#so many goddamn thumbnails

[linguinidraws]

I love being a graphic design major and there's drama :) bc you're like GASP graphic design?? What could there possibly be drama about??

[co-reborn]

WYR-0525: Good Little Student Wang Yiren Is Secret Porno Slut! Couldn't Resist Fuck During Office Hours With Teacher, Multiple Orgasms Spanking Doggy Style Sex Party!

Yiren x Male Reader

view in AFF

4,246 Words

A/N: Powered through writing this for @praeluxius​ and special thanks to him and @sinswithpleasure​ for helping beta-read this fic. 

A/N2: Potential TW in terms of dubious consent for a certain part of the fic. I do not condone doing it IRL.

Funny how Wang Yiren has such a strong passion for the camera. The shot of her face when you take her attendance always reminds you of the many times you’ve seen her on the internet long before she became your student. You didn’t want to believe it at first but everything about her felt so familiar. You try to ignore her online persona as much as you can. She distracts you enough outside of class and you can’t have her be a distraction in class too. 

Your eyes linger a little too long after you mark her as present. An hour and a half ago, she was dressed all prim and proper. Now at the end of class, Yiren looks like a complete mess. Her top is haphazardly buttoned and her face is flushed with stray hairs sticking to her forehead. You know that look. You can tell what she has been doing during your online class.

Block out any stray thoughts and focus on what’s on hand right now. You finish class with final reminders about other assignments and soon after, your students begin to leave the call. Only one remains. Yiren doesn’t say anything, just navigating her screen before she makes eye contact with you through the screen. 

Immediately, your phone receives a notification. The website icon gives you a hint on what it’s about and you tense up for a second. When you look back at your monitor, you’re alone in the online classroom. You heave a sigh and close the app. Your next lesson is a while away so you busy yourself with some emails and marking of assignments. However, the universe has another plan for you. The notification of your phone stares at you. Ignore it.

You can’t. 

You pick your phone up to read it proper—WYR uploaded a new video. 

Your monitor cursor automatically finds its way to the bookmark bar and clicks the oh-so familiar webpage. Right at the top of the page it shows the latest video��“Class Time Sex Video For Teacher To Watch!”. You check the video length. Thirty minutes. Lunch break ends in an hour. You can finish lunch in fifteen minutes, you have time to spare. Your cursor hovers over the thumbnail. Just click away.

You almost give in to that voice in your head. The video preview starts playing. It shows Wang Yiren’s near-naked body. She has posted several intimate videos on this blog from months prior to being in your class and you hate to admit that you watched every single one of them. Your fingers tremble and ultimately, you go against your morals and get ready to watch the latest release.

The video starts off simple as always—an up-close image of her cute face smiling at her viewers. You’re thinking to yourself, ‘Fuck, she’s so goddamn pretty’. Yiren is easily the cutest student you have come across and if you were her classmate, you’d die to date her. 

However, when she takes a step back and you see the manner she’s dressed in, your thoughts change to ‘Fuck, she’s so goddamn hot’. Her uniform top, the same one she was wearing earlier in your class, is halfway undone and she’s giving you a peek down to her cleavage. That sight remains on your screen for the next few minutes, you aren’t exactly sure how long. She stayed in the position for some time, undoing the rest of the buttons and pulling the top open repeatedly in a teasing fashion, plus you couldn’t resist rewinding those few seconds several times. 

Then, Yiren takes another step back and turns around. When she leans forward, her skirt lifts just enough for you to see her cheeks peek from below it. Her hands reach for the side of the skirt and an audible zip later, it drops to reveal her skimpy pink panties. You pause the video to take the moment to properly admire her half-clothed ass, even spotting the outline of her pussy. Letting the video continue playing, you watch Yiren pull her panties down her legs. She’s already wet and definitely needy for some action. She follows up by teasing the camera with shakes of her ass mixed with her hands running all over the pristine white skin.

Meanwhile, you’re obsessed with the thought of what it would be like if you were next to her. Digging your fingers into her fine little ass would send you into a frenzy. You wouldn’t stop there. There’s more to enjoy than groping her. You want to spank that ass and ruin the perfect white with red hand marks. That will truly drive you insane.

As if she can predict your thoughts, what comes next is a series of soft slaps accompanied by her soft yelps. Yiren is slapping her own ass, although you would be rougher than that if you had the chance, and the first few moans of the video already have you twitching and leaking. This continues for the next minute or so, her slaps gradually increasing in strength, causing her ass to grow redder.

Yiren then turns back to the camera and smiles as she takes a seat. Slowly, she spreads her legs and your eyes are glued to the screen. You want to get a proper look at her crotch but her hands are covering the view, as if she knows exactly what you want. Keeping up the painfully slow movement, her fingers run across her soaking pussy lips before she fully exposes herself to the camera.

Yiren picks up a dildo off her desk and she winks when she presses the dildo against her entrance. Anticipation is at its peak. You’re staring intently at the screen and waiting for your student to begin fucking herself. Unfortunately, she draws out the moment further by circling the toy around her clit.

You do not have the time nor the patience to watch Yiren tease herself so you spam the arrow key to skip ahead. One click too many and you barely catch the sight of her inserting the last inch of the toy into her pussy. She then pulls it out and her juices staining the toy causes it to glisten. A split second later, the dildo is buried deep inside her one more. In and out the toy goes, a seemingly endless cycle that you’re so accustomed to watching such that you can “watch” with your eyes closed.

You stroke yourself at the same pace as Yiren fucking herself. You wish to be the one fucking her and your mental image slowly shifts. 

She’s lying on her back and already spreading her legs. She’s wearing that same “fuck me” look she loves to put on in her videos and beckoning you to get closer to her. You’re pounding her fast and hard and the next thing you know, Yiren has her arms and legs wrapped around your neck and waist. She pulls you into her and you hear her every gasp and moan.

“Faster. Harder.”

You’re fully unaware of how long the video has been going for and eventually, the moaning comes to a temporary pause. You slow your strokes down as well, not wanting to blow your load too early. An abrupt cut later, you’re presented with a new angle.

The dildo is now placed on her chair and Yiren has repositioned herself to face the backrest of the chair. While you’re denied vision to her front, you have the privilege to watch her ass. Her hand steadies herself against the backrest while the other pulls her cheeks apart just enough for the camera to catch the erotic scene. Yiren looks over her shoulder and bites her lips as she sinks downwards onto the toy. 

As soon as the dildo is fully in her body, she begins to ride it fervently, not hesitating to vocalise her pleasure. You wish you could watch her face contort in pleasure but you’ll settle for the sight of her ass rippling as she bounces on the chair over and over. If only you get to watch that in the flesh or even experience it for yourself.

You always suppress the thought of fucking her when in class or on campus but in the privacy of your home, your inhibitions no longer hold you back. It would be heaven for Yiren to be on top of your lying figure and riding you. You want to grip her hips and bounce her hard against your cock. You want to fucking use your hot student’s body in any way possible. While your imagination continues to go wild, the pressure in your loins grows as you inch closer to your orgasm.

“Fuck!”

You snap your attention back to the screen when Yiren’s moans grow in volume and frequency. Your eyes are glued to the screen just in time to watch her cum. Her back arches and her head tosses back. Even after she has came, she never stops riding the toy despite the struggle.

By now, you’re more than 20 minutes into the video. You have been edging closer and closer to your peak. Rewind the last few seconds over and over. Watching the sight of Yiren cumming repeatedly is just what sets you off. You cum all over yourself and make a mess of your hands and your crotch. Your eyes shut while the pleasure of your orgasm courses through you and all you can hear is Yiren’s skin slapping on the now-wet chair.

Gently maintain your strokes even when you have stopped leaking while you grab nearby tissue to wipe yourself up. By now, Yiren is facing the camera and is holding her stained dildo. Her tongue circles the girth of the toy as she begins to suck it. If not for the time constraint, you would consider going for a second round.

After you finish cleaning yourself, you look at the video again. The glint in her eyes as she sucks her juices clean off the toy tells you something—she’s not done yet.

Before the video ends, she leans closer to the camera and whispers, “Aren’t I a good little student?”

