#primary and made this gifset

[bylrndgm]

the more we know the less we show.

@bylerween2023 | day iii | october, 28th ↳ prompt: will's possession ⨠ concept: primary by the cure [insp]

[emblazons]

In The Closet (At Rink-O-Mania)

 Mike Wheeler + Subtextual Queercoding 🏳️‍🌈 an @emblazons 1K free space gifset for @ice-sculptures

just because its visual & can be hard to discern, here are the "queer coding" aspects I chose, in order:

Mike stares at Wills mouth several times over the course of S3-S4 especially—the movie theater in S3 is another one that I didn't get to include, but that is as dramatic as the three I did manage to put here lmao. He also looks at boys like Eddie (and maybe even the boy behind Angela) with extreme interest, which was a gif I made but that didn't make the primary set.

Closet Imagery follows this boy around like a shadow, and has since Season 1. Bonus points for Mike being in the phone booth in The Nina Project, because...the closet is glass. 😂

Mike wanting girls out of "mens/boys only" spaces happens so many times its laughable. Hilariously, he also gets kicked out of the girls bathroom (the same way he kicks girls out of boys spaces) in Rink o Mania come Season 4.

The worlds most coded "you can admit you're gay to me" conversation happens between Karen and Mike in season 1, right after he puts El in his closet. ☠️ Bonus points for how Will must be affecting him is mentioned right before that happens.

Mike is disgusted / displeased with women several times over the course of the show. Not included in the gif: When Nancy asks Mike if he likes Eleven as they're preparing to make El a bath in S1; when Mike gets upset at the rest of the party for wanting to talk to Max despite not knowing her in MADMAX; him being mortified of lingerie along with Will in The Mall Rats in S3, when he looks confused/disgusted when Lucas tries to explain heterosexual romance to him throughout S3, and the way he takes El's hands off of him both while making out with her in Suzie, Do You Copy and when she greets him at the airport in Vecna's Curse. He also never kisses El for the rest of S4 after their greeting/walk at the airport + misses Angela hitting on him at Rink-O-Mania entirely, which you can make of what you will.

[classic-maya]

The whole goncharov thing reminds me of when the Sherlock (BBC) fandom collectively fancast Michael Fassbender as Sebastian Moran and then we just moved on from there. Like mormor was my primary ship, and one half the ship did not even exist in the show. We made gifsets, copious fics, fanvids, I was obsessed with a cosplaying rpf couple who dressed up as our modern day interpretation of Moran with BBC Moriarty and they were many more than them. Anyway, what I am saying is that it’s not that surprising we can use that hive brain to mass hallucinate an entire film, if it wasn’t as a joke it could even become someone’s primary fandom for a while here on tumblr dot com and I think that’s beautiful

[thetidemice]

Do ya ever think about Andy and Annie's dance during "Rag Dolly" and feel like watching that specific scene on loop AND sorta feeling like doing their little dance with someone at the same time 'cause hhhhh I love it and those sibs a bunch, it's just the somftest and adorablest dance to a likewise comfy song made more so by Andy's singing and I get a genuine burst of serotonin revisiting it (and lowkey that scene/song alone was what got me to watch the musical for the first time a couple years back :> if ya also have knowledge on who animated their dance or any part of Rag Dolly for that matter that'd be cool to learn about too! but I understand if that might end up being a lot to share :0)

AAAH i love love love that sequence so much!! its the cutest dance it has so much character and Andy's voice becoming so gentle and sweet right after singing No Girl's Toy is just the best thing ever. he doesn't even like Babette he's just helping his sister make a good impression.

analysis under the readmore:

what's crazy is looking through this whole book - i'm talking about The Animated Raggedy Ann  & Andy - An Intimate Look at the Art of Animation Its History, Techniques, and Artists by John Canemaker (the linked version has no pictures D-:) - Rag Dolly isn't really mentioned that much, despite being essentially the main theme music.

i would love to tell you more for a fact, but i just can't say for sure who animated it, as a lot of scenes aren't credited individually.

for some songs, like Richard Williams doing No Girl's Toy, Tissa David doing Candy Hearts, Art Babbitt doing Blue, and Emery Hawkins doing Never Get Enough, the artists get a section dedicated to them and the main chunk of animation work they contributed. in the credits of the film, Art Babbitt animates the Camel, Emery Hawkins animates the Greedy, etc etc - they were generally in charge of those character-centric scenes, along with a team of inbetweeners, painters, etc.

there isn't one for Rag Dolly, since it's relatively short and bounces between characters. so basically TAKE ALL OF THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT!!!

the ONLY expertise i have is that 1. ive flipped thru john canemaker's book and 2. i love this movie so much

what i CAN do is make wild guesses ^_^ and this first little verse as Ann fidgets with her dress and apron just SCREAMS Tissa David to me. here's a pose from that sequence side-by-side with one of her famous (and one of my favourite) Raggedy Ann drawings.

here's something she notes about Ann's first action sequence of falling off the chair (she was set to work on candy hearts before anything else, to really get to know the characters):

and here's a fantastically convenient gifset from Rag Dolly. EVERYTHING!!! her hair falling in her face, the movement of the fabric, the wonderful sense of timing. also note the lack of eyelashes, which isnt exclusive to one artist or anything, but does pop up in David's drawings:

now to go on a tangent about an artist who could well have worked on that scene, and whom i wish there was some more info about!!!

