#or if a smaller copy was uploaded. will see what tumblr does with this in a second)

[lesbianchemicalplant]

Sliman Mansour, Hope (أمل). Oil on canvas, 1985

[netheritenugget]

how does one deep fry memes. it’s for scientific purposes

Ok so!  It’s actually really fun and pretty easy to do.

You can use almost any photo editing app, from Photoshop, to the built-in editing software of your phone.  But you must be able to do two things: one is that you must be able to "save as” or “export single layer”/“export as” an image as a .jpg file.  If possible use a program that allows you to dictate the quality of the copy, but if not, that’s ok.  You can work around it.  The other is the ability to apply filters/change the saturation and contrast of the image.

Here’s how I made the Technoblade meme (more or less):

(eyestrain images below the cut)

We start out here with an already low-quality, small .jpg screenshot.  But you can use any quality, size, and format of image as long as you save it as a .jpg file later.  It’s just easier to make .jpg artifacts pop on a smaller image than a bigger one, and that’s what we want.  Remember, quality is of the utmost importance, in that there will be none whatsoever once we’re done here.  It is at this point, before you start frying, you’ll want to made modifications like eye lasers, text, and emojis.  I’m not gonna add any because I can’t be assed.  Save the eye-bleeding color filters for the end, it’ll look better.

Onward!

↓ ↓ ↓

Once you have made your desired edits, just click the “save as” button and select “.jpg” from the file type options if they’re given.  You have made a copy.  Now take the copy and open it up in your editing software.  “Save as” again, and now you have a copy of a copy.  Repeat step 2 until your image starts accumulating an acceptable amount of jpg artifacts, which are those rainbow-y stripey squares and bars on the image.

If you actually know how to use a more complicated photo editing software (for example, Photoshop) check to see if it allows you to export files, it may also gives you the option to change a quality setting. I reccomend setting it to around 30%, that seems to be the magic number, and export a few generations of copies.  It takes fewer generations than “save as”-ing.

Next!   ↓ ↓ ↓

I posterized the image, and saved it as another .jpg copy.  If you do not know what posterization is or how to do it, you can skip this step, but I think it makes some of the colors look funnier and I like that.

Please remember that it may take many generations of copies before the image looks this degraded, if you’re using software that doesn’t allow you to control the level of compression (the shittiness) of your jpg images.

↓ ↓ ↓

Sharpening the image makes the jpg artifacts on the image more prominent.  Very helpful.  This is yet another copy.

↓ ↓ ↓

Now you make the image brighter and more colorful.  Slap a filter called “Vivid” or “Pop” or something on it, or adjust the brightness and saturation yourself.  Here’s where I had basically stopped, when I made the meme I posted.  It looks awful.

But we can go further beyond.

↓ ↓ ↓

Here I lowered the brightness of the image and upped the contrast.  Now it looks even worse (better).  But please note that while it does look more fried, it also loses details and other information that are useful in telling what it’s a picture of, such as the Technoblade’s IGN above his head.  So just be aware of information your image might lose when you’re mangling it.  Same goes for if you posterize it, Technoblade’s name could have been very easily lost by making it the same color as the background.

But I’d like to explain about how .jpg files actually work a little bit, because I feel it’s important as to why making copies of copies is important.

A .jpg file is a not a “lossless format”.  It is a format that is supposed to compress the file size of an image by sacrificing just a little bit of quality.  In other words, takes up less space on your computer but sometimes doesn’t look as nice as other formats.

But a smaller size is good, in some cases.  For websites and online media where loading speed is important, jpg files are usually used.  In fact, Tumblr converts any .png files (without transparent, see-through elements) uploaded to the site to .jpg files, to speed up how fast they load.  You may have heard the term “jpg artifact” before and know those are the rainbow squares in low-quality .jpg images, yes?  That’s the file compression.  Generally, if you’re making an image, you’d want to save an original or a copy you’re going to keep modifying as a .png (because .png files don’t decrease quality), and if you were to make lower quality copies that you probably won’t be editing directly, you’d save them as .jpg files.

So, imagine: what happens if you modify a .jpg in photo editing software, and then “save as” a .jpg that was already a .jpg?  Well you’ve just seen what happens: you get more jpg artifacts on top of the jpg artifacts that are already there, because the software can’t tell what is an artifact and isn’t.

That’s what tends to happen with memes that are edited and shared over and over again.  They are saved and re-saved as .jpg files because that’s the file type that tends to be favored/uploaded to the web on social media.  So the quality goes down over time the more it is shared.

And with a little tweaking, boom!  Deep fried meme.

That’s all I have to say!  If you want to stop further jpgification, you can always save the image as a .png file.  Tumblr will turn it into a jpg again anyway when you post it, but that’s out of your hands.

Happy frying!

[s-k-y-w-a-l-k-e-r]

My GIF making process!

I’ve been asked many times for a tutorial, but because I get really detailed, I always get overwhelmed by the idea. But I finally decided to buckle down! 

Just so you know: I don’t use PSDs in this, and I don’t import layers to frames or anything like that. I like the hard way—at least in gif making, I believe you get higher quality gifs. Join me as I show you how to make gifs by loading videos directly into the Photoshop timeline and my coloring and sharpening techniques.

