#i typed this all up at 4am so i'm just scheduling it to post sometime today

[anon-horsey]

For Yourself, By Yourself.

TW: suicide, self harm, mental health

Since I was 13, all I've wanted was to just go to bed and never wake up. I was 16 when my school got involved, which pretty much forced me to get in therapy and on meds. I was on that shit for more than 2 years. I'm now almost 20.

Am I still depressed? Absolutely. Do I still dread waking up every morning? Yep. Do I still think about what it would be to just not exist? 100%. Do I still think I'm faking it? Yes, yes I do. Sure I'm not actively harming myself or thinking of throwing myself off a balcony anymore, but depression? I don't think that ever goes away. If I'm being honest, I don't know if I want it to. Its been a pretty major part of my life for the past almost 7 years. Probably more, but its not like I can really remember much of anything. I mean, think about it. Why am I doing the course I'm doing at uni? Not because I'm particularly motivated or anything...I just haven't had a solid career aspiration since I was like 8 because at some point I stopped wasting my time worrying and planning for a future I knew I wasn't going to have. Now, I'm almost 20 and I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I'd be lying if I said this was never a part of the plan because truth be told, there never was a plan to being with. I was too depressed for that shit.

But well, the point of this isn't to write about my depression. Been there, done that. I even thought about typing out that whole book of depression poems to post on here. Because like I said, still pretty depressed. But this depression...it isn't the same depressed that I was when I got diagnosed and put on meds. Sometimes, I think my meds didn't get rid of my depression, they just...changed it.

Recently, though, something changed inside me. I'm not quite sure what it was; I'm not even in therapy or on meds anymore. And nothing majorly revolutionary or tragic has happened in my life either. So hell if I know what changed. This summer, I decided that I was just done. I've been done for a long time. Done with the world, done with myself, you get the picture. But this was a different done. Now, I'm just done with people. I think I've realized that the less I put up with other people, the more I can keep my own peace. The less energy I spend in someone else's crap, the more energy I have for shit I want to do. And yes, for once, I actually want to do something. But I digress.

There's this really cheesy quote I saw on Instagram that even 6 months ago, I'd have laughed at. But I think that might have been the “something” that changed inside of me. It goes “I'm working on myself, for myself, by myself”. Cringy, I know. I spent so much time with myself this past year. Not a first at all, but I actually actively spent that time with myself. And you know what I realized? People aren't reliable. Every single person, even people I've considered my best friends, have consistently not shown up and not put in the same amount of effort that I'm putting in to our relationship. Which would be fine if they weren't also the first person to get triggered and spiral when I start putting less effort into said relationship. My best friend, she and I don't regularly video call or anything. Our love language, so to speak, is sending each other shit post reels on instagram. Guess what though, I still absolutely love her and our relationship has done nothing but improve.

On the contrary, my ex-best friend. I hate to say it, but our relationship has not survived the long distance test. She's changed. I've changed. I'm not going to comment on whether either is for the better or worse because I think that's an entirely subjective matter. But believe me when I say I've tried. I've tried to make this work and she just doesn't want to. And a year ago, I would've given everything I have to make it work. Stayed up till 4AM when I had a class at 9 just so I could accommodate her schedule. But I'm just bloody done.

Basically, people don't show up. Not your best friends, hell not even people whose job it is to help you. When I moved into my apartment, I asked 2 people for help with certain things. Both of them said yes. Neither showed up. I did it on my own. So, what have we learnt over the past year? People don't show up and at the end of the day, its you. For yourself. By yourself.

So let this be the year (academic, calendar, whatever) where you stop showing up for people who've stopped showing up for you. Where you prioritize your peace and sanity over that of someone else's. People have never shown up for you. They've shown up for themselves. Its about time we all did the same.

For ourselves. By ourselves.