"The only thing that Disney never understood is that to animate girls, one must be a girl!" - Tissa David believed (along with pretty much the rest of the team) that herself and Chrystal Russell (whose work is woefully sparse in the book but very much present in the movie) were the best animators of 'little Annie'. she also worked on Fern Gully; you can find her credits under her married name, Chrystal Klabunde! she supported Tissa as the primary actor for Raggedy Ann, and her style appears as this distinctive, adorable, muppet-y look throughout the film. these pics are examples of, if not her own drawings, then her stylistic influence in these scenes:

she's credited as animating the playroom dolls, but you can notice her influence in Annie come through from the beginning ('I Look, and What Do I See?') to the end ('Home') of the whole thing. like i said, the credits are never too specific, but if i had to GUESS, then this looks like her stuff. we also know for a fact she worked on the first song because of this lovely set of drawings in the book!

here's the sweetest photo of Didi Conn (Ann's voice) and Chrystal together with some clean-up sheets of a shot right before Rag Dolly - when Ann introduces herself to Babette, 'my name is Raggedy Ann, and this is my brother, Raggedy Andy,' (i still can't confirm whether they're her drawings but i wouldn't be surprised!):

anyway tl;dr: i have no way of knowing for sure who was in charge of it, and no doubt a whole team of artists were involved, (and i'm in no way trying to discredit anyone if i'm wrong) but my best guess is you can thank Tissa David for the first part, and Chrystal Russell (now Chrystal Klabunde) for their dance together - the animation changes subtley between those shots. i wish i had more artists/resources to look at, or god forbid a full breakdown of that scene, but at this point i would bet money on David's part in Annie's little introduction.

also some final appreciation for this silly slide to the ground that Andy finishes with:

anyway i'm SO sorry for going on such a long rant in response to this lovely ask!! and i'm sorry it took so long! it took so long, in fact, that i was actually accepted into university halfway through writing it the other day! so thank you!

i had so much fun playing amateur detective so double thank you!!! again i'm probably wrong about ALL of this but it was a blast to reread sections of the book and rewatch different bits of the movie to sleuth around for clues. i hope whatever i have come up with is of some interest to you, and i hope someone learned something about the wonderful artists behind this movie :-D

chrystal and raggedy ann ^_^

[markantonys]

I’ve never watched wheel of time but I will say that I think something to be said for the debate about costuming is that the game of thrones costumes were INSANE when it came to quality and detail. At least in the first few seasons they were hand-sewn, hand-embroidered, etc. There was a big coffee table type book about them that broke down a lot of the choices the costume designers and department made and the quality of that department still blows me away!!! They were gorgeous and complex and took so much of the worldbuilding and politics into account!

And from what I’ve seen, it seems like the Wheel of Time costumes do the same, it’s just that they draw from very different references and eras!! Maybe there will be some kind of bts/special feature breakdown of what they referenced and the different ideas they drew from for the costuming for WOT. That seems like it would be a good time. It’s really annoying and really unfortunate that a lot of people refuse to see past their own preconceptions of what fantasy means. I’m sorry that so many people are making assumptions about fantasy costuming in your notes, especially. It’s a genre that spans much wider than lotr and game of thrones! Perhaps more people should. Idk. Engage with it more and find that out. Maybe that would fix them.

yeah!! haha it really was just 2 complaints in my notes on a gifset that otherwise had universal gushing about how much people loved the costumes, so thankfully most people are enjoying the WOT costumes (and not being annoying in my notes) and i was definitely being dramatic in my complaints about the complaints! still, there's something to be said about how ingrained ideas of "this is what fantasy costumes are Supposed to look like" are in us, when fantasy as a genre MEANS there's no set definition of what ANYTHING is "supposed" to be.

i didn't watch GOT but i've seen plenty of gifs etc over the years, of course, and the costumes are absolutely beautiful and very detailed! and from what i understand, the books were going for a medieval europe type of vibe for the main kingdoms and so in that respect the show's costumes definitely understood the assignment (tho ofc with their own added Fantasy Flavor). the downside is that they were so influential that it's made a lot of people subconsciously think that that is THE fantasy aesthetic (along with LOTR), and thus anything too different looks out of place to them.

there have been a couple WOT costume bts features that i've seen, and the designers did indeed do similar things where they showed how much stuff was handmade and how detailed everything is, and they talked about taking inspiration from many different real-world cultures & time periods as well! a lot of which is based on the way the author described clothes in the books and the real-world fashion influences he was using. i remember in a season 1 bts the costume designer had a map of WOT's world color-coded according to which real-world cultures are the primary inspirations for the dress of each region of WOTworld (although i think it's a different costume designer for season 2 so i don't know if they adhered 100% to the s1 designer's notes).

to conclude, here are some caps from a scene in s1 that features a large international gathering (same color=same wizard faction, but within each faction are women of many different cultures, so you can see for example that our 4 blue ladies are wearing 4 very different styles). i wouldn't say these are the best costumes in the show because season 2 really took it up a notch (hello, higher budget!), but this particular scene is a great quick illustration of the wide variety of styles going on in the vast continent of WOTworld and of how much detail goes into costumes even for nameless background characters. and most of them do feature the sort of clean lines/angularity that makes our brains go "modern", and most of them do look quite different from the GOT & LOTR aesthetics!

