weak to stand up against a 1000 year old malevolent spirit (like seriously, god, you're seven now hope, you should be better). she's so desperate to be her family's 'hope' that she writes a fanfic where she can finally defeat the hollow and reunite her family. it's why she develops this system of checks and balances that she tries to live by, because 'hope' is inherently 'good' and so that's what she has to be

despite elijah telling hope at the end of s5 that she shouldn't put that on her shoulders and apologizing for it, by that point.... it's just kinda too little too late? she's already kidnapped her mother who is now dead, she's absorbed so much evil that she needs to murder people and wreak havoc just to let it out, and she's pretty sure that she's dying. hope has lived her entire life up until this point, trying to live up to an ideal that was placed on her before she was born. even if none of the family 'consciously' pushed her on it, there was always an undercurrent of "hope is better than us, we have to protect her innocence, she is good" from her family that she felt like she had to embody, even though she's a marshall and a mikaelson and has an explosive temper.

anyways, i know that she never changes 'hope' whenever she has the multitude of opportunities to go by different names because tv audiences get confused easily, but i also think she continues to go by it because more than her bloodline or powers or the name 'mikaelson', it's her first name that she feels like she has to first conquer, before she's even allowed to be considered a mikaelson. it's weird and childish and doesn't make sense, but it's how she's always operated, and she never really feels like she lives up to it. but as she grows, she mellows out about it, learns to embrace it just like her last name and realizes how unrealistic and hard she's being on herself (look ma, growth!)

she will definitely take leah up on that offer for a 3 year vacation in the tropics somewhere though

[trans-elrond]

okay i feel like you knew this was coming but. the last kingdom.

omg i am SO SORRY IN ADVANCE, also i have really only started the osmosis process a few months ago because so many of my rop mutuals seem to be into tlk. it's set in ... i wanna say 7th or 8th century England, but please do not burn me at the stake if I'm multiple centuries off. girl help my historical specialty is like, bronze and iron age greece, i'm probably way off here. i think it's based off novels by that Bernard guy??? what else has he written? i think I tried reading one of his books in high school and was bored to tears. oops.

the fandom generally seems to dislike the protagonist uhtred, who might be a fail white man and is also possibly a mary sue, either way he's surrounded by better characters. everyone seems to love aethelflaed, who is very beautiful, maybe i do have an osmosis crush on her. there are a lot of confusing names on this show so i admit i googled her name because i ALMOST called her aethelred but that's a man who is apparently a king (is that her father???) and i blame ur username for throwing me off on that one. idk there are a lot of characters here to deal with!!!!! too many ae- names i think!!!

i am aware of the queen/knight dynamics between aethelflaed and the guy with a terrible haircut. al something. i am so sorry but i will not sully this response with a 2nd google. they have a cool dynamic but never are actually lovers onscreen and i agree with kat that actually consummating the relationship would be worse than the sexy fucked up devotion/loyalty/fealty thing they have going on. anyway the scene i am most aware of (because of kat) is that they're heading into battle and their odds are bleak and she orders him to kill her in case she gets captured but the moment comes and he can't do it!!!! now THAT'S devotion!

uhh there is also apparently a small and niche but very passionate group of ot3 shippers with the two of them and some other guy, possibly a king of some sort? @aadmelioraa and @wildwren have definitely explained it to me before and i gotta admit i'm into the dynamic. there's also a cool looking ... priestess... pagan... lady... named skald? skyld? skuld? sk-something i am SO SORRY FOR BUTCHERING THIS anyway she's been in a lot of gifsets lately but i think she dies?? i think someone said RIP in one of those gifsets?? i Really truly do not know any more about her but imho she's hot

umm okay coming up on the end of my knowledge but Brida is the brunette who's very pretty and might be in a relationship with Uhtred but I think she dies...??? the show ended after season 5 but there's a movie called seven kings must die coming out and i did see the trailer for that but given that i clearly do not know very much about this show i was very confused about what was going on <3

[littlequeen7]

I have barely any followers so I dont expect anybody to see this. But if there is any place to talk about my love for Taylor, it is here.