“Yes, Yiren. Yes you are.”

~~~~~~

An unexpected knock on the door causes you to snap out of your trance and pause the video you were engrossed in.

“Come in.” You shut your laptop and look up.

Oh. It’s her. 

Yiren steps into your office. Seeing that she’s wearing the same outfit as that video from days ago, your mind replays clips of her stripping herself, spanking herself, fucking herself. You shake your head and clear the images away. 

Standing across the desk from you, she exclaims, “Do you like me?”

You raise your eyebrow, unsure of what she means. She shifts your laptop to the side of your table and lays her bag carefully on it. You frown, confused by her actions. Moving towards your side of the table, Yiren crosses her arms and leans on the edge of your desk, “I mean, sir, do you like watching my videos?”

There’s nothing you can do but sit in confused silence.

“Oh please, I recognise that website icon on your bookmark bar any day of the week.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. In fact, I’m flattered that you watch my videos.” Yiren then places her hands on your shoulders and leans closer to you. “Sir, did you know I started filming myself in the middle of your online classes before?”

You gulp. Of course you remember the times when notifications go off minutes after your class ends and when you watch the videos, she is wearing the very same clothes as during the attendance check. “Y-Yes Yiren.”

“I did that not because I was bored, but because I get so wet whenever I hear your voice. I touch myself thinking about you. I fuck myself imagining it’s your cock I’m riding.” 

Your eyes widen at the revelation. Your student lusting after you? This can’t be right.

“I want you, Sir, and I know you want me too. This will be our little secret.”

She finally plants her lips on yours and you immediately reciprocate.

You shut your eyes as you melt into the kiss. Her lips taste so sweet and addictive that it makes you yearn for much more. This isn’t right. 

It feels like a match made in heaven. Yiren straddles you and pushes into you to deepen the kiss. Her tongue probes against your lips and you accept it. Immediately, it swirls around yours and explores your mouth. This is wrong.

Your hands roam her body, starting from her thighs up to her waist. So, so wrong. 

They continue moving up to her shoulders. You want to wrap your arms around her and pull her tight. Stop now!

Your eyes widen and you push her away instead, trembling while the dilemma of what’s right or wrong sets in. Your last bit of conscience begs you to draw the line and walk away before you make any mistake. Yet where was it all those times when you jerked off to your student’s porn videos and streams and fantasised about fucking her in any conceivable way?

Deep in thought, you don’t even notice that your top is removed. Your body doesn’t register the sudden cold when heat is built up between your legs. The devil is now on her knees. Yiren does everything in her power to tempt you. Her lust-filled eyes are fixated on you and hold yours in place. You feel her hands unbuckling your belt and pulling down your pants but you’re completely powerless to react. Maybe you don’t want to.

Her first touch on your exposed shaft sends shivers up your spine. When she spits on your cock and begins to stroke it, you’re pulled back closer to sin and your rational thoughts are pushed further away. Yiren doesn’t stop there, especially when there’s so much more she can do. She dips her head lower and begins to pepper your balls with light kisses. It becomes so much easier to give in to your primal desires when she lightly sucks them. You manage to hold back a moan but your resistance is crumbling fast.

Your eyes dart up and look at the door. It isn’t locked. In a final attempt to stop, you mumble, “Someone might come in and catch us.” 

As if being caught is the only problem with this.

Yiren licks your cock from the base to the tip before she looks into your eyes. “So let them watch.” You twitch in her hands and elicit a smirk from her. “Let them watch how good you fuck your good little student.”

You take a step across the line once again. When she wraps her lips around your girth, you hold her hair and push her lower onto your dick. Taking her time, Yiren takes you into her mouth inch by inch until your full length is in. She keeps you there and loudly gags on your cock, making a mess on your crotch with her saliva. Then, as slowly as she took you in, she peels off you, her lips still maintaining their tight seal around your girth. 

Your hands clutch onto your chair, trying to ground yourself into reality. You’re a teacher. Yiren’s your student. She’s sucking you off. She’s giving you the best blowjob you’ve ever had.

“Fuck, your cock tastes so good, Sir.” Yiren continues to lick your slit and leaking precum. “You like my mouth on your cock?”

A groan will suffice. You don’t need any other answer. You only need her skilful mouth pleasuring you. 

“Shut up and fucking suck my dick.” 

She takes you in her mouth once again, this time letting the tip hit the back of her throat. Her hand rubs your balls and she alternates between deepthroating you and stroking you quickly. 

The room is filled with the sounds of Yiren’s sloppy blowjob and your deep breaths. If anyone were to walk by your office, surely you’ll be in deep trouble. However, the fear of getting caught has long slipped your mind, replaced by the ever-growing lust for your student.

You yank her off your cock by the hair and pull her onto her feet. Hastily undo all her shirt buttons and rid her of the top, followed by her bra. You barely get any time to admire her bare chest before she turns around, so your hands roam her body instead, feeling up her waist and her tummy, fondling her breasts and pinching her nipples. This perfect body that thousands watch and dream about touching that only you get the honour of doing so.

Yiren leans against your chest and unzips her skirt. It drops to the floor and leaves her in her panties. You wish to reach into it and finger her but she pushes off you and supports herself on the desk. She repeatedly shakes her ass and pushes it back to you, her clothed ass occasionally brushes against your swollen tip.

Her teasing got to you and you’re too impatient for that at this point. You bend down and peel her panties off her, ridding Yiren of her last article of clothing. You finally get to see her naked in the flesh and even get a close up view. Your forefinger rubs her lower lips to find that she’s utterly wet. Curiosity got to you and you get a quick taste of her essence. Fuck, she’s so delectable. 

You wish to bury yourself between her thighs and drown in her juices but you have a better prize instead—your hottest student is aching and desperate for you to fuck her. Having perfectly positioned yourself behind Yiren, you press your tip against her pussy. She looks over her shoulder and bites her lips. 

Your heart pounds. You’re about to do it. You’re about to fuck your student. You’re about to fuck the Wang Yiren. Fully entering her body in one go, you're quickly overwhelmed. You want nothing other than to fuck this girl over and over. 

“God, you have no clue how long I’ve wanted this.”

“If you had asked, I would let you fucked me earlier.”

“Then we have a lot of lost time to make up.” You kiss her cheek. “I’ll need to schedule more meetings with you.”

Yiren giggles in response and you feel her clench around you even further. As you continue to indulge in her body, more sinful thoughts fill your head, particularly all the things you want to do to Yiren. 

Raise your hand and land a slap on her butt. Immediately, there is a reaction—her body tenses up and her pussy clenches around you. Yiren drags out a moan before she turns to you. The glint in her eyes tells you that she wants more. You time your next few slaps with your thrusts. Partially withdraw your cock from her, then land a spank on her. When her body jolts forward, hold her hips and pull her back to yours, thrusting your dick in at the same time. Upon establishing this rhythm, your strength gradually increases and you spank and fuck Yiren harder.

This is addictive. You’ve been “using” her to relieve yourself for months now, watching her put on provocative performances on the internet, but now, you’re truly using her as an outlet for your pleasure without a care about hers, although there is no doubt she’s enjoying herself too. You can’t go back from here. There’s no return to just jerking off to her videos. You need her. 

Soon after, you press onto her back to slam her onto your desk and pin her waist against the edge, keeping her writhing body still while you continue to have your way with her. Caught off guard, Yiren yelps in pain. Her walls tighten around you as she gets closer to her peak. She’s so snug, so wet, and you take it as a signal to give her the final push. Digging your heels into the floor, you put more energy into your hips, forgoing strength for speed, all the while not letting up on your spanks. Tug her hair and lean straight into her ear, “Cum.”

Yiren instantly melts into her orgasm and loudly moans as pleasure washes over her. You remain buried deep in her throughout it, her pussy pulsating around your cock and bringing you a step closer to cumming. 

Moments later, you pull out of her and fall back onto your chair, your slick-coated shaft still erect and aching for your own orgasm. Yiren remains bent over the table while recovering and you note the shade of red on her ass. It’s even redder than any of the other times she spanked herself on her videos.

Still, you can’t resist giving one last slap to her ass and watching her flesh ripple. She turns around and giggles before leaning over you. Her left hand holds your cheek and pulls you in for a kiss while her right wraps itself around your cock and briefly strokes you.

“Yiren, I want to watch you fuck yourself on my cock.”

“Anything for you, Sir.”

Yiren straddles you and inserts you back into her wet pussy. She holds onto your shoulder and rides you with the sole purpose of milking your cum. She tosses her head back and moans at the sheer pleasure of fucking you. 

Your senses are in overdrive. Days ago, the video only showed her riding the toy from the back and you were satisfied already. Now, you get to watch her pretty face contort in pleasure and nothing can beat this view anymore. The feel of her tight pussy is out of the world as her snug walls pulsating around you brings you more pleasure than all her videos combined. Her moans are mixed with your deep groans as well as the repeated sounds of skin slapping, surely anyone who passes by will know what’s going on. The musky scent that fills the enclosed room is one that you wish to keep permanently in your office. Her taste still lingers on your tongue that makes you seek for more.

When she leans further into you, you kiss her neck and down to her chest. Her breasts are a perfect size, all the times she teases her nipples makes you want to nibble on them and now you have the perfect opportunity to do so.

Yiren digs into your skin with each passing second and she picks up the rhythm. You try your best to hold back as you want to prolong this session but her body is just too hot. You don’t know how long it has been since she first entered your office and you don’t know how you have lasted this long.

“Are you going to cum in me Sir?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Fill me up. Fulfil your dreams of cumming in your good little student’s pussy.”

Your willpower has been chipped away and your body starts to crumble and give in. Holding her butt and slamming her petite body harder onto your lap, you thrust your hips up as much as you can. 

“Fuck!”

You hold her tight as you do just that. Spurts of cum are shot into Yiren as you experience an orgasmic high like never before. She gently grinds on you throughout, ensuring every drop of cum leaves your body and is buried inside hers. 

You sigh after you recover and bits of your conscience come flowing back. You shouldn’t have done that. It felt amazing, but you shouldn’t have fucked Yiren. When she lifts herself off your cock, you struggle to keep a moan in out of the fear that she pulls you in for another session.

She hastily puts on her clothes, leaving her bra and panties in your possession. You follow right after, haphazardly dressing yourself as fear of getting caught begins to seep in. While you’re doing so, Yiren leans against your desk and dips her fingers under her skirt. She scoops some of your cum out of her pussy and licks it clean. “You taste good.”

She then grabs her bag and heads out of your office but not before stopping at the door and turning back to you.

“See you soon, Sir.”

~~~~~~

The rest of the day goes by with your mind wandering about this afternoon’s events. You’re back home and by your desk. Why are you here again?

Your laptop is open. The website is loading. You’re preparing to undress yourself and to watch Yiren’s videos once again. Now knowing how Yiren’s petite body feels under your touch surely makes watching her videos much more enjoyable. The voice in your head quickly gives up and is suppressed. The sinful thoughts prevail once again.

At the top of the blog is her latest release—“Couldn't Resist Fuck During Office Hours With Teacher, Multiple Orgasms Spanking Doggy Style Sex Party!”. Your hand shivers as you click onto it. Eyes widen as you realise she has somehow recorded the session from earlier, capturing the action from multiple angles. Distraught, betrayal and anger fills you. You’d never expect to be set up like that.

But while your blood continues to boil, another feeling resurfaces. An extremely familiar one. 

You pull down your shorts and boxers. The video plays and you stroke yourself with each frame triggering memories of her touch. 

Maybe Yiren isn’t a good little student after all.

******

A/N3: Thanks for reading :) Please don’t record your sexual acts without your partner’s consent IRL

[acaplaya-musings]

I'm a day late but I still wanted to acknowledge the fact that it's now been 5 years since the release of VoicePlay's cover for Oogie Boogie's Song! It's VoicePlay's second-most-viewed video, currently sitting at 13.25 million hits(!!!), and, like the case for many other people, it was my first ever introduction to VoicePlay.

Storytime! (On my first introduction to/first experiences with VoicePlay):

So I didn't find the video immediately after its release, but the fact that I found it at all was basically due to me setting myself up as the perfect target audience. Firstly, I'm a big Disney fan, have been since I was a young kid (as to be expected), and although I didn't actually watch The Nightmare Before Christmas in full until December last year, I was still familiar with a lot of its music. I have an old Disney Christmas album which starts out with Christmassy songs, but ends with songs from various Disney movie soundtracks (idk why), and it includes What's This, Oogie Boogie's Song, and Jack's Lament. And furthermore, each October I would watch the This Is Halloween intro scene from the movie on YouTube.

Secondly, at the time, I was a fan of at least some stuff by certain acapella and acapella-adjacent groups and artists. Straight No Chaser, Pentatonix, Peter Hollens, Nick Pitera, Jon Cozart/Paint, Todrick Hall, y'know. (Although I only watched/listened to covers of songs where I already knew the originals, because why would I listen to cover artists doing songs I didn't already know? Right? (I was naive)).

So it was late October when I finally clicked on VoicePlay's Oogie Boogie's Song. It had been sitting in my Suggested Videos sidebar thing for at least a couple of days iirc before my curiosity gave in (and seriously, it's quite a unique and striking sort of video thumbnail compared to most other VoicePlay thumbnails; something that perhaps worked in its favour?) And well, here's what I had to say about it on my Discord server:

(Little did I know that that E1 was not, in fact, the lowest goddamn note I would ever hear, lol)

But actually, that wasn't the first post I made about VoicePlay/Geoff. This was:

(In my defense of the description/comparison, I had been watching a lot of Unraveled and Overboard videos on Polygon's channel and it was the best description I could think of at the time).

So yeah, I fell in love with Geoff right from that video (I do love a man with a threatrical streak, and obvious bonus points for the hair!), and that crush was further solidified with videos like Panic In 4 Minutes (which I loved), and Queen In 5 Minutes (which I adored).

Also I just have to share this post/comment of mine, because man, Apollo's Dodgeball really side-swiped if not just straight up hit me with this one huh?

(For clarification, this was about 6 or 7 months before Geoff started making his own song covers on his personal channel, where he of course typically sings with "clones" of himself)

But like what I did with other singers and acapella groups, I mostly watched/listened to songs where I knew the original, including for Geoff's channel once it began (though I did also watch Headless Horseman and Mele Kalikimaka), and so yeah, I missed out on a lot at the time! So I wasn't "fully" invested yet, and I think I stuck around till like maybe late 2021 ish? Idk I remember watching Geoff's Monster Mash video, but I can't remember whether I watched VP's Friends On The Other Side at that point or not.

But then, in late October 2023, YouTube stuck Geoff's cover of Jack's Lament in my Recommended section, and I knew even before I watched it that it would be the best thing ever, and it was, and then I came across VoicePlay's cover of Hellfire, and well, the rest is history! 😄

So yeah, Oogie Boogie's Song might not have been the video that actually pushed me "down the rabbit hole", but maybe I might not have come across Jack's Lament four years later without it, or at least I wouldn't have had those memories or that degree of familiarity that made the video extra special, which helped make me want to go catch up on everything I had been missing out on.

In summary: Oogie Boogie's Song you will always be famous <3

[phoenixdragon1258]

Just finished Yellowjackets episode 5, gonna put down some of my thoughts

I hate misty and want her dead

Its truly a shame she wasnt cannibalized when they were stranded but oh well what you gonna do

I get she was bullied and thus wants to have even a little bit of control over her life but jesus fuck calm down i hate her so goddamn much

The medical malpractice? The MULTIPLE INSTANCES of medical malpractice? God i hate her

She thinks shes so "true crime girly" "citizens detective" but shes committing the true crimes

I wouldnt be surprised if SHE lit the candles in The Shape

Like how else would she know to connect the dots like that

I bet if they fingerprinted the crane theyd either find hers or find none, which is equally suspicious

Shauna out here haunted by her first lesbian love truly iconic of her

Being cheated on is not an excuse to cheat but i do love to see her happy

I support womens rights but more importantly i support womens wrongs

Taissa seeing the eyeless woman from the tree in the middle of her speech and having no reaction? Icon

But then her not believing Sammy when he says she is there- kinda cringe tbh

Lottie light of my life wind in my sails star in my darkest night you could never do any wrong ever

I keep forgetting what the actual count is of how many months they were out there for

Like i think they said 6 one time in the first episode, but if its any more than 9 Shaunas gonna have some problems

At that point theyd probably eat the baby

I would

Also- how does a plane crash and strand them for that long? Someone wouldve noticed the team A) not showing up for nationals B) not coming home C) the flight just straight up not arriving, like how does NO ONE come to them?

Whats the "interviewer" doing in the narrative? Like at first shes this mutual enemy thats gonna maybe be a problem

Then we find out shes working for Taissa? And that never comes up again?