[tongaris]

YOOO i finished stampede last night so here are my rambling thoughts bc i just woke up:

first of all the opening theme is a bop. kudos to whoever fought for that color scheme during the beginning titles. it reminds me of the children of dune miniseries from the early 00s (all the orange), early 90s orange/teal/purple and like, taco bell. sick. good font choices, sand blowing away to reveal lettering always goes hard. windmill and things sinking into the sand, awesome.

i don't know how kids are straight up rawdogging stampede without reading the manga first though!! the manga is the backbone of trigun, it is the Primary Source document of trigun!! no question. in stampede, there is so much crammed in this short frame of time, there is like so much happening, I DO NOT MIND THIS THOUGH bc i'm well acquainted. but i feel like someone with no prior trigun exposure might have difficulty keeping up with all of it? at the same time, i get the vibe that stampede was made primarily for people who already HAVE decades of massive trigun brainrot, who know how plants work, etc. it's cool that stampede's ushered new fans into this universe. someone on crunchyroll was saying how they hit you with all the lore and secrets up front, there's no buildup. but like imo it's understood you KNOW the backstory and stampede is just this fresh re-imagining of it. stampede's just a really pretty, lovingly-wrought cherry on the sundae of your existing trigun fandom. it is like, a gift to all of us??

it started out and i'm like okay this is literally Tremors, now it's The Wolfwood Show, i loved how they did the badlads even though no BDN (BDN my beloved), lots of character design diversity, not alot of "sameface" which i respect, great voice acting. i have never been a huge fan of cgi in anime but zamn they made it work SO well like the cell shading was just phenomenal. glad that they didn't shy away from blood. well utilized gore, not gratuitous. the final battle with vash and knives was gorgeous. SO WELL ANIMATED MY GODD. love how knives has this classically "good" angelic color scheme and vash is all chthonic black and dark purples?? this is my initial reaction after powering through it once, i'll rewatch soon for stuff i missed.

someone do a gifset of meryl kicking ww in the shin and making him shiver like a traumatized shiba inu PLEASE bc i haven't seen that on here yet lmao. also love how wolfwood would say some tough edgy shit to appear callous/indifferent but you can immediately tell by his eyes/actions that he truly feels otherwise. boy we see right thru you.

[malka-lisitsa]

random question because i saw a gifset:

what was katherine's intention when she kissed damon at the end of season 1? why did she do it?

To make an incredibly easy answer even more easy-

She missed him.

I mean of course she also wanted to cause discourse between Damon and Stefan and Elena so she could work towards getting Stefan back- no one is denying she also had underhanded motivations there... but that was more a bonus than a primary.

She kissed him because she missed him.

She loved Damon, he was in her plan to turn him and live forever as the three of them happy and in love. Katherine kept an eye on Damon too. She lied straight through her teeth when she told him that she hadn't ever loved him and anyone with any kind of brain (lmfao not damon apparently) could tell she was lying.

But standing on that porch, was the first time she had been that close to one of her boys in 145 years where she wasn't hidden. It was the first contact she'd made with one of her Salvatores in over a century and so she kissed him (Or rather let him kiss her) because she missed him, and wanted to feel his lips on hers again for the first time in 145 years.

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

hello hi good evening<3

i just remembered these exist and now i wanna climb pretty expensive inexperienced richboy vernon like a fucking tree<3 that is all<3

Sorry for taking 85 years to answer this ask. Also, your ask sent in twice so, I hope it's okay that I am answering this one instead.

Thoughts about this under the cut because I have a few of them and, I took some liberties lol.

Okay, I know you sent this in about just Vernon but, hear me out. I saw that gifset you made of him and Josh and it got me thinking.

You, Joshua and Vernon have known each other since you were in diapers. Your parents all being friends for decades and, electing to involve each other in their lives. Vernon has always been more reserved, more shy than you and Joshua. At times, you both wonder why he even hangs out with the two of you when he always looks like he'd much rather be holed up in his room fiddling with his music setup that costs more than your car.

During one of these hang outs, where Joshua had raided his parents' stock for the finest wine and whiskey they had to offer, Vernon shyly let's it slip that he's only been with one person when the topic of sex inevitably comes up. That catches you and Joshua by surprise. You both know Vernon is a handsome guy. People have been fawning over him since primary school. He must take your stunned silence as a negative reaction because before you can blink he's stumbling onto his feet in an attempt to rush out of Joshua's bedroom.

Fortunately, Josh is quicker because he grabs the younger man's hand at lightning speed. Assuring him that you weren't judging him, the two of you were just surprised. Josh shoots you a look. A look that you recognise all too well and you hop up join the two men, causing Vernon to blink at you both in confusion.

Josh offers to help him gain more experience if he'd like to, his large hand drifting from holding Vernon's to dragging a thumb along his cheek. You give him a look that you hope is equal parts reassuring and encouraging while you lace your fingers with his own, peppering kisses along his unoccupied jaw.

Fortunately, it doesn't take much for Vernon's resolve to crumble.

He moans into you, prompting you to tug on his hair and arch further into his mouth. His eager tongue lapping up all of the wetness you have to offer, surprisingly strong hands keeping your thighs spread for him while he continues to lick and slurp to his heart's content.

"You're doing so well. Isn't he such a good boy?" Joshua asks you, curling two of lube slicked his thick fingers inside of Vernon. You do feel for Vernon. You know first hand how much of a stretch Joshua's fingers provide and, how ruthless he can be. However, based on the way he swears into your pussy, you're starting to think he likes it. Or maybe he likes being treated like an object for the two of you to use to get off.

"Such a good boy," you breathe, your eyes fluttering when he latches onto your clit, his moans vibrating against you and tightening that knot in the pit of your gut again.

"You should see yourselves. Both of you," Joshua groans, his eyes dropping from you momentarily to watch the way his fingers spread Vernon open, "Already so fucked out and we've barely even started."

[amtrak12]

Recently, I realized grief is my primary theme in my Lucifer fics and ideas. More than the theme even, grief is the entire plot of a one-shot I'm editing and the sequel to my current epic WIP. But I'm firmly in my mid-thirties now, so I figured that's just where my head is at in recent years. You go through cycles in life and I'm simply in my 'grief era' as some might say.