Leaving you with a little NF quote:

My mind is a home I'm trapped in And its lonely inside this mansion

#mental health #burnout #dear diary #lonely #feeling alone #depression #honesty

[kbsd]

not sure if you’ve answered this before, but what’s your process look like when you make an amv? i’m just curious and in constant awe of ppl who can make videos like you do :)

hello all!!! i have answered this before and i have a vid help tag with other asks i’ve gotten about stuff like this! but i’ve gotten several more messages along these lines so i’m just going to answer a bunch of them together (under a cut since i love to ramble about editing lol). i do just wanna say i’m definitely not the authority on video editing and obv everyone has their own techniques!

edit: i just finished typing all this up and it’s SO long so sorry in advance LMAO god bless anyone who reads this entire thing

so i work in news tv and we have a very specific workflow for writing scripts, sourcing video, producing, and editing. i’ve just applied that to making amvs! for every video i make, i copy the song lyrics into a google doc and adjust them to match the song i’ve cut (i often will trim songs for time and/or content purposes). then i start planning! i’ll mark down what clip i want to use for each lyric next to that line, and any sound bites i want to use (with episode numbers!). i’ll color code between video and sound bites and lyrics, so my scripts end up looking something like this (for my honeybee amv):

doing the planning ahead of time makes everything much easier when it’s a video that spans the whole show or involves a lot of sourcing, like honeybee or sports analogies. that way when i get to the actual editing process, i already know what i’m going to do and have a game plan. for videos like happy ending or believe it or not, where i’m mainly just pulling from a few episodes, i can just plan it in my head as opposed to writing it all down, and produce as i edit. obviously i do make in-the-moment decisions while editing—sometimes a shot doesn’t work the way i thought it would, or i go where the video takes me—but planning ahead definitely helps. i know some people use spreadsheets as well, with columns for lyrics, video clips, and sound bites if applicable. once you find a system that works, it actually goes pretty quickly.

as for sourcing clips themselves/finding clips within episodes, i talked about that here and kind of here. the short version is that transcripts are a must, and the supernatural wiki is hugely helpful by cataloguing all the hugs, prayers, phone calls, etc. in the show. gifmakers that tag episode numbers on their posts are your friends. it gets easier the more video you make—that’s another huge reason i make the google docs for each video (even the ones i plan in my head, i end up going back and making a loose script with episode notes just for reference). if i can’t remember where something is but i know i used it in another video, i can easily reference past scripts!

i also cut all my videos in the same project in premiere pro, so i can flip between them easily. instead of checking a past script, i can just go to the video sequence itself and copy the clip i’m looking for! this was especially helpful when i match cut together the 5x18 and 4x22 wall slam shots for my bestie video, and then stole it from myself for honeybee hahaha. at any given time i have at least 8 sequences open:

because of the sheer volume of videos i make, it’s worth it for me to download the entire show—i have all 327 episodes in HD, plus deleted scenes. if you think you’re only going to make a few videos, i’d start with scene packs. you can usually just google “destiel [or whatever ship/character you’re looking for] scene packs” and there will be any number of ones you can download. if you need other specific scenes, you can always download/torrent individual episodes or screen record netflix (that’s what i did before i got HD download links). i’m happy to share my links if you DM, but be warned it’s a lot of disk space (about 500GB on my hard drive). someone also compiled every destiel scene, downloadable here.

having every episode already loaded in premiere for all my projects also makes it a lot easier to source clips. once i use a clip in a video, i’ll put a marker on the episode file, so that after a while i have most of the important scenes/lines marked to easily find them. to give you an idea, this is my episode file in premiere for 12x10 lily sunder has some regrets (markers at destiel scenes, the car fight, hot girl cas, etc.). markers are the green tabs along the bottom:

premiere also lets you color code and name markers, so ONE DAY i will go back and color code them all. the ones above are all the same color, but in a perfect world, i’d have a myraid—for destiel shots like hugs, touches, looks; for important pieces of dialogue; for action shots; etc. but for now this works ok for me, so that’s a project for another time!