In conclusion: fuck you misty i hope you die seeing you in the thumbnail for the final episode alive and well is really upsetting for me

[pettyprocrastination]

what nobody tells you when you look up nsfw audios geared towards women is that so many of them are given the weirdest goddamn thumbnail photos you will ever see

[chaifootsteps]

I think the reason I don't really like the redesigns for everyone, is because I can't fucking notice a single one of them aside from Charlie and Vaggie's, they have so many unnecessary details that the little changes like Alastor's white trim thing is completely lost when you glance over him. The thumbnail for the trailer looks like somebody copy and pasted a bunch of overlapping pngs of the characters over each other. (I swear, if it weren't for the new footage, I'd think it was fanmade, because the music doesn't match up with HH or HB's general sound design)

Look what they did to Husk. Goddamn unforgivable and I don't even like Husk.

[cyberphuck]

Me: I want to draw this comic that I thumbnailed last year, but I know that nobody's gonna look at it Also Me: Nobody looks at your art anyway, you may as well just do whatever Me: Excellent point, Part of Me That Does Not Survive On Validation, however unfortunately my mother didn't love me enough as a child or ever, and now there's a part of me that does survive on validation. Part of Me That Survives on Validation: IF THREE PEOPLE LIKE MY PICTURE IT WILL PROVE I DESERVE TO BE ALIVE Part of Me That Survives on Validation: FIVE PEOPLE Part of Me That Survives on Validation: EIGHT PEOPLE Part of Me That Survives on Validation: THIRTEEN PEOPLE Me: how many people have to click like before you're happy?? Part of Me That Survives on Validation: I WILL TELL YOU WHEN WE GET THERE Me: You have to fucking chill out-- Part Of me That's Tired All the Goddamn Time: Are we laying down? Let's lay down. Just for like an hour. Maybe two hours. Fuck it, we can just go to bed early. Sleep in late. Then get up and just have a little nap. Part of Me That Survives on Validation: IF WE WAKE UP AND THERE ARE LESS THAN 6 NEW LIKES ON MY PICTURE WE WILL CONSIDER IT PROOF THAT EVERYONE HATES US Me: No one hates us, Val! Part of Me That Thinks Everyone is Lying to Me: That's what they want you to think. You know they probably get together to coordinate what lies they're gonna tell you so you'll never find out how they really feel.

Part of Me That Survives on Validation: WELL THEY'RE NOT DOING A VERY GOOD JOB OF PRETENDING NOT TO HATE US, LOOK AT HOW FEW LIKES WE'VE GOTTEN IN THE PAST 45 SECONDS

Me: I can guarantee that none of my friends have those kinds of organization skills. Part of Me That's Convinced I'm a Terrible Person: Oh, so you think all your friends are stupid? You think you're better than all of them, don't you? What an ungrateful piece of shit, do you even deserve friends? Hormones: Baby? Baby now?? Baby? Baby??? Part of Me That Survives on Validation: DO YOU THINK A BABY WOULD LIKE US BETTER BECAUSE THEY HADN'T FOUND OUT HOW AWFUL WE WERE YET? DOES THAT COUNT AS LYING Part of Me That's Convinced I'm a Terrible Person: Yes it does and I can't believe that you'd stoop to abusing children just because you suck so much Hormones: BABY BABY BABY BABY BABY Me: shut UP shut the fuck up all of you I just want to fucking draw-- Part Of me That Tells Me to Kill Myself All The Time: hey

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

Did everyone who watched Charlie and the chocolate factory as a kid get nightmares from at least ONE scene, but everyone from completely different scenes? Because I discussed this with my friends.

One of my friends got super scared of the squirrel scene. She spent time being afraid real squirrels would attack her.

One of my friends chewed gum the first time she saw Violet's demise and got very scared from that.

Several people have claimed they need to close their eyes during Wonka's welcome song due to the uncanny dolls that burn up and lose their eyes (the doll whose eyes pop out did always make me uncomfy tbh)

I know one person being scared about the glass elevator and have been having nightmares about being stuck in it and it drops to the ground.

Then... there is me. Watched this movie for the first time at the ripe old age of 4, an age where children still have a hard time separating reality and imagination. We rented this movie from the library thinking "ooh! They're going to a candy land!! How fun!!"

I thought the opening was a little eerie with the camera going inside a pipe, and the burning dolls were a bit uncanny, but it didn't bother me too much.

And then... Augustus falls into the river. I immediately feel very uneasy. He gets sucked up the pipe. It looks so uncomfortable. I feel so bad for him. And then, the camera decides to have a CLOSE-UP SHOT OF HIM IN THE PIPE. THIS CLOSE UP SHOT IS THE REASON FOR ALL OF MY NIGHTMARES.

It would be one thing if it was just a 2 second close-up shot, but NOPE. They CUT BACK to this very close-up shot SEVERAL TIMES, and EVERY TIME I get jumpscared.

The rest of the movie is absolutely fine, but this one scene took a big toll on 4 year old me. But, being so young, as you probably now, you wanna watch movies over and over again. And I wanted to watch this movie again, and again, and again... but every time this scene came, I ran out of the room and hid. I couldn't do it. I didn't care that the song was a banger, I couldn't watch it, due to that close-up shot constantly showing up.

Then when I was 9, I started getting interested in searching up everything catcf, and I loved watching clips of it online and hearing bts information about it, and watching people play the games they released of it. And I literally had to COVER MY HAND on thumbnails on youtube, in case any of them would have Augustus in the pipe on it. This is still a problem I have today. It doesn't matter how many times I see it, I may stare at it and stop being scared, but the next time I see it I will be jumpscared again. When I watch video essays of catcf, I can't watch the video in case it shows up, and have to rely on just listening. It's a curse, I'm genuinely interested in catcf, not only this movie but also the book and the history behind it, and yet every time I look for content online I have to cover one hand when scrolling in case someone decides on the bright idea to have the close-up shot of chocolate-covered Augustus in the pipe as a thumbnail.

Me and my friends talked about how we all loved the movie as kids and we all wanted to watch it all the time, almost breaking our dvds because we watched it so much. And yet we all had one scene that just scared us. Some closed their eyes during the dolls singing Wonka's welcome song. Some closed their eyes during the squirrel attack. Some closed their eyes during Violet's blueberry transformation. And some were like me, and closed their eyes on Augustus going up the pipe.

It's a shame the Augustus Gloop song is such a banger. I want to see the Oompa Loompas bust a move watching the drowning boy. But I need to close my eyes, because in-between their dance moves they suddenly cut to the goddamn close-up shot that makes my heart stop.

But I have also met people who found nothing in this movie scary.

Did any scene scare you in this movie, and in that case, which?

[caretaker-au]

you’re probably offline again, and I don’t know if anyone is gonna see this. but your au is genuinely one of my most favorite Undertale AUs ever. I have been in the Undertale fandom for a LONG time, but I don’t think there will ever be something as well written as the Caretaker AU again. the amount of research and love put into it is so cool. it truly does feel like something that could possibly happen in the actual canon and I LOVE it.

your version of Chara is also one of the most best portrayals of them I’ve EVER seen in the entire history of the fandom. when you began releasing the final chapters for the AU, I remember just sitting at my computer and rereading Chara’s lines over and over again. because their character was just so interesting to see in action. even when it was still a comic, their goddamn expressions and words are just so memorable to me. I still and always will have that little sadistic smile ingrained in my brain. (that also includes literally every character in comic even the background ones.) I love how you handle Chara as well, how you made them a horrible person but not totally unrealistic. like that one asker said, you feel bad for them, but just a LITTLE TINY bit. because they always screw up everything for themself and then go blame a 12 year old for it.

speaking of Frisk, your portrayal of them is definitely so very canon to me. I love their design and personality so much. they are so just relatable too, possibly one of the most realistic 12 year olds I’ve seen in a comic. they remind me a lot of me in a way, especially when I was 12 lol. I’m beyond happy they got a happy ending, they deserve it after, y’know, everything.

I wish you all luck on any other projects you may be working on. and I hope you are proud of what you have accomplished. :) you crafted a truly beautiful story. now if you don’t mind me, I’m just going to go reread everything again.

(take a shot every time I say ever lol, sorry for any spelling mistakes, thank you for reading it all)

Thank you so much for your kind words. Caretaker truly was a huge labor of love. I remember back when Ellipsis came up with the concept how it just gripped me like a bear trap. I couldn't stop thinking about it! Eruto felt the same way and was saying we should make a comic, and I was like, "no no, I don't want to do all that line art" but then she was like, you won't be alone we can draw it TOGETHER and then to demonstrate she took one of my super rough sketches and lined and colored it. And I was like, wow okay maybe this is feasible.

The resulting 3-ish years it felt like we were spending every waking hour working on Caretaker. I carried my sketchbook everywhere and would draw out thumbnails during my breaks at work, I'd be thinking about it on the drive home, and then we'd get on a discord call together to draw, line, and color for hours at a time. I could go on but the bottom line is that I LOVED IT. Each finished page (drawn or written!) fills me with pride and I look back fondly on the time spent creating and maintaining this blog together. It was exciting, compelling, and at many times exhausting, but worth it.

As far as the characterization goes, glad that you appreciate it! We reminded ourselves to never lose sight of the fact that Chara was still a human being--full of contradictions and ego and multiple-facets--but we didn't want to justify their behavior either. We all know people who are selfish, manipulative, and arrogant, but what happens when a person like that gets naïve enablement and never has to face any repercussions for their behavior? Without the correcting force that is LIFE, a cynical, angry, cruel child like Chara didn't have any reason to second-guess their worldview. Of course anything that goes wrong must be the fault of someone else!

This has already gotten kinda long, so all I'll say on Frisk is thank you and glad you agree! Personally, I knew some friends of the family who had kids about that age so I tried to reference their behavior in my mind when it came to writing Frisk. (Though most of Frisk's behaviors boil down to "RUN!!") Through the many discussions and occasional rewrites of this story, we always planned on ensuring Frisk had a happy ending. ♥

Thanks once again for the ask, and I hope you enjoy the reread!

[scoopertrouper]

ahoy, maties. i return not with a prompt fill, but with a Steve POV companion piece to this post-S2/pre-S3 post-stancy breakup prompt fill because i'm sick in the head. read at your own risk.

3,400ish words (somehow) of nonsense under the cut.

~*~*~*

i'll be alright [it's just a thousand cuts]

He sees her sometimes.

It’s not like he’s, like, looking for her. He’s not, because no matter what Robin says, Steve’s not a maso…a macho…a mecha…okay, like, one of those weirdos who gets his rocks off by getting smacked around or whatever.

He’s not.

It’s just that it’s kinda hard to totally avoid her. According to her brother, Hawkins is, like, smaller than Thor’s thumbnail – and Christ, he really needs to stop hanging around those little dweebs if that’s the kind of shit he’s absorbing – so it’s hard not to see her. Anywhere. Everywhere. 

But it’s usually only just out of the corner of his eye. A flutter of flowery skirt disappearing between the aisles at Melvald’s, or the bounce of perfectly set brown curls right as she’s crossing Main Street, walking with quick little steps that are so purposeful.

(Steve used to spend most of free period making a mess of those curls, tangling them between his fingers, testing how far he could go before she’d swat his hands away. They were soft as one of his mom’s silk scarves, but somehow still not as soft as her lips when they’d curve against his, her little body arching between his hips and the creaky leather of his backseat.)

He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that whenever their paths cross, she’s always just out of focus, blurred at the edges like a messed up Polaroid. 

It’s no secret that Steve’s no great lover of the language arts (no matter how many long lectures Henderson’s given him – from the front seat of Steve’s car, that Steve drives him around in – about why that’s hurting him with the chicks). 

But he thinks maybe if he did give a shit about similes, or metaphors, or any of that crap that he’d mostly slept through in second period English, that it’d be a pretty decent way to sum up their relationship. A couple pictures that might’ve been pretty if they hadn’t gotten all smudged up.

Oh, and her new boyfriend’s a photographer. How’s that for poetic?

Anyway, Steve would have to be an idiot – more of an idiot – to actually go looking for her. So he doesn’t. Because he remembers how much it had hurt, forcing himself through the last seven months of his own goddamn senior year, seeing her every day and feeling tender as a walking, talking bruise, long after the worst of the damage to his face had faded. It’d been almost fucking unbearable, catching her eye only to see exactly how far he’d fallen reflected in them. 

Back then (a whole two months ago) he hadn’t even tried to play it cool, had figured it was still common enough knowledge that she could step on his neck, no questions asked, and he’d probably thank her for it. Ask her to do it again, if only to keep her undivided attention for just one more second.

But that was then. Now, he’s moving on. 

Mostly. 

Trying to. 

It’d help if the universe would cooperate – if, at the same time he’d lost Nancy, he hadn’t also somehow lost every bit of mojo that made Steve Harrington that guy, especially when it came to the ladies. 