Except that's not actually true. I am successfully writing complete stories centered around grief right now, yes, but I've actually been trying to write about grief for a full decade.

Not in my Doctor Who fics, though grief is embedded in the plots.

Not in my Ghostbusters fics either. Those were written out of a mix of spite and love and explore… well I don't really know what they explored. shrug

No, my focus on grief got started back around 2014 (or 2013??) with a Bering and Wells AU that (honest to Jo) was inspired by an innocent Casper gifset @itcameuponamidnightqueer reblogged. I spent YEARS trying to write that AU. I had a ton of worldbuilding and plot elements, but I just could never find the story. There was a clear beginning (er mostly clear) but no obvious middle or end. The concept was just too big and amorphous for me to wrangle at the time. But damn if there isn't something still haunting in it.

When I remembered this, it made me want to put all the story elements together in one place again. Now, I certainly talked about this AU idea before on Tumblr. You can dig back into my 2014-2015 archives, possibly even 2013, and find messy rambles about it. And I haven't actively worked on the idea since Ghostbusters 2016 was released so some of the details are fuzzy now. But in case anyone can spot the story this was trying to be or if anyone's simply curious, here's what I had for this Bering and Wells ghost AU:

Like I said it was a Casper gifset that sparked the inspiration. Specifically, the 'Can I keep you' scene if I remember correctly. With it being late 2013, I was obviously utterly drowning in WH13/B&W feels, and we were all writing and brainstorming full-fledged alternate settings AUs. So of course, my immediate thought was 'ghost Bering and Wells AU' -- except I thought 'what if Myka's the ghost?' Because HG is the obvious candidate, being the historical figure, but I wanted to put a twist on it and then got really obsessed with the idea of ghost!Myka… and it all spiraled from there.

I decided on a modern setting, 2014, and then went college aged -- possibly because I was only a few years removed from my own college years at the time, but also Myka's relationship with her father/family as a whole ended up playing a huge factor in the world-building so that could've influenced the ages. I don't even know where to begin here because again, I never had a real plot, so let's just dive in I guess.

Helena Wells, age 20, an engineering (? of sorts?) student who Caturanga took on as an intern for his work. Now, Caturanga is effectively studying ghosts, though he dresses it up in fancier terms. I can't remember what his research goals were, but identification and communication were certainly the first two steps.

Usually when I age HG down, I make Christina a baby sister who she either lost or is estranged from to keep that aspect of her backstory. This time I decided to center her grief on her father who I made up for this story as also someone sciencey and someone Helena really admired and was close to. But he died in a car accident a few years ago (technically he might have been hit by a car while crossing the street but I can't confirm that). So Helena is interested in Caturanga's research because she would love to at least talk to her father again and refuses to believe he's fully gone. Resurrecting him is not currently her goal, though could easily come up given later events.

Caturanga isn't looking for the flashy haunted locations. He's looking for the mundane and preferably newer ghosts because they would be closer to the living and thus easier to talk to. He hears about a house in Colorado Springs in the US that can't keep a resident longer than two years so he chooses to study it. He and Helena rent it with plans on staying for a year.

Obviously this is Myka's childhood home and she is the ghost haunting the house. So what happened to Myka?

It's 1994 and Myka Bering is 19 years old. Her father still owns a bookstore, though they live in a separate house rather than an apartment above it. She still has her sister Tracy who I believe I made 15, so four years younger. Myka had been enrolled in college at the University of Colorado - Denver, but when she decided to switch majors from pre-med to pre-law at the end of her freshman year, her father complained about her indecisiveness and wasting money and pulled her out of school. He said, she could return to college when she had saved up enough money to pay for it herself.

Myka was gutted because she wanted to finish her degree so badly. She also hated leaving the friends she had made and tried to visit them as much as possible once school started back up that fall. One night when she drove up to visit her friends and boyfriend (Sam, of course), she lingered too long and arrived back home after curfew. Her father locked her out of the house as punishment, leaving her to sleep in the car in the garage where she left the overhead light on. There was an electrical fire that night. Myka didn't wake up in time to get out and she died.

Okay here's one of the rabbit holes I got super distracted by while trying to plot this out: Tracy's reaction. Because this whole thing is supposed to be a Bering and Wells AU, so clearly Helena and Myka are the main characters, right? But the more I obsessed over this story, the more prominent Tracy's role became. This was a tale of two sisters, dual POVs, each grappling with their rough childhoods in different ways. Except, there's also still the plot of Helena finding Myka, befriending her, and ultimately resurrecting her (more on this later), so how the hell were these things supposed to be balanced and woven into one coherent plot?? It was beyond my skill level. :S

In my head, Tracy had managed to skate under their dad's strict thumb throughout her childhood, largely because she just didn't care what her dad said and always opted to do her own thing. Myka did care what their father thought and tried to follow the rules which made the times when she didn't seem like more of an offense. Oldest child syndrome was also definitely at play where the youngest just gets away with more. So when Myka got pulled out of school, Tracy was less sympathetic and more 'you brought that on yourself.' I mean, it's not like Myka even needed to admit she changed majors. Colleges don't send report cards to your parents. She could've kept her mouth shut and stayed in school.