Tools used:

Mac OS X (only necessary for the first step, and there are other ways around it with a PC)

Adobe Photoshop

YouTube Purchases (any streaming service will work)

Topics covered:

Obtaining the Source Material

Loading the video file into Photoshop

Prepping, Cropping, and Resizing the Media

Adjustment Layers

Sharpening

Exporting

Obtaining the Source Material

There are a few different methods for obtaining video to work with. Proper YouTube videos are nice, but finding any major motion picture in that format is difficult, if not illegal.

Once I realized I could get really great quality video by doing screen recordings from streaming services, I stopped worrying about finding (and pirating) high resolution video files. So now, I just go to whichever streaming service I need to, pick out the movie or show, find the spot, and record small snippets.

Mac screen recording instructions:

On a Mac, Command+Shift+5 will bring up the screen recording dialogue. 

Resize the frame of what you want to record within the browser. 

Go to a second or two before, press the “record” button, and then begin playing the video, remembering to keep your cursor out of the recording box. 

Use the Space bar to pause your video when you’ve gotten the snippet you need. Stop the screen recording by clicking the ⏹ button that is in your menu bar at the top of the screen.

Important: when the recording appears in the bottom right of your screen, click on it, and then trim the video on either end. This will help your computer convert the video file to the type that can be opened by Photoshop.

Click “done” and it will appear on your desktop, ready to be used!

PC Users: ??? Here’s a Google search I did for you

 Loading the video file into Photoshop

Lots of people use this process for making gifs (a great tutorial!). I didn’t even know it existed until last summer, when I’d already been giffing for years. I wish I could still do something like that with these screen recordings, but the files are absolutely HUGE, especially on Macs with double retina displays, which actually increase the dpi by a lot. Making screencaps of them fills up my hard drive, almost immediately—even when I’ve got 20 gigs of free space to work with. So what do we do? We just. Open the file. In Photoshop. Et voila!

You can do this with any type of video, not just screen recordings.

 Prepping, Cropping, and Resizing the Media

When Photoshop loads your videos up, it makes the video hilariously fast (something about frame conversion). You must slow it down for it to look natural. THIS MUST BE DONE BEFORE YOU RESZE. Your Photoshop timeline window should be at the bottom of the screen. See that little triangle in the top right of the video? 

Click on it, and a menu will appear to change speed and duration.

Change the speed first- usually between 80-85% will seem realistic. (I actually went a little faster than I usually would on this at almost 86%—I don’t recommend this)

Press the button next to duration and pull the toggle all the way to the far right (if you don’t do this, full length of the video will be cut off).

Now you’ll want to crop it. Ever since Tumblr upped its GIF size limit, I have been playing around with 7:5 ratios, but let’s go with 3:2 for now. Use the Crop tool, pick out 3:2 in the top left (it may say 2:3, but you can switch that) and then find the most suitable spot in your gif for that. Hit enter on your keyboard.

Some things to keep in mind when cropping:

Most videos come in 16:9 ratio (BoRhap is even wider). If it’s a wide shot, you’ll need to do the full 16:9 to not lose anything. Of course, experiment and find what’s right for you!

As you can see above, I moved forward in the timeline and made the crop to a point in the video when the broadest movement was happening.

Certain videos WILL have a black or red bar that may be imperceptible until you’ve already exported the gif. Just crop in a little tighter on top and bottom to avoid them.

Now you’ll need to resize your gif to be the correct size for Tumblr. If you don’t use Tumblr’s exact dimensions, your gifs (as uploaded) will appear blurry or pixellated. We’re doing a full-width gif here, which is 540px. On a Mac, I use Command+Option+I (for “Image Size) to open the resize dialogue. You can also find it under Image->Image size...

Make sure to also have “Resample” checked. Lately I’ve been playing around to see if different options are better. Most GIF makers use “Bicubic Sharper (Reduction)” and they are not wrong to do so. I’ve just been unhappy with it lately, so I have been trying this other setting out, “Bicubic (smooth gradients)”.

Click OK. A dialogue may come up that asks if you want to convert to a Smart Object. The answer is yes, okay, do it. The only major caveat is that you can’t go back and change the timeline speed. That’s why we did it first. But you can preview the speed now that it’s smaller, and if you don’t like it, use Command+Z (or “Undo”) and go back a couple steps to get the speed you like.

You may find, especially on a Mac screen (and possibly other displays), that at 100% your gif looks too small to be 540px. That is the curse and blessing of working with super-high resolution hardware. Zoom in to 200% and proceed about your business. This is what it will look like on Tumblr.

You may find it helpful at this point to begin by defining the beginning and end of your gif by moving around these bumpers. It’s safe to keep gifs under 02:00f in length. Under half of 01:00f will be way too short. (I tend to overshoot in length and then trim the beginning and the end once I see how big the gifs are upon exporting.)

 Adjustment Layers

Now the creativity and fun begin!

There are a LOT of ways to get creative here. I’m going to keep it simple, very simple, but I strongly recommend opening up a new adjustment layer of each type and trying to figure out what each does!

You’ll find the adjustment layer menu at the bottom of the Layers window.