Because it’s definitely gone, and he didn’t need Tracey Wiltshire – who’d rocked full headgear until, like, the end of sophomore year – to stammer out some lame blow-off to confirm it.

It’s painfully evident every time he looks in the mirror, because he doesn’t see Steve Harrington – basketball star, swim captain, somebody who’s somebody – anymore. He just sees some loser in a shitty Popeye costume (which itches, Jesus). A loser who got laughed out of goddamn Tech. 

Whose dad barely throws him more than a dismayed glance over the morning paper – when he’s around to read the morning paper, that is. 

Who constantly finds new and creative ways to get splotches of Rocky Mountain Fudge where Rocky Mountain Fudge should never be, and takes home maybe ten bucks in tips on a good night. 

Of course Na - Tracey wouldn’t want to waste her time on a dipshit like that. Who would?

But he’s not gonna give up, because he knows the only sure way out of a slump is to shoot through it. Besides, it’s not, like, not fun, letting Robin bust his balls nonstop on the days that they’re teamed up. She’s pretty ingenious, like, he wouldn’t be surprised if she goes home after every shift and shuts herself away in her little dork hidey hole until she’s got at least ten new zingers locked and loaded.

(Most of the time it's fun. More fun when she’s not leveling him with big SAT prep words, because then he has no choice but to try to return fire without revealing that he still has no goddamn clue what a charlatan is, no matter how many times Nancy’d drilled him on it last summer. And – surprise surprise – that usually doesn’t end well for him. 

But come to think of it, she has kinda backed off from that lately. So maybe it’s more fun for her the other way, too.)

Anyway, he keeps trying, and ultimately racks up more “You Suck” ticks per shift than Robin has room for on her whiteboard (she’s been talking about starting a ledger, and yeah, that’s exactly what he needs, his failures all neatly leather-bound and cataloged in permanent marker). 

You know what, though? It’s fine. It can’t last forever, right? Steve’s a pretty positive guy. Eventually, some girl’s gonna want to buy what he’s selling, even if what he’s selling isn’t a whole bunch more than a final fling with the homecoming king. One last stop on the Hawkins Express before it’s all frat boys and keg stands at Boilermakers tailgates.

(He can only imagine what Robin would have to say about that.)

On one Saturday in late June, he thinks he might be on the verge of a breakthrough. Thinks he’s maybe a free scoop of mint chocolate chip away from talking Lisa Kurtz into the back row of the 7:15 showing of Cocoon – because he’s always kind of wanted to see if her boobs really are bigger than her hair, and he’s running out of time to find out. 

Things are going well, so according to the current logic of Steve’s life, that means something’s gotta step in to ruin it. And boy, is that something a doozy – all five-foot-four of her, freshly permed and pretty in pink kitten heels.

It’s been two months since Steve Harrington fully laid eyes on Nancy Wheeler. Two months since he’s admired – before he can stop himself – the little dimple in her chin and the delicate curve of her neck and shoulders, today draped carefully in a demure sundress. 

Once upon a time, Steve would have taken great pleasure in wrecking that dainty piece of cotton, fisting it in his hands and bunching it all the way up to her waist.

“Hi,” she says softly, biting her lip, and Christ, how Steve wishes she’d stayed in the blurry outer rim of his brain. Because he’s looking right at her, and it’s blinding, the way she just fucking glows for no good reason. It’s worse than that time in fifth grade, when he’d maybe (probably) burned his retinas after Tommy dared him to stare straight into the sun for five whole minutes (he’d made it about fifteen seconds). 

“Hey,” he finds it in himself to reply, and he congratulates himself on the way he stays so chill, right up until Lisa’s cup of mint chocolate chip tumbles out of his nerveless fingers and splatters all over the floor and a little bit all over her shoes. 

(She’s not happy. There goes the 7:15 showing of Cocoon, along with his only shot this week at a mark in the “You rule” column.)

Now his date’s gone, stormed out in a cloud of Windsong so thick he can taste it, and gone too are his chances of escaping this encounter with minimal humiliation. Perfect.

(Thank god Robin’s still on her break. At least someone up there is still doing him a solid or two.)

Nancy’s eyes flick once, twice between Steve and the door.

“Am I…interrupting?” she asks slowly, as if this isn’t a public dining establishment, as if she doesn’t have as much right to be here as any other prospective paying customer. There’s a glint in her eyes that he doesn’t even try to decode. He’s not dumb enough to think he can still read Nancy Wheeler. 

(That he’d ever been able to read her.)

“Not a chance,” Steve lies quickly, flipping the ice cream scoop with suddenly numb fingers. “Always room for one more on this flotilla of flavor!”

He’s pretty sure that was the right way to use “flotilla”, the way he’d overheard Robin say it last week. Like, ninety percent sure. Well. Sixty.

Also, what is wrong with him?

But Nancy smiles that little smile she used to give him every time he said something painfully dumb that she found charming in spite of herself, so no permanent damage, he guesses.

Not that it matters anymore. Because it doesn’t.

“A flotilla, huh?” she plays along. “That’s…a lot of flavors.”

“Thirty-two, to be exact,” he replies on autopilot. “They, uh, wanted one more than Baskin Robbins.” Goddamn it. He swears he used to be able to talk to girls. This girl, in particular.

“Oh,” she blinks. “Interesting.” 

Okay, so. The last time Steve and Nancy had spoken for real, they’d just broken up. Billy Hargrove had basically made scrambled eggs of Steve’s brains. And yet somehow, it had still been less of a disaster than the last minute of his life.

Steve has to salvage this somehow.

“It’s…really not,” he admits. “But you’re sweet to pretend.” Without thinking, he moves to drag his hand nervously through his hair and comes away with his cap instead. Oops.

Still, though, they both laugh, and that’s better. Good, even. Getting back on track. He’s not a total lost cause. 

“So, uh, what brings you to Starcourt?” he follows up, and that’s safe enough. Neutral. Boring. “Feels like most of Hawkins has been through here, not that that’s saying much. Haven’t really seen you around, though.”

That’s less safe, but she doesn’t seem offended. In fact, she’s still smiling, and Christ, Steve remembers why he hasn’t gone looking for this. Why he’s pointedly avoiding asking if she’s here alone.

“Well,” she says with a sly little curl of her lips, “I’ve been pretty busy. But – someone told me I was missing out on thirty-two flavors of ice cream.”  It's almost flirtatious, until she steps forward and winces. “Actually, I think one of them’s on the floor.”

The floor…? Crap. Lisa’s ice cream. It’s still splattered all over where he dropped it.

“Oh shit, sorry,” Steve starts, warmth creeping up his collar. “I can - I can get that cleaned up.” 

Ignoring Nancy’s protestations, he scrambles for the mop bucket they have to constantly keep within reach. Of course, it’s nowhere to be found – which means it’s definitely in the back room, which means he definitely can’t get it without drawing Robin’s attention. He pauses, debating.

“No – look, Steve, most of it’s still in the cup, I can just – I can just throw it away.” 

Steve is circling the counter to assess the damage just as Nancy is crossing his path to get to the garbage can, and they’re one perilous step away from unwittingly splitting a hefty splotch of Maritime Mint Choco Chip when his reflexes kick in.

On instinct, his hands wrap around Nancy’s bare shoulders to stop her just before they collide and – oh. Oh.

See, he hasn’t touched Nancy Wheeler in damn near nine months, and now his - his skin is on her skin. She’s soft, and warm, and his palms look so big against the slim curves of her arms. He can feel exactly where goosebumps are prickling against the pads of his fingers.

This angle also gives him a perfect, painful view of the swoop of her neck that he’s never quite been able to put out of his head. There’s a dull flush creeping up her collarbone, and for one unhinged moment he wonders what she’d do if he just buried his face there, pressing his lips heavy against that searing hollow until she’s gasping, like he’s done so many times before.

He catches her gaze. Her eyes are bright under the fluorescents, and he can’t help but picture them glassy with alcohol and resentment, punctuated by a sullen mouth and punch-stained blouse. Staring him down like he’s some kind of Upside Down pond scum. Bullshit.

He has no idea what she sees now, but it probably isn’t much of an improvement.

Steve swallows, and steps back.

“Sorry,” he says roughly, retreating back behind the safety of the counter, heart pounding. Nancy looks relatively composed as she neatly disposes of her trash, but he at least still knows her well enough to notice how her fingers curl tightly around her purse strap, the only sign that she’s a fraction as shaken as he suddenly is. 

Ask her what she wants. Ask her what she wants and give it to her so they can start pretending this conversation never happened as quickly as possible. 

“So, uh, busy? What’s – what’s up in the world of Wheeler?”

For fuck’s sake, it’s like his mouth is completely disconnected from what’s left of his brain.

“Oh, uh.” Nancy looks startled, like that’s not what she’d been expecting him to say. “Yeah. I got an internship at the Hawkins Post with Jonathan.”

So. No tiptoeing around it. Steve gives himself credit for not flinching like he wants to, for nodding his head like that simple statement hasn’t landed like a gunshot.

“Nice. Probably a way cooler gig than dishing out sorbet to all the Jazzercise moms,” he cracks, only half joking.

She doesn’t laugh, though. Her face drops and she kind of hunches in on herself, and he instantly feels like shit even though he doesn’t think he said anything to be sorry for, doesn’t know what could’ve made her react like that. Good one, Steve.

“You might be surprised,” is all she gives him in response. He doesn’t know what to make of that. And honestly, it’s not his job to make something of it anymore, so he lets it go, and they linger in awkward silence for a few seconds. 

For once – this one time only – he wishes that snot-nosed Sinclair brat would barge in, flanked by her entourage of equally snotty, pint-sized little dweeb friends, loudly demanding free samples of every flavor. That would at least give him a way out of this.

“Hey Steve?” Nancy looks at him like she’s steeling herself, and he recognizes that look, used to dread it back when they were dating. Time, he finds, hasn’t really changed the way he feels about it.

“Nancy?” he parrots back, defensive for no particular reason.

“The reason I came here today – that is, I just wanted to see if…” She cringes, trails off uncharacteristically, and he waits her out, with mounting unease. 

Patience isn’t his strong suit, but he’s found that for Nancy Wheeler, he’s usually willing to try to be the things he’s not. For all the good it does. Did.

She sighs, and tries again.

“I just wanted to ask – how, how are you –”

“Hey, honey, if you’re gonna get your ice cream, get a move on. I still need to stop at the dry cleaners.” A bottle blonde perm pops into the shop, and Steve nearly exhales with overwhelming…relief? Disappointment?

Saved by Karen Wheeler. 

She pauses, and Steve sees her notice him in real-time, watches the surprise dawn in her eyes as she identifies who’s behind the counter. “Oh. Hi, Steve.”

“Hi, Mrs. Wheeler.” Karen’s always been nice enough to him, but he’s never been too sure how much she actually likes him. Like mother, like daughter, he guesses.

She gives Nancy an indecipherable look, and honestly, these Wheeler women have got to cool it with all the weird mind reading shit.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” Nancy replies to the question spoken out loud, a tad clipped, before turning back to Steve. “So,” she says, drawing out the “o” and tapping the case. She seems to have set aside whatever she was gonna ask. “I – I guess that’s my cue, then. Any recommendations?” 

Steve’s already mid-scoop, and he’s absurdly pleased to watch her eyes go wide as he slides the cup of strawberry across the glass to her, with just a tiny flourish.

“Oh,” she stammers, “is that –”

“Strawberry,” he interrupts. “Your favorite. If – if that’s still right.” He doesn’t think that much has changed. 

“It is,” she affirms, and there’s a dusting of pink across her cheeks that Steve refuses to believe is anything more than a reflection from the neon sign.

“On the house,” he says when she goes for her purse, and it’s softer than he means it to be, less cheerful – but thankfully steady. He can’t help but smile at her, and she returns it, a tiny, kind thing. 

“Thanks,” she says after a moment. “I’ll…see you around?”

Not if I can help it, is what he thinks.

“Sure,” is what he says instead. “Anytime you need a scoop, I’ll be here.” 

Nancy raises her spoon in a minute, unbearably cute farewell salute, and the swirl of her dress is the last thing he sees of her as she disappears into the food court.

(On her way out, she takes her $2 and drops it into the tip jar, and he pretends it doesn’t smart a little.)

“Well, well. Do my eyes deceive me, or are we looking at another tally for Team “You Suck”?” 

Shit. Robin. Great. He hadn’t even heard her come out from the back.

Steve recognizes the dangerous note of glee in her voice, but for once he doesn’t have the energy to try to head it off at the pass. 