Tracy 1000% blamed their dad for Myka's death though. The electrical fire was an accident and no one was to blame, but he locked the door and didn't let Myka sleep inside that night. Therefore it's his fault. Myka was right about him this entire time. He's not just an annoying or strict dad, he's abusive. (Something Myka never said and will later disagree with though her own feelings towards their dad are certainly complicated.) Tracy's grief becomes anger and even hatred and builds until she emancipates herself from her parents and leaves home at 16. She spirals for a while (partying, reckless sex) before pulling herself out and finding some help to deal with her grief. She puts herself through school and becomes a social worker. By 2014, she's married and has two very young kids, one of which I'm 99% certain I named Micah after his aunt that he never got to meet. Tracy periodically takes them to visit Myka's grave, and did I write one of those visits in my multiple drafts? Yes, yes I did.

Making her a social worker both seemed fitting for her arc in this setting and is a helpful connection to ghosts when a certain little 10-12 year old (can't remember the exact age I made Claudia but it might have skewed towards 10) continually gets flagged in foster care because she insists she's talking to her brother's ghost.

On that note, let's jump back to the actual ghost plot. So in this universe, ghosts exist as amorphous blobs that can't be seen or touched by the living. At best, you can talk to them. Claudia can talk easily with Joshua because he's only been dead for a few years and immediately began following his little sister around. He's never been isolated. Other ghosts often are. It can take up to a couple of years for a ghost to become aware of their surroundings and new existence and if their loved ones are no longer in the same place, they might forget about their previous life.

This is what happened to Myka. Her family left the house immediately after the fire. Her room was empty when she regained awareness after her death and so her memories slipped away. After twenty-years of isolation, Myka doesn't remember ever having a physical body and doesn't even remember her name.

But she reads still. She remembers books and has stolen many from whoever was currently living in the house. She stashes them all away in the closet of her old bedroom and when these stashes are found and thrown out/reclaimed, she just starts again. Sometimes she only had one book to read over and over and over again. Other times, she had many. The reports of moved/missing books is what flagged this house as haunted.

Now, I said the living couldn't touch ghosts and that's because ghosts can't really interact with objects. It involves remembering being alive and corporeal well enough to remember what touching something like a doorknob feels like. Most ghosts can't do this without a lot of interaction with living people to jog their memories. Myka being able to touch books (only books but still) is rare and a huge discovery.

Helena finds Myka first. (Well, she finds the open book on the floor with pages moving on their own.) Communication is slow because Myka isn't used to speaking, so Helena has to figure out who this ghost is on her own with some good old fashioned cross-checking property records against obituaries. It's a bit of a gut punch to learn the quiet, book-obsessed ghost is a girl around her age.

(By book-obsessed, I don't mean just reading them. Ghost!Myka is very, very territorial and protective of her books because they're the only things she's owned since she's died.)

Helena and Caturanga's research involves a lot of equipment to try and sense a ghost. They manage to fine-tune a scanner to see the invisible ghost. This is when they learn ghosts are really just blobs and not a full-fledged body like the stories. Though, over the course of their tests, they do see Myka form pseudo-hands to carry and read her books which brings up all kinds of new questions for them to pursue.

I remember Myka never went through walls either. She could pass right through solid objects and would whenever a door was unexpectedly closed on her. But it always pinged her mind as Wrong so she would skirt under doors and around objects to get around the house. She never left the house -- though again, experiments with Helena later prove she can leave. It's a mental block. This is her house, even if she can't remember living there.

Helena works hard to get to know Myka and slowly befriends her as Myka re-learns how to talk to someone. The more she talks, the more Helena asks her questions, the more her memories return. Some of them return easily. The more painful ones, she fights and tries to forget again. She never looks out the kitchen door at the side of the house where the garage once stood. She doesn't want to talk about it.

Eventually, as Myka's learning how to grasp other objects and open doors herself and Helena's getting more and more attached to her (and feeling more and more outraged that Myka died so young), we hit a tipping point where Helena tries to take Myka's hand. Or more accurately, she asks Myka to try and take her hand since she still can't see Myka. The time Myka finally manages to touch her is when she suddenly returns with a physical body, alive once again. Apparently, a living person touching a ghost leads to resurrection.

This is where I got lost down another big rabbit hole. I was absolutely obsessed with Myka's struggles to adapt back to the world of the living. Think about it, right. She's existed without physical sensations for twenty years. Now suddenly, she has a body again. Everything's too loud, too bright, too much. Clothes hurt. Having to use energy to walk, hurts. Food???? A sensory nightmare. And when I was brainstorming this and noodling around with google, I learned about sensory processing disorder and OH MY GOD did that just send me deeper into the rabbit hole. I was so, so distracted by this topic and wanted to spend forever exploring Myka's initial months alive again. Do you understand why I could never find the plot? I was way too lost in the details to find the tent poles of this story.

Once Myka has learned to take care of herself again and has some coping mechanisms in place to help with the constant 'too much' struggle of being alive, her first desire is to return to college. Not see her family. It's been twenty years and that's still too much to tackle. But she'd been desperate to return to college when she died so that's the first thing she wants to do now that she's been resurrected.

This is when Pete and Mrs Frederick come into the picture -- though technically Mrs Frederick has been in play the whole time. Let's start with her. See, I thought a warehouse equivalent organization that was fully aware of ghosts and trying to help them would be handy for this story. But I was convinced at the time that a government funded agency didn't make much sense. Every secret organization in TV shows and movies are always government funded -- but the US government hates funding anything that isn't corporations or the military.