I've had a few people ask me why I love Taylor Swift so much. I understand why they ask, and why I might get weird looks, parasocial relationships and whatnot. But what they don't understand and what I have a hard time communicating is that Taylor is more than just music to me.

We grew up together. I'm five and a half years younger than her, so she completely shaped my adolescence. When Debut came out I was just starting the 6th grade, the grade when I learned some harsh lessons about bullying and friendships.

Fearless came out in the middle of 8th grade, the worst year of my life. That album was a comfort to me when everything else seemed hopeless. I had cut-outs from J-14 magazine plastered on my walls, of Taylor and the Jonas Brothers. I tried to convince my teacher that we should sing Fifteen at our 8th grade graduation (I lost that one).

Speak Now came out when I was 15, and I listened to that album until every word was ingrained in my brain. My older cousin bought us tickets to her Speak Now tour for my birthday, and she was my first ever big concert. We drew 13's on the back of our hands and screamed along with her while she sang Mean barefoot, while she hit giant bells during Haunted (my favorite song at the time), while she floated over the crowd on her balcony in her Love Story outfit right in front of us, close enough I thought if I reached out I could touch her. I don't remember which cover she sang, but she did it in her purple dress, with sharpie scrawled across her arms. I took so many blurry and grainy photos of her that day. Speak Now will always have a very special place in my heart.

Red came out when I was 17. I learned through one of her diary entries that she had actually written the song Red on the flight home from our concert. To think that I saw her not even 24 hours before she wrote one of the most iconic songs of her career was mind blowing. I was dating now, so all of the songs about relationships became relatable for the first time. I knew from the moment I heard it that All Too Well was the best song of her career, and I have some obnoxious Facebook posts to prove it. The Last Time became one of my favorite songs she had ever made. Flash forward 5 years and I was posting 22 on my Facebook the minute it hit midnight. (Yes, Facebook. I'm old and uncool, we've established that already.)

1989 came out the year after I graduated high school. I was on my own for the first time, completely unprepared and immature, with a toxic partner who I ended up staying with for 5 years. I still have distinct memories of riding the bus past the WWU campus on my way to work, blasting the album in my headphones. I was in my semi-popular Lana Del Rey Tumblr days then, and you best believe I was making gifsets of the Blank Space music video. These were also the years when I sank into my deepest depression. 1989 was a bright light in that darkness.

Reputation came out when I was actually 22, right after leaving the five year relationship, and leaving everything I owned behind me or in storage, while my ex took my two beloved cats. This was my revenge era, my short lived "hoe phase" if you will. I remember listening to it for the first time in the car with my mom while driving to Seattle. I remember listening to it in the kitchen with my then 11 year old sister, and her saying "well that's inappropriate" during one of the songs (probably Dress). I was a little too harsh when I said, "well she's a grown adult, shes writing for herself, not writing for kids." What a brat. I specifically remember one Tumblr post from a fan that went to the Secret Sessions, of her gasping and saying "Taylor!" in a scandalized way during one of the songs (my guess is, again, Dress) and Taylor replying something along the lines of "I know, right!" To this day, Reputation is the album I have the most fun listening to, and the one I blast the loudest in the car.

Lover came out when I was 24, living in a small room without a door in my Grandma's house that doubled as her office. This was the no privacy era and it did NOT slay. This was also the era that I was in love with someone I shouldn't have been (you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes). Every love song on that album was dedicated to him. False God became a new favorite. This was the time right before it all fell apart, when the entire world shut down and I hurt people and was hurt myself (again, stupid prizes).

Folklore came out in the midst of being completely isolated from the world, except being dropped off at work every day and trying to go to college online. The beginning of my severe and debilitating germaphobia. The constant fear that I would catch COVID from my irresponsible coworkers. Not to mention, my heart was ripped open because I was August, and she was Betty. This album, I think, is the one where I couldn't deny the similarities to my own situation. It felt like it was meant for me, in that moment. Seven was for the little me that died when I was young. This Is Me Trying was a letter to my loved ones, when I couldn't explain that my brain was actively trying to kill me. I've only listened to Hoax twice, because that one is the most painful. I was the epitome of "I can go anywhere I want, anywhere I want, just not home."