“You know,” Robin continues, “Between this and the truly spectacular crash and burn I know you were hoping I wouldn’t see with Lisa, I think that makes today some kind of record-breaking –” 

She must pick up something unusual in his face, though, because she cuts off abruptly. “Steve?” 

“Huh?” He knows he’s gaping at the door like a dumbass, but it’s too hard to find the willpower to tear himself away while he’s also blocking out the trace after-scent of Nancy’s baby powder-soft perfume. 

Robin doesn’t seem to know what to do when they’re not actively playing by whatever rules she’s silently set for the Shit on Steve Variety Hour. After a minute, he feels a nudge to the side of his foot, and he knows instinctively that it’s the toe of one of her battered Chucks. 

He doesn’t look, but he’s pretty sure she’s staring at him like he’s the weirdo.

“You…okay, dingus?” She sounds genuinely concerned, and that’s what jolts him out of it. Because no way in hell is he gonna spill his guts about Nancy Wheeler to Robin-whatever-her-last-name-is in front the sample spoons and a few carved up tubs of hard serve.

Even if Robin’s not, like, totally tragic. Maybe she’s even kinda cute. If Steve squints. Hard.

“Dude, not the shoes,” he finally mumbles, though she’d barely touched him. Her silence is heavy and unimpressed, perfectly matching her face (as Steve discovers once he finally gives in and spares her a glance).

Reflexively, he hitches his shoulders up in a stiff shrug. Arranges his face into a smile that he hopes is more cool and carefree than psychotic.

“Course I am,” he says, and it comes easily. He returns her nudge with one of his own and ignores her scowl. “I’m always okay. I’m…I’m Captain Okay.”

Jesus. He’s glad that one never made it into the yearbook.

Robin seems willing to at least pretend to buy it, though, and as she threatens him with the dry erase marker (though he notices she doesn’t make a single tally), he feels the grin he’s pasted on edge into something more genuine. He almost believes it himself, in fact. He is okay. 

Will be okay.

(He has to be.)

[archandshri]

12 April ‘24 - [arch] Making a Comic in a Week, Disability and Burnout (all unrelated, of course!)

Hey Shri and folks!! LOVED seeing part three of the Lionheart Brothers cover. Stunning!! And awesome to see your process. Also cool to see what you’ve been looking at lately - I’ve just finished a rewatch of Firefly and the characters are still living in my brain a bit. 

Life is a bit relentless, huh. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy working on disability stuff - meal prepping, sorting silly government forms, all that sort of thing. Exhausting and super easy to burn out on - but also sets me up for the future in my personal life and for illustration! I want to discuss the balance of pushing and burnout this week with an excellent example - I tried foreshadowing to make a comic in a week. 

When I was in uni, it was easy to create cool stuff regularly - you’re constantly receiving prompts, doing activities, getting feedback etc. I still have access to these things, especially through my shared studio community, but it’s not as easy as it used to be. I miss creating finished books, in particular, so frequently. So! I challenged myself to make a comic in time for Something’s Fishy Zine Fair in Plymouth tomorrow, which was just over a week from when I started.

I had come up with the concept for the comic while travelling, written the script and done a couple of sketches. I often come up with concepts while travelling - I just don’t often follow through :P Here’s a couple of sketches I did on the journey.

I’ve been chatting to lots of people about what they enjoy about art - I’ve noticed that I tend to crave the end of the project and having the physical thing with high expectations of myself, which doesn’t lead to a very enjoyable process. Many people I’ve spoken to enjoy the ‘zone’, the focus of the project where you’re just figuring stuff out and not thinking about anything else. Bearing this in mind, I wanted to make the process as fun as possible - this comic is for fun and not for the purpose of having the thing at the end. 

I started with a few development sketches of the characters and the vibe. I used ink and my funky kakimori dip pen, plus some brushes. These mediums are hard to control, which makes them good for development for me - they don’t have to be good, this time is for gestural drawings and ideas generation. Some continued doodles in my sketchbook from some downtime :) Fish wouldn't leave my brain.

After a bit of character development, I began by adapting my script into pages - I read the script and try to feel the vibes on how I want to pace the comic, considering:

How much dialogue and plot do I want to put on one page?

Do I want it to be more text or image-heavy?

Do I want it to feel fast and snappy, or slow and dreamy?

Which parts of dialogue feel like a page-turner?

Are there any twists that should be separated from the rest of the scene by a page-turn?

Are there any moments that should sit next to each other on spreads?

You can see me changing some dialogue around, writing as I draw a bit. Also playing around with some weird looking fish?? With noses???

I got a bit stuck at this stage. I was scared my script wasn’t good enough. And worried about if I could even draw fish. After a couple of chats with art friends, and some rambling in my slides, I reminded myself that the lesson this time is fun!! Have fun goddamn it!! No point doing it if you’re not having fun. (it’s not like we make any money from riso printed zines anyway)

Screenshots from my slides - these things are wonderful for gathering inspiration and venting when you run into a problem with the project.

So I decided to just go for it. Not even thumbnail, but just take a scene and draw it. I asked a studio friend to choose a number, and I drew that scene.

Because of the chatty style of the comic, and how much dialogue there was gonna be, I knew there would have to be a LOT of panels. I decided to make it A4, and use a 8x6 grid. I’ll draw the images at A3, and than scale them down to A4 when it comes to printing.

left: A3 grid on the lightbox, for tracing over || Right: A4 grid with boxes of different sizes for me to reference while choosing the layout - this way I can see the final print size

First drafts of a couple of random pages from Moon Noodles.

The first day I drew several pages that I was really happy with! It gave me a lot more confidence in my script - seeing it come to life with the characters on the page - some pages even got some laughs which was nice. I would look at the page plan, script, and spend a few minutes thinking about the pacing and how I wanted the dialogue on the page, and the go straight in with the dip pen - with the awareness that it might be wrong. This process taught me an important lesson - you have to just do it. The thing is, if you do it and it’s bad, you just do it again but different. Repeat. Staring at that script thinking it wasn’t good enough wasn’t actually going to get anything done, be fun OR make nice stuff. You have to do the thing. Then you make it better.

The other thing I learnt from this process was to give it space. There was a day where I did one page, hated it and thought the pacing was off, and spent the next day trying to translate it into two pages. It didn’t work. I came back the next day and realised the first page I’d done was fine and just needed a couple of tweaks. Do the thing. Let it be.

Here’s a little picture of my setup.

(Sorry all of Printhaus for hoarding the light box and getting ink all over it :( love u)

Useful stuff!!!!

Finished pages to refer to, plus more A3 paper underneath for future pages

Laptop with script

Dip pen, ink and water for keeping that little guy clean!

development sketches for relevant scenes

Page plan (you can see I have shortened it considerably since last time - now it's 20-24 pages and noted on scraps of paper so I can move them around if there's any changes of plan)

A4 sheet with boxes to show the sizes of the final print

also scissors??? i don't remember why they're here

But then monday morning came. I realised that if I wanted to get it all printed by friday, I needed to:

Plan and 12 pages on Monday, and 12 on tuesday

Get the final files for every one of the 24 pages by Thursday 

Print friday morning

Travel down to devon Friday afternoon

Fair Saturday

Not only is that basically impossible, but it would be very bad for my health, make for a rushed comic, and most importantly, not be fun. The thing is, I’ve made whole comics in a couple days before. I figured I could still do it. But that’s not actually a good thing - my skills and taste have increased, I'm aiming for bigger, more ambitious projects and yet I expect the timelines to stay the same? It doesn’t exactly work like that now, does it?

But I kept going anyway. 

Tuesday morning, I decide to get the cover put together so I can get the preorder post-out. I get pulled into an unexpected meeting, and then spend the rest of the day inking this thing and getting the files sorted. At this point, I know for sure It’s not possible to get this done. Thankfully my two Printhaus besties were in. They helped me drop it. I love this comic, it feels fun and joyous and I’ve enjoyed working on it - lets not rush it and end up with a bad product that will bother me. Let’s take time, explore it and really enjoy the process!!!

All is not lost for Something’s Fishy Zine Fair, though! Originally, I had planned to do a print of the Moon Noodles Cover for preorders only, but why not print that for Something’s Fishy?? Anyone who buys the print will also get a discount code for the pre-order :D (also here’s the pre-order link)

So here’s a few images of the Moon Noodles cover print and the process!! I hope to see some of you at Something’s Fishy. It’s a joy to visit Plym again :D

Sketch printed out at A3, and 2 of the layers. I scanned these in and edited them on photoshop to get the files ready to print.

Coming to terms with the fact that 1) I don’t have illustration superpowers even if my expectations are that high and 2) I’m disabled (yes it’s been years and it’s still hard to face) is really hard!! I need to spend most of my time when I’m well preparing for when I’m not AND fight the urge to work until I burn out, which I always lean towards because it’s nice escapism. 

The thing is that living, and not being too exhausted to move is much more important than a comic. And if I am gonna spend my functioning time making comics, they’re gonna have to be enjoyable to make. Otherwise your life slips away from you and you haven’t been really living it.

Hope that hasn’t got too deep for you. I think that stuff is important to face, especially since the creative life is so incredibly busy.

Thank you for reading this goddamn essay, I hope that it helped in some way! As usual, feel free to drop an ask if you have any questions. 

Chat soon :D Archie <3

[logically-asexual]

Thomas has done to Sanders Sides what Jacksepticeye did to his Egos. (Except Jack made his fandom wait 5+ year's)

5 years ago Jack's Ego videos would get 4+ million views within a few days. Then he started making Merch for them which was fine for a while until he stopped making content about them and only did things with them for Merch while endlessly teasing his fans with false hunts in videos that never went anywhere or amounted to anything. Fans eventually gave up on him ever doing anything but make excuses and shill Merch so they left the fandom. Now he has hired a Fan to write his Ego Lore and is once again making big promises that he will have more content "Soon" but the video's he has released so far have done terrible.

Jack waited too long and now the audience is gone and not here for his content now. I fear the same thing for Thomas. 3+ year's filled with false hope and Merch drops disguised as actual content has made his fandom weary and bored. No one is excited anymore about SS stuff because we think it's just going to be another money grab with no actual story or relevance.

🪦

yeah i’ve heard several takes on this jack guy and i can’t say anything about that because i am not familiar but what you describe does sound like what Thomas’s fate could be.

because like. the long waits are annoying, yes, specially if you’re an active fan and want to do stuff but you feel that you have nothing to draw upon to get inspired. but the Sanders Sides fandom —like as a crowd— had always been willing to move on to other things and then as soon as a new episode dropped everyone came back. and then you had your dash full of Sanders Sides even though you didn’t even remember that the blogs you followed posted that kind of content!

so yeah the fandom could stay dormant for months and months and then wake up and shoot to top ten trending hashtags whenever there was a video. and that was fine. but that can stay happening only under the condition that people like what they see when they return.

if you wake up the fandom to say “hey!! here’s content!!” and they all come running and see that it’s an ad, many will be disappointed. but okay. they’ll wait for next time.

few months later comes thomas saying “hey!! here’s more content!!” and they all come running and. it’s another ad. well. maybe next time? two in a row is enough surely? but by then lots of people no longer trust you. and maybe next time they won’t jump to watch the new video, but wait until others confirm that it’s not an ad or something similar before they go watch it. and once they do they don’t have much energy to rewatch it and post about it.

one or two more episodes come out and they seem alright. you’re thinking okay maybe that was all and well get back to the normal show. so you keep paying attention and then thomas goes “hey! content!” and you go and see the thumbnail and it’s a goddamn ad again! so you get sick of it. you don’t come back. you gradually lost your emotional investment that was previously just saved for later. now it’s gone. how do you get those fans back?

[goodgifswithfreetoolschallenge]

TUTORIAL 3

Making Gifs Purely with FFmpeg Scripts

FULL TUTORIALS | RECOLORED GIFS

Directly opposite to the last tutorial, this tutorial is for girls who LOVE command lines. You can make a goddamned motherfucking pristine, RECOLORED gif set from your command line, and feel cool as fuck while you're at it. And doing so is probably not quite as devoid of visual stimulus as you think!!

FULL SIZE EXAMPLE SET HERE | FULL CODE FOR THE SET HERE

Operating systems: Mac, Windows, and Linux

Quality potential: High

Software needed: FFmpeg

Difficulty: Advanced as far as gif-making, but this is actually a good first bash scripting project in my opinion if you've ever wanted to learn how.

Requirements: General familiarity with your computer's shell (Powershell on Windows, Terminal on Mac) helps a lot! I will try to make it as easy as possible to follow.