Curves

There are a lot of ways to make Curves work for you! It can do the job of Brightness/Contrast, it can do Levels, it can do Color Balance! We’re going to use it mainly to help with brightness here, but also to level out some of the tones. One of the quick tricks you can do is use the droppers on the left side of the Properties window. There are three- one with a white tip, one gray, one black. These can help define what your white tones are (and whether they need to be more of one color or another), and so on with your blacks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t; in this case, I think it doesn’t:

That looks totally blown out and somehow also too dark!

So instead, we’re going to use that little hand with the finger pointing out and some arrows pointing up and down. This lets you define which sections you want to get brighter or darker, and how much. It doesn’t do color correction. In the example below, you can see I dragged up on a white spot and down on a dark spot. Then, I moved points around on the curve itself to refine (which the gif here doesn’t show...).

Vibrance/Saturation x2

Next, I’ve been using @gwil-lee​‘s Vibrance/Saturation trick (I know you said you learned it from someone else, but I learned it from you!). 

Create a Vibrance Adjustment layer, bump the values up a bunch, and then change its Fill to somewhere between 2-9%. Change the Blend Mode to Color Burn. Then make a copy of that layer keeping everything the same, but make it Color Dodge. I can’t quite define what these do, but it makes it punchier!

Color Balance

Most people are familiar with this. For this gif, I’m going to make the shadows more Cyan/Blue and the highlights more Red/Yellow. Just a few points each. 

Exposure

I brought the Exposure up a bit, but not enough for you to need to read about, haha.

Selective Color

Here’s where you make fine adjustments to colors. This particular scene is extremely simple, color-wise, so keep it simple. I’m going to bump up the cyans/blues, take up the black by just a point or two, and maybe bump up the yellows and reds a tiny bit. (And as always, remember, the “opposite” of cyan is red, the opposite of magenta is green, and the opposite of yellow is blue. CMY/RGB!)

I think at this point I’m going to call it with the adjustment layers. You can go absolutely hogwild with more of them! But at this point, I’m ready to start sharpening!

 Sharpening

I do three sharpening filters these days. These are all under Filter->Sharpen. Make sure your media layer (default called Layer 1) is selected as we go through this! (Also, this can really take a toll on your processor, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Sharpen- This layer does the basic job

Smart Sharpen (Amount: 10%, Radius: 10, Reduce Noise: 4% Gaussian Blur)- This layer gives texture

Smart Sharpen (Amount: 500, Radius: 0.3, Reduce Noise: 12% Gaussian Blur)- This layer gives refined sharpening and smoothing

Fiddle with these as needed! Let your gif play all the way through- this may go slowly as your processor works on it. Make sure the beginning and end points make sense.

 Exporting

After You’re going to have to use File->Export->Save For Web (Legacy)... or use the shortcut of Shift+Option+Command+S. This could take some time for the dialogue to pop up! Be patient.

In my opinion, these are the best gif export settings for crisp edges and no noise:

Now you see how big the file is in the bottom left. Tumblr won’t let you upload anything bigger than 10MB and it’s safer to stay under 9MB, in my experience. When your gif is too big, you have a couple options. You can close the dialogue and change the length of your gif. 

OR, you can uncheck “Interlaced” and bump up the lossy to 1 or or more. This will create noise. Sometimes, that’s a good thing!

Here’s without lossy:

Here’s WITH lossy: (Honestly in a fast moving gif like this, it’s almost imperceptible, but I can see it!)

And now that I’ve exported, I can see what there’s a little black line on the bottom! So I’m going to trim that off and call it good! You can see the full gifset here.

Hope you enjoyed! Reblog if you try this out or learned anything. Feel free to reach out with questions any time!

[pepperoni-puffin]

How I Know What All My Custom Content Is (a mini tutorial for Mac Users)

Hi guys! So this is a couple finder techniques I’ve been wanting to share for a while but have never got around to it. I have a couple helpful things I do to all my custom content. It’s somewhat tedious up front but it makes it so much easier for me to find and refer to things later. I’ve worked hard over time to perfect this system so I thought I’d share in case anyone else could benefit! 

Tutorial is under the cut:

To do this process, 

1. You’re going to need to download Image2Icon or something similar. 

Personally I like Image2Icon. The free version does everything you need. It’s very simple and I like that the website and program look polished.

So now onto the thing! ���� 

2. Find the item you want to download. 

Today this lovely Sugar Lip Gloss by @kumikya​ is going to be my example.

3. Copy the link to the original post of your item. 

You can do this a few different ways with Tumblr’s interface, but I often like to just open it in a new tab. This way I know I’m not accidentally copying the link to a reblog, and I can also keep it in its own tab separate from the download.

4. Once you’ve downloaded it, find it in finder, select it, and Get Info. 

You can do this by either right clicking the file and click “Get Info”, use the keyboard shortcut Cmd + I, or click that button at the top with the little I in a circle.

5. Click the space under “Comments:” and paste in that link from before.

This makes it so when you use the item in look-books or renders later it’s super easy to find the link to where you got it from. Tedious now, but saves you time later.

(Interesting fact: I actually used Apple’s Automator program to make a workflow that makes this process even faster. Maybe some day I’ll try to upload it somehow, but for now we’re just going to do it the old-fashioned way.)