Evermore, bless it's heart, came out of nowhere and was an amazing surprise. That being said (Ryan Bergara voice), Tolerate It, Happiness, Ivy, Long Story Short, Closure, Evermore and Right Where You Left Me were a twist in the knife of a trauma that wouldn't leave me, no matter how hard I tried. I was out on my own, truly alone, for the first time in my life. And I was terrified that, like Taylor said, this pain would be forevermore.

The re-records were amazing. I was so proud of Taylor for sticking up for herself and challenging the leeches that had gotten rich off of her talent. The moment she hinted at the 10 minute version on social media, I flipped my shit. Again, I have Facebook posts to prove it lol. I memorized the new verses in a day, I listened to it on repeat for weeks. I was staying at an airbnb the day Red TV came out, and I spent that night dancing around the kitchen with my headphones on.

And now... Midnights. I'm 27 now, and by this point I've lived a thousand different lifetimes. I listened to it in my dorm room alone, with my headphones on the second it was released. And then for good measure, I listened to it again the second the 3 AM version came out. I always need the second listen, to really soak up and understand an album. I made a bracket tournament thingie of all of the songs, and at first Vigilante Shit won, but after a couple more listens, Karma replaced it in the top spot. I listened to this album so much, on repeat constantly, that even though it was released in October, every single song made it to my Spotify Wrapped (not to mention the fact that I was in the top 2% of TS listeners). I was lucky enough to score tickets to the Era's tour, after much anxiety and freaking out from crashing websites and delayed sales. I screamed as soon as it was confirmed. Things have been rough, especially in the last month or so. One of the only things keeping me hopeful is the fact that in 4 months, I will get to see one of my favorite people in concert again.

That's not to mention the merch over the years. A Speak Now Tour shirt, notebooks and posters with Taylor's face on them, two signed CD's, a Red cardigan, a "fuck the patriarchy" keychain, The Scarf, and a few (not as many as I'd like) vinyls. I'm still pissed that my 1989 CD with the polaroids is lost somewhere in my storage unit.

At this point, if anyone is reading this, which I doubt they will, and especially if they have read this far (I'm sorry this post turned into a monster), they're probably thinking that I am a weirdly obsessed fan. Someone who thinks that someone they've never met in person is their BFF. I don't think I'm either of those things, but Taylor Swift has, and always will be a comfort to me. Especially as a neurodivergent person, having just ONE person who has been consistent for most of my life, someone who I can look up to and learn from, music I can listen to and immediately be comforted, is essential. At this point, now that I really think about it, Taylor Swift really is one of my special interests, and she has been long before I even knew that special interests were a thing (late diagnosed).

On top of all of this, she is just a genuinely good and kind person. You don't see that super often, in this cut throat industry. She is someone to look up to, even if Dear Reader says otherwise.

I've been writing this for about half an hour, and my phone is shaking from holding it above my head while I lay in bed and type. If literally anyone gets this far in the post, thanks for reading my weird diary entry I guess lol. Above all else, this is really a love letter to Taylor. Thank you for being there for me through it all.

[schnaf]

@loveyouhomex tagged me, thank you ♥

1. Why did you choose your url?

short version: i used it on another site before. long version: one time, when i was really bored at school, i doodled some animals and everything felt normal, but then i realized the animal i doodled wasn't a regular animal but a sheep - snail hybrid - a schnaf in german, if you will. a few days later, i decided to make a new account on my first (and up to that point only) fanfic site because after one year, i felt like i needed a new start. but it felt rather temporary - i left the old account after not that long either and i thought i'd stay on the new account even shorter. so i just picked a random name - the animal i came up with a few days before. joke's on me, it became my identity.