LIMITATIONS: 1) Frame by frame gif-making methods take up a lot of space on your drive in the interim. 2) The captioning method currently provided in the tutorial is not good for longer captions (there is a better method I plan to append eventually). 3) Recoloring options are minimal in this tutorial. Curves and many other color adjustments are available in FFmpeg but I haven't yet explored them.

First, let me get this response out of the way:

"I don’t understand how I can possibly do this if I can’t see what I’m doing!"

That’s the neat part—you DO get to see what you’re doing!

The first visual is your file browser.

If you were using Photoshop or GIMP to make these gifs, you’d view all of your frames in a sidebar as small thumbnails and select and scroll through them to add delete, and group select and manipulate them. The FRAMES folder in our file browser will serve this function, letting us see every frame in our set, delete any frames we don't want, and group them to apply the same crop, coloring, or caption to the same selection of frames.

The second visual is provided by FFplay.

FFplay is part of FFmpeg. When you use this command in your system shell, it opens an image or gif so you can see the results of a crop, recolor, caption (or all three!) on your work before actually applying it! This is how we will actually see, at full resolution on our screen, exactly how our image is looking.

WINDOWS USERS: CHANGE ALL FORWARD SLASHES IN THIS SCRIPT TO BACK SLASHES!!!

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1. Installing FFmpeg

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I recommend you install via Homebrew if you're on Mac or Linux by pasting this into your terminal (if/once Homebrew is installed):

brew install ffmpeg

Windows users or other users who don't want Homebrew can follow directions on the FFmpeg website.

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2. Screencapping Frames with FFmpeg

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There are many ways to do this. However, since this is the Pure FFmpeg tutorial, I'm going to point you to these instructions on how to automate this process with a script template I have already written for you and an example (screencapping for this exact set).

If you follow that tutorial exactly, you should come back for step 3 with a folder on your Desktop called FRAMES.

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3. Organize in the FRAMES Folder

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Go to your FRAMES folder in your file browser. Your frames are already ordered for you in the correct time sequence.

Delete any unwanted frames.

I need to "trim" some frames from the beginning and end of my set. For example, at the beginning of my set, the first 17 screencaps are of Sam from the first 564 milliseconds of the start of the 8.02 time stamp. I don't want this these frames in my gifset. I want my first gif to start on Dean when he appears starting in the 18th screencap.

If I hold shift and select all of the unwanted frames, I can delete them. Similarly, my screencaps end at the 8:11 mark, and only the first 156 milliseconds are on Dean. After that, the shot switches back to the purple guy. I don't want those shots of the purple guy, so I'll delete frames 247 through 280 at the end of the set, leaving me with frame_0018.png through frame_0246.png as all the frames of my gifset.

Make "Shot Folders".

As an example of what I mean by shots, look at the three example gifs at the top of the tutorial. The first gif has just one shot (i.e., the camera stays on Dean). The second gif has two shots (the camera is on the guy painted purple, and then it's on Dean again. In the third gif, there are two shots again—one on Sam, then one on Dean. So that's 5 shots. I want to separate frames belonging to each of the 5 shots into subfolders labeled 1 through 5 (see gif below).

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4. Setting up FFplay

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Now that we have all of our frames organized, we want to set up FFplay—the method we'll use to view our image manipulations before applying them.

NOTE: Type down all of the commands as you run through this whole tutorial!! In a word document, a text editor, etc. Do NOT just type your commands in the shell without keeping track of what you typed! You can also see an example of how to map out your scripts by following how I wrote them for Github here, and even download/copy paste my fulls script there and use it as a template for your own set.

Template for Creating Our Preliminary Gifs for FFplay

The first thing we need to do is make a preliminary test gif of every shot in our gifset. To do this, use the template below, changing only the parts in red:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber ffmpeg -start_number FileNumberOnFirstFrame -i frame_%04d.png -vf "fps=30" ffplay -vf Test.gif

The first line, beginning with "cd", tells me the file path to my shot folder where my frames are located.

The line below that combines the frames of my shot into a gif called Test.gif.

ffmpeg envokes the FFmpeg utility.

-start_number FileNumberOnFirstFrame -i frame_%04d.png tells FFmpeg to order the frames in the gif by the 4-digit number at the end of their file name, starting with FileNumberOnFirstFrame, which you should replace with the 4-digit number in the file name of the first frame in your shot folder.

-vf "fps=30" tells FFmpeg I want the gif to move at 30 frames per second (if you screencapped at a rate other than 30 FPS, you can simply change the number to match your frame rate).

In my example:

Say I want to generate a gif of my first shot. Then I need ShotNumber to be 1, and FileNumberOnFirstFrame to be 0018 (that's the 4-digit number on the first frame in my first shot, after deleting the first 17 frames). So my command looks like this:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1 ffmpeg -start_number 0018 -i frame_%04d.png -vf "fps=30" Test.gif

See Step 4 in my script on Github to see the script for all 5 shots.

Playing a gif from FFplay

Now if I want to play the gif I just made in FFplayer. I just type the following:

ffplay -loop 0 Test.gif

A window should pop up and loop through my gif (edit: I have adjusted this tutorial so the FFplay gif loops infinitely, by adding the setting -loop 0).

After repeating the above commands to generate a Test.gif in every shot folder, we're ready to move on to the rest of the steps.

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5. Test Crop

_________________

Now that FFplay is set up, it's time to start manipulating our shots by applying changes to Test.gif in every shot folder. The first thing we want to do is crop.

NOTE 1: Cropping is different from scaling. At the very end of the tutorial, when we export, we will scale our gifs down to 540 px. For now, we want to work in full resolution, which for Supernatural is 1080p.

NOTE 2: Throughout this tutorial, when I add to an existing command, I will bold the new portion, and mark all the parts you can/should change in red.

Cropping Template

To crop a gif in FFplay, we add -vf  "crop=w:h:x:y" to our FFplay command as follows:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber ffplay -vf  "crop=w:h:x:y" -loop 0 Test.gif

Where

w is the width you want your cropped frames to be (in pixels)

h is the height you want your cropped frames to be (in pixels)

x and y are coordinates of the top left corner of your crop selection (in pixels)

To understand the x and y coordinates, think about if you wanted to use crop an image in a drawing software. You would generally select your crop tool, start in the top left corner, and drag your cursor down and right (blue dot in the illustration below represents where the crop starts in an example). So FFmpeg asks you to specify the top left corner where your crop starts with an x and y coordinate (in pixels), and uses the w and h variables to determine how large the crop should be.

My frames are all 1920x1080 pixels. I would like my gifset to be square—1080x1080 pixels. So I already know I want my w and h to both be 1080. Since I want to start my crop at the top of a frame, losing no height, my y-coordinate (height to start my crop from) should also 1080. My x-coordinate is the only think I'm not sure about. I only know it needs to be bigger than 0 (0 would start my crop on the left edge) and smaller than 960, which would be the midway point.

So what am I going to do? ...I'm gonna make an educated guess of what x-coordinate would center Dean in a square frame in my FFplayer command, and if I don't like how he's centered, I'll simply move the x-coordinate over a little (decrease to move left, increase to move right).

So in my Example...

In FFmpeg, for my first shot, I'm going to guess x=300.

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1 ffplay -vf "crop=1080:1080:300:1080" -loop 0 Test.gif

The FFplayer window shows me this:

And I feel like the crop starts a little too far to the right. So I'm going to decrease my x-coordinate just a little—to 250. After replacing the 300 with a 250 and running again in FFplay, I feel good about 250, so that's the crop I'll set: -vf "crop=1080:1080:250:1080".

I need to follow this same process to determine the crop of my other shots (and keep a copy of the commands I used later!). What is useful however, is that 3 of my shots are all on Dean sitting (shots 1, 3, and 5). This means I can apply the same crop I made for shot 1 to shots 3 and 5.

See Step 5 in my script on Github to see all 5 shots.

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6. Test Coloring and Sharpening

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Because the lighting in this scene is pretty good, I did a very simple recoloring on this set. I may update later with a more extensive coloring tutorial with more options later (I'll link the post to this section if I do). Previously, we added a crop to our command: -vf "crop=1080:1080:250:1080" and now we want to test coloring options and a sharpening effect.

Coloring Template

I'm going to throw in the basics, and give you an updated FFplay template (new parts are bolded, variables you can adjust are in red and set at their default values).

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber ffplay -vf "crop=w:h:x:y,eq=brightness=0.00:saturation=1.00:contrast=1.00,smartblur=1.5:-0.35:-3.5:0.65:0.25:2.0" -loop 0 Test.gif

NOTE: Notice that inside the quotes, a comma separates the command options crop, eq, and smartblur. Equals signs and colons distinguish between sub-options belonging to each of those three categories.

EQ:

brightness=0.00. Values can be adjusted anywhere between -1 and 1, with 0 as the default). I would adjust this setting in 0.01 unit increments.

saturation=1.0. Values between 0 and 3 are possible. 1 is the default value. I would adjust this setting in 0.1 unit increments at a time.

contrast=1.00. Increases contrast between light and shadow in the image (values between -1000 and 1000 are possible. I recommend you change this setting in 0.1 unit increments.

There are more color and image adjustment options than these available in FFmpeg. You can see a full list of properties you can adjust from eq here.

Smartblur:

smartblur=1.5:-0.35:-3.5:0.65:0.25:2.0 sharpens the frames. I recommend you not touch this setting. If you do want to adjust it, check the FFmpeg documentation. You can also remove this whole portion (and the associated comma) if you don't want a sharpening adjustment.

NOTE: It is also possible to add a curves adjustment to brighten certain parts of an image instead of the whole image. I haven’t worked with curves enough from the command line to give you good ideas on setting your curve and this set didn’t really need it, but if I get into it more in the future, I'll include it in a supplementary tutorial and link it here.

If you feel like you are losing all sense of objectivity and just want to see the images without your coloring at any point, simply re-run your ffplay from the end of the cropping section.

ffplay -vf  "crop=w:h:x:y" Test.gif

In my example (shot 1):

Because all my characters are in the same room with similar lighting, I ended up applying the same color adjustment to all of my shots. But here's all my settings tested together on my first shot in FFplay:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1 ffplay -vf "crop=1080:1080:250:1080,eq=brightness=0.06:saturation=1.70:contrast=1.10,smartblur=1.5:-0.35:-3.5:0.65:0.25:2.0" -loop 0 Test.gif

See Step 6 in my script on Github to see all 5 shots.

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7. Apply crop and coloring to frames

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Up until this point, you have not actually applied your crop and color adjustments to your frames. You have simply tested your crop and coloring manipulations on a gif of all your frames that is still, if you go look at it in your file browser, not cropped.

So let's actually apply our adjustments to these frames!

NOTE: Captioning needs to be done after this step because auto centering the text won't work properly without actually cropping first). This is probably all for the better as our command is getting long and difficult to decipher!

Template to ACTUALLY Crop and Color

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber mkdir crop for i in *.png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i" -vf "fps=30,crop=w:h:x:y,eq=brightness=0.00:saturation=1.00:contrast=1.00,smartblur=1.5:-0.35:-3.5:0.65:0.25:2.0" crop/${i%.png}.png; done

The first line (beginning with cd) tells us to go to our shot folder.

mkdir crop tells our computer to make a new subfolder in our shot folder called "crop".

for i in *.png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i"; and the closing: crop/${i%.png}.png; done tells FFmpeg to do the same crop and color on every .png file in our shot folder, and save these adjusted shots into the crop subfolder.

In my example (shot 1)

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1 mkdir crop for i in *.png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i" -vf "crop=1080:1080:250:1080,eq=brightness=0.06:saturation=1.7:contrast=1.1,smartblur=1.5:-0.35:-3.5:0.65:0.25:2.0" crop/${i%.png}.png; done

See Step 7 in my script on Github to see all 5 shots.

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8. Captioning

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Now we need to apply captions. You can also do an FFplay command here, but I'm going to show you something a little different with FFplay this time to see your caption. Instead of looking at captions over a whole gif, let's just test how our captions look on the first frame in our shot, since that's really all we need for captioning.