… So why wouldn't the secret organization actually be disguised as a for profit company instead? Insert Mrs Frederick as CEO of a long-running and ever-evolving company that currently brags about being at the cutting edge of smart home devices and appliances. Except the smart home technology serves a secondary purpose of finding new ways to communicate with incorporeal ghosts who are slowly being lost to time. The company (I'm sure I had a name for it but I can't remember it anymore) gains its funding through product sales and government tax cuts/hand outs to pursue its true goal of locating these lost ghosts and reconnecting them back to their loved ones or at least reconnecting them with community. They want to re-socialize them, help them find purpose and meaning. No one knows how to help ghosts move on or if they even should move on, though if ghost decides to try, they certainly don't stop them. They also had never found a way to resurrect a ghost. Some ghosts had asked if it was possible, so the company is researching it. But they're researching in laboratory settings and with Myka's resurrection, it becomes clear that there needs to be a personal connection between the ghost and living person to successfully resurrect them. (Hence, Claudia and Joshua being the second ones to successfully manage a resurrection.)

I'm losing steam and this wasn't super thought out in detailed back in the day anyway -- but Mrs Frederick helps Myka enroll in college in Colorado Springs and her living expenses are all funded by Mrs Frederick's company. Caturanga's research was also being funded by Mrs. Frederick, though Helena wasn't fully aware of how big this operation was until after Myka's resurrection.

Myka meets Pete at college and they become fast friends. Mostly because Pete's too chatty to care about Myka's silences and easy-going enough to roll with her quirks and continued struggles with being alive. At some point, he finds out she had died and been resurrected, but I don't remember if I ever fleshed out that reveal.

I did flesh out the sister reunion. In my head, Tracy would get pulled into the ghost aspect because Claudia is one of her cases. But she wouldn't learn about Myka until Myka decides she's ready to see her. That takes about a year (or even longer) and happens after Myka's started attending college. Tracy is shocked to learn her sister is alive again, obviously, but also happy. Myka is happy to reunite with her too but also feels awkward because Tracy is all grown up with kids and she's still 19 (well now 20). Sometimes, it seemed like their reunion should be the end point. But then there's also still so much story to explore after their reunion too. Their father has died by 2014. Warren died of a heart attack several years earlier. Tracy has no regrets over never reconciling with him. Myka does regret that he died before she came back to life. They have different opinions and feelings about their shared childhood and it creates friction between them. Their mother is still alive though, and I played through Myka reuniting with her too. That's awkward in a different way than reuniting with Tracy. The 20 year time gap still plays a role of course, but mostly it's sits strangely with Myka because her mother keeps telling her how much her father regretted that night and how much he missed her and wished he could apologize. And while Myka doesn't blame him for her death like Tracy does, there's a lot of other hurt she does still blame him for and hearing that he's sorry from Mom instead of getting to talk to him herself -- it doesn't solve anything. It doesn't make anything better.

Not to add it like an after thought, but Sam has died too. He still grew up to join the Secret Service and was still killed on duty. It hits Myka hard when she finds out. She hates that he died too soon too. It's not fair.

And… I think… that's everything I ever came up with for this AU concept? I spent most of my time on Helena and Myka pre-resurrection, Myka immediately after the resurrection, and Tracy always. I had a pretty fleshed out world and a ton of pieces that could count as plot -- but I never had the throughline that turned it into a proper narrative.

If you see the narrative in this mixed soup or if you see something in here that inspires you -- please! By all means, run with it and write your own fic for it! Do not feel like you need to ask my permission, because I guarantee you, I will never turn this into a real story. But it was nice to revisit and maybe you can still get some enjoyment out of what is here. :)

[anders-hawke]

Please explain what you mean by the "don't repost" on GIFs vs reblogging... for the newbies who don't know the terminology or the etiquette...

You read my mind, anon, I was just thinking earlier today about making a post on this!

So: reposting and reblogging are two different things. Reposting is when a GIF is taken from the original post and put in another post. Could be on here, could be anywhere. Sometimes that’s okay, like if it’s through the GIF-finder on here, or if it’s with permission from the person who made it.

Reblogging is using the 🔁 icon at the bottom of a post. On TikTok, that’s also called reposting, and on Twitter it’s only a little different from retweeting. The difference is just that reblogging on here gives you the opportunity to add your own tags or full additions.

When gifmakers say don’t repost, that’s different than reblogging. We always want you to reblog! Whether or not you say anything when you do isn’t a thing for judgement, you just reblog when you like a post—any post, but especially gifsets.

Not-so-fun fact to end the post: Posts actually used to get more reblogs than likes only a few years ago. That’s actually part of why many gifmakers make such noise about notes! So many of my fellow gifmakers were around for that, so it can be very discouraging to witness a shift from sharing content with others being the primary engagement to liking for yourself being the primary engagement.

[courtana]

I’ve only made two gifsets for The Last of Us and a few for Star Wars (the video games for both, not the live-action media, for what it’s worth). And I’ve gotten so much more reblogs and a better reblog-to-like ratio than any of my Call of Duty gifs.

Obviously those fandoms are larger than COD on here, but it’s also clear that this fandom made up of most twitter/TikTok migrants and (horny) fanfic readers do not value gifsets. There seems to be a general impression in this fandom that gifs are easy to make or can be done with a gif generator online. People who have been on tumblr for longer know that gifsets and graphics are our fandoms’ primary currency and that they’re considered the product of actual skill and work. Tumblr multi-fandom blogs and circles prospered in the 2010s and early 2020s because of gifs and graphics. Even without gifs, “picspam” graphics were fairly popular. People would make icons and headers for other people too, and people would try to make their urls match characters’ names or canon locations or terminologies.

However, in the COD fandom I don’t see this sort of habit. People don’t worry about curating their blogs with graphics and art and mostly use their blogs as a repository for their fics. And there isn’t a similar sort of system of working with graphic makers to either produce content for their blogs they’re curating or to make them icons & headers, or to commission their own gifsets (like for a friend or a birthday occasion, which was often done). It has become a very self-indulging fandom focused on finding only their next fan-fiction read, compared to others fandoms that are still enduring on here.