(Optional) Also, if you haven’t done this already, for your own sanity, change the “Open With” under the Comments Section to “Other...” and then choose Sims4Studio (or your desired program). 

You may have to change the Enabled Applications from “Recommended Applications” to “All Applications” since it may not realize package files and S4S are buddies. 

Then click “Change All...” Now all all package files from here on out will open with Sims4Studio!

Once I found this it made my process SO MUCH FASTER. I could open things like normal files and not always have to open them from the app first.

6. Open the file in Sims 4 Studio.

(if you did the optional step you can now just double click on the file!!)

7. Copy the name from the very top of the document. 

If you click the little down arrow next to the name it should bring it up all nice and highlighted for you.

8. Click “Export” next to the Catalog Thumbnail and paste your file name into the “Save As” box. 

This will make it easier to find since the image and file will be right next to each other alphabetically, and if you’re doing multiple of these at a time it removes any chance for mix up between files and icons. (Also make sure it’s in the same folder as your original file.)

9. Shrink Finder to a Smaller Window, then pull up your Image2Icon program next to it.

10. Drag your icon image into the circle.

11. Once your image appears in the circle, drop your file or files onto the same space. The program changes the Finder icon of whatever you plop into it.

It’s not shown here but when you give it the initial image you can actually give it multiple and there will be a little arrow so you can choose which image will be the applied icon. It’s really helpful if you’re doing this for multiple files at once.

12. Tada! Now your file shows off its associated icon, and you can delete the png image.

Now instead of just a package file we see the in-game icon and we can easily access the link to the original post.

I hope you all enjoyed this tutorial! Let me know if this helped you or if you have any additional questions. Happy Simming!

[smoakmonster]

hi, on your latest oliver and felicity gifset how did you put the two scenes into one gif? love your work.

Hi Anon, thanks so much!! I think this is my first tutorial ask. Very exciting.

Not sure how familiar you are with gif-making, but I tried to keep this as succinct as possible. Essentially, what I do is start out by making two gifs--one gif per scene--and then merge these gifs together. I’m sure there is a faster way to do this, but this is the method that works for me.

(Tumblr currently won’t let me put anything under “read more”. Sorry for the super long post!)

Check out my process below:

1. Upload screencaps of each scene into layers and create two separate psd files for each scene. Each file contains all the frames I need/might need per scene.

(I usually save extra frames than what I end up being able to fit into less than a 3MB file. I like to have extra screencaps initially, because I don’t always know what part of the scene I want to use or what will look nice paired with the other scene.)

2. Once the two files are saved, go through the steps to make a gif for each scene.

Create Frame Animation

Make Frames From Layers

Set Time Loop to “Forever”

Set time per frame to 0.05 seconds

Crop the image into the position/size you want

Convert to Video Timeline

Convert to Smart Object

3. Repeat all these steps for a second scene, or as many scenes as you want.

One extra thing I did for Scene 2 (from 3x01) was I flipped the canvas prior to cropping it, so that when Felicity spins, she spins in the same direction as she does in 1x03.

4. At this point, each scene is cropped and converted to a smart object and is ready to be edited. I am still working with each scene separately. I use a sharpening action on both scenes.

For additional editing, I usually copy layer adjustments from previous gifs that I’ve made and duplicate them onto my current project, because it saves me a lot of time. (The more editing I do from the same show, like Arrow, the more I find that the lighting remains similar across all scenes, so you don’t necessarily have to start from scratch every time. You can just copy previous edits, and then do minor tweaks to the lighting or coloring to fit the current project.)

For example, for the 3x01 scene this time, I just copied the layer adjustments from the 7x22 Olicity goodbye gifs I made. I found that the lighting and coloring worked well here.

For the 1x03 scene, because it is already so bright, I made minor alterations in Curves and Levels from scratch. Then, I changed the saturation to -100 to make the image black and white.

5. NOW we finally get to the good part. Merge the two scenes into one.

To do that, select all the layers from one scene and duplicate those layers onto the other scene. It doesn’t matter which one you pick, though I tend to copy the second scene, because usually the duplicate layers get sent to the end of the animation, so that makes it easier for organizing. In this case, I selected all layers from the 3x01 file, clicked “Duplicate Layers” and copied the layers to the 1x03 file.

So now you should have something that looks like this, 2 scenes in 1 file:

All of my layers for Scene 1 are at the beginning, and all of my layers for Scene 2 are at the end.

6. Next, I add the text at the very top layer and drag the text to extend all the way across the timeline, from beginning to end. Center the text by clicking “lign horizontal centers” and “Align vertical centers.”

7. Now comes the most tricky part: edit the file size down to less than 3MB. Everything in between those little white “bookends” at the top (IDK what their actual name is) will be included in the gif file.

I start off by trimming down the very beginning of Scene 1 and the very end of Scene 2. I drag each “bookend” inward.

8. Now I test to see what my file size is by going under “File” and clicking on “Save for Web”. This will create a gif.

As you can see, we are a bit over the 3MB limit for Tumblr. So now it’s time to make further adjustments to widdle the file size down even more.