Captioning FFplay Template

Not all sets (and not all shots!) need captions (and if your set doesn't, you can skip down to the next section!) However, two of my shots need captions: Shot 1 and Shot 3. If you want to add captions, you can test them in FFplay on a single shot using this command:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber/crop ffplay -vf "drawtext=text='Your Text Goes Here':x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h*2):fontsize=40:bordercolor=black:borderw=3:fontcolor=white" input.png

The default font is Arial. There are ways to set other fonts, but I haven't looked into them much because I'm pretty happy with Arial. This basic template with the existing numbers should give you a decent result, but if you want to change font sizing or colors or anything:

drawtext=text='Your Text Goes Here' | This is the most important bit. You place your caption in the red part. Note that your text will appear on just one line. If you have a longer statement from a character that will need two lines, you can draw your box twice. (I will add a link here for this alternative when I eventually try it).

x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h*2) | This part centers the text on the bottom of the screen. I recommend you leave it alone as it’s intended to auto-center your text for you no matter what your crop ratio is. You will need to change the the y=(h-text_h*2) argument only if you have two lines of text to caption your frames with.

fontsize=40 | Changes the font size, of course.

bordercolor=black | changes the border color.

borderw=3 | changes the border weight.

fontcolor=white | This changes the font color.

input.png is the file name of the frame you want to view your caption on.

By the way, when changing text or border colors, you can type in colors coded into the documentation (the default is black) or insert a HEX color code in this field. For example, I always use yellow captions for Dean, so I found a yellow HEX code (#FDDA0D) I liked on htmlcolorcodes.com.

Here's how I FFplay my caption "You missed a spot."

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1/crop ffplay -vf "drawtext=text='You missed a spot.':x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h*2):fontsize=40:bordercolor=black:borderw=3:fontcolor=#FDDA0D" frame_0018.png

See Step 8 in my script on Github to see both captioned shots.

Template for applying your caption:

If you like the way your caption looks in FFplay, you can apply it to all the frames in your shot folder with:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/ShotNumber/crop mkdir captioned for i in .png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i" -vf "drawtext=text='Your Text Goes Here.':x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h2):fontsize=40:bordercolor=black:borderw=3:fontcolor=white" captioned/${i%.png}.png; done

Where

mkdir captioned makes a folder in the crop folder called "captioned"

for i in *.png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i"; and the closing: crop/${i%.png}.png; done tells FFmpeg to place the same caption over every .png file in our shot folder, and save these adjusted shots into the captioned subfolder.

Here's the settings to apply captions to my first shot.

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1/crop mkdir captioned for i in .png; do ffmpeg -y -i "$i" -vf "drawtext=text='You missed a spot.':x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h2):fontsize=40:bordercolor=black:borderw=3:fontcolor=#FDDA0D" captioned/${i%.png}.png; done

See Step 8 in my script on Github to see both captioned shots.

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9. Organize shots into GIF folders

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We're almost done!!! It's time to go back to our file browser! Now that all of our frames in all of our shots are prepared how we want, we need to reorganize our shots into GIF folders. This is our way of group selecting all the frames that go into one gif for export.

In my case, I want three gifs, so I'm going to make three new folders in the FRAMES folder: gif_1, gif_2, and gif_3. My FRAMES folder should now look like this:

Now I want to take my finished shots from my shot folders and copy their frames into the gif folder they are associated with. For example:

Gif 1 just contains the first shot. I also captioned shot 1. So I'm going to copy all the frames in FRAMES/1/crop/captioned into the gif_1 folder.

Gif 2 contains shots 2 and 3. Shot 2 has captions, so I need to take all the frames from FRAMES/2/crop/captioned and all the frames in FRAMES/3/crop and copy them in the gif_2 folder.

Gif 3 contains shots 4 and 5. I'm going to copy the contents of the crop folders for shots 4 and 5 into this folder (no captions on this gif).

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10. Compiling into GIF

___________________________________________

To combine all the frames from one gif folder into a gif, I'm going to use this template script:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/GifFolder ffmpeg -y -start_number FileNumberOnFirstFrame -i frame_%04d.png -vf "fps=30,scale=540:-1:flags=lanczos" ~/Desktop/FRAMES/GifName.gif

This is very similar to the script in step 4. This template opens one of our new gif folders, and takes all the frames, starting with the first frame in the folder (recall: you need to tell FFmpeg the 4-digit number on that first frame with FileNumberOnFirstFrame) and then turns it into a gif running at 30 FPS, scaled down to 540 by 540 pixels.

The parts we can/should adjust are as follows:

GifFolder is the name of our gif folder where our frames for our gif are located.

scale=540:-1:flags=lanczos is the command to scale down our gif (using what's called the lanczos method) to 540 x 540 pixels so it'll be small enough to upload to Tumblr.

fps=30 tells FFmpeg the proper FPS for our set (if you made your frames using this tutorial, 30 FPS is correct. If you took screencaps manually, it will be the frame rate of whatever you giffed. For TV, this might be 23 FPS for example).

~/Desktop/FRAMES/GifName.gif names our gif (specify with GifName) and outputs it to the FRAMES main folder.

Here's the command for Gif 1 in my set:

cd ~/Desktop/FRAMES/gif_1 ffmpeg -y -start_number 0018 -i frame_%04d.png -vf "fps=30,scale=540:-1:flags=lanczos" ~/Desktop/FRAMES/1.gif

See Step 10 in my script on Github to the script on all three gifs.

THE END!!!!

Do this step on all your gif folders and you're done!!!

You can view my full script for this example gifset on Github here and if you'd like, simply modify that script to make your own gifset!

[kuwdora]

just grumbling about the tumblr posting experience.

I've been back on tumblr for a few years now and I'm still an annoyed and flailing mess when it comes to actually using the editor and making my vid or fic posts. there's always something that goes wrong and then I either have too many notes on it to want to make a new post or I can't figure out what the fuck I can do to make it look right and spend a stupid amount of time trying to edit to make sure everything is working. nevermind I hate figuring out how to format things here. for instance: I started drafting up my Fringilla vid, dropped my Youtube embed there and discovered it had a thumbnail of Francesca. So I made my Fringilla screencap and uploaded it to YouTube. the vidpost looks fine on desktop with Fringilla showing up on the preview image. but nooo on mobile it still shows Francesca in the preview. At least it does on my mobile. is it Francesca for everyone else on the mobile app? it's just a dumb thing to be annoyed about. but annoys me enough to actually make a post it. also I can't seem to remember to make proper titles on my tumblr posts before actually hitting post. run back to edit in but now all the reblogs say 'watching streaming on ao3' lmao, whyyyy. what a dumb thing to be irritated by. pfft. and I still have no idea if YouTube embeds fail to make posts show up in the tags. but I get the impression people might be more likely to watch an embed than clicking over to AO3 or wherever. I'm not a gif-maker and I don't think gifs of my vids have the same kind of impact without the music. so I dunno what to do to make things look prettier. I LOVE finishing things, I love people getting to see my fanworks. but my god I just hate posting and crossposting so goddamn much. Sometimes I have a streamlined process for my dreamwidth/twitter feeds but the bulk of my peeps there are not witcher folks anyway so that's not a crossposting priority for my witcher goodies. anyway. I made a Fringilla vid to escape my depressive woes. I love fringilla. you can check out my fringilla vid with alllllll my feelings for her right here.

[lesser-mook]

“It’s A Gundam’s” video is flawed: Do NOT reject comics for MANGA

Reject Comic Books Embrace Japanese Manga

One hand, yes, being belittled by your media is a deal breaker, that “toxic masculinity” shit being said when women being toxic is a thing too. 

Yes, cringe identity politics is cringe. Agreed. 

Yet having double standards doesn't help the credibility of said opinion.

IE. While he rightfully criticizes modern comic creators being fetishists? Living out a fantasy- 

X-Terminators #4

He conveniently misses the part where Mangaka do exactly that, often, consistently, too often, regularly actually. SO regular it IS the culture.

His reasoning is selective and biased because you have to ignore the same issues in Japan's media to say people should use it as an alternative, while criticizing "Fetishists" & other issues in the West in the same breath.

Giant Ojou-Sama, i swear to God the entire Manga is just her ass in the goddamn camera & Sebas (her companion) commenting how big her ass is.

I felt like i was reading a bizarre Deviant Art entry.

Another day, another Macrophile being a cringe factory on full display, but you see THIS author projecting their brain dead fetish isn’t a problem even though the sexual pandering gets in the way of what could’ve been a solid, wholesome, funny Superheroine story.

What SHOUD be funny situations are absolutely held back by the Author’s imaginative limitations and lack of restraint, having to revolve everything around a Giant Rich Girl being Giant and her ass is in plain view, that’s his fetish, so that’s the manga.

But you see it’s not a Trans woman, a Lesbian or a Gay man, it’s not political- so it’s either 100% okay or nobody knows this shit even exists (lucky them); So the double standard doesn’t exist because you don’t know what you don’t know right?

Not cringe at all, despite my wanting to cringe so hard i poof out of existence.

Thus the title of the video is bullshit: 

*Do NOT abandon comics for MANGA*

Just because current content is trash doesn’t mean there aren’t things to read that's been published already.

Point being, he should’ve specified which manga by genre that people should be turning to, just telling people to just to “Embrace Manga” is reckless because Manga is a mixed bag as well.

As i’ve demonstrated with Giant-Cringe Sama, vs a good Manga like Bokurano, which everyone should read.

Which ironically has an underage pregnancy involving a teacher because OFC, cause Japan amiright? Babies having babies, jfc.

I apologize for the spoiler, but i need to enforce the point. I won't spoil who it is though.

Or something Ecchi and actually funny:

Desert Punk (aka Sunabozu)

Too many genres to just say, "Leave comics, embrace Manga for the sake of Manga, because...MANGA!"

The main difference is aesthetic, but both have their own cultural deviancy issues.

I see he has Ochako in the thumbnail like she's prominent or even a main character yet MHA is one of the most incompetent reads i’ve been on.

Its a narrative embarrassment.

What it does right is backtracks on because the Author is afraid of change if it means mixing the formula. Status Quo-

And how is that any different from Comics? It’s not different.

Because that same character barely gets anything to do until its barely plot relevant (where the most she’s gotten to do since the Sports Festival & Jaku Raid was give a goddamn speech in the most contrived situation possible chapter 325 was fucking hilarious).

She’s not afforded a w when its organic. Barely involved in what’s really going on like Todoroki & Bakugou, always a sideshow.

NOTHING LIKE Katara who is consistently involved, or getting active in the action.

Ochako is rarely allowed any real W's like the male characters. Urakaka's been under-utilized and sidelined horrendously for 6+ years now.

*The Maxx is a better book with a better/more compelling female lead in just the first 3 issues vs all 350+ chapters of My Plotarmor Academia*

All the good comics have been published already, and some gems slip through in current day as well. 

You just have to stop getting caught up in Youtuber melodramatic anti-woke hysteria and actually look for yourself,  Action comics #1040 (2016) is an excellent Superman comic.

1930s to year 2000s+ 70-80 years worth of material, why pretend that doesn’t exist or invalidated because the industry is going through a rough phase right now and then hype up Japan like they're the paragon of storytelling when the best they've got is making it nice to look at but are just as corrupt.

.

All because mangaka/anime can draw/animate worth a shit (regardless if the writing is shit or not) it just looks pretty and can not be political about it. 

*Which is what this is really about, not the quality of writing, but the politics.*

Not that Japans pandering is any better, not that it's any good, or not creepy, it's just not woke. That's all the issue is.

Cause if you had a Trans woman in a comic but she had the physical complexion of Mirko, Lucy Heartfilia or Lady Slan and drawn sexy as shit by an artist worth a damn. 

And infantile like a baby looking for the approval of her male romantic interest 24/7, can cook, docile, feminine. Absolute waifu matierial:

People wouldn’t be bitching and moaning at the same frequency because people don't care about writing as much as they do looking at something well animated/drawn.

That’s the bare minimum to win people over. Pandering.

And Japan knows this and panders accordingly, but that’s not a problem: 

Furthermore, many mangaka are too pedophile for me to take most manga seriously these days.  But again, it depends on the genre.

Mitsudomoe’s Author is a woman, the Anime & Manga are hilarious but some of the jokes lean too far into pedo territory ( Marina Sugisaki is an open predator/ PEDOPHILE)

As you can tell, this toxic leniency with pedophilia is an across the board a moral bankruptcy issue in Japan. 

i’d rather deal with a cringe coming out story that i can meme, than deal with yet another casual pedophile adult in a story involving 12 year old children.

That aside, I’ve watched the show twice, it’s gross, it’s wholesome at times when it’s just the main 3 girls and their Dad. And it’s peak. 

#SingleDads

Fact is, a lot of these Japanese content creators aren’t projecting their real life experiences to tell a good story, like Stan “The Man” Lee:

 Instead too many of em are projecting their kinks and regressions to live out some fantasy just like these metrosexual weirdos in the West.

*Its pathetic artistic bastardization deviancy on both sides. 

The Anti-Woke camp just seems to conveniently ignore the one side of the coin to complain about the other.*

Sexualizing middle school kids constantly in books, and Japan as a society does NOT give 2 shits.