[pearlcaddy]

I'm so glad you shared those gifsets!! I hadn't seen the second one! In your new gifset with Lockwood checking on Lucy and asking if she's okay, what scene is the first gif from? I don't recognize it and I don't even wanna admit how many times I've seen the show (if I have to put it on to help boost for getting a season 2 so help me I will)

The first gif is from 1.03 and it's directed at Ellie when she picks them up from the train station (the only gif in that set that isn't said to Lucy. I could have cut it and made it explicitly Locklyle, but I liked the way it showed that checking in is a broader impulse Lockwood has beyond Lucy.)

Also, if you're rewatching the show because you enjoy doing that, definitely keep doing that! (I've rewatched it loads too!) But I keep seeing posts where people talk about rewatching L&Co in order to get it renewed, and as a Netflix Expert™, I just want to point out that the primary metric Netflix looks at when making renewal decisions is the completion rate within 28 days (aka how many people finish watching the show in the first month of its release.) Rewatching the show boosts the overall viewing hours and definitely doesn't hurt, but I don't want anyone to feel like rewatching the show is a chore or something they have to do to get the show renewed. If you've watched the show once, you've done your bit!

[emblazons]

so (as of yesterday)...there are officially 1000+ stranger things fans following emblazons’ now! 🥳

—I'm really not one to give af about follower counts (especially given that this started as nothing but me having fun with my little show for an audience of one—me), but I'm honestly so shocked by the sheer number of people who have come along with me on my ongoing deep dive (and appreciation for) Stranger Things that I had to do something lmfao.

That said, because I'm mainly doing this because I'm grateful for all of the friendships I've made here: rather than make this about me, I'm taking this moment to do something for you! In honor of this "milestone," I'm going to create 7 gifsets (because...it was a 7) based on all of your ‘favorites’ feedback. I've created a survey for my followers who see this to fill out, where you'll vote on the following:

Favorite Byler Moment (self-explanatory)

Party Choice (favorite non-byler party member)

Teen Choice Awards (favorite 'teen' character)

Grown Folks Only (favorite 'adult' character)

Family Values (favorite familial dynamic)

Non-Byler Ship Fave (self-explanatory)

Marie's Favorite Eps (you choose from my faves)

+ one "free space" set, where you can suggest whatever you want, and I'll chose one (or maybe even a few) to make once the primary sets are done!

The survey will be open through my weekend, and I'll start making the sets based on the results next week: you can fill it out here!

Again—thank you all so much for being here! I would probably be at this anyway because this is just fun for me, but I'm glad I've gotten to share this curiosity voyage with now a whole thousand people who love the show as much as I do. 🥰

[echthr0s]

gif theft is like a Big Deal nowadays but I have so many gifs in my lovely organised collection of reactions folders, a collection goin back to like 2011 at this point, that were just yoinked from gifsets because that's just what you did when you needed reaction images (believe it or not those used to be like. the primary form of tone indication on this website. we should have never stopped tbh and I'll die on that hill)

I made that last post and was like "man wouldn't it be fucked up if someone tried to call me out for being a reposter or some shit when I'm actually just using them as reaction/expression images"

[fatenumberfor]

Hi Matt 👋 could you recommend me some viet music? I grew up hearing only my parents' and grandparents' music which is the older stuff and then my uncles' tastes are... yeah... so I don't know how to look I guess for any newer good music? Thank you in advance :)

yea absolutely! sorry I’m gonna go ham with these recs. I’ve outlined a few ways I find my viet music:

spotify’s vpop playlist, called “V-Pop Không Thể Thiếu”. this is my primary method. there’s a mix of styles in there, not just pop. a few artists I found on there + my fav song from them:

Chillies - Qua Khung Cửa Sổ (indie band; chill music)

Machiot - Ai

Bích Phương - em bỏ hút thuốc chưa (this is from an EP. the rest of these songs are excellent)

Vũ Cát Tường - Hành Tinh Ánh Sáng

Nodey ft. Suboi - Đôi Khi <3 (suboi is a vpop icon)

Lynk Lee - Buồn Thì Cứ Khóc Đi (never fails to depress me)

Erik - Sau Tất Cả (i think this is a cover lol but his voice is perfect for ballads. he’s been leaning pop more recently tho)

Monstar - Giữ Lấy Làm Gì (erik used to be in this boy group lol. they’ve since disbanded)

Phùng Khánh Linh & MYRNE - anh đã không rõ ràng với em (the album this is from is so excellent)

Rhymastic - Nến Và Hoa

Touliver x Soobin Hoàng Sơn - Vài Lần Đón Đưa (another cover oops. i love soobin hoàng sơn’s music tho)

Wren Evans - Thích Em Hơi Nhiều

watching a few vpop mvs on youtube, then relying on the algorithm to rec you others. this method can help you catch the newest releases, especially if you binge mvs from certain artists. a few mvs/artists that were memorable to me:

Sơn Tùng M-TP - Chúng Ta Không Thuộc Về Nhau and Lạc Trôi (my OG vpop love...)

Bảo Anh - Như Lời Đồn (found this thru a tweet calling it “viet latin pop” lmao)

Nguyễn Trần Trung Quân - Tự Tâm (period drama setting. the king is bi. a must-watch)

Hương Giang - Anh Đang Ở Đâu Đấy Anh? (1st mv of a 4-part series. it’s SO dramatic)

Noo Phước Thịnh - I’m Still Loving You (he’s hot)

Kha - Em Không Cô Đơn (made me cry)

Gil Lê - Sao Người Ta Nỡ Làm Mình Đau (lesbian rep!)