2. Any side blogs?

yeah, i have a football side blog where i posted pics i took at matches, i have a side blog for a former fandom but i lost interest in it as soon as i created the side blog so... sorry, no new side blogs for fandom, i'm a one blog mess once again ♥ also several shared blogs for projects and stuff

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

i deserve senior discount and stuff, it's been a bit over 11 years now

4. Do you have a queue tag?

i once used a word, then i used q, then i decided to just let people know EVERYTHING is on queue here. also if i'm actually online and posting... no i'm not ♥

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

a friend of mine had tumblr and she always sent me posts of cute animals and footballers and one day i was like "ah imma join the source" - again, it didn't feel like a big decision and i didn't think it'd last that long

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

it's a screenshot from this video

gaon was insane for this. that's all.

7. Why did you choose your header?

it's from the hair cut mv and it's just such a peak scene....... THE VIBES THE COLORS the two pretty bois hehe. added bonus is gaon's "welcome" but well, couldn't put that into a gif.

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

it's a sernando gifset 😭😭 a friend back then was like "oh there was a sernando moment right now" so i looked it up immediately and was like "you know what? imma make a gifset right away" and it still gets notes nowaday, even though it was such a short moment and rather low effort

9. How many mutuals do you have?

almost all the people i follow are mutuals, that's very nice ♥

10. How many followers do you have?

quite a bunch ♥

11. How many people do you follow?

a few less than follow me

12. Have you ever made a shit post?

have i ever not made a shit post

13. How often do you use tumblr a day?

too often

14. Did you ever have a fight / argument with another blog?

👀 why would i, the most peaceful person on this webbed site, have an argument, let alone a fight, with someone on here. so yeah the answer is yes

15. How do you feel about the ‘you need to reblog posts’?

the good old "reblog this or you're a shitty person" stuff sucked, but it almost died out? it got a little revival through the polls tho. currently, there are those instructions how to be a good blogger and how to avoid looking like a bot and it's like reblog stuff!!!! and oof. i mean it's valid but it's pretty annoying. also i don't want people to reblog stuff bcs they feel like they have to - they should do it on their own will. for example, sometimes, i feel like network people only reblog each others post and compliment each other because they have to (or feel like they have to) and oof that's pretty annoying. but 🐸☕

16. Do you like tag games?

it may not look like it because it takes me such a long time to answer them, but there's a reason why i keep them in my likes and answer them even after a long time ♥ so yesss!

17. Do you like ask games?

same as above!

18. Which of your tumblr mutuals is tumblr famous?

you shouldn't be famous on tumblr

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

i heard they're all on tumblr, that's pretty embarrassing, so... no ://

20. Tags

@jcamilov06, @blacks-phoenix, @sunshine304, @ker-sunshine, @eyes-of-simha, @xjungsu, @todaviia, @manuelmueller, @chipsyio and @jorzuela - do itttt ♥

[chocolatepot]

chocopot, first of all: i followed you on tumblr bc I found your Howl's Moving Castle fics so incredibly charming. <3 Thank you for writing those.

I've been in fandom long enough that I've seen major fan wanks come and go, enough that i've gone from "oh no, fan wank! can't we all just get along?" to "omg this has all happened before why can't you fools see" to just leaving to go outside and smoke a cigarette til it's over, a la that meme of ben affleck.

I enjoyed the OFMD show, of course. I found it so charming, and it was such a wish fulfillment for me personally to have the perfect delicious dynamics that fandom eats like a full course meal, with the additional surprise of the canon supporting those pairings. I also appreciated the canon approaching this with a light touch, enough to leave room for fandom and also eschewing the usual ham-handed After School Special style way queer rep often is.

(I am of course not dismissing those representation efforts in any way, but those storylines don't always have the forward momentum that leads to the creation of fanworks. Sometimes the non-canon character dynamics lead to MORE fanworks because of more ambiguity to play with, funny enough)

I've been living vicariously through ofmd fanwank from you (thanks for being out there in the field, haha). So much of the Discourse with a capital D just seems so wild to me. The best way I can think to describe it is, instead of the "YesAnd" of most fandoms that feed off each other's energy, it's instead more of a "NoBut."

I was wondering if you think there's something different about this particular flavor of wank and what factors you think contribute to it.

Thanks for reading my long ask, and all the best!

Thank you! I'm glad you liked them. I gave up on DoMAYstic after like a week but I think I wrote some cute fluff during that week.