What I realized when making this gif was that I didn’t want the very end of the 1x03 scene or the very beginning of the 3x01 scene. So I trimmed each scene from the inside out.

9. For Scene 1, drag the red ticker until you find the spot you want the scene to end. Then move all layers associated with that scene to just in front of the red ticker.

Your end result for Scene 1 should look like this:

10. For Scene 2, drag the red ticker until you find the spot you want the scene to start. Then move all layers associated with that scene to just behind the red ticker.

Your end result should look like this:

11. As you can see, we have trimmed the scenes down, but now there is a gap in between them. To close the gap, select all layers from Scene 2 and drag them until they touch the end of Scene 1.

12. Now you will need to readjust the second bookend by dragging it back where you had originally trimmed the end.

You notice the work area is smaller than it was before, and that’s our goal in order to make a smaller file size. As a good rule, each scene should run about the same length of time, in order to make the gif feel more balanced.

Click on “Save for web” once again to see if the file size is within limit.

Yep, we are good to go!

Now, you can always make further adjustments at this point, maybe extend either scene a little bit longer to make the file size slightly bigger or more balanced. It’s up to you. I was happy with the two scenes at this point, so I stopped here.

Hope all of this makes sense! I still consider myself a photoshop amateur, so if I messed up on some terminology, please forgive me. Happy editing!

[fulloflesbeans]

Traveling: A Marshfield oneshot

Waiting at an airport really blows.

The drive to LAX was already torture, next you’re stuck waiting in line just to check-in bags, then you have to go to another line and take off your shoes and all metal on your body, and then you have to rush to put your shoes back on and grab your shit again.

Now, I waited near the gate. It was a one-way fly to Tokyo, on a mission to cross another thing off the bucket list and take as many photos as possible. For the first time, I get to go and travel alone. I didn’t have much of a plan except for aimless walking and restaurant hopping.

I faced myself towards the large windows, looking out to the runways and all the planes arriving and departing. There were already lots of people sitting in these uncomfortable, way too low black seats, eating food from the many available restaurants from the food court or sleeping with their headphones and neck pillows. Times like this felt slow, because everyone just wanted to get on the plane already. Another lucky thing, I sat right next to a couple of power outlets to charge my phone. Social media was my best friend in times like this: Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, even Facebook.

Two hours of nothing passed. I huffed as I went through Tumblr again, refreshing over and over again to see new posts or memes. When I refreshed the dashboard for the fifth time, I put my phone down and observed my surroundings. It was vacation time and seeing so many people in this one terminal, I was convinced this flight was overbooked. On top of that, the letter on my ticket was “D”, the last group of people to get on a plane.

My eyes locked onto someone with blonde hair in a nicely done bun. She sat alone at the end of the row in front of me, looking through her phone and had her over-stuffed backpack on her lap. Right next to her was a big burger pillow.

She’s cute, I thought. I contemplated talking to her, but just like me, she was scrolling through her phone and had earphones in.

“The time now is 10:10 AM. Now boarding Priority on Delta flight 212 to Haneda Airport.”

I stayed sitting down, since my group isn’t until the end. The line in front of the gate was already incredibly long and disorganized.

It took another twenty minutes before it was my group’s turn. I put my backpack on and held my ticket. The girl I saw earlier was holding the burger pillow under her arm and was a few people behind me; she was getting an upgrade for sure.

When it was my turn, there was a longer delay. I watched the various screens of when we board and showing different cities and what the weather was like over there.

“There are no more seats in economy, would you like to upgrade to business class?”

“Oh, yes, that’s fine.”

Nothing screamed “cramped” more than the inside of an airplane. Seeing the rows of blue seats, trying to squeeze in two or three people into a row, having to make personal space to sleep or go use the even smaller restrooms. At least there were TV screens to watch movies on.

My expectations were high for the business cabin, but some perks included more leg room and bigger screens. I was still going to have to sit next to someone, but it wouldn’t be as awkward.

I put my carry-on bags in the cubby above my seat and sat next to the window. My first instinct was to start looking through compartments and try to play around with the screen in front of me. The screen wasn’t working yet and all I found was a manual for the life vests and the Sky Mall magazine.

I went through my phone again, looking through Tumblr once more. I took a picture of my shoes to upload on Instagram.

Heading to Tokyo, I added a little airplane emoji.

A person sat in the seat next to me and I didn’t think much of it until I saw a blonde hair bun in my peripherals.

I shoved the magazine back into the pocket under the TV. I acted like I was looking out the window when I was really looking at her through the corner of my eye. The first thing she did was take a book out.

Like me, she was comfortable wearing a jacket and jeans for the wintertime. She was way more comfortable with the burger pillow on her lap.

I tapped my finger against the armrest as I watched the workers outside driving around with a large container full of luggage and packages.

I had to admit it; I felt nervous. What does one do when sitting next to a pretty girl? Because I have no clue.

I watched the outside, up until we started to move. I thought of every cheesy icebreaker I could think of, but all of them were so bad and would make me feel uncomfortable.

As we were speeding up and lifting off the ground, I decided on something simple and not corny.

“How does takeoff actually work?” I asked. She turned her attention to me right away, raising her eyebrows, and closing her book.

“Oh, um, I think they build up speed and we sort of just… lift up.”