Trung Quân - Tình Nào Không Như Tình Đầu (so cute that i made a gifset of it. this is also gay)

Đức Phúc - Ngày Đầu Tiên (made me cry HARD)

Min - Cà Phê (outfits so iconic i giffed it)

finding viral vpop songs used on viet tiktok. disclaimer that I’m not on tiktok lmao I just check Denis Đặng’s tiktok every now + then because he is hawt... and then I trace the songs. you will get lots of remixes of ballads, but you could find slightly older songs this way. a few that I loved:

NB3 Hoài Bảo x Freak D - Sợ Lắm 2; its lofi remix

Ngô Lan Hương - Yêu Đừng Sợ Đau; its remix

Ngọc Ánh - Không Bằng; its remix

Low G - okeokeoke

Hoàng Thuỳ Linh - See Tình; its sped-up remix

combing thru Nhac Cua Tui’s site and playlists. there’s some english so it’s not too difficult to navigate imo but i’m using this to practice my reading skills haha. i’m just starting to use it but it seems that all the songs are free to listen to in entirety!

LASTLY! notable artists I found thru misc ways + my fav song from them (i love these artists the most):

Sơn Tùng M-TP - Chúng Ta Của Hiện Tại (found him wayyy back by stumbling on an article accusing him of plagiarising gdragon LMFAOOOO then i listened to his discography n was like damn this kinda bangs tho)

Tiên Tiên - Say You Do (i love all her music so much. also i’m pretty sure she's gay. my little sister said that her friend danced to this song as part of a VSA culture show)

Hoàng Thùy Linh - Hạ Phỏm (this entire album is excellent. also i rec Kẻ Cắp Gặp Bà Già from her prev album, which is also SO GOOD. a viet friend recommended it to me. some of her mvs spotlight diff cultures within vietnam, which is cool)

Isaac - Đau Đầu (idr how i found him but started listening to his music after I recognised him in the film ‘Song Lang’ WHICH I ALSO REC if you want to feel empty inside. seriously it’s so good... i still think about it... he’s my man btw)

[stormyoceans]

Puentalay as love languages?

IF I HAD MORE TIME AND WERE A BETTER GIF MAKER I WOULD ACTUALLY ANSWER YOU BY TURNING THIS INTO A WHOLE GIFSET SERIES but unfortunately im afraid you will have to put up with my ramblings instead ;;;;;;;; which tbh i don't even know how coherent they're going to be because as soon as i started to think about it i realized THEY LITERALLY FIT ALL 5 LOVE LANGUAGES AND NOW I FEEL LIKE PULLING A TALAY AND HURLING MYSELF INTO THE VAST UNCARING OCEAN (too soon? yeah okay too soon my bad)

puen in particular pretty much actively gives and seeks most of them:

physical touch: it's honestly pretty obvious how much puen values the feelings of warmth and comfort that comes with physical intimacy. it's in the way he always seeks talay's touch, either by hugging, or kissing, or holding hands, or more. the biggest example of it is actually the glasshouse kiss: the moment he genuinely tries to express his love, this is the first language he resorts to;

gift giving: the hourglass, the way he recreated for himself and talay the friend credits folder and shirt, the watch he gives talay in our skyy..... puen clearly appreciates the careful reflection, the deliberate choosing of the object to represent the relationship, and the emotional benefits from receiving a meaningful gift. it's maybe not a coincidence, then, that a gift is what makes puen realize who talay is;

quality time: puen's desire to actively spend time with talay, having meaningful conversations and sharing recreational activities, is put front and center in our skyy, but even in the main series this is made into a major plot point. "why are you doing this?" talay asks puen in episode 7, after seeing him going out of his way to try making their movie happen. "because it's the only thing i get to do with you," puen answers, and for him, that's love;

acts of service: maybe not as obvious as the others, but it's undeniable that puen likes to spoil talay with little thoughtful gestures (cooking for him, driving him around) just as much as he likes to be spoiled (being given a bath [still can't believe that's actually a thing GOD]).

if i was forced to pick only one, though, i do think quality time is puen's primary love language, followed very closely by physical touch (i'd say it's because they're the two things he missed the most, having lost his parents so young and being alone most of his life, but let's just not go there). on the other hand, the reason i left out words of affirmation is because i do believe that those aren't as essential to him as the other ones are, which is what makes words of affirmation being talay's primary love language even more interesting. talay needs words in a way puen simply doesn't. i mean don't get me wrong, of course hearing talay saying 'i like you' and 'i think im falling for you' was incredibly important for puen, but the biggest reason is because that's how talay expresses his love. compliments, verbal encouragements, words of appreciation and reassurance, those are the things talay always seeks out to feel cherished and safe, and also what he prefers to use to show his affection

maybe this is also why it takes them a while to understand each other and effectively communicate their feelings: their love languages are fundamentally different, so they need time and some effort to find the right balance between their needs. and here's what's making me want to throw myself down a well and drown in 5 cm of water: throughout the series, we can actually see the two of them adopting the other's love language to make sure they feel loved in a way they can understand. so on one hand we get puen trying his best to verbally reassure talay and express his appreciation for him, while on the other hand we have talay giving him more physical affection and coming up with a 30 days love challenge to spend more time with puen

i think that's why they just hit different: i've never found any other ship where both parts were so committed to make things work by actively trying to understand each other and accommodate each other's needs so they can always feel safe and loved