I started writing a response to this ages ago, but I think I need to scrap it and start over because I was getting too into the weeds.

On one level, I don't find the fandom that wanky at all. The amount of fic, art, gifsets, and vids created for OFMD after just one season is incredible, and while it's slowed down since last summer, it's still pretty intense. I see loads and loads of "Yes And" posts like "imagine ed and stede going to bed on the revenge after they reunite. imagine stede wrapping ed in one of his nightshirts" on Tumblr, and people posting their fic updates and other people reblogging and liking them. There is also discussion of representation in the show and how it's interpreted in fandom, and sometimes the latter is more of a "No But," but it's all in earnest and I think it's productive even when I disagree with people and quietly scroll past.

Now, Twitter? Twitter is an entirely different beast. Twitter as a website is designed to stimulate wank, making people express stupidly brash opinions for attention and then making other people feel the need to amplify that or dunk on it. Every time I spend a day doing Twitter on my fannish account, it's so draining and makes me feel like there's no hope for the fandom because it does the same thing. From my perspective it looks like there's a lot of clout chasing, people becoming semi-BNFs and attacking each other and getting hoist by their own petard when their tactics get used against them.

It's a microcosm, though. Almost none of it seems to escape the group of OFMD fans on Twitter who seem to really care about the drama, so I just kind of ignore it, or enjoy hearing about it secondhand.

The fandom is mostly a "Yes And" place. Sometimes in a good way (feverishly making excellent content), sometimes in a bad way (passing around flawed fanon as Definitely True). The AO3 category is bursting with creativity, thousands of canon and setting AUs, fusions, new ways to have the reunion happen, takes on backstory, and more. There's an incredible amount of fanart that does the same things. The fact that the slash juggernaut is also the main canon ship seems to have produced a fandom with a high degree of unity. While there's lots of discourse over Izzy stans, judging by AO3 that's actually a pretty small faction of the fandom as a whole.

[nightshadehoney]

FWIW

I wouldn’t say I was big into Sherlock fandom;  I haven’t seen the last season to this day because I lost interest. But there was a time I really enjoyed the show. I liked and shipped Johnlock, but I never thought it would be a canon thing because when the writers said they wouldn’t do that I believed them plus I’m just old school like that. Tbh when they start making jokes in the show about how “people mistake these guys for gay lol” that’s an indication that that’s the furthest the writers are willing to go. 

But TJLC was delusional because they believed there was some elaborate ARG game to unlock the shows super secret ending. They were not delusional for thinking John and Sherlock’s relationship had romantic undertones. I keep seeing this revisionist narrative that this was just tumblr spinning a ship out of nothing and like did these people watch the show? Their relationship was the entire emotional core of the series. John and Sherlock was what the whole show was about. Also: Holmes and Watson being romantically involved has been a subject of speculation outside of shipping culture for decades before BBC Sherlock was even conceived. I’m not actually that old and there are fandom people much older than me, but I feel  unfathomably ancient by the standards of a lot of modern fandom spaces and trust me: I’ve seen a million and one “these two guys stand next to each other” ships: johnlock was unambiguously not that. People shipped them because they were a little gay (like most iterations of the characters before them); it was all pretty simple.  

I’m saying this, not because I really care about any of this still, but because there’s this really annoying trend of people wanting to dunk on cringey shipping types so badly that they will throw all critical thinking skills out the window and just say the stupidest and most divorced from reality things imaginable about canon. Even  about ships that they themselves clearly enjoy (oh, I’m sorry, “understand”--they just post a bunch a meta and gifsets of the characters, but they’re not one of those stupid shippers don’t worry). This all comes off transparent and embarrassing to me, probably because of my aforementioned oldness. Do people think this makes them some sort of internet cool kid? Because the truth is everyone is lame and cringe and all the shit you say and do will be dated and embarrassing in about seven years anyhow. The thing you learn from not being 22 anymore is that any group of people having a good time is going to be “cringe” about 90% of the time. You can let yourself sincerely enjoy things and have fun or you can spend your energy being snide about people who aren’t as irony poisoned as you and be a little bit more miserable than you need to be.