between detailed scripts, one giant premiere project, markers, the wiki, and my own memory, i have so many points of reference that i can usually find any clip i need in about 2 minutes max. sound bites are often harder to start out, or tiny specific shots i haven’t used before, and that’s when i turn to tumblr gifsets or beloved mutuals to crowdsource. but if you’re as obsessive about marking/keeping neat scripts as i am, it gets easier and easier with every video you make. that’s part of why i’m able to cut videos together so quickly. (also i want to stress i do this for a living and have to produce/edit a new piece for my show every day so i’m used to it. and compared to constantly updating content/sources and news that changes every day, 327 highly documented episodes that never change are much easier to handle hahaha)

this is all great for me since i make so many videos and plan to continue doing so, but if you’re only making a few, this level of work isn’t worth it imo. really it’s all about developing a system that works for you. whatever you do with episodes/sourcing, though, i cannot recommend planning things out in a script ahead of time enough. 

everything i just mentioned is producing, though. for the editing process, i usually do it in this order:

music first. any parts i want to cut, i make sure it all sounds smooth

then soundbites. i usually try to weave them into the lyrics—i have characters talk in breaks between lines or instrumental sections as much as possible. i’ll sometimes go so far as looped/extending an intsrumental part to make room for the soundbite i want there lol. if i do have dialogue over a line, i do the sound mixing/levels at this point as well to make sure everything is audible/one doesn’t overpower the other. (also i always include the video that goes with these bites when i drop them in, and decide later if i want to show the character speaking or have other clips cover the dialogue)

once i have all the audio locked in, then i bring in all my other video clips. sometimes i edit completely chronologically, sometimes jumping from section to section—it depends on the song or how i’m feeling

double check sound mixing. i usually listen to my videos through a few times, with headphones and without to make sure it’ll sound good no matter how people watch it

once i have picture and audio lock, i go through and color correct my clips. i’m basic and just use lumetri color in premiere, and usually just play with brightness, saturation, temperature, and tint until i like it

render and export! :)

i always have several audio tracks, but i try to keep my video tracks condensed. i’ll drop clips on a V2 level, and edit a section there, and drop the whole chunk down to V1 so i know it’s finished. that way when i leave and come back i can know where i left off/what’s done/etc. to give you an idea, this is the timeline for my what the hell video:

i always render as H.264 with high bitrate, and make sure to check “render at maximum depth” and “use maximum render quality” for the best quality. i’m sorry, but i don’t know what the equivalent options are in final cut, imovie, kdenlive, etc. i post on youtube mostly so i don’t have to sacrifice quality, but usually just using a lower bitrate will get you under the tumblr file size limit and it’ll still look good.

as for the anon who asked about “polishing”: first of all, thank you!! second of all, it’s in the details. all of this is a matter of taste and my own insanity, but here are some little things i always try to do:

after i color correct, i blur out any credits from the starts of episodes. i use gaussian blur for this, but really any blur tool works

as much as possible, i avoid clips where we see a character’s mouth move but don’t hear the words. in tv/film we call it “lip flap” and i just think it looks messy. also i’m trained to avoid it at all costs at work hahaha. it’s more for serious videos that this matters a lot to me (e.g. i think i did a really good job eliminating lip flap in my happy ending amv)—for comedy videos i don’t sweat it as much

i put audio fades on the start and end of every single audio clip i use, even if i don’t think i need it, to make sure everything sounds smooth

i use markers for timing, especially in action-y videos like what the hell. i’ll put a marker on the clip i’m using at the exact moment a punch lands, and in the song on the beat. if i have the magnet/snap in timeline tool on i can just easily snap them together instead of having to spend time finagling it

this is such a small thing but i dip/cut to black for a tiny bit at the start and end of every video. this way if i post with tumblr video player, there’s black between the loops, and it gives you a beat before the video restarts. i do this even on videos i post on youtube, just because i think it looks nicer/more professional

this is 1,500 words so i’m going to stop myself before i pull something. if you have follow-up questions feel free to ask and i’ll continue to add them to the vid help tag, but any more questions about sourcing clips or my process in general i’ll just link this post going forward. anyone who made it this far, i am sending to a telepathic kiss. thank you for reading and happy editing!

#i typed this all up at 4am so i'm just scheduling it to post sometime today #ask #vid help