I watched as her hands were trying to replicate the plane lifting off the ground. Her voice was very timid and cute. I was feeling kind of giddy just making eye contact with her. She had bright and sparkling hazel eyes; I almost didn’t say anything.

“Wouldn’t it be crazy if we just went straight up?” I copied her hands, except one hand abruptly went up.

“It would be!” She nodded in agreement. She giggled and smiled, causing me to smile too.

“Um,” I didn’t want it to end just yet, “What are you reading there?”

I leaned over, resting my arm on the armrest. I was invested now and the rest of the ride will become awkward.

“It’s a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while,” She showed me the cover, “It’s a romance book.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about a girl who meets another girl and then they go on adventure together.” She flipped through the pages.

I hummed, “Sounds interesting. Is reading good to pass the time?”

“I personally think so,” She shrugged her shoulders, “It’s not for everyone, of course.”

I would, but I don’t have a book and I wasn’t interested in watching a movie at this point.

“What books are you into?” She asked.

“Love a good science fiction. On a good day, horror is the way to go.”

“I’ve read a few Stephen King novels, but not my cup of tea.”

“You should reconsider.”

“Why is that?”

After this, the whole conversation continued on and on. Our flight lasted for eleven hours, yet neither of us showed any signs of shutting up. Our whole topic on stories and ones we’ve read recently lasted for nearly half of the travel.

“I suggest Misery. That book is good.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Do you want to watch the film adaptation? It might be on these little screens.”

She shook her head, “I don’t want to traumatize myself!”

Our next topic went to ourselves. It transitioned so well, I wasn’t sure when it happened. She started, saying something about her other hobbies like playing instruments and sometimes knitting. I wasn’t sure what to say about myself, but I tried to relate with her with the instrument thing, saying I played guitar sometimes, and watching thriller or cult films. Time went by, unbeknownst to us, and we only broke away when flight attendants asked about meals, snacks and drinks. We still talked even when eating awful plane food about the reasons why we were going to Tokyo at all.

“It’s a bucket list thing.” She answered.

“Me too! Kinda, I do photography for a living, so I love to travel.”

“Sounds exciting! What do you love taking pictures of?”

I hummed, “To be honest, no idea. I just see things and I’m like, “I need a photo of that.’”

This topic went on for the rest of the trip. I paused about halfway through my sentence; I forgot ask the most important thing.

“Wait, damn, we don’t even know each other’s names!”

“That would be important, huh?” She chuckled.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Haneda Airport. Local time is 2:28 AM and the temperature is 41 degrees Fahrenheit.”

We checked our seatbelts and directed our attention out the window. We watched as we had a semi-bumpy landing. It looked like overcast outside and was slightly windy.

“I felt like we just left.” She sighed.

“I know, right?”

On behalf of Delta Airlines and the entire crew, I’d like to thank you for joining us on this trip and we are looking forward to seeing you on board again in the near future. Have a nice stay!”

We didn’t talk to each other as we were getting out of the plane. We looked at each other from time-to-time, smiling and nodding at each other. Even though we weren’t saying anything, we were still walking side by side and staying together. Plus, the airport was pretty overcrowded, so it wasn’t like we could split ways. We stopped at the conveyor belt filled with large luggage bags for our plane; it was already surrounded by people from our and other flights.

Our bags happened to be right next to each other and we pulled on them right away to our sides.

I huffed, “Do you know anyone here? In Japan, I mean?”

“Nope, I’m here all by myself. What about you?”

“Me neither, I’m just here alone.”

We both chuckled, but neither of us started the goodbyes or walking away. I looked around awkwardly with the question dancing on my tongue.

I looked at her again, “Would you like to travel together?”

She was deep in thought, judging by the look on her face and her hand on her chin. I wasn’t expecting a yes, because I’m still a stranger to her. She then giggled and nodded.

“You know what? I would love to.”

We started to walk together, dragging our bags and dumb smiles on our faces. Then, I remembered an important detail.

“So, uh, what’s your name?” I asked.

“Kate,” she smiled and held her hand out, “You are?”

“Max.” I grabbed and shook her hand.

As we let go, the smiles on our faces were plastered on.

Traveling alone didn’t seem that fun anyway.

[tired213]

Yuri on ice x Haikyuu.

Alright, so crusing through Tumblr does things to my mind. I know I’m not the only one who has noticed this so time to mash animes.

Ittetsu Takeda and Yuuri Katsuki look a lot alike. I hc them as cousins. Cousins that kinda keep in contact but not really coz they don’t live near each other. Now time for an imagine:

Imagine Takeda knowing about the gayness between several of the boys and the girls, imagine him knowing what it’s like to be a minority in a country town. Now imagine him watching the news one night and finding about Yuuri’s and Viktor’s engagement and immediately calling Yuuri up, despite it being the middle of the night. Imagine him practically begging Yuuri to come to Karasuno and talk to the boys and girls about his struggles. Imagine Yuuri only agreeing coz Viktor wants to meet Takeda. Imagine Yuuri not getting any sleep because Viktor is constantly mumbling and moaning about not knowing about ALL of Yuuri’s family. And no he doesn’t care that Yuuri and Takeda aren’t all that close, so it does want matter.