*Hoozuki no Shima* is a good read, when it's not a creepy pedo fest. 

A literal child, 11 year old, is highlighted for: Panty shots, nudity, changing clothes, in the bath buck ass naked, shot of her bare ass, getting caught naked by another kid, having NO panties on in multiple scenes, teacher finding her naked then taking off her panties to sniff it hence how she lost her panties in the later scenes etc.

An eleven year old little girl. (Hoozuki no Shima, Chp 3, if you can stomach it, i PROMISE you this is not a Doujinshi.) Written by a grown ass man.

But Bi-sexual Superman sales is what we’re nitpicking? That’s what has our attention...

And the manga was only 27 chp but the Author found the time to exploit this 11 year old child character in mostly all instances, one of her first 2 introductory shots in the manga is her dripping wet in the ocean from the waste down, school gym uniform. 

How do we know this? The author made sure to give us a view of her ass in both shots, & some thigh gap in the 2nd so we could see what she’s wearing.  (CHP1)

ELEVEN YEARS OLD.

But your biggest concern is a TRANS Woman in a DC comic with a Trans flag on a baseball bat?

Are you kidding me? (Is it cringe, YES, but i’d take that over a grown ass bastard sniffing a 11 year child’s panties, with the insinuation being he’s doing to deflower her)

One panel is literally supposed to be a serious revelation of a plot threat for one of the boys, Kokoro, but that 11 year old little bottom is just in the frame, not her face, her little butt. (Horikoshi might’ve taken notes from this)

I bust out laughing at how desperately creepy and unnecessary this was, this is what happens when talented creeps assume their audience is as damaged as they are:

But the premiere concern in the video is a weird segment about women roasting a dude for having a piss fetish. Is it weird, yes. Does it top the insinuation of an 11 year old mute child getting raped, while unconscious? You tell me.

And yet, nobody in the anti-woke camp panics about that, or brings it up i nthe comments because most of your Manga/Anime Palate is:

Seinen

slice of life

and A LOT of that Shonen garbage.

They don't even know these examples of Manga being a scumbag paradise even exists, cause despite the vocal opinion some people have, most of us have very little experience and exposure in the media we're hyping to death. 

But roasting fetishes in the same breath. 

And i’m not even woke, I agree with the guy but the double standard is what’s hurting my intelligence.

The guy goes on a tangent to shill Demon Slayer, not Monster, not Gunslinger Girls, not Noir, not Blue Gender, not Moribito the Guardian of the spirit- but DEMON SLAYER

Normie bro, fuckin normie.

Most people don't read the in-between genres and it shows, because if more people had that exposure, we as a collective would know his entire video both has a good point but full of bullshit because it's overlooking a media problem to complain about a media problem.

*I can read Power Pack 2006 trusting the author won't dedicate a panel or two to the youngest member Katherine: 8 years old showering or showing us her panties, a character commenting on how soft her skin is, hitting on her older brother, or bending over for a shot of her ass, because culture.*

I just need a good character driven story. That’s it. 

And you can get that with already made Comics, abandoning comics for Manga is idiotic.

You don’t need to whore out teenage/child characters to tell a story, but that’s exactly what Japan allows.

*This is why i say specify the Manga genre.*

Because NOT ALL MANGA is pedophile bait but too much of it is to say abandon the west content and ignore the clear issues JAPAN has just because identity politics is spooky to you-

But actual creepiness in Japan's subtext somehow doesn’t compare to a Trans Woman or you conveniently leave that part out to shill for Japan’s industry.

Point being, there are good Manga/Anime (MONSTER, Hokuto No Ken, Ah My Goddess, or Psycho Pass, Bokurano, Getter, Gundam, Evangelion, Junji Ito’s Collections) but not all of em are bangers nor are free of their fair share of Authors being weird; The same logic you're criticizing Comics by, hold that energy to how scummy and creepy Manga & Japan is, and still is.

*There's a trans person being corny in a DC comics so lets bitch about that, but instances of underage kids being objectified in stories, belonging to a society and culture that sees no issue with grown ass men fighting for the right to make Child porn legally & clear instances of that attitude is projected into the stories with confidence. THAT's part of the media called Manga that i'm going to endorse to people.*

-Criticize the West media for Fetishes and weird shit

-But endorse the East media, despite their Fetishes and weird shit

When all your issue boils down to is the fact that Manga & Anime look pretty and it's not political, it's all about the aesthetic at that point.

Then you don't have a leg to stand on, because you're not holding both to the same standard.

Criticize one, but glorify the other when what you're shilling has more problematic issues than a trans woman, a Bi-sexual man, or preggy Joker.

That's what most are hung up on, not the quality of writing, not the storytelling, not even the execution. The style points, how it looks, how it makes you feel, and how much of the pandering is what YOU WANT it to be.

100% Biased, selective criticism.

I repeat,

*Do NOT abandon comics for MANGA*

I understand the title of the video is likely to be hyperbole, but even as hyperbole, it’s moronic to say with a straight face.

Because you have to ask yourself: What exactly are you willing to ignore, just to spite your political enemies. 

Because it’s no secret Japan cares very little about Child protection laws in terms of media, so you shill for Japan because no Trans politics but pedophiles are KNOWN for being prevalent in the industry.

Look at My Hero and you tell me Horikoshi isn’t wrestling with his own sexual hang ups, cause i can make all the MY SUS ACADEMIA’s i want but that weird shit i’m mocking is actually CANON.

I repeat, just because current content is trash, cringe or struggling, and it is- doesn’t mean there aren’t things to read that's been published already.

Go back in time, and find the literary Goldmine. 

Image comics, Marvel, Darkhorse, DC, Wildstorm, Indie’s is all there.

300 is Darkhorse Comics owned.

Not all of it’s 9/10′s but just because it’s not new, doesn’t mean reject it because the modern is bad for Japan’s stuff like the older better shit doesn’t exist.

[shoresoftheshadowlands]

This is misinformation please stop spreading it for fucks sake I'm sick of people spreading this goddamn proven false conspiracy theory on my dash there are NOT missing votes. They are being counted. Goddamn it. You're making us all look like Stop The Steal morons. We are better than this. This is also old news I've seen this post for almost a week now. There's also now a fucking Elon 'stole' the election conspiracy going around now too and it is just as false. I'm sick of reblogging it with the accurate info and I'm sure my followers are sick of seeing it too. You all need to STOP. You need to ACCEPT. We lost, Okay? it was NOT a landslide, recent tallies prove that. I'm so tired of repeating myself but I want people to understand they are being made fools of by hopes and denial when we need acceptance and resistance now.

The title on this one and the thumbnail are slightly misleading but Lawrence goes into the numbers on how this wasn't as much of a landslide as it is being portrayed as, current as of yesterday. It's worth the listen, about 15 minutes of your time.

I will post this ONE more time for the people in the back. I am exhausted. This is not being 'defeatist', this is being realistic and accepting. There was no fraud last election and there wasn't major fraud in this one. There were some idiots who burned some ballots, WAY LESS than many reported (None in georgia btw). Most were saved by anti fire mechanisms in the ballot boxes, only some 450 ish were lost and people were contacted to 'cure' those.

The count is STILL ongoing- That's why we don't know yet the entire house and senate.

Please people I am begging you all to use your heads. I know it is tempting to want to believe this couldn't possibly have happened but it did, and we need to move on from here. A lot of places are already vouching to resist Mr.Dump in every way they can, even refusing to mass deport even if ordered. If we're all stuck on the conspiracy theories how are we going to pay attention to what's actually happening right now and resist it?

I haven’t really seen any of the more recent U.S. election news hitting tumblr yet so here’s some updates (now edited with sources added):

There’s evidence of Trump cheating and interfering with the election.

Possible Russian interference.

Mail-in ballots are not being counted or “recognized” in multiple (notably swing) states.

30+ bomb threats were called in and shut down polling stations on Election Day.

20+ million votes are still unaccounted for, and that’s just to have the same voter turnout as 2020.

There was record voter turnout and new/first-time voter registration this year. We definitely should be well over the turnout in 2020.

U.S. citizens are using this site to demand, not only a recount, but a complete investigation into election fraud and interference for the reasons stated above:

Here is what I submitted as an example:

An investigation for election interference and fraud is required. We desperately need a recount or even a revote. The American people deserve the right to a free and fair election. There has been evidence unveiled of Trump cheating and committing election fraud which is illegal. There is some evidence of possible Russian interference. At least 30+ bomb threats were called in to polling places. Multiple, notably swing states, have ballots unaccounted for and voting machines not registering votes. Ballots and ballot boxes were tampered with and burned. Over 20 million votes that we know of are unaccounted for. With record turnout and new voter registration this year, there should be no possibility that there are less votes than even in the 2020 election.

Sources (working on finding more links but if anyone wants to add info, it’s appreciated):

FBI addressing Russian interference and bomb threats:

Emails released by Rachael Bellis (private account, can’t share original tweet) confirming Trump committing election fraud:

Pennsylvania's Centre County officials say they are working with their ballot scanner vendor to figure out why the county's mail-in ballot data is "not being recognized when uploaded to the elections software:”

Wisconsin recount:

[ID:

Multiple screenshots and images.

The first is a screenshot with a link and information for contacting the White House directly regarding election fraud. The instructions include choosing to leave a comment to President Joe Biden directly and to select election security as the reason.

The screenshot then instructs people to include any or all of the following information in a paragraph as a comment to the president:

32 fake bomb threats were called into Democratic leaning poll places, rendering polling places closed for at least an hour.

A lot of people reporting their ballots were not counted for various reasons.

This all occurred in swing states.

This is too coincidental that these things happen and swing in his favor after months of hinting at foul play.

Directly state that an investigation for tampering, interference, fraud is required, not just a recount.

The second image is from the FBI Twitter account that reads:

The FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains. None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far. https://t.co/j3YfajVK1m — FBI (@FBI) November 5, 2024

The next four Gmail screenshots of an email sent to Rachael Bellis from Chris T. Spackman that read together as follows:

Dear BELLIS, RACHAEL E., The Dauphin County Board of Elections received a challenge to your absentee ballot you applied for in the November 5, 2024 General Election. The challenge argues that a provision of the Pennsylvania Election Code takes precedence over the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which requires states and counties to permit U.S. citizens who move overseas to vote by absentee ballot for federal offices based on their last U.S. residential address.

The full text of the challenge that was filed appears below this email.

You may respond to the challenge in any of the following ways:

1. Call the Bureau of Registration and Election at (717) 780-6360;

2. Email a statement to the Bureau at Election election@dauphincounty.gov. Any statement you submit regarding the period during which you lived in Dauphin County, any family or connections that you still have here, and why you are now residing abroad would be read into the record.

3. Appear in person at a Board of Elections hearing scheduled for Friday, November 8 at a time to be determined in the Commissioners Public Hearing Room, 4th floor of Dauphin County Administration Building, 2 S 20d St, Harrisburg, PA 17111. The meeting is also likely to be livestreamed on Facebook on the Dauphin County channel.

Sincerely,

Christopher T Spackman

TEXT OF CHALLENGE BEGINS

Dear Dauphin County Board of Elections,

I am submitting this challenge to an absentee ballot application pursuant to 25 Pa. Stat.

3146.8(f).

25 Pa. Stat. 3146.8(f) Any person challenging an application for an absentee ballot, an absentee ballot, an application for a mail-in ballot or a mail-in ballot for any of the reasons provided in this act shall deposit the sum of ten dollars ($10.00) in cash with the county board, which sum shall only be refunded if the challenge is sustained or if the challenge is withdrawn within five (5) days after the primary or election. If the challenge is dismissed by any lawful order then the deposit shall be forfeited. The county board shall deposit all deposit money in the general fund of the…

The rest of the forwarded email is cut off.

The last image is a screenshot of the official statement from the Centre County, Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners released on November 6, 2024 that states:

Centre County Working with Ballot Scanner Vendor to Export Election Results.

(Bellefonte, PA) -Centre County Elections Office is working continuously to provide mail-in ballot data in order to post unofficial results.

To this point, all ballots have been scanned, including all mail-in ballots.

Centre County's Election team and IT team have identified that the data are successfully being exported from the mail-in ballot scanners, but that the data is not being recognized when uploaded to the elections software.

Centre County's Administrator, John Franek, Jr. stated, "We have not stopped working, and we will continue to work until unofficial results are posted and reported to the Pennsylvania Department of State."

As a next step, Centre County has begun working with the equipment vendor to adjust configurations to make the two systems-the mail-in ballot scanner and the elections software where data are uploaded -compatible with one another.

We will provide updates as we make progress.

/end ID]