So imagine a week or so later Yuuri and Viktor turning up at one of Karasuno’s practises and everyone getting creeped out coz ‘why the hell is there a Takeda look-alike at our practice and what is the meaning of the smaller version of Lev?’ Now imagine Yuuri getting all flustered at the amount of people he’s talking too and about how young they are, so all he can do is stamper on about ‘just being yourself and screw what others say’. So his speech gets scraped and the boys and girls don’t really get anything from it.

Then imagine Viktor getting fed up because Yuuri keeps antagonising over how much he stuffed up and bursting into Karasuno with like a hundred different pairs of ice skates, all in different shapes, colours and sizes, and gathering the boys and girls out the front and shoving them, Yuuri, Ukai and Takeda into a hired bus and driving their asses to the nearest ice-rink. Imagine him renting out the place for the day, because he’s got money and he wants to waste some on these Lil shits.

Now imagine Tsukishima being the salty bitch he is and complaining but the second he gets on the ice he’s literally skating circles around the others. Imagine the second he gets on the ice he has that tiny little smile that means he’s genuinely enjoying himself and Viktor tells him that he’d be a great figure skater.

Imagine Yamaguchi being able to hold his own but is too scared to wonder far from the edge, so just awkwardly glides around in circles as Tsuki tries to coax him from the edge. Imagine that Yuuri makes sure to encourage him with a smile every time he goes past. Imagine Yuuri taking him to one side and telling him that he was excellent and should skate more often. Imagine Yams being more confident in his skills because of this and starts to skate around with Tsuki.

Imagine Tanaka and Nishinoya claiming that they’re absolute pros and crashing the first second they are on the ice. Imagine Noya slowly getting better and by the end has just gotten the hand of skating backwards. Imagine Tanaka relying heavily on Yuuri and Viktor before he regains his confidence and goes off to terrorise Ennoshita.

Imagine Asahi not getting on the ice at first, absolutely sure that he’ll crash and has a slight fear that if he does fall someone might accidentally slice his fingers off. Imagine when he finally does get on its only coz Viktor is so nice and Noya seems like he’s having fun and Asahi likes fun. Imagine him being one of the best skaters on the ice and having a face of pure bliss as he moves around on the ice, looking like the angel he really is.

Imagine Ukai being a complete ‘dunce’ and hanging onto Takeda, only for Takeda to find out at a later date that he’s actually pretty good but was just doing it coz he didn’t trust Viktor and didn’t want to leave Takeda on his own near the Russian sex symbol. Imagine Takeda feeling all warm inside because of this.

Imagine Takeda being almost as good as ice skating as Yuuri and the both of them being the adorable dorks they are and making Viktor and Ukai just that little bit hot under the collar. They’ll know about it later, when there aren’t kids around.

Imagine Hinata being the actual dunce and being unable to stand, let alone fucking move on the ice. Imagine Kageyama immediately diving into overprotective boyfriend mode the second one of the better skaters so much as looks at him. Imagine Hinata slowly learning how to skate but complains because he wants Yuuri or Viktor to teach him but Kags is just glaring at them and not letting them close to them.

Imagine Kags not being all too good either so eventually (after the seventeenth time they fall on their asses) he scoots over and awkwardly asks for help. Imagine Viktor laughing but helping him, promising up and down that he isn’t going to touch Hinata. Imagine Hinata glaring at Kags because of this.

Imagine Kiyoko being really unsteady and ungraceful on the ice and surprising everyone when she almost immediately falls over. Imagine her trying to brush it off but clinging to Yachi for the rest of the day.

Imagine Yachi being the beautiful, graceful princess she really is and laughing a little as Viktor and Yuuri cheer at her everything she and Kiyoko skate past them. Imagine her feeling completely at ease on the ice.

Imagine Ennoshita, Kinoshita and Narita feeling awkward as Yuuri notices them to the back so keeps bringing them foreword and helping them more than the others. Imagine them being awkward and clingy at first and by the end they’re skating almost as good as Tsuki and Asahi. Imagine them believing in themselves because Yuuri did. Imagine them applying this concept in their volleyball training and slowly working up to the leading line during their third year and Ukai being so proud of them.

Imagine Suga hanging back at first because he wants the others to enjoy themselves before he fucking destroys them with his skills. Imagine him fake falling and crashing to make everyone pity him then halfway through the day getting up and near perfectly copying one of Victor’s older routines because the Team Mum is a big fan boy that has been collecting posters of Viktor since he was in his mama’s womb.

Imagine Daichi loving this even though he refuses to let go of the side of the rink but he’s still the one that has the most amount of fun. Imagine him just standing back and watching his team zip around on the ice, recording a few of them but getting camera shy when Suga steals the video camera from him.

Imagine them all laughing and making fun of each other as they skate and when they brake for lunch Yuuri, seeing them all happy, works up the courage and stands on top of a table and clears his throat. Imagine him telling them everything, about how he got drunk and made a fool of himself, about how he couldn’t deal with his losses in a healthy manner, about how much his anxiety affected him and how he wouldn’t get help and just eat his feelings out.

Imagine Yuuri telling them about meeting Viktor and how much the misunderstanding crushed him. Imagine him telling them about how hard he fell for Viktor and how they helped each other throughout the season. Imagine Takeda in tears as each of them pay attention and take in everything he says. Imagine Viktor taking a picture from behind and using his laptop to take all the videos Daichi recorded and uploading it all on his social media tagging everyone he knows. Imagine Pitchit being the first to like it and almost immediately calls up Yuuri, who has to awkwardly pause his speech to let Pitchit gush at the team.

Imagine all of his fans dying over this team and how adorable they are. Imagine when the next season comes around Yurio demanding to meet the team and is instant salt-buddies with Tsuki and Yams. Imagine Hinata trying to square up against Otabek when Yurio finally brings him around because he looked at Kags for longer than five seconds. Imagine Asahi and Otabek being the 'bad rumour buddies’.

Imagine Yuuri and Viktor dropping by during the next training camp in Tokyo because they were in town. Imagine Lev getting pissy because 'holy shit batman my cousin is in town and he didn’t tell me!’ Imagine everyone in Karasuno just collectively going 'I knew it’. Just imagine all the teams calling in the students that had graduated and telling them 'to get your damn asses over now, Karasuno collectively knows FAMOUS people’ Imagine Kuroo and Suga getting together to fan boy over Viktor.

Furthermore imagine Kuroo nearly strangling Lev because 'How did the fact that Viktor Nikiforov is your cousin and my biggest role model slip out of that dumb head of yours?!?’

Just Imagine Yuuri helping the kids with confidence issues and Viktor helping the kids with body image issues. Imagine Viktor and Yuuri getting the kids who can figure skate really well and getting them to help with fund-raisers. Imagine them helping the kids that want to figure skate get onto the scene and lunching their carers. Imagine Viktor and Yuuri going to schools all around the world and teaching kids to love themselves and ice skate because it worked so well for the Karasuno kids.

Imagine Takeda and Ukai helping them spread the positive vibes around the world by pitching in with volleyball lessons. Imagine Viktor and Yuuri turning up to each of the Crows graduations because they love them. Imagine each of the Crows having a second set of parents to turn to when life gets really tough.

Imagine Yurio and Otabek giving the team shoutouts every so often. Imagine the team collectively working together to prank Yurio and Otabek when they’re being shits. Imagine the team coming together several years after they first met Viktor, Yuuri, Yurio and Otabek and planning a huge thank you party for them. Imagine the team being guests of honour at the Viktuuri wedding. Imagine Viktor and Yuuri showing up at the AsaNoya, TsukiYama, DaiSuga, KageHina, KiyoYachi, UkaTake and all the other weddings. Imagine finding strength in each other as the years pass.

Just AHHHHHHHH. Imagine how adorable this would be. I’m sorry that this went on for so long. But I love my hat animes.

[hexiewrites]

heartlikethunder replied to your post “my heart’s always yours”

So much looooove! Welcome to femslash bingo btw! ;) was wondering if you could share how you made your bingo card? I was trying to do something similar but it didn't work out :/

thank you, @heartlikethunder ! I’m gonna do my best to explain what I did here! I am not super experienced with html or css (these days) and mostly I am just very stubborn, so I played around for a few hours until I got it doing what I wanted. I have limited theme experience and but I think you need a basic understanding of how tumblr does theme codes to pull this off, and a lot of patience. if you’re good at themes you should be great!

I started with a network page theme because it was “closest” to what I wanted to achieve. I used this one: http://nbthm.tk/post/146288980478/network-page-preview-code-page-version-code because it was simple but nice. 

I made a lot of edits and I’m not sure it would be alright to share ‘my version’ of the theme because it is so different. obviously all credit still goes to neonbike! so I’ll just try and explain here and you can message me if you want if this makes no sense?

first I went through the whole code to figure out what changing different things did (change a number, update preview, OH SHIT, change it back mostly). I found the values for the image size and dropped them down to 100px by 100px, and then the container size, and then a few other things (padding, etc) so that the images would be smaller and touching and in a 5x5 square. this was mostly trial and error on my part and if you’re really curious I can try and compare this with the base code to figure out exactly what I changed.

the biggest challenge was figuring out how to get the name (the type of au) to stay in place and then have the hover come up with the “description” which I used as the title of the fic. I’m still not entirely sure how I pulled this off and it’s not perfect (if you hover over meet ugly or boarding school you’ll see some of the words shift slightly - I have no idea how to fix this other than if I made the text tiny and I still wanted it readable), it was kind of just dumb luck... (I also deleted the bit that turned urls into boxes because I didn’t like it)

for the background picture: I googled “blurry background” and picked one I liked. I opened that in photoshop and cropped it to a 500px by 500px square (100 px icons, times the 5x5 bingo square). i put in guides every 100px and then basically copied each square into a separate document (keeping them in order) so that at the end i would have the look of a unified background picture. then I’m just replacing the pictures in each one when I finish the fic which is easy - you just need a new image url.

I had to upload those pics to a separate page because I needed image url’s for the theme - if you had a photobucket or whatever I’m sure that would work too.

okay. I’m not sure if this helped at all, but I hope it did! good luck - and let me know if you end up doing it, I’d love to see yours!!